Chapter Ten: Sins of the Fathers
Anna felt like she was caught in a nightmare where nothing made sense. The implications of those first few words in the letter swirled in her mind and she could not put a finger to it.
It's not possible! Papa loved Mama. I've watched them for years and they were always the one I looked to when I imagined what it would be like to have your true love beside you. There was never another woman in his life. I must be mistaken. Maybe whoever this person who wrote to Hans' mother just had the same penmanship as Papa.
Anna picked up the letter and her eyes moved to the bottom to the signature, willing it to be another name. But it was there, clearly written in a familiar neat script:
Yours forever,
Agdar
There was no question anymore who wrote it. Anna had seen enough of her father's signature for years. He always wrote her notes for special occasions that accompanied his presents to her on Christmas and her birthday or even on days she made an accomplishment that he deemed worth celebrating with a letter and a gift. She even spent hours after her parents' death reading the stack of letters her father wrote to her and to her mother. He wrote loving messages to her Mama, often signing it with the affectionate closing "your loving husband" or "your devoted partner."
It can't be. He was always Mama's! There was never anyone else!
With shaking hands, she held the letter to the light to discern if it was a trick but nothing changed on what was written on the paper. She started reading from the beginning. She noted the date on the top of the page that she missed the first time.
5 September 1783
This was written before her Papa and Mama were married or even met. It was before her father became king.
My dearest Johanna,
You know that I love no other but you. I understood why you had to do what you did. It breaks my heart that you must put yourself in such a situation, but I love you still and my love is deep enough that I readily forgive you. You don't have to marry Kristian. He does not love you like I do and he will never make you happy.
I do not have a kingdom to offer you like he does, but I swear I will do everything I can to give you a comfortable and honorable life as my wife. I don't care if the child you carry is his. Come back to me and I will claim your child as my own. I will bring him up as my son or daughter and no one need to know otherwise. Everything I have now and in the future is yours and this child who I will proudly call mine.
I beg you my love, please reconsider this decision. I will await for your response everyday.
Yours forever,
Agdar
Anna had to re-read the letter several times to truly fathom its meaning. Her Papa, her most loving, romantic Papa had loved another and was willing to even take in the responsibility of a child not his.
A child not his?
Anna rechecked the date and made a mental computation. The letter was written almost thirty years ago, the child would be around 28 years old now by her estimate.
Hans! He was the child and Papa wanted him! Something must have happened to them that Papa never married Hans' mother.
She carefully refolded the letter, tucked it into her pocket hurried back to the recovery ward.
"Hans?" she called out as she approached him.
"You've read it?" he asked expectantly.
Anna nodded and sat at his bedside. She lowered her voice so she wouldn't be overheard by the other patients and the two nursing aides in the room. "My father wrote this to your mother? You were the child he was referring to."
He made an almost imperceptible nod and he avoided her gaze as if he was ashamed. "Yes, I was. I was her only child. I suppose you can tell from the letter I was conceived out of wedlock."
Anna felt just as uncomfortable at this revelation. She was unsure how to ask further the delicate questions about his birth. She took his hand and squeezed it. He didn't pull away but allowed her hand to rest on his but she dared not meet his eyes.
"It's okay," he said. "You deserve to know. My mother was my father's mistress before he married her."
Anna looked up, surprised at how easily he admitted something so scandalous.
"Don't look so shocked. My father, King Kristian, had several mistresses while he was in between wives. However, he only married the women that could bring alliances that can benefit him or his kingdom politically. My mother was an exception though. She was the daughter of a famous admiral, a high ranking official from the time of my grandfather's reign. She had the right connections socially but no royal bloodline, title or great fortune of her own. But she caught his eye and he was enchanted with her. My father always got what he wanted."
Anna gasped at the implication Hans insinuated. "He forced her?"
"I'm not sure," Hans replied sullenly. "I supposed she wasn't entirely resistant to him or she could have been persuaded to accept his advances eventually. Her father was certainly eager to promote the match. He had come from humble beginnings and he had always pursued ways to bring his family up the social ladder. You can't get much higher than having your daughter as a queen even if she had to start out as a royal mistress."
Anna couldn't imagine anyone, much less a father would want that for his daughter. Her Papa certainly would never allow her or Elsa to end up that way. "What about my Papa then? How was he involved?" Anna asked.
"I'm not certain how he and my mother met. But I know your father did spend his teenage years in the Southern Isles. You do remember he was born a second son. He was never meant to be king of Arendelle. His older brother Asbjorn was the young, healthy king who was already married and expected to continue the Arendelle line. As a younger brother to the king, your father would have been expected to have a military career or take up holy orders. He chose the former and was trained by my mother's father who was the head of the Southern Isles navy at that time. I do have some of your father's earlier letters to my mother. My nursemaid secretly gave them to me when I was ten and I've read all of them. They've been friends since he was fourteen and she was twelve. They were secretly engaged by the time she was seventeen."
