Selica is a mountainous country. The steam train puffs and squeals along mossy gorges, over glinting iron bridges, and through black tunnels carved into cold rock. At water-stops, I get out and tramp back and forth across dark rock and pale lichen, examining my new home with its icy air freezing in my throat. Sometimes, we stop at stations in small towns, and my uncle parades along the platform as townspeople gaze mulishly upon him, holding flags they do not wave. I remain in my compartment, peering at them through a thin gap in the curtain.
On the third day of our journey, the mountains ripple down into plains. Farmland stretches into the distance on either side of the tracks. Small villages dot the landscape. We fly past them. The farms become smaller and the villages become towns. The train slows as we enter the outer web of a city. The naked brick backs of houses loom on either side of the tracks, washing hanging from their windows, pigeons roosting in their eaves. My heart pounds against my rib cage as the train draws to a stop in a cavernous glass and iron station. My reflection in the window is wan and dishevelled. I tidy some stray hairs and rub my cheeks to give them colour before stepping out into the corridor. King Edmund is waiting for me, looking polished and calm.
"Prince Mariusz will be out there to greet you," he says.
I control the impulse to peer through the curtains. I do not want my uncle to think I am interested in the husband he has chosen for me. "It would be better if I had the chance to change my clothes and refresh my hair first," I say. "You force me to give a poor impression."
"You look well enough," my uncle says without looking at me. Then he pauses and turns his head to regard me with a look of almost pain in his eyes. "You are very pretty, I think. You have inherited your mother's beauty."
"Don't speak to me of that woman."
My uncle turns away again. "And unfortunately your father's temper."
"To me that is higher compliment than my mother's looks." I follow my uncle down the corridor to the carriage exit. "Do you think she would have bothered to come to my funeral, if you had not passed the anti-execution law in time?"
My uncle is silent.
"Well?" I press. "It is an intriguing hypothetical. It used to keep me occupied in the tower, wondering if she would come. I did not hope for her to attend my execution. After all, she did not attend Father's, and I think she hated him less than me."
"She does not hate you."
"But she did hate Father?"
Another telling silence.
"Anyway, you're wrong. She hates me too. She hates me because I was Father's child, and she hated him from the moment they met. They are dangerous marriages, these royal alliances."
"Your marriage to Prince Mariusz will be very different to your parents' marriage. Now, hush. They will open the door in a minute, and this is not a conversation I want anyone to overhear."
It galls me to follow an order, but I was not in the tower so long that I forgot to care what people think of me. Perhaps it has only made me care more. I stand silently behind my uncle, my heart racing. Prince Mariusz and I will not be like my father and my mother. I won't let us be that way.
The train door swings open to a chorus of banging drums and blaring trumpets. King Edmund goes first down the iron steps carpeted in red silk and I follow behind. A crowd of people on the platform opposite applaud politely as he bows and waves. I curtsy and smile a little, out of nervousness more than goodwill. The applause swells lightly then subsides.
There are others on the platform with us, people of royal importance, judging by the sashes and medals the men wear and the gilded uniforms of the soldiers standing with them. I scan the men, but before I can find one I suspect to be Prince Mariusz, a young woman comes forward to greet us. She carries a tray with a bowl and a loaf of bread on it. She curtsies before King Edmund.
"Princess Maria," he says in undertone to me. "Copy what I do."
Princess Maria says something in a foreign language. My uncle replies in the same, then takes the loaf of bread and breaks off a chunk. He dips it in the bowl and eats. Princess Maria looks encouragingly at me.
I take the loaf of bread and break off a piece. The bowl contains salt and it is gritty and overpowering in my mouth. Over Princess Maria's shoulders, I continue to look for Prince Mariusz. There are only two men here young enough to be him. They both wear plain, elegant suits and their gazes are focussed not on my uncle but on me. One is mousey-fair and greyhound-lean, while the other is darker, taller, and more classically handsome. Without knowing which is Prince Mariusz, I dare not smile at either.
