§ § § - June 30, 2001
Anna-Laura brought most of the other Enstads around about half an hour later and led the whole group down to the sitting room. Kristina was still in seclusion, and Margareta had elected to remain with her mother; but Anna-Kristina and Gabriella were there, along with Gerhard and Liselotta, Rudolf, and Carl Johan. Axel and Cecilia, Leslie had learned, tended to keep to themselves; and Roald, being the youngest of the Enstad children, spent a lot of time out and about with friends of his. But she was well on her way to becoming much better acquainted with Gabriella, and getting to know Carl Johan and both his sons, as well as Anna-Laura.
"Now why exactly are we doing this again?" Rudolf asked, making himself comfortable in a chair. "Should I have the servants bring us popcorn?"
"Not if you value your life," Christian told him in mock threat. "This is to help Leslie get some idea of what's expected of her at Gabriella's coronation. Not, of course, that you're going to see everything you need to know, my Rose, but you'll at least have a beginning to work from." He popped in the first tape and started it, then settled down beside Leslie and leaned back with one arm draped over the back of the loveseat behind her. He was amused: she was sitting up almost straight, one arm braced on the chair arm and an anticipatory look on her face. "Tell me, Leslie, what is it you're so eager to see?"
She turned and grinned smugly at him. "You," she said.
"You've seen me," Christian teased her.
"Not at age four, she hasn't," Anna-Laura said with a smirk. "Look, Leslie, before you miss anything. It's starting now."
The picture was in color, surprisingly; it appeared to have been transferred from an old film. While there was sound, there was no narration. "Who shot that, anyway?" Carl Johan wondered idly.
"I'm not sure," Anna-Laura said. "I know it's footage from the original television broadcast, but I didn't realize it was in color. Now, Leslie, here you see the great entry—this is where Gabriella's coronation will be held. This took place the last day of June, 1962. Our grandfather had passed away ten days before that. Now, here comes the family."
Leslie leaned a little farther forward; Christian's nieces and nephews watched with almost equal interest. From one of the corridors that led to the family living quarters marched the Enstad family in solemn formation: a handsome but stern-looking man and a lovely dark-haired woman, followed in single file by their children. The camera followed the couple as far as the middle of the great hall, then spent about a full minute on each of their offspring in turn. First, of course, came Arnulf, who had then been fourteen, looking as stern and solemn as his father. Behind him was Carl Johan, twelve, a boyish look clinging to him despite the trouble he'd obviously taken to look older and dignified. Both boys wore suits and ties. Next came Anna-Laura, then nine, a pretty, slender girl with long dark hair that had been caught up in a tiara. Leslie gasped softly: she was clutching the hand of four-year-old Christian, decked out in a suit and tie just like his older brothers, trailing behind her staring in awe and confusion at all the people.
"Who's that little brat?" Rudolf asked, straight-faced. Laughter broke out and Christian slung a throw pillow at him.
Leslie barely noticed; her eyes were stuck on the sight of the adorable little boy on the television screen. He had the same glossy dark-brown hair, smooth and straight as it was now, and his hazel eyes carried the same sharply intelligent gleam. Anna-Laura looked back on the way up the middle of the hall and tugged impatiently at Christian's hand, saying something that made the boy scowl at her but follow along. That brought on more laughter from the watchers.
"I don't remember that," Christian said from behind Leslie, having evidently been caught up in the filmed proceedings despite himself.
"I do," Anna-Laura said. "You were lagging behind, and I had to keep telling you to face front and pay attention."
"Aha," Christian said. "That's me, Mr. Incorrigible. One of the things I do recall is trying to get closer to Mother and Father so I could touch that crown. Is that here?"
"It should be," said Carl Johan, "because I remember that as well, and the camera was on us the entire time. More so on Mother and Father than us four, but we stood right behind them as you can see here, and we were very much in the picture."
The four children gathered in a solemn little line atop what looked to be the same three-tiered dais they'd been using earlier today, with their parents standing side by side facing several officials in fussy ties and tails; one held a fat purple pillow upon which rested a large, heavy-looking, gold jewel-studded crown. Gabriella asked, "Is that the one they'll put on my head?"
"Yes, but it's a symbol only," Anna-Laura explained. "The days are long gone when the reigning monarch actually wore it, even to formal functions. It goes back to King Lukas I in the sixteenth century; the previous crown was lost to a raid."
