Author's Preface
I am not heartless. I invite Thorunn out to lunch that same day. I know him well enough to be certain he is drowning in guilt, and I would be unthinkably cruel to let him suffer until Wednesday.
I tell him, in no uncertain terms, that I am not mad at him. I still love him. I will never leave him for Moretti. And I am going to fix this before Friday. He is confused and doubtful, but he trusts me wholeheartedly. Poor Thorunn. I was too hard on him.
“I was ashamed,” he admits bashfully, rubbing the back of his neck. “I accepted the Viscount’s challenge with haste, thinking I would easily best him…and then I lost. I did not realize he could compete with me. And I realized that I could just as easily lose your favor.”
“I don’t favor you because you can punch people hard,” I reassure him. “It’s not that sort of contest.”
“I know. But I felt…I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.” A soft, embarrassed laugh. “Not to mention, I believed that if I did not win, you would be stuck in that…double-proxy engagement-wedding whatever-it-was.”
“Marrying Moretti?” I finish.
“You have been working so hard, Eloise. I didn’t want to worry you with it. I thought, if I won, you would never need to know.”
I have not fully forgiven Moretti, who is older and should know better than to lie to me. But I remind myself that I am Thorunn’s first in everything. Though he has a vague idea of how women operate—vaguer still for ambitious, politics-obsessed Saelic women—our movements are still strange and unpredictable. He genuinely believed that it was in both of our best interests if he lied to me and hid his fights. So I forgive my fiancé wholeheartedly.
He is so happy to have me back that he cancels all of his meetings (all two of them—he doesn’t do much as a diplomat, honestly) to spend the next few days with me while I work. All things considered, this is pretty common. In the months leading up to the petition being filed, the other records clerks often joked that Thorunn spends so much time in the south wing that he might as well apply to be our next junior clerk. Martha has been churning through runners like butter. I set the standard too high, and now all of the new hires are either too slow or too careless or too annoying for Martha to tolerate them any longer than a couple weeks. Initially, she objected to letting Thorunn handle files at all, citing confidentiality concerns. But seeing as he is the tallest and strongest person in the entire office, able to reach top shelves and carry heavy boxes of files with ease, even Martha begrudgingly accepts him as a de facto assistant clerk.
So, on Wednesday, Thorunn is there in my office when Moretti appears in my office doorway and knocks, a printed and bound sheaf of papers in his hand. Thorunn visibly stiffens, but I give him a reassuring nod and then wave Moretti inside. I glance at the grandfather clock.
“Five minutes to noon. Very impressive, Viscount,” I tell him.
“Shall I review it with you, my lady?” he asks.
“No need. I will send for you if I have questions, but I am sure your work is just fine.”
He bows, then takes his leave. Thorunn frowns.
“What was that about?” he asks.
“Thorunn, dear,” I say abruptly, “would you close the door?”
He does, then walks around my desk to kneel before me. “Is something wrong?”
I had begun flipping through the contract to make sure the essentials were there, but with Thorunn kneeling at my feet, it is impossible to ignore him. I reach out to cup his scruffy head as he lays it in my lap. “What worries you so much, my love? Must something always be wrong?”
“You have a look in your eye,” he says. “Calculating risks. That document, it worries you.”
A smile rises to my lips. Of course he can recognize when I am calculating. Because he loves you, I remind myself. He reads you so well because he loves every part of you. I think back to what Moretti half-mused to himself: That Jarl doesn’t even know he’s won the lottery. I suppose the same could be said for me.
“Thorunn,” I state matter-of-factly, “I don’t intend to leave you. Whatever storm we weather, I want you by my side. But I have been too anxious to say so, and because of that, I feel somewhat responsible for your own uncertainty. I…”
I hesitate. For as much as I write every day, this is my weakness—putting my roiling, turbulent mess of emotions into words.
I know that fate has dragged us together, for better or for worse…yet my fear of the latter prevents me from embracing the former. I speak so often in contingencies and balance and logic and reason that I forget, my sweet boy, you only speak of love. Love, and trust.
My words fail me. So instead, I kiss him, then stand with his hands in mine.
“I was just thinking…the weather is too lovely to spend all day indoors. Can I trust you to take me out on the water, such that I may review this document in the fresh air?”
