Tell a Braver Story

I like and follow from @thewatercolours

[schmergo]

I was talking to my husband the other day and, as a random example of a boring topic that nobody at a party would want to hear about, I happened to come up with, “The history of wheelbarrows.”

But then my husband and I got curious and decided to look up the history of wheelbarrows, and we both thought it was surprisingly interesting.

The very next day, we were visiting a thrift store with family and my sister spotted a toy wheelbarrow for her son, and my husband said, “Did you know that Jesus was older than wheelbarrows? They weren’t invented until around 100 CE.”

This is why curious people are my favorite type of people. No topic is really that boring when you look into it. And everything is more interesting when you talk about it with someone you love.

[linecoveredinjellyfish]

i am some sort of fey creature and my cat is the human who i have arbitrarily decided is my favorite human.

[linecoveredinjellyfish]

i live, to him, an unfathomably long life

i have access to powers and locations that he cannot access independently; he needs my help to navigate the world i've brought him to

i simply found him outside and abducted him one day

there are many cats in the world, but this one is the best and my most favorite. why? because he was available to abduct that morning and for very little other reason.

i have a much greater understanding of this world than him, but he has unshakable confidence in his ability to figure it out and i find that really cute

the power dynamic is fundamentally unbalanced, but i let him have a little audacity. a little combativeness and sass. as a treat.

some humans are needlessly cruel to cats or take them in for a short time before neglecting or abandoning them. but i have chosen to love and guard this one with my life. because i think he's neat.

he is very well-treated and has pretty much everything he could possibly want or need, but he is my prisoner.

[kedreeva]

You feed him food found nowhere in nature, but that tastes reminiscent of things he could eat- birds and mammals.

You could give him divine treats at any time that taste so much better than food it might drive him a little mad wanting more. You do not give them to him on any schedule he can discern.

You can lay a dry powder on the ground which causes him to lose his mind a little and behave differently for a short time should he inhale any of it. Sometimes this is inside of his entertainment for the day, and he becomes your entertainment.

You create illusions on flat surfaces that look like prey or other things, illusions that move and sound like they are real and yet when he touches them he finds only cold, flat walls.

You give him prey he cannot eat, prey that are bright colors and make strange sounds and may look nothing like real prey and yet he is enticed to chase and kill, especially the small, uncatchable red dot.

You sleep in a nest of impossibly soft material, and allow him to share this space to sleep beside you, and even to sleep there when you are gone.

Sometimes you disappear and he can find no way to follow or escape in your absence. You create and destroy openings in solid walls at your convenience.

You speak a language he cannot understand, and sometimes you say garbled words in the language of his children, and so he speaks back to you like a mother does a child in the hopes you will understand him and sometimes you seem to.

[decadent-trans-girl]

'why is so much politically-focused genre fiction centred on monarchies' many reasons, but one which I think deserves attention: monarchy is an obvious way of tying together the dysfunctions of the domestic to those of the state

[gracewight]

💯💯💯

“Trauma decontextualized in a person looks like personality. Trauma decontextualized in a family looks like family traits. Trauma decontextualized in people looks like culture.”

—Resmaa Menakem

[siena-sevenwits]

As I always like to say, it’s our common humanity writ terrifyingly large - every choice has enormous stakes, yet the fascination is the intimate smallness of the human heart.

[valend]

Yahhh I have to build Rome. Yup it’s due tomorrow.. noo I haven’t started yet haha is that bad?

[salty-inc]

Just something I really want to share on here because it’s important.

[salty-inc]

[adhdandcomics]

this is really important to remember, even if you said something stupid and don’t feel like repeating it- it can still feel isolating to folks with hearing and auditory processing problems!

[therainbowgorilla]

I’ve got APD and this is the absolute worst thing! I promise I’m trying to hear you, my brain just isn’t working with me! Just try rewording it, say it but in different words and my brain might get it then!

[siena-sevenwits]

Maybe I just had a really bad week, and wasn’t actually sick of Antarctic exploration.

[peatbogpirate]

Not sure if I ever posted this here! Huss Expressions inspired by quotes from his diary (exclamation marks verbatim!!!!!!)

[peatbogpirate]

The crazy thing about this comic is that I drew it long before I’d read Hussey’s expedition diary where he routinely says “Hip hip hooray!” /“Superb!!!” / “Wow-wow!!!” / “Why worry?” and the like. He just gave that Vibe in later interviews

[peatbogpirate]

Endurance crew + dogs in South (1919) (check alt text for specific crew members!)

[bedes-silliest-soldier]

Every BBC Historical Farm Series:

Alex, cuddling a lamb: “this is what farming is all about, you need to be connected to the land, it can be hard work but it’s worth it, it was how we lived for thousands of years…

Peter, knee deep in coal: “this is the orphan mangling machine — I need to be very careful as I shovel coal into it for the next 15 hours, but orphan mangling was such an important part of the British economy back then”

Ruth, vibrating with excitement: “women’s labor went unacknowledged but it was absolutely essential to running every household and business and nothing would have been able to run without it. Today we’re going to make strawberry jam, it’s going to be quite nice :) and it made up 2/3s of the actual monetary income of households in this period, while farming was for subsistence”

Professor Ronald Hutton, materializing out of thin air: “it’s spring, which means in this part of England — East Middle Shirelandiawalhamton — we have to tie sausages to our fingers and dance through the streets singing ‘tra-lee-la-lee-lay!’ Historically, this practice was accompanied by heavy drinking, and though it was banned by the Puritans, it never really went away.”

[vintage-ukraine]

Taras Shevchenko and Ira Aldridge by Heorhiy Melikhov, 1963

Famous Ukrainian poet and artist Taras Shevchenko befriended the African-American Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge, while the latter was on tour to the Russian Empire in 1858. Shevchenko did his portrait in pastel. It is recounted that the two men got along very well. While posing for the portrait, Aldridge sang African-American songs to Shevchenko and in return, the artist taught him Ukrainian songs. 

[nastywizard]

The portrait in question: 

Portrait of Ira Aldridge by Taras Shevchenko, 1858. Pastel on paper.

[siena-sevenwits]

Whoops. I don’t like calling Cherry “my boy” etc, because he gets infantilized enough in the niche polar spaces online, but sometimes I wish to express that he’s my favourite and I regard him with warmth. So I started calling him “my good friend” in conversation occasionally.

Jonathan Harker 🤝 Apsley Cherry-Garrard

[peatbogpirate]

Old comic from ‘23, when I was still working my way through the various heroic age expedition books and noticing some… similarities

[fictionadventurer]

Hey do you know any books like the Emma M. Lion series, or just books that combine emotional intelligence with humor, low stakes, and general charm/whimsy? Thanks in advance <3 (but no pressure to answer)

There are a few ways to answer that question.

You can read Beth Brower's other books. The Q is technically set in the Emma M. Lion world, and if you haven't read it yet, read it immediately. It maintains that meandering living with the characters day-by-day pace, so it takes a while to really get invested in the story, but if you give it a chance, it's very compelling. I'm obsessed with the romance in this one and it makes me overlook a lot of other flaws. The Books of Imirillia series is also worth a read. Book 1 in particular feels like a high fantasy version of Pierce coming to St. Crispian's, and if you want reassurance that Brower can end a series in an emotionally satisfying way, you can find it here.

You can read the books and authors that she's drawing from--Austen, Alcott, Wodehouse, Wilde, L.M. Montgomery, Jean Webster--all of which have different combinations of whimsy, wit, and charm. In this classics category, I also highly recommend reading Amy Levy. Her books written in the actual 1880s--specifically, The Romance of a Shop--prove that the New Women of the time actually aren't that much different from Emma M. Lion. Levy's got a breezy, readable style with such warmth and wit that she'd be a perfect fit for anyone who likes Emma.

When it comes to more modern books, I've seen a lot of people recommend Christina Baehr's Secrets of Ormdale series as a readalike. I can see why--it involves an intelligent upper-crust late Victorian heroine dealing with a cozy fantasy world--but I've read the first book, and it doesn't fill the same Emma M. Lion niche for me. The books that I tend to slot in the same niche tend to be fairy tale retellings or other underrated indie books, so some options there are:

Entwined by Heather Dixon: Warm sisterly relationships, emotional depth involving grief, Wodehouse type characters and a lot of wit and warmth

The Electrical Menagerie by Mollie E. Reeder: Indie-published fantasy set in a fantastical Edwardian era. Focuses on friendship between two male characters

What Comes of Attending the Commoners Ball and Lady Agatha Speaks Her Mind by Elizabeth Aimee Brown: Very humorous, very cozy indie fairy tale retellings set in Victorian-ish worlds

Kate Stradling's books all have a similar (though more sarcastic) blend of not-too-magical fantasy, humor, and common sense

The Galleries of Stone trilogy by C.J. Milbrandt isn't really a readalike, but it seems just similar enough that I feel like I should mention it. It's a very cozy fantasy series about getting to know a wide cast of likeable characters, and it's an underrated indie series.

