Autumn Rose

by Abigail Gibbs

  I fought the urge to freeze, yet I could not stop myself from glancing back at him. He was not facing in our direction, but typing something on the computer in the opposite corner. I turned back, carrying on along the short corridor until I reached the door to the staircase.

  He is a wise man, but this time he cannot understand.

  “Duchess!”

  I concealed a sigh, pushing through the door. It swung shut after I had passed through but quickly opened again.

  No, I am quite positive it will be far worse than what I imagine it to be.

  “Lady Autumn?”

  I knew I could not ignore him for long, so I turned, taking my time so that I could compose my expression into something resembling polite interest.

  “Your Highness?”

  He adjusted his bag on his shoulder and shook his head, seeming puzzled. “On your timetable, there is no mention of your title and Lady is not placed in front of your given name. They didn’t even have the courtesy to use House in reference to your surname. Is this a mistake you intend to have corrected?”

  Throughout his short rant—and a rant it was, judging by the irritated tone he used—I stared at a stain in the faded brown carpet, worn by the hundreds of feet that passed over it during the working week.

  “It’s not a mistake, Your Highness.” I brought my eyes up to meet his, holding his gaze for as long as I could stand to, so my meaning was clear.

  “Not . . . a mistake?” He turned the words over on his tongue as though they belonged to a foreign language.

  “No. I prefer not to use my title and I would be very much obliged to you if you would respect that wish.”

  I continued down the staircase, hearing him mutter “Obliged?” to my retreating back. As I reached the landing halfway down, he suddenly sprang forward, leaning over the banister.

  “For Pete’s sake, do you mean to say that none of the humans here know who you are? How can they not know?”

  I tugged the strap of my bag higher on my shoulder, picking my words with care. “I’ve never appeared in any of the gossip magazines, or anything these people would read. So they know me as Autumn, Your Highness. Just Autumn.” I bobbed into a quick curtsy and fled, marching straight past the others outside, knowing that there would be plenty of willing girls prepared to act as a mentor in my absence.

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  CHAPTER FOUR

  Autumn

  The atmosphere in the textiles room was electric. Kable was a small, rural school and news could spread in a break time, meaning that the topic of conversation was focused solely on the prince; and if anybody had not known about his arrival before, they knew within sixty seconds of stepping through the door. The two girls sitting at the table nearest the entrance almost pounced upon any newcomer, pleading for more information which I was waiting for someone to realize I possessed. It helped that I sat on the table farthest from the door and board, meaning nobody took much notice of me. I hid behind my thick hair, hunched over my sketchbook while I outlined a design for a dress for the upcoming semester of work.

  “Autumn, you’ll know the answer to this.” Christy swung around in her chair, pushing the pile of fabric she had picked from the resource cupboard aside so she could lean closer. “He spent three years studying in Australia, didn’t he? He must have, with a tan like that.”

  My pencil pressed so hard against the page that the lead snapped. I brushed it aside, mustering an offhand tone. “Who?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “You know who.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “And he had a girlfriend there, right? But they split up.”

  My chair scraped back as I snatched my pencil and sharpener and headed toward the bin. “Christy, I suggest you read Quaintrelle or some other gossip magazine if you wish for the prince’s life story.”

  “Man, don’t get your knickers in a twist, I was only asking.”

  “But you know him better than the magazines, don’t you?” Tammy asked, and I was surprised at her perceptiveness—I didn’t think any familiarity had shown.

  “We played together as children when I visited court. But I have not been to Athenea since I was twelve, so I do not pretend to know him.”

  The lead of the pencil snapped once more, this time following a violent twist of the sharpener.

  “So do we have to, like, curtsy to him?” Gwen asked, and judging from the quiet that had descended, most of the class was listening.

  “You can if you like, but it is not obligatory.”

  “Okay then, if I married him, how rich would I be?”

  I couldn’t help but crack a smile at Gwen’s question, lighthearted as always. “Extraordinarily rich.”

  “Well, Gwen,” Mrs. Lloyd said, appearing at the door, carrying a tall mug of tea topped with a lid. “If you work a little harder this semester than you did in the last, you’ll be able to make your own wedding dress.”

  “I was thinking Kate Middleton-esque. But in black,” Gwen mused, holding up the square swatch of lace she had brought along.

  “You can’t have black for a wedding!” Christy protested and they started to bicker.

  “Girls,” Mrs. Lloyd began, neglecting to address the three boys in the class, as usual. “There shan’t be any time to make anything as extravagant as a wedding dress, considering the powers that be have only granted us one lesson a week. Therefore, I expect each and every one of you to attend after-school sessions on a Thursday. If you don’t attend at least two per month, you will be struck from the register.”

  A roar of disapproval erupted, all thoughts of the prince forgotten, if only temporarily.

  “Hush girls, if you dislike it, take it up with those who created the new timetable. Autumn, what are you doing?” she exclaimed, noticing me for the first time. I lifted my pencil to explain, but she was already barking her orders for me to sit down.

