In the Name of the King (AU/CC/Mature) 7/19/12 COMPLETE

[Cardinal]

Chapter 21

Admission

Max and Elizabeth openly eyed each other from across the dining hall at the evening meal, but he didn’t find out about his new duty until just before he went to the bedroom to prepare it to Michael’s liking for a night’s sleep. Max was pleased with the assignment, mainly because it was the reason Lord Parker was allowing him to see Elizabeth again.

What he wasn’t happy about was knowing why Elizabeth needed his immediate help. The very idea that he was going to be working hard to get her ready to attend such a major function with someone else was going to be a serious irritant. Knowing her escort was going to be a friend of his like Kyle only made things worse.

Max knew a lot about Kyle. He was considered by the younger ladies of the Alemanni court to be handsome, intelligent, witty, and maybe just the slightest bit overaggressive, as if he knew exactly how charming he was and how good of a catch we was and intended to play it for all it was worth. He’d charmed most of the younger ladies, and even a few of the older ones, if rumors were true, but he’d completely failed to charm the one woman he had been sent to possibly match up with.

Max’s sister Isabel basically despised Kyle. Since that was rather rare for her, and because Max implicitly trusted her judgment of people, it made him wonder what hidden character defect Kyle might have that he himself had failed to see. Trusting him with Elizabeth was not going to be easy.

As if dealing with Kyle being Elizabeth’s escort wasn’t enough, being the one responsible for getting her ready for such a major social appearance was going to be a bit stressful. He only hoped he could be a good teacher without driving her away from him by becoming overbearing or too exacting.

When Lord Parker told Michael and Max about the new assignment, and after the squire had gone off to start his bedtime preparations, Lord Parker pulled Michael aside in an empty room and unburdened himself.

“I hardly know what to do anymore, Sir Michael. Elizabeth has received this huge opportunity that I couldn’t turn down even if I wanted to, but for her to make the most of it, I have to allow her to see the only person who can help her, who also happens to be a young man I’m supposed to be helping you protect from everything, including himself.

“If those two fall in love with each other, I will have failed them both, and yet, Elizabeth already admits she has strong feelings for Zan.”

“Don’t look at me,” Michael replied. “I’m a bachelor, so dealing with kids is not a strong suit of mine. And as for stopping them from falling in love, you might as well give it up. I knew Max had feelings for Elizabeth before tonight, but earlier today I saw those two stare at each other without saying a word, and yet they seemed to be communicating quite nicely anyway. If they’re not in love, they’re on the verge.” And then, completely contradicting his assertion that dealing with kids wasn‘t his strongest suit, Michael gave Lord Parker some advice. “As for what to do, don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t do anything. Those two are just kids. Chances are one of them will grow tired of this attraction sooner or later without your help or hindrance. Teenagers are like that. If so, your daughter will admire you for letting her be an adult and admit there was some wisdom in your advice. If not, the king will end things soon enough on his own and you won’t have to alienate your daughter.”

“But why? I want to save my daughter from this kind of heartbreak. As her only parent, it’s my job.”

“She’s old enough to marry now, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then she’s old enough to make adult mistakes and accept their consequences.” Michael paused, and then added, “Besides, I don’t…don’t ever consider falling in love to be a mistake, at least not on a personal level.”

“What do you mean?”

Michael gave a faltering smile. “It was just something told to me once by someone I trusted a lot.” He shrugged his shoulders. “If you’re going to end up marrying her off to someone she may not even like, much less love, then give her a chance to experience the overwhelming power of love now.”

“Doing nothing is the scariest course of ‘action’ there is to take,” Jeffrey admitted somberly, “for in doing so, you recognize your helplessness, surrender to it in fact, instead of maintaining the illusion of control. Humph. Okay, I guess I’ll let Elizabeth go, but I’m still going to look for a husband for her.”

The next day seemed to drag by for both Max and Elizabeth. He had morning hand-to-hand combat practice to give him something to occupy his mind for awhile, and then had to practice dancing with Maria for two hours before it was Elizabeth’s turn. She spent those two hours after breakfast consulting with the family’s dressmakers on styles and fabrics she might choose for her ball gown. By the time she was ready for her turn with Max, she and the dressmakers had decided she needed to go into Varshova to do some shopping.

