The Fighter and the Baroness: A Modern-Day Fairy Tale

by Sunniva Dee

  “That is good. Our guest of honor will be here now.”

  A door in the back of the room widens, and there he is, the young boy that once saved me, grown into an adult. He wears expensive clothes in shiny fabrics, and it’s impossible not to register how they match the crown princess’ up to the embroidery around the neck.

  He sinks to his knees in front of her. Takes her hand and kisses it with his eyes closed. She watches him, and there is so much emotion brimming in her gaze it’s hard to look away. The dragon fighter whispers words I don’t understand. They make her happy. A light blush touches her cheeks. Zeke elbows me discretely, and I stomp his foot with equal discretion in response.

  Slowly, the dragon fighter rises. The only free seat is at the right corner of the crown princess’ end-table chair. But he doesn’t sit in it. Instead, he rounds the table, nodding occasionally to guests who turn to greet him. Then he’s on the other side, our side of the table, and stops in the middle where I’m seated.

  The dragon fighter bows again, deeper than I did to the heiress of the crown. He doesn’t reach for my hand, but when he looks back up again, he utters in broken English: “Little boy and his dog. Now you have saved me.”

  “It was my turn,” I say, my voice shattered. Someone mumbles rapidly in the fighter’s ear in Thai.

  “You don’t know what you have done,” the interpreter translates. From her seat, the crown princess looks on with solemn bliss. “This fight changes lives.”

  “Please excuse me if I overstep,” I say for the crown princess more than the dragon fighter, “but is knighthood what changes everything, or is it becoming the most legendary fighter of modern times?”

  The dragon fighter raises his head. He stands and turns toward the end of the table, waiting for the crown princess’ direction. She joins the palms of her hands in front of her face, attention gliding from him to me.

  “Here we’re among friends. These are my most trusted men and women, and now you, Victor Arquette of America, have become one of them too. Tonight is a good night. Because for the first time I can say out loud that Aat Mung Korn”—she extends an arm to graciously include the dragon fighter—“is the light of my life.”

  “And you, My Majesty,”—the interpreter translates for the room—“are the meaning of mine.”

  “Knighthood means joining the ranks of the noble. Property, funds, and wealth will be bestowed upon you,” she murmurs, but she stops talking when the dragon fighter lifts a hand, a small smile breaking the solemnity of his face.

  “It is not the property or the funds or the wealth. A fighter does not need these things. He only needs the woman who fills his heart, his waking hours, and his sleep, and with knighthood comes the opportunity for me to do what I have dreamed of for ten years. Finally, I can…”

  He steeples his hands the way she did, but his are posed before his nose like he’s praying. “Finally,” he starts again, “I can ask for your hand in marriage.”

  It’s surreal to see them at the front gates of the palace, saying goodbye like we just visited their little house in the suburbs. Gold and opulence and lacquered red fan out behind them, but what I really see is their happiness, that untainted belief in finally being home.

  They’re not holding hands, but they’re so close they might as well touch. This intensity between them, this intimacy, it reminds me of a girl I want to be mine.

  “If there’s anything I can do for you. If I can ever repay your grace.” The dragon fighter doesn’t finish his sentences. He lets them linger, that compassion I remember from so long ago resting on me as he waits for my acknowledgment.

  “All I did was pay you back for saving my life when I was little. Without you, I might not even have been alive today,” I say.

  “Even so,” he murmurs. “You salvaged our happiness. The crown princess and I, we will pray for our paths to cross again. Because there is nothing we want more than to facilitate your bliss in return.”

  The princess’ last gesture is what she calls her “temporary token of appreciation.” She holds out a fight purse, a small one, but I shake my head because it’s not right; no matter how one looks at it, I didn’t win this fight.

  But then she bows her head to me. Servants turn away, mortified, and in the seconds it takes for me to accept, the dragon fighter’s eyes plead with me to stop. It’s too much; she, the crown princess of Thailand, is humiliating herself for me, a commoner.

