When the man strode from the shadows, she knew she was in trouble. This feeling was only exacerbated when he barrelled into her side with a gruff yell, arms windmilling about her head and then gripping her firmly about her waist. The air was full of colour, shapes flitting everywhere she looked. Ambush. The hands clung to her dress, and she felt the delicate fabric giving way. She struggled to free her arm from the weight pressed against her. Panic and pain burned from her left side where the man had struck. She could move nothing but her head, so she turned it from the slab of trembling muscle that was trying to suffocate her and opened her mouth to scream.
"I'm so sorry," said a breathless voice, and the tone was so regretful, so small and polite and so unlike that bestial grunt as he had lunged from the shop, that she caught the howl in her throat, turned back to look. She felt light as a feather, for the overbearing weight, the grip of furtive fingers on her waist, the ploughing momentum staggering her off the kerb and into the thankfully silent road, was gone. Instead of it all, there was just a man, a man much smaller than the power of the assault would suggest, and he was not reaching for her but for the dozens of coloured squares that still flittered between them on their descent to the rainsoaked pavement.
He glanced up, worry creasing his brow. "Are you hurt?" And even as he said it, delicate fingers, those very same that had seconds ago dug painfully into her flesh, worked to scoop the paper from the ground and into a leather briefcase he had set down by his side.
"No," she lied. And that could have been it. She could have just carried on down the street and got on with her existence. It would have been a prefectly acceptable thing to do in the circumstances. But, absurdly, she felt some sort of responsibility for this person before her, scraping up sodden rubbish from the paving stones and looking up through the drizzling rain with such sincere concern. Because hadn't he ran into her? If she hadn't been there, he wouldn't have lost...whatever....
"What are they?" Incredibly, she took a step closer. This man before her had some sort of magnetic quality. Or maybe it was just his emerald eyes, piercing into her as he looked her up and down.
Briefly, one hand stopped to shoo her question carelessly from the air, then it resumed its busy duty stuffing the things into the briefcase. Frantically. "Oh, these? Nothing. Just my latest import of proof editions of the 2024 collection, the special holographic prints commerorating the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Logovian Institute of Fine Arts." He looked forlornly down at these special holographic prints, which were mushing agonisingly into the grit of the pavement.
She shook her head, eyebrow raised. "I beg your pardon?"
"Stamps. They're stamps." He looked straight up at her, and a hint of a smile twitched on the edges of his lips. And then, it was gone in an instant. Pain clouded those previously bright eyes. "Oh my." He was up on his feet in a second, powerful calf muscles working to propel him into action. The fingers curled around her dress again, but this time soft, controlled, questing mournfully at the loose threads that they had but moments before torn asunder. She should have been appalled at the contact again, here, alone on this mist-swept street with a complete stranger. And yet... there was a delicate care in the way he assessed what he had done that stopped her dead like a deer in headlights.
And when he looked up, there was something there again, in his eyes, that she just couldn't pull away from. Something compelling. Something familiar.
"I am so, so sorry," he announced, looking into her own eyes. The briefcase lay temporarily forgotten behind him. Stamps from.... where?... still clung wetly to the paving slabs. There was something in the precise way he said those words that suggested class, authority, and a faint hint of exoticism. "I truly am," he continued. And then, another step closer. Another assault, but this time from a deep, musky aftershave upon her fluted nostrils. She felt her heart pounding, but, even if she should be afraid, it was not from fear.
"It's okay," she managed to squeak. Those eyes.
"May I make it up to you?" the man inquired, dropping his hands to his sides. It was a moment before she registered what had been said. She was too busy assessing his perfectly fitted jet-black trousers, his sparkling white shirt speckled with the intensifying raindrops, open at his muscular neck, his suit jacket that probably cost more than what she earned in a month back at the pie shop. "Hmmm?" she murmured, tearing her gaze from that rippling neck to be caught instantly in that verdant forest hiding in his eyes once more.
