Fighting for a Crown

Chapter Thirty Three

The night was properly black by the time Saffron urged us to stop. There were no inns nearby, just rolling fields - vineyards they seemed to be, and barns, a few scattered cottages.

Pulling my aching legs off of Saffron, I led us over to one of the cottages, a low thing, with a barn nearby. I had to knock seven times before a boy angrily yanked open the door. He couldn't have been more than fourteen. His eyebrows creased in the flicker of light from his lamp as he looked me up and down.

"What do you want?" He asked grouchily, clearly peeved to be receiving the nobility.

"I need a place to stay." I explained hastily. "And somewhere for my horse. I can pay."

"Andrew who is it?" A femenine voice called from inside the house.

"We're an inn apparently now, Ma. I need to take his horse to the barn."

There was a momentary and quite frankly awkward pause whilst the woman came to the door, a second lantern in her hand.

"How much might you be willing to pay?" The boy inquired, stepping outside in his old nightclothes and holding his hands out for the reins.

The woman shushed him fervently. "Don't make him pay, Andrew." She hissed, then turned to me. "You're the Prince aren't you?"

I nodded, hoping she'd leave it at that and not add -

"That's the crown Prince Gavrila."

The polite smile which formed on my face was entirely fake, one of those ones my dead father had taught me how to do, to pass off a lie without saying anything.

"Please come in, your Highness, it's a pleasure to receive you." The woman immediately began the show of over enthusiasm.

"Thank you," I said truthfully, squinting into the darkness of a small living room, and then into an only slightly bigger kitchen, where the woman pulled out a chair for me, placing the lantern down on the table, "But I really would be happy to pay you for your troubles."

The woman shook her head, going over to a wide hearth. "Nonsense. Nonsense." She built up a small fire and then turned back to me. "If you'll excuse me, your Highness, but I really can't believe I'm receiving the prince in my kitchen! I'm making you tea now, then I'll leave you in peace. We only have rooms enough for the children and I, but you can take mine. I'll sleep downstairs and we'll leave the boys to it."

"Oh no, no." I shook my head as she sat down across from me, her sweet face wobbling with a sort of uncertain joy. "I'm travelling... incognito as it were. I'd just like to pass the night here quietly, even this chair will do, then I'll be off and pay you well for your kindness." Just having someone listen to me, just having someone to speak to brought in a wave of unexpected emotion. But I forced it down to smile up at the woman across from me. "I do hope you can forgive me, Mrs..."

"Edgware."

"I do hope you can forgive me, Mrs Edgware, for barging in on you and your son like this."

The woman frowned. "You'll leave first thing? Won't you stay for breakfast? We'd be ever so honoured if you'd try some of our wine - it's our livelihood see. It's not as good as my husband made it, but it's still meant to be half decent." She clasped her hands pleadingly on the table and her devout monarchism made me feel uncomfortable. I was a fraud.

The boy reappeared in the doorway. "I'll assume you'll be wanting a bed for the night, your highness?" He spoke in a gravelly voice, with something which sounded like contempt, but was probably fatigue. It was a strange thing to hear in someone younger than me. "I've set that horse of yours up with some hay and water - fine beast she is."

I smiled at his praise of Saffron. "A fine beast indeed. Please do just let me sleep down here, I don't want to disturb the running of your household."

"Ah of course not." The boy nodded from the doorway. "Midnight tea parties are habitual."

"Andrew!" Mrs Edgware hissed, shooing her son out of the room. She came back looking sheepish and apologetic, her fear of me making me feel ever worse. Meekly, she walked over to the kettle and poured it into a relatively nice pottery teapot.

"I will sample some of your wine in the morning, if you'd like." I accepted a cup of tea from her and watched her sit back down. "But I really must insist you don't treat me specially, treat me instead as your fellow." The tea itself was weak, very weak, and black, devoid of any kind of sweetening. I felt like I deserved that, I was still a fraud.

Mrs Edgware examined me for a few moments then laughed. "I am nothing near your fellow, your highness. I've never even seen a crown, let alone prepared to wear one on my head." The woman stared wistfully at a point behind my shoulder, which I assumed displayed some misplaced childhood fantasy.

My hands were itching to adjust my boots and I knew I had to communicate my position if I was to avoid a breakdown. I needed someone to confide in, though I was now too far from Tristan to seek his counsel, and much too far from Tommy. This random lady would have to do. "Mrs Edgware," I began, uncomfortable to admit my faults, knowing that I was risking my life if I avoided help, "may I confide in you a great subject which is as yet a secret?"

The woman across from me frowned slightly in the lamplight, thin marks around her eyes creasing in gentle confusion. "Of...of course, your highness." She stumbled over her words for a moment, then caught my eyes and smiled in a way which made me miss my mother. "I don't have many friends, but even those which I do have will never hear what you've got to say."

Taking a sip of tea to steady myself, I pulled my hands away from my boots to rest on the table. "I'm not the crown prince, the king is dead, I think my brother will be trying to have me killed soon and how far are we from Oldcliff?"