The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  He turned away, saw the heavy chair by the dresser, still overturned. He walked to it, set it right without saying a word. But when he looked back to Panna, he seemed more troubled yet. He sat in the chair, leaned forward. “I don’t like it, either. I want this to end.”

  “Then end it.”

  “You haven’t slept well. Neither have I.”

  “Then do the right thing. Let my father go. Let me go.”

  “Panna, I have news.”

  She waited, heart pounding.

  “Three ships sailed. Only one has returned.”

  Hope and fear warred within her.

  “It is the Marchessa.”

  Her face fell, then went pale. “And Packer?”

  “Nothing known for sure. But the Trophy Chase was last seen on a fading horizon, surrounded by more than fifty enemy warships. Perhaps as many as a hundred. I’m sorry, Panna.”

  She shook her head. “No. He’s still alive.”

  He was surprised by her adamant tone.

  So was she. But she suddenly felt sure to her bones that he lived.

  “It’s good to hope,” he said.

  “I am not a widow!”

  He nodded, studying her. “No, of course not. But even the Trophy Chase cannot stop all those Drammune warships. They are coming. They will arrive here within days.”

  Now Panna realized how much she had been preoccupied with herself, and with her father, and how little she had thought about the war. But it was now upon them. The City of Mann would be attacked. That would change everything. Everything.

  “The Chase’s mission has failed,” the prince continued. “We have nothing to stop the Drammune Armada but our aging Army and our ragtag new recruits. The secret of the Fleet will be out soon enough. So, considering the circumstances, I am prepared to free your father, and to free you.”

  She did not let her heart believe it. “When?”

  “In the morning. I just need one thing from you first. One small thing.”

  She watched him, fearing what might be coming next.

  But he said, “I want to dine with you one more time. I want to do it right this time. I want to be a gentleman. I want you to remember me that way.”

  Panna’s insides went cold.

  “You look like I just sentenced you to death.”

  “The answer is no.”

  He was dumbfounded. “Is dining with me such a bad alternative? Is it so horrible?”

  “You’re still bargaining with my father’s life.”

  “But it’s an easy bargain. How can you refuse?”

  She wasn’t sure she could explain it. Finally she asked, “I dine with you tonight, or else what? Or what, Mather?”

  He narrowed his eyes. Anger grew within him. “Panna, you still don’t understand power. I will come here tonight, and we will eat together, out on the balcony. My servants will cater it all.” His eyes were cold. “Just so long as you treat me well, you and your father may leave in the morning. I want to know what it feels like to be…cared for. Loved. By you. And that is what will happen. Is anything about that unclear to you?”

  She seethed.

  “I apologize for the method, but really, it’s the choice you left me.”

  She started to speak. He held up a finger. “Make me believe you are happy to have dinner with me. Enjoy my company, just once. And then all will be well.”

  She stared at him for a moment. “There is one other way.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Let my father go. Let me go. Then ask me to dinner.”

  “And if I do, will you dine with me?”

  “You can only know that when I have the freedom to choose.”

  He pondered it. Then he shook his head. “You want me to be powerless. But I am not, and while I have power, I will use it.” He stood and walked to the door of her room. He leaned on the doorpost. “It’s over, Panna, don’t you see that? Everything’s over. Packer’s gone. The end of the kingdom is at hand. Life under the Drammune will either be short, or so brutal we’ll wish it was. I have one desire left, one bit of comfort I’d like to take, and while I still have the power, I will make that one thing happen.”

  Her insides felt like ice. “I want to see my father.”

  He squinted at her. “Why?”

  “How do I know he’s still alive?”

  “Panna, I am not a monster.”

  “You are. And a bully. I want to see him.”

  “And then you will dine with me?”

  “You truly don’t know your own heart.” She spoke the words with utter certainty. “You will attack me again.”

  “No. I won’t.”

  She lowered her eyes. “I wish that were true.”

  “I won’t touch you. I promise you that.” But she had planted a doubt in his mind.

  She looked at him again. “I want to see my father.”

