[A history. Something linear, something true. Her expression doesn't, exactly, soften, but she does lean forward slightly, the better to smell her with, to taste the edges of her tears at the corners of her taste buds. She can tell a history.]

There was a young woman who became a duchess. She didn't, I don't think, want to be one. That was just how things happened: the last duke died, and there was only her. If she didn't rule, well, then the country would go to the enemy, and she was too much of a tender-hearted patriot to allow that to happen.

So she became a duchess, and she married. Soon her husband died. She grieved heartily, so heartily that she went into hiding for years and years. Nobody saw her, not for the entire rest of her life. When she eventually died of old age, no one outside of the privy council was told, because she had no heir, and without an heir the country would go to those same old enemies.

Instead, the country went to war with those enemies. Over and over and over again, until the soil was tamped down to worthlessness with soldiers' boots, and no crops grew, and all the men were dead. The duchess, who was dead, was prayed to by the people of this country - "Bring my son home," "bring my husband back safe," "give me food to eat and a moment of happiness," that kind of thing. But she couldn't answer their prayers, and so she despaired.