Chapter Seven

 

There was a woman seated in the center of the room. She was small and looked absolutely terrified. She was dressed simply but she was clean and neat. I assumed she was not of high class but she seemed to be a woman who had been taken care of as well as a woman who could take care of herself. She looked to be about forty-five but there was something in her eyes, behind the fear, that made her seem so much older. She had the look of a woman who had seen too much in her life, too many things she did not want to see.

            “Please,” she said meekly as she stood cautiously. “Forgive me for intruding.”

            Immediately I relaxed my stance. This woman would be of no threat to me and I knew that she meant me no harm at all. There was something about her that called me to trust her.

            “I have been asked to summon you. The Prince, he asks that you come and speak with him.”

            “The Prince?” I questioned, confusion evident on my face. Had he discovered my task? How? I had thought I had been very cautious in my cover at the King’s party but perhaps I had not been careful enough. Was revenge on his mind perhaps?

            “Yes,” she continued. “He means you no harm but he wishes to see you immediately and so he sent me to retrieve you.”

            “And what exactly makes him think that I will oblige so easily?” I asked testily.

            “He thought you might say something like that,” she said with half a smile. “He said that if you will come and speak with him he will tell you what you have become.” 

            My heart unmistakable skipped two beats. Could it truly be possible that the Prince knew what I was? What I had become? The possibility that this was some kind of trap was strong but the slight chance that he was indeed telling the truth, that he did in fact know what I had become was too much of a temptation to stay away.

            “Take me to him,” I said without thinking the decision through.

            The woman’s grin broadened just slightly but I was surprised with the slight look of relief that crossed her face as well. “Follow me.”

            We silently slid out the door and down the steps. I made sure that my door was good and locked. I had no desire to have any more unexpected guests tonight.

            As we walked soundlessly through the streets I constantly fought the urge to hasten. I knew the way and I had a pretty good idea of where the Prince resided. But there was no need to frighten this poor woman further. I could only imagine why the Prince would send such a vulnerable woman if he truly knew what I was capable of. This almost seemed cruel and from what I had seen of the Prince thus far this was quite out of character.

            It did not take long to reach the palace despite the slow pace at which I was forced to travel. The small woman lead me through the door that entered into the servants quarters and through many corridors and finally stopped before a set of very large, ornately carved double doors.

            “I leave you here,” she said, as she nodded her head toward the doors just before she walked silently away.

            I stood before the door for several long minutes simply trying to prepare myself for what might lay behind them when I realized I wasn’t breathing and hadn’t taken a breath since the woman had left. Shaking my head I slowly let my breath out. I was being ridiculous. There was nothing this man could do to me. This was also likely to either be a trap or a plea for his life.

            With determination I pushed the solid door open and stepped inside.

            The Prince’s face was now familiar and my eyes were immediately drawn to it. That now familiar scent flooded my nose and I wondered if it could possibly be coming from him. He was pacing behind a long table, moving at a speed that was much too quick considering it looked like simply walking to him. His expression was expectant yet excited and it only deepened as he looked at me upon my entrance.

            “Please,” he said as he took two steps towards me, his face breaking into a broad grin. “Have a seat Mr. Colegrove.”

            “I’d rather stand,” I said, my voice cautious as I assessed the room. It was very large, at least as big as my flat. There was a large, solid table in the center of the room with chairs all around it, seats for twenty-four. Large paintings lined the walls, family portraits it seemed. Save for the two of us it was completely devoid of life.

            “If you wish,” he said as he started around the table towards me. I could not help but feel uncomfortable as he continued his staring, as if he were studying some foreign insect. He stopped at the head of the table, resting his arms on the back of the chair. 

            “You can relax,” he said with a slight chuckle. “I mean you no harm. I promise you that.”

            I suddenly realized that I had been in a slight crouch as if ready to attack. I immediately slackened my stance. This was not because his words had assured me, it was simply because I had confidence he could do me no physical harm.

            “We have much to talk about,” he said as he continued his fascinated stare and sat in the seat he had been resting on.

            I sat in silence for several long minutes waiting for him to say something. He had called me here, he had said we had much to talk about. So why was he simply staring at me like I had a tree growing out of my forehead?!

            “What do you want?” I suddenly exploded and felt the fire flare within me. It was rude to stare.