  “Do you promise you will dine with me here tonight?”

  She paused. She said the word with her eyes closed. “Yes.”

  He smiled. “Good. Go see your father. And then get dressed. It will be a formal dinner, nine o’clock sharp. I’ll send servants to prepare the table.”

  He left. She heard him whistling as he went.

  The big dragoon hung back as Panna ran to the last cell on the right. She found him exactly where she had found him before, face down in the straw. The straw, however, was no longer fresh. The smell of urine and feces was strong. When he sat up this time, his face was haggard and pale, his eyes sunken. His hair was matted, and his beard was speckled with dirt and straw, his lips cracked and dry. But his smile was the same. “Panna!” He coughed, a rough and haggard sound, and he rose with difficulty, and when he hugged her through the bars, she felt more steel than she had just a few days ago.

  He tried to straighten her hair. His hands shook. “Panna, you’ve been crying. Are you all right?”

  She shook her head.

  “Tell me what he’s done.” His mouth was dry and his words had a croaking tone, but this was a father’s command, not to be questioned—but spoken in a tone as tender as she ever remembered him using.

  “He…he ordered you to be starved because of me.”

  Will nodded. He had guessed as much. “Tell me everything.”

  Now her tears came in a torrent. He was her father asking for the truth, but he was also her priest, asking for a confession. And she gave it. She hadn’t planned to, but it all came out. She told him everything that had happened since she had seen him last, how the prince tried to blackmail her into silence, how she’d believed she had somehow led him on, how he had come to her just now and she had agreed to dine with him again, alone. And she told him that the prince had said that Packer was dead.

  She wiped at her tears. “And now it’s all led to this. Look at you…”

  His heart felt like shattered glass in his chest. “Panna. Don’t give up hope for Packer.”

  “I wanted to sail with him, to go with him. That’s all. That’s why I went to see the prince, to ask him, to beg him. Now I have to spend the evening with him again. I don’t know what he’ll do.”

  “Panna,” he said, “listen to me. Are you listening?”

  She nodded up at him.

  “This is simple. Do not dine with him.”

  She shook her head. “I already said I would.”

  “He is a dangerous man. Do not do it. God will find a way. Trust Him.”

  But she went hard inside instead. “I could kill him. He wants to dine on the balcony. I think I can push him over. Or if I just had a weapon…” She looked around the prison as though one might appear.

  He shook his head. “No. No, Panna. There is another way. There is a third choice. There is always a third choice. And it’s always the same choice, to trust God.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. That seemed to her like no choice at all. That seemed to her like doing nothing but pacing and hoping and fearing, all the things she’d already been doing for three days
.

  “But Daddy, you’re sick!”

  “You can’t worry about me. Once you give in to blackmail, there’s no end to it. Not until you stand up to it.”

  “You’re hungry and thirsty—”

  “Yes, and tired and flea-bitten and filthy.” He seemed to think all this was humorous. “But I love you, more than anything in this world. And I know you love me. You want to make a sacrifice for my sake, but little girl, hear me now. It’s not you who is being called to make a sacrifice. This is not your sacrifice to make. It’s mine. You need to protect your honor, and love your husband, and your God. Do what’s right. The rest is up to Him.”

  She closed her eyes, shook her head, and when she looked at him again, fears from far back in her past, deep in her heart, flickered in her eyes. “But you can’t die!” she pleaded.

  “There are worse things.” He knew she wouldn’t see it that way. She still carried wounds from the loss of her mother all those years ago. He remembered Panna’s eyes, then her questions, over and over it seemed, asking about when Momma was coming back home. That’s what drove her to chase Packer so recklessly last summer. She was afraid that God would always take those she loved. He sighed. “Who knows what God may do? He opens prison doors, closes lions’ mouths, rescues His people from the bellies of whales. All we need to do is trust Him. And do the right thing.”

  She looked away. God did all that, yes. But a long time ago, and for people she didn’t know. God had spared Packer. Once. But then God had taken him away again, and now the prince said he was dead. God let people die. And now her father was dying.

