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“Thank you, Prince Nokto,” I said politely, handing him his coat as the carriage jostled to a stop. The chill in the air nipped at my toes in the few seconds between sliding them out from under the warmth of my skirt and down to my waiting shoes on the floor. They were going to get colder soon. I reached for the carriage door, and then Prince Nokto’s voice stopped me.
“That’s your house?” he asked disapprovingly.
I sighed and looked back at his narrowed crimson eyes. “It’s not the palace, but there’s nothing wrong with it, your highness.”
“How badly does the roof leak?” he countered, his eyes meeting mine with a challenge.
“It doesn’t. Not since I patched it after the last rainstorm,” I retorted. “Goodbye, your highness.”
I hopped out of the carriage, landing directly in a puddle, and was about to slam the carriage door shut when a horrible feeling of dread twisted my stomach. I swallowed what little pride I had left and turned back to look up at him.
“Please don’t tell Prince Chevalier?”
Prince Nokto closed his eyes briefly and shook his head, giving a half-sigh, half-laugh.
“Do you know how pitiful you look right now?”
Standing in the rain, in a puddle, without a coat, looking up at him imploringly? Yes, I had an idea how pitiful I looked, and I was hoping it was enough to convince him.
“Please.”
His lips turned up into a reluctant smile. “Fine. Just get inside.”
“Thank you, Prince Nokto!”
I shut the carriage door and darted toward the little shack I called home, mud squelching beneath my feet and under the horses’ hooves as they strained to get the carriage moving behind me. The smell from the bucket hit me as soon as I opened the door. I gagged and covered my mouth, closing the door gently as I scanned the little room in the dim lighting provided by the one window. Mother was asleep under a big, fluffy floral blanket, a bright blend of the colors I saw through the library window every day. Warmth flooded my chest just looking at it. Jason didn’t have to buy a pretty one. I would have smiled, if not for the bucket next to the bed. If Mother could sleep with that smell, she had to feel awful. I grabbed her coat from a nail in the wall, shrugged it on, and braced myself to deal with the offending bucket. It belonged in the garbage heap. But Mother needed it today, and it was still raining, and she was only going to get weaker…
I dumped it at the outhouse, scrubbed it at the river, and brought it back for future use, dry heaving the entire time, soaking wet and chilled through well before I finished. And I still had to make dinner before I could crawl under that blanket and find out how warm it really was.
It was nice of the sky to cry for me, sometimes.
But it wasn’t crying the next morning. The new day dawned bright and sunny, the air was extra clean and fresh, and the grass was already a brighter shade of green than before. It was like the whole world was smiling. I decided to go along with it. Focusing on the negatives in my life wouldn’t help anything, after all, so why not smile and dwell on the positives? The new blanket was as warm as it looked, for one, and when I finally got to bed last night, Mother was nice and toasty underneath it. She was in good spirits today, too. And the weather was perfect for me to catch up on laundry. All good reasons to smile. Everybody I passed on my walk up to the palace was smiling, too, even the street sweepers busily cleaning up all the debris left behind by the storm. It had made a mess, but the damage had been minimal, all things considered.
Now, if only I could hold on to this mood in the palace.
“Good morning, Prince Chevalier!” I called at nine o’clock, pulling his drapes open and looking down into the gardens. The gardeners had been hard at work since well before I arrived, and the gardens were already looking much better from their efforts.
Indistinct grumblings emanated from the blankets, reminding me that not everybody was a morning person.
“It’s a beautiful day today, your highness. It would be a shame to sleep through it,” I said, heading for his bureau. “The storm left quite a mess. The street sweepers and the gardeners have been busy with cleanup this morning.”
No response. Well, I’d just have to keep talking. I started pulling clothes out of the drawers.
“I suppose you’ll want to run your errand today. Maybe I should be more cautious, but I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be nice to go outside for a change.”
Still nothing. He hadn’t fallen back asleep, had he? I turned around to put his clothes on the sofa and met his cold blue eyes. He was still in bed, but he’d pushed back the covers, and I knew he’d been watching me. Warmth flooded my cheeks, and I ducked my head as I neatly piled the clothes on the sofa.
“I’ll be back with your breakfast in a moment,” I said, exiting his room as quickly as I could without actually running.