            The Prince seemed unruffled at my sudden outburst but he did finally speak. “I know what you are, William,” he said as he again indicated for me to take a seat. I hesitated again, assessing my safety before I finally took the forth seat down from his. “And I know the task you have been appointed,” he continued.

            My heart suddenly jumped into my throat and I became suddenly frozen. To have someone actually say those words, that they knew what I was, I had never even imagined that someone might be able to provide this answer to me.

            “I need your help William, and in return I will help you,” he said, his tone calm and confident. “I know you have been paid a great amount of money in exchange for my death and safety of your family. This puts you in quite a predicament. You have already failed to kill me once and I very much doubt that you will ever be able to do so. Yes, I knew of the poison you mixed in my wine. I could smell it in the bottle the moment you entered the palace.”

            The fire went from a smolder to a full fledged torrent. “You have no idea what you are dealing with.” My voice was filled with venom, my eyes fierce upon his face.

            “No Mr. Colegrove,” his voice showed hints of slight impatiens. “I don’t think you have any idea of who you are dealing with.”

            I had no idea of what he was talking about but he had my attention. When he could see that he had my attention he continued.

            “I’ve been watching you for some time now. I came to the fight when you went against the Irishman. I saw the restraint you used to not kill him. I saw you when you snuck into the palace and watched our little mock matches. And then you pretended to be a noble and came to my father’s party. That was quite a lot of fun watching you squirm to see if I would drink.”

            “What was your point in bring me here?” I asked, my voice irritated. “Just to flaunt that you caught me?”

            “Relax!” he said as he chuckled but I could see the unease that seemed to be creeping up on him and his face grew serious. “I need to disappear but I also want to help you. You do this for me and I will guarantee that your family will not be harmed.”

            “I am afraid I do not understand,” I growled through clenched teeth.

            “You are going to help me stage my death. I need a way to get out of the public eye permanently and I can think of no better way than for everyone to think me dead. You may never be able to show your face again in England but I will make it worth your time. I need someone to take the fault for my murder as proof to the people. I promise no harm will come to you because of it but there needs to be a face to pin this on. And considering your situation I think you are the man to do the job. 

            “In exchange for your services I promise three things. The safety of your family, a lot of money, and the knowledge of what has happened to you.”

            My ears perked at this. Something about his confident tone told me he was telling me the truth. It was more than that. He was different from anyone else, of that I was sure. I could not place a finger on what was different about him but it was undeniably there. “You truly know what has happened to me?”

            “Truly,” he said with a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

            My mouth still held in a tight line I nodded my head once in agreement. “So am I safe to assume that you aren’t going to tell me anything though until I have helped you?”

            “You would assume correct,” he said with a chuckle. “Now, how much longer do you have?”

            “Two days,” I said and the dismay in my voice was obvious. 

            “Splendid,” he said as he rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t give us much time. We will have to start immediately.”

            He rose to his feet and started towards the door and I was close behind. We walked swiftly down a hall that I knew lead to the royals residential quarters.

            “May I ask you a question?” the Prince asked.

            “That depends on the question,” I replied cautiously.

            He chuckled slightly and continued. “How exactly where you planning to kill me after you failed to poison me?”

            “Oh,” I paused, surprised. “Well, I was simply going to come and break your neck, or beat you to death. But something… happened, tonight and I wasn’t going to go through with this.”

            The Prince gave me a curious look as if he were trying to understand something. After only a short moment however, his face broke into a smile. “You could have tried anyways.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “You could have tried to strangle or beat me to death,” he said as he chuckled.

            I wanted to press this matter further but I sensed that I was not going to acquire an answer. While this man was irritating me with how elusive he was being and the fact that he was withholding the information I most desperately wanted to obtain I could not deny that I had a great respect for him. He was a good man and he had earned my trust and confidence. He was light hearted yet one of the most brave and confident souls I had ever met. And without realizing it I found a friendship that I knew would last a very long time. 

            The rest of the night was spent in plotting and scheming, speaking in hushed tones even though I knew it was entirely unnecessary. We were going to have to be very careful about this. Should one part of the plan fail the entire thing would completely unravel.

 

            “I think it would be best if maybe we put him in the bed,” I said as I shook my head. 

            “But it would be much more entertaining if I was in the tub!” Daniel laughed as he started to carry the body back towards the bath area. 

