It is nearly ten o'clock when we reach Parliament. The hall where we danced is empty now and our footsteps echo deep into its shadows. Mariusz and I and Tarnuv pass right through, onwards into wide passages, and emerge into a long chamber of gilt and royal blue velvet. At one end is a great gilded chair and table on a dais. A gold-robed man sits on the chair. At the other end is a set of stairs leading to a small platform on which is a humble wooden bench, unoccupied. Along the sides of the chamber are rows of tiered seats, like in a theatre. These are filled with expensively suited men. Some are sitting up and alert. Others are asleep. In the very centre of the chamber is a round red marble circle, like a sun, in the middle of all the blue carpet around it. Here stands a young man, not expensively dressed, barely dressed at all in fact. He wears no waistcoat, and his shirt, billowing out between his coat flanks, threatens to come untucked from his wrinkled grey trousers.

Everybody stands as we enter the room. Mariusz heads for the platform with the humble wooden bench. Lord Tarnuv pushes me gently in his direction.

"Go with him," he says.

I follow Mariusz. Lord Tarnuv makes his way to a seat on one of the lower rows of the chamber.

Mariusz sits down on the humble little bench. There is just enough space for me next to him, but I hesitate.

"Sit with me," he says.

"Can't I stand?"

"It's best if you don't. Only the one speaking is allowed to stand."

A political ritual, then. I sit next to Mariusz, my skirts billowing out over his ankles. The unkempt man down on the floor begins to speak, gesticulating wildly with his long arms and waving around a sheaf of papers.

"What's it about?" I whisper.

"He is an independent," Mariusz says in a low voice. "He has come up with a petition, which he is now describing. He has ten thousand signatures of people who wish to dissolve the monarchy. He is casting a motion in parliament now to dissolve it."

"Can he do that?"

"No. I can veto his motion. I have that power. Even if I did not, I doubt he would get a majority. Most of parliament supported my father absolutely. Much of them still support me."

"But you can't risk letting them take the vote?"

Mariusz looks out over the crowd. "It would take more than a motion, but it would not be wise to let it get that far."

The unkempt man finishes his speech. A few people — not many — clap. The man in the gilded chair speaks out. I catch Mariusz's name. He stands up, then looks down at me and offers me his hand.

"Stand up," he whispers.

I take his hand and get to my feet. When I am standing, he does not release me.

He says one short, clipped sentence in Selician, very loudly. A few people — more, this time — clap. A few others boo.

Mariusz's hand is shaking in mine. When the claps and boos fade, the unkempt man walks off the circle, nestling his sheaf of papers to his chest. He does not look disappointed. He must have expected this result.

The man in the gilded chair says something again. Every man in the room stands up, and Mariusz begins to head down the stairs, still holding my hand. As we leave the chamber, Tarnuv comes after us. His mouth is set, like he is trying to keep words from rushing out. Anger is in his eyes.

He manages to keep the words in until we reach our coach. He swings himself in after us and once we are rolling off towards the palace again, he starts.

It is fluent, fast-flowing Selician, too fast for me to follow, but I do not need to understand the words to know that he is berating Mariusz. Fury is in his tone and expression. On the coach seat beside me, Mariusz slumps back and offers no reply but shrugs and the occasional "Yes, I know," or "Yes, I understand." He sounds completely unconcerned, which only makes Tarnuv's tone more clipped. I had not known that a man as polite and restrained as Tarnuv could be angry. To be sure, he never once raises his voice or says any of the words I recognize as curses, but there is fury in every inch of his taut posture and every syllable of his racing words.

Listening, crammed in the coach with these two men, I feel all the shame which Mariusz does not.

At last, we reach the palace. Mariusz opens the door even before the coach has completely stopped and hops out onto the gravel. He turns to help me out and bows to Tarnuv.

"Good night," he says.

Tarnuv shakes his head and says something else — perhaps we are not finished, or this is not over, but Mariusz says something to the coachmen and the footman shuts the door and the coach moves off again.

He lets go of my hand and starts up the steps to the door, hands in his pockets, head bowed. I follow a few steps behind, not wishing to see his face. When we reach our suite again, Mariusz flings himself down on a sofa and covers his face with a cushion.

"I need a drink," he says, muffled through the cushion.

"It's eleven o'clock. Go to bed."

"I can't sleep." He pulls the cushion down to look at me. "Tarnuv thinks I could have kept Salamon from getting his petition signed if I were better at this. That's why he was yelling at me."

