Except, right now, as I sit in my chair in the sitting room, my eyes locked with the roaring fire, I do wish it on them.
My enemy right now is my wife.
The very woman I so reluctantly fell in love with years ago.
The woman that chased me and hounded me until I agreed to be hers. The woman that promised me that she would be a perfect queen, and that we would raise perfect children, and I’d have that life I thought I missed out on when I was young.
A life where you are loved.
I was wrong.
I know my place in this world. I know I became a king far too young, far before I was ready. And I know how this all works, that marriage for love rarely exists for royals like us. But that didn’t stop the disappointment when I found out about Helena’s…indiscretion.
Instead the anger got stronger. Kindling to a fire.
Disappointment fueling the flames.
I can’t ignore it anymore.
I can’t be that person, that King.
I’m supposed to lead this country and yet I can’t even face the hard truths.
My wife doesn’t love me.
And I don’t think she ever did.
It was all just part of the game, the game of bringing a man like me to my knees, head into the guillotine. She wanted the glory. She wanted to win.
I think about Clara and Freja and I wonder when they’ll realize that everything between their mother and I is a lie. I think about how old I was when I discovered my own parents hated each other. Pretty young, I’d say. It wasn’t hard to miss. You know when there’s a lack of love in the house, a fracture in the family. I don’t know what it’s like to grow up with all of that intact but I know I’ll do whatever I can to ensure my girls don’t have the same upbringing as I did.
Which is why I’m here in the royal estate on the island of Madeira.
Waiting for her.
It’s April, just after Easter, when the two of us used to come here as a kick-off to the summer season. It’s too wet in Denmark to go sailing but Madeira is just warming up. The nights can be cold where the estate is, high up on the slopes of the central mountain range, hence the roaring fire. Helena always complained that we were too far from the beaches but with most of Scandinavia spending their winters here, this site was chosen for absolute protection and privacy.
She doesn’t know I’m here.
You’d think she would but that would require her actually talking to me on a daily basis. We might share the same palace but we don’t even share a bedroom anymore.
She’s flying here, landing in about an hour.
It’s dark already, eight p.m.
If she thinks of me at all, she probably thinks that I’m in Norway still, having a meeting with King Arvid, which is where I was this morning. But in the air on the way back to Copenhagen, I told my advisor Ludwig and the pilot that I didn’t want to go back home.
I wanted to come to Madeira, to surprise my wife.