He beams bright enough to light up the room.
We head to the gardens and out on the lake. Thorunn rows a canoe much like the one we took nearly six months ago, for our first outing. Only six months ago. The thought gives me some pause as I flip through the contract. There was a time in my life when I would have scoffed at such a brief courting and engagement as six short months. Surely no woman could be certain in her prospects after only six months! But, I remind myself, Thorunn and I do not have the luxury of time. He departs in less than two days, Friday morning before sunrise. I must present this offer now or never.
“Go there,” I tell Thorunn, pointing towards the willow grove.
As he rows us beneath the loose branches, draped about us like a wedding veil, he chuckles to himself, the memory of this place fond and fresh in his mind. Suddenly, anxiety lances through my chest. What if this is too fast? What if he dislikes it? Should I tuck it away and simply be content with my engagement—however risky it becomes after Thorunn departs? I try my best to hide my nerves, but I should have known that that is a lost cause. He notices at once.
“Eloise?”
“Thorunn,” I blurt, “this is our marriage contract.”
He releases the oars. One of them slips into the water, and frantically, he fumbles to get it back. The canoe rocks back and forth, threatening to spill both of us and the contract into the lake. “Our—what?!”
“S-sorry. Let’s…let’s dock the canoe first.”
Once the wobbly little boat is firmly grounded against the shore, Thorunn clambers across it to sit by my side. He stares at the document with wide eyes, as if afraid it will bite him.
“Moretti wrote this?” he asks.
“No. I did. I simply had him review the legal technicalities, and it seems all is well.”
He visibly relaxes. I flip open the cover page and run my finger down the table of contents.
“I, in my capacity as Baroness Eloise Odric, would join you, Jarl Thorunn Halfdansson, in marriage. No fake proxy. No Elizabeth. Only us.”
“I…I don’t understand. What makes that any different?”
“The Royal Family can control Elizabeth. If they want, they can adjudicate her as a member of the family and sell her off whenever and however they want. But they can’t control me .” Flip, flip, flip. I point to a diagram on page 14. “Eventually, Elizabeth and I will have to become the same person, and then the Royal Family can control me. But not if I’m already married. This contract proposes our union not as a political one, but a business one. Completely outside the jurisdiction of the court of royal pleas.”
“Because the only thing stronger than the Crown is the gold it’s made of,” Thorunn muses, thumbing to the next page. “If the Royal Family interferes with a business union, then any benefited companies could object.”
“Oh, they would go bananas!” I chuckle. “And, my dear, you know me—if I get myself into a business marriage, I will take a slice of every pie I can get my hands on. We will spend our marriage making friends all over the nine seas. Then we are ironclad.”
“Heh. Steel is more the metal of choice nowadays.”
“Steel-clad, then. This is the trade: you would promise your country to aid me, my mother, and our business ventures. In return, I will bequeath to your country a book of predictions—and instructions.”
Thorunn hesitates mid-paper flip. “Predictions?” he echoes.
“Market predictions. For the next six years. Particularly with respect to the steel and coal industries. As a show of good faith, I will give you one now. The Ironwulf Mountains are your birthplace, correct? And make up the majority of your homeland?”
“Um…yes, my lady, but they have been barren for decades…”
“Not for long.” I fold my hands. “The coal mine I purchased and leased through you, all those months ago, will bear fruit this summer. As will many other mines across the mountains. The North shall strike gold in the form of a massive vein of anthracite coal and oil, unlike any the world has ever seen. Foreign investors will flock to your shores to lap up the spoils. With so little warning, your Oberjarl may be overwhelmed by commercial invaders, and your country’s integrity may be eroded away…or, with sufficient warning, you may fortify your borders and keep the spoils for yourself.”
“Eloise,” Thorunn cuts in. “This is…I trust you, I believe you, but how? How could you be certain of the impossible?”
I smile and tap the side of my nose. “I must keep some of my secrets, good Jarl.”
He pouts. Clearly, this is not convincing. I shift to lean against him and allow my hand to rest upon his chest.
“Six years. The year 496. Once all of my predictions come to fruition…and once I am assured of both mine and my mother’s safety…then I will tell you my secret.”
“It’s magic, isn’t it,” he mutters glumly. “All you Saelics and your magic.”
