38. Arts and Entertainment

Anna knew she had two options as she hurtled down the staircase's twisting balustrade toward Olaf and two children who looked distressingly similar to the new friends she had made yesterday: She could try to stop suddenly, and hope to stick the landing; or she could attempt a vaulting dismount, and hope to clear the youngsters' heads before she touched down. Momentarily complicating her decision was the frantic arrival of three castle guards into the scene. Bent over and their arms outstretched, they rushed in to snatch the little ones out of the danger zone.

This was simply too many moving bodies to leap over, and she felt optimistic that the guards would be able to shield the children even if she toppled over, and so, with only three meters to spare, she jumped off the railing and onto the stairs. For a fraction of a second, the Princess thought she would pull it off, that she would slow her forward motion enough and nonchalantly walk down the last treads to greet the visitors. But the transition was too abrupt, the width of the step was too narrow, and Anna lost her balance and fell forward, just as Grimsen and Holt swept Beatrice and Adam to safety against the wall,

Vollan and Olaf were not so lucky. The lieutenant tried to shove the snowman out of the way, but the Princess crashed into both of them. The three of them then tumbled toward the suits of armor, human arms futilely wind-milling and Olaf's body segments separating as they smacked into the first metallic ensemble. Vollan was not yet fully down, and he and the left arm and leg of the first suit plowed into the second one; and Olaf's head and abdomen -snow flurry in tow above- and the torso of the second suit knocked down the third.

The tour group looked on in shocked silence as several helmets, greaves, and vambraces rolled to a final stop against the opposite wall. The children stared in horror at the dismembered snowman, and some of them began to tear up and sniffle. The din immediately drew a stampede of castle staff, with Kai in the lead, and more guards, who froze in their tracks when they saw the tableau.

"Has anybody seen my nose?" asked Olaf's severed head. A few of the children let out muffled shrieks.

Grimsen and Holt quickly handed Adam and Beatrice over to their parents, who hugged the children close. The sergeant moved to Vollan's side and helped his fallen comrade back up. Grimsen knelt next to the Princess and lifted a cuirass off her midsection, and then arose and regarded her gravely, crossing his arms over his chest in displeasure.

Anna gazed up at the captain of the guard, Rune Grimsen, and felt like crawling inside the shell of steel he had just removed. When she had been a child, wandering about the castle in search of amusement or more than just a fleeting glimpse of her elusive sister, Grimsen had been the bane of her existence. He had often popped up right before, during, or soon after she had found a perfectly good (albeit in retrospect usually obnoxious, dirty, or risky) way to alleviate the monotony, nor was he ever interested in playing with her. She couldn't understand why her father appointed "Old Grim-Face" to be her chaperone when she went into town if neither one of her parents were available. And it seemed to be his special mission in life to thwart her youthful schemes to gain access to Elsa's suite when the loneliness and frustration became too much to bear. She had been very, very glad when the man retired a few months before her parents had ... been lost.

Of course, that was before Anna understood that it really had been the guard's special mission, tasked to him by the king her father, to make sure the princesses stayed apart, no matter how much the younger one yearned for the company of the older one. That he had known about Elsa's magical abilities from the very hour of the heir's birth. That her childhood was filled with people, experiences, and memories that were not what they seemed.

After the Great Thaw and the gates were permanently reopened, Elsa had all but begged and undeniably bribed the pensioner to return to active duty, if only for long enough to train the new guards properly for the realities of a magical monarch and a castle that once again welcomed the public and hosted dignitaries, so that there would be no repeat of the security personnel's mistakes and shortcomings during the coronation ball and the Eternal Winter.

Anna was very, very glad that Old Grim-Face was a great deal more friendly and easy-going with her this time around. They had even shared genuine laughs about her escapades, engaged in good-natured teasing, and had a few candid conversations about her family. But there were still moments when the guard's manner made her feel like a little girl being marched to her father and/or mother to be scolded for some transgression. When the captain finally leaned over and proffered his hand, she took it with some trepidation, halfway expecting him to haul her off to the royal study so that the Queen could lecture her on why sliding down the stair rails was now frowned upon, especially on Tuesdays and Fridays.

But Grimsen merely gave Anna an admonishing look, and tilted his head in the direction of Olaf's main parts. Anna nodded slightly. They both then turned to putting the snowman back together before the children broke into full-blown crying. Stefanie and Kai also began rummaging through the pile of armor in search of his feet, arms, and carrot. In due course, Olaf was almost reassembled, as the children clapped, and the adult guests watched in wonder.

"I got your nose," Stefanie announced, shaking the carrot out of a sabaton, and gently replaced it on the snowman's face. He gingerly made sure the vegetable was oriented the correct way.

"Thank you," Olaf said cheerfully, none the worse either structurally or mentally for the incident. The tour group blinked in disbelief that it was as simple as stacking his sections and sticking his arms and nose back on. The researchers exchanged meaningful looks.

"Is everyone else all right?" Kai inquired.

Adam and Beatrice both nodded, although the little girl still clung tightly to her father's chest and tucked her head beneath his bearded chin. Anna, Grimsen, and Holt all indicated an affirmative.

"I'm fine," Vollan certified. "We should probably add something like that to our calisthenics program. It's invigorating, but easier than what Her Majesty puts us through." All the guards, including Grimsen, chuckled, and Anna turned red in embarrassment.

"I'm so sorry!" Anna said to the lieutenant. He was one of the guards hired after the Great Purge, and he was always professional and cordial with her; his two young sons, Halvard and Haakon, were often attendees when the castle's social functions had a children's division. "Are you sure you're not hurt?"

"Don't worry yourself, ma'am. No harm done," Magnus Vollan smiled gallantly to put the Princess at ease. Like all the new employees, he had been apprised by Grimsen about what to expect on the job: Basically, all kinds of chaos and calamities, some heretofore unencountered by humanity, and not necessarily caused by Her Majesty's magic. Since Vollan's sons were lively and adventurous, and he was used to their hijinks, the forewarning hadn't been the least disconcerting.