"Dinner, perhaps," he suggested, and then he was smiling, his perfect teeth glinting in the neon of the the sign declaring the existence of cut-price kebabs overhead. "I mean, I know we've only just met, and in.... unfortunate circumstances, but.... how about there?" He raised his arm once again, and she almost shivered as it brushed her shoulder to point at the bistro beyond, warm, yellow candlelight issuing enchantingly from its windows.
It would be crazy. She had to be up for work in seven hours. She had three litter trays to clean out. Her cheap dress hung in tatters about her exquisitely curved waist. She opened her mouth to say all of this. And smiled instead.
"Why not?" she found herself saying. She read the sign above the bistro and flashed the stranger another tentative smile. "I have a cousin in France, or so I've been told."
The stranger's mouth curled once more, more certain this time. "Perfect." He held out one finely manicured hand, and her eyes widened as the kebab shop's purple light winked from the priceless Rolex wrapped casually about his powerful wrist. "I am Marcus."
She considered one last time, weighing the sudden memory that she also needed to empty the recycling bin because it was a week 3 Tuesday on the council rota against this unexpected adventure into the night. She took his hand. "Maria," she said, wrapping her cardigan self-consciously around the tear. "I'm Maria."
***
The evening was magical.
It was the finest food Maria had ever put between her luscious, sensual lips. Nestled in a cosy corner beneath a bouqet of lilies, drying on either side of a flickering candle in an empty shiraz bottle, they feasted on an exquisite three course meal. Soup du jour to start, and when Marcus laughed when she claimed she had never tasted such beautiful jour before, the deep, throaty boom that issued from his mouth sent a warming tingle down her spine. This was followed by hearty platefuls of beef bourguignon, which Marcus thankfully ordered for both of them because how on earth are you supposed to pronounce anything in this place, washed down with a subtly sparkling champagne which teased tantalisingly down her breast with every moreish sip.
Her night had become a dream. The street, the long walk home, the pie shop, all of that no longer existed. There was only the tinkling chatter of the restaurant, the aromas of finely seasoned cuisine whisked past by handsome waiters in black aprons, and Marcus. Marcus with his charm, and his kindness, and his way with words, and his deep, deep, eyes.
Before the cheeseboard (and another bottle of champagne) arrived, Maria, reclining back comfortably in her mahogany chair, dared to pose the question which had played on her mind ever since her first bite of professionally sauteed carrot. "Your accent, Marcus. Where are you from?"
She had to ask him to repeat his simple, careless word of an answer. "Logovia," he said again, one arm resting on the back of his chair, collar casually opened to the third button of his olive chest, stallion's nostrils flaring at the end of his arched nose.
"Where?" Maria asked. "The same place as your stamps?"
Marcus' emerald eyes stared through her for ten whole minutes, or maybe it was a few seconds. The hint of a smile turned up one corner of his strong mouth. His mind was no longer in the room, had soared ike a bird out the window and onto the breeze in search of home. "Yes," he said at last, his voice barely a whisper. "Logovia. A land of art, and beauty, and green forests as far as the eye can see. Roaring rivers, and herds of wild horses galloping across the unfettered plains."
A shape brushed past Maria and she squeaked aloud. She was surprised to see the waiter, presenting the silver platter of rich cheeses and ruby grapes between them. She was surprised she was here, in this room, in England. Her heart had flown after the bird from the window.
"A city, gleaming white walls, dominates the central plain. The gardens will be in full bloom at this time of year. A sea of blue, our national colour. And the cobbled boulevard, winding up to the palace gates..." A dreamy smile had replaced the twist upon those inviting lips. Maria was watching the lips rather closely. She took another sip of finest champagne.
"Where is it? This country?" she heard someone say, and the person sounded awfully like her.
Marcus shifted in his seat. Maria let out a small breath as his corded hand snaked across the table, but he was only slicing a little Double Gloucester. The vision had not left his eyes. "Oh, just between Poland and Lithuania," he said simply.
"Of course," Maria said confidently. She didn't have a clue where he meant.
