Page 11 of Hell to Pay
“Are you a journalist, then?” I asked.
“No. Well, kind of. I’m a content creator.”
“A what?”
Ben said, “It’s, like, making content for social media.”
“Is this a job?” I asked.
“It can be,” Ashleigh said. “I have over thirty thousand subscribers already, and I’ve only been doing it for a year. Still building my brand. I travel around and do history stuff. That was my college major, but I mostly like the quirky things that you can relate to, the way people actually lived, not so much dates and names. I was going to go to law school, but you know, law school … Anyway, yeah, history. My channel is calledThe Road to Here.I stopped in Dresden on my way to Prague, but it seems like there’s a lot here too. It beats makeup tips, right? Less competition, and anyway, I don’t have any makeup tips.”
“Ha,” Alix said. “Me neither.”
“So what do you think?” Ashleigh asked. “Can I interview you about your experiences? I’ll break what you tell me into short pieces and put up one at a time. Bite-sized history for short attention spans, that’s the idea.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll have to think about it.”Everything in me recoiled from the idea. Baring my soul for online strangers? Is there anything less royal? “Never complain and never explain” was the motto Queen Elizabeth had reportedly lived by, and it was how I’d been raised as well. Unsurprising, perhaps, as we’d descended from the same line, with the same notions of propriety. There isn’t much daylight among the European royal families when it comes to propriety.
Ashleigh said, “Can I take your number, or at least give you mine?” A very determined young woman. I guessed you had to be, in her … profession?Wasthat a profession? Sometimes I felt entirely unequal to navigating this new world.
Alix said, “Here, trade numbers with me. We’re here for about ten days longer, so we’ll be around. How about you?”
“Five more days,” Ashleigh said. “I just got here. I’m staying at a backpacker’s place. It’s not the greatest, but I have to say, you can just about live on bread and fruit and cheese here.”
“And chocolate,” Alix said. “Don’t forget the chocolate.”
“Never,” Ashleigh said.
“They have a restaurant in the train station,” Ben said, “that’s just oatmeal. Seriously. A restaurant for oatmeal. I don’t think this is exactly the world’s gourmet destination, unless you’re a freak for yoghurt.”
I said, “The time.”
“Whoops,” Alix said. “We have a booking for the vaults. Uh … here, Ashleigh. Swapping numbers.”
“No worries,” Ashleigh said happily, after handing over her phone. “I have the same booking. I’ll tag along, if that’s OK, see if I can pick up any more tips.”
Alix had better not talk about princesses in there. She had better not.
Alix, it turned out, wasn’t the one who slipped up.
6
TREASURE BEYOND MEASURE
“I’m feeling,” Sebastian announced, “extremely poor.”
We were in the Silver Gilt Room at the time, halfway through the many rooms of the historic vaults, walking past an enormous silver service, bejeweled cups, a hunting horn set with silver and inlaid with diamonds, and so much more. This room was mostly mirrored, exactly as in my memory.
“The mirrors,” I told the others, “are reflective by means of a thin layer of mercury, because they are so old. You can tell because they sparkle when the light from the chandeliers shines on them, you see?”
“Dude,” Ben said, “I can’t even look. I’m sort of blinded, you know? And it’s all really fancy, but it’s not exactlyexciting.OK, the big ship carved out of ivory was cool, with all the little sailors, but I can kind of take or leave all this stuff. I could go back to that armor room, though, with the weapons, and meet you guys back at the hotel. Unless you’re going to get a snack, maybe.”
“Just wait,” I told him. Which he did, room after room, walking past silver and gold and diamonds and precious stones and into the Hall of Precious Objects, past anextremely overdecorated seven-foot obelisk featuring a portrait of Augustus II in the center, with cameos of rulers from classical antiquity around it.
“The obelisk is inlaid with two hundred forty precious stones,” I told the little group. “Augustus intended it as a symbol of his coming of age as a ruler. He saw himself as nearly a modern Caesar, as you can probably tell. Did you know that this was one of the very first museums in history? Older than the British Museum, and second only to the museums in St. Petersburg and the Vatican. He collected all of this and displayed it, but he also invited the public in, which was entirely novel. The well-dressed public,” I told Ben. “That was the stipulation. There you are: a reason to dress well.”
“Well, yeah,” Ben said, “if I was hot on seeing some guy’s private museum and lived hundreds of years ago. One person collected all this stuff? Seriously?”
“Seriously,” I said. “To show off, certainly—to impress his subjects and other rulers with his power and wealth. Did I mention that he wanted to be King of Poland? Also Grand Duke of Lithuania, and he got both wishes. But also, I think, because he sincerely wanted to share the beauty of these objects with others. A childish sort of exuberance, I’ve always imagined, like a boy rushing to show his mother the dandelions he’s picked for her. A great lust for life, Augustus. He’s estimated to have had over three hundred sixty illegitimate children. Imagine the number of mistresses.”
