The Movement of Crowns by Nadine Keels

Author:Nadine Keels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, romance, inspirational, war, kings, kingdoms

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Times of Trial

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The busyness of the next weeks was reminiscent of a controlled kind of commotion for Constance. Her mind was hardly given time to rest, as ideas about more that needed to be done would still be humming through her head at each day’s end, but with the potential for a plethora of differing emotions to go untidily bubbling over at any moment if she was idle, she was glad that her hands had plenty to do as weeks slid into months.

She made visits to the marketplace a few mornings out of every week, even if she was only going to pick out fresh flowers, but she no longer rushed through her browsing and purchasing to keep from creating a stir. Uncertain times had a way of stipulating that the smallest of things should not be taken for granted and that human contact should not be avoided or reserved for special trips, for the sake of method. Having a chance to see the people in the market was just as important as her having the chance to see the ones at court, at church, and on her travels, Constance concluded. Thinking of Staid’s grin, she reflected that one never knew how far an authentic smile might go to lift someone’s day, and thinking of her mother’s scarcely responsive, distant glow, Constance reflected on how hard it could become for one who did not know how present someone else nearby truly was. So, Constance was taking more time in the market to look even some of the most bustling fellow patrons in the eye, and whenever she stopped to watch and listen to vendors who continued to automatically hawk at her as if she hadn’t stopped to listen, she stood and waited until they paused long enough for her to say, “A good morning to you.”

As a result, word gradually spread around town that Her Highness could be found shopping and talking with others in the marketplace on some days, and while she had a tendency to vanish if an excited ruckus over her appeared to be on the verge of starting up, the people found that the more they responded to her as they would to another good neighbor, the more of another good neighbor she seemed to become.

That little but valuable bit of increased time with the citizens of Topaz fueled Constance for her task of letter writing as she helped the capital’s scribes compose letters of assurance to send to the kingdom’s cities, to fortify the nation’s morale and to calm likely fears about prospective peril. She was also spending more time with the scribes and select scholars in the State Library and the World Annals, assisting them in their scour for more facts and accounts about the Mundaynes. When she returned home some evenings, she felt that her skin and hair were positively laden with a layer of book dust, and her eyes did tire at times from even more hours of reading than usual, but

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