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“Yes Ma’am,” Davy croaked. “That’s what me mum says, not that she’s ever been on a boat.”
Under cover of the chuckle that ran around the table Emma turned to Alix. “How have you
passed your time these first two days at sea?”
The girl hesitated. “Reading.”
“I like to read too,” Emma said. Despite their difference in rank the girl was clearly shy and
the task of sustaining any sort of conversation would therefore fall to Emma. Her face was pretty, her
dignity remarkable for her years, but yet it was hard to look at her and immediately imagine what the
tsesarevich would see that was so unique and compelling that it would sustain an infatuation over a
separation of four years and a thousand miles. “What were you reading?”
“Paradise Lost.”
Emma raised an eyebrow. “By Milton?”
“Is there another?”
Well that was something. An attempt at humor and, if she were indeed reading Paradise Lost at
leisure, the girl must have at least a bit between the ears.
“I very much admire the poem,” Emma said. “What do you think it means?”
Alix hesitated again and Emma realized the girl was behaving as if she really was her
governess, not a dining companion, and as if this were all some sort of test.
“Myself, I consider it an analysis of how we each must take personal responsibility for our
actions,” she hastily added, to establish that this was a conversation and not an examination. “I most
adore the line where God says that he made humans ‘sufficient to have stood, but free to fall.’”
Alix nodded slowly. “I see it as a tale of forgiveness,” she finally said, glancing self
consciously around her at the various servants in the room, who were coming and going with their
pitchers and plates of food. “Adam and Eve were the first humans to sin and thus to require the grace
of God.” She raised her rounded chin, suddenly looking much like her grandmother. “It is my opinion
that salvation is the only proper theme of literature.”
Emma smiled. It was a very basic interpretation of the text, but not an inaccurate one. The
young princess indeed had more possibilities than were evident at first glance.
“It’s an admirably challenging reading choice,” Emma said, aware that she herself also sounded
a little too adult and pious. “Most girls favor romances.”