by Winter James
He’s trying to keep his voice down, but the acoustics of the room work against him. They were meant to. This part of the trial, when I’m dealing with someone as oblivious as this man, is invariably my favorite. How could he not know? He’s been charged with a crime against the Crown and now he’s been summoned to the palace to face his trial. According to the notes on the page in front of me, he’s been in the city prison for a week, waiting. And yet this is the first moment he knows the seriousness of what’s going on. Or it’s the first moment he’s allowed himself to know it. Denial is such a human thing, even if I have a personal distaste for it.
His lawyer waffles, whispers, tries to get him to sit back down. Another unsurprising detail: this man has hired an uninspiring hack for a lawyer, a lawyer who can’t make a quick decision, a man who stands in front of me without a plan. I should throw him in prison, too. It would do him some good.
“Play the tapes.” My voice brings a halt to the frantic negotiation going on with the defendant and his witless lawyer. “Let’s see your service to the crown.”
The prosecutor steps forward without hesitation, a small silver remote in her hand. Two huge screens below my bench—at just the right height for both prosecution and defense to see in clear, high-definition detail—come to life. A smaller screen, sunk into my desk, matches it.
The palace security cameras do not produce the low-quality black-and-white frames of most security cameras. They record everything in full color. Smooth video. The courtroom watches from four different angles as the defendant, dressed in a worse-fitting suit than the one he wears now, strolls onto the screen. He has just entered one of the massive sitting rooms on the first floor of the palace, one level beyond where the public is normally allowed to go. The case file says he had an appointment with one of my advisers. He is on his way to that appointment in this video. For the first ten seconds, he doesn’t commit any crime.
Abruptly, he pauses in the center of the room. Ah—his first crime, that of terrible acting. I don’t believe for a fucking second that he has just received an important text, but he plays it up just the same. A nervous hand flutters to the top of his head. He scrolls, scrolls, then steps toward the wall as if this sitting room is so full of other people that he is concerned about holding up foot traffic.
He stops next to a wide mantle, marble and minimalist. I had the stuffy old furniture removed when I renovated the palace piece by piece. I started the day after my father decided he was finished, too tired to go on, and moved into the dowager queen’s apartments on the opposite side of the palace from where he’d been fucking around and wasting time and money for decades. In the video, it’s possible to see how sleek and modern the sitting room has become. You’d never know that it had been crowded with antiques, the weight of them heavy on the floors and on the eyes, until I had my way.
The man in the video looks intently down at the screen of his phone, his face running through a parody of emotion. First he is perturbed, his eyebrows knitting together. Then he is impatient, casting his eyes to the ceiling. A roll of his eyes—exasperation. Then thoughtful. And while his face does all these things, his free hand reaches up behind him, so quick that it seems disconnected from the rest of his body, and plucks a statue from its place on the mantel.
The statue—solid gold. It’s a perfect recreation of the Belleza flower, but for the gold and the size. They are smaller in actuality but no less valuable than precious metals. More valuable.
The thief could argue that his left hand did not know what his right hand was doing. He doesn’t once look away from his screen as he drops the statute into his pocket. The hem of his jacket covers the bulge neatly. That’s the advantage of wearing ill-fitting suits, I suppose. You can hide things in the pockets and no one's the wiser. Except the multitude of cameras watching you commit your crime.
My father, for all his failings, liked to appear benevolent in his public appearances. When he did preside over treason hearings he liked to put on a stern face and then grant the person mercy. This man? He would have been set free. And that is why no one respects the crown. Anger crawls up the back of my neck with heated fingernails. The people of this nation have watched us grow lax with laws, and then with their needs. What good is a noble household if the schools of a nation are falling to ruin, the poor roam the streets, and the rich siphon off money meant to keep the people in food and shelter?
Worthless.
