Lina was sleeping in and Ulfnar didn’t want to wake her. Like him, she didn’t sleep well last night and only got to sleep as the sun came up. Ulfnar wanted to stay asleep with her, but with the sun shining right in his eyes from the single arrow slit, he couldn’t, so instead, he sat at his desk and wrote another letter to Aeolwyn.
He wondered how his brother was handling military life. The boy seemed cut out for it, but there was a huge difference playing toy soldiers with Sir Jom and actually being a soldier. It wasn’t something Ulfnar had ever been interested in. He wasn’t about to take orders from some crusty old man.
The good news was that a guard brought his breakfast early, so he at least had something to do while Lina was asleep. It was boring in here when he didn’t have Lina to talk to. There were only so many letters you could write.
Was he going crazy? Of course he was. He knew Lina wasn’t real, that she was a stuffed doll with no personality of her own. How could anyone be in love with an inanimate doll? Everything about her was created in Ulfnar’s own mind. Wasn’t it?
Even if Lina was in his own imagination, he wouldn’t have been able to survive in this tower without her. He was sure he would already be crazy. To have gone from a large circle of friends and acquaintances that he interacted with every night to sudden isolation was almost too much for him to bear. Without Lina to talk to, he would have been dead a year ago.
He heard the rhythmic clunking of footsteps coming up the stairs. That was unusual. His breakfast was already here, and it certainly wasn’t lunchtime. Why would the guards come back? Unless they were here to kill him. He ran behind the bed and hid.
The door banged open and Patch walked in, scratching at the pock-marked scars on his face. Patch was the morning guard and, not knowing his real name, Ulfnar had taken to calling him after the eyepatch he wore. It wasn’t the cleverest nickname he had come up with, but it was all that his little prison brain could think of.
“Alright, highness,” Patch said in a gravelly voice that had seen the end of too many cigars, “Someone wants to meet you. Come with me,” he paused, “Or not. I don’t really care.”
Someone wanted to meet him? Who? The first person that came to mind was the executioner. Ulfnar wondered if walking willingly to the headsman’s axe would be worse than rotting in this room.
He leapt up and followed Patch out the door. His body made the decision before his brain did. It annoyed him at how easy it was to coax him out. Just the thought of having a conversation with an actual human being was enough. If that was all it too, what else would he agree to?
Patch led him down the cramped circular staircase. It was so narrow that they couldn’t walk side by side, and so steep that if he stumbled, he’d fall all the way down to the first floor. Freedom if he survived, but most likely death, which, if he thought about it, was just a different sort of freedom.
The guard took him to a dining hall with a large table in the center. The walls were stripped of any identifying items, and recently. He could see outlines where paintings and tapestries once stood. Circles of dust lay where candle holders, vases, or other decorative items once stood. All that remained was the main table, its chairs, and a few cabinets along the walls.
The table was overstuffed with food. Tons and tons of food. From meats and cheeses to fruits, vegetables, and every sweet he could think of. He dove into the meal with reckless abandonment, eating whatever was closest and he could get his hands on. He didn’t care that no one gave him permission to.
There were several bottles of wine and ale, all of the finest quality. He drank and ate, and when he was tired of that, he ate and drank. He ignored his body when it told him his stomach couldn’t store any more food. It would have to figure things out. He kept eating.
‘That’s probably poisoned, you know,’ Lina said.
Now he knew he was crazy. Lina was upstairs, asleep. He hadn’t roused her before he went down with Patch. How would he have explained that? Can you wait while I get my doll? The guard would have shut and locked the door behind him.
His stomach finally revolted against the punishment he was given it, and he vomited up all the food he had just eaten, right there on the floor. He didn’t care. As soon as he was done, he dove right back into the food.
He realized it made no sense to worry about this feast being poisoned. If they had wanted to kill him with a poison, they could have done so at any time. He ate whatever they had given him. It would have been easy enough to slip some poison in the stew or porridge they gave him. No sense in putting together this wild pile of food for that.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” A woman asked.