"Raid?" echoed Christian, while Leslie avidly watched the tape, where her husband's much younger self was edging forward, his eyes on the crown and his hand outstretched in an attempt to touch. "What sort of raids went on in the sixteenth century? Unless some descendants of old King Ormsskägg's relatives who remained at home decided they wanted to claim blood ties to the family."
Anna-Laura grabbed the pillow Christian had thrown at Rudolf and shied it right back at him. "There were Irish pirates in those days, and they had a way of ranging quite far afield. There were some very bloody battles off our coasts in the 1500s. King Erik VII took a battleship out there himself, with the first crown on so that everyone knew who he was and whose territory they were invading…and was almost immediately run through with a sword. The pirate who killed him seized the crown and tried to jump back aboard his own ship, but the vessels had drifted apart and he misjudged the distance. He and the crown fell into the sea and never came back to the surface again."
"So…the Eriks again. It seems they have a lot to answer for," Christian remarked with a chuckle, glancing at Leslie and then taking a closer look. "Leslie, my Rose, what on earth do you find so fascinating about this thing?"
"Are you blind, Christian?" Carl Johan asked in laughing disbelief. "She's been riveted to the sight of you from the very beginning."
Leslie reached back and caught Christian's arm, pulling it towards her to grasp his hand in hers, without ever taking her eyes off the television screen. "Christian, you were absolutely adorable."
Christian snorted. "That word again! Keep watching and you'll change your tune quickly enough. Didn't I try to run off the dais somewhere along here?" Just as he spoke, the little boy on the screen bolted out from behind his parents and pounded down the tiers; Anna-Laura lunged out after him and snagged the child by his suit jacket. Everyone laughed, both on the tape and in the room, when Christian struggled and yelled in protest. On the tape, Anna-Laura seized his arms and forcibly pulled him back into place, scolding all the while. At this point the camera, whose operator had apparently been unable to resist focusing on the children's antics, brought the adults into view, and the look of angry disapproval on Arnulf I's face was impossible to miss. Christian's mother took the child in hand and straightened his jacket, spoke to him, then said something to Anna-Laura. After that, young Christian found himself restrained throughout the ceremony by his older sister with her hands planted firmly on his shoulders, and it was plain that he didn't like it the slightest bit. He looked thwarted, confused and greatly annoyed all at once.
"You see him squirming there?" Anna-Laura said. "My arms were exhausted by the time the ceremony was over. Rudolf, your question earlier was dead-on."
"About the brat?" asked Rudolf, grinning. "So I see."
"Incorrigible," Christian confirmed cheerfully, wrapping his arms around Leslie from behind and kissing the side of her head.
"But adorable," Leslie murmured, still entranced at the sight of the little boy who would grow into the man she was so in love with.
Christian sighed good-naturedly. "Adorably incorrigible, then. I was bored with the whole thing, and all I wanted was to go back to my room and play. Did you see that look Father gave me?"
"Mmmm, yes, I did," Leslie said. Her eyes shifted to Christian's mother, who she realized was the source of his good looks. "But your mother seemed forgiving enough. What was her name, Christian?"
"Susanna," Christian said softly, now watching the image of his mother on the screen. "Yes, Mother rarely raised her voice to me, as I recall. You see her there now, reminding my father that he must concentrate on the ceremony." He gave a soft, wistful sigh. "I miss her."
"I know how you feel," Leslie murmured, and they shared a look of total understanding that wasn't lost on the others in the room.
They watched quietly after that, while Christian's parents became King Arnulf I and Queen Susanna, and then the tape ended shortly thereafter and Carl Johan got up to eject it from the machine. Christian and Leslie still sat in silence, both lost in memories and images, seeming closed off in a world of their own.
"Pay attention," Rudolf said loudly, jolting them both. They eyed him, and he grinned broadly. "This was supposed to be a lesson for Aunt Leslie, wasn't it?"
"Of sorts," Christian said, "but we'll have to have some rehearsals. As I mentioned, not everything involved in the coronation is on the tape. One of the things you didn't see is the obeisance everyone must make to the newly crowned monarch—and I mean everyone, from the lowliest servant right up to the monarch's own family. Which is what all of us, even Gabriella's own husband and mother, will have to do." He smiled at Leslie's faintly apprehensive look and added, "It's actually not such a long ceremony, perhaps fifteen minutes altogether, but as I said, the protocol is brutal. One aspect of it was instigated by my father after my annoying little performance in 1962. No one in the immediate attending party is allowed to speak, move from the spot, or touch, either another person or any object."