Satisfied that the living didn't need assistance, the staff focused on the inanimate objects, and began picking up the jumble. They were well-practiced in reconnecting an arm or putting a helmet back on, but the triple hadn't been scored since the Queen had extricated herself from the dungeon and sent lances of ice jutting throughout the castle in the process. Making sure each piece went to its correct suit would take a little time.

"I was going to tell you that the suits of armor are from 1560, were made in Milan, and were only used for ceremonial purposes, but instead, allow me to present Princess Anna of Arendelle," Stefanie said with heavy sarcasm to the customers.

Anna sighed. This morning was not going much better than yesterday evening. Her friend was probably not going to let her live this one down for a while. A few of the tourists gasped in surprise when they heard her identity, and most of them began bowing or curtsying, which only made her more self-conscious.

"Please don't do that. It's just me," Anna deflected. "You just saw me fall down the stairs. I'm not exactly the most regal Princess."

By way of exposition, the Princess began to sing:

I cannot lie.

When I was six,

I climbed a scaffold and

Spilled a load of bricks.

Trying to help,

But making a mess.

It's the story of my life,

I must confess.

I'm just a klutz,

For goodness' sake.

There isn't anything

That I can't break.

Clumsy girl,

Clumsy girl.

Hopelessly bumbling.

Hopelessly fumbling.

Anna danced and twirled around with her arms outstretched, and didn't notice that she whacked a small ship in a bottle from its perch on a breakfront, and propelled it in an arc toward the guests. Holt raced forward and intercepted the glass with a leaping catch, and then handed it to a footman for safekeeping.

Out for a sail

Into the fjord,

I snapped the dinghy's mast

And fell overboard.

Got stuck up in a chimney,

And it seemed pretty dire,

Because one of the maids

Started to light a fire.

Not really sure

Why I had the notion,

But it definitely

Caused a huge commotion.

Clumsy girl,

Clumsy girl.

Hopelessly bumbling.

Hopelessly fumbling.

The Princess mimicked ascending a make-believe chimney by wedging herself in a corner and pressing her back against one wall and her legs against the orthogonal component - and promptly fell down on her rump when her feet slipped. Grimsen, Stefanie, and Kai grimaced, but Anna casually stood back up with nary a pause.

I thought I'd bring my

Parents breakfast in bed.

But I dropped the tray and

Got pancakes on papa's head.

Used my mattress to

Sled down the stairs.

Tore a hole in it, and sent

Feathers flying everywhere.

'They say a princess is

Full of charm and grace,'

But I push the limits even

If I'll fall flat on my face.

Clumsy girl,

Clumsy girl.

Hopelessly bumbling.

Hopelessly fumbling.

As she began the last two lines of the chorus, Anna tried to stride forward and strike a charismatic pose, like Elsa always did at the end of the song that opened the magic show, but her heel caught on the bottom of a drape - and the whole curtain came down, with the rod narrowly missing Anna's head as she staggered. Grimsen, Stefanie, and Kai hurried to help steady the Princess, while a maid pulled the long velvet cloth away from her feet before she could trigger another mishap.

The Irishman dug around in his pants pocket, produced two coins, and lobbed them in Anna's direction, as though tipping a busker. "Brava!" he shouted. "Great choreography!"

The other regular tourists all followed his lead and clapped. Anna smiled wanly. The researchers and their families shared bemused looks. Grimsen gave the Irishman yet another hard stare.

"You're in rare form this morning, Princess," Stefanie razzed under her breath.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. For me, this is just a regular Tuesday," Anna deadpanned back, quietly and quickly.

"Pfft, you usually don't reach this level of mayhem until Thursday, Your Highness," Grimsen whispered.

Anna pursed her lips. Ignoring the jibe, she picked up the coins and returned them to the Irishman. "It's not necessary, sir," she said as graciously as she could.

"Sorry, Your Highness. I hope you didn't take offense. It's hard to know whether gratuities are expected in other countries," the Irishman said as he put the money back in his pocket. "In my experience, people who break into song and dance routines in public are usually looking for a little financial compensation."

"Oh, we have street performers, and they really appreciate it if you toss a few coins their way," Anna clarified, "but a lot of the people here are kind of ... musically inclined. It's not that odd for us to sing or play an instrument just for the fun of it, or because music expresses our emotions better than plain words. Even Elsa- I mean, Queen Elsa does it."

"Is she any good?" asked the Irishman.

"She's tolerable, but she shouldn't quit her day job," Anna joshed. All of the native Arendellians, including Grimsen, burst out laughing.

"I suspect you are slandering Her Majesty's talent," the Irishman played along.

"You can hear the Queen sing during the magic shows on Saturdays," Stefanie informed the group. "And she'll be singing the verses of our national anthem to commence the Harvest Festival on Friday, while everyone who wants to joins in for the chorus."

"I get chills just thinking about it," Olaf said earnestly with a straight face and then winked. All of the children, even Beatrice, giggled at the joke; the adults rolled their eyes, groaned, or shook their heads.

"Can tourists go to this Harvest Festival?" the Irishman asked.

"Yes, sir. Admission is free, and so are most of the musical acts and dances on the main stages, but you have to pay for food, beverages, and wares," Stefanie explained. "Some of the other entertainments cost extra. There is also a separate fee to see the magic show on Saturday."

"It's a pretty fair deal," Olaf punned. The children giggled once again; the adults pinched the bridges of their noses, face-palmed, or heaved sighs tinged with tenderness.

Stefanie chuckled and tried to call the group to order and get the tour back on schedule. "All right, ladies and gentlemen, let's head to the gallery, unless anyone needs a lavatory break," Stefanie urged. She may as well make use of the additional help to herd the guests to the various ground floor privies.

Some of the visitors signaled an interest, and Grimsen, Vollan, Holt, and the reinforcements conducted most of them down the corridors that branched off from the atrium. Anna, however, claimed the Scurrs as her responsibility.

