The Prince Problem Read online

  Perhaps in the daylight, Amelia would have been able to place the girl. She must have been the daughter of one of the castle staff. But here, in the night, so far from the candlelight and lanterns of the castle and with only the glow of moon and stars to see by, it was hard to make things out. The moonlight played tricks with colors, bleaching them, so that Amelia’s own dress looked gray, and the child’s hair silver.

  “I’m sorry,” the child said, and again her voice gave the impression of a much older girl. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “Startled,” Amelia corrected, for it was important to use precise words.

  The child nodded, then asked, “Wishing on a star?”

  “There’s no such thing as wishes,” Amelia said.

  Apparently the child was a stickler for precision also, for she answered, “Anyone can wish. The question is: Will those wishes come true?”

  Because the child sounded more mature than anyone to whom Amelia had spoken in the last several hours, she answered, “By the law of averages, some of those wishes would have to come true.”

  The girl seemed tickled by Amelia’s answer, and she laughed. “But does the wishing ever cause the coming true?”

  “No,” Amelia said.

  “That’s a very sad answer.”

  Amelia didn’t want to make anyone sad, so she only shrugged. Then she tipped her face up once more to the night sky. If I believed in wishes, what would I wish for? she asked herself.

  That was easy. Normally, a princess should probably be careful about sharing secret wishes with strangers. But something about the night or about the girl made Amelia wistful. “I would wish for a solution to the vile and dangerous Prince Sheridan of Bittenhelm, who covets our land.”

  Too bad wishes didn’t come true, at least not in the sense the little girl meant.

  Amelia sighed and stood up.

  And looked around.

  The little girl had retreated as soundlessly as she’d come, seeming to have melted into the shadows of the park.

  Amelia walked along the river path, for this would circle around and bring her to another door in the castle. She wouldn’t have to reenter through the ballroom.

  The moonlight was bright enough that it caught something silver-colored on the tree-studded grass between the path and the water. Silver, like the mysterious girl’s hair. Amelia took a step closer.

  Ew, it was a rat that had apparently drowned and been washed ashore.

  Amelia liked animals, but that didn’t include rats. She considered whether she should nudge the dead creature back into the water. But that might leave a nasty mark on her shoe, and she didn’t want to make more work for Constance than she needed to.

  She continued following the path back to the castle.

  Telmund awoke cold and aching all over. And something nearby smelled really, really bad. Had he been sick during the night? A fever might explain the strange dream he’d had, about a witch enchanting him into a rat.

  Except the more he awoke, the more he knew it hadn’t been a dream.

  Telmund opened his eyes and saw the blue sky above. He’d been sleeping on the ground. Outside.

  Definitely not a dream.

  His shoulders and arms ached from the long—endlessly long—effort to stay afloat in the river. Stretching his hands out in front of him, he remembered how unwilling the water had been to let go of him.

  His … hands.

  Something was wrong.

  No, wait. The opposite was true: Something had stopped being wrong.

  Telmund looked at his hands. They were human hands, not little rat paws. He patted his arms with his human hands. He touched his human face. He hugged his human self. He said aloud, “I’m a boy again.” It came out in his human voice, not a squeak!

  Apparently, the witch had felt that one day of rat-hood was enough to teach him a lesson. Never mind that he had almost drowned—several times—during his ordeal. It was over now. All he had to do was figure out how to get home.

  Well, of course he could follow the river, but it was meandering and flowed over some rough terrain. The faster, easier solution was to find someone, announce who he was, explain that his father would offer a huge reward for the return of his son—even one of his younger sons—and arrange to borrow a horse.

  Telmund looked around. There was a bench just over there by the juniper bushes, and a path of crushed stone: proof that someone lived nearby. Good. He hadn’t eaten since snacking on some sweets at the festival yesterday afternoon, and he was looking forward to a good meal. How far away from home was he? Would the people of this land—whatever land it was—recognize his father’s name?