The Star That Always Stays by Anna Rose Johnson is more of a "if you like L.M. Montgomery" readalike, but I feel like I should mention it because of the Montgomery influences in Emma M. Lion

Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther is showing up on my reading list, and it seems like a stretch, but I think it might be a surprising fit. It's a collection of fictionalized accounts written during the very early days of WWII, originally published as newspaper columns, so they have that day-by-day life feel of Emma's journals, and Mrs. Miniver has a certain cozy charm. WWII isn't exactly a cozy time, but this also takes place before the war really kicked off, so it's not super-high stakes.

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. A series of real-life letters between a witty, bookish writer and the staff of an English bookstore she befriends in the years after WWII. Maybe the most Emma M. Lion read? It's about books, friendship, and recovering from a terrible time, it's epistolary, and Hanff has a great voice.

Yours From the Tower by Sally Nichols is an epistolary novel about the friendship between three girls in Edwardian America. I don't remember a ton, but it would fit in that low-stakes Emma-ish niche.

The Shoes books by Noel Streatfeild are children's books, but they fit in that same genre that Brower is drawing from, and always have lots of vivid characters.

The Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace is also for children, and not as humorous, but is very much in that cozy, low-stakes, old-fashioned vibe of Emma.

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon is an 1860 classic, but I'm mentioning it here because I just started rereading it, and I love it, and I think more people should read it, and I think Emma should read it too because she'd love it.

[pipshinwhatever]

logging onto tumblr like heyyy i'm thinking about the same character i've spent the past few weeks thinking about. no change here. just wanted to let yall know

[11thfempachi]

Girls just wanna have fun

[isfjmel-phleg]

A Pleasant Talk

Part 1/12

It's 1916. Josiah, not quite twenty-one and living in exile in Corege after the War, has been invited to dine with Antavia. We're going to follow them through every stage of the meal (as I can get to this) and see how this goes.

I . Hors d’oeuvres

“Oh, I just adore oysters,” said the Duchess of Arclis, reaching for her oyster fork. “Don’t you?”

Josiah glared down at his plate, dotted with shells dressed in mignonette sauce. “We didn’t eat them often in Lienne,” he replied, truthfully enough.

Oysters always reminded him of that poem he had had to learn in Coregean when he was a child, about two swindlers by the sea who persuade a bed of young oysters to have a chat with them, only to make a meal of them. Josiah had never liked that poem—it made no dashed sense, and those oysters were idiots who couldn’t tell an obvious predator when they saw one—and he had never cared for oysters. The squishiness and grit of the texture were like eating rubber encrusted in sand.

But he must not disappoint the Duchess, so he managed a small smile, took up his oyster fork, and wielded it with some uncertainty.

The Duchess chortled at his efforts but made no comment on them. “Such a pleasure you could accept my invitation. I know you don’t get out much these days, so clearly I have the honor of being one of your favorite people, don’t I? One of the few who can coax you from your solitude? I knew we were kindred spirits when we met at my little concert, before the War. Do you remember?”

“Very vividly,” said Josiah.

The Duchess made much of her support for promising young talent, and she had convinced King Delclis to ask Elystan to attend one of her concerts the next time he was in Loriston and—most importantly—to bring Josiah. Josiah had been fool enough to expect to hear a programme of other people’s music—only to get ambushed into performing himself, on both piano and violin. 

How they had applauded and begged for encore after encore until he nearly exploded like a dying star from the proud warmth and expansion of being admired and praised. The Duchess had kissed him on both cheeks and told him that he was a wonder. She promised she would ask him to perform for her again, and he had heartily agreed to this.

And then she hadn’t. She couldn’t. And he couldn’t.

“Well, you’re a little taller than I remember,” she said, between bites. “I know it’s been—what? Five years? Of course you’re grown up now. But one hardly expects it. It seems like everything from before the War should have frozen. Waiting for us to come back to them as they were.”

Clenching a shell in one hand, Josiah poked the oyster suspiciously. It looked guilty. He endeavored to imagine what sort of life it must have had, what sort of childhood it had had. Not that he cared, but the alternative was to engage with whatever nonsense the Duchess was angling for.

“Of course things have changed,” he said. “Anything would, in five years. We can hardly let sentimentality get in the way of something so elementary as the nature of time.”

“The nature of time,” said the Duchess, “is that I do whatever I want with it, and I say that in this restaurant we shall have as fine a dinner as we ever had in the old days. I thought you might relish that. I doubt you get many opportunities for this sort of thing anymore.”

“I do not. Thank you.” Josiah gave up on the oyster and reached for the glass of white wine in order to look busy. A mistake. He spluttered a little trying to down the first sip and nearly spilled some on his dress suit.

The smell of mothballs still clung to the tailcoat and trousers. He hoped she wouldn’t notice that, or that the suit didn’t fit quite right. It was heavier and tighter and more uncomfortable than he had remembered, but it had been made for him before the War. It belonged to a different person.

“My pleasure,” said the Duchess. “Anything for a fellow artiste—you do still play, don’t you?”

“Not lately.”

“But you want to. I can see it in your eyes. You crave it. You’re not some trifling little hobbyist—no, not you. You are a Musician! It’s in your lifeblood.”

Josiah sighed. “I have more important things on my mind lately. My brother—”

“Oh right. There are two of you. He’s just a little thing, isn’t he? Hardly out of the nursery?”

“He’s nearly fourteen. He’s at Hollingham.”

“As he should be. Safely out of your way. What a heavy responsibility to have to shoulder at your age.”

The echo of the shouts and slammed doors during that last talk with Mikaiah had never really faded. Josiah took another sip of wine.

The Duchess laughed and followed suit. “That’s exactly how I would feel about it, too.” She drained her glass.

Perhaps he would try one of those oysters after all. Rubber and sand were better than the emptiness.

But the course was being cleared away, and there wasn’t an oyster in sight. Which was as much as he should expect, for the Duchess had eaten every one.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Part 2/12

II. Soup: Consommé Paysanne

It was rude to push away a course untasted, especially not for a trifling reason like Failure to Live Up to One’s Unspoken Daydreams. And of course Josiah had no intention of doing so. It was this soup’s misfortune rather than its fault that it was not a thick, creamy, velvety lobster bisque. He had downed much worse in army camps. Nothing wrong with this soup, to be sure. It was steaming and fragrant and…

…quite emphatically a peasant dish. It was right there in the name. Rather an odd choice for a meal intended to revisit the sorts of dishes that, these days, he could only look back on with longing. He could have ordered something like this from the hotel any day. Lobster bisque, however, was more than his income could justify.

“And where precisely have you been holing yourself up all these months?” asked the Duchess, after satisfying herself that the sherry was acceptable.

“I’ve been at the Esplanade.”

“Ohhh,” she replied, in the same tone she might have used if he had told her that he had taken up residence in the back alleys of the slums. “Not that wretched hole. I’ve never been there, of course, but one of my more daring friends stayed three nights there, would you believe it—on a bet, you know. Suites practically the size of postage stamps. No real art worth speaking of on the walls. No breakfast served past ten o’clock. Dear Maldie told me he had never before so intimately understood the deprivations the poor must endure. It made quite a reformer of him. He campaigned for later meal times at the Esplanade for months.”

Humble vegetables floating in clear broth stared Josiah in the face. Nothing wrong with them. He was hungry. Just a few sips. That was how one was supposed to manage these twelve-course dinners, anyway.

“Your friend exaggerates,” he said. “I have found it…reasonably comfortable so far.”

Aside from the apparent rocks under the mattress, noisy neighbors, and general atmosphere of dreariness.

“I am grateful that King Delclis is allowing me a place to stay until I can make more permanent arrangements.”

The Duchess stirred her consommé as if trying to dredge up some particular cabbage or leek. 

