Valentine's Day, 1917
February the fourteenth went by like any other day - except the halls were draped in pink, marble statues of naked winged cupids were placed along the corridor, and the floor on Gerda's room was covered in cut-out paper hearts. Anna had disappeared early on in the morning to give a carefully wrapped box of caramel chocolates to Hans, and the Queen had already written a letter to her husband, including sneaky substitutes for words that required for the younger sisters' ears to be plugged up had they been said out loud.
In the dining room, Gerda's nose was stuck in a newspaper. The main article ominously read, Bloody Valentine's: Huge massacre kills more than seven hundred people at six 'o clock during the morning in the kingdom of Maydon, an ally of Arendelle in the current war, during the day of love. The King of Maydon is to take immediate action. The starter of the truly terrifying event is yet to be identified.
Awful, Gerda thought in disgust. To think that all these people were innocent and had nothing to do with the war.
"I wonder what Eugene is doing right now," sighed Rapunzel as she twirled a rose between her fingers. "Is he alright? I expect he's having a hard time on the warfront, poor thing."
"Don't just sit there," insisted Gerda firmly, who was sitting inches away from where they sat alone at the table. "Send him a telegram. Say you miss him, and that you'll come over and make love to him while you're at it." Rapunzel wanted to whack her on the head for saying such things, when the telephone in the corridor rang. Since Mother was not there, Rapunzel volunteered to answer the call.
"Punz..." A voice gasped from the other end of the line.
"Anna? What's wrong? Did you see a man throw up again?"
"Ha, ha," she replied sarcastically, and Rapunzel could've sworn Anna had rolled her eyes, judging from her tone. "Listen - Eugene's here."
"What?" Rapunzel exclaimed, the curly cord attached to the phone almost at the point of tearing off in her shock.
"He's in Ward 722. He looks terrible - countless scars, and he's wounded all over; I think he's about to have an operation."
Rapunzel's face suddenly went white as a ghost, her skin fully pale. Eugene was in Arendelle - but in the most horrible condition a soldier could get himself into. What should she do? The carriage had already been used, and the Queen was at the hospital.
"What's wrong?" Gerda quizzed as Rapunzel returned with a thick brown coat. Rapunzel was too breathless to answer. She needed to find Elsa.
"A motor car?" Elsa stared at her from her place at her desk. "Are you mad? You don't know how to drive one. Besides, it's too dark-"
"I don't care," Rapunzel shouted in her anger and panic to reach Eugene. "He's going to be operated on. He needs me." And for once, wedging them straight from the depths of her heart, she was proud to say these three simple but sincere words;
I'm his fiancée.
"Alright," Elsa sighed heavily. "But I'll call for Professor Gillan and ask him to operate it." Rapunzel nodded frantically. Anything if it means I can see him.
Gillan agreed to help Rapunzel, and in an instant both were outside in freezing weather, hopping into the motor car - polished black, with gold engravings and shiny headlights - but like all others had no roof.
"We'll arrive there safely, but I must warn you-" Gillan looked behind him as he reversed at the driver's wheel before moving forward "-you'll have no choice but to suffer the cold."
Rapunzel's teeth chattered as the car bustled through the roads - flakes of snow descended upon them as passerby's eyes followed them along the streets. This was necessary for a change, because it distracted her every now and then from the pain of worry.
Once the car had been parked in front of the hospital, Rapunzel burst through the front doors, racing along the busy corridor, not caring if she bumped into a nurse or an entire group of them. Please Eugene, she prayed desperately as a vague form of Gillan's voice yelled across for her to slow down. Please, please, please. Don't die. Stay alive for as long as you can grip onto dear life.
"Please! Where is he? Where is Eugene?" Rapunzel cried, her head spinning as her hands gripped the counter tightly and sweat trickled down her forehead.
The doctor's eyes studied her carefully. He was rather startled - taken aback, really - upon seeing Rapunzel's drained and determined face, and said, slowly, "You mean the Duke of Corona?"
Next thing she knew, Rapunzel was struggling to keep up with a metal framed gurney, pushed by several nurses, their red crosses blazing and the white brims of their bonnets flying to match the wind. Lying on the gurney was Eugene, wrapped up in bandages like a mummy. Despite the extra measures, blood was seeping through quickly and all that could be heard from the Duke were moaning noises, and the occasional whimper. Rapunzel tried to ease his mind from the pain as best as she could.
The gurney was wheeled inside a room guarded by double doors, which seemed to be bunked with desks filled with metal instruments, as well as doctors wearing masks, whom the young women in charge of Eugene joined. Rapunzel was about to follow when one of the nurses stopped her.
"I'm sorry, Your Highness," she murmured, shaking her head. "The doctors won't let you in. This operation is being performed in secret." To put it alternatively, it wasn't like any of the others where invalids was operated on in one of the wards.
Rapunzel could only watch through one of the ring windows on the doors as the medical staff circled Eugene, a curtain sweeping the gurney out of her sight. Tears welled up in her eyes. Is Eugene ever going to come out alive? Is this possibly his last hour?
"Your Highness?" Rapunzel's eyes fluttered, blinking away any evidence of her crying, before turning around to meet Gillan's saddened ones. The tutor offered his hand, and Rapunzel, gratefully, took it - together, they walked to the place that was outside, as Rapunzel stole one more glance behind her, and a new thought lifted in her head like a rising sun.
No, she told herself. He'll be fine. My beloved will live.
-o0o-
March, 1917
"Last snow day!" Gerda hollered, still in her nightgown but skipping along the palace corridors and knocking on every door. Cupping her hands and positioning herself, she made sure that her voice was within earshot. "Get outside before it all melts!"
Her sisters grumbled as Gerda whisked the sheets off their beds. Gerda ignored their complaints that it was only six thirty in the morning, and that they weren't to be up for another hour.