  Don’t be silly, he told himself. Of course they would. He hadn’t drifted that far downstream.

  Telmund stood up. He had been lying faceup, which meant that while his front had dried in the sun, the back of his shirt and breeches hadn’t. It was an unpleasant sensation to have the cold, wet clothing clinging to his backside.

  And once again, he caught that awful stagnant stench. To his horror, Telmund realized it came from himself—from his river-soaked clothing. While he’d been a rat, he hadn’t noticed the smell of rotting vegetation in the river water. Well, he’d noticed, but he hadn’t thought of it as bad. Now he saw that the bank where he’d crawled up last night was slick with decayed leaves from the fallen branch that had been his salvation.

  His knees were muddy, as were his hands. He’d left muddy handprints on his sleeves when he’d been checking himself out. He’d touched his face, too, which meant …

  He rubbed the back of his hand across his crusty cheek, trying to clean himself up a bit. Picked something dark green and slimy out of his hair.

  Someone was coming. Telmund could hear heavy footsteps on the gravel path.

  I may not look presentable, he thought, but I can speak presentably.

  Two men—clearly soldiers by their dress and their weaponry—rounded the bend and saw him.

  Telmund bowed. “Greetings from the Kingdom of Rosenmark,” he said.

  But that was all he had time to say before the men took several quick strides forward and grabbed hold of him roughly.

  “Who are you?” one demanded, shaking him, while the other cuffed Telmund’s ear and demanded, “What are you doing so close to the castle?” Then both men said, “You aren’t permitted!”

  Castle? He was close to a castle? That was good news, despite the harsh treatment that had left his ear ringing. The ruler of a kingdom only a day’s journey downriver would without a doubt recognize his father’s name.

  “I am Prince Telmund of Rosenmark,” he said. “Son of King Leopold. By mischance I—”

  “Got lost during the ball last night, did you?” one of the men sneered.

  “Naw,” the other scoffed. “Must of been before. Forgot to put on his fancy dancing duds, this prince did.”

  “What?” Telmund said. It was hard to make sense of what the men were saying. That could have been a residual effect of the blow to his head, or from spending the greater part of the last day only moments away from drowning, or from sleeping on the ground, or from the spell itself. Or it could have simply been that the men were making no sense.

  But he could tell he was being mocked. Enough was enough.

  “Unhand me!” Telmund demanded. He jerked back.

  There was a ripping sound as his sleeve came loose in the one soldier’s grip.

  This sudden release caused Telmund’s feet to go out from under him on the slick bank. Down he went, smacking his head on the fallen tree branch.

  And the sky ceased to be blue and closed in on him.

  * * *

  Telmund woke up, facedown in the dirt, to darkness. He wondered if he had knocked himself out for an entire day, or if he had knocked himself blind.

  But no, when he raised his head, he saw there was light, just not much. Only what was coming in through the chinks of some not-very-well-constructed wooden walls.

  By
the tools propped up against those walls, and by the shelves with pots holding dead or dying plants, he realized he was in a gardening shed. The soldiers must have carried him here until they could figure out what to do with him. No doubt the door was locked, or at least barricaded from the outside.

  Still, that wasn’t Telmund’s biggest problem. The biggest problem was with his body. Not that he was blind. That would have been simple.

  It was a rabbit’s body.

  Amelia joined her parents in their sitting room to have breakfast. The most courteous thing to do, after a ball, would have been to share the meal that had been laid out for the visiting princesses in the common room of the east wing. But Amelia didn’t have the patience to spend any more time with them. They would spend all morning discussing the events of the previous evening. Did you see this, that, or the other thing? they’d ask one another. (Yes, of course I saw, would be the most genuine answer. I was there, you know. Though a more tactful response would be, Mmmm … )

  Except Amelia hadn’t truly been there for all of the ball. While brushing Amelia’s hair this morning, her maid, Constance, had brought her up on the most noteworthy occurrences she’d missed by leaving early:

  Prince Hagen had sworn his undying love for and longstanding devotion to one of the triplets from Ostergard, Selena. He’d spoken so prettily that Selena had accepted Hagen’s proposal of marriage and told him to formally ask her father for her hand.

