As Elsa turned her chair sideways to the table and watched Kennet leave, a man approached carrying a thick bundle of paper in one hand. He stood before her and self-consciously ran his other hand through his thick dark hair, revealing a graphite smudge along the side. He bowed quickly and said, “Good evening, Your Majesty. I'm Halvar Andersen. If it's not too much trouble, I was wondering if I could have my pencil back, please.”
“Yes, of course.” She glanced at the papers he was holding. It was a stack of old bills and invoices, and he had been sketching on the backs of them. “Are those…me?”
He smiled modestly. “Yes. Yes, they are. I hope you don't mind.”
“No, not at all.” They were quick sketches of Elsa, surprisingly good and very expressive. She could tell by the expressions that a couple were of her conversation with Ernst, and one of her working with Kennet at the table. “You're quite talented, Halvar. Is there a chance I've seen your work before?”
“If you read the Arendellensbladet, I hope so.”
“You're…you're 'Hav', then? The editorial cartoonist?”
“When I'm not selling papa's crops, and now mama's fish, in the city.” He leaned against the edge of the table. “I, um, you don't mind if I carry on, do you?”
“Of course not,” said Elsa, even though she felt a little self-conscious.
Holding the stack of papers in one hand and sketching rapidly with the other, he said, “It's just that - well, I'm pretty sure you are the queen, and I've only seen her - that is, you - a couple of times, and that from a distance. So a chance like this, I'm not going to have again. And even if you're not the queen, you look enough like her that I'm not going to get a chance like this very often anyway, so…” He shrugged. “No offence, I hope.”
She ignored his last sentence. “Why do you draw me so much taller than the councillors?”
He shrugged, and his pencil resumed its skritch-skritch. “The way of it with caricatures is that you draw the head much larger than usual. It brings out the expression and it looks amusing, and it's what people are used to.” He flipped over to the next page and resumed. “Now, you're so beautiful - I'm just saying - it doesn't suit you to be out of proportion. So, I can make you the same height as them, but your head would be tiny by comparison. Or I can make your head the right size, and you tower over them, but it, you know, looks better.” He shrugged again.
“I always think it makes me look like a schoolteacher with a class of unruly children.”
“Oh, I like that! Just a minute.” His pencil flew across a fresh sheet of paper, and in just a little while he showed her the page. “Like this, you mean?”
Rough as it was, he had captured the look of her councillors having a heated argument and herself towering over them in front of a blackboard and a desk, giving them a look much like the one she gave Ernst. Her hand flew to her mouth as she laughed.
“I bet I can get some use out of that one for the Arendellensbladet,” he said.
“You have something particular in mind?”
“No, but you're bound to scold them for something sooner or later.”
“True enough,” said Elsa, and laughed again. She looked around to call Anna over and have Halvar show her his sketches, but she was gone.
Anna had ducked into the kitchen and was talking to Ingrid's mother. “Hi, Klara. How's it going?”
Klara took a quick look around at the troop of daughters and daughters-in-law she had under her command, preparing dinner. “Pretty smoothly, thanks. Did you want to give a hand? We need someone to shape the frikadeller.” She was about to hand Princess Anna a large bowl of raw ground meat when Anna stopped her.
“Actually, I wanted to see the setup for your fish-canning operation, and I was hoping I could borrow Ingrid.”
“Oh, I'm sure I could get someone to do that for you,” said Klara, and blotted her forehead against her upper arm.
“No, Ingrid would be fine, please.”
“As you wish.” Klara gave a tiny shrug. “Ingrid! Give Vivi the red cabbage and get over here.” Ingrid approached, wiping her hands on her apron. “Could you show Her…”
highness mouthed Ingrid.
“…Highness how we have the fish pickling set up. She'd like to see it.”
“Please,” added Anna.
“Of course. It's this way,” said Ingrid, and led her outside.
They crossed the little courtyard to the attached barn. “How are you doing, Ingrid?”
“Very well. Thank you for asking.”
Anna startled Ingrid by taking her elbow. “No, I mean how are you really doing?”
“I, um, I don't know what you're getting at. Please let me know if there's a problem. Excuse me.” Ingrid rolled the barn door open with both hands.
They stepped into the barn. The evening light cast warm shafts through the dusty air. Vinegar, fish, and spices cut through the underlying barn smell of hay and animals. The horse, goat, and four chickens had been moved to the far end of the building to make room for the worktables, shelves, boxes, jars, and labels.
“Ingrid, I'm not really interested in seeing your family's business.” Anna glanced around. “Okay, it is actually a little impressive. But that's not why I asked you out here.”
Ingrid clasped her hands behind her back, and even though they were the same height it seemed as if she was looking up at Anna.
Anna leaned her butt against the edge of a table. “Are things okay between you and Elsa?”
Ingrid blinked in surprise. “Yes. They're…much better than okay. They're excellent. I believe Elsa is happy, and I couldn't ask for more. Unless there's something I don't know about.”
“It's…” Anna stood up again, and paced back and forth, gesturing. “It's great that you're happy, and it's great that Elsa's happy, which is what I wanted all along. But I feel like, I don't really exactly know what's going on between you two. I mean, there's some stuff I do know, and I don't particularly want to know about in any detail, not that there's anything wrong with it, but, you know, right?” She looked to Ingrid, who nodded tentatively. “When I shoved the two of you together I don't know what I expected. I mean I didn't expect anything specific, I just wanted Elsa to have some fun with someone who would be okay with that, and who would like her back, and who we could trust, and that's you. And that's great.” Anna picked up a horseshoe and fiddled with it. “When I see Elsa with you, sometimes she treats you like a servant, and sometimes she treats you like a girlfriend, and then she'll flirt with me in front of you, which you normally wouldn't do in front of a servant or a girlfriend, and then sometimes she'll ignore you - not in a mean way - and you just smile through it all. And I wonder if she's treating you right, or if you're letting her treat you not-right, and I'm wondering if that's good for you, and I'm also wondering if it's good for Elsa. I just - I want to know if she's treating you right. If you're okay.”
