But while everyone else was sorry, they also at last shook themselves out of it and went on with their lives. Alora did not. She felt that she had only half a life left, and that a pale and quiet one. Her worried parents decided that perhaps the best thing to do for her was to marry her off quickly and let her begin housekeeping; it might also remind her of her responsibilities. She would be Queen someday, and her current listlessness would not do at all in a monarch. Her betrothed was willing—it was no state marriage of convenience for him: he had been desperately in love with her for three years, since she had first smiled at him, and was even unhappier than her parents that she smiled no more—and she was, well, she was fond of him and supposed she didn’t mind. He was a cousin, but so many times removed that while he was indisputably kind, he was neither stout nor pompous; and in her weaker moments she thought he was quite handsome; and in her official moments she thought he would make a good king. They were married on her eighteenth birthday—it helped to cover up what had happened just a year ago—and he had just turned thirty.
She did pick up a bit after she was married. She never became exactly lively again, but then she was also getting older. Her smiles came more easily, and to her own surprise, she fell in love with her earnest young husband. He had known full well when his marriage proposal had been officially offered and officially accepted that Alora thought of him vaguely as a nice man and she did have to marry someone suitable. He also realized without false modesty that as available royalty went, he was a bargain. Not only did he not wear a corset nor have a red nose, he did have a sense of humor.
So, after he married her, he set out not really to woo her, which he thought would be cheating when affairs of state had almost forced them to get married in the first place, but to be as unflaggingly nice to her as he thought he could get away with. Their delight in each other after they became the sort of lovers that minstrels make ballads about (although it was certainly unpoetic of them to be married to each other) was so apparent that it spilled over into their dealings with their people; and the court became a more joyful place than it had been for many a long royal generation. And minstrels did make ballads about them, even though they were married to each other.
It was the tradition in this country that when the King and Queen reached a certain age—nobody knew precisely when that age was, but the country was lucky in its monarchs as it was lucky in so much else, and somehow they always had enough sense to know when they had reached it—they retired, and the next King and Queen took over. The older ones always went off to live somewhere as far away and as obscure as possible so they would not be tempted to meddle; and the new pair could settle in and start off without the grief of their parents’ death hanging over them—or the feeling, on the other hand, that the parents were just in the next room, grumbling about the muddle those youngsters were making.
But usually the old King and Queen did not step down until the young ones had a child or two, and it half-raised and at least potentially capable of looking after itself to some extent. But Alora bore no children. And at last her parents shrugged and said that they had waited long enough. The Queen dreamed every night about that little cottage in the woods, with the brook beside it, and a flower garden that she could keep with her own hands—sometimes she dreamed of it two or three times in a night. Children weren’t strictly necessary, even for monarchs; there was always somebody available to pass a crown to. And so at last came a day full of boxes and wagons and shouts, and last-minute directions on ruling (“Don’t forget that the Duke of Murn expects to be served fresh aradel at every dinner he’s invited to: I don’t care what season it is, he will make your life miserable with hunting stories if you don’t”). It all ended eventually with “Well, don’t worry, you won’t make too big a mess of it; we have faith in you; and come and visit us sometimes when the garden is blooming—and, well, goodbye.”
While the people lined the roads and cheered, the new Queen Alora and King Gilvan stood silently on their balcony, the Royal Balcony of Public Appearances and Addresses, and watched the wagons roll away.
When the wagons were quite out of sight, and only a dusty blur on the horizon remained, hanging over the road they took and greying the trees that lined it, the pair on their balcony turned and went down into the palace, into their private rooms.
Gilvan was the first to break the silence; he sighed and said: “I wish my parents would take it upon themselves to retire. There’re more than enough rising generations to take over for them—in fact you’d think the pressure from below would rise up and sweep them away … but dukes and duchesses never seem to feel the compulsion to be reasonable that kings and queens do.” Gilvan had felt rather than seen the unhappy look Alora had given him when he spoke of rising generations, and he knew what she was thinking before she opened her mouth. “Don’t worry about it,” he said simply. “You needn’t.”
“But—”
“I alone have half a dozen brothers and sisters, and they’re all married and all have half a dozen children apiece. As your father said—”
“He didn’t exactly say it,” said Alora hastily.
“No; his range of hems is wide and most expressive. But the crown won’t go begging; that’s all.” Gilvan paused and looked thoughtful. “There’s rather a glut on the market in royal offspring in our day, really. We don’t have to add to it. In fact, it may be wiser that we don’t. There isn’t all that much for all of us to do. There are too many local festivals and celebrations of this and that already, and even more dukes and earls to do the presiding.”
Alora almost laughed. “Yes, but as King and Queen we really ought to have an heir. Of our own.”
Gilvan shrugged. “Noisy little beasts, children—or at any rate our family’s are all tiresomely loud—we can do without them. There are too many that have to visit us already. And if you mean that direct-line stuff, well, the crown has done more dancing around over the last several hundred years than a cat on a hot stove. A small leap to a nephew—is it Antin that’s the oldest? We aren’t due for Queen What’s-her-name, are we?”
“No, Antin, fortunately. Lirrah is the next oldest.”
“And hasn’t a brain in her pretty head.” Gilvan looked relieved. “I thought it was Antin—as long as he doesn’t break his neck out hunting someday. Anyway, a small leap to a nephew won’t discomfit it any. And you know I don’t mind.”