“He’s spoiled the prince rotten, I’m afraid.”
“You mean, by not caring a jot what the boy does.”
“Prince only in name, mind you!”
“Maybe half a prince?”
“His Majesty’s too drunk out of his mind to care, I’m sure.” The truth, of course, was somewhere in that muddle, a very complicated issue with which those in court weren’t used to grappling. After a while, after dozens of unanswered questions, ministers, fellow nobles, servants, and everyone else felt it best to simply shrug things off despite the lingering doubts and mark their bastard prince as an anomaly among near-immortals.
Oh, and the gossip!
“I daresay he’ll grow up to be a preening little fop like his father,” a baroness said as she sauntered through the magnificent garden with her lover.
“At the very least, he ought to grow up with twice the wit of his parents,” a horse-faced fellow who claimed to be a margrave replied, covering his lady’s hand with his own. The giant ruby on his ring glinted in the sun, and she eyed it hungrily. “Though it would be prudent not to get one’s hopes up. One can never tell how children turn out.” He suppressed a shudder, for he’d always loathed children.
“Perhaps he’ll turn out far better than either his parents,” a servant girl noted as she lay in a wet, rumpled mess beside her lover, a smallpox-scarred and smelly baron, whose only claim to her ignorant and greedy heart was his promise of moving heaven and earth to have her for his wife.
“That’s not a very exciting prospect at all. Don’t be so boring,” the baron said. He eyed the girl’s sweaty nakedness and then ordered her to roll over on to her stomach. “The beauty of women,” he said as he climbed atop the squealing girl and then fucked her ass, “is that you can pump yourself dry in more than one opening, ha-ha!”
Above them a group of painted shepherds and gods peered through trees and flowering bushes, their lifeless eyes fixed on the heaving, locked bodies, their poses permanently frozen into melodramatic gestures of amazement.
* * *
Amara continued to watch over Alarick even well after his nurse died of an illness. He spent far more time with her than he had with his mother, but then again, Amara seemed to seek him out for the sole purpose of being a substitute parent, and the queen continued to avoid her son.
“I can’t marry and have a family anymore,” Amara would always say whenever the prince asked her why she continued to be his nurse. “In time, I suppose, I’ll stop my visits, but you need looking after for now.”
“Even though I’m too old for that?”
“All right, protection, then.”
“From what? Haunted mirrors?” Alarick would quip, and they’d share a light-hearted moment, laughing softly.
Amara no longer sat on the floor. Now she sat on the chair opposite Alarick, a table between them, often challenging him in unusual games of strategy. They were all games she used to play as a young girl, she said, but she never showed anyone because princesses simply didn’t do those things.
“So what did you do when you were my age?” Alarick asked, frowning and tilting his head thoughtfully. He didn’t even care if he got beaten by a woman. Her story intrigued him, and the more secretive she was, the more he prodded.
“Watch my older sister behave as a real lady would,” Amara replied with a faint, wistful smile. “We were so dissimilar in every way.”
“Is she still alive?”
“Yes, she is, but I’m afraid we’ve grown apart. Indeed, she wouldn’t recognize me if I were to visit her, I’m sure.”
Alarick wasn’t certain, but he thought that Amara’s smile had turned sly as though she’d just remembered a joke, but it could be the trick of the light. After all, they only had the fire in the hearth, as Alarick decided not to have the candles lit in his room that evening. As a lad, he’d been getting into all kinds of strange moods, himself, which everyone had brushed off as one of those normal—yet irritating—changes that came with youth. And keeping his room quite dark happened to be one of his newer obsessions. Amara certainly didn’t seem to care.
* * *
Outside the regular schoolroom, Alarick studied “combat arts” (as he so fondly called it) at a small military compound about ten miles south of the palace gates. Other young men from all walks of life went there, the sons of the poor having no other choice but to be trained well enough to enter the army someday, for it was the only chance they had for a steady pay outside the drudgery of the forge or the wood shop. As for the sons of the gentry and the aristocracy, who were mostly the younger ones in the brood, military arts were nothing more than one more extracurricular feather to add to their elite caps. Some entered the army, but they were also always guaranteed officers’ positions and were expected to rarely—if at all—soil their hands in battle.