He barely stopped eating to glance at her. She was strikingly beautiful. She was a tall woman with well-toned muscles barely hiding behind the nearly sheer dress that was arrayed about her. It was as though she had chosen to wear a thin curtain and buckle it about her waist. It looked more expensive than a curtain though and was definitely of a fashionable cut. Her porcelain skin seemed to glitter in the light.
Her accent was Tambrynese. Was he in Tambryne? He had been traveling south on Cressard’s Folly when he was taken. It stood to reason that Tambryne, being the kingdom to the south of Camulan would be a likely suspect to have kidnapped him. He had never been to Tambryne though, so he didn’t know what the place looked like or how its citizens dressed.
“Yes,” spitting out food as he answered.
“Won’t you sit?”
He realized that he had been so focused on eating that he hadn’t bothered to grab a chair. Now that he had company, he guessed it was time to show some manners. He took the chair nearest to him and continued eating. She took the seat across from him.
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“I’ll have someone clean that up,” she said, gesturing to his vomit. Now he was embarrassed. He didn’t expect to have anyone dining with him. Why would he? He hadn’t spoken to a living person for two years.
He opened his mouth to apologize but realized that he wasn’t sorry. They should be glad that he hadn’t puked all over the room he was kept in. Though that would punish him more than them, since he doubted they would clean it up.
Instead, he grabbed another chicken leg and bit into it. “Are you here so I have something nice to look at, or do you want something?” he asked.
He didn’t care who she was or what she wanted. He just wanted to get out of here. The guard vanished after he was brought in here. Maybe he could charm her or overpower her and sneak out.
“My name is Larella,” she said, “and I need your help.”
“You need my help? The one that’s been held prisoner here for the last two years? That’s laughable. It takes a lot of gall to ask for my help after what you’ve put me through.”
“You’re just a tool, your highness. In storage until you’re needed. You always have been, even in your palace. You’ve just changed toolboxes.”
“Well, that’s just about the rudest thing anyone has ever said to me,” he said. “And I’ve heard a lot of rude comments in my life.”
He meant it too. Sure, he was theoretically a spare king in case something happened to Alfyn, but there was still Davinya and Wolfryn to get through before it was his turn in line. That was a lot of king-killing.
“Go ahead,” she said. Her mouth twisted into a frown. “Deny it. I’d like to hear all the justifications you’ve told yourself on how you’re an important person outside of your identity as a prince.”
‘Be careful,’ Lina whispered into his ear. ‘She holds your life at the end of a thread.’
Lina was right. Arguing would get him nowhere. If he was going to try to charm her into his release, smarmy comments wouldn’t help. “This toolbox is less pleasing than my last one,” he said.
She leaned forward and squeezed her arms, pressing her barely covered breasts together. She gave him a sultry smile as she licked her lips. “Perhaps I can make it a little more to your liking?”
He couldn’t help but stare and lick his lips. She was pleasing to the eye, and the thought of ravaging her was difficult to put from his mind. Her posture gave him a different sort of hunger. One that couldn’t be sated with food.
‘Are you really going to fuck the woman keeping you in this prison?’
No, no he wasn’t. He shifted his gaze back up to her eyes. She was still gazing at him lustfully. She picked up a cherry and ran her tongue around the whole of the fruit before slowly sliding it into her mouth.
‘She’s only doing that to control you. Just like all this food.’
Lina was right. She was trying to turn the tables around and charm him into submission. He couldn’t have that. He needed to keep his wits about him. The best thing to do would be to play along until he saw a chance to make his escape.
“So, Larella, how can I help?” he asked. He put on a lopsided grin and all the charm he could muster. He realized that he was dirty, stinky, and his clothes were barely more than rags. He couldn’t charm his way out of a barrel in such a condition.
