The Paper Crown

4. A Royal Insult

We are taken to the royal palace in a train of open, gilded coaches. I had wished to ride with Prince Mariusz, but instead I am put with King Edmund in the foremost coach. It is beyond my pride to twist backwards for another glance of Mariusz, whose eyes I still cannot recall the colour of, so I sit upright next to my uncle and keep my gaze upon the road in front of me.

We are in the heart of the city, driving down wide avenues lined by trees bare of leaf or flower and edged beyond by looming grey palaces. The roads have been cleared for our passage, and it is silent but for the rush of wind between the buildings. We pass into narrower streets, where the palaces become terrace shops with homes on the upper floors. A grey-faced child stares hollowly at us from the gate of a courtyard. Curtains and shutters twitch as we pass. Pale blurs flutter behind bare, dirty windows.

It feels as though I am driving through a giant cemetery, not a city. The buildings on either side like rows of tombstones, the pale faces in them, ghosts. I shiver and pull my cloak tighter around me.

The palace is not in the centre of the city, but towards the outskirts, where the road widens again. The terraces become houses, then painted villas and mansions, surrounded by gardens and high stone walls. We pass through a wrought-iron gate in the highest stone wall of all and down a gravel path. There follows a series of further gates, each guarded by a pair of impassive, motionless Selician soldiers. At last, a greenish-blue roof, tarnished copper, appears above a row of conifers and we pass beneath the trees and into a walled garden in which lies the palace itself.

It is all creamy yellow, and white, and blue-green, and gilt. A toy palace, for a toy kingdom, my uncle's toys. His flag hangs from the centre mast. Two others, lower, to each side, show the blue and red flag of the kingdom which became a duchy and the black and red flag of the city.

Our coach rounds a circular lawn and stops in front of the palace steps. Four people wait for us on the terrace, three children and a woman, all with the same pond-weedy blond hair and hawkish cast of face as Mariusz. The children ogle me with blatant curiosity. The little boy whispers to one of the girls, who nudges him with her elbow and hisses back. I am reminded suddenly of my little cousins, who always were terrified of me, even before I tried to kill King Edmund. From the look on the girl's face, I can see she is frightened of me too.

I alight from the coach after my uncle and it rolls away again. Behind us, the coach containing Mariusz and his sister slows to a stop and Mariusz jumps down. Now, I will find out what colour his eyes are. But he keeps his gaze low to the ground, intent, it seems, on examining the gravel he kicks out from under his neat tan boots. When he is next to me, he takes my gloved hand in his and performs a sweeping bow to the people on the terrace. He says something in Selician and I catch my name in his unusual, lilted accent. The way he says it makes my heart flutter.

The woman comes down the steps and stops in front of us. She is tall and very slender, the skin stretched taut over her bones. Her eyes are both worried and hostile.

"Duchess Maria," Mariusz says. "She is my mother."

Then he does speak my language, at least a little, and his accent makes the sound pleasing.

Dowager Duchess Maria kisses me on each cheek, a salutation I suspect neither of us desire. I manage not to flinch and for a response give her a curtsy. She continues to look at me for a moment longer, then says something in her own language.

"She says she is happy to gain a daughter," Mariusz explains. "And welcome to her home."

I know I should say something politic, something complimentary, but I find I can say nothing at all. I had not thought of gaining a mother by marriage. I don't want one. And judging by the look in Duchess Maria's eyes, she does not want another daughter, despite her kind words.