But luckily, Marcus was continuing in his reverie. Everything around them, the quietly chattering couples, the wink of the cutlery, the potted pansy on the windowsill, everything had faded to a blur of pastel wash. Only Marcus remained to her, Marcus and his dream of his home far away.
"It sounds like a fairy tale," was all she managed.
"It is," said Marcus.
A selection of exquisite dairy products had made their way to Marcus' plate, and somehow to Maria's too, but neither had made it any further as Marcus opened that perfectly symmetrical mouth again to speak. "The palace, Maria! You have never seen such a wonder. We are very proud of it. The outside is splendid indeed, but the golden halls within, the balconies, the magnificence of the master bedroom! How I miss it so!"
When Maria re-focused on the real things in front of her, she found Marcus' shining eyes already searching out hers. She felt a stirring in her chest, a tension that needed release. An impossibility, but, no...
"How could you know what the bedroom's like?" she questioned, mustering up all her courage. She knew they did tours of Buckingham Palace over here, but it didn't include such intimate interiors, she was sure. In fact, hadn't someone been arrested for looking for Liz there years ago?
The man before her looked down, looked away, looked aghast. The spell was broken, she'd ruined everything. Only cat shit awaited her. And then -
"It's... business," he managed. He looked almost as uncomfortable as when he had first spoken aloud to her, and she saw he too had been summoning his courage. "That's all."
"The same business that brought you here?" she gasped before she even thought the words. Something wild had broken loose in her mind, was running free, could not be stopped no matter how crazy it sounded. Her upper body squirmed closer across the table, dragging a chunk of gouda with it. The bottle of house red that had just been placed upon the corner of the table unseen was discreetly unplaced by a hastily withdrawing waiter.
Marcus looked uneasy, but seemed unable to take his eyes from the woman. "It's complicated, but yes."
"Marcus, are you the King of Logovia?" A sudden silence hung between them. Maria looked away, wide-eyed, shocked at what she had conjured. The wild thing in her mind had finally escaped. She eased her heaving breasts back off the table like a pair of seals sliding into water.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"What if I were?" said Marcus. And as she turned back, not knowing whether it was a joke on her part or his or both or neither, his hand had closed gently on hers, and he was close, so close she could inhale the warm aromas of his exotic aftershave, and she could drown in those wonderful eyes, and he said to her, "If this, like you say, is a fairy tale, then every king needs a queen. And if I were the king, would you be my queen?"
It was all too much, the air shimmered with exhilaration, and surely it was a dream, and her heart was ready to burst out of her black lace bra, and her hand was still enclosed in the warm glow of his, and she said, "Yes."
The hand was gone. So was Marcus. Or almost. He was up on his feet, the chair pulled back roughly behind him, and one of the men sat off to their right had abandoned his cordon bleu to hand him a raincoat, which he was busily getting into.
The dreamy smile was gone too. Instead, there was a triumphant sneer. It made Marcus rather ugly.
"Oh, thank god for that!" he barked. An uneasy quiet had filled the restaurant. People had turned in their seats to stare. Others were standing. The ones that were standing looked less shocked. The ones that were standing were pulling guns from their belts. Most were wearing sunglasses. Nobody, including Maria, dared to scream.
The man who was Marcus turned his head sharply, this way and that. "Did everyone witness?" he called, matter-of-factly.
"Witnessed," a lady in a red dress by the bar called.
"Witnessed," grunted the chef, poking his hat out of the kitchen door.
"Witnessed," shouted a disagreeable looking gentleman in a tracksuit who had been loitering by the door to the kebab shop, waving his assault rifle.
Maria looked about her, and then, helplessly, up at the man she had been dining with.
"Oh, don't give me that look," laughed Marcus. "I wasn't going to fuck you, was I? I mean, you're my second cousin. Perfectly legal, of course, but..." His face twisted in disgust as he looked her up and down.
"I don't...." Maria said. Nobody stopped her. But that was it.
