I believe this will be the penultimate chapter. Huge thanks to everyone who has stuck with me through this story! I hope this chapter lives up to any expectations you may have. It's a bit chaotic, but I hope you enjoy it. Finally, I'd like to thank the reviewers of the previous chapter: GingerBrown and RileyStarr.
Chapter 11:
I took a very deep breath, bracing myself before entering the drawing room. Sir Wilhelm, Lady Therese, Gretel, Heidi, and Rolf were all waiting for me. Since I had refused to see Heidi the night before on the grounds that I was going to bed, I had to make an appearance this morning. I knew Therese, Wilhelm and Heidi would greet me with terrifyingly gleeful grins. Rolf would look more somber, and Gretel would probably follow Rolf's lead. Apparently those two had reached some sort of understanding. I wondered if Wilhelm and Therese would give their blessing to that union now that Heidi was to marry the crown prince. Rolf's position was an excellent one, but while Gretel the second daughter of a petty lord could do far worse, Gretel the sister of the future queen could do much, much better.
Heavens, I did not want to enter that room. I knew I had to marry Heidi. The integrity of the throne depended on it. If the prince says that he will marry any girl whose foot fits the golden shoe, then marry that girl he must. No matter how simpering and generally odious she is.
I steeled my nerves and flung open the door to the drawing room. There they were, looking obnoxiously happy. "I hear the shoe fits," I said, mustering the faintest hint of the smile.
"Isn't it wonderful, your highness?" Lady Therese squealed. She all but shoved me onto the couch next to Heidi, who was trying to look pretty and demure. It seemed that she was holding back tears. Goodness, was she that happy to be marrying me? I glanced down at her feet. Sure enough, I could just barely see the toe of the golden shoe poking out from under her skirts.
Lady Therese was zipping about like a fly at a picnic. "Sir Rolf informed us that you want to return to the capital," she was saying. "I suppose you'll take Heidi with you now?"
"I suppose so," I mechanically replied. On my left, I could feel Heidi willing me to look at her, but I was determined to resist.
"The wedding will be exquisite, won't it?"
"Let's not worry about that just yet," I immediately cut in. I think my insistent tone startled Lady Therese, for she remained silent for next several minutes.
There was a brief but very awkward pause, broken by a knock on the drawing room door. "Enter," Sir Wilhelm called out.
Sir Dietrich marched into the room, his face a study in indifference. "I came to offer my congratulations," he announced.
"Thank you," I said, though the words came out more like a groan than anything else.
"The men are glad that your search is over," Dietrich added.
The words were like a punch to the gut. Yes, I supposed my search really was over, though I certainly hadn't found what I was looking for. "The shoe fit," I said with a cheerless laugh.
Dietrich was giving Heidi a very hard look. It seemed to make her uncomfortable, for she began shifting her weight on the couch. "Sir Dietrich, is something wrong?" Sir Wilhelm asked him, frowning.
"No, sir," Dietrich replied, tearing his eyes away from Heidi's reddening face. Turning to me, he said, "If it's alright, your highness, I would like to speak with you about our departure."
"Now?" Therese screeched. "Surely not! We must celebrate!"
"I will return shortly," I told her. As I rose to my feet, I gave Dietrich a look of heartfelt gratitude. The two of us exited the room, with Rolf following behind. Together, we all headed to the other sitting room for more privacy.
As soon as the sitting room door had closed behind us, Rolf burst out, "Your highness, I want to apologize." He seemed close to tears.
Never before had I seen Rolf in such a state. His emotion was contagious. Falling into a chair, I dropped my face into my hands. "You have nothing to apologize for," I croaked into my sweaty palms.
Shaking his head, he sat in another chair directly across from mine. "This was my idea," he insisted. "I told you to marry the girl whose foot fit the shoe. I never imagined she would be anyone but your Lady Elke. Please forgive me."
"My old friend, you are certainly forgiven." Glancing into his face, I gave him a quick grin. "Though I do think I'll need quite a bit of your help to cope with my upcoming marriage."
His smile was forced. "Naturally," he said.
"I don't think your marriage is as inevitable as you think," Dietrich suddenly announced.
"Don't give me hope," I snapped, glaring up at him and pointing a finger of warning at his chest.
"The shoe does not really fit the lady's foot," Dietrich insisted.
