Asteria - In Love with the Prince

by Korval, Tanya

  We only had ten minutes. But in TV news, ten minutes is a lifetime.

  The head of news, a lifelong monarchist, didn’t even hesitate when Jagor told him the plan. He showed us through to a studio with a huge Asterian coat of arms. “We use this for your father’s speeches,” he told us. “We can switch over from the palace feed whenever you tell us and you’ll be live on every screen in the kingdom. Vinko will know, of course, as soon as we switch: his people will no doubt be watching.”

  “Good,” said Jagor.

  The head of news coughed nervously. “Do you, ah…do you know what you’re going to say, Your Highness?”

  I looked at Jagor. Only a few weeks ago he’d been scared to lead, the playboy prince haunted by memories of his brother.

  “I’m going to speak to my people,” he said.

  ***

  At a few minutes to the hour, they miked us up and tested the sound. They offered us make-up, which we both refused. I did think of one thing, though, and asked for tape. Jagor’s jaw dropped as he saw me take out the collar he’d given me. I caught his eye. “I’m still your exkella,” I told him. I put it on, using tape to fix it where I’d cut it. Telessa had brought my engagement ring and safeword ring with her, and I slipped those on, as well. I wasn’t ready for how good they felt.

  While we waited, I examined the coat of arms. It must have been four feet across, and instead of being flat, painted wood it was a full-on three-dimensional work of art. The shield was an actual metal shield and the crossed swords were actual swords with – ouch – yes, sharp blades. It symbolized everything about the country: quaint, romantic and extravagant, all at the same time.

  At noon exactly, the head of news warned us that Vinko had started his broadcast. I gasped in horror as I saw the King and Queen, hands tied behind their backs, in the background. Vinko was in the foreground, gravely reading the charges against them: tales of Swiss bank accounts and his own attempted murder.

  When he’d finished his list and found them guilty, he ordered them to their knees. They both refused, so soldiers forced them down.

  “Enough,” said Jagor. His voice was low, but it carried. A red light showed on the camera in front of us, and suddenly I could see us both on screen. Jagor standing tall, looking somberly down the lens. Me standing behind him, trying to look serious and regal. If I pressed my legs together, it seemed to stop them shaking.

  “My people,” said Jagor. “You have been lied to.”

  And so it began.

  Jagor told them how Vinko had been turned against his own country by his kidnappers. He told them about Vinko’s deal with the French: how he’d conspired with another nation to poison the King, attempt to kill us at the opera house and stage a coup. And finally, he told them about what Vinko planned to do with the money from the mines: how him and his cronies would get rich, and the rest of the country would starve.

  The floor manager wrote something on a wipe-clean board and held it up behind the camera so we could see it. It said: “TV CREW AT PALACE SAY VINKO HAS LEFT.”

  There was only one place he could be heading. How long to get here in an army convoy, I wondered, not stopping for red lights. Five minutes? Less? We had to leave now, and hope the broadcast had done its job. But when Jagor glanced at the sign, he kept on speaking.

  He told the public what he’d told me: about how things could be better, given time. How poverty could be reduced by signing defense treaties and scaling back the military, so the money could be better spent. He apologized for things not moving faster, but promised they’d improve.

  There was noise from outside the studio. Running footsteps and shouting.

  Jagor asked the people to put their trust in him and appealed to the army to put down their guns. And then he nodded to the floor manager and they cut the feed just as the doors burst open.

  The soldiers swarmed in first: twenty or thirty of them. Alvek and his men raised their guns, but they were hopelessly outnumbered and Jagor waved for them to surrender. They grudgingly lowered their weapons.

  Vinko stormed in, his face a mask of rage. Yuri was close behind him. “Kill him!” Vinko yelled, pointing at Jagor. I grabbed Jagor’s arm and closed my eyes.

  Nothing happened. When I opened my eyes, the soldiers were aiming at Jagor…but they weren’t firing.

  “Put them down,” ordered Jagor, his voice very calm.

  “What’s the matter with you?” screamed Vinko. “Your generals answer to me! They have put you under my control. Kill him!”