"No smiling, either," said Carl Johan, changing tapes. "Father fumed for several weeks about how you supposedly turned his coronation into a miniature carnival. He wanted solemn reverence, as befitted a king."
"If he wanted that," Christian said, "he should never have insisted that I be witness to the coronation. He knew perfectly well what I was like."
"He meant to teach you a lesson about proper behavior," Anna-Laura said. "Of course it didn't work, but it never occurred to him that he was dealing with a four-year-old child. To his mind, you were a prince, and you should have known how to act like a prince from the very second you were born. There was very little room for error."
"As I learned while growing up," Christian said a little sourly. "Arnulf claimed he didn't hate me, he simply didn't know how to handle me. I'm not completely convinced."
Leslie looked up at him and wondered what sort of mood he was headed for: it was plain he still hadn't reconciled everything. I'm one to talk, she thought, since I still have an attitude about Michael Hamilton. I guess there are some things you just have to learn to live with…I know that's what Father would tell me. She patted Christian's knee, and he smiled at her.
Carl Johan started the second tape and retreated to his chair, and their attention went back to the TV set. Leslie recognized this one; it had taken place on December 30, 1995, just over six months before she and Christian had first met. She and her friends had had a get-together at Camille's house to watch the broadcast, since Camille and especially Tabitha enjoyed following the doings of royalty.
Arnulf II looked little different from the way she'd remembered him in the hospital and on other TV appearances; for that matter, all four of Arnulf I and Susanna's children looked essentially as they did now, with somewhat less gray in Arnulf II's hair and none at all in Carl Johan's. As in the 1962 tape, the family emerged from one of the corridors off the great entry, this time followed by their offspring and spouses in the cases of the three oldest. Arnulf and Kristina had Anna-Kristina, Gabriella and Margareta behind them; Carl Johan, walking with Amalia, was followed by Gerhard and Rudolf; and Anna-Laura came along with Cecilia and Roald in her wake. For the most part, unlike their parents, the children looked different, to varying degrees; Gerhard and Anna-Kristina, the two oldest at ages 24 and 23 respectively as of the date of the coronation, looked pretty much as they did now. However, this wasn't true of the other five. Gabriella at 21, Rudolf at 20 and Margareta at 19 looked like college students; and the two youngest, seventeen-year-old Cecilia and fifteen-year-old Roald, still had the last traces of childhood about them.
Behind Cecilia and Roald came Christian, walking alone, expressionless and with a generally solemn mien about him. He wore another royal dress uniform, this one white, giving startling contrast to his dark hair. Leslie, watching him as avidly as she had in the earlier tape, wondered what he must have been thinking. It made her absurdly jealous to realize that, since he hadn't then known she existed, he wouldn't have had his mind on her, as she remembered him telling her he had during Gerhard's wedding. The family proceeded to the dais and stood in a quiet semicircle around Arnulf and Kristina, with Christian ending up at the extreme left-hand edge of the picture. Like the others, he stood in solemn, respectful silence, hands at his sides, eyes trained on the proceedings without ever moving. Leslie remembered watching this broadcast at Camille's house and felt odd to realize that all their attention had been on Arnulf and Kristina; the girls had barely even noticed Christian at all. He'd still been in those halcyon days before he fell in love with Leslie and then discovered himself wedlocked to Marina, and he'd led such a low-key existence that he managed to fade quietly into the background despite his attractiveness.
"What a contrast to 1962, hmm?" Christian murmured to her, amused.
"Completely," Leslie agreed a little absently, still trying to think whether she had taken any kind of notice of him at all in 1995. She half sensed Christian turn to study her, but she was busy racking her memory and didn't really notice. Now that she thought about it, to her disbelief, the only comment she could recall anyone making about Christian was when Myeko had asked who the "hot cutie" was at the left of the screen; Tabitha had told them, "Oh, that's Prince Christian. You never hear anything about him, actually; it's not as if he goes around looking for the spotlight. How odd, I guess he's still single."
"How old is he?" Maureen had asked.
"Thirty-seven," Tabitha had said.
