Surprise crossed his face, and perhaps irritation, too, before he blotted it with a smile. “After these many years of English lessons?” he teased. “And it is a singular honor to serve the princess and perhaps make connections with the woman who might soon be our queen. England is also a seafaring country, and I know my father is interested in making himself known to mutual interests.”
“Perhaps I can assist with that,” I offered weakly. I looked up to see my sister Karin, shimmering in the candlelight, near the doorway from the hallway to the gallery. She spoke with one of our cousins. Philip glanced up at them, transfixed, and then back at me.
“There is no other reason for me to go . . . or stay?” I lightly probed. I recalled a Swedish proverb that said it was not safe to leave the kitchen while the fires were lit.
“Not at all,” he replied smoothly. “And while you are gone, I will speak with my father about the . . . missing dowry portion.”
I blinked. “What missing dowry portion?”
“You do not know?” he asked.
“I know nothing of this.”
“Before your father took ill he had been gambling with the king and some other noblemen. I understand that he took a fair portion of your dowry money, as yet unpaid to my father, and bet it as a bid to earn a dowry for your sister Karin as well.”
I shook my head, speechless and incensed. He had gambled my dowry? He would never have gambled Gertrude’s or Brita’s dowries. But for Karin . . . he’d lost mine.
“Your father did not pay the last quarter of your dowry before he died. My father was negotiating with him about it, but it is, as yet, unsettled, which may void our engagement. I shall see if I can speak with him about this and settle things while you are gone.”
I nodded, dull. I had a partial dowry. Why had no one as yet brought this matter forward?
He took my hands in his own and kissed them. “I shall find a solution, do not worry. I already have an idea in mind.”
“I hope so,” I said. None of us relished a winter voyage in rough seas or the overland portion upon the ice and snow, but Princess Cecelia had insisted we go. The king, I suspect, was glad to be rid of her persistent fault finding and allowed the journey to move forward in spite of the weather. “Will you miss me?”
Philip perfunctorily kissed my hands again. “Of course!” He bowed to me before returning to the group that included my sister and my cousin. I watched them for a long while, but nothing seemed outwardly improper. Perhaps I had misunderstood the earlier situation in the closet. Or perhaps not.
• • •
A small crowd gathered at the ship the next morning as the wind spat ice. My trunk had already been loaded into the suffocating cabin that Bridget Hand and I would share for the sea portion of our journey. The Englishmen were already on board, eager, I supposed, to return to queen and country. With the exception of our princess, we Swedes were reluctant travelers.
I stood near my mother, sisters, and brothers, and a few of my young cousins. One, seven-year-old Sofia, broke away and impudently ran toward the end of the dock. Only quick thinking on the part of my brother Johann saved her from an icy journey heavenward. Princess Cecelia soon approached us, and we all curtseyed.
“Do not worry, Lady Agneta,” the princess soothed. “I shall be as a mother to Elin Ulfsdotter. She shall be in my constant care, as will all of my ladies, and I will return with her safely, and soon.”
My mother, still beautiful, bowed her head, a tear trembling in the corner of her eye. “Thank you, my lady.”
Princess Cecelia then left us to our parting sentiments while she went to bid farewell to her own family. Her new husband, the Margrave of Baden, waited for her on board, having no Swedish family to part from.
My mother had already given me her gift earlier in the day, a golden locket necklace with a sketch of her on her wedding day, and a recent one of me, inside. Each of my sisters came to me in turn. Gertrude pressed a jar of dried lingonberries into my hand, then softly kissed my temple, as we sisters did out of affection. “Good-bye, dear sister,” she said. “I shall pray for you.”
Brita came next and held out a new needle for my lacework. She kissed my temple and murmured her affection before stepping aside for Karin. My head snapped up as I saw that she wore one of my gowns, a favorite of rose pink.
“You shan’t need it for a few months,” she said without remorse. I held my temper and my tongue in front of the others; my mother disapproved of outward displays of emotion, finding them lowbred. Karin, too, kissed my hairline and bade me a safe journey and a speedy return. I noticed, as I held her near, a faint aroma of the spiced scent of Philip’s wash water. I looked at her, alarmed. She had betrayed me, she had! I did not want to leave, and yet it was too late; Princess Cecelia was motioning us all toward the ship.
It did not occur to me until later that Karin alone had offered no gift upon my departure excepting, perhaps, a Judas kiss.
The ship wound its way through the fjords and into the open ocean. What should have been a journey of perhaps one unpleasant month turned into a nightmare of nearly ten. There was no ill weather that did not bedevil us, from ice storm to windy squall that threatened to scupper the ship nearly every week. The seas churned, gray trimmed with foamy white ribbons like an old man’s beard, and most days we kept to our cabins.
When the seas were not unwelcoming, the Danes were. They proved to be the hellhounds we expected them to be, harrying us from one coast to the next and forcing us to travel over ice-sheathed land by horse-drawn sleigh to friendly noble homes before boarding ship again. If it weren’t for the loyalty I knew I owed my king, I might have wondered if he’d signaled our route to distract the Danes from his brother Johan, whom he loved, in Finland.
“Why complain of cold when we are on our way to see the wonderful queen of England?” our princess cried in joy. Although I saw the irony in her warm pleasure while we numbed with frost, I was truly happy for her. For many years, since her brother Johan had visited England and returned to tell of its wonders, Cecelia had prepared herself for her own journey of diplomacy, mastering the language with only English merchants as teachers.
Within a few months it was clear that Princess Cecelia was with child, and we all gave a portion of our foodstuffs so she and the babe would not suffer. “I have to look away when she is sick over the side of the ship,” Christina Abrahamsdotter confided in me. “My innards pain me for lack of food, and then I watch as my supper lurches from her stomach into the sea.”
We began to run out of wood, too, with which to warm ourselves. Princess Cecelia sat shivering in a corner chair. “I need more coats!” She looked at us by turn and we reluctantly shed our warm outer clothing, and she took them one by one and layered them upon herself. From then on we ladies went about with our thinner inner garments. We often danced about in our light dresses to keep ourselves warm while the princess, now comfortable, sang English sea songs and English hymns. This did not endear any of us to royal service, but we were well trained enough to say nothing.
It was also clear that Princess Cecelia had been turning her husband away from their marital bed. Master Preston sternly warned the ship hands from even looking upon us, but he was not of a rank to speak thus to the margrave. One night the margrave appeared in my cabin as Bridget was attending to the princess.
“Hello, schön Elin,” he said, his German tight-toothed and proper. “I have been waiting for the right time for us to become better acquainted. You are the most beautiful girl at court.”
I moved away from him, steadying my feet with the constant pitching of the ship. “I think we know one another well enough already, sir.”
“But I do not, Elin,” he said. I could not even account his behavior to drunkenness, as he appeared to have all of his wits about him. He drew closer, and I grabbed hold of the feeble chair in the corner of our cabin to steady myself. As he advanced again, I feigned that I was losing my balance and pushed the chair in his direction, aiming a wooden leg for the part of him where he would feel the most pain.