The Rules of Ever After (14 page)

Phillip glanced around to see all of the doors and windows hanging wide open. A few carts lay toppled over on the cobblestone floor of the courtyard with the last bits of a straw spilling out of them onto the ground. Phillip stepped carefully over a few toppled chairs and an empty barrel, and walked on toward the carts. As Phillip reached down to grab a handful of the straw, a screech from the opposite corner made him jump. He jerked his head in the direction of the sound to see a single rooster flapping its wings and crowing on top of a carelessly dropped basket of clothes. “Hush, you stupid bird,” he scolded.

Phillip took a few steps toward the main hallway of the castle and strained to see inside. “Gwen? James?” he called into the dark­ness, his words echoing slightly off the empty walls around him. A touch on his arm made him jump again, and he swung out at the person grabbing him.

“Careful!” Daniel exclaimed, as he ducked under Phillip’s swing­ing arm. “It’s just me!”

“You scared me,” Phillip hissed. “This place is making me jump­ier than a Glorianna hare. Something bad has happened here.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Daniel whispered. “Where did they go?”

As Phillip opened his mouth to answer, a wail came echoing down the empty hallway. Phillip and Daniel jerked their heads in the direction of the sound and then looked back at each other. “That was Gwen! Come on,” Phillip said. He turned and began running down the dark hallway toward the sound.

“Phillip, wait,” Daniel called, as he pulled his sword from its scabbard and followed. At the end of the hall, large double doors sat wide open, and the hallway opened into the castle’s spacious throne room.

As Phillip rushed into the room, he saw Gwen sitting on the floor with her head and arms draped across an empty throne. She held a jeweled dagger in one hand and a crumpled piece of parchment in the other. Her shoulders shook with sobs, and her cries echoed around the empty room. James knelt behind her and rubbed her back. Peter stood off to the side, staring at his feet. As Daniel clattered into the room behind Phillip, Peter looked up and shook his head.

“Peter,” Phillip asked as he approached the boy, “what is going on here?”

“I’ll tell you what is going on here! He left!” Gwen screamed as she swept up from the floor and charged toward Phillip. “Your stupid test made him leave!”

“Who?”

“My father!” Gwen sobbed. Shaking the crumpled paper in his face, she said between gasps, “I found this note stuck into the back of his throne with this dagger. Oh! He’s gone. Honestly.” The girl dropped the paper at Phillip’s feet and raced back across the room toward the empty throne. In her frustration, she threw the dagger toward the throne, spinning it end over end until it stuck into the back of the throne with a loud “thunk.”

“James! He’s gone!” she wailed as she draped her body across the knight’s chest.

James wrapped his arms around her shoulders and ran his hand gently down the back of her head while he looked at the dagger sticking into the back of the throne. “How did you do that?”

Daniel reached down to retrieve the paper and quickly scanned it. “It says he abandoned Little Dealonia and surrendered it to King Robert. He told his people that since the princess is gone, he has no claim to the throne. He sent them all to swear allegiance to King Robert and reunite the two Dealonias. He is heading into the kingdoms to hide. This must have happened while we were coming here! ”

“If we had stuck to the main roads like I suggested,” Peter said with a sniff, “we probably would’ve seen them all leaving.”

“This makes no sense!” Phillip said, as he pulled the paper from Daniel’s hands and read it quickly. His stom­ach churned with guilt and he feared he would vomit. Though Dr. Hickenkopf’s Miracle Tonic was supposed to cure what ails you, it was caus­ing Phillip nothing but more and more trouble. “It was a silly test. Why would he abandon his whole kingdom over that? His princess isn’t gone!” Phillip read more of the letter and gasped. “Gwen, did you read all of this? He thinks you’re dead!”

“Dead? Why?” Gwen asked with a sob, as she raised her face from James’s chest.

“Those men that were bringing you home must’ve told him they were attacked and you were killed.”

“But Emmaline said we’re all over the front of the
Kingdom Inquisitor
,” Daniel said. “Surely he saw that and knows you are alive!”

