The Prince Problem

by Vivian Vande Velde

  As for the pirates, and the flying, and the people who were sometimes people and sometimes rabbits, that was henbane haziness.

  Amelia forced herself to open her eyes. Despite the lurching of the wagon, she was feeling steadier than before. Sheaves of straw crisscrossed above her. At first glance the stacking looked random—probably even more so from an overhead view—but clearly, someone had been meticulous about the arrangement. Amelia was perfectly concealed, but enough space had been left around her so she could breathe. Light was coming in from what her senses told her was the back of the wagon, so it was still day. Or day again.

  Don’t panic, she told herself. Don’t exaggerate your problems.

  Henbane would knock someone out for the better portion of a day, but this had to still be the same day. The opening Amelia could see through the bundles of straw wasn’t big, but she could glimpse trees. She was being carried through a wooded area.

  That didn’t help her get her bearings. Travel far enough from Pastonia in any direction and there would be woods.

  No doubt it was late afternoon by now. Her parents could be oblivious at times, but surely they’d have noticed her absence. On the other hand, they wouldn’t have a clue as to what had happened. They’d call for the castle to be searched, and the garden, probably conjecturing that she’d taken ill or fallen or injured herself.

  The last thing she needed to do was to lie here letting her mind wander. Now was the time for action, not woolgathering as though she were safely home on a rainy nothing-to-do morning. Amelia was not helpless, and she shouldn’t assume rescue was on its way.

  This wasn’t exactly what all her training in leadership and sciences and languages had prepared her for, but whatever was going on, she needed to escape her captors. The sooner the better.

  But she’d only just gotten up onto her hands and knees when she heard something through the piled straw. From the front of the wagon, a gruff voice said, “Whoa,” and the wagon creaked and slowed.

  Had the fact that she was awake been discovered? Had she accidentally brushed against the sheaves above her, causing them to shift and betray that she was moving?

  No, she assured herself. If that had happened, she would have felt her back touch the straw. No, she couldn’t see her captors, and they couldn’t see her. Only the unhappiest of circumstances had brought her to her senses just when it was too late to jump out of the wagon undetected.

  She heard voices, male voices—three of them. Two, she estimated, came from the front of the wagon, the third from just a bit farther away. The men who had seized her were meeting up with someone new.

  Amelia bit back her instinct to cry out for help. The third man might not be a well-met potential rescuer. If that was the case, the smartest tactic was not to give away that she was awake and listening. And able to resist.

  In fact, the way the men were greeting one another indicated they were acquaintances. “Hey, Jud,” called one of the men on the straw wagon.

  “Willum,” the new man greeted him. “Boyce.”

  They knew one another. So, not help for her. Help for her abductors. But the good news was that the two had spoken in the accents of common workingmen. And nobody had said, Hey, Prince Sheridan. For who else besides Prince Sheridan could be behind this? The longer Amelia avoided him, the better.

  “Took your time,” chided the gravelly voice of the person not on the wagon—the newcomer, Jud. “I was beginning to wonder iffen you’d-a got lost on the way.”

  “Yeah, well,” said the second of the wagon men—disproving in two words any lingering doubts that he might be the prince—“she was already up and about, and we had to wait for her to get back to the castle.”

  “I di’n’t think no princess would be up that early,” the first man said. “Iffen I was royalty, I wouldn’t get up no earlier than I had to.”

  “Well, Prince Sheridan ain’t no slug neither,” the second man said. “Shows how much you know.”

  And there she had it: These men did work for Prince Sheridan.

  “She still asleep?” asked Jud.

  “Haven’t heard a peep from her,” the second man said.

  Very quietly, Amelia lowered herself back to the floor of the wagon. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply and regularly, even as the men pulled away first the tarp covering, then the sheaves of straw.

  Jud, the gravelly voiced one who was seeing her for the first time, said, “This is what all the fuss is about? I’d-a thought she must of been a real beauty. This’un ain’t that much to look at.”

