A True Prince Read online

  A

  True

  Prince

  by

  Kristi L. Cramer

  Copyright © 2016 Kristi Cramer and Kristi L. Cramer

  All rights reserved.

  www.kristicramerbooks.com

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be resold, reproduced, or distributed in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, without the express written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, business establishments, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Edited by Monica Black

  Word Nerd Editing

  Cover design by: Dana Lamothe

  Designs by Dana, Vancouver BC

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

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  All Titles

  Prologue

  Year of Our Lord 1613

  The maidservant scurried down the stone passageways of Castle Fair Haven, moaning to herself in her haste and fear. She glanced in the doorway as she passed the Great Hall, but turned her head before meeting the king’s gaze.

  King Isaiah’s long fingers tightened around the golden cup in his grip.

  Silence had reigned in the hall for several hours. The smell of cooked food lingered in the air, but no food graced the richly set tables. Silverware remained unused, and silver plates sat empty among flowers and golden candlesticks. Servants moved liked shadows around the table, refreshing wine in silver goblets while guests shifted uncomfortably. No one felt inclined to drink much, yet no one dared to leave.

  Laid to celebrate the birth of the king’s first child, this feast should have been happily consumed, the guests passed out in joyful abandon. King Isaiah should be holding his firstborn—perhaps a son—by this time.

  Footsteps again rang out in the passage and the king’s whole body tensed, only to see the maidservant dashing back to the birthing chamber with a bundle of cloth and ewer of water.

  ⇜⊂⊃⊂⊃⊂⊃⇝

  In the birthing chamber, one of the newborn babies whimpered, breaking the silence and tableau that had held in the moments since the queen’s last breath sighed away.

  “Quickly,” Lady Tawnia murmured. The shadows falling across her face darkened her golden good looks. “Take the boy child away, Maudette. I care not where, only that he is never seen in the Bonnie Isles again. The king must never know of his existence.”

  Maudette, the dark creature beside her, was hard to see in the flickering torchlight, but black-stained lips twisted into something approximating a smile. She wrapped the wriggling, naked babe in a soft blanket and lifted him into her arms. Her lilting voice held an edge to it, belying her gentle motions. “He’s a healthy child.” She looked up at Tawnia, her soulless black gaze meeting the lady’s gold-flecked eyes. “I expect he’ll bring a fair price on the market. Since I can’t have his soul, perhaps I’ll find a slaver whose soul I can taste.”

  “Do as you please, so long as he stays out of my way.” Lady Tawnia could not be bothered with the machinations of the demon she had summoned.

  “And the girl?”

  “She’ll be a nuisance, but no threat to my plans. If the king thinks it was all I could do to save her, it will give him something to be grateful for.”

  Maudette chuckled. “Gratitude is a good place to start.”

  “Indeed. Go now. I will send for the king, to give him this bittersweet news.”

  Without another word, Maudette inclined her head slightly, took the child to a passageway hidden behind the bedstead and passed through, the access panel sliding shut behind her.

  Lady Tawnia turned to the maid who crouched by the foot of the bed, shivering in fear. Tawnia regretted her witness, but that was the only thing that had not gone according to plan. The maid would soon wish she had left when told.

  “Inform the king his queen is dead, but his daughter lives.” She stepped up to the maid in order to loom over her, emphasizing her menacing intent. “Have a care and breathe not one word about the son, or I will see to it you never speak again.”

  Terrified, the maid scrambled out of the chamber without even rising to her feet.

  Lady Tawnia took great care to arrange the girl-child in her dead mother’s arms while the child’s whimpers grew more insistent. Her gaze fell on the packet lying untouched on the bedside table: the herbs that may have stopped the bleeding and saved the queen’s life. She slipped it into a pocket hidden in the folds of her skirt and composed herself, smoothing her skirts and touching the golden locks around her round face.

  ⇜⊂⊃⊂⊃⊂⊃⇝

  Miserable with waiting, Isaiah watched without really seeing the candle in front of him flicker and dance in the drafty room. Dimly, the restless shifting of guests grew in the periphery of his awareness, like the turning of a fog-gentled tide. Though he balked at the significance of the action, perhaps it was time to consider sending the guests home.

  Then he heard more footsteps running in the corridor, and a woman’s voice, shrieking, “Dead! She’s dead!” The maidservant collapsed in a heap in the doorway to the Great Hall, wailing, “Majesty, Queen Aslynn is dead!”

  King Isaiah stood, the force of his rising sending his heavy chair crashing to the floor. Others in the room rose too—guests and friends dressed gaily and gathered for what should be a happy occasion.

  “My queen,” Isaiah whispered, his grief reaching all who heard him. Then louder, “The child?”

  “A girl-child, Majesty. She lives.”

  The king felt something inside him shrink into a hard knot of bittersweet pain. As he thought of the child, he steadied and drew himself together. “Praise Heaven. I will see her now.”

  Heedless of his guests as they milled in confusion, Isaiah left the Great Hall.

  The king heard a baby crying in the inner chamber as he entered the royal suite, and he followed the sound to the door. “Lady Tawnia?”