"Engaged?" Anna muttered. "I never imagined Papa could be engaged to another. They never married?"
Hans shook his head. "One of your father's letters told me he came home to Arendelle to ask your Uncle Asbjorn permission to marry her in the spring of 1783. That same year, my mother became my father's mistress and her regular correspondence with your father abruptly stopped. I can only guess what happened then."
Anna felt sick. Her Papa must have been heartbroken but she couldn't help but feel a little relieved for he certainly found another love with her Mama. He had moved on to find the great love of his life and had been happy with his Queen Idunn.
"The one I showed you was the last letter I found between them," Hans continued.
"So she never responded to him? She married your father."
He nodded. "And became miserable as his queen in the nest of vipers of the Westergaard court. I supposed my mother did love your father but she didn't love him enough that she would give up the chance of becoming queen. The irony was, had she married Prince Agdar and waited a year... just a year, she would have gotten what she wanted."
"Uncle Asbjorn died in the carriage accident with Aunt Catherine and their new born baby," Anna related.
"And your father became King of Arendelle. She could have been his queen and I his son, his heir," he said bitterly. He paused for a long while and looked away again. When he spoke, he voice sounded choked. "He offered her that: 'Everything I have now and in the future is yours and this child who I will proudly call mine.' You don't know how many times, I've read those lines and wondered 'what if?' What if she had accepted his offer? What if I had a father who would willingly let me be his heir even if I wasn't his?"
Anna felt a tear ran down her cheek. She understood now what Hans meant when he said he wanted what Elsa had. He lost an opportunity to have a better future because his mother had given up love in favor of ambition.
He turned back to her slowly. "You might think I only wanted to be his son to gain the throne of Arendelle but it wasn't just that, Anna. I never really had a place in the home I grew up in. I told you before my father had twelve sons before me. I was a spare he didn't need. My brothers didn't care for me either. The fact that my mother was not really of royal blood like their own mothers hurt their opinion of me even further." Anna saw the unshed tears in his eyes and she averted her own gaze to allow him the bit of privacy she knew he needed.
"Papa would have loved you," she said to comfort him. She believed her Papa would too had the circumstances been different for there was no man until she met Kristoff who can compare to him the way he cared and loved her and Elsa.
"I know," Hans said quietly. "Because he did love me."
Anna was astonished. "You knew my Papa?"
Hans hesitated for a moment and when he spoke again he did so haltingly as if he was thinking hard of what he was saying. "He... he regularly visited me and my mother... when I was very young. He was my father's cousin so it wasn't surprising he frequented the Southern Isles court even after he became king."
Anna was surprised but didn't think it unusual. "You spent time with him?"
"He used to take me riding. He would spend hours with me just talking or playing. He read to me books I loved. I remembered he even did the voices for the characters." He paused and a smile lit his face as he seemed to be recalling a pleasant memory. "My favorite is when he used to do this booming voice for this villain Lord—"
"Maledorn," Anna finished for him. "From the Adventures of Flynn Rider."
"So you know?" his smile brightened.
"He used to read that for me and Elsa. That was one of my best memories of him."
"It was mine as well. My own father never did that for me. No one else did." He let out a sad little laugh. "I used to think he was my father."
Anna smiled wistfully, her heart gladdened that somehow her kindhearted Papa had given light to Hans' early life. "How old were you then?" she asked.
"Around four, five years old. But he must have been coming to see us even earlier. It only ended when my mother died when I was six. He wanted to take me in as his ward and bring me to Arendelle. He petitioned my father for it after her funeral."
"Six?" Anna pondered. "I was already alive then and so was Elsa. You were only two years apart. We could have met and lived together." This was incredible! If Hans had become her father's ward they would have been raised in the same castle. Perhaps she would have treated him as an older brother and her lonely childhood could have been so different if had he been around. She had always wanted a brother, especially during the lonely years when Elsa was shut away from her. She even used to beg her parents for another sibling. She did have three little brothers but none survived infancy. It was the more painful moments of their family. Mama used to cry for weeks after each death and Papa would lock himself with Elsa. "Why didn't you go with my Papa when he asked?"
Hans looked away and fell silent.
"Hans?" she asked. "Tell me what happened."
"Your mother objected," he said it so softly Anna barely heard it.
"Objected?" Anna puzzled. She could think of no reason why her Mama, her sweet compassionate Mama would object to bringing an unwanted motherless boy in her home. She, who always made presents for the orphans in Arendelle during the holidays and had taught her the value of sharing with other people would never have rejected a little boy in need. "Why would you think my Mama would object?"
Hans took her hand and stared intently at her with sorrowful eyes. "I don't blame her. I used to when I was a child but I eventually understood. Any other woman in her place would have done the same."
"I don't understand," Anna said.
Hans heaved a sigh. "Anna... don't you see? My mother wasn't just my father's mistress. She was also your father's even after you and Elsa were born."