Heart of Stone (Jane Seymour x oc)

Chapter 20

The Dining Hall and the Beaker

As promised, Vladimir ne'er mentioned that fateful night.
The Russian palace had another guest from Denmark; advisors and lady of Christian II.
Of course that meant more scouring for the housekeepers and servants(and even more preparing for the chiefs).
The hapless chiefs had to concoct even more
ailment.
And our housekeepers and servants had to scrub and had enhancing drudgery than usual;
withal that the housekeepers and servants also have Spaniards to take care of.
Of course, Tsaritsa Polina demanded a feast for her people. She loved her country. Mayhaps the only thing(or any thing or person; for that matter) she ever loved. Her Dane parents had adjacent correspondence with Russia's quondam rulers and Russian Court. So when Polina was born she was given a Russian name and promised to the successor of Russia. Which as thou perchance have hypothesized that the beneficiary is Vladimir...
Well, no.
It was not,
She was pledged to Daniil, the oldest child of the potentates of Russia.
But when Daniil was 16 years old he captured a fever. The fever was a conundrum to physicians and doctors.
His symptoms were: saturating sweats at night, loss of appetite, gelidity, persistent coughing, and coughing and hoicking up brilliant scarlet blood.
Which they didn't know of tuberculosis back then, thus every physician and doctor called it a 'rife illness'.
Now we dub them as such dumbasses but in truth, they were quite savvy for that time.
Polina was quite infatuated by Daniil.
She sent her condolences. But nothing much more.

Yet all this was unprecedented by the tsarevna. The girl was in her chambers clasping onto jewelry and slamming ceruse onto her facade. Her brother, Mikhail, sitting on her chaise, fiddling with a book.
"Which is better: spending your days with Charles or Governess Svitlana?" Tsarevich enquired.
"Charles isn't that bad. He's endurable."
Aurelia clutched onto a gold, pearl, ruby choker, to put on her neck.
She sat at the vanity, clamping pins in her burnt sienna tress.
At that moment, a servant knocked at the door.
"Your Majesties." The servant bowed.
"Your presence is requested at the Dining Hall."
"Alright. You are dismissed." Mikhail gave a petite smile.
The servant didn't atrophy a moment after he enunciated, his words.
"We should get-"

Knock, knock

The door was gradually unfurled.
The two royal siblings waited for the uncanny patron behind the door, with flummoxed visages.
The tenant beyond the egress, finally came behind the egress door.
The governess.
The governess of Aurelia. And forego governess and professor of Mikhail.
Svitlana bowed.
"Would you grant me some time with the tsarevna?" Both of the siblings, knew it was not an enquire; it was a command.
The Tsesarevich Mikhail gave a brief nod then evacuated the chambers of the tsarevna.
Aurelia watched the slightly elder child leave then turned herself to the governess.
The silver haired woman bowed to the girl.
"Tsarevna." She stood up straight as she always did.
"How has King Charles been treating thou?" Aurelia unfailingly thought of Professor Svitlana as a mother figure to herself.
The elder woman came off as cold, bitter old crone. In truth, she was quite nursing, and gives benevolent parent care and love.
Ne'er displayed it.
"I don't know." It wasn't that Charles was particularly minding her badly; it was primarily that she was forced to marry.
"Is he minding you unjustly?"
She was frowning thinking about having to marry she didn't want to.
She unfurled her mouth to speak but-
"My apologies if I am interrupting something. But the tsaritsa wants you in the Dining Hall at this very moment." An another servant bowed to the tsarevna.
"Of course, I will be there in a few seconds." Aurelia nodded her head an indication as the servant was dismissed.
Aurelia turned back to the professor.
"I have to go fore mother gets any more upset."
With that the eight year old dashed for the door into the corridors, leading to the Dining Hall. 
The youthful child sprinted via the contrasting facades and configuration of the idly turning inky corridors.
Akin to fore the hall was to the brim with persons. Only this time there was much, much, much more.
The Danes has their own table(of course, Tsaritsa Polina demanded they have their own). And the Tsar and Tsaritsa Table at the front of the room, and everybody.
Once again Aurelia was tardy; solely this time the Danish were hither.
You could see the ire in the tsaritsa's blue chalcedony orbs. Her blond hair compacted in a rigid bun, and her pale skin from her Denmark ancestry, and on the tsaritsa's face the cochineal evident blotched on her visage.
But to the tsarevna's credit she kept her head up like her grandmother always taught her.
As she coasted across the light ricocheting floor, with her damask kirtle trawling on the ground; the floor appeared to have glass on top of itself.
Aurelia went to sat beside her brother's, Mikhail's, seat.
But Charles sat there.
The solely thing that Aurelia could think was
"Seriously?"
Apparently Mikhail's place was transferred to the other side of Charles V.
And there was no open seat.
"Great." Aurelia thought satirically.
Natheless, the girl decided to devour the calamity.
But the tsarevna was grateful; that she was afar from her mother. Polina's eyes still to the brim with seething flames(the fire wasn't going to soothe any time soon).
Then the butlers came in to serve the drinks.
The butlers gave the liquid in the flagon(which they held) to each and everyone in the hall, and
a gilded chalice with carmine spinels.
The goblet was chunky type of thing.
Charles clasped onto the spine of the beaker.
He put his lips to it.

"Um...that is my chalice."
Mikhail looked uncomfortable when he said this.
"Oh. My apologies. Thou can have mine." Charles tried to make, the best of the locus. "Thank you." Mikhail slightly crinkled his face.
So the tsarevich clutched to the spine of the king's(or supposed to be) chalice.
None of the adults noticed this; they continued their conversation.
They conversed about politics and other countries. Foe countries and allied countries.

Then Mikhail said to his father:
"Father, my head aches horribly. And I have dizziness." He really did look like it.
His visage was paler(than usual. Not from his Russian lineage).
"Well, maybe go back to thy chambers, if you fell that ill." Vladimir looked concerned.
"I'll call the doctor." The tsar stood from his seat.
The tsesarevich stood as well.
But when he did he fell right back down on the floor.
Gasps fluttered via the room.
"Mikhail!" Who knows what shrieking someone's name does? But the family of the unconscious boy did.
The tsarevna, tsar, tsaritsa, and tsarevich scrammed to the son and brother.
"He smells of almonds." Polina crinkled her nose at the stench.
A physician came rolling into the hall of worried people for their future tsar.
The physician got down on their knees to see the unconscious child better.

"He has been poisoned."

The physician said; as calmly as the physician could.
"Cyanide, I believe."
More gasps.
But this time the gasps were more worried.
"There is nothing I can do. Nobody can."
The physician held a sympathetic facade.
"Get him to his bed chambers." Vladimir demanded. Tears in the tsar's eyes.

Thank you for three hundred reads.
I find it so wired and cool that people I know read this book.
Luv ya, darlings.