Hey readers!

Thanks again for all your reviews! I'm really excited to give you this next chapter! Lot's more Hans-Frida-ness and also you are going to get a glimpse of what King Fredrik has in store for Hans! Yippee! Or.. eherm... more appropriately... sorry Hans... *winces*

Tales From the Southern Isles

Chapter 13: The Prince's Apology

...

Frida couldn't have described the amount of frustration she was feeling as she was whisked out of the carriage and into the castle court yard where she was to report for duty right away.

All she had been told upon being retrieved was that Prince Hans had requested her specifically to spruce up his bedroom. What that really meant, was a matter of debate in which Frida puzzled very hard over.

Had he decided that he wanted her dismissed from her job after all? But if so, wouldn't the guards have just delivered that message to her? Why would they have needed to extract her from her family and bring her back to the castle, just so that she could be told she was fired? It made no sense. Perhaps Prince Hans was angry at her for other reasons? Frida couldn't fathom what those other reasons could be, but she didn't stop her from fretting!

When she was brought up to the maid's quarters so that she could get dressed in her proper working attire, Aunt Sophia met her there.

"What is going on child? What is all of this about?" her aunt questioned.
"I assure you, aunt, I have no idea," Frida promised hurriedly as she struggled to change as quickly as possible.

"Well it has to be about something! Does this have anything to do with that morning you sneaked off?" Aunt Sophia demanded as Frida flitted about her room, grabbing her maid's apron and shoes.

"I tell you I don't know!" Frida huffed in exasperation, slipping on her dress over her head and trying to tug it down over her under clothes.
"You must have gotten into some sort of trouble, because I was told that Prince Hans asked for you directly. Now why would he do that Frida?" Aunt Sophia demanded.

"I don't know!" Frida practically cried. She was so crushed that her time with her family had been interrupted and spoiled, and adding to that the stress she felt in not knowing why she had been summoned in the first place, whilst trying to hurry and dress, Frida was not currently in a very stable emotional state. Aunt Sophia watched her niece hobble around in her garments and sighed.

"Good lord, you look like a tornado of ruffled skirts, let me help you," Aunt Sophia offered, coming over and aiding Frida to finish dressing.

By the time Frida reached Prince Hans's room and the guards opened the door for her, she was fairly confident that her appearance was appropriate and respectable. However, that didn't stop her from feeling the icy hold of fear twist in her gut as she tip toed into the bedroom.

Whatever the case was as to why she had been summoned, Frida would make sure that she was the perfect picture of respect and poise. If she had done something wrong, she would accept her failure with grace and respond kindly. Putting on the most stoic face she could manage, Frida entered, keeping her gaze down on the floor, and stood in the middle of the room with a bucket of cleaning supplies in one hand. She dared not make eye contact with the Prince, even though she could see him standing there clearly in her peripheral vision.

"You summoned me... your highness," Frida said, trying not to sound like she was asking a question.

...

In all honesty, Prince Hans had not expected the cleaning maid to have been brought to him. Not after how long he had been left waiting in his room since he'd initially made his request. Why, the day was more than half way over! Now that she was finally here, he was having a hard time even recalling why it had been so important for her to get here!

But she was present now, standing patiently before him with a bucket of cleaning materials in one hand, her eyes downcast to the floor. What was her name again? Hans hated how bad his memory was when it came to people's names. He was so bad at the practice that for the longest time he hadn't even been able to remember each of his own brother's names! Hers had started with an "F" right?

Hans cleared his throat, straightening his stance and recovering from his previously taken back expression.

"Um... Felecia was it?" he asked.

"Frida," she corrected, her eyes flickering up to meet with his briefly in annoyance before lowering once more. Someone was touchy today.

"Yes... well, I believe I summoned you some time close to eight o'clock this morning," Hans replied, his tone smooth and professional, "What took you so long?" he questioned pacing forward to close the rather large gap between them.

"I apologize for the delay your majesty, I shall get to work right away," she answered, her voice quiet and careful. She curtsied and promptly turned away for the bathroom with her cleaning supplies.

"What are you doing?" Hans asked.
"I'm cleaning, as you summoned me for..." Frida replied timidly.

Hans blinked.

"Oh, no, that's not why I called you," he responded.