He seemed quite sure of himself. I was intrigued, though I didn't want to believe and then be disappointed. "What makes you say that?" I asked. "You'd better have some substantive reasons." I regretted speaking so harshly, but I was terrified lest he be wrong.
Dietrich cleared his throat before replying, "I saw the lady walking into the drawing room. She was limping."
"That's not enough," I immediately cut in.
"Moreover," Dietrich continued, talking over me, "the lady looked very uncomfortable as she sat beside you.
"Perhaps she was nervous. Still not enough."
"As I entered, she moved her feet backwards, tucking them a little bit under the couch." How on earth had he noticed this? Perhaps silent, stalwart Sir Dietrich was actually an intelligence agent. I would have to ask my father the king. "As she did so, she left a smear of blood on the carpet."
"Blood?" I blankly repeated, not quite comprehending.
"Are you sure?" Rolf demanded. He sounded almost as desperate as I felt.
Dietrich nodded. He seemed rather pleased with himself. "I am completely certain. If it pleases your highness, I would like to return to the drawing room and interrogate the lady." He paused, noticed my still-vacant expression, and said very firmly, "The shoe does not fit."
Cruel hope was welling up inside me despite my best efforts to contain it. After several seconds of deliberation, I nodded to Dietrich. "Interrogate her."
He left the room. For several minutes, Rolf and I sat together in complete silence. Eventually, I mustered the courage to ask, "You don't think he's right, do you? After all, you were present when she tried on the shoe."
Rolf shook his head. "I was not."
"Why not?" I almost shouted. It seemed that the entire world was conspiring to give me hope. I couldn't take it.
Rolf's face began to redden. After a brief pause, he replied, "I was speaking with Gretel at the time."
That was all that needed to be said. We continued to wait. Half of me told myself that Dietrich would come through the door any minute and announce that he had been wrong. My other half insisted that I would soon be free.
Beyond the closed door, someone started shrieking. That was a good sign. The shrieks grew louder; I could now hear some sobs mixed in with the screams. The door opened, and there was Dietrich, and he looked very pleased with himself. In his hand was the golden shoe. Heidi was following him, wailing. Therese, who was following Heidi, was the source of the shrieking. Wilhelm was trying and failing to calm his rather unhinged wife.
"How dare you!" she snarled. "How dare you insult my daughter!"
"Silence," I commanded her, standing and summoning all my princely gravitas. "Sir Dietrich, what have you found?"
"Lady Heidi, please show the prince your foot," Dietrich said to the sobbing young lady.
"What an outrage!" Therese screamed. "Wilhelm, tell them they can't do this!"
At peril of having his eyes scratched out, Wilhelm muttered, "You mustn't demand such immodesty."
"When someone has tried to deceive the throne, they no longer have a right to any modesty," Dietrich insisted. What a good fellow. At that moment, I was very close to loving him. "Lady Heidi, show the prince your foot."
Choking back another sob, Heidi pulled up her skirts just far enough for me to see her bruised, blistered, and bloodied foot. "Good heavens," I breathed, staring at the appalling wounds. "What have you done?"
"The shoe fit," Therese hissed. "I made sure it fit."
"You forced the shoe on your daughter's foot," I said in utter disgust.
Wilhelm was staring at his wife in horror. Apparently he had been unaware of her actions. "Heidi wanted me to," Therese insisted, pointing a finger at her weeping daughter.
"No, I didn't," Heidi said in a very small voice.
"Bite your tongue!" Therese snapped at her.
"It hurt!" Heidi wailed in protest. "I didn't want that!"
"You wanted the prince, didn't you? I was helping you reach your goal!"
"Therese, while I don't doubt your intentions," Wilhelm tried to interrupt, "I believe your approach was a little…"
"Shut up," Therese growled.
Someone needed to take charge, or the poor drawing room would descend into madness. "Lady Therese," I spoke over the lady's snarling insults to her husband, "any attempt to deceive the crown the prince of the land is punishable with years in prison." This effectively shut the lady up. She looked at me with a panicked expression. I calmly continued, "I will not punish you for this offense. However, should you ever again behave in a treasonous manner, there will be no mercy for you." Turning to Wilhelm, I said, "I believe my men and I will leave today. Thank you for your hospitality."