  I trudged back to my seat, flopping down into my chair with little grace. As I returned to my sketch, I distinctly heard Gwen giggling to herself on the opposite side of the wooden bench. “The prince has an after-school lesson on a Thursday, too. I saw it on his timetable.”

  I succeeded in avoiding him for the rest of the day. I did not regard it as an achievement, however; to even get close to him one would have to fight through a horde of girls and even the odd teacher.

  Third period brought English, and with it, the arched, disapproving eyebrows of Mr. Sylaeia as I handed him my summer coursework. He made no comment, but placed it on the pile with the two or three others that had been completed.

  Lunch presented the most problems. We sat in our usual spot on the field, splayed out on the steep banks that enclosed the track, my stomach growling because the cafeteria was devoid of anything vegan—again. The others eagerly watched the soccer team practice dribbles and tackles as talk turned to the prince; after ten minutes, there was a commotion beside the tennis courts from the direction of the main school buildings. I didn’t hang around to find out what was causing it.

  As I neared one of the gaps in the fence that led back toward the school hall, I heard someone—a boy—call my title. A few seconds later, louder, closer came the call of my name and the gentle probing of another conscious against my barriers.

  The part of me that longed for this all to be a bad dream told me to hold my tongue, whereas my rational side demanded I answer—he was a prince, after all. My prince.

  I turned my back to the fence. “Your Highness.” I lowered into a quick curtsy, aware of how his entourage, my friends, and the soccer team were all watching.

  “You dropped this.” He held in his hand a strip of silk material that was usually tied around the handle of my bag.

  I blushed. I ignored him and this is all he wanted?

  “Thank you. I’m much obliged.”

  I took the tail of the material, but he
would not let go. I tugged, yet he held fast.

  “You’re much obliged for everything, aren’t you?”

  I did not miss the meaning in his words. My breath caught. If he were to tell the students, it would spell the end of any of the normality I maintained here in this micro-bubble, so far removed from the whirling social scene where I was Duchess, not Autumn. My eyes became wide—he wouldn’t, would he?—and I yanked on the scarf.

  He laughed. “Sure you do not wish me to keep it? As a token?”

  Like a length of string twisted into a knot I felt my patience shorten. If he refuses to let go, I will leave it.

  A snort of contempt sounded from the sidelines of the pitch, where Valerie Danvers had stopped playing to massage her elbow. “Don’t bother with her, Fallon; she’s not worth your time. She never says a word.”

  The material drifted away from the prince’s hand. Seizing the opportunity, I wrapped it back around my bag and squeezed through the gap, leaving the field behind as fast as I could. When I stole a single glance back, he had gone.

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  CHAPTER FIVE

  Autumn

  Brixham was quiet when I returned home. It was too late for the tourists and the fleeing of schoolchildren, and the driveways and streets were still empty of parked cars. Only across the road from my own house was there movement, where a father talked in undertones to his son about the night shift down at the fish market. Beyond the whitewashed picket fence of our garden, however, all was still. As the front door slammed shut behind me, I could still hear the jangling of the keys in the lock racing along the vacant hallways, breaking through the silence of a house that was used to its own company.

  Grandmother, why do Mother and Father live so far from London when that is where they work?

  Because your father does not enjoy London society, child.

  He doesn’t enjoy it? But how can he not enjoy it?

  My sword followed me upstairs, my thoughts ever lingering on the arrival of the prince. Why? was the imperative question. There was always a why with the Athenea, and I had no reason to doubt that this occasion was any different. As I stowed my sword beneath my bed, those thoughts wandered farther, back to the whispers in London. The Extermino gather . . .

  My hand was still clasped around the buckle of my scabbard and I yanked the sword back out, replacing it between my bedside cabinet and the bedpost; it was a small comfort in an empty house.

  In the fridge several containers were set out, my name scribbled on Post-it notes stuck to the lids. Peering into one I found a tomato-looking sauce and behind that, egg-free fresh pasta. From the colorful, fruit-adorned cardboard crate on the top shelf I pulled a few mushrooms and an onion. Reaching up to the hooks lining the wall, I lifted a heavy-bottomed copper pan down.

  Here were the signs that I had not a surname but a House of; that I was Al-Summers and not Summers, and that we were not a family of little means. The Mauviel pan I was filling with water cost well over three hundred pounds; our entire collection of cookware—extensive, due to my father’s love of cooking—was the same brand. Every day, a new box of fruit and vegetables was delivered to our door from the local organic farm; the countertops were brand-new, replacing the old ones which were barely a year old.

  We were not a bustling London household of thirty that entertained, or the peers swamping the Athenean court on Vancouver Island, but that was only through Father’s choice.

  And what a choice to make.

  The pasta did not take long to cook, and even less time to eat while I thumbed through that day’s edition of The Times. It told little, as did its Sagean sister, Arn Etas. Even Quaintrelle was silent. I was surprised. I had expected the prince’s move to be mentioned, especially in the latter, which had covered in extensive, agonizing detail the prince’s breakup with his Australian girlfriend the June before.

