Characters

Rémi Aldric

Sovereign Prince of Sorvaine for thirty years, and a good one — the principality was steadier and surer of itself when he left the throne than when he came to it, too young, at twenty-four. His four sons are each a piece of him: Julian's gravity, Lucien's books, Nicolas's drive, Felix's wit. He is, by the palace's account, in a period of reduced public duties. Those who love him know the fuller shape of it, and say nothing.

Full Name: Rémi Alexander Gaston Aldric

Date of Birth: 10 January 1972

Height: 6'3"

Title: His Serene Highness the Sovereign Prince of Sorvaine

Betrothed to Constance 1990 · married 1992 · acceded to the throne 1996 · reigned thirty years

Voice: He could hold a room without raising his voice and did it for thirty years, in whichever of several languages the moment called for. Warm in private and precise in public, with a sense of humor he passed intact to his youngest son — the kind that arrives when a room has grown too serious and puts it right. He asked good questions and listened to the answers, which in a head of state is rarer than it should be.

Appearance: Dark hair gone handsomely to gray at the temples, a closely kept salt-and-pepper beard, and the strong Aldric features his sons all carry some version of. Tall, with the easy authority of a man who never had to perform it. In the photographs from the good years he is invariably at ease — open collar, sleeves turned back, the Sorvaine coast behind him — a man entirely comfortable in a life that fit him.

The man he was: A good sovereign, by the measure that matters least to historians and most to the people who lived under him — the principality was steadier, fairer, and more sure of itself when he left the throne than when he found it. He came to it young and unready — his own father dead suddenly at fifty-four, the crown arriving a decade before anyone expected it — and grew into it in full view, and he governed for three decades without ever appearing to mistake the crown for himself.

His sons are each, in their way, a piece of him held up to the light. Julian has his seriousness about governance, the weight he carried without complaint. Lucien has his reading — the same appetite for history and new ideas. Nicolas has his drive, the engine that does not idle. Felix has his humor, the exact instinct for the disarming word. Rémi is the place all four of them came from, and any room with more than one of his boys in it will eventually show you where.

Now: The palace describes it as a period of reduced public duties, following medical advice. That is the sentence on every briefing sheet, and it is technically true, and it is very much less than the truth. What is real: he is still himself. He knows his children, holds a conversation, sits at the table on an ordinary evening as fully present as he ever was. He has not lost who he is. What he has lost is quieter and harder to name from the outside, and the family carries it without saying so, and his eldest son has quietly carried the rest for the better part of a year while his father's name stays where it has always been.