Читать книгу The Zombie and his Existential Crisis - Chantal Spies - Страница 7

The duke was really nervous. “Do I look alright mother?” he asked as he checked out his outfit in the full-length mirror. “You look handsome my darling.” The Crow said. She was transformed half crow, half human with the body of a human, but with the head and wings of a crow. “Now, what did mummy teach you?” Herment took a deep breath and rattled off the list of manly must-haves his mother taught him, “Be everything a woman wants and needs. Strong yet sensitive, funny but not a clown. Make her feel safe, but not in an overbearing way. Spoil her but respect her independence. Give her attention, but not too much. Oh, and be mysterious so she doesn’t get bored.” The duke was overwhelmed, women sounded so complicated.

“Very good.” she said and combed his hair flat with the tip of her wing. “Gosh! It’s hard work getting a girl to like you. Good thing we’re not in the Romantic era yet and titles still get you ahead in the game.” Duke chuckled nervously at his own joke. “The Romantic era?” the crow didn’t know that her son was an academic. “Yes, the Romantic era. It will happen around the year 1800. People will start to marry for love for the first time. It will be a reaction to the so-called Age of Reason where all people do is think. But near the end, romantics will demand less thinking and more feeling.” The duke answered as he imagined what it must be like to live in that era.

The crow always knew that her son had the heart of a poet – but this was all too much. If he was going to be king, he would have to be a thinker, not a romantic. She also knew that this ‘marrying for love’ nonsense was dangerous. She had to burst his bubble, so she called over one of her time travel ghosts.

“My son here just told me a fascinating story, that I assume he heard from you, time travel ghost. It is about the so-called Romantic era.” “Yes mistress. It is a very beautiful time in history. The music, the art and extraordinary fashion--” the crow stopped the ghost in his tracks. “Yes, yes, I am sure it’s all very sweet. But how does it play out? Further into the future, I mean. Say in the year 2010.” The crow knew all too well that the answer wouldn’t be very romantic.

The ghost cleared his throat, “Well, most people are happy that they have the freedom to choose the person they marry and –” This wasn’t what the crow wanted to hear. “Facts. I need facts ghost. Numbers and figures.” The servant ghost was in too deep now and he knew it, “Unfortunately most marriages will end up in divorce – about 44% globally. Numerous studies have shown that unmarried people are a lot happier than married people, in the future.” The ghost couldn’t help his answer, it was a historical-future fact.

“Ah! Not so romantic after all this whole love and freedom thing?” The crow was satisfied that she got to the truth. Her truth, “Well at least they have the freedom to make their own mistakes.” Duke Herment tried to make a case for it, but couldn’t hide his disappointment. “No, no, my dear son, they have something far worse: the freedom to hope. Hope is simply postponed disappointment. Hope is the enemy. They hope that their chosen partner will make them happy and when their partner does not, they hope that having children will make them happy. While they are hoping they are pretending.” The crow was on a proper rant now. “But mother—” Herment muttered. The crow cupped her son’s face in her wings and looked at him, “Now you listen to mummy. Romance isn’t worth the trouble.”

In preparation for her date with the duke, Minna put on her dark blue, velvet dress. It’s what was required of her for a ‘date by royal decree’ as she called it. Her hair was pinned up and adorned with little pearls. Her mind kept wandering back to the day she and Frederick first met. Ever since she was little, her parents made her believe that marriage was a duty. They wanted to make sure their child had a realistic idea of royal marriage. In their case, it was all about strengthening bonds between kingdoms. They made it clear that it wasn’t a “must-have” for her to love her husband, only her country. However, if you were as lucky as her parents were, you’d grow to love the one you were with. Her mother’s favourite lesson was, “Love is something you do. Not something you feel.”

In her parents’ case this was true. Through acts of kindness and respect towards each other they grew closer. What began as friendship turned into love. She knew that her parents loved each other deeply, maybe more than their ego’s would allow them admit. When her mother passed away, her father mourned her death for months. He could hardly eat. In the five years since her mother’s death, he never remarried. But make no mistake, there were many high-profile widows who tried to grab his attention. A certain beautiful and mysterious, Duchess Violetta put herself at the top of that list.

For some time, Minna thought Violetta might be “The One” for her father. Violetta was constantly at the castle and she noticed her at every ball. But no matter how hard she tried to get the king to fall in love with her, he just couldn’t. When Minna asked him about it, he said that remarrying would feel like saying his final goodbye to her mother. He simply wasn’t ready to do that. Shortly after Violetta left, the king fell ill and Herment was placed in charge. As per the agreement that was signed 5 years before her mother died. It stated that should something happen to the King while Minna was still unmarried, the Duke would take over.

At first, the citizens thought the Duke would be the reason for their entire kingdom’s downfall. To everyone’s surprise, he wasn’t actually that bad of a ruler. After a while, people started to like the anxious, skinny man with his funny contagious laugh. As for his buddy, Fox, the unicorn, people enjoyed to speculate over what evil Fox could’ve done to be kicked out of the Republic of Rainbows and Sparkles. Eventually, people stopped wondering and just carried on with their lives. Minna knew Fox couldn’t have been that evil. She once saw him help a frightened kitten out of a tree when he thought no one was looking. Then there were rumors that he placed pieces of bread and fruit on the window frames of the orphanage at night.

Evil or not, the people of the land seemed to feel at ease having the duke run things with Fox by his side. That’s why Minna didn’t find it too strange when she heard that the council was wondering whether she might marry him. Minna had already prepared herself to live the life her parents had told her about. It was about duty, not love. In fact, she was all set to marry the Herment, but then Frederick came along.

There was an instant attraction. Even though he wasn’t as sleek and put together as the other princes, he had a strange, awkward charm about him. She found his dark humor very appealing. There wasn’t much of that cheeky sense of humor left though, she remembered sadly. Then again, being undead was probably a major downer.

Things were different. First off, he was dead, and she wasn’t. Then there were other more complicated matters. Frederick wasn’t officially a prince anymore - he had no land. After his death, his country fell back in the hands of his greedy uncle. Frederick ended up ruling only for a short while, until his uncle advised him to strengthen the bond with their allies through marriage. That’s when Frederick and Lord George traveled to Ginthonia to introduce himself as a potential suitor for Minna.

The princess remembered how appalled she was when Frederick’s uncle did not even send a carriage to collect their bodies. Strangers had to bury him in a foreign country. Before Frederick passed over to the other side, he would first have to go pay his greedy uncle a visit and give him the fright of his life, she thought. But her beloved Prince Frederick and Lord George might not even make it that far.