He probably smelled like an abandoned butcher shop. That brought things into perspective. Larella wasn’t interested in him in the slightest, and if he’d agreed to sleep with her, she would be putting it off until he did what she wanted, and after that, with no need to lure him to do something, she would probably kill him before anything happened.
“I owe allegiance to his grace, the Archduke of Tambryne,” she said. “I have become aware that a plot exists to remove him from and place a pretender on his throne. It is my duty to stop them.”
He tried to stifle a laugh and failed. Food sprayed from his mouth as he erupted into laughter and couldn’t stop. He almost felt bad for the woman as her face turned red. His too, as he struggled to breathe between guffaws. He snorted which caused more laughter.
He held his hand up as he tried to get himself under control, though to be honest, he didn’t want to. He hadn’t had a good laugh in a long time, and it felt good. She was starting to get angry, but what did she expect? Her request was outrageous.
“You want me to keep a foreign leader, who I couldn’t care less about, in power? I’m sorry Lorella, but I swore an oath not to interfere in other nations’ political affairs. You should know that darling.”
She scowled, her face so red it looked like it was about to pop. She wrenched her face in and out of rage until she forced it into a poor semblance of calmness.
“Fine,” she said in a tight voice, “I’ll just stick you back up in that tower. Guard!”
“Now hold on,” he said. He pushed her too far. He did not want to go back into that room. Maybe he could bend his oath a little bit. After all, it wasn’t like he took the Laryn Oath. And besides, the archduke was already in power. It wouldn’t hurt to try to keep him there.
“I’ll help,” he said. “What do you need me to do?”
She smiled. “I thought you might.” She turned to Patch who had just entered the room. “Will you fetch us some akavita? I think we will be celebrating.”
Akavita was a very expensive liquor. It was strong and tasted like fire. Literally translated, it meant water of life, presumably because you needed to celebrate if you were still alive after you drank it.
She turned back to Ulfnar. “Someone is coming to rescue you. She will be making similar demands from you. I want you to kill her. After that…” she shrugged as though to say who knows? “Your future is your own.” She finished.
“What would be preventing me from just running?” Once he was out of eyeshot, that was exactly what he was planning to do.
“That would be tempting, but I advise you don’t. I will have several people keeping an eye on you,” she said. “And unlike the ones sent after your brother, mine won’t fail.”
“My brother?” he asked, suddenly alarmed. Which one?
“You haven’t heard?” She laughed. “Oh, right, of course you haven’t. The Star Children, among others have sent assassins after your brother Aeolwyn. They have, as of yet, been unsuccessful. Should you fail, mine will succeed.”
“Aeolwyn is ok?” he asked, alarmed. He would have to get on with this job as quickly as possible. If assassins were being sent, his brother needed his help.
“As I understand it, yes, though I’m sure our news is quite stale by now. It’s possible that another assassin could have succeeded by now.”
‘Don’t take the bait,’ Lina said. ‘No matter what happens, you still need to do the right thing.’
He ignored the dumb doll. He was determined to help Aeolwyn. He didn’t care anything about the politics of Tambryne. One ruler was as good as another as far as he was concerned. Besides, if the Archduke of Tambryne started a problem with Camulan it was his father’s and brother’s problem to deal with.
“Ok,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
“Excellent,” she said, standing. She shifted her dress as she stood to prevent it from sliding and showing more than she intended, though with its sheerness and how it clung to her, it didn’t leave much to the imagination.
“Now eat your fill, as I will, regretfully, have to return you to your tower. Can’t have a rescue without a prisoner.”
She turned and made her way out of the room.
“Wait!” he said. He didn’t want to go back to the room. Couldn’t he just sleep here and only go to the tower when the rescuer was coming? Why did he have to get locked back up in there?
She paid no attention to his words and disappeared out of the hallway. He chased after her, but the door had already closed behind her. He tried the knob, but it was locked. He checked the other doors in the room, and they were all locked as well. He was still a prisoner. But at least he was going to be a well-fed prisoner.