"I'll take you to the best one. I'm sorry for scaring you like that. I didn't see anybody at the bottom before I started to slide, but you don't really have a great view of what's at the base from up there, and I should know better than to do that now that we have so many people coming and going all day and staying overnight. Elsa and Kai and Captain Grimsen warned me that something like that could happen, but I'm usually going up the stairs around this time, and I forgot that we had a tour today, because it doesn't feel like a Tuesday," the Princess prattled as she lead them back down the hallway toward the royal study and stopped at a door that had intricate, colorful rosmaling painted on it. "Here we are."

Adam went in first. Beatrice looked up shyly at their royal hostess, and summoned the nerve to ask: "Are you still going to the Harvest Festival, Princess Anna?"

"Oh, yeah! I wouldn't miss it for anything!" Anna said enthusiastically.

Beatrice observed the Princess' buoyant attitude, and concluded that it did not seem likely that she had been or would be harshly punished for the episode with the cake. "Did you really do all those things in your song?" the little girl inquired.

"Yup. And more," Anna admitted somewhat bashfully.

"Did your parents ever get angry?" Beatrice posed.

"Beatrice, remember what we said about asking too many questions," Irene gently chided. The little girl lowered her head and nodded.

"It's all right, Mrs. Scurr," Anna reassured them. "If it was something I did just being inept or because I didn't know better, I almost never got into trouble for it. But on occasion, I did have to stand in a corner, or had my dessert privileges revoked. I also had my bicycle taken away from me for a couple of weeks a few times." Like when Grimsen caught her trying to use it to ram open a certain locked door.

And I had my sister taken away from me for thirteen years, Anna brooded to herself.

John and Irene noticed the Princess' countenance darken and hoped their daughter would heed the recommendation to stop being nosy. Fortunately, Adam exited the restroom, and Beatrice took her turn.

"It must have been really fantastic growing up in a castle with all this fancy stuff, Princess Anna," Adam remarked; he was over the temporary tension caused by the near collision. "You have your own museum!"

"Yeah, in a way. Although most of the things weren't out on display when I was a child," Anna disclosed.

"Oh. But that staircase looks like it's a lot fun," Adam supposed.

"Hush, Adam. You might be making Her Highness uncomfortable," John gently reproved. The little boy lowered his head and nodded.

"Don't worry, Dr. Scurr," Anna smiled, fully understanding the youngster's mind-set. "It is a lot of fun. And when we get to the gallery, I'll show you something else that's a lot of fun."

John and Irene shared a glance, not entirely sure if this "fun" would be suitable for small children given the nature of the Princess' other antics, or how much it would disrupt the tour.

"Please don't inconvenience yourself, Your Highness. I'm sure you have more important things to attend to," Irene said.

"Do you think I would have been sliding down a banister if I had important things to attend to?" Anna laughed as Beatrice rejoined them in the hallway. "I have only one week of complete freedom left, and I want to cram as much fun into it as possible."

"Are you going to prison after all?" Beatrice asked, aghast, and looked from the Princess to her father in confusion.

"No, not prison. But next week I have to start taking 'Queen lessons' and a first aid course," Anna replied with exaggerated somberness as she escorted the family back to the stairs. John and Irene shared another glance, tacitly grasping that the head of the royal family had imposed these academic objectives.

Beatrice considered the Princess. It was surprising to her, as a seven-year-old daughter of a doctor and midwife, that an adult princess hadn't already taken Queen lessons and a first aid course, but her parents' reminder to be polite inhibited her from saying so. And maybe the Princess had been spending her time studying other worthy subjects.

"Wow, you get to take Queen lessons!" Adam gushed.

"It's not that exciting, trust me," Anna maintained.

"Perhaps the first aid course will make up for it, Your Highness," John suggested with a smile.

Anna stopped walking as she processed the doctor's words. "You're teaching at the university!" she realized.

"That's right, and one of my classes is general first aid," John confirmed. "Well, I have two weeks to make my final decision before I sign the contract and get to work in the schoolroom and the clinic, but so far, things are looking positive."

Anna beamed. Suddenly, Elsa's order to enroll in a class for a real grade no longer felt like a punishment. She wondered if this was an example of the Queen's ability to subtly maneuver people and events to achieve desirable results, or if this was another instance of her sister's rare knack for serpentidity ... septerid... for unintentionally doing something that turned out amazing.

"That's fabulous! Now I almost can't wait to get started!" Anna declared and skipped happily back into the lobby where the rest of the group was reconvening. Irene gave John's forearm a soft, approving pat for encouraging the young woman.

The castle staff was making headway sorting out the armor; Olaf was back to investigating the crannies between the furnishings and the walls or floor; Kai was whispering something confidential in Grimsen's ear; all of the returning regular tourists were bubbling about the flush toilets in the castle's bathrooms.

"By my aunt's wig, that's the most remarkable thing yet!" the Irishman proclaimed.

"It's such a clean way of doing it," the Dutch mother endorsed.

"Installed in 1792, the last full year of Queen Pippilotta's reign. If you would, please follow me to the gallery," Stefanie said once everyone was present. Olaf waved farewell to the guests as they ambled off.

"Wait until you see what else Queen Pippilotta had installed," Anna whispered to the Scurr children. She fidgeted in place impatiently as Stefanie opened the tall double doors that led to her favorite room in the castle.

The tour group filed in and marveled at the royal family's accumulation of artwork. Debora pushed to the front, with Eliasz, Zlata, and Waclaw tailing her.

The Princess couldn't resist smiling at the guests' reactions. The gallery had certainly been Anna's personal museum when she was growing up, although she hadn't really thought of it that way until Adam described the castle as such. When the gates were closed, it was the place that most stimulated her imagination, where scenes of the outside world, of times long gone, of other people's lives and creative visions could transport her out of the dreary reality of the shuttered castle. The library had its appeal, but the contents of the books were so final. The real historical details or fictional plots were unalterable, the outcomes irreversible. This was fine when it was a straightforward happy ending, but when the conclusion didn't satisfy her own tastes, it was pointless to read it again, in hopes that something different could happen. Joan of Arc would always be burned at the stake; Achilles would always slay Hector; Gulliver would always end up a recluse who preferred the company of horses over humans.