“Oh, Daddy, honestly,” Gwen said with a deep sigh. “After my mother died, he never allowed the
Inq
in our castle because it reminded him of her. Mama read it every morning at breakfast. She’s the one who called it the
Inq
. Daddy said it was a good name because it wasn’t real news, just ink. He told me to spend my days learning my princesscraft, not reading that. I had one of my maids sneak it in for me so I could read the reviews of my plays, but I had to hide it from him. Honestly, Daddy, it’s just a newspaper.”

“He says he hopes the news is wrong, and Gwen will find this—and him.”

“Gwen,” James said and reached out to take her hands. “You know what this means?”

“Uh-uh,” Gwen said with a sniffle.

“We have to find him and let him know you’re alive,” James said as he swung her hands excitedly back and forth. “You can come with us!”

“Yes!” Phillip said with a broad smile as he stepped over to put his hands on her shoulders. “This can be fixed. We can find him. We’re already looking for half the royals in the kingdoms. Why not one more?”

“I don’t know,” Gwen said as she dropped James’s hands and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. “I don’t know anything about surviving in the wild. I was raised to be a princess, not a vagabond. I’d be scared.”

“Oh, really?” Peter said with a laugh. “So far, all I’ve seen you do is run into every situation without a care in the world. I don’t think you can even spell the word scared.”

“Peter,” Gwen sniffled again, “don’t be mean. I’ll just be in the way. All I know how to do is act and sing and other silly things.”

“Like dagger throwing?” James asked.

“As much as it pains me to say this,” Peter mumbled, “I actually like your singing. You and Phillip are the only ones of this bunch who can harmonize, and he’s too busy with… well… if nothing else,
The Vagabond Princess
might be a good story for me someday.”

“But a princess doesn’t go wandering around with a bunch of men unchaperoned.”

“Says who?” James asked.

“I don’t know. The rules?”

“The rules say an orphan shouldn’t be the bravest knight in all the kingdoms, and, well, just look at me now,” James bragged, putting his hands on his hips and striking his most heroic pose.

“Well, it’s not like I have anything else to do,” Gwen said. “Not a lot of opportunities for ex-princesses. What am I supposed to do? Sit in this empty castle and rule over nobody?”

Phillip watched as Gwen twisted the rings on her fingers. He was reminded of the nervous energy that had made her so talkative in the testing bed. Remembering the excitement in her voice that night as she dreamed of possibilities and encouraged him to do the same, Phillip felt the need to return the favor.

“Gwen,” Phillip said “remember when we were talking in the testing chamber? You told me that if we got married we would find adventure together. Okay, we didn’t get married, but we can still find adventure, right? Come with us. Let me help you find your father to make up for all the mess my stepmother’s stupid test has caused.”

“You know,” Gwen said, as she set her shoulders back and stuck out her chin, “that princess life is behind me now, so I think I’ll leave all those princess rules right here with it.” She crossed the room to the empty throne and propped her foot on the seat. She grabbed the dagger by the handle and yanked it out of the wood. “But I’m taking this with me.”

“Why don’t we see if there are any supplies we can use?” Daniel suggested, as he walked to the side of the room and pulled an overturned bench upright. Sitting down on the bench, he pulled off his boot and turned it upside down to shake out a pebble.

“Well, I am definitely getting some better traveling clothes than this ridiculous gown Emmaline put me in.” Gwen laughed and spread the skirts of her golden taffeta gown out around her legs. “James, why don’t you and Peter come help me pack.”

“Okay, I said you could come,” Peter groused, “not that I’d be your valet.”

Phillip walked over to the bench and sat beside Daniel. He laughed as he watched the others leave the room arguing, and then looked at Daniel. The prince sat staring at him with a smirk. “What?” he asked gruffly.

“So you aren’t going back home?”

“Well, I have to fix all these messes I’ve caused,” Phillip pouted and crossed his arms. “This in no way means I’ve forgiven you for lying to me.”

“Phillip,” Daniel said as he reached over to uncross Phillip’s arms and take his hands, “I never lied to you. I tried to tell you about the insomnia curse but I never got a chance. It’s not my fault that you assumed—”

“Assumed?” Phillip jerked his hands from Daniel’s. “
I
assumed? Well I… guess… I did assume. But that’s beside the point. The only reason I agreed to come out here was I thought you had actually passed that stupid test. That nonsensical, pain-in-my-backside test. I thought it was a sign that you were here to help me.” Phillip stared down at the stone floor as he thought about what he had just said. “Which, in hindsight, is maybe not the best basis for making a plan. Look at Gwen’s father. He should have waited until he had the full story. Was I really letting a stupid little pea under a mattress control my life?”