“And what,” she asked, “do you suppose those permanent arrangements might be? You can live anywhere you like now. There are quite a few castles and estates up for sale these days—as you can guess why. And then there’s that charming little manor out in Mossing that my dear friend Alpie is looking for a buyer for. Not a thing wrong with it—he’s just bored. It’s a quaint little cottage—just about a hundred rooms, and only a few miles of park in all directions, but the gardens are divine, and it would be just right for you and all those house parties you’ll no doubt be hosting once you’re settled. Shall I send him a telegram and say that you’re interested?”

When King Delclis had permitted Josiah asylum in Corege, a minor country estate like the Duchess’s friend’s was exactly where Josiah had pictured himself living. Not with house parties—that sounded like a nightmare—but a private retreat where he could hide from the world. But such residences belonged to noblemen or the gentry, and Josiah at present was not either—whatever he may have become.

“Thank you,” he replied, “but I am not interested.”

The Duchess nodded knowingly through a mouthful of soup. “Ah! I had not pegged you for a villa-by-the-sea sort of man. You’re full of surprises, aren’t you? Well then, I suppose I could put you in contact with—”

Josiah dashed off more than a swallow of sherry and set his glass down firmly. “I am not,” he said, “interested in purchasing any residence at the moment.”

“Whyever not?” The Duchess blinked rapidly. “Oh. My cousin has you on an allowance, doesn’t he? I’ve heard of those. Beastly things. You poor boy. No wonder you’re stranded at the Esplanade.”

She consoled herself with the soup, and Josiah, feeling uncomfortably hot in the face and unable to reply, followed suit.

The consommé, warm and hearty and herbal, washed over his tongue like a hot bath at the end of a long day. Even the vegetables were crisp and flavorful. He sailed in for a few more bites, between asides from the sherry, which played off the soup like a sibling.

“Well, it would seem that you are truly one of the people now,” said the Duchess. “Practically a commoner.”

Josiah could not answer. It was impolite to speak with one’s mouth full. And at the moment it was to his advantage that he remain in that state.

The Duchess tapped her fingernails on the table. “You Liennese and your cabbage. I wouldn’t have suspected you of being such a cliché.”

“My father employed several Faysmondian chefs,” said Josiah. “We never ate like that, living on cabbage. You must be thinking of…of everyone else.”

“And now you get to know for yourself, don’t you? How does it feel? To be of the people, I mean. To be just ordinary. I’ve always wondered.” She dipped her head a little. “Is it…rather freeing?”

Josiah stiffened. “I wouldn’t know. But,” he added on second thought, “the soup is excellent.”

[isfjmel-phleg]

Part 3/12

III. Fish: Filet de Mostelle aux fines herbes

At last, some substance. A delicately pale filet of forkbeard decked out in a speckled coat of herbs with a twist of lemon capping it off, escorting an elegant golden brioche with its ready pat of butter. Josiah paused to admire the artistry of the presentation before reaching for his fish knife.

Coregeans seldom cared to notice these things—the Duchess was already ripping into her filet. The Liennese, though, were taught from childhood to respect excellent craftsmanship as a form of art. Lienne might be far across the sea now, as impossible to reach as Atlantis and perhaps just as mythical, but the Lienne in Josiah’s heart never left him, and he must be the ambassador of all its virtues to his dying breath.

He silently blessed the hands that made this fish beautiful and proceeded to devour it.

Coming up for air, the Duchess remarked, “I daresay you’ve been bored to tears in that pitiful little hotel room of yours. And I know you haven’t been going anywhere—Elystan says he’s rang you a dozen times inviting you to parties or the theater, and every time you’ve told him you couldn’t possibly, you had too much to do.”

“Elystan”—Josiah tore a vicious, precise piece off his brioche—“talks too much.”

The Duchess laughed. “Don’t I know it! That little beast collars every conversation and refuses to let anyone have a word in edgeways but himself. Unspeakably tiresome! But I tolerate him sometimes because he’s the only one of the family who gives me any useful information.”

Josiah smeared butter on the brioche piece as if it were the blood of his enemies. She was baiting him. He was too clever to take it.

She rattled on. “Although he couldn’t tell me what is occupying all the free time that I know you have now. No longer being the Hope of Lienne—or, indeed, the King—frees you up for just about anything. But I suspect that you haven’t had the heart to really do much of anything. You’ve probably hardly left your bed, let alone your room, since you’ve come here.”

“Are you suggesting that I have been…ill?” The last of his bite of fish started to stick in his throat, and he had to coax it down with the white wine.

The tartly sweet, eloquently grapelike taste took him aback, and he tried more.

The Duchess looked smug. “I thought you’d appreciate the hock.”

“Oh. That is how you Coregeans refer to Liennese wines, isn’t it?”

“Yes. A taste of home for you, I’m sure.”

Josiah made a noncommittal noise. It was none of her business that he had been either too young or too preoccupied for hock the last few times he had returned to Lienne. “I would expect nothing less than the best from my people’s work.”

“And no, my dear boy, I would never imply any such thing about the state of your health, especially when you look so well, what a notion. But I’ve been exactly where you are before. After I abdicated, I didn’t leave my new residence for months. It was more than I could bear most days to sit on my sofa, let alone leave my bed. I didn’t want to do anything or see anyone. It was hell. Not half as much hell as it would have been if I had stayed, but—I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Especially us sensitive, gifted people. We take these things so much harder than everyone else. No doubt you’ve been quite languishing.”

Josiah had been tearing, buttering, and consuming brioche like clockwork, only half-listening to her, but he bristled at that last suggestion. “I have been no such thing. My father raised us never to be idle. This has been a—an opportunity for concentrated productivity.”

The Duchess smiled a sad little smile. “Our greatest art comes from the deepest torment of our souls. I did write some of my rawest verses after the abdication. But I thought that you said that you haven’t been playing lately.”

“I haven’t.”

“Then what do you do? What has this tremendous productivity been?” 

He had not been a languishing layabout like the Duchess in her youth—which clearly showed that she had not been brought up properly. She had probably been waiting for an excuse to do nothing but be waited upon and fussed over. Coregeans were soft like that. The Hope of Lienne was made of sterner stuff. When faced with adversity, he rose to the occasion. 

After all, Josiah was out of bed by noon most days. He had filled five notebooks with sums and the occasional doodle of a telescope. He had left his actual telescopes sealed in their boxes and his violin shut in its case, for he had no time for such frivolous hobbies. He even kept his curtains firmly closed at all times to eliminate any temptation of the night sky. He had read and reread what remained of his formerly vast collection of books, several times. He had memorized an impressive number of railway timetables. He even walked in the park—the smaller one, farther from his hotel. Sometimes. Whenever he was fairly certain that almost no one else would be there. He was keeping busy.

And he said as much to the Duchess as he shoveled down the last of the fish.

“Oh indeed,” she replied. “Very virtuous, aren’t we? Tell me the truth, darling, you’ve already got sobbing drunk all alone in your room at least once by now, haven’t you?” 

“Of course not!”

“You can tell me. There’s no shame in it. We’ve all done it. And frequently it’s utterly necessary.”

“I don’t do that. I’ve never done that.”

“Well, perhaps you should. It might do you some good. Make you want to stop neglecting your poor piano.”

The brioche was gone, and he felt an unusually sharp pang of regret that he had no more. “What I ought to do is go to a university and study—perhaps mathematics.”

Josiah had been telling himself this every day for the past several months. It was the only reasonable course of action at this point. It was what he had intended to do before the War. It was what his father would have wanted, if Josiah had to be barred from the duties he was born to.

Yet the heading of a letter addressed to Claverworth still lay buried under a heap of papers on his desk.

“I should have thought you would like to study music,” said the Duchess. “We have a fine conservatory here—”

“But that’s not useful. If I’m going to pursue something, it has to have a point.”

“Not useful!” The Duchess flung her knife down so hard she nearly threw it at him. “Whoever said anything about being useful? When I was your age, I was painting and writing and singing and doing the town every night. And you think you want numbers! That’s the Hope of Lienne talking. I’d like to hear from the Ornament to Society, the Concert Pianist. What does he want?”

Josiah did not answer. He reached for the hock and drained every last drop of bottled Lienne.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Part 4/12

IV. Entree: Mousse de foie gras a la Royale

“But then the life we were raised in prepares us for nothing in the real world,” said the Duchess into her champagne. “As you must have noticed by now.” She raised her eyebrows pointedly at Josiah.

She wanted him to say something clever. But presently, his desire to impress her with his intelligence was eclipsed by his immersion in this course. He already knew he liked foie gras, but upon experiencing it in a cloud of creamy mousse, molded into an elegant shape, garnished with truffles and plum jam, his tastebuds had ascended to some celestial plane beyond imagination, and he had no intention of leaving this height of bliss any sooner than he had to.