But she, or one of the sympathetic adults in her life, could dream up new stories about the pictures on the walls. The people on the canvases could be whoever Anna wanted them to be, whoever she needed them to be. In the gallery, Joan of Arc still fought on to liberate her countrymen, or maybe was never captured and eventually married a prince after she had driven the Western Islanders out of France; the various revelers and romantics never told her to go away or be quiet; the earnest philosophers, stalwart soldiers, bold sailors, honest laborers, and dancing angels recognized and complimented her merits.

It was also a place where she felt a strong sense of belonging to a family. Her father would always tell her some family lore whenever they looked at the ancestral portraits. And her mother would share anecdotes about her relatives - she had even had a few paintings from her homeland shipped to Arendelle once she discovered how much visual aids inspired her younger daughter. Anna never tired of hearing about the courtships, voyages, and exploits of her forebears. She had had no doubt that they would have played with her, and perhaps even included her on a daring raid in some distant country, or at least a daring raid on the cookie jars in the kitchen.

Stefanie lead the guests over to the right, and stopped in front of a painting that was roughly an arm long by an arm wide. Anna grinned as she looked up at her great-grandmother Pippilotta. The customers drew sharp breaths at the astonishing resemblance between the current-day Princess and the past monarch.

"I swear, you look just like her, Your Highness!" the Irishman asserted. "Well, her hair is more orange, and she has more freckles, and I don't know what she did to her braids to make them stick out like that, and your nose is cuter, but you could pass for her."

"Father told me that if he had known how much I would look like her and act like her, he would have named me after her," Anna chuckled. "Although I'm kind of thankful he didn't because 'Anna' was a lot easier to learn how to spell. As Elsa once said, I have only two letters to keep track of." She felt a twinge of nostalgia at the memories of her big sister helping her to learn how to read and write - and a touch of vexation that she wasn't sure how much those memories had been altered. "But I do hope I age as gracefully as she did, and get to travel to a few of the places she went to." In theory, nothing was stopping her from going a-voyaging, but there was no way she would leave Elsa for an extended length of time right now.

"Over here you can see one of the paintings Queen Pippilotta brought back from a journey to the Far East," Stefanie indicated a small picture of a cat viewed from the back looking at a stand of bamboo. "This is by Jin Nong, one of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou."

Debora scrutinized the illustration, for works from exotic lands were still uncommon, even among the collections of wealthy nobles. The stippled blotches of colored ink captured the subtle variation of hues in the cat's fur as well as giving the impression of a weave of sun and shadows caused by an unseen canopy of leaves. Although the style was extremely minimalist, the technique and overall ambiance was sophisticated. Debora was intrigued by this glimpse of a mysterious and glamorous culture. "This doesn't look very eccentric," she commented.

"Nonetheless, that was what the group of artists were called, ma'am. Possibly it had something to do with the fact that Jin Nong sold his paintings on the open market rather than seeking a patron," Stefanie elucidated.

"Would you call it valuable, then?" the Irishman queried, rubbing his thumbnail on his lower lip. Grimsen stared hard at him once more.

"It's difficult to say, sir. While it is a rarity here, its price would depend on people's predilections, as with all art," Stefanie pointed out. "The royal family has usually bought what appeals to them, rather than acquiring pieces as investments for resale."

"Yeah, some of this stuff is a little on the weird side, like this one over here," Anna said and tilted her head at a sizeable triptych that was as florid and hectically detailed as the Chinese painting was spare and tranquil. Anna had never really understood everything that was happening in the three panels. The two naked people in the left frame were probably Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; the large middle section had strange people exhibiting bizarre behavior while pulling or following a wagon stacked with hay; the right panel seemed to depict people being tortured by monsters. Whenever she had asked the grown-ups in her life what was going on in the painting, they had always professed ignorance or told her that they would explain when she was older.

"Some of those people don't have any clothes on," Adam noted. Irene shushed him with a stern look.

" 'The Haywain' by Hieronymus Bosch?!" Debora blurted out. "How did I miss that yesterday?"

"You know this one?" Anna asked in astonishment.

"Well, I've never actually seen it before, Your Highness, but I'm familiar with the description, and Bosch's style is unmistakable," Debora stated. "There is another version of this in Spain. That one features 'The Wayfarer' on the reverse of the outer panels."

"You mean there's another painting on the back of this?" Anna asked in even more astonishment.

"There could be, Your Highness," Debora conjectured.

Anna immediately rushed to the left panel to take it down from the wall, but Grimsen quickly blocked her. "Hold it right there, ma'am," he directed. "First, you know the rule is 'look but don't touch' - especially with the day you're already having. And second, that's probably too heavy for you handle by yourself."

"Oh, come on, Captain!" Anna implored. "This could be a huge discovery!"

The rest of the tour group and even Stefanie gave Grimsen beseeching looks or meekly pleaded for their curiosity to be indulged.

"Please, sir? Think of it as an educational opportunity for the children," the Irishman wheedled.

"Please, sir?" asked the Dutch father. "Bosch is one of my country's great artists."

"Please, sir? My wife will be impossible to live with until she knows for sure," Eliasz supplicated. Zlata and Waclaw nodded vigorously in corroboration. Debora huffed in annoyance.

Grimsen exhaled resignedly. "Oh, all right," he yielded. "Lieutenant, sergeant, if you would be so kind? And remember that those panels are solid wood, not canvas. And try not to touch the paint."

Vollan stepped forward to the left panel, while Holt took the right one. They delicately grasped the edges and lifted the segments off their hangers. The guards then swiveled their loads so that the back sides faced the group and leaned them up against the wall.

Sure enough, split between the two boards, there was a painting of a man carrying a bundle on his back, fending off a dog, with a few odd background events, including something that looked like a robbery in progress. The tour group once again buzzed with amazement.

"Yes!" hissed Debora.

"Whoa!" Anna said hoarsely.

"Well, I'll be..." Grimsen mumbled.

"Wow!" the little Dutch boy breathed.

"Fry me!" the Irishman uttered.

"I'd say we're getting our money's worth on this showing," Papadopoulos reckoned, eyes wide. "Along the lines of a world premiere."