"Of course, your highness," he said, sheepishly hurrying out of the room.
Finally, there was the weeping maiden to deal with. "Lady Heidi, I wish you the best," I told her. "Please go have a physician tend to your foot."
She sniffled, hiccoughed, nodded, and limped out of the drawing room. Lady Therese, much chastened, accompanied her, though she managed to shoot me a look of pure venom just before the door closed behind her. Truly, a terrifying woman.
"Well done, your highness," Rolf said to me.
Relieved yet exhausted, I dropped back into my chair. "Sir Dietrich, thank you for all you have done today," I said, though I believe my fatigue kept me from sounding very grateful. "Please tell the men that we will leave in an hour. I should tell her goodbye." This last sentence was murmured to no one in particular.
Dietrich bowed, handed the golden shoe to Rolf, and departed. "Where will we go next?" Rolf asked after a brief silence.
"Home," I immediately replied. "Perhaps, after I have recovered from this ordeal, I will continue the search for Lady Elke. At present, I don't have the emotional stamina."
The door creaked open. Glancing up, I saw a sour-faced Therese enter with the porter, who looked rather pleased that his mistress's plan had failed. "I have told the servants to ready your things," she sullenly informed me.
"Is that the golden shoe?" the porter asked, gesturing towards the shoe in Rolf's hands.
I smiled at his curiosity. "It is," I replied.
"I'm told that you have been allowing every young lady in the land to try fitting her foot into the shoe," he continued.
"I have. Hence the…situation, if you will, with Lady Heidi."
"Has every lady in this house tried on the shoe?" the porter asked, giving me a very significant look.
"Yes," Therese immediately cut in. "Yes, every lady has."
"No, I don't believe that's correct," I said as realization dawned upon me. "Are you perhaps thinking of the scullery maid?"
"I am," the porter said with a smug grin.
Therese cackled cheerlessly. "That trollop is no lady. She's barely a human. All she does is wallow in ashes."
That was too much. Although the scullery maid refused to let me help her in any other way, I would at the very least give her the respect owed to her as a lady and as a human. The maid would try on the golden shoe.
"Please tell the maid to come to the drawing room," I said to the porter. He was only too happy to comply. Rolf went with him, leaving me and Therese in an uncomfortable tete-a-tete.
Lady Therese was glaring savagely at me, but I merely grinned at her. "It is good to be thorough," I mildly observed.
Her expression only darkened. "The girl is an eyesore. She has no value."
"Then why haven't you fired her?"
Before Therese could reply, I heard Rolf's outraged voice shout, "You locked her in the cellar?"
"What on earth is going on?" I wondered, standing and exiting the drawing room. I had been sitting there for far too long, anyways.
In the hallway, I found Rolf and Wilhelm roaring at one another. "Stay out of my family's business!" Wilhelm was shouting.
"Confining an innocent girl in a cellar is no one's business!" Rolf retorted. "The porter will bring her back here, she will try on the shoe, and we will take her with us and find her a better position in the capital."
I stepped between the two men before one of them decided that blows were necessary. Rolf looked as though he very badly wanted to bash Wilhelm in the head with Elke's golden shoe. "Did I hear correctly? Has the maid has been locked in the cellar?" I quietly asked Rolf. While my exterior remained calm, inwardly I was seething. It was unforgivable to treat anyone in such a way.
"Indeed," Rolf replied. "It seems Wilhelm wanted to keep her out of the way until you had left with Lady Heidi."
"How dare you refer to me without my title," Wilhelm muttered mutinously.
"You don't deserve a title," Rolf snarled at him.
We heard footsteps approaching, and soon enough, the porter was hurrying towards us, accompanied by an even-dirtier-than-usual scullery maid. "I have her! I have her!" he said, beaming.
It was hard to read the maid's expression, since her face was so thoroughly caked in grime. Still, I thought she looked rather terrified. "You have nothing to fear," I said, hoping to reassure her. When her look of anxiety did not dissipate, I repeated, "I will make sure that you have nothing to fear."
She still wasn't relaxing at all. Frustrated, I pulled her aside and said in a low voice, "Therese was speaking horribly of you, and I couldn't bear it. I thought, We must allow the maid to try on the golden shoe, if only to make the statement that she is as worthy of respect as any titled lady. So that's what we're going to do, if you're willing. Afterwards, you really must come with us. We will find you a new position away from these people."
