Page 68 of The Girl Beneath the Sea

“You do not need to worry. I will take good care of you.”

I think he is genuine this time. He thinks I am upset and I am but not for the reasons that he thinks.

I sniff and reach for my handkerchief. I give him a tearful smile. “Thank you, Prime Minister. I am sorry. I know I am usually better composed. I promise I will be better for the wedding. I won’t disappoint you.”

I want to kick him in the balls. But that will ruin everything.

He pats me again. “I know you will. You have always done your duty.”

I nod, sniff again, and turn back to the paperwork. I make my way through it, initialing every page and then signing at the end.

Reinhardt then does his part and so do the witnesses, before they finally leave me alone.

My parents married in the 1980s. It was broadcast live across the world. Millions of people tuned in to watch. It was shown in classrooms and in prisons.

By evening, I find out from the news that I am to be married in Washington in the National Cathedral on the last Saturday of the month. It is the cathedral where they bury their presidents, full to the doors, and every camera in the world will be turned on, live, for the first time in my life.

Roan will be there. I know he will.

18. Roan

He can’t.

That’s all I can think. He can’t marry Reinhardt. He’s married to me. Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly legal, but it’s still real. I say it out loud before I think better of it.

“He can’t. He married me.”

Havel’s eyes come off the screen.

“What?”

I am going to sound like a lunatic. I don’t care. Aurelio is mine. He’s my husband. He doesn’t belong to that old man.

“To me. We married each other on the boat, before the bite.” I don’t know how to explain this, so I just say it. “The lantern had gone out. He was saying that adultery was a death sentence in your country. Then he said, ‘What business is it of Reinhardt’s who I marry?’ He said, ‘I choose. I marry you.’” My throat is doing something I don’t like. “Then I said it back. Then he bit me.”

The younger man says something from the door, short. Havel doesn’t answer him.

“Say it again,” Havel says to me. “The words he used. Exactly.”

“I marry you. I do marry you. We are married.”

Havel is quiet for a long time. Then he says a couple of words in his own language, not to me, and the younger man goes very still against the door.

“That is the old form,” Havel says. “In the old churches in Monteverra.” He looks at my neck. “His Highness spoke it to you in a shipping container.”

“So it counts.”

“In a court of law in Monteverra? With no proof? And with the Prime Minister persuading the judge the other way?” He shakes his head. “No. But it is true. And His Highness knows it is true. He was made to learn the histories so that he could recite them to the cameras. He did not say those words by accident. He has never said anything by accident in his life.”

“Then he can’t marry Reinhardt.”

“He is not free to marry him.” Havel closes the laptop. “Reinhardt won’t know this and I don’t think he will care.”

I sit there, my heart aching. My prince can’t get married to another. And definitely not to him.

“I need to get word to him. You said you have a man on the inside.”

“No.”