As our carriage slides through the front gates I can't help but feel amazed. The royal palace looks even bigger up close than farther away. There are hundreds of roses all around the yard and in the middle of it there's the memorial fountain for Queen Amélie, the King's first wife. The fountain's three times my height and made of the finest white marble. The only blue roses around grow around it. Rumor has it that the queen loved blue roses so much that after she died the king gathered all the blue rose bushes and planted them around the fountain once it was ready. Nobody knows whether that's true or not but Mrs Margaret, our laundress, claims it's true.
When we step through the beautifully carved wooden front door a servant asks us to give our coats, bags and hats in their care. I give him my handbag, even though I feel less safe without it. Once we're ready we step into the ballroom. It's so full of people it makes me anxious. As soon as I find a comfortable seat close to a wall someone asks me to dance. It's a fairly tall, well-fed man with a well groomed beard and a pair of warm brown, wise eyes behind expensive smart people's glasses. I glance timidly at my mother who says 'it's okay' and I accept the invite. The musicians start playing a waltz as we step on the dance floor. He starts dancing a dull, lazy version of waltz and I follow, trying to keep up with the slow pace. It sounds like the music's slowing down too.
Once I catch up he starts telling me about his research with ancient cultures. When I was still studying I took particular interest in the subject and the teacher bought me about half a dozen other books about it. It's not the only subject I found interesting, though, so by the end of the year I got around fifty new books about my matters of interest, including philosophy, psychology, history in general, and literature. I can only imagine how much money and effort all this needed. Some time later I politely asked my father to give my teacher a raise. To my surprise he actually did.
As my dancing partner notices my interest in the subject his eyes widen. He starts talking more deeply about it and lets me talk and comment too, as if I was a colleague of his, not some little girl sent here to seduce the king. At some point we stopped dancing but I didn't realize when. My anxiety is long gone.
I don't know how long we chatted. It could've been minutes, it could've been hours. All of a sudden, someone pulls me back from the shoulder, as if I was in some kind of a fantasy world. They grab my hand and waist to stop my fall. It's an other man, seemingly a couple of years older than I am, hair a bit messy and eyes burning like blue flames.
"Dear bro, you shouldn't keep all the fun to yourself!", he sounds enthusiastic, maybe a bit cynical.
"My apologies, bro, but the lady and I are having a mature, intelligent conversation here, so why don't you go back to play with your rattle and let her be?". He seems calm, a bit annoyed. The man who still holds my hand gets really angry and starts shouting all kinds of insults, letting my hand and waist go. I withdraw to the nearest seat close to a wall.
"Well, that went better than expected", mother says as she and father come back from dancing.
"What do you mean, mother?", I ask, and immediately regret it. She gets an irritated look in her eyes.
"Oh, you didn't know? The man you were dancing with, he's the elder of King Leopold's sons, Bernard. And the one who distracted you two is the younger son, Alexander. Odd fellows I heard, but royalty". I nod, both as a thanks and an apology. She smiles and goes to chat with other people, taking father with her. As soon as they leave a couple of noblemen's sons come around me. My anxiety grows but I can't find a way to escape. I look around for a place to hide as someone catches my eye. It's a man - or a woman, I'm not sure - with a dirty face and rags that definitely put him apart from the rest. His strong, green eyes and long blond hair conflict with the ragged look he has. I follow his every move so intensively I can't hear what other people say anymore. I can see him picking people's pockets, robbing them clean. His pockets look so full... I could call the guards on him but I'm too busy observing him. I can see that he notices that I look at him. He looks stunned, somehow. Then he's caught, trying to steal some old man's pocket watch and the guards drag him away. What a shame.
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