the haunted kingdom by Charles E.J. Moulton (snow like ashes txt) 📕

answered, rubbing her red dimples. Geena was helping Belinda out of hats and coats while Rolf helped Steven. Again, Alex watched Geena talk to Belinda like her own daughter. "We had the time of our lives, we saw so much…"
“We had the most extraordinary cooks.”
"We ate so much food…" Belinda continued enthusiastically. “All very bad for my figure.”
"We’ll have to do lots of riding and fencing now, Alexander." Steven continued.
"Getting back into shape will be hard," Belinda finished. “We will make it, won’t we?”
“Come up." Alex said, and took Steven by the arm. “Let’s sit in the Alexander Room and get ferociously pissed in front of the open flames.” Alexander laughed stridently.
Belinda gave Rolf a radiant smile. She was wearing a thick blue satin dress and her brown hair was up and tied in a bow under her hat. She wanted to be pretty when she returned back and had arranged that in the carriage.
"So Rolf," She patted his arm and put her hand under it. "Geena tells me you carry to much weight around. Can I help you with your chores?”
"Well,." Rolf chuckled, caught by the enthusiasm of his secret love. He looked at her. "Maybe you can tuck me in at night." He laughed and pointed at Geena. "She just makes a fuss, the old lass! She keeps me on my toes so much that I will never get old in her company."
"You know that you should take a day off now and then. You work way too much."
"Oh, well, Belinda. You know I love the work." Rolf answered, smiling.
She nodded.
"That is fine then, but don’t go complaining or sweating now.”
Sieglinde came rushing down the stairs. "Belinda."
"Mother."
She embraced her daughter with both hands on her cheeks and beamed.
"How is my pumpkin?"
Belinda started laughing. "Mother, you haven't called me that since I was three…"
“How can you remember that?” Sieglinde looked at the others, comically surprised. "It's high time we revived it then, don't you agree?" She opened her arms. "Steven!"
“Well rested I come into your arms, mother."
“I can just imagine, honeymooner! Well rested, oh yes."
“Oh, mother! Please!"
Out of the first floor sitting room, beyond the mahogany alcove with the ceramic flowers and the leaded glass windows, ten people came rushing out and embraced the newlyweds. Alexander beamed, for his daughter was back home now at the palace. Belinda again walked with her father up the stairs, both of them red and jittery, were glad to be able to embrace one another again.
“Are you all right?” Alex inquired.
Belinda nodded, calmly. “Steven keeps telling me I’ve never looked better. I believe him. He hammered in the fact that I should stop worrying about Lucinda so many times that now I have difficulty remembering what she actually was to me except a pestilence and an insect.” she laughed.
Alexander sighed. His gaze drifted off out the window onto the snowy branches outside.
“Yes, she is.” Alexander seemed again distant, as if something troubled him.
“All the more reason to get drunk then, huh?” He turned to her and smiled, somewhat unconvincingly.
“Ah, dear.” he said. He raised his eyebrows and nodded, his voice now matter-of-fact and a bit tongue-in-cheek. “I’ve missed you, you know. You and your capability to turn everything on its head.”
Belinda smiled. “Father, you and your unending, impervious humour. I have missed you.”
She caressed his hair. “Father. Let me tell you about our trip.” They walked hand in hand down the hall toward the throne room, like turtledoves.
“I want to hear about that child of yours. How is he behaving?”
”Aww, kicks now and then, sleepsa lot, turns. But he is going to be just as feisty as his granddad.” she jested. “Maybe it is a she.” She thought for a bit. “I think it’s a boy, though.”
“Why?”
“He loves marching around inside my stomach like an army general,” she giggled. “I know he is enjoying himself, father: He seems to feel as if we include him in all the conversation.”
“You feel all that from inside?”
”My sixth sense is very highly developed.”
”That I know.”
With these words, they strode into the room with the large red carpet and the huge fireplace. They sat down and listened to the princess and her prince in their bemused chatter about love.


The Christmas Holidays, 1422 A.D.

