The Crowned (h.s)

V

It is only hours after the debacle at the brunch table when, requested by my mother, I am escorting Harry out for a tour of our yards. Behind me at a slight distance, I'm chaperoned by both of our mothers who are busy admiring the flowers and greenery, though I know my mother's eye is frequently creeping back upon me. In a voice trying to sound interested in his company, I narrate to him the usual comments on what kind of flowers those lovely orange ones are, or the differences between an English oak and a sessile. 

We walk past beds of roses, both petals and thorns looking to the sky for warmth. I tell him all about the expanse of our acreage and the ways it is used in different seasons. What the weather is like in August to September and how the wind comes through our residence always at just the right speed because of our altitude.

Throughout all of my words, he is silent and has only a look of what I might call neutral interest in his face that I can't understand. In any other conversation I attempt with him, he gives no effort at engaging me at all. He inquires no questions after me or the lawns. After a good amount of walking, we arrive at a row of benches arranged under that great English oak I had spoken to him of earlier. With the shade casted over them from the branches, I invite him to sit.

"So, what do you think of the property?"

He smiles and takes it all in again, "It's impressive. The orchard, the gardens. I've never seen anything quite like it before, especially with the gates so close to the public. It's all so open and in view. It's very obvious your family takes pride in the land."

"My father likes to say that it's not only part of our heritage, but of every Greddorian's from west to east of here," I look up at the mass of branches above me, their tangled arms, and quote him, my voice like something coming out of a distant memory, "That if they might come to Sarasau and look in from those gates at the grass and the trees, they too would be looking at their own past."

My gaze goes back to Harry. I look at him carefully all of a sudden, feeling the need to defend my father's words for some reason, like he wouldn't understand them, "It's very important to my father, that we are honest and good to those we preside over. I'm sure your family feels the same about your own people."

Harry looks at my expression with a tilted head, like he's trying to fully understand my words, "Well," he begins, "I have always felt that my father treated everyone with fairness and respect, in the same way he has taught me to approach everything in life- politics or society. Though perhaps our residence is not so close to the public, or as transparent." He glances back at the gates, "It must be interesting being so in view."

"It's something that I've grown up with. Although, you may be surprised to hear that my upbringing was no so public as you might imagine it to be. My father was always very protective of keeping me away from too many prodding eyes. Even as a child, I wasn't mixed so much with the children of this or that duchess. It wasn't until recently of course that I've been presented."

Harry nodded, "That's precisely what should be done. Your father seems to be very intelligent. If not only by looking at the pleasant state of your country, but also in his personal matters. Resolute and structured, but just. That is quite similar to how I expect to be one day," I look down at his mention of his inevitable future reign.

I know how succession works, that one day William will take my father's place. But speaking of it so blatantly in the open has always made me uncomfortable. The thought that one person can so easily step in for somebody else. Knowing it's been that way for thousands of years, for handfuls of people, across not only Europe but the entire world as well. Then knowing that other places have completely ended the practice and adopted other ways of governing. Moving from one age to another. It's curious, to wonder whether Harry or William really will end up being Kings, of if revolution would have changed our world by then.