"Indeed, sir. Who would have known there was something on the flip side? Except Mrs. Mandelbaum, that is," Stefanie lauded, and smiled warmly as Eliasz, Zlata, and Waclaw proudly gathered around their matriarch and hugged her. From talking with the newcomers on Monday during the snowball fight and its aftermath, the guide knew how much Zlata and Waclaw adored and admired the elder Poles. The group, including the guards and the Princess, broke into sincere applause. Debora blushed, but curtsied elegantly.

As the ovation died down, Anna assessed the large frame of the triptych still hanging on the wall. "Should we look behind that one, too?" she mused. Her mind was percolating with new possibilities.

"I don't think there will be anything, Your Highness. The outer panels were made to close over the center piece, so Bosch and some other artists would decorate the back sides as well," Debora edified, while Vollan and Holt tried to carefully mount the panels back on the wall.

"Leave that for the maintenance crew, gents," Grimsen instructed. "It's probably easier to do with a ladder. Plus, the curator and Her Majesty might need to have a look at our little surprise bonus."

"This tour is definitely full of surprises," Newark said absently, and cast a glance at all the paintings lining the walls almost from floor to ceiling. He craned his neck to get a better view of the upper tiers.

"Speaking of full of surprises, here's a really neat way to look at the top rows," Anna said and hopped on one of the gallery's upholstered benches.

The guests watched in slack-jawed bewilderment as Her Highness sprang up in front of Fragonard's "The Swing" with much more height than she should have been able to attain naturally.

Stefanie and Grimsen shook their heads as Anna's second bounce launched her up to Rembrandt's "The Good Samaritan," to which the Princess gleefully gestured during her hang time. The visitors followed her trajectory with awestruck eyes.

"Queen Pippilotta had all the furniture in here specially built by a craftsman who made trampolines and other equipment for acrobatic troupes," Anna said offhandedly on the way back down.

Upon contact with the settee's enhanced cushions, Anna pumped her legs to give herself the kinetic energy necessary to reach the topmost painting, which happened to be an ancient -and admittedly crude- likeness of Bjørn the Berserk.

"Hi there, King Bjørn," Anna quipped to the red-bearded, fierce-eyed man at the apex of her jump. She finished with a series of ever shorter rebounds before alighting from the couch with unanticipated agility. She beckoned to Adam and motioned for him to take a turn. "Go on, try it out!"

"Uh ... um ... well," Adam vacillated. Part of him wanted very much to have a go at it, but another part him knew he needed to get his parents' permission first and strongly suspected that it would not be forthcoming. He looked up uncertainly at his father.

Before John could answer, Grimsen cut in. "I'm sorry, but that's not allowed," the guard said politely but firmly. John and Irene were extremely relieved, and Adam nodded in understanding.

"Come on, sir. It'll be okay," Anna cajoled.

"I'm sorry, Princess, but when it comes to the protection of the royal family, the security of the castle and its assets and chattels, and the safety of the visitors -which Your Highness has already jeopardized once today- there are only three people who can hope to countermand me, and you are not one of them," Grimsen contended. "Queen Elsa has set the house rules for the guests for very good reasons."

Anna winced: Grimsen had every right to scold her, since he had just risked his own flesh and bones to prevent her from flattening the Scurr children, and Vollan was fortunate to get off as lightly as he did. She knew full well that Elsa had set the house rules for the guests for very good reasons, so that when a tour ended, the castle, the staff, and the guests were in the same condition as when the tour began.

She also knew that Elsa had set the new chain of command for very good reasons. After the Great Purge, the Queen had revised the kingdom's hierarchy, at least when it came to certain things. As much as Anna had been initially irate to find out that she presently didn't outrank officials like Admiral Sverdrup, Marshal Naess, Captain Grimsen, Chief Constable Johanssen, and even Minister Nilsson and a few other council members in matters of defense, governance, or finance, she had to admit Elsa had a valid rationale. Whatever else Anna could say about Grimsen and her relationship with him, he would not have let her ride off alone in search Elsa if he had been there on the night of the coronation ball, nor would he have submissively consented to her leaving a foreigner in charge of Arendelle.

It was just that, after the events on Monday, the Scurrs -along with the rest of this batch of researchers and their families- already felt like friends and not merely sightseers. Naturally, that wouldn't make any difference to the captain of the guard. In fact, if she tried to explain herself, he would very likely point out that she had known them for less than a day, and she would be forced to agree that less than one day wasn't long enough to judge someone's character, although the odds of a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old turning out to be homicidal, deceitful would-be usurpers seemed rather slim.

"Of course, sir. It was inappropriate for me to ask the guests to do something against the rules," Anna said contritely.

Grimsen made no further issue of it, and nodded courteously to the Princess and the Scurrs, and then doffed his tall hat at Stefanie to get the tour back on track again.

"As Princess Anna showcased, we have 'The Swing' by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and 'The Good Samaritan' by Rembrandt van Rijn," the guide continued. "And over here we have one of the morning views of Het Steen by Peter Paul Rubens, and next to it is 'The Mystical Nativity' by Sandro Botticelli. Below them is 'The Crocus Pickers' by a local artist."

The tour group studied the highlighted paintings, with the Dutch family murmuring amongst themselves about the Rembrandt and the Rubens, but in the end, everyone gravitated to "The Crocus Pickers." The sky and mountains in the background were beautifully executed, and the depiction of the stooping harvesters toiling in the sloped field of purple flowers captured the arduousness and urgency of their work.

"My back and knees ache from just looking at it," the Irishman said.

"Your local artist is quite gifted, and deserves to be more well-known," Debora appraised. "Are there any more in here by him ... or her?"

Stefanie smiled faintly. "We're not exactly sure who painted it, ma'am," the guide shrugged. "The castle receipts say only that King Håvard V bought four pictures by someone recorded as 'H. Olsen' for the very handsome price of 400 talers back in 1693. Unfortunately, Olsen is a common surname in Arendelle, nor can we exclude the possibility that this Olsen was from another Scandinavian country, or that it's a patronym instead of a hereditary family name. One of the other paintings from the set is in the castle's library, which is our next stop, but the other two are in the royal residence level, which is not open to the public."

