Page 96 of The Winter Princess
Later?A flash of a feral, wolfish smile.
Later.It’s a promise.
I move quickly into the stairwell, fanning my warm cheeks. I cast a glance back toward the gleaming brass number and make another promise.
I’m going to marry that man.
32
A Sacrifice
FREJA
Despite wanting to cancel everything and take up a semi-permanent residence against the wall in Oskar’s flat, the last Sunday before Christmas is busy. My mother’s family has been arriving all weekend, bringing dogs and children, and the expectations of aristocrats used to being looked after by people paid to forget that the word “no” exists in any language.
I’ve managed to stay out of the melee with my work at the museum but am swept up on Sunday into a series of public-facing Christmas celebrations including a carol concert and a morning walk to the parish church, all of us bundled up in synthetic furs except for Tante Ann-Margrethe who refuses to wear polyester and smokes like a chimney. We’re expected to ignore the crowd on the way into the church but have a brief walkabout afterward
The crowd, devoted royal watchers willing to stand in such weather, are delighted to see us, dipping into curtseys and nodding bows, teaching small children to do the same. We aren’t to let it go to our heads, Mama taught. It’s not us they’re honoring. It’s the nation, embodied by the royal family. That’s well and good, but it doesn’t stop signals of more particular affection.
Someone brought a pink flamingo balloon because they know Ella likes flamingos and she grips it in her gloved hand like a child at the zoo. Another person tells me they’ve been to the museum six times since October.
“I even saw you with him, once.” Him. Oskar. She smiles brightly, unzipping her jacket (worrying Freddie briefly) to show me her #TeamOskar t-shirt. “My husband is Sondish but I’m from Motovia,” she says. Something that might have been a non sequitur six months ago feels central now because an immigrant is commanding a large share of the national conversation.
“Thank you for coming. I’m glad you felt welcome,” I say, fighting the wish to throw off the unnatural reserve of royalty by whispering, “Isn’t Oskar the most delicious? He kissed me last night, you know.”
I imagine Oskar at my side, learning to shake hands with strangers and be polite at all times. It’s an odd picture until I remember how he was with Hafsa’s school group as they toured his studio last week—patient and funny. He even prepared an amateur oil painting bought at a junk shop for the kids to “clean.”
I move on, eyes watering from the biting chill, and see Caroline take another bouquet from my mother. Too bad. One of Caroline’s gloves is missing and her fingers are red with cold, but we’re in the middle of an engagement so she can’t return to the church to grope under a pew for the missing article.
An uptick of excitement on my side of the pathway alerts me to my brother crossing over the gravel drive, warming the hearts of those who came for the man candy, I guess. Instead of going to the barricade, he bends—setting off another flutter—and collects something from the ground, then proceeds to Caroline. I should ignore it, but the young woman I’ve been shaking hands with has gone into a fugue state watching Noah, mouth slack, allowing me to give the byplay more attention than usual.
Caroline’s face is carefully devoid of expression, and her hands are full of flowers. She stares at the proffered glove. She angles her hand, still securing the flowers, to take it. He shakes his head and scoops the flowers into his arms, handing off the glove, along with a low-voiced instruction. Why does she look so irritated?
Finally, Caroline fixes a sedate smile on her face, tugs the glove on, and reaches for the flowers. Noah, however, has moved ahead, handing the huge bouquet to his secretary and returning to the barricades.
“What was that?” The young woman has reanimated, echoing my own thoughts.
I smile and withdraw my hand. “Thank you for coming.”
During the afternoon, I serve meals at a domestic abuse shelter with Alma, returning to the palace to be enveloped by dozens of guests hailing from every major area in northern Europe. We enjoy a cozy dinner, read Luke 2 by candlelight with my little cousins squished up next to us on the sofas, and play a rowdy game of charades.
When I make my excuses at the end of the night, Ella moans, “Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. You can’t work.”
“The Nat is open,” I say. And Oskar will be there, I don’t say.
I spend the night staring at my ceiling, fingers knitting an invisible scarf of worry, convincing myself that his silent declarations were no more than a bout of indigestion. Too much cheese. No, I decide when the sun comes. This is real. Like a spell, we only have to speak it into existence.
Over breakfast, as extended family members file in and out, I read the newspaper headlines. There’s a significant feature about Oskar inThe Holy Pelican—the most stodgy and mainline publication in all of Sondmark—detailing his contributions to The Nat, even going so far as to editorialize about the prime minister’s proposals. “Things cannot remain as they are when Sondmark is perceived as closing its doors on its most dedicated and talented residents.”
The prime minister is quoted too. “The path to citizenship is arduous, making it all the more valued when it is achieved. Our laws cannot bend, not even to Pixy dances and internet fangirls.”
It’s almost enough to put me off a full English breakfast.
Chewing away at the beans on toast, I see that Caroline, too, has made the cover of a few newspapers as a peripheral figure in the story about Noah’s unexpected gallantry, her face obscured by flowers or her figure almost cropped out of the photos. “See,” they seem to say, “he’s perfect. He even treats completely ignorable people with consideration.”
I meet Caroline on my way out of the Summer Palace and give her a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry about the press,” I say, tugging my gloves on.
She waves a hand. “It’s part of the job. I can’t take it personally.” Her head straightens, and I recognize a shift into official mode. “Her Majesty is in a meeting with the prime minister and asked that you join them.”