She had thought of dressing up special for her lesson, but thought better of it, deciding she’d rather look demure and in control instead of too eager. She walked in just as Maria left, and was surprised to see her sister smiling ever so slightly.

“What happened with her?” Elizabeth asked.

“Why?”

“She looked faintly happy when I passed her.”

“Lady Maria finally decided to apologize to me in a meaningful way.” Max said, as he looked away from Elizabeth’s eyes. “She really meant it, and I was touched by the way she did it. That’s all.”

“Oh, okay.”

Max dismissed Maria from his mind and focused entirely on his new student. “I have a lot to say to you this morning, Elizabeth, and I hardly know where to start.”

“This sounds serious.”

“It is.” The two of them were standing a mere foot apart, when Max decided to take a mild risk by reaching out and taking her hands in his. “I know this is forward of me, and I hope you’re not offended,” he said, as Elizabeth’s heart soared, “but, I have some feelings, some very strong feelings, for you, and yet I’ve been tasked to be your new dancing master…”

“Oh, Zan!” Elizabeth’s face blossomed with joy to hear him say what she already knew to be true. She couldn’t wait for him to finish what he wanted to say, she just couldn’t, not without assuring him she felt the same way. “I…me too. Every time I look at you or hear your voice, my heart melts just a little bit more.”

Max smiled out of one corner of his mouth, as he unconsciously pulled her closer. “I know what you mean. I do not know how I will manage to handle four hours a day of dancing with you and talking with you and looking at you…because I have trouble breathing just standing next to you.”

Elizabeth stepped closer, so close in fact that the only thing left between them were their clasped hands. She looked up into Max’s amber-flecked brown eyes and wished with all her might that he would kiss her. He saw her eyes grow larger and warmer as she drew close. It felt to him as if he was teetering on the edge of a precipice and her eyes were inviting him to take the leap into the unknown.

An image flashed into his mind then. He could just imagine someone watching from the open doorway and running off to tell Lord Parker, who would undoubtedly change his mind again and not only ban them from seeing each other, but send Elizabeth back to Roswell. She and I have to show that we can handle this freedom responsibly, he thought, and not just start kissing the first moment we get a chance to be alone. So he pulled back. He felt in his bones there’d be a right time and place to kiss her, but this wasn’t it. Trying to pretend he hadn’t been about to kiss her, he went back to what he had intended to say.

“What I was trying to say, Elizabeth, was that I’ve been tasked to be your new dancing master, though that’s a very loose use of the term when applied to me. We’ll be together four hours a day working on your dancing. I’m worried what four hours a day of me correcting you will do to the way you feel about me.” Max sighed. “I’m afraid of becoming overbearing or an annoying perfectionist and driving you away even as I work to improve your dancing.”

Disappointed by not receiving the kiss she’d so desperately wanted, Elizabeth listened to Max’s concerns about the potential fallout from his new position in their relationship. She wanted to reach up with one hand in the middle of his explanation and stop him from speaking, but she patiently waited for him to lay out his unfounded fears.

“Zan? I probably will get mad at you from time to time. I can guarantee I’ll get frustrated a lot as you try to help me. I will not, however, hold it against you once we are done for the day, because I know you have a job to do, and it’s one you’ve never done before.

“And as for driving me away,” Elizabeth stood on her tiptoes, placing her lips as close to his as she could on her own, and whispered huskily, “I may be difficult to attract, but I am even harder to drive away.”

Max’s mouth went dry, Suddenly he couldn’t remember why he hadn’t kissed her yet, but he knew it was important and he held onto that conviction with a tenacious grip to keep from taking her into his arms right then and there.

The best part of the way their dancing was scheduled was that they worked together for two hours and then broke for lunch, giving her a much needed rest, and allowing them to eat together without anyone raising an eyebrow over it. Then they headed back to what everyone now called the dancing room for another two hours of instruction. On their way back, Max swallowed his distaste for the fact Elizabeth was attending the ball with someone else, and asked her if she had a suitable gown for the ball.

“No, not yet anyway. I spent a couple of hours discussing options with our dressmakers and we came to the conclusion that I need to go shopping for several bolts of fine material.”

“Seed pearls?” Max asked. “Diamond chips? Thread of silver, thread of gold?”

