§ § § -- June 26, 2001

This time, when they came to a hallway about midway back in the direction of the great entry hall, he veered off into it and ran its length, emerging into a second hallway that, like the first, was lined with doors. "How many rooms does this place have, anyway?" Leslie asked when he paused in the intersection of the two corridors, glancing back and forth. "I think you could easily house the entire population of Sundborg in here."

Christian laughed again. "I've had that thought on occasion myself. If I have my history correct, there are at least two hundred fifty rooms in this castle. Some very distant ancestor of mine obviously believed that bigger is better. Wait, now I remember. Come this way." And once more they were off and running.

Not till they had reached the last door on the left of the long hallway did he stop; the door here, installed nearly in the corner of the end of the corridor, plainly led to some very large room. The door beside it was a good thirty feet away. "My favorite room in this entire bloated edifice," Christian said and pressed down on the handle, throwing it open and bringing Leslie inside. "Look."

Leslie drew in a sharp, stunned breath. This room had mostly been left as it must have originally been built, with its stone walls, floor and ceiling; only the outer wall had been altered, and it was built entirely of enormous sheets of reinforced glass. It encompassed two stories; the floor below them was clearly an atrium, filled as it was with plants, including a few small trees. Christian and Leslie, standing on the second floor, were on a ten-foot-wide balcony that ran all the way around the room's perimeter; on the far side, at the glass wall, there were a few overstuffed chairs placed at irregular intervals, with small tables next to some. The view beyond the windows was spectacular: nothing but ocean and open sky as far as the eye could see. Leslie leaned over the railing a bit, gaping entranced at the sight, glancing once at the plants in the open space below and then staring once more at the sea as if unable to control herself. Then she turned to Christian. "This is where you came to watch storms, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes, this is it," Christian said, smiling reminiscently. "Come around here to the far side so you can see this properly." He took her hand and escorted her along the balcony, bringing her far enough around so that they stood just at the middle of the expanse of glass. From this vantage point they could see waves breaking over massive boulders at the foot of the sheer cliff atop which the castle was built, and at the left could be seen some more of the grounds on a curving promontory, with an eight-foot retaining wall of stone bordering it. Leslie moved into Christian's embrace and slid her arms around him, her eyes never leaving the scene before them.

"I used to sit in that chair in the far corner there," Christian said softly, like Leslie gazing at the vast ocean vista. "That way, all I saw was sea and sky…and some of the most beautiful and violent weather the North Sea can conjure up. There was nothing to rival it for sheer sensory stimulation…not, at least, until the first time I made love to you." Leslie smiled at that, warming at the sensation of the kiss he pressed atop her head; and for some time they stood staring, unwilling to tear themselves away.

In time Christian heaved a sigh of reluctance and squeezed Leslie. "As much as I wish we could, we can't stand here all day. If possible, though, I want you to see this at night: the stars are indescribable. For some time I recall badgering my parents to let me move my bedroom in here." He grinned when she laughed.

"I can see why," Leslie admitted. "It's simply amazing—more than I was able to imagine it when you first mentioned it. Okay, so what else did you want to show me?"

"Oh yes, that's right. This is a bit of whimsy," Christian told her as they strolled back around the balcony to the door. "My father was one for hosting lavish parties whenever we had visiting dignitaries. I was forbidden to put in appearances at any of them until after I reached the age of thirteen; supposedly adolescence would automatically impart a special brand of maturity on me." He rolled his eyes at that idea, making Leslie laugh again. "But until then, I was more curious than all of Anna-Kristina's cats put together. I mean…who were all these people, anyway? What was so wonderful about them that they merited all this celebrating and fancy formality? I decided at a very young age that I wanted to find out for myself. Actually, my grandfather planted the idea in my head. I must have been around three years old—one of the two or three snapshot recollections I have of him. He was supposed to meet some ambassador or other, from where, I don't know. My still-life memory is of standing at the balcony railing in the entry, with Grandfather crouching behind me to help protect me, pointing out that dignitary sitting in the hallway below, waiting for him."

Leslie gave him a merry look. "You were spying, the two of you, weren't you!"

