Chapter Seven: The Prince
Prince Lune, to say the least, was outraged. Brushing past the nervous servants that tried to impede his progress, he stormed into the dressing room. His father was trying on a new outfit, now that he had just arrived back in the capital.
"Father!" he cried out angrily, making the monarch turn around slightly and grin at his heir.
"My, you came faster than usual. I have excellent news, son. I'll be getting married at the same time you are."
"Father, please tell me that the rumors flying around the palace aren't true," Lune begged, dodging the tailor as he circled the king with a pincushion strapped to one wrist. "You didn't really threaten to destroy the girl's village to get her to consent to this marriage, did you?"
"I didn't want to have to threaten it," the king said plaintively, turning around once again so that he could face his sole heir. "But Haru left me no other choice, son. Things would have been different if her father hadn't passed on his training experience to her, so I had to make do with what I had."
"Father…" the prince struggled to say. "You can't do this!"
"Why not?" the king growled irritably.
"The girl will despise you for the rest of her life, and our subjects will turn against you. One servant told me that the girl's even younger than I am!"
"Only by five years," the king said defensively, turning back the mirrors lining the corner of the room. "I think you should meet her, son. I think you'll understand my eagerness to wed when you get a good look at her. She looks just like your mother," he said worshipfully.
"But she isn't!" Lune yelled. "You can dress her up in Mother's clothes, and give her lessons to act like Mother, but she will never be my mother!"
"Watch your tone, young man!" the king barked, snapping his fingers to make a small army of servants appear. "Take my son to his room," he ordered them, his glassy eyes gleaming maniacally. "Keep him there for the rest of the day as punishment. I want his temper to cool down before he meets his new step-mother."
"Father-" Lune tried to protest, but Natori grabbed his shoulder.
"Allow me to escort him, your majesty," the advisor entreated his monarch. "Perhaps I can enlighten him."
The king nodded his assent, making the army of servants dissolve back through the curtains and small doorways they had entered through. Firmly, the head advisor guided the crown prince out of the room, and into the hall.
Once they were out of sight of the king, Lune brushed away Natori's hand angrily. "When I take over the kingdom," the crown prince hissed at the man, "The first thing I'm going to do is send you into retirement with my father, and then get someone that actually has a backbone to advise me."
"I'm not the one you're angry at, my prince," Natori said firmly, his eyes a little sad, but steady. "I did try to stop him, but you know your father. There was nothing I could do-"
"Especially since you never try!" Lune snapped, his eyes filled with loathing. "I was there when your only brother, the last family you had left, was whipped and thrown out of the castle for something a sane monarch would have overlooked. You didn't raise a single finger to help your own flesh and blood, why should anyone expect you to help a defenseless girl against an unwanted marriage?!"
"The last thing that girl is, is defenseless!" the advisor said hotly, shuddering from the memory. "She took down a royal legion in under twenty minutes!"
"But that didn't help her when Father blackmailed her with the village's fate! Just stay away from me, Natori. The very sight of you sickens me." Shaking his head in disgust, Prince Lune marched down the hallway alone, his body rigid with hate.
Natori watched the young prince go with a heavy heart. 'It's not that simple, Lune. Does he really think that I didn't want to help Natoru?' The old advisor sighed, and started walking down the opposite direction of the crown prince, feeling more alone than ever before. 'I had been groomed to serve the royal family since childhood. It was something I had looked forward to all my life. Now I'm living my dream… and there's no way to escape the nightmare I've helped create. Heaven forgive me…'
ooOoo
It wasn't until the day after the king arrived, that Lune was able to bring himself to seek out the poor girl that would become his stepmother.
"Darling," his pale love said worriedly as he passed her, a soft touch stopping him in his tracks. "Would you like me to come with you?"
"No, thank you, Yuki," the crown prince said to his fiancée sadly, stealing a kiss from her. "For the first time, at least… I need to meet her alone. To apologize for what's happened to her, if nothing else."
"It wasn't your fault," she insisted, but that didn't lessen the guilt he felt.
He kissed her softly, and kept moving for the east wing of the palace, where the prospective queen was kept under tight watch.