“When I left Rhosemore,” she went on, “I had never ridden in a cab before. I didn’t know I had to pay the fare. Or that one was expected to carry money for that purpose. I had never lived in such a small house before, with no staff—only my maid. Never given a thought to where my meals came from. Or anything else that I required, really. It had always magically appeared. Have you been in a shop yet?”

Josiah nodded. He had always enjoyed the bookshop in Oddington whenever Hollingham allowed its pupils an excursion into town.

The Duchess looked disappointed. “Well, then you’ll know all about what a nightmare those are. Oh, I know that sounds silly—some of my friends laugh at me—but I can’t help it. I’m not accustomed to waiting about or fetching things myself. Perhaps if I had been born a commoner, but no! Fate abandoned me to an upbringing that left me too soft—too exacting—too refined. I have a friend who would call it spoilt. I suppose I was, but how was that my fault?”

By now, Josiah was only half-listening. That mousse was to die for, while this woman’s monologue wasn’t. Why on earth was she not touching her plate? To be fair, though, that champagne was rather fine; no wonder she preferred it.

“And I wouldn’t admit that to just anyone,” she was saying. “But let us be honest, my boy. You understand. You’re quite as rotten yourself. Probably worse. Just look at your soup and fish.”

That baffled Josiah momentarily until he recalled that “soup and fish” was one of those peculiar Coregean slang expressions, for men’s evening dress.

“Everyone wears this sort of thing,” he said. “It was not an extravagance. It was a requirement.”

“Ah, yes, velvet waistcoat, silver buttons, diamond cufflinks. All very ordinary. And those pumps! Does anyone still wear those? The Hope of Lienne does very well for himself from Papa’s coffers. And you have a set for every day of the week, don’t you?”

He squirmed under the pinch of the coat’s shoulders. “No.”

“Oh, don’t look embarrassed. If anyone ought to have all that, it would be you. You’re the sort that pays for dressing. I wouldn’t have suspected it of you five years ago, but you know, darling, you’ve turned out rather handsome.”

Josiah gulped down a mouthful of jam and hoped that it hadn’t got on his face. Why couldn’t he get his expression under control? Now was not the moment to grin like an idiot. Best to change the subject.

“Yes, well, we Liennese pride ourselves on our frugality, and my—my father always—”

It was as if she hadn’t heard. She cursed softly. “I shan’t be able to take a bite of this. And ordinarily I would send it back, but the chef here—he’s an absolute magician and I need him for a little intimate soiree I’m having next month, and I cannot afford to offend him. Lady Saltney insinuated once that she had had enough potatoes, and as soon as he got wind of that, he put an end to the meal right there, before they even got to the sorbet. Would you be a dear and—” She shoved her plate across the table toward him.

Eight more courses yet to go. The doctor at Hollingham would have admonished Josiah to be moderate with anything so indigestible. But the ulcer hadn’t troubled him—much—in years. And even if it were still waiting for an opportunity to reappear, it must never be said of the Hope of Lienne that he was unwilling to chivalrously sacrifice his interior wellbeing at the behest of a lady in distress.

He fortified himself with a little more champagne and accepted the plate. “Allow me.”

The Duchess deflated with relief. “Thank you. You’re a lifesaver.”

“No trouble at all.” And it wasn’t. The first bite of this round went down just as delightfully as the first helping had.

“I never could abide foie gras,” she said. “Not since I found out about the source.”

“Oh, that. My sister Ayra took me aside once and informed me where it came from. She was practically cackling. But that never bothered me enough to put me off it. I liked it, and she probably embellished the facts, for all I know.”

“And that’s the advantage of our upbringing. We know what we want, and we let nothing deter us from getting it. That can get us anywhere, if we only have the nerve to use it. Not quite so helpless after all?”

“Speak for yourself,” said Josiah between bites. “I’ve always been perfectly capable of doing anything I needed to myself. Tamett was hardly doing anything for me by the time I left Hollingham. I made colonel in less than a year—”

“And never saw action once, did you?”

“How did you know?” he mumbled into the napkin held to his lips.

“Oh, I can guess. Dear Papa wasn’t about to risk his precious heir on the front lines, was he?”

“What was I supposed to do about that? I wrote letter after letter—I shouted—I sulked—I threatened—I begged—nothing worked. It was nothing but paperwork and reviewing the ranks and posing for the cameras. I wanted to do my part, but…”

“But no one would let you,” said the Duchess gently. She reached out a hand, too far away to touch his. “Just think, though. Now you are free to channel that determination into anything you want. You can do more than merely consume comforts. You can create.”

There was more mousse than he had realized. He was having to drown it to get it down now. Something about the Duchess’s words struck him as almost funny. 

He laughed sardonically. “Me—create. If pigs had wings.” 

“Don’t they?” said the Duchess. “I’ve found that they often do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never wanted to create anything.”

“We both know that’s not true, darling, so can we agree to be real with each other tonight? You might as well know now that I can see through artifice a mile away.”

“You ought to have your vision checked, then. I meant it. I. don’t. want. to.” He pushed back the now-empty plate emphatically.

“Bless you, you’ve saved me a world of hurt. I don’t know what I would do without that chef for my party. We’d have nothing to eat.”

“Then I expect you could create something yourself,” said Josiah.

“Don’t be ridiculous—” In a moment, the Duchess’s outrage melted into laughter. “Oh you! You’ll be the death of me. I knew I liked this one.”

This time, Josiah didn’t fight the smile.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Part 5/12

V. Remove: Contre-filet garni à l'anglaise

“I will say,” said Josiah, eagerly cutting his next bite, “that I have never thought much of Coregean cuisine, especially compared with the Liennese, of course, but—”

The Duchess put down her glass to guffaw. “You never said a truer word, darling. The Coregeans haven’t a shred of taste or imagination in the kitchen. I never had a decent meal in my life until my first visit to Faysmond.”

Josiah fixed her with what he hoped was a glare of reproach. “But the one dish of yours that has never once disappointed me is your steak. We drown everything in sauce at home, but this—is so straightforward. An honest cut with no flavors to hide. It’s got a perfection—no, no, a—a purity that…”

Too overcome by the poetry of steak to find the rest of that sentence, he paid the work of art the best compliment he could by savoring a rapid succession of mouthfuls.

How could he ever have doubted the excellence of this dinner? The last time he had tasted a steak so exquisitely cooked, so gloriously large, it had been in his army-camp dreams. The potatoes garnishing the meat glowed golden in the candlelight and concealed their delicate white hearts within a crisp, crackling exterior. And the bass line of the claret joining in made it all sing.

“You know,” he said confidentially, “there are times when I rather think Corege is—that there’s something to be said for it after all.”

“A high compliment, no doubt. Shall I pass it on to Delclis?”

A slight heat crept up Josiah’s neck. “No,” he muttered between another mouthful. “That will not be necessary. But—what I mean is at home I made public appearances and associated with the children of officials that my father needed to get on his side and always remembered that anything I said or did would end up in the papers and watched my father like a hawk so I would know what to do when it was my turn to pull all the strings. I could not have had this dinner in Lienne. Not in a place like this. Not with someone like you. Here, no one cares. And I don’t mind either. It means nothing for Lienne anymore if I dine with a dis—a—” He struggled to find a polite enough word in Coregean for something that his brain was obstinately only describing to him in Liennese. “With you.”

The Duchess laughed. “Darling, you can say it out loud. I know what I am. The ex-queen. The disgraced monarch who abandoned her people to the tender mercies of her wicked uncle. It’s the truth. Why deny it?”

Josiah sliced off another hunk of flesh and watched the juices pool on the white china plate. “I didn’t. But I have been wondering…” He swallowed and chased it with a few sips. “It was a surprise to receive such an invitation from you—considering how slight an acquaintance we previously had. Quite frankly, I was amazed that you even remembered me.”

“Not remember the young man who played Boschbrandt so divinely that I haven’t been able to get it out of my head after all these years? You, my boy, are unforgettable. And I believe very strongly in supporting new talent. When I was a child, no one cares if I painted or acted or sang, and I spent years believing I was no good at anything I loved doing.”

A glassiness came over her eyes, and she paused for a long, slow sip and a brief noise that Josiah politely ignored.

“By the time I was your age, I had burned everything I had written because I was so ashamed of my stories, my poetry—what might happen if anyone ever found them. It took me years to build up the courage to perform again. I never want anyone to go through that. Everyone should have someone who believes in him.”