“Where did you learn about things like that?”

“Once you meet my sister and see her closets, you’ll know.”

“Closets?” Elizabeth asked. “As in more than one?”

Max nodded his head in affirmation. “Closets.”

“Well, I don’t know if tiny gemstones or precious metals are in the budget. I’ll have to see what they cost and then ask my father.”

Don’t worry, Elizabeth, Max thought determinedly. If he says no, I’ll break my bank plate out of my traveler’s belt and buy the gems myself. My girl is going to be the belle of the ball, no matter what it costs.

[Cardinal]

Chapter 22

Shopping

The next day, Elizabeth arranged with her father to head into Varshova along with one of the dressmakers to look for fabric. They took along a locally-hired housemaid mostly to be able to find the finest shops without getting lost half a dozen times in the big city.

Lord Parker, in turn, lived up to his promise and ordered his guard captain to assign a dozen armored horsemen, including a couple of knights, to guard his daughter on her shopping trip. Tess decided to tag along at the last minute, and Elizabeth was glad to have her company, as she was so excited that she needed someone with whom to talk. Maria stayed behind, determined to put in some extra work of her own with the squire.

Elizabeth, Tess, and the dressmaker looked at various fabrics and colors in several shops, and then swung by a couple of dress shops to see if there were any new styles that might look particularly good on Elizabeth’s slender physique.

Elizabeth also did as she’d told Max she would and checked on the price of the various precious metals and gems that could be used for adornment, but she was aghast at the prices, and knew without thinking she would have to do without. The four women and their escort made it home in time for a late lunch of cold leftovers, before Elizabeth scurried upstairs for an abbreviated dancing lesson with Max.

“Did you find the fabrics you want, Elizabeth?” he asked, before they got started dancing.

“Yes, one place had some really good fabric at reasonable prices, but not in the quantities we need. They told us to come back in a couple of days and they would have it for us.”

“Why so long?”

“I do not know. They did not offer to tell me, and I did not ask,” Elizabeth replied drily. Then she went ahead and guessed. “Maybe they have a warehouse they cannot access too easily, or maybe that is when a ship is supposed to come into the harbor.”

“What about the adornments I asked about?”

Elizabeth sighed. “I would love to have them, but buying enough to make a difference is super expensive. I am just going to have to do without.”

Max already knew he was going to buy her whatever she wanted, he just had to get himself invited. “Take me with you, Elizabeth. Please?”

“You want to come shopping?”

“Not really, but I want to spend time with you, and I can even help carry the cloth you buy.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “You do know we have footmen to handle the fabric for us, right?”

“Yes, I do, but I thought it was worth a try.”

Elizabeth assumed the first position for the dance they had ended with yesterday, and Max stepped back to check her foot positioning, then they stepped off together into the dance, with him counting off the beat. Partway through the dance, he said, “You are doing really well.”

“I am?” Elizabeth nearly stumbled when he said that, but she managed to keep her balance and they kept on dancing.

“It appears you learn things quite well the first time. That is going to make this a lot easier on the both of us.”

“I guess I have always been a good student,” she said sheepishly. “But in this case, I think it must be the quality of the instruction I’m receiving.”

Max chuckled. “If that was the truth, you would be staggering around here like a peg-legged pirate.”

Elizabeth started laughing at the mental image of her trying to dance that way and lost her positioning. “Quit making me laugh.”

“Quit laughing at me.” Max gave her a goofy smile which only made her laugh harder. “So, are you going to let me come shopping next time?”

“Okay. You can come. I guess we will just have to wait for you to finish Maria’s dancing lesson before we leave.”

“Thank you.”

Two days later, Max was ready. He wore one of the nice sets of clothing that had been given to him for dancing and for special occasions, but as he prepared to board the carriage with Elizabeth and the dressmaker, Michael pulled him aside.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” the Black Knight asked.

“Like what?”

“A sword, maybe? A real, live sword?”

Michael and Max had already discussed the prince taking along his ten-man escort. Michael had finally decided against it, reasoning it would only make the people at the manor wonder more and more about who Max really was; it was judged to be a slight short-term risk for better long-term protection. Having Max wear a real sword was just a little extra insurance.