He eventually reached the suite he knew the girl was in, the soldier outside her door straightening noticeably at the prince's approach.
"Is my father's intended inside?" he inquired of the soldier.
"She is, highness," the soldier said promptly. "Shall I announce you?"
"No," Lune said hastily, somehow certain that such a move would not endear him to her, if he even had a chance at all. "Just… just ask her if she'll receive me for a moment or two. I can come back later if she'd rather be alone right now."
"You could be waiting awhile, your highness," the man warned. "That's all she's wanted ever since she came here. You've never seen a more depressed girl than her, my prince. But I can try, I suppose. The royal seamstresses left not too long ago, so there won't be anyone else in there." He bowed once, and held the spear in his grasp casually as he turned around, and opened the door enough to stick half of his body through it. "My lady? The prince requests a moment of your time."
A somewhat stiff pause followed the guard's words.
"Let him in, I guess," a melancholy voice sighed sadly, making the soldier open the door a little wider for the crown prince to step through.
"Be gentle with her, please," the guard begged him, tears almost falling down his own face in sympathy for the poor girl.
Lune nodded once, and stepped through the doorway. He stopped dead in his tracks, barely noticing as the door shut solidly behind him, his eyes wide with shock.
He had known that if his father's scheme had come to pass, his stepmother would look precisely like the mother he barely remembered, but he was still unprepared for the being sitting listlessly in a dark corner of the room, her face pulled tight with lack of sleep.
The red gown that echoed his mother's style suited her wonderfully, but her arms were crossed over her chest, holding a finely woven shawl tight against her slim form to ward off a chill that could have only come from the heart.
The young brunette studied him with a calm detachment, as he openly stared at her. "You look like a younger version of your father," she noted disinterestedly, pulling the shawl even tighter against her body. "I hope you're smarter than he is. Tell me, is your bride being blackmailed as well?"
"No," Lune managed to say, slowly walking toward her, fighting back an irrational urge to hurl himself into her lap, weeping 'Mother!' "I asked Yuki privately to accept me as her husband, and she said yes. I wouldn't have forced her, if she wished to remain friends alone. I just want her to be happy."
She looked at him with interest, sighing sadly. "You're a better man than your father. But then again, you would almost have to be."
Lune nodded sadly, stopping about two yards in front of the poor girl. No longer able to meet her gold-tinged gaze, he looked at the hem of her long skirt instead. Slowly, he got to one knee, and then the other.
"What are you doing?!" she asked in a panic, standing up from her chair as he lowered his forehead to the blood red carpet lining her rooms, her yell making the soldier burst through the door with his weapon raised.
"I'm so sorry for all this," he whispered, tears finally falling from his eyes and into the lush carpet. "If I had realized that there really was a girl in the kingdom that resembled my departed mother, I'd have done something to stop this. I tried speaking to my father on your behalf, but he's bent on marrying you, even if it means earning the hatred of everyone in the kingdom. I'm so sorry," he wept.
She looked down at him, her lower lip twitching slightly as she gestured with one hand for the guard to leave the room again. He nodded in relief, and closed the door behind him.
The slim brunette kneeled on the carpet in front of the prince, and made him look up at her. "What do you mean by 'the hatred of the kingdom'?" she asked curiously. "I hardly know anyone outside the village personally."
"Word of what my father's holding over you is spreading like wildfire," Lune explained miserably, locked in her gaze. "How can anyone love a king that willing to kill an entire village just for the chance to marry a girl several decades younger because she looks like his first wife? Believe me, Miss; the entire kingdom is on your side."
She sighed, leaning against the chair's legs so that she could be at an eye level with the prince, who was now sitting on the ground with her. "That will come in handy in two months' time. May I ask a favor of you, your highness?"
"Call me Lune, please," he urged her. "Ask any favor of me, and I'll deliver if I can."
"Can I trust you?" she asked bluntly, holding the shawl close again. "I desperately need at least one real friend right now, and I have a very serious problem that I'd like a second opinion on, by someone that won't rat me out to the king."