She sawed into her steak with the smooth grace of a cellist bowing and took a beatific bite.

“I did enjoy playing for you,” said Josiah. “But that was a very long time ago.”

“If you enjoyed it so much, how would you like to do it all the time? I am always in need of an accompanist for various performances—my own and others’. A duet partner. Someone to impress my guests with his prodigious skills.”

“Then I suggest you engage some trained monkey who’ll be glad of the income. I haven’t the time.” He frantically stabbed some potatoes and inhaled them.

“But I don’t want a common professional musician. I can get that anywhere. No, Josiah, I want you.”

The soft smile she gave him as she peered up at him nearly made him drop his silverware. He ducked his head, hoping it would minimize the color he could feel rising into his cheeks.

“You. You would be my protégé—one of several at the moment. I’ll introduce you sometime. All of them clever and dedicated, but you’d set them a fine example. When you aren’t sharing your delightful music with a crowd of only the most discerningly appreciative music-lovers—I choose my friends carefully—you would be studying under the finest musical minds that our Coregean Conservatory has to offer. So many of your Liennese geniuses fled here during the war, you know—these would be your masters. You’d be quite at home.”

“I don’t—” Josiah stole as much time as he dared with a long draft from his glass. “I don’t play anymore.”

“Don’t or won’t?” said the Duchess abruptly.

“I haven’t wanted to. I haven’t needed to.” The steak no longer tasted like anything, but he went on eating it mechanically. It didn’t occur to him to stop.

“And yet you love it. Darling, just what are you punishing yourself for?” He tried to answer, but she raised a hand. “You needn’t decide now. But think about it.”

And with a sated sigh, she abandoned her empty plate.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Part 6/12

VI. Entremet: Sorbet fleur de Pêcher

The palate cleanser came, as all such courses should, as a welcome relief. Peach blossom sorbet in its little slender-necked dish, strewn with petals and topped with a whole blossom, was a delight for the eyes as well as the answer to a craving for sugar that had come over Josiah suddenly. He sailed in appreciatively.

“My sister Ateva once made quite a scene over some peach blossoms,” he remarked. This story had lain dormant in some filing cabinet of his mind for years, but now it came spilling out practically of its own accord. “She—” He tasted the contents of his glass. “What do you call this one?”

“Riesling,” said the Duchess. “And yes, you innocent child, it is another sort of hock.”

“Oh, I should have known.” He tried it again. “Excellent, beautiful—and—and—where was I?”

“Ateva. Peach blossoms.” The Duchess contemplated the flower balanced on the rim of her spoon.

“Right. Well, Ateva was getting married to that first-rate idiot Viorel and they sent flowers for the wedding—supposed to be lemon or orange blossoms or something, but they were peach. Ateva sent them back. She was insulted about what they meant in the language of flowers. I can’t remember what, though.”

“Not a poet, are you? I’ve made a particular study of this. I believe it’s…” The Duchess refreshed herself with a spoonful of sorbet, as if its flavor could spark something in her memory. “Oh, yes. ‘Your qualities, like your charms, are unequaled.’ Although I can’t see what your sister would find offensive about that.”

“Perhaps not.” Josiah took a thoughtful sip. “Doesn’t sound right, though.”

“I recall hearing about Ateva’s wedding. It was all over the papers. I got quite sick of it, because—” She hesitated, leaning forward. “Did your father ever mention me to you? Did he tell you that we met?”

“No. Should he have?”

“He came to Corege when I was a little younger than you. And he was—every girl I knew was in love with him. I suppose I almost was, too. He was so tall and good-looking—a sort of fair-haired version of you, darling. Voice like an angel. I told him once that he had missed his calling in opera. And all the adventures he had had and the stories he could tell… He had so many grand plans, and you really believed he could accomplish them, because he believed. He was going to take on the world—”

Josiah’s eyes drifted to the pattern on the china.

The Duchess cleared her throat. “That is—he was charming and clever, and one day he proposed to me.”

Only Josiah’s immense dignity prevented him from spluttering riesling across the table. “He didn’t! No, actually, that’s rather reasonable, because you were…”

“The Princess of Arclis, yes…and Lienne’s young, promising new king. A match made in council chambers. He took my hand and looked into my eyes and—he said he believed he was falling in love with me. And I wanted to believe him—but I could see on his face… You see, believe it or not, I was a scrawny little creature in those days, and plain, and mousy, and he was looking past all that and proposing anyway…”

A twinge of new respect for Odren startled Josiah. “Rather…romantic of him?”

The Duchess dropped her spoon and had to ring for another. “Not romantic at all. He was holding his nose and looking past me to my throne. I couldn’t. So I told him no. He did not expect that answer, and he—well, I’ll spare you the rest of that story. And what my father had to say about it for the rest of his life. You dodged a bullet, didn’t you, darling? I could have been—but no! Surely I’m not that old.”

He didn’t know what to say. More sorbet.

She laughed. “Say it! ‘So that’s why she’s such a bitter spinster, because my father broke her poor little girlish heart.’ Entirely false, by the way, but no one ever believes that. And I’m not a spinster, but that’s another story.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” said Josiah. “It’s just—” He gazed at her, trying to imagine what she must have been nearly forty years ago. “You should know that my father always had very poor eyesight. Not much of a judge of that sort of thing.”

“And it’s clearly hereditary,” she said, but she sat up a little straighter in her chair and pushed back a loose strand of hair. “I daresay you think me very foolish to turn down such a chance. You’re Odren’s son, after all. Pragmatic to the core.”

The Duchess had never seen the look King Odren reserved for Josiah’s mother when he thought no one could see.

“Well, if you must know,” said Josiah, “I was once in love with a…” Even in this moment of unwonted boldness, he could not bring himself to say it out loud. “...a violinist. A Noriberian violinist.”

“You don’t say! So you do have a heart. However did you meet her? I wouldn’t have suspected you were the backstage-at-the-concert-hall sort.”

“Her brother was my companion. She played for us at Königshaus, once, and I’d never heard anything like it, she was better than me, she…”

“Beautiful, was she?”

“Just pretty. Like an ordinary girl. And I was dying to know how she could play like that, so I wrote her a letter, and she wrote back, and…after a while I stopped writing.”

“A quarrel? I know how these musicians are. You fall out over the oddest trifles. Correct pizzicato technique? Differences over which key to play the national anthem in?”

Josiah spooned up the last of the sorbet, and the tragedy of it all struck him like an express train. An urge to cry engulfed him. He remembered to lift his chin and blink that threat away. What was wrong with him? He had learned to control such humiliating displays long ago.

“Nothing like that,” he said firmly. “I ended it. It would never have worked. A violinist and the Hope of Lienne? Some subject for an opera, perhaps. But not in real life.”

A tragedy, still. He could not shake the thought. He reached for his glass.

The Duchess smiled a little smile. “I weep for you, I do. But you do realize that that obstacle is gone? That you two are now no more than fellow musicians? Or could be. I entertain talent from all over the world. Including Noriber. Your paths might cross again. Perhaps she’s still wondering why you’ve never written her back. Perhaps she’s still hoping you’ll have the courage to achieve what she has.”

As plainly as it were real, Josiah could see Emenor, as grown-up as he and the last word in elegance, with her face lit up at the sight of him the way it had the last time they had met. He saw himself take his place beside her in an orchestra, heard their violins converse like two halves of one instrument. He saw…

“She’ll have forgotten all about me,” he said.

The sorbet had run out. All he had left was the riesling. He’d settle for that—

“The peach blossoms!” he cried.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I just remembered. They mean ‘I am your captive.’”

He stared blankly at the Duchess, who stared blankly back.

And then they burst into laughter. Long and hard and achingly.

“Your sister,” said the Duchess when she could breathe again, “had every right to be furious.”

[isfjmel-phleg]

Part 7/12

VII. Roast: Volaille rotie a la broche

“Because,” said the Duchess, once she and Josiah had admired the newly arrived plates of roasted chicken, dripping with juices and creamy bread sauce and festooned with sausages and bacon that still sizzled, “one really is a sort of captive if born to a royal family. You never asked for it, yet you’re saddled with this preposterous existence—unless you have the sense to get out.”

“As you and I did?” Josiah stabbed the nearest object on his plate, which happened to be a sausage, and hoped she hadn’t noticed. It looked such a cliché.