  The guns wavered, the soldiers uncertain.

  “The royal family now control Asteria again,” Jagor told them. “No action will be taken against any soldier involved in the coup. Put. Them. Down.”

  “I am your commanding officer!” yelled Vinko.

  “I am your prince,” said Jagor softly.

  The soldiers slowly lowered their guns. But they didn’t point them at Vinko and Yuri. They were neutral, not friendly.

  “I’ll kill the bastard myself,” said Vinko in a low voice. He marched over to the coat of arms and pulled out one of the crossed swords, its blade gleaming. Jagor pushed me firmly aside, and suddenly I knew he’d been expecting this. That’s why he hadn’t left, when they’d warned us Vinko was on his way: he’d wanted this confrontation. He’d known we couldn’t win without it.

  Vinko ran at him, the sword slashing in an arc. Jagor leapt back, the blade inches from his throat. Alvek stepped forward but I put my arm out to stop him. “Don’t,” I told him. I knew Jagor needed to do this on his own.

  Vinko attacked again, the sword slicing through the air only a hand’s breadth from Jagor’s face. The soldiers moved back, forming a loose circle around the duel. As Vinko advanced again, Jagor backed off, waiting for an opening. But he had nowhere to hide, and it was only a matter of time….

  I knew we couldn’t interfere; but that didn’t mean I couldn’t even the odds. I ran to the coat of arms and pulled out the other sword: the damn thing was so heavy, I almost dropped it. A soldier stepped hesitantly in front of me, unsure if he should stop me.

  “Get out of my way,” I told him, in my best imitation of the Queen. He stepped aside.

  Jagor was backing away from Vinko again, skirting around the edge of the circle. I shouldered my way through the soldiers and pushed the sword into his hands. He was panting from the exertion, his eyes wild. He stood his ground, now, and their swords clashed and screeched. It was nothing like a sword fight in the movies. It wasn’t elegant and graceful, with careful parries and to-and-fro. It was brutal and quick, every clash of the heavy swords coming within inches of ending one of their lives. And I realized with a cold shock that it was Vinko who had the advantage: because while Jagor wouldn’t kill his brother, Vinko would have no hesitation in killing him.

  Even with a sword, Jagor was being pushed back and back, no match for Vinko’s unhinged rage. Twice he stumbled, Vinko’s sword ready to pin him there, and both times he barely escaped. It was all going to end here: Jagor, our life together, even Asteria itself, as it was now.

  And then it happened: Jagor scrambled back from a blow, stumbled and fell, crashing down on the hard studio floor. “No!” I screamed, as Vinko raised his sword.

  They both looked at me, then: the briefest flick of the eyes. Vinko’s glance was one of victory and lust: he’d forgotten about me, during the fight, and now he remembered what his spoils would be. His eyes seemed to reach inside my soul and touch something secret and precious: I shuddered, but it wasn’t enough to free me from that look. The meaning of it would haunt me for months afterwards: you’re mine.

  But from the floor, Jagor looked at me as well. He saw me standing there in his collar; one I’d put back on by myself, out of choice. He saw my fear, and he got mad.

  As Vinko’s sword slashed down, Jagor met it with his own, slamming it aside with a roar like a continent rent asunder. Vinko’s sword went clattering along the ground, sliding into a corner, and Jagor was on his feet, advanc
ing. He swung once, twice, pushing his brother back across the room, freed from his restraint. He meant to kill him.

  Vinko stumbled and went down, as Jagor had done, his eyes suddenly panicked and wide. Jagor lifted his sword…and then slowly lowered it to rest against his brother’s throat.

  There was a clatter from across the room that made me jump. Then another and another; then a sea of them, all at once. The soldiers’ guns, hitting the floor.

  ***

  Days later, they asked me to describe what happened outside the TV station. I lied and said things had moved too fast: that it was all a blur. The truth is, my memory is crystal clear.

  The SSV had arrived – there’d been the mother of all territory battles over who would take Vinko into custody, with the police not trusting the army and the army not trusting the police. Eventually Jagor pulled rank and brought in the SSV, even though no-one really trusted them.

