Ninth Euclid's Prince

by Daniel M. Hoyt

  Lady Phoenix turned away and giggled, as if my Lord were a child demanding that she stop the sun from setting. “This cake is quite good, don’t you think, Euclid?” she said casually, ignoring Lord Oswald.

  I kept my mouth shut.

  The lady’s slight enraged my Lord even more, and they sparred for another round over the cake, by which time I’d developed heartburn as well.

  As the argument cycled again, I stood, unfolding my massive body slowly and yawning dramatically. My Lord stopped mid-yell. “A lovely meal,” I said. “My compliments to your chef, Lady Redwing. But now, I’ll say goodnight. I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep for a change. Somewhere.”

  A stunned silence spread through the room.

  I turned to Lord Oswald. “Perhaps my Lord would care to discuss court strategy before we retire?” Through an effort of will, I kept my face impassive despite his glare, which continued for quite some time.

  “Yes, of course,” he said at last, his normal pale complexion starting to reappear. “A good night’s sleep for all of us, I think.” He narrowed his eyes and nodded at Lady Redwing. “Good night, Lady.”

  We walked back to the captain’s cabin in silence. Soon, I was fast asleep in a chair in his antechamber, dreaming of the Butterfly Palace, where ladies looking remarkably like Lady Redwing peaked out from the bubbles in the bath.

  ***

  In the morning, Lord Oswald woke me, saying in my ear, “Breakfast in bed.”

  I tried to open my eyes, but they refused to stay open, rebelling against the simulated morning light on the starship. Still, if my Lord wanted breakfast in bed, it was my duty to provide it for him. I willed my leaden legs to move, but they remained on the chair.

  “Lady Redwing, I mean. You have a way of getting her to see reason. Take her breakfast and talk to her.”

  Sure, I made her see reason; that’s why she was on the ship. However, I had to confess that this was one assignment I wasn’t going to refuse, no matter how low the chance of success. I’d never get a decent night’s sleep until this battle with Lady Redwing was resolved.

  “Yes, my Lord,” I slurred, and forced myself awake.

  Laden with a hearty breakfast of scrambled sandgoblin eggs — an Oasis specialty — with some kind of meat, presumably whatever the chef laid in store for the lady, some wigglefruit juice, a mountain of spacer’s hash and two greenberry crepes with cream, I had little trouble gaining entrance to Lady Redwing’s cabin. Upon inspecting my heavy burden, the lady was awakened and her bedchamber door opened.

  Lady Redwing sat up in the bed, covers pulled to just below her breasts, which were barely concealed beneath a pale yellow sleeping gown unbuttoned enough to display a generous amount of cleavage. She smoothed the blanket over her hips, molding it to her body in order to ensure the bed tray piled with food would rest solidly on the bed, then motioned me over. Gently, I placed the tray over her legs, and she bent forward to inspect the contents of the tray.

  Smiling at me widely, she seemed delighted with my choices, and patted a space next to her. “Stay, Euclid. I hate to eat alone.”

  Actually, she had her chef to thank for the choice of breakfast, but I wasn’t disposed to dispelling the illusion I was responsible.

  We chatted for a while, small talk only, nothing of any great importance. I waited until she started in on the second crepe before I broached the subject of her appearance in court.

  “Euclid,” she said, stopping me mid-sentence and fixing me with a stare that promised the rival of Lord Oswald’s resolve. “I intend to be at court. The subject is closed.” She took another bite of the crepe and swallowed.

  “But, Lady—”

  “Shh,” she said, raising her fork at me in warning.

  I dropped the subject. For now.

  Shortly after I left my daddy’s farm to work for Lord Oswald, Prince Vere had visited, on his way to New Rome. The other prince’s appearance had surprised me.

  Lord Oswald had the kind of roguish looks and informal manner that unsettled visitors to the palace enough to give him the upper hand in any negotiations. They never seemed quite convinced he wasn’t really a pirate impersonating the prince long enough to escape with their valuables — and women, if possible. I’d come to think of Lord Oswald’s appearance as the proper princely look.