            “Where is the logic in that?” I asked, exasperated. Yes, I had come to respect the Prince very much but sometimes he seemed difficult to reason with. “If your house was going up in flames around you are you likely to stay in the tub?”

            Daniel considered this for a moment before he nodded his head. “You’re right,” he said as he walked back into the grand bedroom and laid the body there. 

            I looked at the man again as he was laid in the center of the bed. We had been very lucky on this part. Soon after leaving the palace this morning we had come upon this man not too far from the bar. He must have collapsed after a night of drinking and would never rise again. I recognized him and sadly felt no remorse at his death. He was an incessant drinker and a menace to society. He had no one who would miss him. He was large, nearly the same build as Daniel but his hair was even lighter than mine. Not that this mattered that much. The fire would take care of that.

            This was an essential part of the plan. We had both decided that it would be nearly impossible to fake the necessary death and still have a recognizable body around. 

            “How soon do you think they will be here?” I asked anxiously as I looked out to the fading light outside.

            “It shouldn’t be too long now,” Daniel said as he hurried through the small but grand house, gathering things here and there. “It’s really a shame, I really liked this house.”

            Yes, I thought, it would be a shame for all of this to go to ash. There were many beautiful things here and I could only guess what it would cost to replace all that would be lost. But this seemed the best way to execute our plan. 

            After a few more minutes of gathering Daniel had a small bag filled and packed. “Well, I think that should be everything. I guess there’s no reason to wait any longer.”

            I nodded my head and grabbed a torch that had been resting near the door and handed Daniel the other. His face was sad but I could see the determination there. I could only imagine how difficult this must be. He was leaving everything he knew behind. He had lead a very charmed and easy life, being waited on hand and foot and he had little idea of what waited for him in the life to come. My admiration for him seemed to only deepen the more I got to know him. 

            Squaring his shoulders he held his torch to the nearest drapes. It took only a moment before they caught and the flames raced up them.

            I followed suit and set my torch to the blanket on the bed. This was most important, the body needed to be burned beyond recognition or none of this was going to work. We continued like this through the entire house and soon it was consumed in flames and filled with plumes of black smoke. I held my breath as we ran out of the inferno. It was not comfortable, resisting the urge to breath but I realized it would be quite a while before I needed to take another breath. Surprisingly I could not feel any of the heat from the flames, despite the fact that the temperature was rising rapidly with each passing second.

            As we stepped clear of the Princes summer house I could hear shouts of alarm in the distance as the flames rose higher into the darkening sky. This was going to work out without a hitch.

            “I guess it’s time for me to go,” Daniel said with a sad smile. I nodded and gestured for him to leave and he set out for the designated meeting place.

            I stood before the burning building and watched the flames consume it. There was no way anyone was going to go in after what they thought was the Prince.

            This had been almost too easy to set up. Daniel had sent all of his personal servants away for a few days, telling them he wished to be alone for a while. Then he had come up with the ruse that he was hosting a small “gentleman’s” party and requested some of the guards come for some “entertainment and enjoyment”. They were to arrive just in time to catch me in the act. 

            They were getting closer. I could hear their footsteps not too far away. Seven of them it sounded like. 

            I waited, feeling anxious and silently wishing they would hurry their slow pace. I was eager to have all of this behind me.

            The flames mesmerized me as I stared into their depths. Never the same pattern exactly, licking out towards the fading light of the sky. It was so beautiful and complex and there was something about it that was strangely familiar. It was not as if I had never seen a fire before so why did it seem as familiar as my own family?

            “You there!” a shout came from forty-seven feet away.

            Finally! 

            They were at a run now as they came up the slowly sloping hill yet the speed seemed almost comical to me now. It was hard to imagine that I had once been able to only move at that speed as well.

            “You are under arrest!” The shouts were growing in intensity as they beheld the full effect of the flames.  “Stop right there!”

            A smile spread across my face as they drew closer and closer. As Daniel had said, a few people needed to see that there was in fact someone responsible for the Princes murder and someone would need to confirm to Prince William that I was the one that did it. 

            I waited for what seemed hours for them to get close enough. They just needed to get a close look, memorize my face enough for a sketch on the wanted poster. Daniel had been right, I would never be able to show my face in England again. 

            When the seven men were only a few yards away, close enough they could have reached out and grabbed me had they been fast enough, I let out a slight chuckle and raced off in the other direction. They would only see a slight blur before I disappeared.