At which point Camille had nudged Leslie and said, "Hey, only seven years older than we are. If you're ever gonna get back into the dating game, Leslie, you could try for that prince…especially before Myeko really gets the hots for him." They'd all laughed, but Leslie could no longer remember what she'd said in response to Camille's remark.
"Earth to Leslie," Christian whispered then, and she blinked and looked curiously at him. "What are you thinking? You looked so far away there."
"I was trying to remember when my friends and I were watching this on TV," she said. "Remember I mentioned we saw you on this broadcast, the first morning after you arrived to set up the island website?"
"Ah, yes, you did," Christian recalled. "You said I looked familiar because of this." His expression grew very curious. "What did you think of me then?"
"About what you thought of me," Leslie teased him.
Christian's expression went a touch befuddled. "But I didn't even know you when this happened…how could I have been thinking of you—?" Then he got it and gave her a dirty look. "Leslie Susan Enstad…"
She giggled and relented. "Well, obviously, we noticed you onscreen. It's only that you were so low-profile back then, and only Tabitha knew anything at all about you. Myeko called you a 'hot cutie', and Camille thought I should go after you."
"Instead I came after you," Christian teased softly, and she grinned. "Oh, you'd better look at this. There's more of this ceremony on tape than there was of my father's. This is where we had to bow in respect to the new king and queen. We were all of equal rank, of course, so it was done in reverse order of age, which means I go first. Watch."
Leslie returned her attention to the tape and gazed on as the royal family, save for Arnulf and Kristina, stepped down from the dais and lined up single file at its foot, with Christian in the lead. Something strange coiled through her when he moved up to the step just below his brother and sister-in-law, paused, then dropped gracefully to one knee and lowered his head. He waited for Arnulf's acknowledgment, then smoothly arose and stepped aside for Anna-Laura and her two children to make their obeisance simultaneously. She shuddered a little in Christian's arms, and again he looked at her curiously. "What's wrong, my Rose?"
"It's just weird to see you pay that sort of respect…I mean, since you're a prince and should be getting it…oh, I don't know how to explain it." She sighed.
Christian chuckled almost inaudibly and murmured, "I think I understand. Believe me, it was no stranger to you to see me do that than it was for me to actually do it, especially considering that Arnulf had long since taken over my father's attempts to control my life and I was feeling particularly rebellious at that point. Unfortunately, I was no longer four years old, and it wouldn't have looked very cute."
"Really? Is that what you were thinking?" Leslie wondered, turning back to him again. "It never showed on your face."
"Then I succeeded in hiding it," Christian said, shrugging. "It was something I learned to do over the years when necessary, in addition to the training I got as I was growing up. No private family affairs to be revealed in public. Watch, Leslie—you need to see how the curtsying is done, for you'll have to do that when Gabriella is crowned."
Leslie watched while Carl Johan, Gerhard and Rudolf performed the same kneel-and-bow that Christian had, and Amalia sank nearly to the floor in a deep curtsy. "Ow," she mumbled and winced. "You men have it a lot easier."
"Can't all women curtsy that way?" Christian wondered.
"Not a born klutz like me," Leslie retorted.
Christian grinned. "We'll teach you how," he said. "We have about ten days in which to turn you into Eliza Doolittle, proper lady. Don't give me that look—I saw that film too, Leslie Enstad." They chuckled together and relaxed into silence, watching as Arnulf and Kristina's three daughters performed their curtsies and moved aside.
The tape faded to black about thirty seconds later, in the midst of assorted dignitaries paying their respects in various and sundry, less formal ways. Carl Johan got up to rewind the tape. "Leslie," he said mischievously to his sister-in-law, "since you were so enthralled by the sight of Christian in these, I'll make copies of them to one tape and send it home with you." He pretended to cringe. "Someone hide the swords—I think Christian is considering running me through."
"Just like old King Erik the forty-first, or whichever one of them lost the crown," said Christian with a smirk. Leslie laughed.
"There have been only thirteen kings named Erik," Anna-Laura said with prim and perhaps somewhat exaggerated dignity, "the last of whom sired our grandfather, King Lukas VI. Have some respect, Christian Carl Tobias. You wouldn't be here if it weren't for them." These words made Christian's expression change momentarily, contort into something that scared Leslie for a moment, before he visibly controlled himself.