Upon returning from honeymoon in paradise, as they called it, Steven and Belinda resumed their royal activities aided by Alexander. Now as a royal couple they had more responsibility. Steven was the aide-de-champ, up-and-coming ruler and royal husband and Belinda was the representative of her country and, of course, as the future Queen Belinda I.
Lucinda’s name was hardly ever mentioned. During the cooking of the Christmas dinner Geena and Ruby mentioned in passing that the storm seemed to be over. Alexander and Belinda were overseeing the plans for senatorial meetings and a comment or two was delivered about “the sister”. Morgana never bothered. She found her aunt “too vulgar”.
The turkeys and geese and ducks had been cooked, the baked apples and bean stews and the Elk Pudding, as well, along with the cranberry stew. The peacock and swans, the ostrich, the goose and the wine were devoured. The muscatel and the cider ale were brought forth. There were songs sung, Bantrard and his band played tunes while blind man’s buff games and hide and seek was being played through out the palace. In the same hall as where Lucinda reappeared there was a grand Christmas feast. No one talked about the fact that eight weeks ago a volcano had erupted here.
It was there, the ghoul from the past. It was an unspoken secret that everyone was mildly aware of what had happened or, more important, what was going to happen in the future.
Long nights by fires were spent and late morning hangovers were celebrated drinking newly imported tea from a Hispanic ship that arrived in Danehamn. There were fine lovers holding hands. The Winsletennas seemed to have a wondrous yuletide to say the least, the ghoul of Lucinda following them like an irritating hound all the way.
The chapel was full every day during the Christmas season and hardly anyone left the palace as this turned out to be the hardest winter in memory. Luckily enough, there was an entire cellar of firewood and the palace was constantly heated in all corners.
The eternal flame of torches in every corner was kept alive and someone in the family was always awake to light a candle, a torch or a flame.
The little child within Belinda was growing. There were meetings and conferences, parchments to be signed. Warrants to fill out and messengers to send. Steven’s troop-inspection seemed rather unnecessary right now. Two and a half months after Lucinda’s arrival the country was in blossoming shape. There was time to sing, to play, to represent, to have Senators come over and arrange for bureaucratically registered decisions, all in all the peace was almost tangible.
Most of the time was spent taking care of the woman that was to give birth soon enough. Belinda was forgetting to remember.
She was speaking to the little one in her stomach all the time, including him in everything. She felt her breasts ache and her moods swing and most of all nausea and vomiting was a daily occurrence that Christmas. There simply was no time to think of Lucinda.

Saturday, April 24th, 1423

Saturdays were always the nicest days for the princess. That was the day when she had time to picnic with her father, take a ride with Steven or maybe just take care of the baby.
The child seemed to grow bigger and wilder every day. Although Belinda did have trouble sleeping, leg cramps and frequent visits to the dry lavatory being the reason, she always woke up reasonably happy. No one needed to wake her. The little one always, without exception, woke her up by kicking her in the stomach. Geena’s first assignment every day was to give her royal highness a silver cup of ginger tea, an ancient recipe good for pregnant women known since the Roman Empire thanks to the eastern traders.
That was also the drink that she had with that day as she sat with her father by the statue of Poseidon. They had been talking for almost an hour now and there seemed to be no end to the conversation. A potato apple cake, also containing pregnancy-aiding ginger, was brought with along with tons of grapes and oranges.
A small podium had been erected by the fountain and upon it two large ebony chairs with large satin pillows. Belinda sat with her stomach prominently mounting the celestial array and fanned herself with a large fan.
“Is he whirling and turning?” Alexander chanted, taking a sip of his muscatel.
Belinda listened to the splash of the water from Poseidon’s shell, dipped her fingers in the water and freshened up her dry neck. She nodded.
“He always does,” she spoke, smiling. “I think he wants to get out. It’s a little crowded in that stomach of mother’s pride.”
Alexander chuckled, leaned over to her belly and crooned: “Not yet, son. Granddad wants his peace a little while longer.”
Belinda threw in a grape into her mouth and shook her head: “You call that peace? Fetching food for me day and night and chasing around the palace to find Steven all the time?” She looked down onto her protruding, gloriously fertile and effeminate abdomen and whispered, “I think your grandfather is a wee bit tipsy. Either that or crazy.”
“Both, me lass.” Alexander hummed. “Both.”
Belinda laughed again, sipping on her tea and closing her eyes to drench in the solar energy.
“Father,” she finally said, the audible water soothing her soul.
“Yes?” he asked, enjoying the time with his girl.
“You know what makes me happy?”
“What, dear?”
“That the vomiting has stopped.” she said. She opened her eyes. “I mean, there were times when I was sick every night. Am I moody?” Alexander shrugged and eyed heavenward. Belinda pursed her lips. “Yes, I know. More moody than usual then?”
“Well,” the king said. “Sometimes you were a bit on the strenuous side, but that is the way it should be. Geena has the largest quantity of food in the kitchen known to man. We want a healthy heir to the throne, a buck with fresh appetite and large nostrils.”
Belinda laughed. “Why large nostrils? So he can smell your farts?”
Alexander chuckled. “Well, he has an old fart as a grandfather without the addition of flatulent bellies, so why not? All we want is for mother and child to grow up healthy and wealthy and potent.”
They both broke out into fits of laughter.

Sunday, April 25th, 1423 – Night time, Belinda’s second prophetic dream

In her dream, Belinda Winsletenna was running down one of the longer hallways in the palace. She was not pregnant anymore and this did not seem to resemble any reality she knew, although this was the home of her fathers.
It seemed to be the future.
What was strange was that she kept on running down the hallway and the more she ran the longer the hallway became. She ran and ran and, as she did, she looked down and saw that her bare feet were full of mud. In fact, her entire nightgown was muddy.
The princess turned around in her dream and saw that four people chased her.
Were they people? She did not know. All she knew was that she knew who they were.