There is, in his voice, more than the suspicion of a whine.

"He wasn't yelling at you," I say. "He was expressing his opinion with force. I daresay, without some force, opinions don't sink through your thick skin."

"Pah." Mariusz tosses the cushion on the floor. "What could have I done, Alexandra? Court public popularity with smiles and charity the way Adam used to? He was so good at this. People loved him. They thought he cared about them."

"And did he?"

Mariusz stares at the ceiling for a long moment. "Yes. He did."

"Perhaps you could do the same."

"I don't not care. I want them to be well. But I don't have Adam's gifts. I don't have his warmth, his selflessness, his optimism. I don't know how to talk politics with people, the way he did. I don't know how to be the prince." With a sudden lurch, Mariusz sits up. "I never asked for this."

He speaks like a wounded child who has been told he cannot have a particular sweet he desires. My withered patience dies.

"If you are so opposed to your responsibilities as duke, then abdicate. My uncle cannot stop you. The crown will go to Dominik, under regency until he is old enough to take power for himself. That will be a good twelve years, I imagine. Enough time to educate him to the position. It would probably be best for the duchy, in fact. You would be wounding no one."

Mariusz glares at me. "I should have known I can't expect sympathy from you."

"You've more than enough for yourself."

Mariusz scoffs and gets up. He goes to the bedroom, where he kicks off his shoes and rips off his coat. The smaller buttons of his waistcoat take more time than his impatient fingers have. I lean against the doorway, waiting. I know he will not leave our argument here. I have scored too many points tonight for his pride to take it.

"Dominik would hate it more than me," he says. "There is no one else — my sisters, perhaps. Maria's child, when she has one. It's not fair to put it on them."

"Then dissolve the monarchy. A parliament is enough."

He stops undoing his waistcoat and stares at me. "Is that why King Edmund sent you here? To persuade me to dissolve the monarchy? Without it, he would have complete control. Parliament would sell out, or fall out, the nobility would divide and be conquered, too concerned with their own individual ends to protect the whole, the separatists would try to take command — and be overpowered — and King Edmund would have everything, with no small measure of independence left for us."

"I do not think even King Edmund is that conniving."

He continues watching me a moment, eyes narrow, then returns to his buttons. "Neither abdication nor dissolving the monarchy are possible."

"Then you are left with no option but to do your duty."

"Indeed." His fingers fumble on the buttons and he gives up and throws his hands in the air. "I have no choice but to be the prince and I don't know how to be the prince."

Again, the self-pitying note comes into his voice. It grates at my soul.

"Then learn. I would suggest your first lesson would be in finding allies beyond your drunken friends. Do you think flirting with Celina helps you run the country? All it does is make Valery jealous. Can you afford to have a nobleman jealous of you? And Barany, that delightful, smiling, idiot — he's certainly no help. Stop drinking and fooling around with other fools. Find people who can help you to do your duty. I think Tarnuv is trying, but all you will tell him is 'I understand' and 'I know' though you clearly don't."

I speak through Mariusz's aborted interruptions, and by the time I finish he is silent and balefully staring.

At last, he laughs and shrugs off my speech, the same way he shrugged off Tarnuv's. "As the rumours said, you really are a bitch."

The word cuts to my soul. "I'm not the one ten thousand people signed a petition to be rid of. You want my sympathy for that? My sympathy lies with your people. Look at what they've got for a ruler — a drunken incompetent."

The cold smile dies on Mariusz's face. He walks to me — and I think he is going to slap me — but then he walks straight past me as though I am not there. He crosses the room, opens the door, and leaves, not even bothering to shut it.

I stand still, watching the doorway, waiting for him to come back, thinking he must come back and finish our argument. He does not come back. At length, I realise he is not. He is probably off drinking with his stupid friends.

I sit down slowly on the bed. The memory comes to me — unbidden, unwanted — of my father and mother having one of their arguments. They used words like bitch and fool too. And the tone they said them in — that cold, biting, hateful tone, their expressions snake-like with fury. My mother was the one who would slap, and scratch, and bite. My father would shove her away and thrash her with words alone. Words alone when I was watching.

I tried not to watch.

I try not to remember.

An unfamiliar ache uncurls inside my chest. I take up a pillow and bury my face in it, shaking, trying to bury the sound of my sobs. Perhaps I succeed. Perhaps I don't. It does not matter.

No one is here to hear me cry.

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2024-09-01: 👏👏👏 for Alex. She finally evened out the score.