Lune nodded, pounding one fist over his heart. "Anything you tell me in confidence will not cross my lips, even to my bride, without your permission." He suddenly blinked, and smiled sheepishly. "My apologies. I just realized that if I had been told your name, I've forgotten it."
"It's Haru. Haru Yoshioka."
His head snapped up in shock. "Hasho's daughter?!"
She looked him directly in the eye. "And proud of it, thank you very much."
"You should be," he told her very seriously, remembering what Natori had told him about her the day before. "He was a great man, and a wonderful warrior."
"You've met him?" she asked in surprise.
"Only a handful of times," Lune admitted, staring at her anew. "But suffice it to say, he left an impression on me."
"Did you also know Harold Gikkingen?" she asked eagerly.
"No," Lune said after a moment's thought. "At least, the name doesn't ring a bell. Who was he?"
Haru bit her lip sadly, and looked at the door nervously. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, so soft that he almost couldn't hear her. "Listen closely, Lune, for I don't think it would be wise for me to repeat this. Harold Gikkingen was a friend of my father's that died in battle, so my father took Harold's son home to raise as his own. The son, Humbert, is not only my childhood sweetheart, but also the man I swore to marry six years ago before he took to the sea as a cabin boy so that he could raise the money to marry me. I haven't heard from him since, and everyone back in the village urged me to forget about him, but I can't. I don't even want to try, but everyone refuses to respect how I feel, including your father. He knows I love Humbert with all my heart, but he doesn't care. This is where things turn critical for you," she hissed softly, making him nod his head to assure her that he was still listening, although his mismatched eyes were wide with shock.
"I swore to marry no one but Humbert, and he swore the same thing to me. I still intend to honor my oath, even if it means killing your father the day of the marriage, to keep the village safe from the crown's wrath."
The prince gasped, but she held up one hand to stop him from interrupting her quite yet.
"I won't run from judgment, Lune. I have been preparing myself for a messy public execution since the king forced me to abandon my home in favor of his. But here is my question; can you think of a better alternative that won't require me to make my first kill a royal one? Because I can't think of a single thing that won't condemn me or my village, and there's a slight possibility that despite everything he's done, you're still fond of your father."
Lune bit his lip, like he was biting back a comment about his father. He suddenly stood up, and began to pace the room angrily, his face contorted with conflicting thoughts.
Haru watched him pace for several minutes, wondering if her faith had been misplaced, after all.
No. Even if he ratted her out to the king, he'd have to do something with her besides marrying her.
Suddenly, Lune stopped pacing. "I think I have it," he whispered, slowly looking over at the brunette. He rushed over, and grabbed her hands. "Haru," he said seriously. "How do you feel about being kidnapped?"
"Not that well," she answered honestly, almost smiling. "Besides, I can beat off anyone that might try something that foolish."
"But you won't!" he replied eagerly. "Make it look like you can't stop it! Listen to me; I can hire professional mercenaries to kidnap you publicly, and then secretly take you to a remote convent somewhere in another country. You could choose then to stay or leave after they drop you off, and you'll know better than to return home or to any place in the kingdom. Your village would be safe because no one will suspect that it was a coup, you wouldn't have to marry my father, who'll be tearing the kingdom apart for you, possibly until the day he dies or until he surrenders the throne to me, which he swore to do the day after I marry Yuki. Everyone but my father wins."
Haru stared at him in amazement, and bowed low to him with respect. "That is the most attractive offer I've heard since Humbert proposed to me, Lune. I'll gladly put up with the inconvenience of getting kidnapped to stay clear of the altar. Can you recruit mercenaries in time?"
"A week should be all I need," he promised her, standing up to take his leave. "Under different circumstances, I wouldn't mind keeping you around, but perhaps it would be for the best if you disappeared, with all due respect. Would you like me to ask Yuki to keep you company? She's very good at lifting one's spirits."
"If it won't inconvenience her too much," the brunette said gratefully, still pulling the shawl tightly around her shoulders. "Thank you for helping me, Lune-chan."
The crown prince smiled affectionately at her, and left the room. "My pleasure, Haru-chan."