“Technically,” I remind him, “I am half Alamaric.”
“They’re just as bad. Soothsayers and oracles, the lot of em. Damn it. That’s probably how you know so much. Divination magic.” Thorunn groans and runs his hand through his hair. “Oh, gods. Me, marrying a spellcaster. My sister will never let me live it down.”
I laugh. “You have all summer to think it over, if you must reconsider.”
“All summer?”
“Well, yes. I assume you must present the terms to the Oberjarl and your shipyards first, wait for my first prediction to come true, confirm the marriage with your family, and have your attorneys look it over, too. In case you’re worried about the Royal Family exerting control of me in the interim, I put a clause towards the back that grants the tribe of the Oberjarl exclusive rights to my marriage while the contract is still being negotiated. Kind of like putting a hold on a library book—”
He cuts me off by kissing me. “Eloise, if you are happy with this contract right now, then so am I,” he grins. “I’ll ask forgiveness from my sister and country later. We’ll marry today.”
EXHIBIT 179.
In support of his petition to His Majesty’s Court of Pleas, Petitioner EDGAR ROSENCRANTZ comes now and enters into evidence the following:
Photographic facsimile of a handwritten letter, written by Amira Al’Kilic and addressed to Edgar Rosencrantz, entrusted to Mr. Peter J. Pym.
Petitioner requests that this Honorable Court take judicial notice of the following:
That Exhibit 179 is one of only seven surviving letters written by Amira Al’Kilic and received by Edgar Rosencrantz. As alleged in the Petition, Paragraph 109, Subparagraphs A-E, more than seven letters were received by Royal Mail, but presumed destroyed. Exhibit 179, like Exhibits 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, and 180, contain no identifying information which would indicate that Amira Al’Kilic had not received other gifts or letters from Edgar Rosencrantz.
2nd September
Edgar,
Short letter, very busy — Ellie’s 12th birthday. Taking her and her friends to the beach. Grateful for the mild autumn weather, as they hope to take a boat onto the ocean.
She has made a boy friend, Leonardo Gadaric Thudovarius — wealthy family, very prestigious, I am so proud of her! Ellie insists they are just friends and little Leo has no taste for girls. Though I maintain my own doubts as Ellie is quite taken with boys nowadays, which I suppose all girls are at that age.
Would Ellie be engaged, as you were to Lady Olivia? I have seen in the papers that she is actively pursuing you again, now that there is talks of the church dissolving chastity requirements. Do you think that will actually happen? Have you no say in the matter? I know the council of church elders shall prevail but surely, your word holds some weight? Please, my love — postpone the vote if you can. And I know you can.
I am getting off topic. Although Ellie tires of hearing stories about you, as she is at that age where such fairy stories are “too childish” for her, she is obsessed with the stories in the newspaper. Every day she returns with a new paper bundled under her arm, and tells me excitedly over dinner about the comings-and-goings of international high society. Everything fascinates her. I can see the glimmer of hope in her eyes when she speaks of families marrying into each other, of princesses’ lavish first debuts, of alliances and treaties and truly magnificent empires forged through the romance of royals.
She scoffs when I ask if she wants to marry a prince, saying she is too plain and too common, and claims she is only interested in the politics. I suppose, if what you said about all royal marriages being political ones is true, then she is perfectly cut out for a life as your daughter.
What a strange child! I remember when we were her age, and I thought you the strangest child I had ever met — nose always buried in a book, so blunt and honest that your elders boxed your ears on the daily, and not to forget those infrequent, but intense bursts of fascination that nothing could stop you from talking anyone’s ear off about it. I see so much of you in our daughter, Edgar. I wish, every day, that you could meet her.
Perhaps her debut? At eighteen, nothing can stop her from going to meet you, or from you meeting her. I am the only one who is banned from the palace. I would be happy to help you plan a princess’s debut for our daughter at whatever cost. I do not mind if I cannot attend.
I suppose this letter was not so short after all.
All my love — Imogen
Duly sworn and submitted to the Court of Royal Pleas, certified in authenticity and veracity by Royal Notary and Clerk of Records, MS. ELOISE ODRIC, in service of His Highness, PRINCE EDGAR ROSENCRANTZ.