Why had he been looking at me like that?
Oh. Of course. The bruises on my wrists had faded enough that I felt comfortable wearing a spring uniform again. That was all. I didn’t need to read any more into it than that. It had been almost a week since I’d worn short sleeves and a knee-length skirt, and that probably surprised him. Bruises didn’t always heal that quickly. The ones on my shoulders were still there, ugly as ever, but the ones on my wrists hadn’t been as bad, and they were only noticeable to somebody who knew to look for them.
Unless…Prince Nokto didn’t tell him about my house, did he?
But Prince Chevalier probably already knew about my living situation. He always seemed to know everything, after all. Knowing and seeing were two different things, though, and I knew a one-room, thatch-roof, dirt-floor shack wouldn’t exactly impress any of the princes. To them, it must seem the height of poverty. It wasn’t. That would be homelessness, which was not something I’d ever endured. There was nothing wrong with my house. Mother and I didn’t need much. A bed, a table and chairs, a cookstove, a washstand, a trunk for our clothes, a cabinet for food. We’d always kept the house clean and maintained, and the outhouse, well, and river were all within easy reach. It was fine.
And I was ready to tell Prince Chevalier that if he confronted me when I got back to his room, but he didn’t. He wasn’t standing next to the door, arms crossed over his chest, ready to ambush me, and he wasn’t in the bathroom getting ready for the day, either. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, looking down at his lap, his knuckles white where his fingers dug into the mattress on either side of him. It almost looked like he was in pain. His bruised knuckles seemed to be healing fine, though, and the cuts on his right hand didn’t look swollen or red…
“Prince Chevalier?” I ventured hesitantly, setting his breakfast tray on his writing desk.
Suddenly, he was back to normal. His grip on the mattress eased, his head came up, and he stood, walking to the bathroom without looking at me.
“I’ll need a bouquet made up before we leave,” he said coldly.
His stride was normal, his bearing straight and tall. Nothing seemed to be wrong.
“Any particular arrangement, your highness?” I asked, still studying him for anything out of the ordinary.
“Something suitable for a grave.”
I officially didn’t know what was going on, but if he wanted to pretend everything was fine, then that’s what I would do, too.
“What time shall I have it ready, your highness?”
“Right away. We’ll go after breakfast.”
“Then I’ll be back soon, your highness.”
It wasn’t like him to change his plans like that. He’d said we’d go in the afternoon, hadn’t he? But something was bothering him this morning. Something about Prince Clavis, perhaps? Or the conversation we had before I left yesterday?
I sighed and breathed in the heavy scent of roses as I stepped out into the gardens. The bright sunshine and the trill of delighted bird calls reminded me to stop overthinking everything and remain positive. Prince Chevalier wanted a bouquet, something suitable for a grave. Red roses went with everything. There had to be plenty of flowers knocked loose by the storm that were still full and beautiful.
Usually, it was hard to find a gardener, since part of their job was blending into the background, but they were easy to find this morning. The first one I came across was a nice older man with an easy smile and a ready selection of clippings to choose from. He wouldn’t let me do more than point at the ones I wanted until he stripped the thorns away with his protective gloves. I looked up at the wall of windows while he worked, squinting from the glare reflected off the glass. The stained glass window marked the center of the library, and above that, the next floor up, was Prince Chevalier’s room. I couldn’t quite make out which window was his. It didn’t matter, really. All of them had a very nice view of the gardens.
Prince Chevalier didn’t really seem like the type who would bring flowers to a grave. Or even visit a grave.
There I went overthinking things again.
He was dressed and finished with breakfast when I returned with the bouquet, and he seemed normal enough, although I wasn’t really sure of anything with him this morning.
“Will these do, your highness?” I asked, holding out the flowers.
His icy blue eyes flicked from the roses to me, and he brushed past me toward the door. “Yes. Come.”