“Surely Lady Elizabeth’s guards are enough?”

“For her, probably,” Michael conceded, “but you need to remember our primary concern is keeping you alive. If something happens, those men will be concerned with her, not with you. I would feel a lot better if you would wear your sword.”

Michael produced the sword from behind his back and held it out to Max, who snatched it and prepared to join the ladies. “I’ll strap it on once we get out. It’s too long to wear inside the carriage.”

“Just make sure you take it with you, and be safe.”

“Now you sound like my mother.”

Michael shivered just hearing the queen mentioned. “Have I told you just how much that woman scares me? Get out of here.”

The ride into town was pleasant, and Max was the perfect gentleman, making sure to split his attention between Elizabeth and the dressmaker. He soon found himself involved in a discussion of colors and styles, which was something he would have never believed before he left the Summer Palace.

The shopping was quick this time as the shop the women had chosen did indeed have everything ready. Michael’s warning lingered in the back of Max’s mind, making him feel edgy. So, not only did he have his sword belted on, but he started wishing the ten soldiers sent along for his protection had come on the shopping trip after all.

When Elizabeth and the dressmaker came out with the two footmen following behind them laden down with the fabric they needed, Max helped them secure it, and then asked Elizabeth which store had the ‘fancy stuff.’ She slowly pointed toward a store on the other side of the street only a few shops down, all the while wondering why he wanted to know.

“Now, does anyone happen to know where the local Fuggieri bank is located?” Max asked.

“Oh no!” Elizabeth said. “Oh no you don’t.”

Max blithely disregarded Elizabeth’s protest and asked again. No one in the party knew, so he stuck his head inside the shop they had just left and learned it was just one street over, which made sense when he realized this area of the city contained the most exclusive shops and a lot of mansions. When Max turned back to the carriage, Elizabeth was standing there with her arms folded and her weight shifted onto one hip.

“Just where do you think you’re going?” she asked pointedly.

“The Fuggieri bank on the next street over.”

“Why?”

“To make a withdrawal,” Max said, “for the purpose of buying a few baubles you seem to be intent on denying yourself.”

“Baubles? Diamond chips, seed pearls, thread of silver and of gold are mere baubles?” Elizabeth's eyes nearly bulged out of her head.

“I will bet you didn’t even ask your father about buying them. If you had, he would have insisted. This occasion is important.”

“That is beside the point,” Elizabeth insisted. “I saw them and decided they were too much. And in any case,” she added, “I do not think you can afford to buy them either.”

Max got an evil little smirk on his face. “You would be surprised by what I can afford.”

Elizabeth pulled him a few steps away from the carriage and said quietly, “Then tell me who you are…who you really are…and I will let you go to the bank.”

“Who I really am?” Max asked, with a feeling of mild panic rising in his chest.

“Maria, Tess, and I all believe you are more than a simple squire, Zan,” Elizabeth said pointedly. “If Zan is even your real name.”

Max’s mouth flapped helplessly like he was a fish out of water.

“When I said you could not afford the baubles, it had nothing to do with the price,” Elizabeth said, as she ruthlessly drove her point home. “You apparently cannot afford to draw too much attention to yourself right now, and spending hundreds of gold crowns on me is not the way to hide. The servants would talk. By nightfall, everyone in the manor would know, and who knows how long it would take for that knowledge to spread off our compound?” She finally let up on him when his ashen face let her know he realized she was right.

“Well, since I cannot buy them, I am telling your father when we get back.”

Elizabeth cringed inside, as she knew her father would likely agree with Max that this occasion was too important to scrimp, but keeping her squire safe was too important to her to argue any further. “Fine. If that will satisfy you, then tell him.” She was, however, irritated with him for going over her head. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I promised myself that my girl was going to outshine every other woman at the ball.”

Hearing the words ‘my girl’ changed everything. her irritated grimace turned to a helplessly pleased smile, and her furrowed brow relaxed. “Your girl? I…I like the sound of that.” Even if I do not know who you really are.

“So do I.”

Elizabeth climbed into the carriage with a hand up from Max, and then he followed. The dressmaker had not heard what they had been talking about, but she smiled slightly at both of the young people. The squire seemed like such a nice, handsome, well-mannered young man, and she already believed Lady Elizabeth deserved someone good.