"Exactly so!" Christian said cheerfully, joining in her laughter. "And for the next ten years, I took every chance I could to go on doing that. I'd sneak onto that balcony…just like this, actually." They had reached the end of the second-floor hallway, which opened onto a balcony that ran the length of the great entry, and now Christian dropped into a crouch of his own and duck-walked to the ornate iron railing. Leslie watched, entranced by his playacting, again falling helplessly in love with him. "You see here," he said, "where the spokes are set so close together, and with all this ridiculous scrolling ironwork, this thing is more of a low wall than a railing, really. It was very easy for me to hide back here and squint through some tiny space between wrought-iron leaves and get a good look at all the lofty personalities waiting for my father's leisure, or the fussy formal balls that were held here. This was the only place in the castle big enough for those; for all the rooms we have, there's no proper ballroom." Still crouching, he turned to her with bright eyes and beckoned at her. "Come and see for yourself…but don't let anyone know you're up here, remember."

"Is there someone down there?" Leslie asked in a whisper, stealing out onto the balcony beside him and squatting there. Bracing herself with her palms, she peered with one eye between slender bars and intertwining iron vines, surprised to realize she could get a good look at the rows of chairs in the hallway below. "Did you ever get caught?"

"Never," Christian murmured smugly, catching her attention and taking in her skeptical expression. "Truly, I never did. Perhaps some servants might have seen me here, but I was a prince…they had no place to say anything, and I knew it." He shot a glance back down the hallway they'd just traversed, then tipped in toward her and kissed her until they both forgot where they were.

"You troublemaker, you," Leslie whispered dreamily when he pulled back, and he smirked. "I love you all the more, Christian, do you know that? Just seeing this place where you went through so much…watching you bring your memories to life for me…do you realize what that does to me? I feel as if I have a window on your childhood somehow."

"I expect you to return the favor eventually," Christian reminded her softly, planting one more kiss on her lips before casually glancing at his watch. "There are other places, but these were the most important, at least to me. Before Anna-Laura sends every servant in the castle after us, we'd better go to the sitting room."

Rising, they strolled back into the hallway again and then turned down the stairwell that Christian had initially brought her up; from here, on the first floor, they turned to their left and walked down the corridor a short distance to the second door on their right. Sure enough, when Christian ushered Leslie in, Carl Johan and Anna-Laura were there, along with his son Rudolf, her son Roald, and Arnulf's daughter Margareta. "Where have you two been all this time?" Anna-Laura scolded. "We expected to find you here when we came back down, and we started to think you got lost."

Christian eyed her and said, "What, I'm not allowed to show Leslie some of the scenes of my childhood, then? Listen, just whose birthday is this, anyway? I always heard that the birthday person can do whatever he or she likes. Why the fuss, and incidentally, where are Cecilia and Axel and Kristina?"

"Kristina's gone to the hospital," Carl Johan said as Christian and Leslie sat down. "Cecilia has a doctor's appointment, and Axel went with her. They said they would try to get back early enough to get in on our little birthday celebration here." He called out something in jordiska, and the door to some adjacent room opened and two servants wheeled in an ornate silver cart bearing a two-tiered cake.

"I hope the ice cream didn't melt," Roald said with a grin at his uncle. He was a surprisingly handsome young devil, not so unlike Christian in looks, but sporting a faddish two-day stubble. "We bought enough for all the servants to have some in honor of your birthday, Uncle Christian…so if it did melt, you may have to reimburse us."

"In your dreams, as Leslie would say," Christian retorted, and everyone laughed, including the servants. "We're going to spoil our dinner, I should think."

Margareta made a face. "It's only going to be cabbage and pork," she said disgustedly. "I'd far rather have cake. Are you so responsible now, Uncle Christian? We don't even know Aunt Leslie…only Anna-Kristina had the chance to really get to know her at all. Did you do something to him, then?" This last, Margareta aimed at Leslie.

Leslie snickered. "I'll never tell." They all laughed again, and the servants doled out cake and bowls of ice cream, then departed, leaving the family enjoying the desserts and talking about inconsequentials for a while. Then, after one of the servants had come back to collect the plates and bowls, Anna-Laura got an anticipatory look about her and arose, going to a sideboard between two windows. Only now did Christian and Leslie realize that sitting atop this was a large, squarish, almost flat package wrapped in expensive-looking iridescent foil paper. Anna-Laura brought it to Christian and deposited it in his lap.

"Herregud," said Christian in one of his favorite expressions, which he had earlier told Leslie was a direct import from Swedish and meant "oh my God"; he let out an exaggerated grunt of effort when he lifted it to find a place to start removing the wrapping. "Don't tell me. You gave me a set of bricks for my birthday."

"Perfectly matched, yes," Carl Johan said with a wicked look at Anna-Laura. "In seriousness, I haven't really seen these things, but it's my understanding that Anna-Laura did a very thorough job."