"Really?" was all he said, but the word came out tightly. His tone stilled his brother and sister; his nephews and nieces looked on without comprehension. Leslie shifted around on the loveseat and slid both arms around him in an instinctively protective gesture.
Anna-Laura realized then what she had said and sighed. "Christian, none of us would be here, either," she reminded him gently. "Stop, you're frightening Leslie again."
"What's wrong?" asked Anna-Kristina.
"It's a long story," Christian said. "If you ask your aunt or uncle, they may be inclined to tell you. For now, I think Leslie and I need to be alone. We'll see you at dinner. Come on, my Rose, let's go." He didn't give Leslie a chance to react in any way, simply rose, took her hand in his and led her out of the room, leaving behind a heavy silence.
On the landing halfway up the staircase to the second floor, Leslie stopped him and moved around till she was directly in front of him and he had to meet her gaze. "Christian, my darling," she said gently, "don't blame your sister for what she said. It was a perfectly natural thing to say. You know she didn't mean it the way it seemed."
Christian let out a sigh so deep it seemed to empty his entire body, and he hung his head. "I know, my darling, and I'll apologize to her later. But it ran through my mind like a wildfire that it's not Erik XIII to be blamed for my existence, or Lukas VI…it's Arnulf I."
"Blamed?" Leslie echoed and stared at him. Out of the blue, an honest anger sprang to life within her. "I would have said 'credit', Christian Enstad, not 'blame'. And if I ever hear anything else like that come out of your mouth, you're going to regret it—I promise you that much. I hope you're hearing me loud and clear." She turned her back on him and marched on up the stairway.
Christian gaped after her, momentarily too stunned to move; then he leaped back to life and chased her, seizing her arm and stopping her in her tracks. "What was that for?" he demanded, sounding more astonished than upset.
"That was for your persistent self-pity," Leslie said, still angry. "I'm telling you one more time, Christian, stop it. I've reached my limit of hearing how you were some damned mistake. When is it going to get through your head that you're not?" She yanked out of his grasp and stalked away.
Behind her Christian cursed in jordiska. "Leslie, for God's sake, will you stop? Or have you decided you've had your fill of me, then?"
She did stop then and turn to stare at him. "Christian, if you put on a poor-me act, you're really going to see my temper short-circuit." She caught herself. "But if you want the truth, I don't think I have the right to give you the blasting you probably have coming to you, because I'm still conflicted about Michael Hamilton. Every time I'm on the edge of telling you to stop whining about being an unwanted child, I remember my own self-pity about him destroying my life, and that shuts me up. I can't make you see the truth, because I don't seem to be capable of seeing it myself." Leslie half turned away and hung her head, driving both hands through her hair in a weary gesture. "We make some pair, don't we."
"Michael may have destroyed your life," Christian said, surprisingly gently, "but you seem to be overlooking something just as I am. You built a new life out of the ashes of the old one, from the moment Mr. Roarke took you in."
Leslie stilled completely, replaying his last sentence over and over in her head. Then, very slowly, she turned to see Christian still standing some twenty feet away from her down the corridor, watching her soberly but with a quiet warmth in his eyes, and suddenly felt cold without him beside her. At the same time, a strange new light began to dawn in the depths of her mind, in that corner that had always harbored her lingering resentment of Michael, and it made her lower jaw slowly drift downward and her eyes go wide with some ultimate understanding. At last she focused on her husband and breathed in a shaky, wonder-filled voice, "Christian, you're a genius."
His contagious grin broke out then, and he relaxed his stance. "Is that so? Maybe you had better quantify that statement, since if I were truly such a genius, I should have come up with that idea a very long time ago."
"Better late than never?" Leslie suggested, grinning back. That drew a laugh from him, and they both started for each other at once, meeting halfway with a relieved hug. "I think you did something very similar, you know that? Whatever your parents, especially your father, may have planted in your head about your existence being unplanned, you never let it break your spirit. You've said repeatedly that you were rebellious and independent, with a mind of your own. Maybe all the strife Sire and Arnulf put you through made you even stronger…more determined to show them how wrong they were about you."
"I think you might be right," Christian mused, considering her words. "The more they pushed, the harder I fought. Perhaps my whole life has been a constant shout of 'so there!' at the two of them." She laughed, bringing out his grin again. "You were right, my Leslie Rose, we make some pair. The world had better watch out for us." She nodded, and he kissed her.