  “If it does come to that,” Will continued, “then that’s His business. I would be honored to make that sacrifice. For you. For Packer. Do you understand me?”

  She wouldn’t look at him. He was trying to build up her resolve, but it was crumbling instead.

  He sighed. “Panna. Your mother is waiting for me.”

  Now she looked up at him. She saw his pain and sadness deep inside him, and she remembered. When she was young, and her parents were all the world to her, she remembered that same hurt as he told her, so long ago but so present, that her mother had gone to heaven and would never return.

  He took her head gently between his hands. “I haven’t seen my Tamma in so many, many years. And I miss her. You do the right thing, Panna. You do the good thing. God will take care of the rest. It will all work out.”

  Her thoughts were her own, deep inside her. She looked at him from far away.

  He smiled. “This a trial, that’s all it is.” He said it as though it were the most obvious, most welcome thing in the world. “God is testing us. He wants us to make the right choice. He wants us to pass this test.” Will Seline again wiped tears away from the cheek of his only child. “To be faithful until the end, that was His command. Yes?”

  “Yes. But Daddy. Do not die.”

  Behind her tears he now saw the familiar fires crackling within her. His Panna. “I am so proud of you,” he said gently. And he embraced her one last time.

  The dragoon walked up to them. “Ready to go, Mrs. Throme?” he asked in his high-pitched voice. Panna turned to look up at him, and blanched. Were those tears in his eyes too?

  “How are you, Chunk?” Will Seline asked. “I didn’t recognize you there!”

  “ ’Lo, Pastor.” His chin definitely quivered, and he wiped an eye. He had heard the whole exchange. “I’m sorry about all this.”

  “You just take care of my little girl, and all will be well.”

  “I’ll try, sir. I sure will try.”

  Panna turned to her father, her questioning look bordering on shock.

  “Panna, this is Stave Deroy. His friends call him Chunk.”

  “His friends…” She couldn’t finish the question. She had gotten to know several of the servants, but it never once occurred to her that she might introduce herself to the hulking dragoons who imposed the prince’s will. And yet all this time, this one knew her father. He was a real person with a name. And, apparently, a heart. “Well hello, Chunk,” she smiled. “I’m very, very pleased to meet you.” And she shook his hand. It was wet. To Panna, it felt like hope. There might be another way. There might be a third choice.

  “Ma’am.” He wiped his eyes again. “And now we best get goin’.”

  As Panna and Chunk walked away, the two prison guards looked at one another and shook their heads. They hadn’t overheard the conversations, but whatever was going on here, it couldn’t lead to anything good.

  The prince had a spring in his step as he bounced up the stairs, then down the hallway toward Panna’s rooms. He carried a bouquet of fresh daisies in his hand, and had a boyish smile on his face. He wore his best dress uniform, the one he’d worn to send off the Trophy Chase. He was followed by an armed dragoon, who carried a pike.

  When he reached Panna’s door, Chunk saluted. The young guard tried not to look like he had something to hide.

  “Listen, men,” the prince said, leaning in to speak to both of them quietly. They could smell the cologne, the hair oil, the mouth freshener; he had overdone all three. They could also see the patchy makeup that mostly covered the bruising around his nose. “If I call out to you, come in immediately. That young woman can be dangerous.”

  “Yes, sir,” they both replied dutifully. Chunk’s jaw went tight.

  The prince looked the two over carefully. “There’ll be a steward up in a minute, and then several courses brought by the dinner crew. Each is to knock. No one is to come in or out unless I say. Do you understand?” They nodded. “No one in or out without my orders.” He looked into their eyes until he was sure they understood him. The prince straightened his hair, the cords of his jacket, the epaulets, then checked the bouquet in his hand. He fished the key from his pocket, and unlocked the door. He smiled broadly, and pushed it open.

  The lamps burned brightly, and to his amazement, Panna stood waiting for him.