  Prince Vere, on the other hand, looked exactly like what everybody else expected from a prince. Tall and slim, yet muscular, he walked with an unexpected litheness. Medium length blond hair framed an angular face with two shining sapphire eyes. A flawless tan covered what should have been fair skin, which I’d bet would be devoid of blemishes. He wore no jewelry, except for a large sapphire earring in his right earlobe, but his meticulously tailored clothes were borne on his broad shoulders with pride, his mighty chest swelling impressively.

  They’d argued over dinner, about my Lord’s manners and the court’s low impressions of them, and my Lord’s face had colored impressively. Prince Vere, on the other hand, never broke a sweat, never raised his voice, and maintained his composure throughout the argument.

  After Prince Vere had left, Lord Oswald had fumed at me. “Did you hear that pompous ass? Lecture me on court behavior, will he, even when he knows he’s wrong. And he doesn’t even have the decency to yell back at me when I insult him. It’s no wonder that old decrepit Seraphim likes him better; he’s so deaf he can’t actually hear the prince’s stupid drivel.”

  I kept my mouth shut and nodded, hoping my Lord wouldn’t ask me any questions he expected me to answer.

  “Let me tell you something, Euclid,” he said, shaking a finger right in front of my eyes. “I know how to dress for court, thank you very much. I don’t need an insipid snake like Vere to give me advice.”

  He glared at me for a while, then put his hand down and took a breath. “I think,” he said calmly, “that I need Madame Blue right now. There’s nothing like her famous Two Moons Over My Hammy to help me relax.”

  “Full treatment?” I asked, eager for a change of subject.

  My Lord nodded. “With bath and massage.”

  Lady Redwing’s calm demeanor had reminded me of Prince Vere so many years ago. In the end, Prince Oswald had changed his court attire to match Prince Vere’s recommendations.

  I had no doubt Lady Redwing would appear in the emperor’s court, but not before a great deal of arguing with my Lord.

  Her breakfast finished, Lady Redwing roused me from my memories by leaning over and resting her head on my arm. “Thanks, Euclid. Breakfast was wonderful. Now, scoot. There’s a big day ahead and I need to dress.”

  I grabbed the tray, swiveled off the bed without a word, and marched out the cabin. After returning the tray to the galley, I sought out Lord Oswald.

  My Lord wasn’t happy with my lack of progress, but he didn’t seem surprised, either. Sometime while recounting our conversation, a slow smile spread across his face. I finished quickly with just the high points and waited for an explanation.

  “Euclid, my boy, I think I have a solution to our problem.”

  I raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

  “After lunch, while everyone’s busy, I want you to take her clothes.”

  “My Lord?” I asked, surprised by his lewd suggestion. Was he suggesting I tackle her and strip her? Why? What had she done to deserve that kind of treatment? She wasn’t one of the hired ladies at a pleasure palace, she was a Lady.

  He smirked, sensing my unease and confusion. “From her closet, my boy, from her closet. Dump them in the incinerator or space them or something. She can have the clothes she’s wearing. That should keep her on the ship.” He beamed, obviously pleased with himself and his brilliance.

  My Lord’s plan made a sick sort of sense. Without her court clothes, Lady Redwing wouldn’t conceive of appearing before the emperor. I smiled, too, trying to appear pleased, but secretly I worried how far Lady Phoenix could be pushed before her fiery temper manifested itself.

  ***

&n
bsp; Lunch was late, for reasons that remained unexplained to my Lord’s mind, despite the chef’s insistence that no food would be served until Lady Redwing appeared.

  “I wasn’t hungry earlier,” she said when she appeared mid-afternoon, a poor excuse for why the entire starship had to wait nearly two hours for lunch. She looked straight at me. “I had a big breakfast.”

  My stomach churned, setting off a fresh set of growls. My Lord and I fairly attacked the exquisite lunch; Lady Phoenix picked at hers. I finished quickly and excused myself as dessert was being served, explaining that I had work to do. The lady insisted that dessert be delivered to my room. I agreed and rushed off to her cabin.

  Sending Lady Redwing's cabin maid to assist with the lunch cleanup, I sneaked into her cabin, knowing I had only a few minutes to empty her closet before the maid returned.