“Precisely. It takes a great deal of courage to make the choice you did—”

“Some choice!” Josiah snarled into his claret glass. “When the alternative was—unspeakable.”

“Anyone with half a brain would have given up the crown even without being under duress, darling. I’m surprised not more of us do, considering what we have to go through—all that we sacrifice.” She carved off a bite of chicken with more vehemence than the tender cut required.

“I hated being the Hope of Lienne,” he found himself confessing. “It’s a stupid title. What are they hoping for? Not really me, I can tell you. Am I supposed to be hoping for something? Hoping for a—for someone to shoot me, perhaps.”

“The day they proclaimed me Princess of Arclis,” said the Duchess, “and they put a diadem that weighed a seventh of a ton on my head and made endless speeches all about how I was responsible for the welfare of the realm and setting a noble example and defending all from wrong—I was ten, mind you—as soon as they let me go, I ran back inside Bitterbank Castle, shedding bits of my regalia all the way, and threw myself on my bed and sobbed for hours. No one even heard me.”

Josiah’s heart went out to that forlorn child. He might have shed a tear, had his mouth not been too full of gloriously flavorful chicken for him to truly be unhappy.

“When I was eight,” he said, “my father put me in charge of a regiment. A whole regiment. I barely knew what that was. He made me learn about correct marching form and drilling and so on so that I could review them quarterly, and he gave me a gold piece every time I caught one of the soldiers making a mistake and reprimanded him publicly. I did that until I was nearly thirteen. There’s newsreel footage of it somewhere.”

The Duchess held her glass in one scornfully outstretched hard and rolled her eyes. “Do not get me started on the newsreels. And the photographs. And the newspaper reports. Everything I ever did from birth until my abdication was documented and shared with the world for its critique. And believe me, everyone had strong opinions on what I wore and what I ate and what I studied and how I played and how I conducted myself. And what was I, really? Only a little girl, no different from any other. A child can be forgiven for having a fit of crying in church, but if it happens to be your father’s coronation, then you’re photographed and in disgrace for the next decade and a half.”

It was becoming harder to pause between bites of that superb chicken to talk. Josiah’s next remarks were a bit indistinct. “That’s nothing. When I was twelve, my father asked me to demonstrate my fencing skills after a luncheon with all the court officials. Except I had been skiving off fencing lessons and sending my companion instead.” 

“You did that? Little Master Goody-Two-Shoes played truant? You wicked boy, I’ve never respected you more.”

He reddened. “Yes, well, no one else did. I made a fool of myself in front of everyone, and my father was so humiliated that he sent me to school in Corege and wouldn’t—” His throat stopped up, and he had to force the stumbling words out. “—wouldn’t let me come home for years.”

“He must have been exchanging notes with my father about horrid schools. Corege wanted a Princess of Arclis only if she could be perfectly polished and pretty, so I couldn’t go to Queen Edella’s no matter how much I begged my parents. I had to be finished with all the prissy little daughters of the aristocracy. Worst creatures in the world. I hated them all—well, Bethira wasn’t so bad.”

Josiah’s eyes watered, but he manfully fought this weakness and raised his glass. “To Queen Bethira. We probably both owe her our lives.”

Antavia drank with him, but not without a laugh. “She’s taken you on too, I see. I don’t know how she does it. Now, if anyone has ever had to sacrifice everything for the crown, it would be—well, you and me. But she’s a close third, poor girl.”

Josiah tried to imagine what Queen Bethira could have suffered for the crown, beyond having to raise a child like Elystan, but he couldn’t think of a single thing. She was always wholly mistress of every situation, without a soul daring to control her.

“I had a friend once, you know,” said the Duchess, apropos of nothing. “Tresta. Nothing like the other girls at court. We understood each other. We read the same books, played the same way. But her father was the leader of some party or other in Parliament, and my father said that it showed ‘favoritism unbecoming of the crown’ for me to befriend only her and not the other party leader’s daughter. I never cared about the parties, but I detested that other girl—all golden curls and silken ruffles and simpers—and I refused to have anything to do with her. So my father made me write Tresta a letter, in my best hand, dictated by him, sealed with sealing wax, no less—telling her I couldn’t see her again. And I never have.”

The Duchess morosely devoured a slice of bacon, melancholy written on her wistful features, and followed it with another. Josiah had never felt so sorry for anyone.

“Perhaps it’s worse to lose a friend than to never have one,” he said. “I only had a paid companion. And even he hated me. No one wants to befriend the Hope of Lienne—or rather they do, but they just—didn’t want me. Are you going to eat that?” He gestured at the last sausage on the Duchess’s plate.

“Yes,” she said resentfully, and did.

Josiah’s face burned. What had he been thinking? He knew that was bad manners. It was just—he could have eaten three of these miniscule servings. Even after this course, he felt as if he had eaten nothing at all.

“What a joke, that life,” said the Duchess. “We supposedly serve our people, but the moment we voice any wish to be a person also, we’ve failed everyone. We exist so publicly, yet we must never exist at all. I say to hell with it. I disappear for no one. And you?”

“Wouldn’t know,” he said, laying down his fork. “I think I’ve disappeared already.”

[isfjmel-phleg]

Part 8/12

VIII. Vegetable: Aubergines frites au gratin

If only that were true. Josiah would gladly have disappeared by the start of the next course. For a brief, mad moment, he considered crawling under the table to hide. It seemed a foolproof plan until he recalled that even if society did not already frown upon such behavior, a grown man a few inches north of six feet could hardly manage that feat. He knew that. Why couldn’t his usually sharp brain pin anything down? Thoughts—well, perhaps more like notions, impressions—were firing almost at random. Something was wrong with him, and he was going to embarrass himself further if he didn’t rein himself back under control. A familiarly stern voice reverberated in his head. If you do not control yourself, someone else will. Only the weak allow themselves to be conquered.

He stiffened his posture. Tried to will the bashful-schoolboy redness from his face. Wrestled his expression into what he hoped was a polite blankness. Focused his heavy eyes on the woman sitting across from him.

“Not slowing down, are you?” The Duchess reached for her fork like a swordswoman selecting her weapon.

Perhaps…perhaps he had had just a little too much to drink. Yes, that must be it. He ought to go easy on the wine this time before it actually started affecting him and he humiliated himself in front of the former Queen of Corege. He could manage to curb that. He had iron self-control. And he wasn’t even really thirsty anymore.

“Me?” He grinned cockily at her. “I could do this all night.”

The Duchess laughed. “That’s the spirit.”

Josiah didn’t recognize the dish laid before him, but its smell reached out to him with open arms. Breadcrumbs golden with oil enveloped some dark, round vegetable crammed with scents of sauteed onions and mushrooms and a hearty assortment of herbs and spices, drizzled with thick, glossy demi-glace sauce. Faysmondian chefs did indeed have a way of redeeming the most lowly vegetables for their highest purpose. With flawlessly precise motion, Josiah took an eager forkful.

And almost gagged.

What kind of poison-bitter refuse of the earth was this, to put to waste perfectly good onions and mushrooms and demi-glace for the sake of disguising its inedible taste?

A lesser man would have spat it out and sent it back. Josiah swallowed it with a fixed smile and reached for his water glass to wash it down.

The Duchess suspected nothing. She had been jawing away without looking up. He took another bite and tried to distract himself by listening in to whatever she was on about.

“...and really, darling, one of the best things about your new life is that you can be as idle or as active as you choose. If you want to do the town every day with a dozen engagements, you can. But if you’d rather sleep till three in the afternoon and dine in your dressing gown, no one can stop you.”

He nodded and took a sip lest he say something regrettable.

She rambled on, and he only processed pieces of it. “Just ask my protégés. They’ll tell you that I am the easiest benefactor you could wish for… As long as you’re available on my concert nights, I don’t care how you choose to pass your time… I don’t believe in making demands of others. It’s quite demeaning...”

Barely a dent into this vegetable from outer darkness. He didn’t know how much more he could take, but at least frequent sips and the presence of other flavors were taking the edge off.

“But perfecting one’s craft as a musician,” he said, taking his time and painting each word in the air like an elocutionist, “requires extensive practice. I used to spend hours every day on scales only, let alone proper playing, and Eme—I’ve been told that conservatory students have very regimented timetables. She said—I’ve heard that the conservatory arranges that on purpose, to weed out those who expect their studies to be easy.”