“You really thought I was kept awake by a pea under the mat­tress? Phillip, that makes absolutely no sense. A pea under all those mattresses? Why would you use that as a test?”

“I know. I know. But it was my birthday fairy. Her curse stated that marriage to the wrong person would lead to me losing my throne. So we knew we would have to be very careful with my marriage. As I grew older, I decided that was a good thing because I knew I didn’t want to marry a woman and I couldn’t marry a man. No marriage, no curse. You know? But a king has to marry, so—”

“But that was your birthday fairy. What about the last fairy who sort of fixes it?”

“Well, that fairy said I would be happy if I waited for ‘the one who keeps a vigilant watch in the night.’”

“So someone decided—”

Phillip nodded. “Cauchemar decided that we would test any princess to make sure she was the right one. Princess-testing used to be a pretty common practice in the old days when the seven kingdoms were just one land. Anyway, she interpreted the last part to mean my bride needed to be a girl who could be sensitive enough to know my needs even in the middle of the night. Sensitive enough to feel—”

“A pea under a mattress. That is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, and I was cursed with insomnia. Who could pass that test? No wonder all the girls failed.”

“Um. Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Well, a couple of them had a little help falling asleep.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Okay. Before I tell you this I want you to know that I’m not proud of it at all.” Phillip turned his face away. “Also, I realize that I accused you of lying and I haven’t been honest with a bunch of people.”

“Phillip,” Daniel said, cocking his head, “did you do something to make the girls sleep?”

“I kind of gave them a sleeping tonic.”

Daniel stared at Phillip. Phillip watched his eyes move back and forth across Phillip’s face as if looking for a sign he was lying. Phillip held his breath as he waited for the blast of anger he knew would arrive. Daniel suddenly threw his head back and erupted in a belly laugh.

“Why you devious little scamp! That is absolutely brilliant. You found a way to play around the rules!”

Phillip released the breath he had been holding. “You don’t think I’m a terrible person?”

“Okay. I will admit it was really unfair to do that to all those poor girls, but it
is
hysterical. They get the best night’s sleep of their lives, and you get out of a marriage!”

“That’s why I said I have to fix the messes I made. Not my stepmother’s messes. Mine. They really are princesses, and I’m the reason no one believes they are.” Phillip swallowed and shook his head. “If I had just followed the rules, left things alone and married one of the princesses, then none of this would be happening.”

Daniel stared at Phillip for a second before making a tut-tutting sound and shaking his head slowly. “And the birthday fairy’s curse would have come true!”

“What?” Phillip said in confusion. “No. I would have married—”

“Phillip, you were right about needing to be honest with people, and that includes yourself.” Daniel took Phillip’s hands in his again and squeezed them. “If you had married one of those girls, you would both be miserable, and you probably would have lost your kingdom. A miserable king makes a miserable kingdom.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Phillip let the tension slide out of his shoulders as he thought about what Daniel was saying. “So you don’t think I’m a terrible person?”

“You are out here trying to make everything right, aren’t you? To me you are just proving what I said to King Robert. You are one of the kindest men I have ever known.”

“Thank you. And I promise, no more lies.”

Daniel suddenly laughed again.

“What’s funny now?”

“I was just thinking about that ‘vigilant watch in the night’ business,” Daniel chuckled. “That could almost be me. I mean, who’s more vigilant in the night than a man who never sleeps?”

“That is funny,” Phillip said, as he joined in Daniel’s laughter, “but ridiculous. I mean, two princes can’t marry each other.”

The two princes laughed loudly together until their laughter died down to silence. Turning to face Daniel, Phillip stared into his eyes. He watched Daniel’s eyes crinkle at the edges as he smiled back and tilted his head slightly to one side as if in thought. Phillip’s heart beat in his ears and he felt the same urge he had felt in the testing chamber: to lean over and place his lips on the other man’s. He lifted his hand to touch the other man’s face, but Daniel suddenly stood and walked toward the hallway doors. Phillip felt a rush of heat to his face as he blushed and looked at the floor.