  I opened the closet to find more clothes than I would have believed could possibly fit in so small a space. Mentally, I cursed myself for not inventing a longer task for the cabin maid, something which would have provided me with ample time to empty the lady's closet undetected.

  As it was, I expected I'd need at least four trips.

  Deep down, I knew that this was wrong, that what I was doing wouldn’t be excusable by Lady Phoenix. But I had no wish to displease my Lord, either. Lord Oswald had taken me from the farm and elevated me to a position my daddy would never have aspired to. In the general scheme of things, no matter how much I wished the roles were reversed, Prince Oswald was simply more important to me than Lady Redwing.

  I grabbed the first thing I saw, a long silver gown with blue accents, and held it in front of me, imagining the fine lady wearing it. Shaking the sight from my mind, I snatched up another and another until I couldn’t hold any more, then dashed out the door and down the hall to the incinerator. Stuffing them in the access hole as quickly as I could, it was still a minute or two before they were gone forever. I felt more than a twinge of regret at destroying the fine garments, and I still wasn’t convinced I hadn’t done something so terribly wrong that it would taint my soul, yet still I went back for more of the lady’s clothes.

  I was just about to gather another armful of the Lady Redwing’s dresses when her cabin door started to open. I leaped into the closet, whisking the doors shut silently behind me.

  I heard the lady's voice at the door to her cabin, and a man's voice, too. They were too far away for me to understand them, but the interchange between them sounded somewhat familiar. Straining to hear, I thought I caught the words three and Thursday.

  My heart stopped. In our rush to get ready for the voyage to New Rome, I'd completely forgotten it was Thursday. I didn't need to see a clock to realize that it was about three o'clock in the afternoon — Lady Redwing's time for another ill-conceived wedding attempt — aboard a starship, no less. If that was the case, the man outside would have been....

  ...Not Lord Oswald, apparently.

  The door closed, and I spied the lady coming back alone to her bedchambers. The closet doors didn't meet perfectly, affording me a good, but somewhat limited view through a small vertical slit.

  Lady Redwing glided over to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. After a few seconds, I decided to abandon my mission before I was discovered. If I made it to the outer cabin, I'd claim I was sent to appeal to her again not to appear in the New Rome court.

  Unfortunately, as I took my first step out of the closet, the outer door opened again to the familiar, annoyed protests of Lord Oswald.

  “Well, where is she?” he bellowed in the empty outer cabin room. “What does she want?”

  I retreated into the closet once again, carefully closing the door just in time for Lady Redwing to come out of the bathroom. She breezed past in a long silk robe, the scent of roses in her wake. Nudging one of the doors open slightly, I followed her progress into the outer room.

  My Lord Oswald stopped mid-bellow when he saw her.

  “It's three o'clock, Adrian. Thursday.”

  Lord Oswald looked as though he were about to protest, when she slipped her robe off, leaving her standing there in a skimpy négligée, facing my Lord, her back to me and the closet. I swallowed.

  “And you have no excuses this time,” Lady Redwing added. “I have a special silver gown with blue accents for the wedding. The captain will officiate.”

  My Lord stood with his mouth hanging open. I'm sure I did the same.

  Lady Redwing grabbed Lord Oswald's hand and led him toward her bedchambers. “Help me dress.”

  Seeing her nearly naked broke my fragile composure. My heart beat so fast it nearly deafened me, threatening to expose my presence. I even forgot to close the closet door before they passed by, her rose scent wafting into my hiding place.

  I closed my eyes and hoped she hadn’t seen me.

  My Lord must have noticed me, though, which I learned when the door opened a few more inches, throwing a splash of light across my eyes. I opened them, panicked, when I realized I'd been discovered, and found myself staring at the prince.

  “Perhaps we can talk for a moment first.” he said aloud, closing the door in my face. “We wouldn't want to rush into anything half-cocked, would we?” I was sure he was grinning wolfishly.

  Lady Redwing giggled. “I’m not one of your … distractions, Adrian.” She smoothed her négligée seductively. “This is just to whet your appetite for the honeymoon, not before. Now get me my gown.”

  Lord Oswald, obviously conscious of my presence, sat down on the bed, pointedly ignoring her command.

