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I rolled over, my eyes yet to open. My outstretched arm patted nothing but mattress. I groaned.
“I’m still here.” Kaspar’s voice came to me.
Rubbing the grit from my eyes, I blinked several times before locating him. He was over by my workstation, his back to me. He was fully dressed. He always re-dressed far too quickly for my liking.
I flopped onto my stomach on his side of the bed, my face crushed in his pillow. “Why are you all the way over there?” I garbled, feathers stabbing into my cheeks.
“What is this?”
From the wonder in his tone, I knew exactly what he was referring to. The exact thing I told him not to look for.
I rolled out of bed and padded over to him, barefoot and bare-chested. There, across my workstation, was the painting of our wedding ceremony.
“You opened my secret drawer.”
He didn’t respond. The flames of the candles scattered around the tabletop danced over the magical scene. I watched his face as he inspected every detail of the painting. I tried to gauge his emotions. The glistening in his eyes, were they tears?
“Wally, this is amazing.”
“You weren’t supposed to see it.”
“Why?”
I shrugged, hugging my chest.
His fingers carefully ran over my dress. “You’d make a beautiful bride.”
I smiled. “I know.”
“I look happy.” He frowned. “They always paint me so serious.”
“That’s because you’re always so serious.”
He looked sombre. “Not with you.”
“No. Not with me.” I kissed his shoulder and went in search of my clothes. My shirt was caught on the end of the broom handle. I grabbed it and shoved it on.
Kaspar sighed heavily. “Do you ever think about what it would be like if I wasn’t the prince?” He was still staring down at my painting of him; his pink smiling face.
“And what would you be if you weren’t the prince?”
“I don’t know.” He was still gazing at himself. A little vain, if you ask me. “An unemployed handsome man?”
I walked around him and hugged him from behind. “Well, if that was the case, I definitely wouldn’t be sleeping with you.” I pressed my cheek between his shoulder blades, inhaling his scent. “You do know I’m only interested in you because of your title, right?”
He grabbed my hands, his dwarfing mine. “I’m serious.”
“As always.”
He turned in my hold. We were now chest to chest. His eyes still held that glassy shimmer.
“I do sometimes think what if I wasn’t royal? What if I wasn’t married?” He pushed the painting back and sat on my workstation so we were almost the same height. “It would be so nice to just be me. To not have to go to all the banquets and councils. Ugh, the councils. At least now I’m married I don’t have to pretend to be interested in all the earl’s and duke’s and king’s daughters. Get paraded around like meat at parties. Oooh who’s Prince Kaspar going to dance with? What does that mean? How about all of you get out of my house so I can go to bed.”
I wrapped my arms loosely around his neck. “I do miss the parties.”
He smiled a little. “I miss you being there.”
I pushed the hair from his forehead and he closed his eyes at my touch. I knew he wanted me to say something. Sometimes jokes weren’t always enough. But jokes were all I had.
“You’re a great prince,” I said. “And as much I adore that fantasy-” I nodded to the painting, “It’s not real. This is.” I ran the back of my hand down his cheek, his neck, to the laces of his shirt. “Now stop sulking and leave. I know you have this day to yourself but it is almost tomorrow. People will be thinking you’ve been kidnapped.”
He groaned, his forehead dropping against mine. “I don’t want to go.”
I didn’t want him to go, either. But I put on my brave face and shoved him towards the door. He groaned with every step but pulled open the door when we reached it. The morning sun was close to peaking over the horizon. Bucky whinnied at the sight of the prince, and Peaches trotted as close to me as her tied up reins allowed her.
“I’m going to miss you, girl.” I rubbed her silky nose.
Kaspar checked Bucky over; making sure everything was still strapped tight before skipping back to me and stealing another kiss.
“Go,” I laughed, pushing him away. But as the warmth of his chest left my fingertips stay threatened to tumble from my lips.
I watched him leave, flanked by Bucky and Peaches as he sashayed into the soft darkness.
Slumping against the closed door, my unmade bed mocked me. The moments Kaspar and I shared messing up those sheets threaded through my mind, tickling my senses. I crossed the room to my workstation and rolled up my painting, unable to look at my creation. How suddenly empty my home, my life, my world had become after feeling so full had my head spinning. Unable to face fixing my place and erasing the evidence of the night... a beautiful and terrifying night of truths and secrets, I quickly finished dressing and headed out into the slowly waking morning.
Luckily, Mirabelle was an early riser and I found her packing eggs to go to the market square. The sign I had made her hung outside their door and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Here to help me do some proper work?” Mirabelle asked, catching me watching her from over the fence.
“Absolutely not.”
She smirked and disappeared into the hen house. When she returned, there were white strains on the knees of her smock. Up close, the stuff was also smeared over her forearms. I pulled a face.
“What do you want, Wallace?”
“And good morning to you, too”
She watched me for a moment, her eyes searching mine.
“I just wanted to know if you were free later,” I added, knowing she was quickly finding the truth in my gaze. The truth being that I really didn’t want to be in my own company.
“I’ve got to take these to the market for Mother but I’ll be in the tavern in the afternoon. You can come and join.”
I nodded affirmatively. “I shall see you there.”