My father has left it to me to wrest the country from the grip of his failed policies. As a good, dutiful son, I have of course installed him in a spacious suite in the palace where I never have to lay eyes on him. I have provided him with the best medical care the country has to offer so that he can die and leave me in peace without causing any more trouble. I sit in this chair, passing fair judgment on the people of Belleza to set right all the things he ruined over the course of his reign. If only his reign would fucking end. Any day now.
The video ends abruptly, the screen going black, and the thief stands next to his lawyer with his shoulders hunched. I let the silence grow until it fills the vaulted ceilings of the courtroom and presses itself into the seams in the wood-paneled walls.
“Well?” My prosecutor lifts her chin and meets my eyes. She’s the only one. Just as well, because I’m talking to her. “Have you reviewed the other recordings?”
The thief’s lawyer raises his hand, grim-faced. “Your royal highness, are there other...relevant tapes? During discovery, we didn’t—”
“I reviewed them,” the prosecutor cuts in. “The statue was not returned to the mantle at any point in the subsequent seventy-two hours.”
It was also not turned in to any of my advisers or palace staff, who are perhaps the only people left in the country who would’ve put it back in its rightful place.
“Three years imprisonment,” I order.
The prosecutor flips her portfolio shut and tucks it under her arms.
The thief stares at me, shock coating his red eyes.
His lawyer stares at him.
Two guards move down from the back doors of the courtroom, their footfalls echoing off the ceiling and raining back down on us. The thief’s mouth opens and closes. He doesn’t think to run until it’s too late, and when he turns he barrels headlong into the first guard. They pull the thief’s hands behind his back, the click click of handcuffs ringing out, and he finally finds his voice.
“Please, I didn’t do it. I didn’t mean to do it. I’m an innocent man. One mistake doesn’t mean—stop, stop.” They don’t stop. The thief entered through the side door and he’ll go back out through it, only this time there will be no hallway meeting with his lawyer, no discussions of bail or parole. He’ll be taken to the city prison to serve out his sentence. In Belleza, in treason hearings, my word is law. The guards drag him toward the doors, kicking, arguing. Pleading. “Tell him,” he shouts back at his lawyer. “Make some kind of deal, do something—you haven’t done anything. Three years? I could be dead in three years. Don’t do this. Please don’t do this. Please, please—”
The outer door closes, cutting off his begging. His lawyer gives a deep bow and slinks out of the courtroom. The guards return a moment later and climb the steps back to their position by the doors. It’s one man, in all of Belleza, but that’s what this is going to be, isn’t it? I can’t wave a magic wand and undo all the havoc my father wreaked. It will have to be undone one person at a time.
One of my advisors rushes in, scans the courtroom, and looks relieved to have found it empty. “Your royal highness. There’s an update on the marriage negotiations.”
That crushes the high of listening to the poor bastard scream.
Marriage negotiations are bound to take several years, given the state of the kingdom, and when they’re finished I’ll find myself with a perfectly serviceable bride from some minor royal family in Spain, since the nobility in Belleza is busy fighting each other, claws out. I’ve seen photos of most of the women. It will be a neat and bloo
dless arrangement. Boring. A marriage of passion has never been on the table. It’s only now, with that man’s screams ringing in my ears, that I find myself hungry for what I can’t have.
“Quickly, then,” I tell the advisor, a small man who’s gone mostly bald over the course of his palace tenure.
“We’ve had a reply.” He whispers the name of the least interesting, most inoffensive family with connections to royalty in all of Spain. “The oldest daughter. If you’d like, I can send a message indicating our early interest. We can begin deeper talks.”
I should say yes. This woman, who I vaguely remember from the packets of information that have been deposited on my desk, has no hint of a scandal in her past. She’s the patron of a number of indistinguishable charities. Absolutely nothing about her excites me, which is why my advisor is right to suggest that we should take the best deal available now. There’s no telling how long her interest will last, and the sooner I can get married, the sooner Belleza can move on from my father’s attempts to fuck his way out of his responsibilities.