There were three or four people still looking as confused as Maria. The rest were busy. Some were taking photographs in a clinical, business-like way. Some had brushed away their plates to sign documents on posh-looking yellow paper. Some were checking the street outside nervously. One old lady stepped forward, pressed a fountain pen into Maria's limp hand, and made her squiggle an X onto a scroll with lots of foreign words printed on it. "I'm sorry, dear," said the lady, almost kindly. "There's no annulment in Logovia for a lack of hanky panky."
"But..." said Maria.
"No buts," Marcus interrupted. He was just finishing signing a whole wad of paperwork, which had been disguised between the panels of a menu. Maria briefly remembered thinking this restaurant had a hell of a lot of wines when they were seated. But it hadn't mattered then, because Marcus was ordering. And paying.
He turned to look meaningfully at the chef, and the lady in red, and the tracksuited lout, in turn. "I formally renounce my title as King of Logovia," he said. "Which means the crown passes to my new wife. Hail Maria, Queen of Logovia!"
"Hail!" called most of the onlookers. The rest were heading for the exit on their hands and knees beneath the sea of rifles.
"What is this?" Maria screeched. All her incomprehension had suddenly erupted in the form of pure distilled rage.
Marcus turned to regard her again with those eyes that were cold, assessing and so like his cousin's. "It's perfectly simple," he said, slowly, as if talking to someone so thick they couldn't even understand the transfers of power in the Logovian monarchy of which they had been part of for almost three minutes. "I was King. You married King. I'm not king any more. You are Queen."
"I... I didn't agree to this!" Maria wailed.
"You did, actually," said the young man who was supposed to be the mixologist, turning his phone to show the video of what was unmistakably a clear-cut proposal. "Your Majesty."
"But... I didn't know.... what?" cried Maria, her hands squeezing her brain from either side. "I just said that if he was king..."
The chef had a browser up on his phone, poking it at her face with a bemused expression on his rosy face. "It's valid. All Logovian laws have been on public display since 1946. There's even a website."
"It's true, dear," said the old lady, shaking her head knowingly.
Maria watched, dumbfounded, as half the witnesses filed into the street and took positions behind bins and signposts, rifles at the ready. Marcus, resplendent in waterproof coat, followed her gaze.
"Ah," he began. "So, there's some things I didn't tell you about Logovia, that might be pretty relevant in your life right now. The first thing to say is that it's disputed territory. As in, there's only one other country that recognises it, Western Ropitimo, and that's not a real country either."
"So I'm not queen!" Maria snarled.
Marcus raised an eyebrow. "Oh, in what I admit is a bit of a hypocritical move, I think the Lithuanian military, not to mention Interpol, the USA and the Russian SVR, might say otherwise. Let's not beat about the bush - they do say otherwise. You're wanted for the theft of twenty billion Euros from creative accounting of the Logovian Treasury, plus the recent deaths of twelve Lithuanian farmers, the disappearance of an Armenian mediator in 1979, and copyright infringement on a set of otherwise superb stamps issued for the commemoration of the war of independence. Also, the odd genocide and random act of terrorism, over the years. Nothing major."
"Terrorism?!"
"And to be honest, I lied about the palace. It's a bit past its best. Also, about the forest. It's more of a park, actually. And we cut down the tree in it last year." And here, at last, Marcus looked truly regretful.
Maria put her fist carefully down by her side. It had just been curling around an empty champagne bottle, ready to make an extra special wedding toast over her husband's head. She then saw there was a slight risk of being shot by the dozen firearms suddenly pointed at her, so she gave it up as a bad job. Then, from somewhere within her poor bombarded brain, inspiration struck.
"I renounce the title." She held up her open hands. Several Soviet-era rifles twitched. She pressed on, spittle of a vaguely purplish hue spattering from her lips. "I'm not Queen any more, I.... admonish."
"Abdicate," interjected Marcus helpfully. "But you can't, because you don't have a successor. It defaults back to you."
"There's a helpful leaflet, deary," said the old lady kindly. "In fact, I think I have it somewhere..." She started to shuffle through the documents in her eighteen-kilogramme handbag.