"Oh," Debora said weakly, her disappointment clear.

"They're really good. I'll ask Elsa- I mean, Queen Elsa if we can switch them to down here sometime," Anna offered.

"That's very kind, Your Highness," Debora said gratefully.

"Oh, it's something we should do anyway. We're up to our ears in artwork, almost," Anna chuckled.

"I'll say, Your Highness. You have paintings by Giaimo, Lasseter, Del Vecho, Goldberg, Keene, Womersley, Schwab, Di Salvo, Bresee, Osmond, Smeed, Pierce, and Unten," Debora reeled off. "This place can hold its own in terms of quality and prestige against much bigger collections. And that's not including Queen Elsa's sculptures, which would be the pride and joy of other museums."

"Those things? At the rate that she makes them, we're going to end up needing to pay people to take them, or else we really will be up to our ears in artwork," Anna teased. The other natives all smothered snorts of laughter.

"Her Majesty is that prolific?" the Dutch mother asked. "I would have thought those sculptures took a lot of effort in order to get that much detail."

"She can make millions of unique snowflakes with a wave of her hand. But she can ... unmake them all with another wave of her hand, so we don't have to worry about being buried under a meter of ice sculptures. You'll see if you go to the magic show on Saturday. It really is phenomenal," Anna recommended. "There isn't anything like it anywhere else."

"And since storm season is setting in, it's one of the last ones she'll perform this year," Stefanie added. The visitors mulled that over.

"What if it rains?" Homberg wondered. "I've heard we're in for some wet weather through the next few days."

"Queen Elsa will just freeze the rain and keep it hanging in the air. She did that at our Spring Pageant earlier this year," Anna bragged. "She had to concentrate a little bit when it started to pour buckets, but watching her wrestle a storm -or at least the part of the storm that was over the town- actually became the main attraction." Elsa had been adorably embarrassed about upstaging the other entertainment, but the chance to see the Snow Queen "reign over rain," as Minister Haugen had hailed it, was too good to miss.

The tour group exchanged looks of astonishment.

"I'm almost hoping for inclement weather now," Newark said out of the corner of his mouth. The other researchers reflected silently.

"Well, since Princess Anna and Mrs. Mandelbaum have helped me show off the gallery, let's move on to the library, unless someone has a question," Stefanie put forward.

Although several people, including the Dutch family and the Irishman, looked like they could easily spend the entire morning in the gallery, the crowd moved toward the doors. Debora glanced back at the artwork as they reentered the hallway but otherwise left the room without a fuss.

Eliasz, Zlata, Waclaw, Irene, and John all smirked; Debora stuck her tongue out at them. "I am definitely going on the one o'clock tour, too," she said adamantly.

"On the house, or rather the castle, Mrs. Mandelbaum," Anna insisted.

"By all means," Grimsen seconded.

"Thank you, Your Highness," Debora said, surprised.

"Hey, we owe you one. It's like you gave us another painting," Anna reasoned. "I mean, maybe our curator, Mr. Larsen, knew about those back panels, but he's never said anything about them to me."

"Or to me and the other tour guides," Stefanie chimed in.

"Perhaps it's because the less something so old is handled, the better," Debora posited. "Captain Grimsen was right to ask the other guards to not touch the painted surfaces, but that would be hard to do if they were being turned around on a regular basis."

"True, but I think we all know of someone who could conjure up a rig that would let the outer panels pivot without being directly touched," Sinibaldo noted dryly.

Anna's eyes widened. "That's right! She can make them float like soap bubbles!"

"That would make it a little too easy for someone to walk off with them, ma'am," Grimsen said and stole a peek at the Irishman.

"This is Elsa- I mean, Queen Elsa we're talking about, Captain. She'll figure out a way to do it," Anna avowed. "More like ten ways to do it."

They stopped across from yet another set of double doors, and Grimsen produced a key, unlocked them, and held them open for the guests to go through. They surveyed the spacious, airy room, lined with bookshelves and cabinets.

"This library contains the largest collection of written Old Norse and Old Norwegian -which are still somewhat mutually intelligible with our contemporary local language- in the world," Stefanie narrated. "When the other Norsemen were only chiseling a few sentences on stones as monuments, we were producing scrolls and bound codices of history, literature, geography, foreign cultures, religion, and manuals on building and technology. Our oldest native books date from the tenth century."

Of course, the manuscript that told of the trolls and mentioned ice-magic and contained the map to the Valley of the Living Rock -among other things- was probably older than that, but the book's status had gone from being a quaint, overlooked relic to a highly classified state secret on the night of "the accident." It had been hidden away in Elsa's suite, where it still remained safely sequestered from public knowledge, and all data in the library's catalog that referred to it had been removed or modified when the gates were shut. Although Anna accepted that it was done to protect the trolls, she couldn't help seeing something cynically symbolic about the whole thing.

Stefanie opened a drawer on one of the cabinets, pulled out a pair of white gloves and put them on, and took one of the tomes down from a shelf. "For example, this is a volume of skaldic poetry composed during the reign of Bjørn the Berserk," she said, and held the book open to an illuminated page for the guests to view.

"The letters are all strange!" Beatrice gasped.

"Those are runes. We didn't use the Roman alphabet back then," Stefanie explained. "We didn't formally adopt our modern writing system until the Renaissance, and even now we sometimes use runes for carving inscriptions on stone or wood."

Newark leaned in for a closer look. "This seems similar to the old Anglo-Saxon script. Feoh ... æsc or maybe āc ... rād ... mann ... æsc or maybe āc again ... thorn ... rād ... farmathr," the Myrcian deciphered.

The tourists and researchers turned to the Arendellians for their verdict. "You read runes almost as well as I do," Anna commended.

"Very impressive, sir," Stefanie complimented.

"Mind you, I have no idea what the word means," Newark admitted self-effacingly.

"Traveler, wayfarer," Holt translated.

"Hmm, so not very mutually intelligible with the old Anglo-Saxon language," Newark inferred.