  The lady opened the birth chamber door, lines of grief apparent on her perfect face. She curtsied low and gestured for the king to enter. “Your Majesty.”

  The king stepped into the room and stood at the foot of the bed for a long moment, staring down at two forms lit by flickering candlelight: one still, the other squirming, crying out in frustration to be fed.

  “Oh, Aslynn,” he said softly. “You look to be sleeping. Wake, and tell me the name of our child.”

  He waited, as if expecting her eyes to open. Then, trance-like, he carefully lifted the baby into his arms.

  “Then she will be Aslynn, after you.”

  King Isaiah turned to Lady Tawnia. “Find me a wet nurse. The princess is hungry.”

  Chapter One

  Year of Our Lord 1628

  Out at sea, a storm gathered. Clouds darkened and grew in number, towering high against the blue sky that still held above Lookout Cliffs.

  Two young riders sat atop the seaside cliffs, watching the weather build. A large brindled mastiff ranged the cliff’s edge near them.

  “The storm is coming this way,” the boy said, shifting his athletic frame in the saddle to turn to his companion. “Looks like a wild one. If we hurry, we can make it back before it hits, Your Highness.”

 
The young girl, a raven-haired beauty only half a year away from turning sixteen, sighed heavily, and did not look at the boy. “Sebastian, how many times must I tell you that you may call me Aslynn?”

  “I know that I may, Aslynn,” the boy said, saying her name with all the sass he could muster. “But my backside is still sore from the last time I slipped and called you by your name in front of Master Jabari. Imagine if I should address you so in front of the queen?”

  “You never see the queen. And besides, you forget I told Master Jabari it was all right for you to be familiar with me.”

  “You miss my point, Princess. If I should slip at court—”

  “It hardly matters to most, ’Bastian. They all look to Edward more than me. No one cares about the princess when there is a future king in my half-brother.”

  “I care,” said Sebastian, with the air of making an obvious point in a case the two argued on a regular basis. “As does your father, and Master Jabari and Mother Bette.”

  “I know.” Aslynn’s dark eyebrows drew together as she wrinkled her button nose. “But, I don’t care about being a princess, Sebastian. I want a friend who will call me Aslynn.”

  “And tell you when you’re being a brat?” He turned in the saddle to whistle up the dog. “Artemis!”

  “Aye, that too.”

  “Well, brat. If we don’t go now, we’ll surely be soaked before we get back, and I’ll get hided for keeping you out.”

  Aslynn’s sea green eyes twinkled with mischief. “Can’t have that. I wager I make it back before you, and dry to boot.”

  “You’re on.” No sooner were the words out than both youths wheeled their horses back toward Castle Fair Haven, riding at breakneck speeds, leaving the mastiff to follow as fast as she could.

  ⇜⊂⊃⊂⊃⊂⊃⇝

  Jabari, the king’s Swordmaster, waited in the courtyard, hands on hips, as the two teens charged through the gate, narrowly avoiding collision with each other and the archway. Neither had given way.

  “I won!” Aslynn cried, vaulting out of the saddle as a young boy ran out to take her horse’s reins. “You saw, Master Jabari!” Her tanned features were flushed with excitement and her long black hair, completely unpinned, streamed over her shoulders in wild disarray. She raked it away from her face in a fierce gesture of pride.

  “I saw, all right. I saw the two of you racing like fools across broken ground, as likely to kill yourselves than not. Your Highness.”

  Unfazed by Jabari’s grumpy greeting, she stretched up to give him a quick kiss on his whiskered ebony cheek. “But I won!”

  “For certain, Princess. You had him by a nose hair, at least.” The old military man had a soft spot in his heart for the princess; he actually cracked a smile before schooling his features into a stern mask. “Sebastian, I’d have expected better of you than encouraging such a race.”

  His foster son had to work to keep the smile off his face. “Was I supposed to let her win? She’d have me hided for sure.”

  “He knows me so well.” Aslynn laughed, still exuberant from the ride and her win.

  “I’m sure you deserve a beating for something or another, my boy.” Master Jabari reached out to ruffle the boy’s short, brown hair, confirming he was indeed teasing.

  “Camden,” Aslynn called to the page holding her horse’s reins. “Run and tell the king I’m home, would you? And that I’m staying with Master Jabari.” She turned to Jabari as the first fat drops of rain began to fall in the courtyard. “That is, if he cares to shelter me from this storm.”

  “As you wish, Princess.”

  She gave him a dimpled smirk. “I wish,” she said sweetly, then turned back to the page. “Thank you, Camden.”

  The boy bowed and gave the reins over to Sebastian.

  “Well then, Princess,” said Jabari, again adopting a stern manner. “You know the rules of my house.”

  “One must care for the horse before one rests,” the two youths chorused.

  “Especially after a ride like that. A race very well run, by the way. Go now, before the poor beasts catch chill. Mother Bette will have supper waiting.”

  A breeze picked up, driving the raindrops and scattering leaves and straw across the courtyard. Aslynn and Sebastian turned as one to take their horses into the stable.

  “What did we wager, anyway?” Sebastian asked once he thought they were out of earshot.

  Aslynn laughed merrily. “I’ll think of something.”