  I placed my plate into the dishwasher, having learned to use it exactly a year before, when my parents had first gone away on business. I smiled to the empty room. If the prince thought it was a disgrace that my title was not used, then what would he think of this? A lady Sage—worse, a duchess—cooking and cleaning and, as she stripped out of her uniform, dressing herself. Not exactly royal behavior.

  No . . . I should be at a top school, studying politics and law and preparing for my first council appearance, which was supposed to be on my sixteenth birthday, this November . . .

  I wasn’t going. It wasn’t mandatory, and in my absence the Athenea sat in my empty seat and made decisions for me. It was mutually beneficial: they had more power and I could stay away from court. Nobody was exactly going to protest the situation.

  On my desk, I warmed my laptop up, placing a strong cup of tea beside it. It filled the room with the scent of jasmine, steaming up one corner of the laptop screen. I folded my skirt and blouse and placed them on the floral-patterned cushions on the chest at the foot of my double bed. Opening the mahogany wardrobe in the corner, the only item of furniture I had convinced my parents to let me bring from the lodge at St. Sapphire’s, I felt my hands run themselves down the material hung inside. There were dresses, flowery, and black trousers for work. Beside my school jumper, reserved for the winter, were pleated skirts of every color—and stowed at one end, wrapped in gray polythene, were ball gowns, too small now, and corsets, lightly boned but still so tight they restricted breathing; eating was out of the question.

  In one of those bags, I knew, there hung a pale yellow court dress, with white elbow-length gloves and a pair of satin shoes, laced with white ribbons. It was the dress I had worn to court when I was twelve. It had not been my first visit; it had not been the first time I had met the Athenea—my grandmother had been close to them—but it was the first time I had truly talked to the Athenean children; it was the first time I realized who I was and what I would become. When all the other little girls stared at me with jealous eyes and the adults treated my grandmother and me with reverence, I realized what it meant to be a member of the House of Al-Summers: to be second only to the Athenea themselves; as near to royalty as one could get.

  Does he remember those weeks the duchess and her granddaughter spent at his home?

  In another bag, tucked behind the others, was a black dress. Mourning dress. He will remember that day.

  I pushed that thought away and pulled down a loose shift, slipped it on, and curled up on the seat in front of my laptop, proceeding to write a long rant of an e-mail to Jo, an old Sagean friend, so very far away when I needed her most.

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  CHAPTER SIX

  Autumn

  The next morning brought the prospect of first-period English literature with the prince. As though I had swallowed a cherry pit whole, I felt a knot of dread work its way down my throat into my stomach as I counted up the members of his already-established entourage in the class. They made up more than half the group. The knot grew.

  My routine had been much the same as the day before; except today, there was no fussing mother. The top button of my blouse remained undone, my skirt folded twice at the waistband, makeup lining my eyes. I’d had no choice but to fly to school that morning: no one was there to drop me off at the ferry and I was running too late for the bus.

  For the second day of the term, the school was very much alive. The buses had arrived and it looked as if every member of the student population had tried to cram themselves into the quad. They hung from the railings lining the steps leading up to the quad, or else had seated themselves on the benches, odd blossom petals settling in their hair. Most stood. As I weaved my way between the groups, chattering animatedly, it didn’t take long to work out why. Leaning casually against the edge of one of the picnic benches w
as the prince, surrounded by his followers and, to my disgust, my friends.

  He spotted me before they did and it was he who broke the silence.

  “Fallon,” he corrected in advance, anticipating what would have been my next words. I did not respond, but curtsied; grateful he had not used my own title.

  Insulted at being cut off mid-sentence, Gwen huffed and turned back to him, trying to engage him once more in conversation. If he heard her, he did not acknowledge her efforts, his eyes transfixed in a steadfast gaze at me, as though I was a problem to be unraveled and solved.

  “Your sword. You carry it always?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “May I see it?” He held out his hand expectantly, but I did not fulfill his request, feeling my hand tighten around the grip of its own accord. The puzzled look returned before his expression cleared and he reached down to his own belt, offering his sword in return for my own. I did not hesitate this time and he took it, weighing it in his hands.

  “Light, very light. Too wide for a rapier, yet too long for a small sword.” In my hands I did the same with his sword, though I refrained from speaking my thoughts aloud. Too heavy and stout for my liking. Rapier, though sharpened entirely along both edges, much like my own. “Swept hilt, very intricate. The grip is engraved with your coat of arms. Your grandmother’s sword, I presume?”

  A familiar fire started to flicker into life along my breastbone. I swallowed. “Yes.”

  “I thought it must be. It was transferred to you on the day of her funeral, wasn’t it? I remember it being blessed atop her coffin.”

  I didn’t pause to consider the stupidity of what I was doing as I found myself raising his sword to rest under the curvature of his jaw, my breathing shaky, my hand steady. His look turned to complete confusion, as though he could not work out what he had said to offend, before it returned to one of calm assuredness.