“And if you wanted that life, who would I be to stop you?” The Duchess sopped up demi-glace with vegetable skin. Hints of the sauce still hung glistening on her lips. “But there are part-time students whose workloads are not nearly so rigorous. And considering that you are still recovering from a lifetime of never being allowed to be ‘idle’—you may wish to have more recreational time. Time to concentrate on your—let me be frank—your currently nonexistent social life. Especially if the Noriberian Royal Orchestra is in town.”

For a split second, Josiah forgot the bitter taste in his mouth. He took a slow sip. “Does it come through…often?”

The Duchess gave him a sly smile. “It could.”

Josiah’s heart may have been conducting itself in ways he hadn’t imagined it capable of, and he seemed to be nearing fever-levels of warmth, but nothing could shatter his controlled serenity. He inclined his head graciously, with the slightest of smiles, and said evenly, “I would be seized to plead her again.”

The Duchess held her napkin to her lips. “No doubt you would.”

“This would certainly,” he went on, “be an advantageous opportunity, now that I think about it.”

“I want to do you a good turn, my boy. If only you’ll let me.” She laid down her fork. “Ah, that aubergine was lovely.”

He made a polite noncommittal noise in reply, which she did not question. 

A rather successful performance. He had restrained himself, he had thought and spoken with perfect clarity and manners. He had even nearly conquered the loathsome vegetable without a sign of the urge to expel it. Nothing to this self-control thing. He could do it all night.

As the last bite went down, he took up his water glass. To his surprise, it looked hardly touched, though he’d been drinking from it the whole time.

The cabernet, on the other hand, was nearly gone.

[siena-sevenwits]

Right, joining in two thirds of the way through. Let's feast!

OYSTERS

Antavia and Josiah - what a combo. What a contrast of personalities, life philosophies, and troubles.

The time has come to talk of many things - of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. Cabbages may not be quite so relevant, as I doubt they are on the menu. But kings... well, irrelevant too in a completely different sense.

"The squishiness and grit of the texture were like eating rubber encrusted in sand." Now, I do like oysters. In fact I love them dearly when a cook makes them with particular love and taste. But even I have to admit this is a right-ish description, particularly of those served cold.

"But he must not disappoint the Duchess,--" a line that I half suspected of being another, more covert Carroll quote, as it would fit so very neatly into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

"[...]so clearly I have the honor of being one of your favorite people, don’t I? One of the few who can coax you from your solitude? I knew we were kindred spirits when we met at my little concert, before the War." Shut up, Antavia.

“Very vividly,” said Josiah. *sniggers* I'm in your corner and fully compassionate, Josiah, but I am also far too ready to laugh at you. With you, in this case? Except you're not laughing. This is going to be a long meal for you.

"And then she hadn’t. She couldn’t. And he couldn’t." I don't even know precisely what happened, though I assume we're referring to being enemy nations in the war, at least in part - and yet without knowing much that line was mildly heartbreaking. He had so much joy and there was promise of more - and then it was snatched away. He's had so little joy.

"It seems like everything from before the War should have frozen. Waiting for us to come back to them as they were." It's a different timeline and this isn't our Great War they are talking about - but my heart naturally fills in all of our Great War nonetheless, and it aches.

Dagnabbit, this library will be closing soon, and I am going this slowly just through the oyster course. We'll get as far as we can. I love these stories too much, you know.

"It looked guilty. He endeavored to imagine what sort of life it must have had, what sort of childhood it had had. Not that he cared, but the alternative was to engage with whatever nonsense the Duchess was angling for."

"The smell of mothballs still clung to the tailcoat and trousers. He hoped she wouldn’t notice that, or that the suit didn’t fit quite right. It was heavier and tighter and more uncomfortable than he had remembered, but it had been made for him before the War. It belonged to a different person." I... don't know if I've said much about how much harder the grief of the Great War resonates for me ever since I was loaned to that other museum last year. (and it's all fresh again after reading Wheeler's Cherry bio.) These quiet references are so much more emotional than saying directly how much the war messed them all up and cast them all adrift. Everyone feels like a refugee from a lost world. Everyone feels like a search party looking for the self they left behind.

"Safely out of your way." That hurt too. That could be taken in multiple senses, and all of them hurt.

"The echo of the shouts and slammed doors during that last talk with Mikaiah had never really faded." James, please fetch me a stack of handkerchiefs. Half of this I don't even know about except by hints, and yet I'm emotional.

"Which was as much as he should expect, (i.e. "And this was scarcely odd because,") for the Duchess had eaten every one." Elegantly and painfully rounded off with Carroll. You have a satisfying knack for ending scenes with a returning theme/full circle effect.

She's eating up the drama of his circumstance. He's an idea of misery and creativity and having coming down in the world and a relic of old times to her, and that she's relishing it like he's a story concept, not a person. She's enjoying feeling sorry for him. He's blorbo from her shows and she wants a tortured artist and former king with trauma. I may be reading her wrong, but that's what I'm guessing from my limited standpoint at the end of the first course, in Josiah's pov.

SOUP

"It was rude to push away a course untasted, especially not for a trifling reason like Failure to Live Up to One’s Unspoken Daydreams." Ohhhh the bitterness.

(Forgive me, Josiah. I could hardly resist, you know.)

She's a former ruler who might be acting like they have something in common. And I suppose they do on the technical level.

But they do not.

Shut up about the Esplanade, Antavia. Shut up. Shut up. On a bet, indeed.

"Dear Maldie told me he had never before so intimately understood the deprivations the poor must endure. It made quite a reformer of him." OK, but I am chuckling whilst devoutly wishing her to shut up.

Josiah's definitely in financial straits he never envisioned dealing with.

No - he can't afford lobster bisque, certainly not on the regular. He can't afford an estate! But he's not going advertising that to Antavia. I wonder how much she knows or suspects of his realities. I think she may be trying to sus out a greater sense of where he's at moneywise. She already has a big clue with his current accomodations.

Alpie. Maldie. These names are pitch perfect as upperclass English nickhames of the era for names that don't actually exist. Your facility with names always is a point of admiration for me.

"Shall I send him a telegram and say that you’re interested?" Yes, she is on a mission to find out. Or to make him say it all more plainly so she can have the fun of commiseration.

(I am keenly aware I am stuck in Josiah's head - not exactly known for extending the benefit of the doubt or perceiving a good side. So I react as I read it, but am aware this might look different from where Antavia sits.)

He thought he could afford a little country place. He didn't know he'd be half so hard up.

I am glad the soup is good, in spite of his earlier lack of desire to try it. And hopefully it's symbolic of things to come - perhaps the horrors of the kind of life he expects from here on out will turn out to have their own joys.

“Well, it would seem that you are truly one of the people now,” said the Duchess. “Practically a commoner.” I have no comment but I FEEL.

Kings may not be relevant, BUT CABBAGE IS!! By and by we shall be getting on to whether pigs have wings.

Right, I think I should log off before we get too close to library closing time, but I am savouring this like Josiah is savouring the soup and Antavia is savouring his comedown.

[siena-sevenwits]

Continuing my liveblog. Stealing a short window of time at the library, so it'll be just one section for now.

"A delicately pale filet of forkbeard decked out in a speckled coat of herbs with a twist of lemon capping it off, escorting an elegant golden brioche with its ready pat of butter." This calls up the image (and the appropriate scents) very clearly for me.

"Lienne might be far across the sea now, as impossible to reach as Atlantis and perhaps just as mythical" - and sunk and doomed, at least from Josiah's viewpoint right now? Also an appropriate train of thought for a seafood course.

"He silently blessed the hands that made this fish beautiful and proceeded to devour it." Gave me a smile. :-)

"Coming up for air -" She too is a fishy.

Aw, Elystan. Good for you. Not only do you care about your old roommate, you care enough to be the friend who keeps sending the invitations and showing up. (Now, we know Elystan can take this to a fault - the way we've seen him badger Amarantha and Tamett in the past - but in this case it might well be a very good thing.)

I wonder what Elystan's relationship with Antavia is like.

“Elystan”—Josiah tore a vicious, precise piece off his brioche—“talks too much.” Now there is a perfect action punctuation in the middle of a line of dialogue. Why, that little chatterbox, Elystan. Yes, he sure loves his own voice. For someone with bad lungs, he makes the most of them.

"Josiah smeared butter on the brioche piece as if it were the blood of his enemies." Better not ring Josiah up tonight, Elystan.

“Are you suggesting that I have been…ill?” What an insult.

Enter the wine. We'll see how he paces himself. It's only the third course. A lot can happen in nine more courses.