  Amazement melted into adoration as he absorbed the vision before him. She was dressed not in her own finery, but in one of the dresses he had sent to her; and in not just any one of them, but his favorite. It was a cream-colored, sequined ball gown cut just off the shoulder. She had put her hair up, wrapped and pinned it, revealing a graceful, perfect neck that flowed down to angular shoulders. The light-colored gown contrasted with her dark eyes and hair, and brought out the color in her cheeks. She held a bottle of wine in her hands, the rare bottle Prince Mather had personally selected and sent up to share with her. She held it delicately, as though thankful, appreciating its worth. But more amazingly, she beamed confidence and warmth.

  She was, in a word, dazzling.

  Whatever had happened, however she had done it, she was now transformed. Gone was any hint of the sleepless, tormented girl he had left here earlier in the day. More incredibly, she looked at him not as a monster, not as an object of hatred, but as though she were truly happy to see him. She had hope in her, light and life. This was not feigned…how could it be? And yet how could it not be? He didn’t know, but he was not in the mood or the mind to question it. He had arranged everything so it would work exactly this way. And it was working. Perfectly.

  “Panna,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. “You are an angel.”

  She lowered her eyes shyly.

  He stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him. He leaned back against it for support. He reached back and, without taking his eyes off her, fumbled the key into the lock and turned it. Then he took a deep breath.

  As he looked at her, he knew, absolutely, that he could never give her up. Not now. Not after he’d seen this, felt this. He didn’t care what he’d said, what he’d promised. He didn’t care if Packer were alive or dead. Now that she showed him herself in her glory, with this obvious affection pouring from her, now that he knew what it felt like, he could never let her go.

  And then she walked toward him, slowly and purposefully.

  He was utterly, totally
smitten. She would be queen! She was destined for that. Hang the Drammune; he would find a way to make it happen. And so he told her.

  “You will be my queen,” he said simply.

  She stopped an arm’s length away. Her head cocked just slightly, as though she hadn’t quite heard him.

  His chin quivered. He held the flowers up, giving them to her. As he did, he felt his stuffed head open. He took a sharp breath in through his nose. He smelled the flowers. Finally, for the first time since she had hit him, he could breathe! He could smell. And those daisies…they were ridiculously fragrant. Intoxicatingly sweet, unbelievably wholesome. He brought the flowers up, buried his face in them, and breathed them in. They were life, and comfort, and wonder. A bright light flashed, the world went white, then all went black.

  Panna looked at the prince, crumpled at her feet, and then at the bottle she still held in her hands. She was thankful it had not broken. She was equally thankful he had finally sent a weapon up to her rooms.

  CHAPTER 16

  Escape

  He had called her an angel in that adoring, worshipful voice, and that’s when Panna’s eyes were opened. She suddenly realized that not only did Mather not know himself, he didn’t know her, either. He had no idea who Panna was. He wasn’t looking at her. He had never looked at her, never seen her. He saw in her a light, but it was not her light. It came from beyond her, or perhaps from within him.

  She felt for him at that moment, but it was far more pity than it was affection. He was a small puppy with very sharp teeth, miserable and alone, with no one who cared for him, no one who cared enough to teach him to behave. He was, in fact, looking for help. He needed, he wanted to be overwhelmed by something greater, stronger, better, purer, and more powerful than himself. He was looking for something above and beyond, and in his own dark world, Panna had become that something. But he did have sharp teeth, and he did need to learn to behave.

  His queen. It would have been laughable if not for all the things such a statement revealed about him, and assumed about her, and implied about Packer. Prince Mather had sealed his own fate with that promise. He was completely untrustworthy, and she could not take a chance on the sort of thing he was capable of attempting, here in her rooms with doors locked. She needed to protect her honor, and love her husband, as her father had instructed. For once she intended to follow his advice. She fully intended to escape tonight, so she had put this dress on, put her hair up as a disguise, knowing she would not be recognized on the palace ground in this unfamiliar finery, at least not immediately, at least not from a distance. She had also suspected, perhaps even hoped, that this outfit would lower Mather’s guard and provide her an opening for her escape. He’d reacted a bit more emotionally than she had expected, but even that had turned out to the good.