  But as the evening progressed, it became obvious that Hagen couldn’t truly tell one sister from the other.

  Miffed, all three princesses took turns pretending to be the one who was betrothed to him …

  Until the end of the evening, when Hagen approached their father. All three girls gathered around then, and one by one they denied ever having spoken to him.

  Everybody else had a good time.

  Now, as Amelia sat at the table, she was just in time to hear her father say, “Perhaps we could have a contest. Good morning, Amelia.”

  “Good morning, Father. Good morning, Mother. What kind of contest are you talking about?”

  A servant placed a napkin on her lap and poured her a glass of honeyed pomegranate juice.

  “I don’t know,” her father admitted. “Physical prowess? The last dragon was routed from the region during my grandfather’s day, and there aren’t any monsters in the vicinity to overcome … I suppose we could have a tournament.”

  “Ah!” Amelia said. “You’re looking for something to keep the princes occupied.” She nodded to a second servant, who placed a just-buttered slice of toast on her plate. How long had her parents invited the princes and the princesses to stay?

  “Well, yes,” Amelia’s mother said, as yet another servant whose tray held little bowls of jams leaned in to Amelia and quietly offered, “Strawberry, blueberry, marmalade.”

  “But also …” Amelia’s mother continued, “you know, to help you choose.”

  Amelia shook her head at all the jams and motioned for the other servants with their trays to withdraw. “Choose,” she repeated, her appetite gone. “As in …”

  “Mmmm,” her mother murmured, selecting that moment to bite into a pastry.

  Amelia answered her own question. “A husband. So, I’m to choose a husband based on his ability to knock other prospective husbands off a horse.”

  “Or we could have a contest of wits,” Amelia’s father suggested.

  “Did you talk to any of them?” Amelia asked.

  “Don’t be unkind,” her father told her. “You have been blessed with a keen and inquisitive mind, but remember that people can have other qualities that are equally worthwhile.”

  Amelia considered. Her philosophy teacher was very good at tripping people up with words; the blacksmith—who wasn’t very good with words at all—knew everything there was about making steel; her mathematics teacher knew all about numbers, but not much about people; and her nanny, whom nobody would have called smart about anything, had always known how to keep Amelia from getting bored on a cold and rainy afternoon.

  “I’m not saying a prince would need to be scholarly before I’d consider him,” Amelia said. “But it would be nice if he could talk about something beyond his ability to play his realm’s national anthem with his armpit.”

  “Really?” her mother asked in a tone of polite doubtfulness.

  “Prince Bavol,” Amelia said, “and Prince Jesper and Prince Alwyn. They had a competition. I’m amazed you missed it.”

  “Indeed.” Her mother dabbed at her mouth with her napkin.

  Her father looked amused, which Amelia found irritating.

  Fortunately, at that point, there was a knock on the door.

  The castellan—the improbably skinny man who had been in charge of running the castle for as long as Amelia could remember—entered and bowed to the king. “Your Highness. Ordinarily, I would not trouble you, but given the number of royal personages visiting for the ball, I wasn’t sure if this matter warranted more concern than under normal circumstances.”

  Amelia’s father nodded for him to continue.

  “The castle guards have apprehended a young man on the grounds, too scruffy to be an attendant to one of the guests, yet too well-spoken to be a common miscreant. We believe he may not be quite right in the head.”

  “How so?” Amelia’s father asked.

  The castellan hesitated. “He did claim to be a prince.”

  Amelia’s father raised an eyebrow. “Have we misplaced one of those?”

  “No, Your Highness. All are accounted for. This interloper looks to be younger than any of the young men invited, and his clothes are ragged and filthy. He is ragged and filthy. For an imposter, he has made no effort to appear as what he claims to be.”

