An Imperfect Princess (16 page)

“The galaxy?”

“Is that your word
for an extremely large cluster of stars circling around a common center?” she
asked, staring at it. 

“It is,” Aijo
said from her perch on Marilyn’s head.  “And yes, that is our galaxy as well,
Enny.  We only went a thousand light years.”

“We call it the
Milky Way,” James said, tilting his head up to look at it with her.  “The word
for it, galaxy, comes from the Greek word for milk.”

Enny smiled.  “I
like that name,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back.  “As far apart
as our worlds are, we are still within the same spiral arm of the galaxy.  I
believe this solar system lies on the edge of the disc, whereas we are a little
further in toward the center.  Even for us, travel beyond a few hundred light
years either way is unusual, as the dark matter tunnels are vast and
unexplored.”  A shadow crossed her face.  “We fight amongst each other too much
for coordinated exploration.  That hasn’t been done since the Pharinae spread
across the galaxy, three million years ago.”

“That sounds like
a very long time,” Marilyn said, and she poked Aijo, who fluttered briefly. 

“It is
incomprehensible to most beings,” Aijo admitted.  “As far as we know, the
Pharinae spread throughout the whole galaxy, trying to find worlds with life,
like this one.”

“I take it they
are the exception, rather than the norm?”

Aijo took on a
pedantic tone.  “Only one in a thousand planets has the qualities to sustain
life,” she said, lifting off Marilyn’s head to gaze at the night sky along with
James and Enny.  “And some of those never actually produce it even with the ideal
conditions.  Even the Pharinae don’t know why,” she said sadly.

“Perhaps that is
where God the Creator comes in,” James said softly, and Eneria suddenly had the
feeling that he’d been pondering their conversation from earlier.  He may not
have been very religious before, but finding out that the universe was much
larger could have changed his mind.

“You’re falling
in love with him.”

Eneria had been
sitting on a chair in front of the mirror in her room, smiling and humming to
herself, trying to coax one of the tendrils in her hair to curling, as was the
style.  She was having no luck.  Straight Lathlian hair didn’t curl without the
use of harsh chemicals. Seth had naturally curly hair from his mother that had
always made her insanely jealous.  And almost everyone here had some degree of
curls in their hair, from James’s wild uncontrollable coif to Clarissa’s
carefully tended spirals. 

“So what?”
Eneria said, annoyed at her best friend.  “He is a kind man, and he’s
intelligent, and it’s not as if my father is alive to object to him.”

Aijo flew
directly in front of her, pointing one tiny golden finger at her nose.  “
So
what?
 Have you forgotten you are another species entirely?  Have you
forgotten you have a bounty on your head the size of this planet?  He is a
primitive
,
he can’t possibly understand what you are going through.  And in this society,
they are patriarchal.  He has to marry someone who can give him a son.”

Having her
doubts shoved in her face by a floating conscience killed her good mood. 
Eneria slammed her new hairbrush on the desk and broke out her laptop instead. 
It didn’t have much battery life left on it, but she and Aijo had jury rigged a
solar collector to feebly collect the daylight and allow her a few hours of use
at night. 

She started
messing with the genetic program from the team of Pharinae that were supposed
to have erased her genetics.  She had missed her appointment with them; unless
she got off this planet, it wouldn’t matter what she had wanted them to do to
her genes.

Aijo tried
again, this time more softly.  “You have to forget about him.  You need to
rebuff him, too.  Nothing can come of such a love.  He is bound to this world,
the same as you are bound to the stars now.”

Eneria felt her
eyes brimming over with tears, but she held them back as always. No crying
allowed. “I can’t,” she said, clutching her pendent.  “I can’t stop thinking
about him.  He is everything I ever wanted in a husband.  Even if I didn’t know
it.” 

“You are
infatuated,” Aijo clucked, unsympathetically.  “Lathlian royal marriages have
never been built on love.  The goal is to build something that will endure.”

“I don’t want to
be unhappy,” Eneria argued back.  “Look at my mother.  She was miserable for
all twenty five years of marriage.  She knew about Father’s mistresses, how he
changed them like a new pair of shoes yearly, how he had other children... half
brothers and sisters that I don’t even know are alive or dead after the coup.” 

“There is more
than one kind of happiness,” Aijo retorted.  “Even with your parents’
respective weaknesses, your mother found joy in her art.  She stayed with Narin
d’Munt because it allowed her to pursue her craft.  She had you and your
brother, fulfilling her duty, and then she was free.” 

