That smell, what on earth was it?
Three days was far too long for someone of his position to be kept waiting, especially in this dingy hovel. He could not remember a time in his life where he had ever been kept waiting. There had always been someone at his constant beck and call to bring him his shoes, fasten his cravat, polish his sword or tell him the personal details of the others.
The twelve others.
Hans Westergaard had never been kept waiting more than an hour in his life. So why should he wait now?
The small cell he was locked in was freezing, an awful coastal draught coming through the tiny, barred window that looked over the fjord. Hans looked over his cell at the painfully solid wooden bed chained to the wall and the thin green blanket. The cell was identical to the one the queen had been locked in not twenty four hours previous, except for that god awful smell.
"I demand to speak with the queen!" he shouted, pressing his body against the cell door once again, and peering through the small barred window.
"You'll get your chance" the guard stationed outside the cell told him again, as he had done several times that morning. However, this time, instead of giving up and taking his seat back on the stone floor, Hans tried a different approach.
"Then I wish to speak to the princess"
"Ha!" the guard actually turned and had the audacity to smirk at him! "I can't see that happening any time soon. The princess has no desire to even be breathing the same air as you" the guard chortled.
This was a different guard, Hans realised, a guard was clued up about the goings on in the castle, not like the other two before him; they weren't even sure what day it was. He didn't even realise they had traded posts; it must have been during his hour of pacing in circles. Still, it couldn't hurt to push this guard too.
"What do you know of my fate?" Hans asked.
"Not much, last I heard was the princess was filling the queen in on all you were plotting. I don't think I've ever seen Her Majesty so angry, took out four windows with that ice of hers"
Something in the pit of the prince's stomach squirmed. Was that fear? He had seen those powers first hand up in the mountains, then again on the fjord; he knew what she was capable of, if she set her mind to it. But the foolish girl had a weakness, a weakness in the form of the naïve little redhead that would run away with any man who so much as looked at her. Slut. Hans' confidence returned slightly.
The Prince seated himself back down on the floor, feeling slightly smug that he had managed to cause the royal sisters some discomfort, even while being trapped in a cell, before that smell became apparent to him again. The prince wrinkled his nose in disgust, before shuffling closer to the door, away from the odour.
"You won't have much luck escaping that" the guard said, making Hans jump slightly. He was peering through the small, barred window in the door.
"What is it?" Hans asked.
"It's lingered here for a while now. This cell's where we used to keep the less fortunate felons"
"Less fortunate? As in peasants?"
"Nahh, they were further up that way" he nodded his head to the left, down the corridor "this is where we stored the bodies until they were buried"
The prince's calm bravado slipped slightly for a second, making the guard smirk once more.
"You should be a bit more patient" he told Hans "while you're down here, at least you're still breathing.