  It’s one thing to have come to terms with yourself that you aren’t particularly pretty. After all, beauty isn’t an essential virtue to being a good ruler. But it’s quite another thing to have someone say to your face, or at least to the top of your head, that you aren’t attractive—even if the someone speaking is the kind of someone who would sneak into your parents’ garden and steal you away by force. Princess Amelia let the words roll over her, forcing herself not to let any feelings of hurt or insult show in her pretending-to-be-asleep expression.

  Unexpectedly, the better-spoken of the three men came to her defense. Sort of. “If Prince Sheridan wanted to marry someone with three eyes and two noses and a mouth on the back of her head, that’s none of our business.”

  Marry? Amelia couldn’t help a startled gasp, but she quickly disguised it as a snore. She stirred herself, as though settling into a more comfortable position.

  “And she’s younger’n I’d-a thought, too,” said Jud, seemingly determined to find fault with her.

  This time the first of the two wagon men spoke, clearly intent on playing up the second: “Yeah, and iffen Prince Sheridan wanted to marry someone with two eyes and three noses … No, wait, three noses and two eyes … No. Iffen he wanted—”

  “Shut up, Boyce,” said the man Amelia was already beginning to think of as the leader. “Dunderhead.”

  Sure enough, his companion was properly chastened. “Yes, Willum,” he mumbled, “I was just—”

  “Nobody cares,” Willum growled.

  Jud continued, “And I was just sayin’ she seems like a kid.”

  “Iffen you don’t have the stomach for this,” said the man named Boyce, “maybe Willum needs to keep me with him and leave you with the straw wagon.”

  What? They met up, but they weren’t staying together?

  “Nay, Boyce,” said Willum, “you dolt. One of us as was at the castle needs to stay with this wagon, just in case anyone that saw us back there comes upon you. What would they say if they saw the same wagon but with a different driver?”

  “They’d say this plan is too confusing,” Boyce grumbled.

  Amelia suspected so, too, but Willum argued with him.

  “Nay,” he said. “The plan is fine. You’re the only one as is confused.”

  “Well, come to that …” Jud started to admit.

  But Willum talked over him. “I’ll join Jud in the cart. Boyce stays on in the wagon. Boyce, if anyone asks, we had a falling-out over division of wages, and you left me behind on the road and you don’t know where I got to. Jud, you leave any soft thoughts behind you.”

  “Ain’t got no soft thoughts,” Jud said in his gravelly voice. “Just sayin’, was all.”

  “Hey!” said the one who was going to be left behind—Boyce. “She done got out of her bindings!”

  Amelia felt someone jump into the wagon.

  Breathe deep. Breathe steady.

  “Nay,” she heard Willum say from right next to her. “This been chewed, not untied. Must be rats.” He kicked at the bundles of straw.

  Rats? Could it have been a rat in here with her earlier? Amelia wondered. But how could she ever have mistaken a rat for a rabbit, never mind a person? She worked on not tensing at the thought that Willum’s kick might send rats scurrying.

  “Should you dose her again?” Jud asked.

  Amelia was aware of Willum leaning in even closer over her. He snapped his fingers in
her face.

  Steady, calm breaths.

  “Nay,” said Willum, using what was apparently his favorite word. “She still be out. We don’t want to take no chances. Prince Sheridan wants his bride alive. Here, Jud, help me lift her.”

  Her only chance for escape later was to make them believe she was asleep now.

  One man took her by her shoulders, the other by her ankles. They lifted her up off the bed of the straw wagon. She peeked one eye open ever so slightly and saw that they were carrying her to a smaller second wagon. A cart, really.

  Why? she wondered. She still didn’t fully understand the men’s plan. Was it more convoluted and complicated than it needed to be, or were the lingering effects of the henbane slowing down her ability to follow?

  They placed her in a sitting position on the wagon seat. Amelia let herself slump and one of the men held her to keep her from sliding down.

  “Where’s that bundle of clothes?” Willum asked. Then, “Here, help me put this dress on her.”

  Amelia kept her eyes closed for the moment, but if they were going to be changing her clothes, she might have to take her chances now after all.