  And so I bow deeply and tilt the world back up on its axis.

  HELENA

  There’s a fine line between shielding someone you love and failing to communicate I think as I watch my father puff smoke in the cigar room. You believe that you’re doing them a favor by taking on the difficulties on your own, while in reality, they want to share your burden. If you let them, things just might become easier to handle.

  My father didn’t have a heart attack when I told him about my re-engagement to Gunther Wilhelm the Fourth. And now, I learn why he was only mildly surprised by my fiancé’s sabotage of Kyria. He squints through the smoke curling between us and says, “Well, the pieces are coming together. I’ve had a couple of experts over and the initial investigations indicate that most of the incidents weren’t due to, shall we say, natural wear and tear.”

  “What? I didn’t know anyone came over. When was that?”

  “Last week. They came by at the same time as the masonry crew explored the damage on the Star Tower.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Papa, I wish you trusted me.”

  “And I wish you trusted me. You tend to forget that I still manage Kyria, Mein Schatz. Your time will come soon enough, but until then, it’s my job not only to take care of the estate, but to give my only daughter some freedom. You need to live. Be young. Soon enough, you will not only run Kyria, but Kyria will run you right back.”

  I want to object to his logic. I could mention squandered funds, how he isn’t fit for the financial side of the castle’s administration. Then again, it’s dawning on me that I’m iffy on the details. How much of it is his fault?

  As far as I know, all of the heirloom jewelry is still with us. No furniture or ancient weaponry has disappeared from the grounds to pay bills. But we have loans, too many of them. Unfortunately though, I can’t back these issues with solutions yet, so we’re better off with me not bringing them up.

  Papa rubs his temples in small circles. “I’ve known Gunther Wilhelm the Fourth since he was a baby, and I have to admit that this is hard to digest.” He shakes his head slowly. “I’m disappointed. What will Zelma and Gunther Wilhelm the Third think?” he adds.

  They’re nice people. Uptight and distant, but nice. “I know. But I started this with the first wedding attempt.”

  “Schatz, this goes far beyond you running out of a ceremony. It doesn’t excuse what he’s doing to the castle. What is his agenda? It’s clear that he wants you as his wife, but why does he destroy and restore Kyria with the same hands?” I recognize my father’s tone—it’s rhetorical. He already knows the answer.

  “He’s going crazy?” I suggest.

  “He’s making himself indispensable.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind, Helena. We won’t have to live in suspense for long. My experts will be back to gather solid evidence in a few days. In the meantime…” He glances at me over the rim of his glasses. My papa has an apologetic look he rarely wears.

  “I hate to do this to you, but Gunther Wilhelm doesn’t know that we’re on to him. He probably feels safe. I know the wedding is only days away, but I’d rather he doesn’t get suspicious. How do I say this? I’m afraid we could jeopardize readily available evidence if you—If you—”

  “Break off the engagement?”

  Relief and worry mix in Papa’s exhale. “Yes.”

  “I was already prepared for that. If we don’t get the evidence we need before the wedding, I’ll have to go through with it.” Panic rears in my stomach at the thought of the hours ticking by.
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  “No. I absolutely do not think that you should go through with it.” There’s quiet vehemence in his voice. My father just turned off his calculating business brain and let his heart take over. Oh Papa. “If we don’t have the evidence by the start of the wedding ceremony, in the worst case scenario, I will call off the wedding for you. I’ll come up with something.”

  “And make him madder? What do you think will happen then?” I ask.

  Papa shakes his head, opening his mouth to speak up again, but I land a soothing grip over his shoulder. It’s wild. Here I am, about to get hitched to a villain for life, and I’m trying to instill calm in my father.

  “I’ll figure something out. I’m a fighter.” It feels good to say that out loud. “My future isn’t over yet.”

  “Please don’t speak like that.”