Maria wasn't going to wait for advice. She thrust a finger out at a random man in front of her. "You're King, then." The man peered darkly over the top of his wild beard and said nothing. Maria shot out an arm and gripped the man's wrist, just below his puffer jacket. "Marry me!" she shrieked. The man raised his eyebrows. "I command you to marry me!"
Marcus watched with mild amusement. Behind him, though, some of the others were growing uneasy, restless. "Oh, darling, I wouldn't try that one. Rakh owes you nothing. You can't satisfy the top secret incest laws of European royalty with a random thug. He's not even one of your citizens. Even the French Foreign Legion rejected him on account of certain... rumours." Maria withdrew her hand, and stared. Rakh had terrifying eyebrows, and she simply couldn't look away now that she'd noticed. "He's part of my personal guard, who have just been informed of an unidentified ominous black plane landing on an unfortunate Volvo on the southbound M18, just a few minutes away. So, now I have found the lady of my dreams, I really think it best we call it a night."
Maria tried to tell Marcus just what she thought of him, but could only manage a sort of general saliva-choked gnashing of the teeth, which was quite accurate all the same. She also thought the feral rending of her already thoroughly rent dress was an appropriate response to the entire population of the restaurant filing out into the street with nary a glance at what she had always assumed were incredible tits.
A particularly anguished growl made Marcus stop at the door, emerald eyes welling with noble sympathy for his beloved spouse. He prodded at the man next to him, who gazed gormlessly at the semi-naked woman before them. Marcus sighed a masculine sigh. "Look, I suppose you can have Brian." Brian beamed. "Brian is the Logovian Army." Brian waved.
A sudden burst of low chatter outside made Maria glance nervously across the road. She wouldn't believe any of this if she'd had chance to do any logical thinking for the last two hours. "Is Brian armed?"
Marcus looked around, eyes narrowed. Then, he reached across a hastily abandoned coq au vin and tucked a greasy butter knife into the army's suit jacket pocket. "He is now." And then, as fast as he had stepped into it, Marcus left Maria's life and hurried out into the rain.
To a casual observer, Brian looked like he was studying his queen, but really he'd just sort of directed his open eyes somewhere in her direction. He didn't even look round when the sound of stomping military-grade boots started echoing from the shop fronts over the road. "I think we best be off, Your Majesty."
"Don't call me that!" shrieked Maria. "And I'm going nowhere with any of you."
The bootsteps drew closer.
"Maybe just a little way," she decided. Brian left. Maria followed.
* * *
Cleore would have screamed, if she didn't think it would have been the death of her.
There was someone in the bushes, that was for certain. Someone in black. They were ahead of her, further along the cut-through behind the cafe, silent, unmoving. Waiting.
She could turn back, but maybe then the spell would be broken. He'd come crashing out from his hideout and give chase. Besides, there were more behind.
That's why the factory had closed early. Security had come in shortly before lunch, shut everything down, sent them for their coats and told them all to get home as quickly and as safely as they could. There had been strange sightings on the estate. Cars without license plates. Men crouching in ditches. And above it all, the pounding thrum of helicopters from somewhere across the river.
It was worse in the village. One of the girls Cleore worked with had said her grand-pere's van had been run off the road by foreigners on motorbikes. They'd searched through the deliveries without a word. Then, one of them had taken a bottle of milk and downed it in one swig before riding off on their way. And the worst bit? He hadn't even paid.
There was fighting, too. Alexandre had called her just as she was hurrying out the back door, begging her to avoid the way by the church. There was a body on the steps, a man, strangled by his own night-vision goggles. In the graveyard, more men were scrapping. It was three on one, but the one in the camo was holding off the ones in black with his expert weilding of a butter knife. It was at this point that Cleore decided that the old man was high again. But still, there might be something in it, so she'd gone down by the river instead.
