“Yes, Granny.”
“Gustav will meet you at the palace,” Granny went on. “You’ll have the whole voyage to study the protocol sheet he sent, and the list of commonly used phrases in Turkish. I expect you tomemorise it all by the time you step off the boat.”
“Yes, Granny,” Francis repeated. “I imagine it will be warm there?”
“Gustav said the weather was quite pleasant,” Granny replied.
Francis’s smile felt strained. Maybe she had forgotten he burned easily in the sun.
It was early spring. With any luck, the weather wouldn’t be roasting hot by the time Francis got there.
* * * *
Things moved quickly.
Francis had one day to pack and get organised, then he and his party took a royal coach south, with armed guards on horseback riding alongside them. Their luggage would follow in a separate coach.
Stormburg was on good terms with its southern neighbours, so it was safer to use the southernmost port in Croatia for easy access to the Mediterranean Sea.
From there, they would take a ship.
The journey to Türkiye could’ve been made by land, but it would be risky, not to mention more expensive than by sea.
And Francis didn’t mind less time in a carriage. Two days was enough for him. The bumpy rattle of the wheels on the more rural roads made him feel quite unwell.
He welcomed boarding the grand galleon, their home for the next week.
The whole crew lined up along the quayside and the ship’s deck with their hats off and held in hand to greet them.
Francis made sure to offer a polite, royal greeting to each man. His life and the lives of his party would be in this crew’s hands for the next several days.
The ship’s first officer showed them to the royal quarters.
One benefit to taking the royal ship—Granny had insisted—was that it came with generous living quarters.
Among his small party, Francis had brought another friend and ally: an artist named Christian Danvers, a Black man in his late forties. Originally from England, Christian had made a name for himself in Paris and more recently, Stormburg. His specialty were detailed landscapes, and he was particularly good at pencil, charcoal, and ink drawings.
Francis had been one of Christian’s patrons for some years now, the two forming a close bond over shared interests, an appreciation for art, and mutual secrets: an appreciation for men.
Christian had been a reliable friend for Francis in the years after Philippe’s death. No stranger to heartache himself, though he was never without a male companion or two back home, usually artist’s models.
It was a pity that Christian didn’t draw people, otherwise he could’ve done a more recent sketch of Francis, who hadn’t sat for a portrait in ages. He hadn’t felt like having an updated portrait, and now sorely regretted that.
Christian was worn out from the two-day carriage ride and sunk into a padded chair inside the royal cabin with a weary sigh.
Madeleine, Francis’s other guest, was swift to follow him as she sank into a chair, her voluminous skirts puffing up gently with the motion.
“This is more like it,” Maddie said, and started to unpin her hat. “I’ll take waves over a bumpy coach any day.”
Francis smiled. “I’ll ask them to send in some tea,” he said, and glanced at Archie.
Archie nodded at him, and together they exited the cabin and walked up to the deck.
Francis wanted some fresh air before they set off. He removed his hat, enjoying the ruffle of the breeze in his hair. Archie stood beside him and they looked down at the dock.
The luggage had just arrived, and they watched the never-ending supply of royal chests and trunks being loaded up the gang plank and taken down into the ship’s hold.
“How many of those are yours?” Archie asked him.