  But they made no move to take off what she was wearing. They only slipped a coarse-woven gown over her own clothes. Deadweight, Amelia reminded herself, keeping her arms floppy and her body saggy. One good lady’s maid could have dealt with this a lot more handily than the three men, who struggled mightily.

  “Anybody looks, they’ll still recognize her,” Jud protested. “Should we cut off her hair?”

  “Prince Sheridan didn’t authorize no such thing, you twit,” Willum said. “Use this.”

  Someone tied some sort of kerchief around her head, evidently hiding her hair.

  “And the cap attached to the fringe of red hair is for me,” Willum said, “in case we run into anyone we saw on our way out.”

  “How we goin’ to ’splain a sleepin’ girl?” Jud complained.

  One of the men leaned forward and touched her face with gritty fingers. She might or might not have twitched. But fortunately, before she gave herself away entirely, Amelia recognized the smell of strawberry. Maybe mixed with currants. The man was dabbing a sticky berry paste on her cheeks and throat.

  Calm, Amelia told herself. Steady. Breaths. They were just trying to conceal her identity.

  She gave another sleepy snort as the chunky mixture slid and dripped, tickling and leaving itchy paths across her cheeks, down behind her ears and around onto the back of her neck, and into her hair. It would, she knew, eventually attract flies. And bees.

  Willum said, “Meet your sister, by name of Girly. She got some sort of pox, and we’re bringing her to her grandmam. We hope we make it in time.”

  Girly? What kind of name was that? The pox part was clever enough, but didn’t these men have any imagination at all?

  “There,” Willum said, evidently satisfied with his handiwork. “Now let’s get moving so’s we’re headed toward the castle.”

  What? Amelia thought. Why?

  Luckily, Jud had the same question. “Why’re we doin’ that, agin?”

  Willum sighed. “How am I ever supposed to get anything done when I got to work with lackwits?” Slowly and carefully he explained, “They’re likely to not even notice us as they’ll think whoever’s got the princess has got to be heading away. Boyce will be the one moving away—but he won’t have no princess with him.”

  Jud grunted.

  Meanwhile, Amelia wanted to cheer. They were going to be traveling back toward home? She couldn’t believe her luck. She didn’t need to escape and make her way back. All she had to do was keep on pretending to sleep, and her captors would return her.

  But then Willum said, “But that daubin’ on her face come close to wakin’ her, so you’re prob’ly right about dosin’ her agin.”

  And before she could even open her eyes, much less make a break for it, she was once again inhaling henbane.

  As her thoughts dissolved into a thousand fireflies that scattered into the night sky of her mind, she was aware of the man named Jud asking, “What if you give her too much and she dies?”

  Willum answered without hesitation—or maybe it was a month or two later. “Then we won’t return to Prince Sheridan.”

  Telmund sprinted down the road as fast as his drumsticks allowed. He did his chicken flap and flutter. He rooster-strutted. He stopped—only occasionally—to scratch at the dirt. What he did not do was turn back to see how far he’d come, because he suspected that would be disheartening. Although enough time had passed that by now it was late afternoon, he was afraid that he might still be able to see the spot from which he’d started not far off in the distance.

  Perhaps now might be the time to try and sleep. He was certainly tired of walking, and it wouldn’t take him long to drift off.

  He shook his head to clear it, setting his wattles flapping. What was that he was hearing? He couldn’t make out the sound. He wasn’t even sure it was a sound. Was it a feeling that he was getting through the soles of his feet? (Do roosters have soles of feet?) Or were his feet tingling from so much walking?

  But in another moment, he realized it was both a sound and a feeling.

  A cart was approaching, coming at him from the direction he was heading.

  Too bad. Had it been going the other way, he might have tried jumping on.

  It was a simple open cart, carrying barrels and pulled by one tired-looking gray horse. Three people sat on the seat, farmers or lowly tradesmen by their clothing. Two men—one with shockingly red hair—and a woman who sat in between with her head resting against the shoulder of one of them. She was apparently more tired than the horse, for as they approached, Telmund could see she was sleeping. Also drooling a little bit.

