8
They were admitted to Flavia’s chambers by Countess Helga von Strofzin, a pretty girl scarcely out of her teens. She was delighted to see Fritz von Tarlenheim. Finn left them alone in the sitting room as he went in to see the princess. Flavia had dressed for the occasion, already prepared to attend the dinner so that her king would not be kept waiting while she changed. She curtsied deeply with a rustling of organdy.
“Come, come, no need of that,” said Finn, taking her hand and bringing her up straight. “Surely we can dispense with formalities in private.”
“As you wish, Rudolf,” she said. “May I offer you some wine?”
“No, I don’t think so, thank you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Not even your favorite port?”
“I have favored port too much of late, I think,” said Finn. “It is one thing for a prince to be somewhat overfond of wine, but a king should be more abstemious.”
She looked surprised. “What brought this on?”
Protocol demanded that he sit first before she could be seated. Despite the fact that he was not standing on formalities, Finn knew that she would not sit down until he did. He settled on the large divan.
“To be honest, I’m not really certain,” he said, putting a note of puzzlement into his voice. “Things suddenly began to feel somehow strange.”
“How strange?” she said, sitting down beside him and turning so that she could face him. They sat close together, yet there was still a distance separating them. He knew he would not close it in a single day, but he could make a start, for Elphberg’s sake.
“I wish I could explain,” he said. “I am not quite sure when it all began. Perhaps it began when we rode together from the cathedral to the palace. Perhaps it started afterward, when I was alone in my bedchambers. Nothing had changed outwardly, but everything seemed somehow different suddenly. I experienced a vague unease. I stood before the mirror, still dressed in the uniform in which I was crowned, and I said to myself, ‘Well, there you are, Your Majesty. King Rudolf the Fifth.’ Only somehow, I did not feel like a king. I felt like a little boy who had dressed up in his father’s clothing. The clothing looked impressive, but it did not quite make me feel grown-up. It didn’t seem to fit. It was too large for me, somehow, despite its having been excellently tailored to my form.”
Even as he spoke, he was starting to feel cheap.
“I began to feel foolish,” he continued, noting that Flavia was listening with growing interest. “It felt like, well, you know- Oh, well, I suppose you would not know, but it felt like the morning after one becomes paralyzed with drink. You wake up and absolutely everything is wrong.. You can’t see straight, your head is splitting, your stomach feels as though someone had lit a fire in it. You feel terrible and the first thought that enters your head is ‘Why on earth did I do that last night? What possessed me? I must have been insane. I’ll never, never drink again, not so much as one sip.’ Only of course, it doesn’t last long. The feeling goes away and one does drink, even to excess and the entire process repeats itself. It’s a never-ending circle, like a puppy chasing its own tail. The only difference is that eventually, the puppy grows tired of the game and has enough sense to lie down.”
He glanced at her and saw that the beginning of a smile was tugging at the corner of her mouth.
“Does any of that make any sense at all?”
She licked her lips and nodded. “I think so. But I’m not certain that I completely understand your meaning.”
“Well, for that matter, neither am I,” said Finn, grinning ruefully. Delaney, you miserable bastard, he told himself, you’re working a fast-talking con on a naive young girl who has already resigned herself to a loveless marriage. Now you’re trying to turn her head in another man’s name to suit the purpose of the moment.
“It was a most peculiar feeling and I thought that it would go away. I said to myself, ‘You’re tired, Rudolf, worn out from all the nonsense of that ridiculous parade through town and kneeling for what seemed like forever while that mitered idiot-” she frowned, but Finn continued in character-”sprinkled holy water over you and chanted nasally in Latin. You drank too much at the banquet and did not eat enough. You simply do not feel yourself.’ And that was the answer, you see. I did not feel myself. And the feeling did not go away. It only grew and grew and it began to give me headaches. I was not ill; there was no fever, but I felt like an old woman with the vapors. I knew that I needed to talk to someone, to attempt to describe how I was feeling, only who was there to talk to? Sapt? He had no patience for such nonsense. I was not up to hearing yet another lecture from that old bear. Von Tarlenheim? What would Fritz know? He’s just a boy. I’d only confuse him. The chancellor? He’d merely sit there pressing his lips together and then run off to search his documents for some precedent.”
Flavia chuckled. “And so you came to me?”
Finn shrugged. “I have no idea why, I must confess. Why should I burden you with this nonsense? Yet, the moment it occurred to me to speak to you, it seemed like the most sensible thing to do.” He frowned. “Perhaps I am ill.”
“You do not look ill to me,” she said. “Perhaps you were ill and are just now beginning to recover.”
“Recover? From what?”
“Perhaps from growing pains?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Finn. Not too much at once, he thought. Let’s have a little of the “old” Rudolf. “What would you know about growing up? You’re still a child yourself.”
“Am I?” she said. “When was the last time you took a good look?”
Finn gave her an appraising glance, half-humorously, then made his face grow a bit more serious. “Come to think of it, I may have judged a bit hastily.” He grinned. “A dowager you’re not, but neither are you a child. Kings marry little girls upon occasion, but it appears that this king will marry one that’s grown.”
Her gaze held his for a moment, then slid away. “I had wondered if you had come to speak of that,” she said.
“So does half the kingdom wonder, by all accounts,” said Finn, gloomily. “To tell the truth, I am loathe to set the date just yet.”
“I see,” she said, softly, looking down.
“No, Flavia, I don’t think you do. We have known each other all our lives, yet if we were to wed now, each of us would be marrying a stranger.”
She glanced back at him abruptly.
“I mean, what do you know of me, really? You know something of my actions, but what do you know of my thoughts? For that matter, what do I know of you? Royal marriages are seldom made of love, I know, but why should a king or a queen be denied what even the lowliest peasant can enjoy, the security of being able to wed someone that they know and care for?”
“Care for?” Flavia said, uncertainly.
“Well,” Finn said, looking away, “in your case, that may not apply. Oh, I know that you care for me as your king, but I do not delude myself that you care for me as a man. I have given you no reason to. Nor can I care for you as a woman. How can I care for someone I have never taken the trouble to know?”
Flavia looked at him intently. “Rudolf… am I to take it that you are-” she became a little flustered. “Are you proposing to court me?”
Finn pretended to look embarrassed. He did not have to pretend too hard. “It does seem rather ridiculous, does it not?”
She shook her head, which he saw out of the corner of his eye, but he acted as though he had not noticed.
“Here we are, already betrothed, with the entire kingdom knowing we shall wed, and I come to you like some stammering suitor. I should have thought to bring flowers, I suppose.” “Flowers? From you?”
“Why not? I can give flowers if I choose to! Is that so very foolish? You find it amusing?”
“No. No, I find it…” she shrugged, at a loss for words. “I don’t know. Remarkable, I suppose. Somehow, I cannot picture you bringing flowers. Rudolf, what is this? What’s gotten into you?”
Finn stood up, irately. “Damned if I know,” he said. “I feel like a complete fool.”
“You are not sounding like a fool,” she said. “But, Lord knows, you do not sound like yourself.”
For a moment, Finn took that literally and wondered if his mimicry was slipping, then he realized that it wasn’t what she meant. She stood up and came to stand by his side, putting a hand on his arm and turning him