The princesses, along with seven servants and three men in tow, were soon trudging up the hill that led up to Camille Gardens, which was just part of the property that the King owned along with the palace. For the rest of the morning everyone skated figure eights across the ice, careful not to skim over the surface that was about to give way to frosty water. The Queen had lent warm things for her daughters to wear, so the sisters stood out in the stark white of the park, in their ivy-patterned mint green coats, throwing snowballs that left marks resembling sugar all over.
While Anna and Rapunzel carried ploughs of snow and dragged shovels to build a snowman (they'd been trying to break a record for the biggest one), Elsa held Gerda's hands into her own, covered with wool mittens, and winked. "Hold on."
Gerda squealed in delight as Elsa pulled her, their skates skidding and bodies shivering, though they were well rugged up. "Is this safe?" she shrieked, as they increased in speed and was only met with rapid giggles from Elsa. Anna and Rapunzel were caught in stitches, laughing their heads off, and then endeavoured to find their own skates.
Margaret, the lady-in-waiting in charge of the snow party, suggested that they host one more round of a snowball fight before returning inside. She teamed up with the royals while the servants fell in a spot against them. Anna and Gerda were excellent at throwing, so for the majority of the game they hit out five of their opponents point blank in a matter of minutes. At one point Gerda hurled one particular snowball, and it shot past Gretchen, one of the young maids, barely missing her earlobe.
A game of catch commenced shortly after teatime, and everyone stood in a circle as each player passed one of Gerda's childhood balls to the other, in whichever way possible and was allowed. Anna got carried away, though, and the pink ball flew like an arrow into the forest of dark fir trees.
"I'll get it," volunteered Gretchen, and raced down the hill, disappearing into the fog. Everyone else waited patiently, expecting her to come back in a few seconds, but after fifteen minutes, they were getting worried - Gretchen still hadn't returned.
"Maybe we should go and see where she is," began Gerda nervously, when suddenly a chilling scream rang from the forest, followed by an ear-splitting bang - the unmistakable sound of a gun shot.
Gerda's face went pale. In a swift movement, she escaped under the servants' arms and rushed to trace the noise. Elsa, Rapunzel and Anna followed her, yelling for her to come back to safety. Lady Margaret was at their heels, not wanting to risk the girls' lives being endangered.
When they'd reached deep into the clearing of trees and bushes, their blood went immediately cold. A limp form wearing a black winter frock and filthy apron emerged in their eyes. Strands of sandy curls peeked out from a humble bonnet, and the snow had painted the area around her red. Gerda clapped a hand over her mouth in horror, realising where the red stains had come from - in the form of a liquid, pouring from the girl's stomach as rapidly as any of the princesses had ever seen.
"Gretchen!" Rapunzel choked, and weeped uncontrollably on Elsa's shoulder. Margaret, who was well trained in nursing, ran over to kneel beside the poor girl, and tore off a piece of cloth from her dress to wrap over the area where she'd been shot.
"She's bleeding buckets," the lady-in-waiting told the sisters in a small trembling voice, "and appears to be unconscious." Margaret eyed each one, who all stood in a tight huddle, paralysed with fright. "Somebody needs to head back to the park, and tell the servants that a maid's been gunned down." Anna chose herself, and turned around in a flurry. She only hoped that Gretchen would still be alive by the time they'd received help.
-o0o-
Seventeen hours later, Gretchen died of blood loss and trauma during the night in the palace's hospital wing. Everyone mourned in the aftermath of the tragic event, and no one more than Rapunzel, who had shared ages, and were day-to-day playmates during their childhood. Anna felt especially guilty - she'd thrown the ball to danger and Gretchen's death. Oh, if only I knew where that ball would land, she thought to herself furiously, Gretchen wouldn't be dead.
As if she'd read her mind, Elsa smiled sadly at her. "It's not your fault," she whispered soothingly. "No one could have saved, let alone protected her from those awful bullets." Anna replied with a strangled sob, sneaking a wipe on the nose.
Now that the grieving was over, there was one question that everyone was burning to have answered: Who did it? When there is a murder, there is also rumours and speculations, as was proved ten days later when most members of the palace started speaking about who could possibly have slaughtered Gretchen.
"It was a man," one maid declared as whispers hung like clouds around the royal family's staff, "I just know it. According to Lady Margaret, when she and the princesses went to carry Gretchen away, they caught a brief glimpse of a pair of long legs dressed with pants and leather shoes in a great hurry to flee the scene."
"An assassin from the Southern Isles - or perhaps one of our other war enemies - on a secret mission to assassinate the King. It's not very logical, or in the least bit manageable however, because His Majesty is supposed to be in Maydon visiting victims of the Bloody Valentine's massacre right now."
"An escaped insane patient from the nearby hospital, who had mistaken poor Gretchen for one of the King's daughters. She was seventeen when the killing happened."
Even though they were young and innocent, the four princesses were no daft hermits living in caves when it came to such incidents. They'd been talking amongst themselves in the secrecy of their bedrooms.
"It must be a member of the anti-Arendelle party," decided Gerda to her sisters, "who intended to raid the palace and politically overthrow us. Even if he succeeded, he couldn't try or even dare kill Father. He'd have to go through him first if he were to have what he truly wanted."
"But the war is still on," Rapunzel said reasonably, "so the palace is meant to be heavily guarded with the best security. Surely you know that."
"Yet he managed to pass through."
"Look, Gerda," sighed Rapunzel, "we don't know who the assassin is. God knows what this man intends to do to us. Maybe eventually the guards will catch him walking freely, or the killer ends up surrendering to the ministry."
But no matter the number of theories the maids and princesses came up with, they did not leave anyone any closer to solving the mystery. And it seemed the war would not make the long-awaited end anytime soon.