Oh, he's been looking well whilst being in a lot of pain and discomfort for a very long time. And I think she might have a sense of that, though most people miss it, even if her perception of it was slightly to the left. And then there's all the invisible unwellness that people are only just starting to pay a little attention to but haven't even begun to understand.

"But I’ve been exactly where you are before." Not exactly, dear.

"After I abdicated, I didn’t leave my new residence for months. It was more than I could bear most days to sit on my sofa, let alone leave my bed. I didn’t want to do anything or see anyone. It was hell." Not quite the same kind of hell, dear.

"Especially us sensitive, gifted people. We take these things so much harder than everyone else." She's not all wrong, but yes, she's projecting on him.

"Josiah had been tearing, buttering, and consuming brioche like clockwork" Oh look! It's his clockwork motif! Have I told you I associated Al Stewart's "House of Clocks" song with Josiah? Interpreting the "her" in the song as Nyella. It doesn't quite work, but good enough.

"This has been a—an opportunity for concentrated productivity." Like getting banished to Corege for school was an opportunity for concentrated productivity.

"He had not been a languishing layabout like the Duchess in her youth—which clearly showed that she had not been brought up properly." And there's one of his tried and true coping mechanisms. Judge the other person for their lack of correctness and precision.

"After all, Josiah was out of bed by noon most days." I mean, I get it, it happens when you have no schedule, but oh, Josiah, your mental health! I can't imagine what you've been through and how you won't let yourself acknowledge its internal effects, because that would be weak...

[siena-sevenwits]

And more.

FISH continued

It makes me sad that he lost most of his books, which were clearly not just a collection to him.

“I don’t do that. I’ve never done that.” He's telling the truth, I'm quite sure. But we'll see see after tonight. (*Holds Josiah close - while he may not be one of my top favourite characters, I care about him very much, and his mental health and his isolation and all he is going through.*)

ANTAVIA: Josiah darling, pleeease lean into the tortured artist archetype a little more. I'd be so on board with that.

"[P]erhaps mathematics." The apparent opposite of art and emotion, eh? But only apparently.

"Yet the heading of a letter addressed to Claverworth still lay buried under a heap of papers on his desk." Please don't let your dead, emotionally neglectful/abusive father rule your life, Josiah.

“Not useful!” The Duchess flung her knife down so hard she nearly threw it at him." That cut deep with her. She really does care about art, quite apart from her ideal version of Josiah. It's an important facet of her own life - her own ideas about it are very formative to the way she lives her own life.

He reached for the hock and drained every last drop of bottled Lienne. The alcohol equivalent of slamming the door and plugging his ears. She's off in a lot of things about her approach she but she;'s rather right on this one, Josiah. And slow down, boy. Downing that wine won't shut her out. You've got a long meal ahead of you, and you're stuck at the table with her unless you mean to walk out on her, and you're not a heaving drinker. It's going to hit you hard if you're not moderate.

MOUSSE

I have no experience with foie gras of any kind, let alone whipped with cream into a mousse, so I have no idea how to imagine this beyond the images DuckDuckGo is showing me, But I'm glad he enjoys it.

"I had never ridden in a cab before. I didn’t know I had to pay the fare. Or that one was expected to carry money for that purpose. I had never lived in such a small house before, with no staff—only my maid. Never given a thought to where my meals came from. Or anything else that I required, really. It had always magically appeared. Have you been in a shop yet?" Yes, he has. At school on village days. But also, I appreciate that she's coming down a little from enjoying the drama and the tragedy and connecting on a slightly more humanized and equal level. She's not going on about how it was hard - just that there were new experiences for her that he might be having too. In fact, the way she reveals this is just slightly vulnerable. "There were very ordinary things I didn't know about, things that might feel a little silly not to be knowledgable about. Are you going through that too?"

"The Duchess looked disappointed." Oh, but she still does want to be the obnoxious Canadian who says to Americans, "Oh, but just you WAIT till your first Canadian winter," and then is sad when they have already experienced one.

"That mousse was to die for, while this woman’s monologue wasn’t. Why on earth was she not touching her plate? To be fair, though, that champagne was rather fine; no wonder she preferred it." And now champagne. Yes, I am tracking you, Josiah. There's already traces of heightened senses and slightly altered focus in your train of thought here, boy. Hm... I wonder what kind of drunk Josiah predominately is when he's in his cups.

A quick search tells me soup-and-fish was a real life slang term for a dinner suit, which is cool. I didn't know that one before, and I like to be up on this era. Thanks for educating me.

While I was aware of gentlemen's pumps before, I only really learned the timeline of their rise and fall when I drew that picture of Elystan asleep on the sofa and had to look up reference for what sorts of shoes were in vogue - the altogether unpopular pumps came up in passing, I think. Or was this something I learned about because of Raffles? I can't remember. It was early this year and I was swimming in that sort of thing.

He squirmed under the pinch of the coat’s shoulders. “No.” Those clothes were mad to measure for a boy, not a man, and there's a symbol in that. Or perhaps, like Carroll's duchess, I should say there's a moral in it. (There isn't, but there isn't in most of her morals either.)

"Why couldn’t he get his expression under control? Now was not the moment to grin like an idiot." Watch out, Josiah. The wine's gonna be telling you you're handsome too - thankfully you're not dining with a young lady.

"He’s an absolute magician and I need him for a little intimate soiree I’m having next month, and I cannot afford to offend him." Shades of Anatole.

"But the ulcer hadn’t troubled him—much—in years." Honestly it may have been good for him to be away so long. That ulcer had everything to do with stress, and while he did stress himself out at Hollingham it was probably rather more chill than at the palace.

"It must never be said of the Hope of Lienne that he was unwilling to chivalrously sacrifice his interior wellbeing at the behest of a lady in distress." Oh, Josiah. :-)

“Oh, that. My sister Ayra took me aside once and informed me where it came from. She was practically cackling. But that never bothered me enough to put me off it. I liked it, and she probably embellished the facts, for all I know.” He's definitely loosening up. Sorry, I dont' want these comments to turn into the inebriation meteorological report, but I confess to being somewhat fascinated what happens to this lad who has built his life out of inhibitions.

Yes, I had assumed Josiah was never in the line of fire during the war. But you didn't have to be to be traumatized by this particular war. You could lose so much without ever losing one of your own limbs. Lose friends. Lose stability. Lose a whole world and worldview.

“What was I supposed to do about that? I wrote letter after letter—I shouted—I sulked—I threatened—I begged—nothing worked. It was nothing but paperwork and reviewing the ranks and posing for the cameras. I wanted to do my part, but…” !!! 🍾🥂

"She reached out a hand, too far away to touch his." And there's a symbol in that too.

"If pigs had wings." If there was a knock at the door, would you be more surprised to find a walrus or a carpenter? Now I am waiting for to discover why the sea is boiling hot. (This is giving me great joy. Both Alice books are very dear to me.)

[siena-sevenwits]

Onward.

STEAK

Well, Josiah, I would imagine your experience of Liennese food was mainly in a palatial context where the emphasis of cookery was deliciousness, while your experience of Coregean food was mainly in a scholastic context where the emphasis of cookery was plainness and healthfulness, so that may skew your experience a little. (And yes, I am sure he has eaten in Corege palatial lot too. And yes, I know Viennese cooking is generally considered a little more exciting than English cooking. And yes, I can't help but speak out to Antavia about the beautiful, beautiful meals I had in England. Full English breakfast, and beautiful gammon and vegetables, and steak and kidney pie, and cornish pasties, and many another. But I am sure I would be swept off my feet if I were to eat in Austria too. ;-)

"It’s got a perfection—no, no, a—a purity that…” Too overcome by the poetry of steak to find the rest of that sentence, he paid the work of art the best compliment he could by savoring a rapid succession of mouthfuls." Oh, my dear fellow. XD

OK, you may be seeing that stake through beer goggles just a trifle, Josiah, but you're making me want to try it alongside you. It sounds so good.

"And the bass line of the claret joining in" - Such a good line unto itself, but also plays nicely into how he sees the word as a musician and an enjoyer of music.

Aw, I am glad for him that he can acknowledge this meal is a lot more comfortable than the high pressure ones he has known for so long.

They're both being very sincere with each other right now.

"She sawed into her steak with the smooth grace of a cellist bowing and took a beatific bite." Music, music, it's all music now in the trains of his thought. No hiding under diplomacy or plans to go up to read mathematics.

"He frantically stabbed some potatoes and inhaled them." The actions that punctuate the dialogue are immaculate.

This is quite the opportunity she's offering.