"Oh..." Frida paused, looking suddenly very nervous, she still kept her gaze down on the floor, and it was getting irritating. It made Hans feel like she was more fascinated with the carpet then he who stood right in front of her. It made him feel ignored.

"Look me in the eye," he commanded strictly. Only after Frida lifted her gaze ever so tentatively to finally meet with his, did Hans proceed.

"What I wish to know is why there was such a long delay in your coming," Hans stated, enunciating his words clearly and with authority.

...

Frida hesitated, trying to hold back the frustration that was bubbling inside of her.

First she thought she'd been brought here to clean, and now he was saying that wasn't the reason... but instead of just telling her why she was here already, he had to stand there and interrogate her as to why she hadn't come exactly when he'd wanted her to! Could he not just cut to the chase already!?

"I was on my day off, your majesty," Frida answered, "I was in town, spending time with my family when a couple of guards came down around mid afternoon to fetch me. Then, once I arrived, I was required to change before appearing to you," she explained.

The Prince took in a deep breath, his eyes breaking contact with hers to look off to the side, and an awkward expression crossed his features. Was it... embarrassment? Impossible! Princes never got embarrassed! Or.. did they? Then, as soon as it was there, it was gone. Prince Hans cleared his throat.

"Yes well, now that you are here, you might as well know the real reason I've summoned you,"

"That would be nice," Frida replied without thinking. On second thought, maybe she shouldn't have said that, but oh well.

"The reason that I called you here was to be assured that you haven't spoken of our last encounter and the conversations you had over heard during that time," the Prince said.

Frida couldn't help it. She frowned. Her facade of stoicism was gone.

"You mean to tell me...that you summoned me all the way from town on my day off, just to make sure I didn't go and snitch on you when I made you, a crowned Prince of the Southern Isles, a promise that I wouldn't?" she questioned, blatant bewilderment painted across her face.

How... how could he have done this to her? Did he have so little respect for her that he felt he needed to keep checking up on her like some child? That he'd gone through the trouble of bringing her all the way from her day off with her folks for a matter such as this was absolutely infuriating. Not only was he showing her that her word meant absolutely nothing to him, but apparently neither did her existence!

Frida struggled to rein back the roaring head of offense and ward off the nasty bite of bitterness. This was a prince she was still dealing with and she could not let her feelings get the best of her in this situation, no matter how brutal a hit her self esteem had just taken.

However, regardless of what she managed to prevent from spilling out her mouth, she was not able to conceal the show of raw emotions that flowed freely from her eyes.

She was hurt.

...

Hans pursed his lips.

The way she said it made him sound like a bad guy.

To be fair, it hadn't ever occurred to him before that maids would have days off, much less that cleaning maids had lives outside of their castle duties. Hans had always thought they spent all their time inside the palace since that was where they slept, ate and worked. He had not considered a family to be a part of Frida's life schedule, though now that he thought about it, Hans felt sincerely stupid for not having taken that into account in the first place.

And it was because of this fatal error that now he was facing one of the most pathetic looking displays of someone who had just had their feelings hurt, and Hans was at a complete loss of what to do. He'd never dealt with emotional females before... at least, not in this way.

Dealing with proud, stubborn, boisterous and insensitive people was something Hans was very accustomed to, and quite an expert at, but this Frida was not like any one else he'd met before. Even if she was a servant, from what Hans had experienced of her, she had been nothing but humble, respectful, patient and attentive. And now he'd gone and made her cry. JUST great!

Hans could safely say he'd never felt more like a monster in his life than he did in this moment. He felt embarrassed, he felt stupid and worst of all he felt helpless in not knowing how to fix it. But he would try.

"I'm sorry," he blurted.

Wait, what?

He was sorry? Hans had never been sorry! Not that he could remember! What was going on here!? Clearly he was getting caught up in the moment and allowing this very good little actress to twist him around her finger. Well NOT today.

And then their eyes met and Hans was completely arrested by Frida's look of pure genuine surprise. She was just as shocked as he was at the sound of his apology. Maybe... maybe she wasn't trying to deceive him. Maybe for once there was no ulterior motive...

"You... you're sorry?" Frida asked, her voice soft and inquisitive. Hans rolled his tongue around in his mouth while he waited for his brain to come up with a reply. He felt cornered and he didn't like it. But he said what he said, and he couldn't take it back now.