King Edmund takes the tray from Princess Maria, and she breaks off her own chunk of bread, dips it in the salt, and eats it. This results in another round of polite applause from the crowd on the opposite platform. As it dies out, the fairer of the two young men comes forward. He moves like a greyhound too, with a springy, quick step, tucked chin, and watchful, quick-moving eyes.
He stops before me and hides his eyes beneath downcast brown lashes.
"Princess Alexandra," my uncle says. "May I introduce His Royal Highness the Duke of Selica, Prince Mariusz?"
"You may."
"Prince Mariusz, I present Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra of Rothalia."
I hold out my hand and Prince Mariusz bows low and kisses it through my silk glove. When he rises again, I try to meet his gaze, but he is already twisting away to look at his royal retainers. In profile, his head is finely boned and faintly hawklike, thanks to the crook in his nose. I find I like it.
Behind Prince Mariusz, the other young man is coming forward. He bows low to my uncle and quietly addresses him. I watch Prince Mariusz, but he turns to speak to his sister in the language I do not understand. For the first time it occurs to me to wonder if we share any language at all. I can speak French, or I could before I was locked in the tower. I rack my mind to come up with a phrase of introduction in the language, but all I can think of is the useless phrase: pas devant les domestiques.
"Princess Alexandra," my uncle says in my own language. "May I introduce Prince Konrad of Selica?"
I turn back to my uncle and the other young man. Now I notice a resemblance between him and Prince Mariusz. He has the same delicate features but with all the kinks ironed out of his bones. His nose is straight, his blue eyes unshadowed by a deep brow, his chin without the pugnacious tilt. Even his black widow's peak is dead centre, while Mariusz's mousey-fair hairline lists to one side. And all this regularity of form and feature, which ought to make him more handsome than Mariusz, somehow seems like a deficiency by comparison.
The distant court manners of my youth return to me. I hold out my hand. "You may."
"Prince Konrad, I present Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra of Rothalia."
He bends over my hand and like Mariusz kisses it. "I am honoured, your highness."
He speaks my language, though with a definite accent. Then perhaps Mariusz will too.
Prince Mariusz turns back to King Edmund and me, though somehow he won't meet my eyes. His gaze seems to slide right over me before settling on my uncle. Again, he speaks in a foreign tongue and my uncle replies in the same. Then he turns away, and again his gaze seems to slide over me without touching. I can't even be sure what colour his eyes are.
"Princess Alexandra?" Prince Konrad says.
He has spoken twice, I realise, as I watch Mariusz walk away to speak with an old, important looking man.
"I beg your pardon. What did you say?"
"I asked if you did not find Selica a harsh landscape. I know I found it harsh when I first arrived here. Only over time did its rugged beauty become apparent to me."
What a polite, useless comment.
"I find it pleasant."
"You are a connoisseur of beauty, then, if you can appreciate Selica upon first impression."
I drag my eyes from Prince Mariusz's back to look at Prince Konrad. His expression is earnest and interested, and more than slightly stupid.
"Sir, I have been in prison for three years. There are few landscapes less beautiful than four stone walls and a caged sky."
"Of course." Prince Konrad bows. "How clumsy my question now appears."
He moves away to speak with Princess Maria. King Edmund raises his eyebrows slightly.
"I see you have not lost your old knack of making friends."
"Should I make a friend out of him? Who is he?"
"Prince Konrad is Prince Mariusz's cousin," he says. "He is said to be very clever. He writes poetry, apparently."
A cousin then. A cousin who writes poetry at that.
Perhaps my disdain shows in my face. My uncle adds, "I suggest you make friends where you can, Alexandra. Not everyone will be as welcoming as Prince Konrad."
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2024-04-05: We meet our hero and eventual love interest. Ah, but which one is it? The tall, dark, handsome one who is nice to her, or the lithe, blondish, crooked one who won't look at her?