It was in this military compound where Alarick met Roald, the only child and son of a viscount from Hanover. A year older and better-traveled, Roald von Theissen won Alarick’s deep admiration with his stories of faraway lands and easy confidence. The two boys practicing together or simply spending a great deal of time in each other’s company had become a common sight within Paradies’s borders and without.
“You’re too moody,” Roald said.
“No, I’m not. You’re just an ass,” Alarick replied as he plucked his practice arrows from the tree. He’d shot too wide, and he didn’t care. He hated archery, anyway, and preferred hand-to-hand combat. Pistols also fascinated him, but those were advanced lessons, he’d been told, and for the time being, a bow and arrow would have to suffice. This was a required lesson, moreover, and he couldn’t abuse his position to excuse himself from such a weak form of combat arts if his life depended on it. His weapons masters had long seen through his wiles, and they knew better than to give in to the prince’s sulky demands.
“You can’t hit a target,” Roald said with a smirk, his eyes narrowing at Alarick as his best friend took his place beside him. “And I think you’re doing it on purpose.”
“I don’t do it on purpose, and I don’t care. I hate this lesson—always have.” Alarick waved a hand in the direction of the target—a large piece of painted leather stretched taut around a hoop that stood between two massive trees. “Now shut up and shoot.”
Roald snorted and stepped forward, fitting an arrow in his bow. He was always in full concentration during these practice hours, for which Alarick was grateful. Roald wouldn’t notice his best friend taking a few steps back and at a bit of a diagonal whenever it was Roald’s turn to shoot. He wouldn’t notice Alarick watching him, not the arrow or the target, the whole time. He wouldn’t notice Alarick’s gaze raking up and down his person especially in the sun and heat, when they’d both go about their lessons without their shirts and jackets, and their upper-bodies would gleam with sweat and turn dark. Roald certainly wouldn’t notice the faint smile that would curl Alarick’s lips as the prince watched him intently, seeing nothing else but the movement of still-developing muscles under smooth skin.
When Roald shot his arrow, he rarely ever missed a mark. “There,” he said, turning to look at Alarick with a triumphant and arrogant grin. “It’s so easy. I don’t understand why you can’t get it right.”
“I happen to be much more skilled in other things, you know.” Alarick returned Roald’s gently mocking grin with one of his own as he stepped forward and took his place before the target, idly fingering his bow’s string. “Wouldn’t it be a dull world if we were all good at aiming and shooting? I’d rather be close to my target when I use my weapon. Impalement would be smooth and easy, the effects a great deal more satisfying—not to mention instant.”
He stole a glance in Roald’s direction and nearly laughed at his blushing friend. Alarick’s aim immediately following his pregnant remark was perfect, while Roald’s faltered.
* * *
Alarick and his best friend had grown much, much closer as another year passed till they were inseparable, much to the cour
t’s amusement. The same couldn’t be said about his family, however. At sixteen years of age, after all, the prince had reached a critical point in his development, and all of a sudden, what he did came with a price.
He questioned convention now. He rebelled, learned defiance. He wouldn’t budge until all his questions, which were more like proud, childish demands, were answered to his satisfaction. If not, he’d walk away, affronted. Too many lessons and activities had fallen short of his evolving standards, it seemed, and no one could keep up with him.
He grew restless, irritable, and completely dissatisfied with everyone and everything. He didn’t understand it. When he turned seventeen, the only thing that seemed to remain his constant, his immovable center, was Roald.