Eneria put her
head down on her arms, blocking out the light, as if she could silence Aijo by
pretending she wasn’t there.  “I won’t live that kind of life.  Now that I have
had a taste of what love could possibly feel like, how could I settle for
anything less?”

Aijo didn’t say
anything more, but offered no comfort to her mistress either as Eneria finally
let go and let herself cry.  She hadn’t really had a good cry since the coup
two years ago.  She cried for her mother’s resignation to her father’s
infidelity and for the world that had been lost to them all because they prized
good alliances over love.

“You’re falling
in love with her.”

James stared at
himself in the mirror as his valet Martin shaved him.  “No, I’m not.  I’m
trying to be a respectable host to a wealthy lady of prominent standing.  We
have done nothing untoward.”  Except that damning kiss in his study, which
would not be repeated, James told himself firmly.

“You can keep
lying to yourself, milord, but she is a right pretty one, even if she’s a
little crazy.   No one is going to blame you if you find yourself besotted.”

She wasn’t
crazy, James corrected mentally, but said nothing.  She was one of the most
level headed women he’d ever met.  She knew more about chemistry and physics
than some of the most learned men in the land, and she absorbed every facet of
natural science he could throw at her like a sponge.  If her stories were to be
believed–and he now believed them completely–all world civilizations went
through an Enlightenment, which would lead to Industrial, then Information,
then Space revolutions, in that order. 

She was also a
talented jeweler.  When he had mentioned having the diamond she had given him
in payment set into a ring or pendant for Clarissa, she had volunteered to do
it herself.  The tools she used were nothing like what he had seen before...
and the names she had for them were almost unpronounceable. But within a few
minutes in his basement laboratory, with him providing her some electricity
with her strange human-powered dynamo, she had fashioned a beautiful gold and
platinum bow with a heavy gold chain, the diamond centered on it. It matched
Clarissa’s presentation court gown and one of her best ball gowns.

Her mother was
an artist, she had said, whose art was so beautiful that her father had
selected her to marry him from all his other potential choices.  He had wanted
creative children who would be able to think out their problems.  Her father
was not quite a sovereign king, but one of three co-rulers who had controlled
not a country, but a whole world, as large as their Earth and all the other
planets in their solar system.  She had called him the “Third King,” and her
cousin Vazeria was the heir to the “Second King.”  The House of the First King
was presumed dead. Had Lathlor still been under its own control, elections
would be held to find a new family for House of the First King.  It was an
unusual combination of democracy and monarchy that had lasted them over five
hundred years.

Martin was
right, however.  James
was
becoming besotted with her.  She was not the
prettiest woman he’d ever met, but she was probably the smartest, and she never
ceased to delight him with her wit and observational power.  She had already
suggested dozens of experiments he could do in his modest lab that would surely
land him in the annals of the Proceedings of the Royal Society.

That wasn’t to
say she was unattractive.  She was... cute.  Her face was animated, clearly
displaying her emotions.  When she smiled, her whole face lit up, and
intriguing dimples appeared.  Her figure was too curvaceous for fashion, but
begged to be touched and explored....

“My lord?” his
valet said, pausing in the act of holding a razor to his throat. 

“Move the razor,
I have to cough,” James said, irritated.  He had actually started
breathing
heavily, just thinking about those luscious breasts, nearly popping out of the
ill-fitting dress she’d worn that first day.

His valet
complied, and James cleared his throat, vowing to put her out of his mind.  She
was off limits.  She was going to act as a companion to his sister-in-law in
London, and the last thing either of them needed was gossiping tongues about
their relationship.

She may have
once been a princess, but she was definitely not marriage material to him, and
he’d best try to stop thinking of her that way before he lost control.

The days before
their trip to London flew by quickly.  They made an excursion to St Ives, the
nearest town, and purchased trunks and more mundane pieces of clothing that
didn’t need to be tailored, like stockings and slippers and hats.  Eneria felt
almost guilty, spending the earl’s money so freely, but it was all to be paid
back once she sold some jewels in London. 

She had
fashioned a pair of diamond earrings to match the pendant she had made for
Clarissa and they were all secreted together in a velvet box, a nice surprise
for the young lady who was embarking on the biggest adventure of her lifetime.

The only person
who was not completely excited to be heading to London was Marilyn.  She had
been listless in all of her lessons, even the ones where Eneria had joined in,
Aijo sitting in her hair.  Even the wonderful secret of the fairy was no longer
enough to keep her entertained.  Clarissa had remarked on Marilyn’s sudden
change in attitude. 

