It was all Prince Aethelbald’s fault, she was sure. She hoped he burned his tongue on his morning porridge.
No lessons were scheduled for that day due to Prince Aethelbald’s visit. Una planned to while away her time in the gardens, penning odd thoughts in her journal as she thought them. But following a private breakfast and before Una could make an escape to the gardens, Nurse caught her and made her sit down to her tapestry stitching.
“It’ll steady your nerves,” Nurse said.
“I’ll impale myself.” Una’s skill with a needle was feeble at best and worsened by her strong dislike of the pastime.
“Nonsense,” Nurse replied. Against this argument there could be no rebuttal, so Una took her place at one end of the large tapestry – which depicted a gory scene from the epic poem The Bane of Corrilond – and Nurse settled at the other end.
A stony silence followed, for they had not yet forgiven each other for yesterday’s argument. With nothing but tedious stitching to occupy her, Una could find no relief for her mind, which skittered back every chance it got to revisit that awful scene at dinner the night before.
I did the best I could, she told herself over and over. I handled the situation with the most grace possible. What else could I have done?
Clear as a bell, she heard Felix’s snorting laugh while the rest of the court had exploded in a flurry of whispers, all drumming her ears at once.
Una shook her head, trying to drive out the memory, but she could still see Prince Aethelbald’s face as he’d knelt before her with such hopeful uncertainty in his eyes.
What else could I have done? she asked herself again, poking violently at her tapestry. She stitched a troop of soldiers and townspeople fleeing the fire of a monstrous red dragon, which Nurse was busy working in the opposite corner. Una’s people looked more like beans stacked on top of each other, with twig arms and legs sticking out on all sides. She stabbed a bean man through the heart with her needle.
She had babbled. In front of everyone, absolutely everyone, she had babbled! All the dukes, all the counts, all the ambassadors had listened to her stammer, “Um, yes . . . well, I mean, I’m sorry.”
With those words she’d had the good sense, thank heaven, to close her mouth, take a deep breath, and try again.
“Thank you, Prince Applebal – Aethelbald.” She had spoken slowly, getting the words out as neatly as possible. “I cannot accept your . . . your kind offer at this time.”
Una winced at the memory.
Aethelbald had risen from his knees, his face unreadable, and bowed again. “Thank you, Princess Una,” he had said. “I hope we shall come to know each other better. Perhaps you will think more kindly of my offer in the future.” With that, he had pulled his chair back up to the table and sipped his wine.
That dinner would go down in history as the longest of all time.
Una huffed through her teeth and yanked at a knot in her thread, which refused to pull through the fabric. She glanced up at Nurse, who was pointedly ignoring her.
“I give up!” Una threw aside her work and marched through the room to her adjacent bedchamber, calling for a maid as she went. “Bring plenty of hot water!”
Nurse sat up and lowered her own work. “Where do you think you’re going, Miss Princess?”
“I’m going to give Monster a bath.” Una flung back the coverlet of her bed, exposing her snoozing pet, and before he had finished yawning, grabbed him by the scruff.
If anything could distract her mind, bathing her cat would.
–––––––
Aethelbald and Felix stood side by side, Aethelbald demonstrating and Felix copying his motions. The steps were more complicated than any he had before attempted, yet as Aethelbald explained, Felix saw the underlying simplicity. At last, after many attempts, he understood; yet even so could not get his muscles to do what he told them.
“In a true engagement,” Aethelbald said, “there is no room for artistry. No posing, no choreography. There is attack and defense, and you must be prepared at each moment for either or both.”
Yet Felix watched in awe when the Prince of Farthestshore once more demonstrated the complicated steps that allowed him to transform instantly from wooden statue to breath of wind, avoiding Felix’s lunge and disarming him at the same time. If that wasn’t art, Felix couldn’t guess what was. Again, the boy stood beside Aethelbald and mimicked his motions.