“They never like anything I do,” Alarick grumbled one day, sitting on a little grassy clearing by the watering-hole with Roald beside him. The two had gone off to hide in the private area of the pleasure garden, more specifically to enjoy the day swimming in the watering-hole situated at the extreme end, a good distance from the queen’s cottage, which could be reached via a small footpath that cut through that section of woodland. Flat, smooth boulders and trees with giant roots creeping in tangled profusion over soil and grass surrounded the water, adding to the picturesque privacy of the area.
“Maybe you try too hard,” Roald said, patting Alarick’s knee in sympathy. “But I understand. I never please my parents, either.”
It was a warm day, warmer than usual, so Roald stood up and took off his clothes then walked over to the watering hole and jumped in.
From the small, grassy clearing, Alarick could barely remember his name, let alone his friend’s. “I’m Alarick,” he muttered, entranced, staring at the young, firm body that now surged through the rippling waters. “He’s Roald.”
He watched skin two shades darker than his move under the water. Roald’s figure would distort, break up, and reform, while all the time above him, the water’s surface moved in thousands of broken reflections. Sunlight would be captured, reflected, and refracted. Shoulders and arms moved, plowing endlessly. Legs and feet kicked, buttocks clenched and relaxed rhythmically. Before long Roald broke the surface and stood in chest-deep water, turning to Alarick with a sly, inviting smile.
“Your turn,” he called, and Alarick obeyed.
The prince removed his clothes, ignoring the damp spot in the front of his breeches. His gaze raked over his naked form as he peeled off his stockings and shirt. Does Roald approve? he wondered. He certainly hoped so, but he showed nothing—just his usual carefree pleasure as he walked down the slight grassy incline and over tangled roots and jumped in. Being swallowed up by the water drowned another nagging question: I’m too pale, aren’t I? I don’t think I’m good enough.
The quiet, lazy, warm afternoon was spent in play. Prince and friend wrestled, laughed, dunked, rolled, raced, and grappled beneath the watering-hole’s surface. Young, vibrant laughter broke the calm, and when the time came for them to head back and resume more adult duties, Roald expressed his gratitude with a kiss.
It was an unexpected but certainly not unwelcome move. Alarick and Roald stood facing each other, their laughter dying in their throats and the echoes of their young voices fading among the tress around them. For a few, breathless seconds, they simply stared into each other’s eyes, then Roald leaned forward and pressed a hand against the nape of Alarick’s neck.
The kiss was neither soft nor hard, and neither was it slow nor quick. It was warmth tempered by the water’s slight chill. It was eagerness edged with confusion. It was an arrogant and petulant demand, the way Roald’s tongue pressed between Alarick’s lips, searching and tasting. Don’t I have the right? seemed to be the wordless question. Alarick answered back in his own clumsy way.
His hands resting against Roald’s hips, Alarick opened his mouth against Roald’s, moving his tongue against his friend’s, enjoying his first taste of another boy. Roald pulled slightly away to run his tongue against Alarick’s parted lips, drawing a ragged sigh from the prince, who pressed forward again for another hungry kiss, nearly toppling them both under water.
It would be Roald who’d control the moment. “Wait, wait,” he whispered against Alarick’s mouth. “Slow down.”
For several more seconds, they’d stand in the water, holding each other close, their ragged breaths slowing. Chests pressed against each other, each boy’s heart thumping loudly as though calling out to its partner. Alarick rested his head against Roald’s neck and shoulder, his fuzzy gaze sweeping across the sunlit idyll around them before dropping to the water and the countless broken reflections of light that marked the gently rippling surface. For a moment, he didn’t know who he was.
The hour, the world—both fell silent again. Perhaps more so this time. Alarick and Roald dried themselves, an odd mood now pervading. Something had just shifted and changed forever. Neither knew what, and neither understood. They dressed in silence, suddenly unable to look each other in the eye.
Why the sudden shyness? Alarick couldn’t say. He’d left his mind back in the water, he was sure. It had been caught in that little patch of time when they were still standing in chest-high water, their mouths joined for several exciting moments. He certainly couldn’t say how many exactly, but did it really matter? It did, and yet it didn’t.