  “I’m sorry, Papa. Listen, I’m going to lunch with him in a few hours.” My stomach contracts like I drank too much port last night. “Why don’t you work on the evidence, and I’ll keep Gunther Wilhelm busy? Between the two of us, we’ll get this done.”

  I need the reconstruction of Kyria to start before the fall storms erupt. Part of the south wing roof has been replaced already, but not all of it. Gunther Wilhelm the Fourth promised that the work would continue, but it has ceased—something about double-booked workers.

  I’m starting to think it has to do with my own, less-than-accommodating schedule. He booked me a seamstress, for instance, in Berlin for a new wedding gown, but after postponing the flight there twice, I told him I can use the one we bought for our first nuptial. He’s seen it, and it needs fixing. I’m not sure that he’ll trust me until we’re officially married.

  Two out of his three suggested rendezvouses, I’ve turned down, and yesterday when we took a “romantic” sunset walk by the river, it was hard for me to leave my hand in his. Tall and self-assured, he’d duck his head to whisper things I couldn’t un-hear, things about ever-afters, about children, about life at Kyria with him.

  He also talked about installing Muti in the Star Tower and moving Papa and Mama to Muti’s sleeping quarters so that we can have theirs. Everyone knows the Star Tower is bad luck. Our last relative living there was an old spinster with her heart set on a man so below her in rank she was not permitted to leave the castle grounds.

  I would never move my parents out of their wing, and I cannot allow Muti to die anywhere but in the chambers she shared with my grandfather. It’s in vain for Gunther Wilhelm and me to discuss any of it though, because he’s the king of fake agreements and false adjustments.

  New facets of my old friend keep surfacing, and I see that if we got married, he could very well carry out his living-quarter changes against my wishes on a day that I was away. I can never be away.

  My father’s specialists arrive on the day after our talk. Papa and I walk with them through the portico and hold the ladder as they climb. They mutter up there. Ask if we want to join them. I accept, while my father opts to remain on the ground.

  “The boy was right.” The taller man shows me corroded metal and an opening down to the underlying wooden beam. “Bat excrements are known to corrode through metal when it’s caked on for years at a time, but that’s not what’s going on here.”

  It feels terminal to hear it from a professional. “So someone did it on purpose?” I ask to hear him express it straight out.

  “The boy admitted to it, right?”

  “Yes, he did, but it’s a complicated situation.”

  “Well, I can’t help you place blame, but at least we can explain how it happened. I’m going to bring samples of the roof metal to the laboratory and test it for remnants of acid. I’d like to pinpoint the type.”

  I straighten. Look up from the disaster in front of me and stare out over the property. The view from here is beautiful. I hope that one day I can climb up here and enjoy it without fear knotting my stomach. “My father and I are so grateful that you took time out of your busy schedules to take on this project.”

  The smaller man rises too, bobbing his head as he shoots his lower lip out. “Our pleasure! Four years ago, the baron took a chance on us as the expert witnesses for a high-profile case, and since then Schultz and I’ve had clients along both rivers and all the way into Bavaria.

  “Let’s check the next spots of suspected vandalism.”

  Papa shows them the second Madonna. It’s an easy one—the damage is obvious, and I feel compelled to recount how Peter had procrastinated for days before he finally went along with it.

  We take them to the south wing and show them the roof. The reconstruction work must make it difficult for them, I think, but then the shorter man tips up his ladder again and climbs into the tree.

  He murmurs to himself up there, with the rest of us waiting at the bottom. He touches the sore where the branch used to be, chuckling a little.

  “What are you finding up there?” his colleague shouts. “We didn’t climb up last week,” he explains to me.

  “Well, they’re right. The branch is cut clean off, that’s for sure, and if the boy speaks the truth, he’s one hell of a lumberjack.”

  “How so?”

  “I’d estimate the diameter to seventy-five centimeters or the size of your ass, Schultz!” He instantly peers out between the foliage and apologizes to me for his unpolished language. I can’t help glancing at Schultz’s behind.