"She should have," Margareta said with a smirk. "She had help from me, Briella, Anna-Kristina and Cecilia. We scoured the entire castle for all these things."

Christian stared at her, about to rip some paper off the package. "What under the sun can this thing possibly be, anyway? Are you sending us home with some of the furniture that's been stored on the third floor since King Ormsskägg built this place?"

"You know perfectly well that was Ormssvärd, Christian Carl Tobias," snapped Anna-Laura in exasperation, but even she succumbed to the others' laughter. "And shame on you for not translating for poor Leslie."

"You're going to have to teach me jordiska," Leslie said, giving Christian a playful slap on the thigh. "What's the big joke?"

"That was our original ancestor…he was born a common Viking," Christian told her, "but when he came here with the first band of settlers, he was the one who led the revolt from the ship off which they supposedly all jumped to swim here. As a result, he was set up as Lilla Jordsö's very first king, and through the last nine hundred years or so, all of us in the royal family have descended from him. His name, Ormssvärd, means 'snake's sword' in English…but I constantly forget and call him Ormsskägg, which means 'snake's beard'."

"Christian Enstad, you disrespectful rat, you!" Leslie exclaimed only half teasingly, wilting against him with laughter. "Are you actually serious?"

"He is serious, Leslie, believe it or not," Carl Johan said, grinning. "Except that I don't think he forgets—he simply likes to drive Anna-Laura crazy, since she's quite the student of history. You must have known that Christian can be a relentless tease."

"Oh, I've been learning," Leslie said with a mischievous look at her husband, who was watching her with a huge amused grin, "and by the way, my love, you'd better get started opening that or else I'll do it for you."

"You already had your birthday for the year," Christian shot back, still grinning. "This is mine. Back down." Leslie stuck out her tongue at him and he retaliated with a noisy kiss on her lips. "Tell you what, you can hold the wrapping paper." He ripped away a big swath of it and dropped it into her lap, and Leslie playfully batted the side of his head with it, eliciting a laugh from him, while he went on tearing paper off his gift. After a few seconds he found himself staring down at two large, thick scrapbooks. "Va' är dehär?" he asked in disbelief, apparently forgetting himself and reverting to jordiska.

"What that is," Anna-Laura said, "is a record of your entire life, Christian, through photographs, newspaper and magazine articles, and assorted bits of your schoolwork and artwork. It begins with announcements of Mother's pregnancy with you and ends, at least for now, with your wedding to Leslie."

Christian stared at her while Leslie, unable to resist, opened the cover of the top book and gazed in fascination at a small collection of newspaper and magazine clippings on the first page, in several languages. "Wow," she breathed, "this is amazing."

"What should I say?" Christian asked, sounding bewildered.

"You should say thank you," Margareta said, pretending affrontery. "We worked very hard on this, Uncle Christian, and that's the polite thing to do."

"Thank you, then," Christian said obediently, but his gaze had already strayed to his wife, who had by now pulled the book into her own lap and was avidly reading the clippings that were in English. Wryly he looked at his brother. "You were right, Carl Johan…I think Leslie will get far more out of this than I will."

"As I figured," Carl Johan said cheerfully. "Those are for you two to take back with you to Fantasy Island and go through at your leisure. Have you given Leslie the grand tour yet, then? I understand you got off to a good start."

"Yes, well…" Christian shrugged. "It would take a full week to show her every room in this place, and the whole idea makes me sleepy. Leslie, my Rose, do you think you can tear yourself away from that for now? You can always look at them on the trip home, you know. Rudolf, if you don't mind, I'd like to borrow your car and take her on a sightseeing tour of something besides this pile of rocks we call home."

"That's fine, if you don't mind dropping me off in the city," Rudolf said. "I promised Mother that Liljan and I would attend that charity function she has tonight." He looked at Leslie and explained with an apologetic smile, "That is, my girlfriend, Liliana. Liljan is her nickname. My mother oversees a children's charity in Sundborg, and Liljan also works for it, which is how I met her."

Leslie smiled. "Good luck to both of you," she said, "and give your mother mine and Christian's greetings too." Rudolf bobbed his head with acknowledgement, and she turned to Christian. "So where were you planning to take me?"

"I'm going to show you all the places you failed to see when you came here eight years ago," Christian said. "I still can't believe I didn't meet you then—if you had stayed longer, perhaps I would have, and I could have steered clear of the whole mess with Marina. Shame on you for skipping out before you'd properly seen anything, Leslie Enstad…we're going to correct that oversight right now." He dropped a kiss on her lips. "Any time you're ready, Rudolf."