  They brought Vinko out first, and everyone was focused on getting him into the car. Yuri was some distance behind, waiting with two SSV agents. Jagor and I were standing right at the back, so we probably had the best view of anyone.

  A figure pushed past us, a hood drawn up over their face. They were on Yuri almost immediately, pressed up tight against his back as if embracing him. The two SSV agents were facing front, and Yuri didn’t make any noise at first: he just sort of caught his breath and jerked. It wasn’t until I saw the flash of the knife that I realized he’d been stabbed.

  Yuri staggered, the figure moving with him, and it was at that point the SSV agents turned around and saw what was going on. At the same time, the figure’s hood fell back, and I realized it was Telessa.

  “Stay back!” I yelled. I told the investigators that I was worried the crazed knifeman – I said it was a man I saw - would hurt someone else.

  I’d promised her, back in the hotel room.

  The knife plunged and twisted, pulled out and plunged in again. Then the figure was off and running and Yuri was falling to the ground. He was dead before the ambulance arrived.

  The chief investigator poured particular scorn on the idea that, in broad daylight, surrounded by twenty or thirty assorted police, soldiers and SSV personnel, a criminal could be murdered and no-one see a damn thing. But SSV had lost its deputy chief and Telessa was one of their own: they just closed ranks, kept silent and let the case quietly die.

  Epilogue

  A lot can happen in six months.

  I was standing in the bedroom of what would normally be a horrendously expensive hotel. They’d happily let us take over the entire place for free for a few days: they figured that afterwards, their link to the big day would keep them booked up for years to come.

  Doracella adjusted the tiara. It had been designed by the royal jeweler to perfectly accompany both my exkella collar and the princess collar that would replace it. It was worth the same as a high-end sports car: the princess collar itself was supposedly worth ten times that. The royals had been on a very public austerity drive since the coup, but for a royal wedding, all bets were off.

  “I’m going to fluff my lines,” I told Doracella. “Or burst into tears. Or fluff my lines and then burst into tears.”

  She just glanced at me in the mirror and smiled. She did that a lot, these days. A slave seeing a bodyguard broke about five thousand rules, but I’d persuaded Jagor to give her and Arno a free pass.

  “What’s the order of the bows again?” I asked. Even though a royal wedding only happened three or four times a century, everyone in Asteria – or at least, all of the women – seemed to know this stuff off by heart.

  “First to the Queen, then to the King, then to Jagor. Mother, father, husband.”

  After briefly thawing under the stress of the coup, the Queen had returned to her usual disapproving self – which was actually kind of a relief, because it proved everything was back to normal. In the six months since the coup I’d become the perfect Asterian woman: but always had another few miles to go, in her eyes. At least the wedding had provided some respite, although I estimated I had only a few days of post-wedding glow before she started prodding about grandchildren.

  The King had quietly indicated that he intended to step down in another six months or so. Long enough for it not to be seen as a reaction to the coup, but soon enough that it acknowledged the need for change.

  And Jagor? I hadn’t seen him since the previous day, in keeping with tradition. He’d used the enforced separation wisely, doing something he knew I didn’t want to be around for.

  Doracella adjusted the tiara for the seventh time, then gently flipped the veil over my face as a test. It was weird, like being a present waiting to be unwrapped.

  “Perfect,” said Doracella.

  Gwen burst in, said “Ohmigod’ too many times and took a few hundred cell phone photos. I’d tried to explain to her about official royal photographers and exclusive magazine agreements and so on, and she’d just looked at me blankly. And then taken my picture.

  Gwen had been here a week. Having her and Louis around the palace had helped to push back the wedding nerves: until now. I’d been delighted to discover, shortly after the coup, that she’d patched things up with him. When I pressed her on it, she’d shrugged and said, “You two put things into perspective.” I was pretty sure she meant it in a good way. She’d had to be introduced to collars, and the need to wear one whenever she left the palace. Louis – who, it turned out, had been hiding a bit of a dominant streak – was very keen on the idea. Gwen was less sure, but I noticed that after the first few days, the collar didn’t come off, even when the two of them were safely indoors. Louis had even, while blushing quite endearingly, asked how they might get into Hendel’s sex club.