“Great. Now, if you’re not going to help, get going.”
I just had to entertain myself for a couple of hours. I could do that.
As I took the long way around town, I couldn’t stop myself thinking about those three words passing Kaspar’s lips. The way his eyes shone. How relaxed his posture was, like the admittance was just a simple fact.
Kaspar loved me.
The prince loved me.
And what had I said back? Thanks. I silently admonished myself, kicking up dust and stones in a sudden flurry of anger. Why had I said that? Because I was afraid. Because if I said it back, what then? What would change? Nothing. He would still be the prince and I would still be a disgraced jester unable to even set foot in the palace. And he would still be married to someone else.
And then there were the raids. The possibility of my childhood home being attacked. I stopped in the street and leaned heavily against a wall when my stomach turned so violently my vision swam.
But Kaspar had it under control. He would do whatever he could. He was a man of his people. He would protect my parents.
He probably cares about them more than you do.
The savage voice in my head was my own. I gritted my teeth and clenched my eyes shut as my heart pounded.
Looking back now, I wish I had listened to that voice. That wicked accusatory tone. It had been prodding me, coaxing me to change. To do what was right. To do what any normal, functioning person would do. But I had ignored its jibes, terror creeping up my spine at the thought of going home and everything being different, everything being the same. Of the Treagers being proud of me when they shouldn’t be, of them being ashamed of me when they should be proud. My thoughts were so mixed up they made me sick.
There are so many parts of this story I wish I could rewrite. As if putting pen to paper would change the course of my life. But these are the paths I have already taken; they cannot be erased or altered. I live with the consequences of my actions still ‘til this day.
The tavern was exceptionally rowdy that afternoon, and the floor exceptionally sticky. Piles of soaked wood shavings were lumped about and I was not too happy with the way they clung to the soft leather of my boots. Flames burned on wall sconces and the hazy sun filtered through the window slats, giving the light a dusty quality.
As I shouldered my way through the crowd, I feared I would have a hard time finding my friend. But alas, I spotted her almost immediately, sitting in a high-backed wooden booth surrounded by people. I paused, taken aback by what I was seeing. The large table she was at was full. Chairs had even been stolen from other tables and were pulled up along the table’s crowded edge.
It was clear that she was the centre of attention – the head of the table. Everyone leaned in to her, entranced. Necks craned at awkward angles to catch every word passing Mirabelle’s lips within the general bustle of the tavern. She was sitting at the very edge of her seat, elbows on the wet tabletop, making sure to catch each of her audience member’s eyes as she spoke.
Her gaze then flicked to me and she gestured me over in that easy way of someone in complete control of a situation. I slipped between the crowd and Mirabelle thumped the man beside her.
“Make room.” She nodded to me. “He sits beside me.”
The man obeyed, jumping to his feet and offering me his seat in the booth. Heat prickled my neck as I sank into the vacated spot. The man looked about awkwardly for a chair before giving up and standing at the table’s edge.
“Glad you made it, Wallace.”
The crowd all nodded at me in a way of acknowledgement. As my eyes travelled through the group, my gaze snagged on a familiar face. Jerome, the town’s blacksmith, lifted his tankard in greeting as he stood, resting his side against a pillar.
“What is going on?” I leaned into my friend. “Who are all these people? I didn’t know you were so popular.”
“These people,” Mirabelle gestured around and I cringed at the sound of my words echoed to the crowd, “-are sick of being treated like dirt.”
A low here, here rumbled through the group.
My brows furrowed, still not understanding.
“The last tax collection has emptied so many pockets. We’re good people. We’re hard workers. We keep this town running!” continued Mirabelle. A cold spell washed over me. I felt myself sinking down the wooden panelling of the booth as the group all banged their fists on the tables or gave curt, sullen nods. There were over a dozen people. The longer I sat among them, the more familiar they became. Several of the women were the women at the fountain I always passed, washing and chatting and washing some more. I recognised a baker. Carpenters. And others I had seen milling about the square.
I was thankful not to see Alta at the meeting. Because that was definitely what I had walked into. A meeting. Run by my best friend.
“If we do nothing, they will keep coming and keep taking and where will it end?” Mirabelle’s eyes suddenly shot to me. They were huge and determined and terrifying. I opened my mouth to answer on impulse but nothing passed my lips. What would I have even said? Everything she was saying was right, yet my body was flushed from head to toe and my heartbeat thudded violently in my ears as she continued her speech.
I just sat there, wedged between Mirabelle and the arm of the booth. The hard wood bit into my spine. Sweat beaded on my brow, sticking my hair to my forehead and temples. I tried to ease my heart by taking calming breathes but the body heat of the crowd made the air thick and soupy. My fingers itched, my legs began to twitch but I prayed my discomfort didn’t show.
Her words were stoking something in them, and I was there to witness it. It was in their eyes. The ignition. The burn. Righteousness thrummed. It swam around them, through them, became them. Their anger reddened their cheeks, tightened their grips on their drinks, set their jaws stiff as stone. And their reactions were fuelling something within Mirabelle. With each nod and here, here from her fans, she became even more animated. Her features tightened, her tone becoming more and more biting.
This was bad.
This was very bad.