  Instinctively, Telmund had moved to the side of the road, but the man who held the reins saw him and pulled the horse to a stop.

  “Chicken,” he announced in a gravelly voice to Red-hair.

  “Yeah?” the other man answered.

  “Catch it, an we’ll have dinner.”

  Did everything always have to go from bad to worse?

  Telmund flutter-ran away from the road.

  From behind him, he heard Red say, “I’ve got Her Royal Highness resting on my shoulder. You catch the chicken.”

  Telmund put on a burst of speed, but it didn’t help: He could hear the footsteps of the man gaining. Telmund ran to the nearest tree, then tried to fly up to the lowest branch. He fell short, by quite a bit. Flung himself up into the air again. Still didn’t get high enough. He turned, hoping to find a tree with lower branches, and ran right into the waiting man’s hands.

  “Got ’im!” Gravel-voice called back to Red, holding Telmund so that he couldn’t flap his wings.

  Telmund pecked at the man’s hands, but despite crying “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” the man didn’t let go.

  “Should I wring its neck now?” Gravel-voice asked as he walked back to the cart, “or will it taste better iffen we wait to kill it till right afore we eat it?”

  The man still in the cart was making a face. “Neither,” he said. “There’s something wrong with that chicken.”

  “What?” his captor demanded, clearly not wanting to give up on his dinner.

  “Don’t know. But you want to eat something smells that bad?”

  The one who had hold of him sniffed. “I don’t know,” he said dubiously and maybe a little bit hungrily. “It’s not that bad.”

  Yes, it is! Telmund thought at the man. He gave a series of twitches to reinforce the thought of disease, but the man may well have taken these movements as more attempts to escape. I’m diseased! You’ll catch something! Put me down!

  Almost as though he’d read Telmund’s mind, Red echoed Telmund’s thought. “Put it down, you pudding head,” he said. “And get back in the cart. It’s not worth the risk of eating something sick. We got provisions.”

  “Dry and stale,” his captor sulked. But he must have been
persuaded because he asked, “Should I wring its neck so it don’t spread whatever it’s got?”

  No! Telmund mentally shrieked at him.

  “I don’t care.” The man removed his cap to wipe his sweaty brow, and his red hair came off with the cap. “Just get in the cart, Jud. We got miles to cover tonight, and we don’t want to keep Prince Sheridan waiting tomorrow.”

  Telmund managed to rake his taloned foot across the arm of the man named Jud, causing his grip to loosen enough that Telmund was able to wriggle free.

  Jud kicked, but Telmund fluttered out of his range.

  But not away entirely.

  Even though he feared for his life, his rooster ears had quivered at the sound of a familiar name.

  Prince Sheridan, he knew, was from a neighboring kingdom. Rittenhelm, maybe? Dittenheim? Something like that. Telmund’s family—those who interested themselves with affairs of state—didn’t like the man and considered him a political disaster waiting to happen. What could Prince Sheridan have to do with these men?

  … and with the sleeping woman on the seat between them?

  Red had called her “Her Royal Highness.” Telmund had taken that as sarcasm, the kind of thing someone might say about another who wasn’t working as hard as she should have been.

  But now he took a better look. The woman was wearing a dirty, ugly, patched dress of coarse weave. It was so very baggy that it couldn’t have been her own. She had some kind of cloth covering most of her hair, but what hung beneath the frayed edge was the right color for Princess Amelia. And, now that he was looking more closely, she wasn’t a woman after all. She was a girl. A girl Telmund had seen sleeping once before—in the back of the straw wagon. But what had happened to her? Her face was flushed with what had to be the nastiest fever ever, coupled with vile bumps and pustules that oozed and …

  No, wait … Telmund’s chicken senses weren’t very discerning, but that was fruit he was smelling. The princess had dried smears of—strawberry maybe?—on her face. A disguise?

  But that made no sense. Why would her captors have switched the wagon for a cart and headed back toward the castle at Pastonia?