  I caught Gwen’s eye in the mirror. “You sure you’re okay with the plan?” I asked gently.

  She gave me a salute. “We’ll take good care of her,” she told me sincerely. She’d agreed to take Telessa back with her to New York. Sarik hadn’t been able to leave her anything in his will: he couldn’t, since slaves can’t own anything. But he’d cleverly sidestepped the rules by ordering a company to be set up after his death and ownership of Telessa to pass to it. The company would pay her a monthly wage and leave her free to do what she wished: essentially her job was to manage Sarik’s assets. She could have lived out her life in Asteria, essentially owner-less and free, but since the coup had decided there was nothing here for her.

  Given that Asteria didn’t have any kind of treaty with the US, the paperwork involved in her emigrating had been…interesting. But Sato at the State Department had made it happen, in return for a few meetings with Jagor to discuss the future. Telessa had no idea what she’d do in New York, but I trusted Gwen to look after her. Actually, I wasn’t sure which one was going to be looking after which.

  Doracella adjusted the veil one last time and pronounced me done. I waited while they gathered up the train of my dress: armfuls of snow-white fabric. The thing was twenty feet when stretched out: good thing we were marrying in a cathedral, or part of me would still be outside during the vows.

  The palace had returned to its usual state: grandeur and a reassuring quiet, the thump of boots and crashing of bottles a distant memory. The gardens, which we’d be using later for photos, were immaculate again and new vases had been bought – or in some cases, donated by governments eager to curry favor – to replace the ones Vinko and his men had smashed. I’d spent a long day with Jagor posing for a portrait of the two of us, and a few of Europe’s better art forgers had been put to work restoring or copying the pictures Vinko had slashed.

  We climbed into a black limo: Arno was driving, which had been a deliberate choice: it meant that he didn’t have guard duties during the ceremony, so he could be by Doracella’s side. Jagor had rolled his eyes at this, and I’d told him that men don’t understand weddings.

  Speeding through the city, every street seemed to be hung with white and royal purple bunting. Closer to the cathedral, the roads were c
losed to traffic and the full width of the asphalt was painted purple to mark the route. I put my hand to my mouth as I saw the crowds, thirty deep on both sides and stretching for a mile or more. “Wave,” Doracella told me, and I started the slow, supposedly ladylike wave she’d taught me.

  I was, of course, the last to arrive. The bride always has to make an entrance, even when it’s world leaders she’s keeping waiting. Arno opened the door and Gwen hopped out. I grabbed her hand. “Am I crazy?” I suddenly demanded.

  She gave me a cat-like grin. “Yes,” she told me. “And you’re about to be a crazy slave princess and probably have lots of crazy, spoilt royal children, and you’ll love every minute of it.”

  I stepped from the car. A wall of sound almost lifted me off my feet, breaking against me in waves and, just when I thought it couldn’t get any louder, it rose again. I gave one last wave and started walking toward the cathedral, its main doors gaping wide to receive me, a tongue of purple carpet stretched out to the limo. Doracella and Gwen fell in beside me. Behind us, the train flowed down the cathedral steps in a white waterfall.

  We’d rehearsed it, of course, but I wasn’t ready for the scale of the place: filling it with people had somehow made it feel bigger, not smaller.

  And then I saw him standing at the front, and I thought my heart was going to burst. I had to look at the guests, or the tears would have started.

  I recognized most of the foreign dignitaries – but only because Medenko had carefully coached me. Then there were the rows of Asterian upper society: lords and ladies.

  One lord in particular. I smiled to him as I passed. Ismelda had carefully told the press the story of Alvek’s heroism during the coup: how he’d fearlessly rescued the prince and been shot while doing it. Jagor and the King had flexed some of their more rarely-used royal powers and granted him a title, complete with land and a mansion. The land had come from one of several army chiefs who’d been arrested after the coup: they wouldn’t be needing it, now that they’d be living out their lives in the palladium mines.