  Jabari shook his head, smiling indulgently. There was no question in his mind who had initiated that race.

  ⇜⊂⊃⊂⊃⊂⊃⇝

  “That was a fine meal, Mother,” Sebastian said as he and Adam stood to gather the dishes. Adam, the eighteen-year-old, blond-haired, brown-eyed son of a neighboring lord and Master Jabari’s current student, had joined them for dinner.

  The simple meal was taken in the Swordmaster’s homey quarters across the assembly yard from the royal stables.

  Not to be outdone, Aslynn leapt to her feet to help. Here, inside these walls, though they may call her “Her Highness the Princess,” she was part of the family, and she helped with domestic chores.

  “No, children, tonight I’ll do the cleaning up.”

  “But, Aunt Bette,” Aslynn protested, “you know I always help.”

  “Not tonight, my dear. Tonight is special.” Mother Bette took the stew pot from Aslynn.

  “Special, how?” Aslynn asked, but Mother Bette just smiled.

  Aslynn looked over at Sebastian, who shrugged. Adam carried the dishes he had collected to the stone sink, but did not go back for more.

  Master Jabari moved to the fireplace, opening a wooden box to remove an ornate pipe, which he loaded with tobacco from a clay jar before lighting it with a taper from the fire. Smoke puffed from around the pipe stem as he settled down in his chair by the fire.

  The trio exchanged glances and smiles. A pipe always meant a story. They settled onto the rug in front of the blaze, ready to listen.

  For a moment, all they heard was the storm raging outside, and Aslynn watched the flames jump in the fitful breeze blowing down the chimney. She was glad to be here in such company, warm and comfortable, rather than shivering in her bedchamber, alone and bored.

  “It’s fitting that a storm should blow tonight,” Master Jabari said, and Aslynn turned to see him staring thoughtfully over the top of his pipe.

  She and her friends waited, knowing it would do no good to try to rush things. The old military man had a hundred stories to tell from his years in service to King Isaiah. There was the romance of falling in love with Princess Bette, who gave up any claim she might have to the crown out of the knowledge that the kingdom was not ready to have such an obvious outlander anywhere near the throne. Then there were the stories of his youth on the far off shores of Egypt, his native land, not to mention the roundabout journey to the Bonnie Isles as a captive on his way to a life of slavery.

  Master Jabari had explained more than once that in the tradition of his people, he told the stories to the children as a matter of oral history, so that they might pass them down to their children. Aslynn didn’t think so seriously about the future, but found them a good night’s entertainment.

  “Fifteen years ago, there was a storm such as this, on this very night. The wind raged all night and the rain fell so hard it beat trees to the ground. Every roof in the castle sprang a leak.

  “The next morning, King Isaiah and I went riding on the beach with the salvage crews, to see what the sea had given us. You see, the sea may give us our harsh weather, but she always leaves us her bounty when the wind and waves calm.”

  “Tonight was the night...?” Aslynn began, and Sebastian hushed her.

  “Tell us the story, Master Jabari?” Adam asked respectfully. Aslynn knew he hadn’t heard this story yet, but she and Sebastian could hear it a hundred times more and never tire of it.

  Jabari stroked the whiskers on his narrow chin. “King Isaiah and I rode th
e beaches, and it wasn’t long before we saw the frigate, her back broken on the reef they call the Devil’s Jaw.” He took a moment to puff on his pipe, and Aslynn imagined his absent gaze reflecting his memories of the sight.

  “The reef had called another ship to the bottom of the sea. There were bodies in the surf, and they told a story that would never have come from lips still breathing life. Bodies still chained to pieces of the ship, as well as a drowned man known to be a slaver—the first mate of a ship known as the Swing Trader. The frigate’s captain had tried to leave their secret port under cover of the storm, knowing if they were caught on the Bonnie Isles, they would be tried as the criminals they were.

  “Well, the sea delivered her own justice, taking all the poor souls who had been slaves home to her as well. All save one.”

  Aslynn clapped her hands in delight, knowing who that one soul had been.

  Master Jabari smiled and continued. “Amid all the wreckage, the king found a sea chest. An airtight wooden box made to float, such as those used by sea captains to hold their ships logs or special belongings. Well, there was certainly something special in this one.”

  “Sebastian!” Aslynn laughed, and the boy in question gave her a playful punch on the arm.

  “It was the oddest thing,” Jabari continued, looking thoughtful. “King Isaiah saw the chest floating in surf still rough from the storm, and instead of asking me or one of the other searchers to fetch it, he went after it himself.”

  “Do you think he heard ’Bastian crying?” Aslynn asked—as she always asked.

  “I could hardly hear myself talk over the roar of waves and the cries of the gulls scavenging the corpses. But the king, he must have heard something. He came back to shore dripping wet, with the chest in his arms. He set it down so gently in the sand...” Master Jabari pantomimed the gesture, and even now, wonder lit his weathered ebony features, “and pried open the latches.

  “I was nearby when he did it, and though I don’t claim to be a mystic, I know magic when I smell it. There was a spell on that chest, to keep its contents safe.

  “Inside, nestled in blankets and snug as you three are tonight, was a baby boy, with eyes the color of the sea.”