“I’ll race you to the stables,” Roald suddenly said. His voice and his words—so easily spoken as though nothing had just happened—felt like ice water to Alarick.
The magic was now gone, and the world once again moved forward. Alarick fought to squelch his confusion and managed to grin at his friend. The two broke into a run through the trees till they emerged from the shadows, following the perfectly straight, intersecting lanes till their wild surroundings suddenly replaced by the manicured lawn that made up the space between the pleasure garden and the palace. The grass made the palace look as though it sat on a small island of vibrant green, the trees beyond the lawn looking like an endless sea of leaves and branches in all directions.
“No, I’ll race you to Mama’s blue roses!” Alarick cried, immediately shifting direction away from the palace and on the grass, following its lush, green carpeting around the palace itself and toward the western parameter. The queen’s blue roses were Ulrike’s pride and joy—a collection of magnificent, vivid blue roses clustered among red-tipped thorns and deep green leaves of flowering bushes. There were two of these blue rose miniature gardens that sprawled across two halves of the palace’s front lawn, and it had always been one of Alarick’s favorite places to hide in or to spend some time lost in his books or simply contemplating. To their right, beyond the trees and the iron fence, sprawled several miles away, the cursed forest loomed, albeit in spirit. Alarick barely noticed the unexpected and strange reminder, and he laughed at its stupid superstitious presence. That forest, despite its sordid and macabre reputation, had always been so easy to dismiss.
The two boys rounded the corner, ignoring the occasional servant or idle aristocrat wandering through the lawns. They laughed and raced each other, at times slipping over the grass and falling, the one who remained on his feet dancing around in circles as he waited for his friend to pick himself up and stumble back into a wild run. Neither reached the blue rose gardens in the end, for they’d run out of breath and strength well before, and they simply threw themselves onto the grass to rest their screaming muscles and tight lungs. At length they parted ways, looking soiled, disheveled, and reeking of sweat and grass, and when Alarick happily sat in his warm bath afterward, he wondered if his clothes were doomed to be burned, not washed, given their dreadful state. He didn’t feel at all sorry, however, and he spent the rest of his day with a wistful smile fixed on his face.
Amara visited Alarick later that evening, but instead of challenging him to another game of strategy, she merely paced back and forth, the smell of earth and rotting fabric even stronger than before.
“Have a care, Love,” she said, clasping her hands again
st her chest. “Should anything happen, there’s only so much I can do to help you.”
“What can go wrong?” Alarick asked, bemused. “I’m the prince! Don’t I have any power at all? I can do as I please and not fret over what others would say. My father’s judgment’s final, and you know he’ll never rule against me. How can he, anyway? That’d be stupid unless he wants the royal line to end with him.”
Amara gave him a strange look when she heard him talk about his father, but she said nothing. He’d heard of the rumors, anyway, oftentimes from the lips of vicious boys his age who detested him for reasons unknown.
“You’re a damned bastard,” a handful had hissed at him once or twice, and when at first he’d thought them to be insulting him by calling him names, he realized that they were referring to his parentage. It certainly had taken him a while to learn how to steel himself against cruel remarks, but if he didn’t force himself to do it, no one else would help him. People in court still referred to him as prince and Your Royal Highness, though Alarick was slowly seeing how hollow their shows of respect had always been.
“I think it’s pointless to talk about my position in court,” he stammered, blushing deeply as mortification set in. The look on Amara’s face, which shifted from worry to compassion, soothed him a little.
“Prudence, Darling. Being the son of a queen doesn’t exempt you from acting rashly.”
Alarick thought he understood her, and he chuckled. “Being the queen’s son allows me certain privileges, whether everyone likes it or not.”
Amara continued to pace, her figure fading in and out of the muted light cast by the hearth. Half the time—and perhaps as a trick of the shadows—Alarick thought that his friend looked more like a decaying corpse than a half-burned and neglected woman. But those moments were all too brief, and he’d shake his head at himself.
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