"Yes, I am sorry. I was not aware you were on your day off, and I had no intention of being an inconvenience to you," he said, the last of his words going off into a mumble.

...

Frida could not believe it. A prince... had just apologized... to her! To her! A servant! Suddenly, she was wondering if maybe Hans wasn't so bad after all...

"That is," he added, "unless you broke your promise... "

Aaaaaand, nice guy gone.

"Of course I didn't!" Frida snapped, getting really fed up with the ranges of emotions she was being put through.

"Okay, okay... I just wanted to make sure..." Hans stated, putting his hands up defensively. There was a tense moment where they just stared at each other... and then Hans smiled. Frida hadn't expected his sudden smile, and it caught her off guard. His next question caught her off guard even further.

"Are you going to stay mad at me?" he asked, cocking a playful brow. Frida blinked.
"Are you going to make me clean your bathroom?" Frida questioned back. Hans's grin widened.
"No,"
"Okay... good. I hate cleaning bathrooms," Frida admitted, with a guilty smile.

Prince Hans chuckled. And what a nice... warm sound it was.

...

Deep within the many recesses of the royal library, sat three princes. They were surrounded by the earthy smells of old, crisp paper, ink, dusty wooden shelves and musty air, each tucked safely away within the stillness of air that hung about them in the secluded sanctuary of knowledge and Southern Isles history.

Prince Ralph sat in a cosy corner between bookshelves with his nose buried between the pages of a classical poetry book. Prince Axel and Prince Lars sat across from him in their own carpet upholstered chairs, each going through a heap of stacked books piled between them. Flipping through the seventh four-hundred page history text, Axel sighed when it proved not to have what he wanted inside of it, and dropped it into the stack. With mild annoyance, he noted that while Lars was working, Ralph was not.

"Are you planning on helping me any time soon?" Axel asked in exasperation, glancing over to Ralph.

"No," Ralph replied shortly, not sparing either of his brothers a single glance.

"You should have known better than to ask him for assistance," Lars snorted to Axel, "He can't put a book down without reading the entire thing,"

"Only when it's interesting," Ralph defended.

"Well that's not helpful. Fredrik asked for us to find a circumstance in monarchy history where a member of the royal family has been disinherited!" Axel shouted, tossing yet another book aside, "We haven't even gone through half of the history books in this library,"

"What is so gosh darn important about all this anyway? What's Fredrik's interest in this all of the sudden?" Lars questioned.

"If you spent more energy using your brain instead of your mouth in asking stupid questions like that, then you would be able to assume on your own that Fredrik's 'sudden interest' as you put it, is clearly due to the current circumstances we find ourselves in with Hans," Ralph replied in boredom, fixing his glasses on his nose.

"That still doesn't explain why history is in any way relevant to Fredrik's decision," Lars shot back.

"It's relevant because our brother the king wishes to be affirmed by the actions of the many kings before him that he has made an appropriate decision on how to deal with a very delicate issue," Axel replied.

"Fredrik's made his decision?" Lars asked in shock.

"Well, welcome to the party, Lars," Ralph mocked, "Just now working that out are you?"

"Hey! Get a life and then come talk to me about parties, okay?" Lars snapped back.

"Knock it off you two," Axel berated, "Let's get back to searching, alright? The sooner we find Fredrik what he wants the sooner we can leave,"

"And by we, you mean you and me," Lars snorted, "Prince Bookworm over there never leaves his domain,"

Ralph sent an unamused stare his older brother's way but didn't comment. Axel just shook his head and grabbed another book.

Alright so there you have it! Hans is going to be poor! Just wait until he finds out though... hehehe... I will tell you now, it's not going to be pretty. lol

Also, I have a special treat for you guys!

So my sister is like... a crazy amazing cartoonist okay? And after reading my story she was like... "I need to draw these characters". Needless to say, I squealed with excitement! She has posted her drawings of all 13 of the Southern Isles Prince brothers as well as Frida on pinterest and you can find them like this:

Click on my account name

Scroll down to the bottom of my profile page till you reach the words in bold caps that read SPECIAL TREAT

Copy and paste the links (one at a time of course)

ENJOY!

Oh and be sure to review and tell me your thoughts, not only on the story, but on my sister's art! I'm really excited to pass on your guys's thoughts to her!