Reima Vitalis
kind hearts and coronets
The spring morning had done nothing to improve the mood at Cerulean Gate Palace. Storm clouds hung low over New Sterandel, and the Palace seemed determined to treat meteorology as prophecy.
Reima Vitalis had escaped to the gardens in the reasonable belief that no one with sense would venture out while rain threatened. She hated the gardens at Cerulean Gate. They were too fussy by half: clipped hedges, obedient flowerbeds, fountains arranged with bureaucratic precision. They reminded her of Foxfield Park, where she had spent much of her childhood under the strict and watchful eyes of her uncle Thaddeus Vitalis, her aunt Petra, and the imperious Grandmother Vitalis. She had never taken to that kind of landscaping. There was something about the forced grandeur of it, the Vitalis delight in proving that climate and soil could be bullied into submission, that left her cold. Foxfield itself she preferred in every other respect; but if anyone had asked her which gardens were superior, she would have said Herevan Hold without hesitation.
Why, then, had Natasi chosen the same formal style for the seat of her Heirate? Had she chosen it at all? Perhaps some industrious courtier had made the decision for her while she was occupied with real matters. Perhaps Natasi had noticed and not cared enough to change it.
Why am I thinking about this at all? Reima demanded of herself. This is idiotic.
But it was easier than thinking about Wedge.
After the overheard conversation -- her relations indelicate, her betrothed rude, and both behaving exactly as badly as they had the capacity to do -- Reima had asked him to leave Cerulean Gate. It had been the only thing to do, she told herself. He could not remain under Natasi's roof after what he had heard and what he had said. Better that he go elsewhere, calm down, think.
Part of her knew perfectly well that was a lie.
The same part that still burned at the thought that he had entertained flying for the Galactic Empire out of spite after the Alliance humiliated him. The same part that smarted at his brushing off the interview she had rather sheepishly asked her mother to arrange, hoping he might be persuaded to turn his talent and restless energy to something useful in the Renascent Heirate. The same part that lay awake wondering where he really was, whether he was with her even when he was beside her in bed, and especially when he wasn't. Wedge had been absent in body sometimes, and in attention often. The truth was uglier and simpler: Reima Vitalis had spent the better part of six months watching the relationship wither, too proud to mend it, too angry to forgive it, and too frightened to be the one who finally called a time of death.
The difficulty was that knowing it didn't stop the want or the love. It simply transformed them, as if by magic, into frustration and grief.
Since the row, the Palace had behaved as though normality were a constitutional obligation. The servants affected the hereditary deafness of any good courtier. George occasionally looked smug -- though that, Reima conceded, might simply have been the Fortan genetics asserting themselves. He had disliked Wedge from the beginning because Wedge was not one of their sort. Reima had tried to tell herself that George meant something elevated by that: that Wedge would not understand the obligations of royal life, the scrutiny, the burden of being the focal point of national attention. She suspected the truth was baser.
Jealousy, perhaps. Reima and George had always shared the reflexive intimacy that came of being, for so long, their own only immediate family. Marriage would reorder that. Children would reorder it further. That was simply life. Siblings were meant to survive such things. At least, she had always assumed so. George, of all people, ought to have understood dynastic reality. Yet she had never felt from him the same resignation she had long since made with it herself.
Whatever the reason, the Palace's determined normality had altered over the last two days. Now, when Reima entered a room, conversation thinned or stopped altogether. It was the sort of silence that suggested either that they had been speaking of her or that they no longer knew how to do so. Sooner or later someone would ask after her next public engagement, as if that might restore the room to something useful.
She found it tiresome.
Even worse, she found it frightening.
So she had retreated to the gardens, trusting that the threat of a cold spring rain would keep sensible people indoors and, for a little while, spare her the performance of being perfectly all right.
Reima Vitalis had escaped to the gardens in the reasonable belief that no one with sense would venture out while rain threatened. She hated the gardens at Cerulean Gate. They were too fussy by half: clipped hedges, obedient flowerbeds, fountains arranged with bureaucratic precision. They reminded her of Foxfield Park, where she had spent much of her childhood under the strict and watchful eyes of her uncle Thaddeus Vitalis, her aunt Petra, and the imperious Grandmother Vitalis. She had never taken to that kind of landscaping. There was something about the forced grandeur of it, the Vitalis delight in proving that climate and soil could be bullied into submission, that left her cold. Foxfield itself she preferred in every other respect; but if anyone had asked her which gardens were superior, she would have said Herevan Hold without hesitation.
Why, then, had Natasi chosen the same formal style for the seat of her Heirate? Had she chosen it at all? Perhaps some industrious courtier had made the decision for her while she was occupied with real matters. Perhaps Natasi had noticed and not cared enough to change it.
Why am I thinking about this at all? Reima demanded of herself. This is idiotic.
But it was easier than thinking about Wedge.
After the overheard conversation -- her relations indelicate, her betrothed rude, and both behaving exactly as badly as they had the capacity to do -- Reima had asked him to leave Cerulean Gate. It had been the only thing to do, she told herself. He could not remain under Natasi's roof after what he had heard and what he had said. Better that he go elsewhere, calm down, think.
Part of her knew perfectly well that was a lie.
The same part that still burned at the thought that he had entertained flying for the Galactic Empire out of spite after the Alliance humiliated him. The same part that smarted at his brushing off the interview she had rather sheepishly asked her mother to arrange, hoping he might be persuaded to turn his talent and restless energy to something useful in the Renascent Heirate. The same part that lay awake wondering where he really was, whether he was with her even when he was beside her in bed, and especially when he wasn't. Wedge had been absent in body sometimes, and in attention often. The truth was uglier and simpler: Reima Vitalis had spent the better part of six months watching the relationship wither, too proud to mend it, too angry to forgive it, and too frightened to be the one who finally called a time of death.
The difficulty was that knowing it didn't stop the want or the love. It simply transformed them, as if by magic, into frustration and grief.
Since the row, the Palace had behaved as though normality were a constitutional obligation. The servants affected the hereditary deafness of any good courtier. George occasionally looked smug -- though that, Reima conceded, might simply have been the Fortan genetics asserting themselves. He had disliked Wedge from the beginning because Wedge was not one of their sort. Reima had tried to tell herself that George meant something elevated by that: that Wedge would not understand the obligations of royal life, the scrutiny, the burden of being the focal point of national attention. She suspected the truth was baser.
Jealousy, perhaps. Reima and George had always shared the reflexive intimacy that came of being, for so long, their own only immediate family. Marriage would reorder that. Children would reorder it further. That was simply life. Siblings were meant to survive such things. At least, she had always assumed so. George, of all people, ought to have understood dynastic reality. Yet she had never felt from him the same resignation she had long since made with it herself.
Whatever the reason, the Palace's determined normality had altered over the last two days. Now, when Reima entered a room, conversation thinned or stopped altogether. It was the sort of silence that suggested either that they had been speaking of her or that they no longer knew how to do so. Sooner or later someone would ask after her next public engagement, as if that might restore the room to something useful.
She found it tiresome.
Even worse, she found it frightening.
So she had retreated to the gardens, trusting that the threat of a cold spring rain would keep sensible people indoors and, for a little while, spare her the performance of being perfectly all right.