“It’s as if she
finally decided to grow up,” she had said, as she and Eneria went over the
finer points of presentation.

It had been
decided that Eneria would not be presented to the queen, since she was quite a
bit older than Clarissa and would not be subject to the same restrictions.  It
could be considered untoward to introduce her to the
ton
as a princess
and not to have her formally presented to the Queen of England, who was herself
still a young ruler, but Eneria wanted to lie low and not draw attention to
herself.

Eneria’s accent
could not be explained away; no one would believe she had been born anywhere in
the British Isles.  Although her diction and grammar were now perfect, she
still had a marked accent on vowels and certain consonants.  They had decided
that her original claim, that which Clarissa still believed, of being a
princess from a tiny country around the Baltic, would have to do.  Very few
people were able to keep up with all the tiny countries in that area of the
world, so quickly did alliances and associations change.

Being a royal
would also explain her vast fortune, which was to be carefully locked away in a
vault in London. 

The day arrived
after another busy week in which James and Eneria had hardly spoken to each
other beyond the business of the location change.  She got the impression that
he was intentionally ignoring her, but after that miserable conversation with
Aijo, she realized it was probably for the better.

Eneria understood
they were to travel by carriage, which made her long for her shuttle. The trip
would barely take a minute from stop to start in the vehicle.  But it was
solidly moored at the marina, shielded from scanners from above.  A Konkastian
would have to scan it sideways from the marina in order to detect it at all.

And so they
found themselves together on a swaying carriage, across from each other, toes
nearly touching.  Eneria was wearing her new traveling gown and feeling like a
noble once more for the first time in over two years with her richly feathered
hat.  It even had a little cup in it, just the perfect size for Aijo to curl
up, out of sight.  They still had not introduced her to Clarissa; no good
opportunity had presented itself.

The road was
rutted, but the company was pleasant. 

“Over there are
the ruins of Carn Brea Castle,” James said, pointing out a rocky hill in the
distance with some walls and crenellates still remaining.  “It dates back to
Norman times.”

Eneria had
learned that the little strip of land, currently the most industrial nation on
the tiny planet, had been fought over so many times that the current people
were a mixture of native tribes, invaders, immigrants, and in a few cases,
unusual alliances with other countries on the Continent. 

When prompted,
Marilyn dutifully recited key dates in the history of the country, earning
herself a shilling from her uncle for her memory and elucidating Eneria as
well.

“How far back
does Lestonia date?” Clarissa asked, maintaining polite conversation.  They had
“changed” the name of Eneria’s homeland to something more believable for the
area, at James’s suggestion.  Eneria could feel her mother frowning at her from
a thousand light years away, but there was nothing that could be done about it.

“We like to
think we can trace ourselves back to Roman times, but all countries near the
Holy Roman Empire like to make that claim,” Eneria said carefully, remembering
the false history she and the earl had concocted.  Oh, how she
hated
lying.
“My father’s lineage can be dated for almost eight hundred years.”   That much
was completely true.  Eneria never doubted for a second that her blood was blue,
at least in the metaphorical sense. Vaz and their mothers, with their
overwhelming blue anthocyanin pigments, actually did have bluish, purple
blood. 

“Oh, how
fantastic.  Any English royalty in the tree?”

“From the House
of Plantagenet, but nothing more recent.  We lost diplomatic contact with
England when the Empire began to have undue influence on us.”  Lies and more
lies.  Eneria wasn’t even sure of the time frame of the Plantagenets, but they
were much farther back than the Tudors, Stuarts, or the present day
Hanoverians.  And it sounded good, James had said.  So that was that.

“What a pity,
you might still be related to her Majesty somewhere else along the way,
however.” Clarissa glazed over for a moment, and Eneria could envision her
branching out a mental tree, fitting the House of Plantagenet and the House of
Hanover onto it. 

“All of European
royalty is related to each other,” James agreed.  “It’s quite likely, in fact,
that they share a closer tie than a house from five hundred years ago.”

Eneria hated
that he was also lying for her. 
Because
of her.

She gritted her
teeth. It had to be done.  Eneria of Lathlor was a prime target for
assassination.

Forgive me,
Mother, she pleaded in her mind.

They continued
on in the carriage until nightfall, when they stopped at a post inn.  The earl
rented out a private parlor for his unusual brood of women, and they tore into
the hearty English dinner–except for Eneria, who had to pass on at least two
courses that contained things that tasted horrible to her.  Rhubarb and
kippers, she had found out later, and the latter also smelled horrible to many
Earthlings, but they ate them anyway.