He’d been holding the door open for me since I chewed him out the morning after the assassination attempt. It was a little thing, but it felt really awkward this morning, carrying a bouquet of red roses past him into the hallway, especially since I didn’t know what was going on in his head right now. I made a mental note to come back to his room later for the dirty dishes and followed him as he started walking, his long strides almost forcing me to trot to keep up with him. We walked through hallways, down several flights of stairs, out the door, and came to the lawn where Prince Clavis, Prince Luke, and I got caught in the rain a couple of days ago. Prince Chevalier didn’t stop there, and we continued past the church to a graveyard I hadn’t seen before. Neat rows of identical white monuments spaced evenly apart stretched over the hill and out of sight. In the distance, a small crowd gathered around a mound of newly dug earth. Prince Chevalier finally slowed down, allowing me to resume a more normal pace as I followed beside him, reading the monuments as we passed. Most of the graves bore multiple names, along with a location and a date or series of dates.
“Prince Chevalier, who were all these people?” I asked.
“This is the Hill of Remembrance, the burial place for the knights of Rhodolite. Most of these died in battle.”
There were so many monuments. Rhodolite’s history stretched back many centuries, and the number of lives lost was overwhelming, especially considering these were only the knights. In war, civilians were always unintended casualties.
“Who’s being buried today, your highness?”
“A guard killed by the assassin.”
He came to a stop, still a long way from the memorial service. I hadn’t realized the assassin had killed a guard, but it made sense. There were guards everywhere in and around the palace. It would have been difficult to avoid detection. And for Prince Chevalier to want to come here meant the guard must have been one of his knights. I looked up at him, his icy blue eyes as inscrutable as ever, facing steadfastly forward.
“Don’t you want to attend the memorial service, Prince Chevalier?”
“No.”
That wasn’t entirely unexpected from him. I looked back down at the closest monument, studying the engraved text. None of the names were familiar to me, but the date was a long time ago. The location, however, was familiar, and it was quite close to my house. I swallowed nervously, suppressing a shiver. What was it like to live on a battlefield? Not as a soldier; as a civilian who just got caught in the crossfire? I hoped I’d never find out. Life was hard enough without that added stressor.
The wind picked up slightly, and I heard Prince Chevalier’s cloak flutter behind him. I brushed my hair back out of my eyes. The crowd up ahead was dispersing. From this distance, I couldn’t recognize anybody individually. I wondered if any other princes were part of that crowd.
“Only knights attend these services,” Prince Chevalier said quietly, answering my unspoken question as he often did. His eyes were on me when I looked up at him.
“You’ve been in a lot of battles, haven’t you, Prince Chevalier?”
“Yes.”
He answered so nonchalantly, as if I’d asked him about the weather. I looked away again, biting my lip nervously. This was just another part of his life, a part that I didn’t understand. But then, there were parts of my life he’d never understand, either. The trouble with Jack, for instance. The length of time I’d had to deal with that man shocked Prince Chevalier. It was just part of my life, though, something I grew up watching Mother battle, something I accepted would always be a battle in my life, too. That’s what came from being a woman, alone and defenseless. If it wasn’t Jack, it would be somebody else, following Mother and me around, waiting for an opportunity. I was only surprised that I’d made it this far without serious problems. That incident had been long overdue, and it could have been a lot worse.
The sweet smell of spring grass and the mustiness of freshly turned dirt drifted toward me on the breeze. Jack was gone, and the story changed. The memory of Prince Chevalier holding me on his lap while I cried, stroking my hair, whispering that I was safe, came back in a rush, and suddenly, all my doubts and fears about working in the palace vanished. I was safe as long as I was with him. Even if something happened, he would deal with it.
It was an odd revelation to get in a graveyard.
“Let’s go.”
He checked his pace this time; whether to make it easier for me to keep up, or to allow the crowd time to dissipate; I didn’t know. We were alone by the time we arrived at the fresh gravesite. The name on the monument was Giles Christophe.
“I knew him,” I said softly, feeling a pang in my heart. “He opened the front gate for me in the morning. I wondered where he’d gone.”
Prince Chevalier knelt in front of the grave, running a finger along the name engraved into the stone. Then he stood up.
“If you would like to pay your respects, do so. We’ve wasted enough time here.”
His words sounded harsh, but I knew him better than to take them at their face value. He guessed, or knew, that I had met this guard, and he thought I would want this opportunity to say goodbye. I knelt, placing the flowers on the grave and closing my eyes for a brief prayer.
“I’m ready, your highness,” I said quietly, standing back up.
He led me back to the palace in silence, and then we parted ways - him for his office; me to finish up in his room.
ns 15.158.61.54da2