"I think you would recognize certain words and some of the grammar, sir. For example, we call the first rune , and it means 'wealth,' " Holt expounded.

"That's what feoh means in Anglo-Saxon," Newark chuckled with delight.

"With a little logic, educated guesses, and perseverance, you would probably understand some basic Old Norse, sir, and not get too much of a headache," Holt said.

"The real headaches are the kennings in the poems, sir," Anna warned.

"Kennings?" Newark queried.

"They're figures of speech, or almost like riddles. Instead of using the word 'ship,' the skalds sometimes called it a 'sea-steed.' Or 'warrior' can be 'feeder of ravens.' Or 'waves' can be 'Ægir's daughters.' Or 'sky' can be 'Ymir's skull.' It's easy to get confused, especially when they use compound kennings," Anna elucidated.

"Anglo-Saxon poets did the same thing, although probably not to the same degree, Your Highness. I'm sure they were stylistically influenced by their northern kin and Viking overlords," Newark said. "One of our oldest and most famous Anglo-Saxon poems is set in Scandinavia, and the main character's name is itself a kenning."

"Beowulf?" Holt presumed. "Bee-wolf, which corresponds to 'bear.' "

"You're well read, sir. It's not often that someone from outside the Western Isles is familiar with our early literature - even if the subject matter isn't ours, per se," Newark remarked with a smile.

"There was a lot of downtime on guard duty when the gates were closed, and Her Majesty didn't mind if we quietly amused ourselves while we were on the clock, as long as we saw to it that no one disturbed her," Holt confessed wryly.

"I should have never retired. That girl may have been as hard-nosed as they come at trade deals, but was entirely too easy on you lay-abouts and bookworms," Grimsen grumbled good-naturedly.

Holt, Vollan, and some of the tourists chortled softly, but Anna squirmed slightly. In the early stage of Elsa's tenure, it hadn't been unusual to see the few castle employees reading, chatting, or playing cards or board games, which Anna had joined in from time to time; there had seemed to be an unspoken pact that the new monarch wouldn't bother the staff -or the rest of the populace, for that matter- if they didn't bother her. Her sister's aloof, impersonal approach to ruling hadn't exactly engendered a sense of loyalty among the employees who didn't know about her magical powers, and that had almost been her downfall. Karl Holt was one of the few guards whose behavior during the debacle of the Eternal Winter had been irreproachable (he had been in the search and rescue party that brought the crews stranded aboard the growing number of ships caught in Elsa's expanding ice sheet to the relative safety of land) but it had been shocking how many of his fellows had proved to be all too willing to disregard Arendelle's laws of succession and customary criminal justice procedures when commanded by a charming man-of-the-people.

"At least I stuck to reading tales of battle and heroism, sir," Holt said mock defensively. "It was the most action to be had, since I missed out on Her Highness' glory days."

"Kid, you wouldn't have lasted two weeks during Princess Anna's zenith," Grimsen immediately shot back. Stefanie and the tour group laughed into their hands.

"Hey! When did you two grumps turn into a comedy routine?" Anna protested. "Show the people another book, Stef- I mean, Miss Rask."

Stefanie rolled her eyes and shook her head, but fetched a step ladder from a corner, climbed it to retrieve five lavishly-bound volumes from a high shelf, and grinned as she walked them over to Homberg, and opened one. "Inspired by the work of Carl Linnæus, King Geir VIII commissioned an illustrated encyclopedia of the flora and fauna of Arendelle, the Agðir Mountains, and the Hardanger Plateau. Twenty-five sets of the first printing had hand-colored pictures," the guide said. "The royal family, naturally, received one of them."

"Oh, my ... I don't suppose they're available to be checked out," Homberg sighed.

"Nope. They get the white-glove treatment. I wasn't allowed to even take them down and look at them by myself until I was fourteen," Anna reminisced.

"However, the university's library has a black-and-white edition that you can peruse," Stefanie mentioned, and turned the pages to an entry she thought the naturalist and the children would enjoy.

"Sven!" Adam and Beatrice exclaimed happily.

"Well, not really. But it is one of his kind," Anna giggled.

"I didn't think reindeer were found this far south," Homberg said.

"The Hardanger Plateau is the southern limit of their range, sir, and is home to a large herd, in fact. The altitude makes the climate right for them and the plants they prefer to eat," Stefanie enlightened.

"Then that's another place on my must-visit list," Homberg judged. "Being able to see plants and animals native to the Arctic without needing to actually go to the Arctic is not an opportunity to pass up."

Many of the regular tourists murmured amongst themselves, intrigued by the possibility.

"Making the trek requires an overnight stay in the backcountry, and proper shelter at all times of year," Stefanie cautioned. "There are a few public huts and privately operated roadhouses along the route, but they are first come, first served. While the right to roam here in Arendelle permits you to freely camp in uncultivated and uninhabited areas, hiring a guide who will outfit you with the necessary gear or make arrangements for you to stay at a local's house is strongly advised. The staff at visitor information center in town next to the bank will be happy to help you plan a trip."

"Take it from me: It's way too dangerous without a guide and the right equipment and provisions," Anna emphasized.

"If you do head out on your own, please tell someone here in town that you're going, and contact them as soon as you return to let them know you're safe," Grimsen put in. "Our wilderness is unforgiving, especially if you're inexperienced at roughing it."

"I myself will definitely be using a guide, even though I'm a professional naturalist," Homberg reinforced. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that as beautiful as nature is, it does not care if you live or die."

"To give you some idea of the conditions you would encounter, over there is the other painting by H. Olsen, 'Pond on the Hardanger Plateau.' The whole region is above the tree line, and the weather can change for the worse in the blink of an eye. Not even the Sami live there year-round," Stefanie said and motioned to an austerely gorgeous landscape on canvas. The starkness of the moor, the rocky outcroppings, the glaciated mountains in the distance, and the clouds reflecting on the shallow pool were once again expertly done.

"That hardly looks like just the place for a spur-of-the-moment picnic outing. I can almost hear the wind - and the mosquitoes and midges. Olsen had a real talent for capturing the atmosphere," Debora marveled.