"Your highness…" she tried to interrupt.
"Would you accept my help as a favor from a friend?" I asked, hoping I could convince her to give up her stubbornness. I truly thought very highly of the maid, and I wanted to place her in an environment where she could be happy.
She simply stared up at me for several long seconds, then uttered several words that I did not expect. "I love you, Max."
I gaped down at her. "Good heavens."
It was at that moment that Rolf called out, "Your highness, shall we proceed?" He had somehow sedated Wilhelm for the time being; the man was nowhere in sight.
"Y-Yes," I stammered, turning away from the maid and nodding to my trusted manservant. "Let's return to the sitting room." Avoiding the maid's eyes, I reentered the sitting room to see Lady Therese still sulking. I ignored her.
"Please sit," Rolf said to the maid, beckoning her to a nearby chair.
As she sat, I noticed the porter enter the room. He looked as though he was only barely containing his overpowering glee. Well, at least someone in Wilhelm's household was happy. The poor, overwhelmed maid had begun to shake. She continued to tremble as Rolf knelt before her and withdrew the golden shoe. The shaking grew worse as he took her foot in her hands. I hoped she wasn't going to have a seizure. Perhaps bestowing this "honor" wasn't such a good idea, after all.
Rolf placed the maid's toes into the shoe, then gently inserted her heel. It was effortless.
Heavens above.
No one quite knew how to respond to this miracle. For several long seconds, everyone in the room stared at the shoe, which seemed to fit the maid's foot so comfortably. What do you say when you find what you've always wanted in the most unlikely of places?
The porter was the one to break the silence. "See, Elli?" he said to the maid. "You should have come to the prince long ago." He sounded immensely smug.
"Elli?" I repeated blankly.
"My real name," she said, keeping her eyes stubbornly fixed on her feet.
The porter soon realized that no one was going to move unless he took charge. He snorted, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, drew close to the maid (Elli? Elke?), and began tenderly wiping her filthy face, as a loving father might. She did not resist. After a while, he reached up and pulled away the cloth that covered her head. A mass of golden hair fell onto her shoulders.
The sight of her hair jolted me from my uncomprehending stupor. I took several halting steps towards her, then simply dropped onto my knees next to the chair in which she was seated. I looked up into her face. It was still smudged heavily with soot, but the porter had wiped enough grime away that I could identify the features of the woman I had fallen in love with.
She met my gaze and promptly turned bright red. I started laughing, she started giggling, and then to my alarm I realized that I had also started crying. "So this is good," I managed to choke out, rather lamely. What do you say at such a moment?
We remained in joyful silence for a while longer. Eventually, Rolf and the porter excused themselves, taking the dour Lady Therese with them. The maid and I were left alone. At last I found my voice again. "I should call you Elli, then?"
"Yes," she said with a small smile.
"Why didn't you use your proper name at the ball?"
"We'll save the full story for another time. But I promise I will tell you later." She was using her true voice again, not the false squeak that had so grated on my nerves.
I wanted to take her into my arms and triumphantly announce that we would be married in the morning, but I remembered her panicked reaction to my first proposal and checked myself. Instead, I quietly said, "I don't know if your thoughts on the possibility of marriage have changed?"
"Oh. That," she sighed, looked down into her lap. My heart sank. She continued, "At that time, you know, I was rather afraid of my family."
I stared at her uncomprehendingly. Now that I had gotten over my first explosion of joy, countless questions were popping into my brain. How had this maid gotten to my ball in the first place? Why on earth would her family object to a union with the crown prince of the land? Who was Elli, really? I was determined to marry her, but I still didn't know anything about her.
Although Elli was still staring into her own lap, her face had turned bright red. It seemed that she was struggling to produce words. I waited. Finally, she said in a near-whisper, "You are the best man I have ever met and I would be honored to marry you."
All thoughts of questioning her flew out of my head. At that moment, I couldn't have cared less how she got to the ball or why she had been afraid of her family. She would tell me some other time. For now, all I could do was to gently lift up her face and touch my lips to hers.
Prince Maximilian, I daresay you've found yourself a wife.
So that's that! Tune in at some point (hopefully very soon) for the epilogue. And please tell me what you think of this chapter!