“Princess Anna? I am okay. I can't say enough about how happy I am to be with Elsa in any way I can. And as far as I can tell she has no complaints. I wish I knew what to say to calm your concerns.”
Anna put down the horseshoe, took a deep breath, and shook out her arms. “Okay. Let me take another run at this. You and Elsa are together a lot. And not just queen-and-servant together. Like girlfriend-and-girlfriend together.” She paused. The phrase sounded odd, but she couldn't think how else to put it. “But I worry that if you are each other's…girlfriends…that maybe, as much as you're fine with it, she's not treating you the way you should be treated. Do you get me?”
Ingrid nodded slowly. “I think I understand. I think you're afraid she's not respecting me, not treating me like an equal.”
Anna bit her lip. “Yeah, I think that's it. That's what I'm getting at.”
“But we're not equals.”
“Well, I mean she's still queen, and your boss. But I don't know if it's okay for you, or for her, that she treats you like a, um…like a pet. Sometimes.”
Before Ingrid could answer, a grey cat trotted up to her. She knelt down, sitting on her heels. “Oh look. It's Cinders.” The cat climbed up her back and onto her shoulders. Ingrid stood up, Cinders steady on her perch. “Your Highness, may I present Cinders the cat. Cinders, this is Princess Anna of Arendelle.” As Anna reached up to pet the cat, Cinders pressing her forehead into Anna's palm, she saw Ingrid smile the way she hadn't since they had all been in the carriage together. “She's the barn cat, but she was really my cat when I lived here.”
Ingrid ducked her head forwards as Cinders crossed from one shoulder to the other, then reached up to pet her. “Hey, Cinders, remember me? You do. Are you getting lots of good fish scraps now?” Still looking at the cat and pressing her face into the soft grey fur, Ingrid continued. “You see, this is Cinders. She loves me. And I love her. And we're very happy together. And if I have to go off to the city and leave her here, and then come back, she still loves me. And she's really my property. I could sell her, or do what I want. But I don't. Because I care about her. And I would never dream to imagine that we were equals. I'm a human and she's my pet.” Ingrid knelt down and nudged Cinders with her head. The cat hopped down and trotted off. Ingrid stood again. “I would be happy being Elsa's pet. I wish I were Elsa's pet.”
Finally dinner was ready, and everyone sat down, Elsa and Anna at the head of the table, flanked by Thorsten and the empty seat where Klara would pause between courses. As Anna sat down and pulled her chair forward, she heard a young boy say loudly, “I told you she wasn't real!”
“Hush, Rickard!” said his mother.
“Excuse me,” said Elsa, her voice cutting through the murmur. “What do you mean she's not real?”
“I put a pea on her chair!” said Rickard, still not using his indoor voice. “A princess can feel a pea through a hundred mattresses, and she didn't even feel it on her chair!”
Before his mother could scold him Elsa held up a hand, then leaned forwards. “First, young man, The Princess And The Pea is just a story that H. C. Andersen made up. A very exaggerated and biased story, too.”
“Second,” chimed in Anna, “I am not that kind of princess. I climb mountains and ride horses and if they don't bother me, a pea certainly wouldn't.”
“You complained about the carriage ride up here,” said Elsa in a stage whisper.
“Be fair, it was over an hour.”
“Anna, would you stand, please?” She did, and Elsa examined the chair, and Anna's backside. “And third, in the story the pea was not cooked.” Elsa brushed the pea off the back of Anna's skirt - her hand taking only a fraction of a second longer than was strictly necessary - and held up the squashed green lump, to general laughter.
As the laughter faded, Ernst spoke up from a few seats away. “Yes, it's all been very fun. But isn't it time you told us all what your name really is?”
Thorsten began to bristle, but once again Elsa held up a hand for peace. “Frankly, if Anna and I came in by ourselves, I could understand some skepticism. But you've known Ingrid for a lot longer than I have, and I've already seen that she is utterly faithful and trustworthy. Doubt me if you like, but how can you doubt her? Your own sister?” She turned to Anna. “I know I could never doubt my sister.”
“I love Ingrid,” said Ernst, “really I do. But that doesn't mean I can't see…well, let's say it still sounds impossible. So why don't you give up the game, and tell us who you really are.”
“We've said already that we are Elsa. We do not wish to repeat ourselves.” The candles on the table flickered in a chill breeze.
Tanja put a controlling hand on his arm, but he went on. “You know what? I'll give you that one. I'm willing to grant that your first name is Elsa.”
“How generous of you,” said Elsa flatly.
“But why don't you tell us your full name?”
“My full name?” Elsa glanced at Anna and raised an eyebrow. Shall I?
Anna grinned back. Go for it!
“It's a bit of a mouthful,” said Elsa with the appearance of modesty.
“We don't mind,” said Ernst as he sat back.
With casual ease, Elsa said, “We are By Grace Of God Her Righteous Majesty Queen Elsa Victoria Frigga Elinor Margrethe Of Arendelle, Ruler Of Arendelle, Its Territories, Assigns, And Satellites, Protector Of The Faith, Defender Of The Realm, Commander Of Her Armed Forces On Land And Sea, Guardian Of The Living Valley, Grand Duchess Of Smestad-Vossestranden, Countess Of Hvalstrand, and Sovereign of the Islands of Barekstadlandet.” She smiled sweetly at Ernst, and in the general silence she said, “And you are?”
She sipped her water, frowned, and with a brief glow of magic dropped in an ice cube.