"The other two are also great. One is a view of old Arendelle town from the top of one of the cliffs, and the other is a country wedding party," Anna supplied. Both of them had been kept in the master royal suite from the time of their purchase, but those chambers had been unoccupied since her parents had ... been lost, and it seemed unlikely that anyone would be moving in soon, so they could be rotated down to the public areas of the castle where they could be seen by all. Like the family portrait to the right of Olsen's bleak scene had been.

"Is that you and Queen Elsa in this one here, Princess Anna?" the little Dutch boy asked once he noticed the other artwork.

The guests took in the painting of two young girls, one a platinum blonde and the other a strawberry blonde, standing back-to-back with their impassive faces turned toward the front; next to them stood a mustachioed man with ruddy hair and kind, earnest eyes and medals on his uniform; on the other side of him sat a slender woman with dark brown hair and sky-blue eyes wearing a modest blue dress and simple silver tiara.

"Yes," Anna laughed and then sighed. It was the last time they had all posed for a picture. "I was four years old. The only thing I really remember about it was wriggling around and making faces so much that the painter and my parents were losing their patience. But then Elsa- I mean, Queen Elsa ... well, she was Princess Elsa at the time ... whatever, my sister challenged me to a game that she called 'Statue:' the first one of us to move or make a sound would lose. She's a stinker." At any rate, she was pretty certain that's what had happened, because Elsa had been a "good girl" about not using her powers in the presence of outsiders, so that particular memory shouldn't have been tampered with.

Several hoots, squeaks, coughs, and choking sounds escaped from the tour group.

"Oooh, I'll have to try that one out on my boys," Vollan announced blithely.

"It's going to work only once or twice, and only if you offer a prize," Anna notified him.

"Did Your Highness win, at least?" the Irishman asked.

"No," Anna replied bluntly. "Elsa let me have the cookies anyway." She sighed again. Memories of Elsa being so caring and generous had been tormenting rather than sweet after her sister had abruptly and inexplicably turned so cold and distant.

"Pretty nice for a stinker," Papadopoulos weighed in.

"Okay, she's really not a stinker," Anna granted, "but she sure can seem that way until the big reveal. She has kinda needed help with the whole public image thing."

"But by now, most of us have figured out that Her Majesty will always come through in the end, even if her motivations and mechanics are sometimes not obvious," Grimsen upheld without indignation, and caught Anna's eye and subtly shook his head to dissuade her from continuing. The Queen did not want too many details about her childhood -particularly how severely her contact with other people had been limited, and Princess Anna's strange case of amnesia about her older sister's powers- made public. While he was one of the few people who knew that there had been "an accident" involving the young Crown Princess' ice magic and her sibling's head, he suspected he still didn't know the full story, just as there were parts of Princess Anna's account of her search for the Queen and return to Arendelle that didn't quite add up. Other people would likely question the inconsistencies and gaps with far more zeal.

"Don't worry, sir. I'm used to someone who also works in mysterious ways at times," Papadopoulos attested with a smile.

Grimsen laughed softly. "You win that round hands down, Father," the captain cheerfully conceded.

"See? Never complain or argue about anything in front of a priest or a nun," the Irishman reiterated, playfully wagging his index finger at Grimsen and the Princess.

The guard gave the garrulous guest another hard stare. "Do I know you from somewhere, sir?" Grimsen finally asked.

"I shouldn't think so, Captain. I've traveled a little bit, but I've never been to Arendelle or the other Nordic countries before," the Irishman said. "Unless you've been to Limerick, we've never crossed paths."

"Sorry, then. You just seem familiar, somehow," Grimsen explained.

"It's my manner, sir. I'm flippant and forward," the Irishman acknowledged, "so it just feels like we must have met before. Don't pay me any mind."

Grimsen smiled mildly, and nodded to Stefanie to recommence. The guide returned the encyclopedia to its correct spot, and then pulled an oversized hardback off one of the lower shelves. She showed the group a large, annotated diagram of a notorious, nearly-symmetric ship.

"And these are the only known written construction plans for the vaunted longships and knörrs of the Viking era. They were committed to parchment after they were no longer in production because the designs were obsolete for raiding and trading, and the know-how for building them was passing from living memory," Stefanie related.

"People sailed across the North Atlantic to the New World in that? Where is the cabin?" the Dutch father asked incredulously.

"People were hardier back then," Stefanie said with a wave her hands.

"Or foolhardier," the Irishman wisecracked.

"They did have awnings and leather sleeping bags. Nonetheless, voyaging was very difficult for the crew, and long-distance trips were fraught with peril," Stefanie resumed. "These vessels were built for speed and maneuverability, not comfort and safety. Queen Hjørdis II had a replica longship based on these schematics built 'for the fun of it' back in the seventeenth century. It's in dry storage at our naval headquarters in Otruness."

"Also available for viewing for a nominal fee," Vollan put forward helpfully.

"Of course," John said under his breath. Irene suppressed a giggle. Many of the regular tourists once again murmured amongst themselves, intrigued by the possibility.

"And now, if you would, please follow me to the ball room," Stefanie enticed.

Anna rubbed her hands and shuffled her feet in anticipation. There were enough people present for a proper sock sliding tournament.

Author's Notes - "Clumsy Girl" is in the general style of "Stupid Girl" (written by Duke Erikson, Shirley Manson, Steve Marker, and Butch Vig, featuring a sample from The Clash's "Train in Vain").

Jin Nong, and the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, are a for-real group of Chinese artists. All of the other paintings except for the ones by "H. Olsen" are also for-real. The list of artists from Giaimo to Unten are a shout-out to "Frozen's" production crew and animators.

The "Statue" game is a shout-out to a "Daria" episode in which Jane Lane babysits two kids and teaches them the "Cemetary" game.

The real-life Hardanger Plateau does indeed have reindeer herds.

There is a whole lot of "Chekov's Gun," "Chekov's Gunman," and "Chekov's Skill" going on here. Hint: Other paintings have something on their back sides, too.