Yes. Send the message now, as hastily as possible. Get her commitment, too. “Not now.” I wave him away, restlessness stirring at my core.
I don’t have to look at him to feel his hesitation. The beat of silence contains his lips pursing and his hands folding neatly together, just short of wringing. He is making his decision, even now, while I stare out at the prosecutor. She walks in clipped steps to the side of the courtroom, where a young man from her staff meets her.
They exchange portfolios and consult, heads close together.
“Your royal highness...”
“I swear to god, Benjamin, if you tell me that we need to move quickly because of my father’s reputation, I’ll have you dragged outside the palace gates and tell the people of the city that you’re the one who ruined their hospitals.”
It would be a mob scene, and I won’t do it.
Belleza doesn’t need any more unrest. But it’s cleansing to imagine the violence of it all. The enemies you can beat to a pulp. A tangible villain. None of that is allowed for me as the prince of Belleza, obviously. Benjamin turns and scuttles away.
The side door opens to admit another man and another lawyer. He’s going to prison as surely as the first one was, but the righteous fire that carried me into the courtroom this morning has been stripped away. And why? All because Benjamin reminded me of the path I’ve been locked into all my life.
“Your royal highness.” The prosecutor has a clear gaze and a clear voice as she announces the name of the new defendant and the palace’s case against him. There’s enough evidence to convict him of treason. And I can tell from his pale face and the tremble in his hand that he’ll scream as loudly as the man before him. He’ll shout and beg and drag his heels, and it won’t make any difference at all. He’ll end up in his cell for however many years come to mind when I play my part and give the sentence. Later, I’ll play the part and marry this woman from Spain. Only my vows will mean far less than this man’s sentence. Love, honor, and obey? She’ll get honor and nothing else. Certainly not love. It was never part of the deal.
Chapter Three
Tessa
This is not a great situation.
It’s better than being tied to a chair in a basement, yes. But also a thousand times more dangerous. It turns out the relative beauty of a place isn’t always a perfect indicator of its safety. I guess it’s a holdover from living as an orphan most of my life. Deep down, I always assumed beautiful houses and beautiful places reflected their inner nature. Illusion shattered.
The drive of the car took me to the palace via an access road along the side. He let me out at a gatehouse that matches the exterior of the palace—all worn stones with deep green ivy decorating the corners and climbing in slow patterns toward the roof. I thought about running, and then I thought about the likely possibility of getting run down by the driver. Best-case scenario, I’d live to get sold to another owner who wouldn’t dress me as a maid. Worst-case, I get hit by a car. The middle-of-the-road option was to swallow the bitter fear in my mouth and give my name to the man inside the booth.
There was never any hope of him recognizing my name from the background check. I can’t think of a single one of my friends from around the internet who knew about my plan to go to Belleza and there’s nobody else to report me as a missing person. Even so, I watched his face for any sign there’d been a miracle announcement. Random American woman stolen from shady hostel, it would read in official type. Answers to the name Tessa Boucher. No other aliases known.
But all he did was print me a badge on thick plastic and tell me to report to the head housekeeper on the lowest level of the palace. I went in through a nondescript wall in the middle of all that stone and found myself in a hallway that could have been anywhere. Sleek, polished floors. Carefully labeled doors. Housekeeper’s Office. Supplies. Kitchen. I had my assignment inside ten minutes and now I’m here, trying not to lose my mind.
This is the Prince of Belleza’s room.
Rooms would be a better way to describe it. Obviously a prince of his status doesn’t have a bedroom tacked on to the end of a hall, separated from the rest of the palace by flimsy drywall.
The list that my new boss—my new fake boss—only makes sense now, while I’m seeing it.
Seeing...part of it.