  “He’s been cutting wood since he was just a little tyke,” Papa explains. “His father is the groundskeeper, and a lot of our firewood comes from the Madonna Forest.”

  I jump when my cell rings, Gunther Wilhelm the Fourth’s winky-face lighting up the screen. I return it to my pocket without answering as we continue to the Star Tower.

  I haven’t been here since my first day home, and the sight of crumbling mortar and leaning stone makes me break out in goose bumps. It’s like the ground has decided to give out under the oldest of Kyria’s erections.

  Built in the thirteenth century, ancient walls contain the history of families before ours, of love and war, of famine and disease, but also of overcoming it all and moving on to a better future. The Star Tower is the heart of my castle, the core of Kyria. If it collapses, what’s left is a void, an open wound I don’t know how to heal.

  Silently, I panic while the men click their tongues and kneel, picking tools out of their bags. They scrape. Study the samples they tip into small, round containers like they’re bacteria. Schultz stares up, squinting at the sun as he takes in the size of the tower and how it curves slightly to the west.

  “It’s not good,” he mutters afterward. The smaller man, whose name I haven’t quite caught, digs in the dirt with his spear-tipped instrument. He measures the temperature there. Uses test strips directly in the sand as well. We remain at the Star Tower for longer than we did at any of the other sites.

  “You’re right,” Schultz finally sums up their findings. “There’s been deliberate harm made here too, and my guess is that this will be the costliest of the repairs. Structural damage to the beams on the inside, I assume, from the mortar crumbling and allowing the rocks to slide out to the side. It started at the bottom, and look at it now.”

  We look again.

  “It didn’t use to be like this,” I whisper because I can’t hold it back. I feel my father’s arm around my shoulders, and I have time to nudge my face in against the crook of his neck before the tears seep out.

  “We’re pretty sure of what caused it. If we’re right and the samples from the tower matches the samples from the portico, the same acid was used in both places. Someone has been watering this structure on one side, watering it good with acid, and spraying the limestone filling between the bricks with it. They knew what they were doing. This is the most deliberate destruction of a historic monument I’ve seen to date.”

  VICTOR

  The fighter and his princess have lifted a curtain from my awareness; Helena and I, we’re a damn easy video game in comparison to them.

  I call
her.

  She doesn’t pick up.

  The last night in Thailand we sleep at the hotel, and I keep trying Helena every half hour. Not once does she answer. I’m not sure what that means, but I’m hell bent on getting through; the urge to hear her voice is so fucking strong I can’t think about anything else.

  Funny how she had no knowledge about mixed martial arts. She wasn’t a fighter groupie. No, Helena was just a girl in love, and I couldn’t help loving her right back. We were easy.

  I want to return to easy.

  I used to believe MMA was all that mattered, that with a woman by my side I couldn’t give it my all. But the dragon fighter’s dedication and success have made me reconsider my truths. It’s okay, now, that Helena’s smile invades every minute. I accept that my corner has felt impossibly empty since she left.

  Can I call you Monday? she finally asks, and it’s my turn not to reply.

  In the morning, I tell Dawson that I’m not returning to the U.S. with them. There’s a girl I need in the crook of my arm, and I’m going to hunt her down.

  My flight leaves six hours after my team’s. A day later, I’m in Munich, where I rent a car and follow a tourist map to Kyria Castle.

  It’s Sunday afternoon when I arrive. I’m worn out. I haven’t slept much since the fight, and I’m grimy as hell.

  I can’t head up to the fairytale estate Helena calls home until I’ve cleaned up, so I enter a small tavern at the base of the hill. A waitress meets me in the doorway, speaking to me in German.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t speak German,” I say, and add brokenly, “Nicht spreche Deutsch.”

  She understands and switches to English. “You’re American! Hello! We have several Americans here because of the wedding,” she says, delighted.

  “Oh there’s an American wedding here?”

  “No, no, it’s our baroness”—the waitress points to the castle at the top of the hill—“but she has guests who came all the way from America.”