            As I ran I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. The effect was amazing and almost literal as I felt light and airy as I flew across the ground. I would not exactly have murder weighing me down though it was not for a lack of trying. I had still attempted and failed. But the simple knowledge that my family was safe was forefront in my mind now and I tried to focus on this important fact. No one in my family would be harmed again because of me.

            The meeting place would have seemed ridiculous under normal circumstances but nothing about my life was normal anymore. We were to meet at a harbor and it would have been a full day’s journey for any regular man. Yet it took me less than an hour’s time to reach it.

            Daniel was there, as promised and I felt relieved to see him even though I had no fear that he would not uphold his word. Something within me confirmed that Daniel was a man of his word and would not abandon his friends. No one would be able to recognize him immediately; he wore a ground length cloak, the hood pulled up around his face. Yet for eyes as sharp as mine it was quite obvious. His stance was always confident and sure, like he was ready to step in and take charge at any moment it was needed. He was leaning against a great crate, his arms folded across his chest, watching one of the great ships as it was being loaded. 

            I walked to his side and leaned next to him. He seemed to be thinking of something far away and I wasn’t even sure if he realized I was beside him.

            The harbor here reminded me painfully of home. All the ships here were much larger, of course, but still, there was smell of brine, the call of seagulls, and the intoxicating allure of just the ocean itself. I felt suddenly exhausted, the feeling was strange. It was not necessarily physical but mental, a feeling that I was going to have to continue to deal with the challenge that was life for far too long.

            I closed my eyes and tried to recall something light and pleasant to distract myself. I needed something to be simple and uncomplicated. Life had become to impossible, my reality too much like a fairy tale, or perhaps a nightmare. I longed for the past that had been so simple. I silently recalled a fond memory and invited it to flood my memory. The day I met Elizabeth. 

            I had been alone on the dock, just watching a boat head out into the vast openness of the gray ocean. It was stormy that day. I knew that we should head back home, we would not want to be traveling in the rain and there was likely to be lightening to follow it. Yet I could not make myself move from my spot there. The increasing waves held me in a trance. The quiet whooshing was building, rising with the wind that blew in my face, the salt stinging my skin. It was beautiful and seductive, mysterious and dangerous.

            “Excuse me,” came a soft voice from behind me.

            Her voice had startled me. I was so lost in my own thoughts I had not noticed that anyone had joined me on the dock.

            She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Her pale skin seemed to radiate to everything around her despite the graying day. The way the color rose in her cheeks was intoxicating. Her hair shimmered with the breeze, strange considering the lack of sun above us. She was tall for a woman yet it only made her the more beautiful.

            “Are you William? William Colegrove?” she said in a way that should seem timid but I did not miss the confidence that was hidden.

            “Yes, that would be me,” I said with a smile as I took a few steps towards her.

            “My name is Elizabeth,” she said as she closed the gap between us and put her arm through mine. “Your father said I would find you here.”

            “My father?” I was confused. Why would this young woman have any business talking to my father.

            “He was talking with my father, Mr. Morgan, and suggested I come find you down here.”

            Recognition immediately set in as I looked at her closer. My father had been friends with Mr. Morgan for as long as I could remember but I did not ever recall him mentioning a beautiful daughter.

            We were both quite a bit younger then, she was seventeen and I was nineteen. I was in love with Elizabeth from that first moment I laid eyes on her, that gray day at the harbor. She had me wrapped around her little fingers with unrelenting hold. 

            The days, months, and years following were filled with happiness. I would make any excuse I could to go to town and see my wealthy beauty and she made several trips out to come see me on the farm. We each proclaimed our love for each other, gazed tenderly into the others eyes, and spent many happy days under the sun.

            Elizabeth was striking in every way physically but there were always things that she said that would make me shy away. Eli was right to say the things he had. She was not a nice person to certain people, well, quite a few people. Class was all that seemed to matter to her except for in my case, and even at that I always got the feeling that she slightly resented a part of me in a way for my low status.

            Not that any of it mattered now. She was married to another man now and would probably soon bare him their first child, she was moving on with her life. A life with me now was an impossibility. I myself did not know what was going to happen to me anymore.

 

Reviews

[Fabian G. Franklin]

Wow now there's a spin, the prince wanting to fake his own death, this is an interesting turn of events.