  Her father said, “So if he’s a spy, he’s not a very accomplished one.”

  “Spy?” Amelia blurted out.

  Her father shrugged, but it was too late.

  “Who would want to spy on us?” she asked.

  “No one,” her father answered. “Apparently, this is some poor, deluded simpleton.”

  “But who were you considering he might be?” Amelia looked from her father to the castellan. Without warning, the castellan was finding the ceiling to be infinitely fascinating, and her father had a speck she certainly couldn’t see that he suddenly and desperately needed to get off his cuff. Her mother was smoothing out her already perfectly arranged dressing gown.

  What was it that they were worried about?

  Or who?

  There was only one person Amelia could think of who would cause that kind of concern. “An agent of Prince Sheridan of Bittenhelm?”

  “Not likely, my lady,” the castellan assured her.

  But the idea didn’t seem to take him by surprise.

  “Did Prince Sheridan know about the ball?” she asked her parents.

  “He was not invited,” her father said.

  “That wasn’t what I asked.”

  “Amelia,” her mother said in reproof, either for her tone or for continuing to ask questions the adults obviously didn’t want to answer.

  Amelia crossed her arms over her chest and waited. An awful thought was gnawing at her stomach. The ball … The prospect of a tournament … “Has Prince Sheridan … ?” How did someone ask without sounding full of herself? But this wasn’t just about herself; it was about the kingdom. “Has he expressed an interest in me?” She was looking at her mother when she asked, and her mother looked down at the eggs congealing on her plate.

  “We will not allow that to happen,” her father assured her.

  No, they would offer her up to the most promising immediate taker instead. Promising as defined by skill in a tournament, or perhaps the ability to solve riddles.

  “Excuse me,” Amelia said, setting aside her breakfast and standing.

  The seriousness of the situation was emphasized by the fact that neither of her parents told her it was rude to leave before finishing her meal.

 
Probably, she realized, they were eager for her to leave so that they could discuss more openly. It was unfair of her parents to treat her as a child when she felt she was more responsible and mature than either of them.

  Mostly, however, she was angry with Prince Sheridan for being the kind of neighbor who made people worry.

  She stepped out of the castle and saw one of the guards standing there, not exactly guarding, checking, or inspecting—all customary duties of castle sentries—more lingering, as though waiting for someone. Even though the kingdom was at peace, usually the guards were occupied with some task: patrolling, practicing their drills on the parade ground, polishing armor, sharpening blades.

  Is he awaiting the castellan? she wondered. The castellan and her father? With full royal confidence and authority, she walked up to the man and asked, “Are you one of the guards who apprehended the intruder?”

  “Yes, my lady,” he said, with a bow. “Me and Kilby.”

  “Show me,” she said.

  The man looked startled, confused even, but since her question clearly implied that the castellan had informed her about the prowler, there would be no reason she shouldn’t be taken to where the stranger was being kept. The guard bowed again, explaining, “We found him at the far end of the garden during our first round of the morning, so we put him in the garden shed.”

  Her father and the castellan had said the intruder probably wasn’t working for Prince Sheridan, but they didn’t know for sure. She asked, “Is that secure enough to hold him?”

  “There’s not much to him,” the guard said. “And, whatever his purpose, he’s a bit inept. Knocked himself out.”

  That didn’t sound good. That sounded as though the guards were bullying and maltreating someone whom she’d heard described as younger than her, scruffy, not right in the head, and with not much to him. “Knocked himself out?” she repeated.

  “Truly,” the man said, clearly seeing her distrust of his account. “We had done no more than take hold of his arm, and he tried to squirm away. Next thing we knew, we’re still holding on to the empty sleeve of his ragged shirt, and his feet are sliding out from under him in the mud. And the next thing after that, he’s flat on his back on the ground, any sense that he might have had knocked out of him. So we carried him to the shed. Kilby is standing guard outside.”