The double doors in the hall, flanked by a matched set of guards, enter into a foyer that’s twice the size of some of the apartments I’ve lived in. It’s all stark whites and blacks, a kind of steely modern, and it’s clear this is meant to be the transition between public and private. A shiver of anticipation moves over my skin. Another set of doors, big windows on the top half, look over the prince’s living room. I want to stay here and take in the view, but the only thing worse than having to spy on the prince would be getting caught standing in his foyer like a deer in headlights.
I move around the living room on light feet, straightening dark pillows that go with the dark leather furniture and letting my fingertips brush against the expensive leather. Tidy living room. Bizarre thing to put on a list, I thought, but the living room is larger than some of the houses I’ve been in. He sits here. He relaxes here, if such a thing is possible when you’re the cruel prince of Belleza. A charging cable for an iPhone has come loose from its built-in outlet on one of the tables. How do you tidy an iPhone cord? I wrap it into a neat circle and plug it back in.
Next item on the list: tidy the guest bathroom. The guest bathroom is at least the size of a dorm room I once shared with two other girls. It’s already spotless, but the prince must have high standards. Nobody has been in here, from the looks of it—the toilet paper still boasts a small triangle at the end of the roll. Check. Remember to fold the toilet paper. Scrub everything else, so it smells like a cleaner that has a hint of bleach but otherwise smells light and fresh.
The Prince of Belleza has a private exercise room—tidy exercise equipment—and a sunlit dining area with a single table by the window. I replace the tablecloth from a closet in the corner and fold the previous one, which looks brand-new, over my arm. A closed door suggests an office but it’s not on the list, and when I try the handle, keeping my face blank. If I look like I’ve done this a million times before maybe he won’t suspect me. Maybe nobody will, and I can get what I came here to get and disappear into the rest of my backpacking trip.
Tidy the bedroom.
The Prince of Belleza leaves his bed unmade. Rumpled sheets. One of the many pillows stacked on top of another, shoved up near the headboard with a dip in the middle where his head used to be. The room smells faintly of cologne. It’s something spicy and dark, like cinnamon on a starless night.
Tidy the bedroom.
I’m going to have to tug his sheets up to the pillows and straighten them all. Was there a woman here last night? One he sent away before he fell asleep? Someone who tangled up all of his white sheets and blankets, all of them bright white against the stark black fra
me of his bed. The heat in my face spreads down into my chest. I’ll save this for last.
The en-suite bathroom is...it’s beyond description. No bathroom I’ve ever seen has been this large. A huge shower takes up the space by the back wall. Black tiles, two rainfall showerheads. A vivid image flashes into my mind—Prince Sebastian, naked under the rainfall. Me, watching. Why, why? Why would I think of that? I find the cleaning supplies in a hidden panel at the side of the bathroom and try to focus on survival while I put his cologne back in a neat row with his toothpaste and a holder for his razor. The bottle for the scent looks as expensive as it sounds. I don’t dare lift it off the counter with my hands shaking like this.
When everything is clean, sparkling, I go back out into the main room.
Time to tackle the bed.
The sheets glide like silk under my hands, but they’re not silk. Some hybrid between cotton and satin. They’re light as a summer breeze skimming along a city rooftop. I pull them up to the head of the bed and snap them to a crisp finish. When I was seventeen, I took a housekeeping job at a local motel. The pay was for crap, but the owner insisted on well-made beds. The old routine takes over. Fluffing the pillows. Folding back the duvet. Surveying the bed from several paces away to make sure it’s balanced.
That’s when I spot the laptop.
It sits on a desk facing a set of windows that overlook a garden in full bloom. This is the first I’m seeing of the desk, or the garden, or the laptop, or maybe I blocked them out. Because the laptop is what I’m here to take. Or raid. Whatever’s necessary for the people who bought me.
I’ve been pushing through this because there is no other option, but looking at the laptop makes me lightheaded. I haven’t done anything wrong by being in the prince’s rooms or making his bed. But if he catches me snooping through his laptop...
I know enough about the laws in Belleza to know I’d be at his mercy. And the Prince of Belleza is not merciful.