Someone had said the army had been called in. Cleore hadn't wanted to stick around long enough to find out. And so, rather than following the road to the main bridge, she'd saved a few minutes by turning down that little cut-through, and that is how she'd found herself about to confront the man in the bushes.
Cleore considered the predicament carefully, but forced herself to continue at a non-panicked pace. She sent off a silent prayer for her dear husband, telling God to not let him leave in search of her, not to put himself in harm's way. By God's grace, she would either leave this alley unmolested or she would die here, and she had to put all her faith in her decision now. So she walked, and stared ahead, and she passed the figure in black, and she walked some more. The man hardly moved. When she was level, she chanced a sideways glance. The man did the same, then turned back to his vigil, cradling his binoculars against the fence. He was waiting for someone else.
When Cleore turned onto the path by the railway bridge, she stopped, bent double, let out a long, quavering breath. It was at that point that the figure in brown decided to reach out and grasp desperately at her shoulder.
This time, Cleore screamed.
"Will you shut up?" hissed the figure in brown.
It was very poor French, engulfed in a thick, foreign accent. Scottish or English. A woman's voice.
Some sort of instinct made Cleore stop wailing. It seemed foreign women in brown weren't so bad as foreign men in black. Or maybe in was just discrimination.
The woman was short, rumpled, dirty, scared. Pale, pale face. Tears on her cheeks. "That's better," she soothed. Her bloodshot eyes roved the river bank. "Have you seen anyone odd around here?"
Cleore, trembling, raised one hand, pointed back along the way she had come. The woman said something in English that Cleore assumed wasn't very nice, then she pulled Cleore hurriedly down behind a clump of bramble. "Are you being followed?" she asked, shaking Cleore by the shoulders.
Cleore shook her head, uncertain. Still, the foreign woman breathed a sigh of relief. But she never stopped scanning the landscape. Nor did her right hand leave the top of her fleece pocket. After a moment, she looked Cleore dead in the eyes. "You wouldn't happen to be Cleore Fournier, would you?"
Cleore would have screamed again, but she didn't want the man in black to find them, so she settled for a ghastly bulging of the eyes instead.
The woman in brown nodded, satisfied. Her hand, trickling blood from a dozen cuts, snaked out from within her fleece and rested gently upon Cleore's own hand, and squeezed it for a moment. Cleore felt no flesh beneath the blood. The poor woman was all bone. "Then you are the wife of Antoine Fournier, the farmer?" she gasped.
Cleore gasped too.
The woman leaned forward urgently, clutching at the front of Cleore's coat so hard the stitches started to come away in a series of tiny pops. "I have some troubling news for you, my dear. All of.... this.... the hunt, the murders.... it's all to find him. To find your Antoine." Cleore started to sob. The kindly woman squeezed her hand once more. "Yes, I'm afraid to say he's in danger. Terrible danger. But it's okay. I'm here to help. He's my cousin."
Cleore wriggled closer to the thorns, looked up hopefully at the mention of the connection. Yes... hadn't Antoine mentioned some family in England? But that didn't explain anything. What was all this? Why were these people looking for him? Cleore opened her mouth.
"No time to talk," the woman persisted. "Will you take me to him?"
Despite all that had happened, all the confusion, the question took Cleore by surprise. This could be anyone. A fugitive from the law. A spy. And one who knew her name at that.
Then, a flurry of shouts from across the river, the boom of gunshots, cries for help. Together, the women cowered by the train tracks and waited for it to end. Someone ran past them on the other side. And all those long seconds, all Cleore could think of was those evil men, whoever they were, getting closer to her farm. To Antoine.
When the shouts subsided, Cleore turned resolutely to her new friend. They stood, and looked for the men, and saw no-one. Cleore picked out the dirt path that would cut through the woods straight to home, ushered the woman to the parting in the trees. "Yes, I will take you." She had put her faith in God's plan once already today. She had to do it again. She extended one hand, and this time, it did not shake.
Slowly, eyes shining, the woman took it with her own. "Maria," she said, as they started into the undergrowth. "Call me Maria."