  The prince and I had been to many pleasure palaces over the years I'd served him, and there was little I hadn't seen him do with the fairer sex in that time, especially at the House of Fifteen Pleasures, where a man learned not to be modest, as number six is performed in a circle with the other guests out in an open field, like a round sung at a campfire at night. But Lady Redwing was virgin territory in his dealings with women. What he had with her was a relationship. I had always thought that, deep down, he really hadn't wanted her, but after his recent admission of his failed engagement, I wasn’t really surprised at his reluctance to leave now. Perhaps he really did care for Lady Phoenix.

  Whatever his reasons, Lord Oswald kissed Lady Redwing chastely and rose, but didn’t leave.

  To my surprise, I found myself growing angry on the lady's behalf. Here she was, offering herself to my Lord, for the noblest purposes — marriage and the promise of the conception of a royal baby — and he had the gall to refuse her. Were I in his position, I would marry the lady, as many times as she asked. Yet he refused her.

  It took all my strength of will not to burst open the closet doors and announce my willingness to perform the sacred duty he was shirking so shamelessly.

  I realized with a shock that I was jealous. I'd let my fondness for Lady Phoenix grow to such a degree that I was ready to fight my Lord and master for the honor of possessing her, like the medieval knights of Old Earth's legends.

  But Lady Redwing wasn't mine to fight for. I had overstepped my station with the assumption that she was. By her own decision, she was Lord Oswald's. I was nothing to her but a household servant, a friendly ear to bend, sometimes a kind word. Nothing more.

  My soul shrank within me, and my hopes withered away to dust. I sagged against the back of the closet and slowly slid to the floor, trying not to hear the gentle disagreement going on between my Lord and his lady.

  “I'm sorry, Phoenix, but I really can't right now.” My Lord's voice pierced my melancholy thoughts. “Don't you see? I have to figure out what to do about my clothes. Euclid and I have nothing presentable for the court.”

  “Is that all?” Lady Redwing laughed, high and shrill. “Why didn't you say so before? I can fix that.”

  The closet doors were wrenched open, flooding the closet with light. For just a second, I stared almost nose to charms at Lady Phoenix, and I didn't care if she discovered me. But, she spun around before that, or rather, my Lord spun her.
>
  “What do you mean?” Lord Oswald asked, holding her away so she didn't look into the closet.

  She giggled. “Oh, Adrian, didn't I tell you before? I had suits made for you to match my outfits. Won't it be so cute?” She giggled again, like a little girl dressing her dolls for an imaginary ball.

  Lord Oswald presumably glanced over her shoulder, but I wasn't watching. “I see,” he said, sounded somewhat deflated, and my Lord closed the closet doors again, bathing me in black to match my mood. “Very nice.”

  “So now, my prince,” Lady Redwing said, “if you don't have any more objections, get my gown while I freshen up.”

  I heard her pad to the bathroom door and open it, but I didn't hear the door close, so she must have paused in the doorway, waiting for my Lord’s next move. I thought he might leave, abandoning me; instead, I heard his personal comlink chirp.

  Few people realized that there was a personal alarm on most personal comlinks. Sure, they all figured out the different sounds that could signal who was on the other end of the link without having to answer it. But there was another, less-used setting that only people who read the manuals knew about. This was the alarm, which could be set for a specific time, or for a specified number of minutes elapsed, like a countdown timer. We used it sparingly, with all the zeal of a secret brotherhood sign, to get out of boring meetings with the excuse that other more pressing matters had escalated. Masked by the myriad sounds the device made, the uninitiated didn't recognize the distinctive sound to know we lied, and our brothers in deception refused to betray us, lest we did the same to them sometime.

  My Lord's comlink chirp was his personal alarm. He must have set it before entering Lady Redwing's cabin.

  My Lord said, “Excuse me, Phoenix, I was expecting this call from Euclid. It'll only take a moment.” He turned away from her, I knew, because he spoke directly to the closet, as if he were actually taking a call and wanted a modicum of privacy. “Hello. Hello. Euclid?”

  The ruse seemed to be working, for I heard Lady Phoenix ask, “What's wrong?”