Half an hour later, the carriage and its twelve man escort were out of Varshova, and halfway home with their purchases, when a hail of crossbow bolts shot out of a roadside hedge.

The cry was raised almost before the last bolt struck home. It was the driver's voice Max heard, and what he shouted sent a river of ice down his spine.

“Ambush!”

[Cardinal]

This chapter took a lot of editing to get ready to post. Thus, there may be a number of name goofs. I tried to catch them all, but you know how that goes. Enjoy!

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Chapter 23

Ambush

After hearing the word ambush and feeling ice shoot down his spine, Max experienced a moment of panic as the moment he’d never truly believed would happen was here. After that, training and instinct kicked in. Max then took a hurried look out of both sides of the carriage. On one side was an open field. There was no place to hide there and no one was in sight. On the other side was a dense hedge that was roughly four feet in height. Behind the hedge was a double rank of armed men. He didn’t take time to count them, all he knew was that it was a large enough number that his sword was going to be as worthless in this fight as a feather pillow.

Knowing now where the danger was, he raised a green shield between the carriage and their guards on one hand, and the attackers on the other. He then yanked both Elizabeth and the dressmaker off their seats and shoved them onto the floor.

“Stay there until I tell you otherwise,” Max ordered. Neither woman had any intention of disobeying that order. Had they been so inclined, the pained screams of their soldiers outside would have disabused them of that notion.

His use of an energy shield had bought him a few moments to think, but now he had to act. He knew the only way to stop the attackers, and to save what remained of their guards, was to take action before he used up his reserves of power. He threw open the door on the side away from the attackers and hustled out the opening and to the carriage’s back end, hoping to use it’s sturdy wooden framework to guard his body once he dropped the energy shield.

Now, Max made one last assessment of his tactical situation. He saw that eight members of the twelve-man escort had been cut down by the first wave of bolts, and of the four men still on their horses, only one was a knight and he already had a bolt sticking out of his thigh. All four men had turned their mounts toward the attackers and had drawn their swords, but the shield kept them from moving into the hedge.

On the far side of the hedge, through the green haze of the shield, Max saw what looked like two dozen men who were arrayed in two neat lines parallel to the road. In front were a dozen crossbowmen, whose heavy crossbows had just been lowered to the ground to begin the laborious process of winching the crossbow back into firing position. He knew if those men reloaded before he struck, they would cut down everyone on his side the moment he lowered his shield.

Stationed just behind the crossbowmen, and now shouldering their way past them, were another twelve men whose sole job was to prevent anyone from reaching the crossbowmen. These men were heavy infantry, the elite of the battlefield. In close quarters like this, sixteen-foot-long iron pikes were useless, but six-foot-long halberds were perfect. The halberd was a five foot long pole fitted with an iron attachment that had an axe blade for chopping on one side, a hook on the other side for pulling horsemen off their mounts, and an eighteen inch spike on the end which turned the pole into a spear for holding off horsemen.

Those twelve heavy infantrymen crashed into the hedge in their heavy steel armor, wielding their halberds, trying to advance on the four remaining Parker horsemen. But they ran into the shield and were kept from closing on the remaining guards.

All of it, from first shot to the infantry finally slamming into the hedge, took no more than ten seconds. It would take the crossbowmen another ten to fifteen seconds to reload their weapons, which wasn’t going to be nearly fast enough.

Max now relied on his training with Sir Emmerich back at the palace. That honored knight not only taught the prince how to use weapons, but how to act like an officer on the field of battle. And one of an officer’s most vital tools was his voice. Years of practice had given the normally soft-spoken prince a booming battlefield voice, one he now put to use.

“Behind the carriage!!!” he bellowed. “All Parker men behind the carriage. NOW!”

These men outranked a simple squire, but they all knew a voice of command when they heard it, and from years of experience they obeyed it without question or delay. Without even a pause to taunt their enemies, the men moved. Once they had moved back from the hedge, Max focused, dropped the shield, and threw his might into a curtain of fire that started at the edge of the road and quickly raced through all two dozen attackers. In a moment, those men went from death incarnate to just dead. The fire was so intense, so all-consuming, that they didn’t even have time to scream.

The four Parker guards still in the saddle were white in the face and mumbling to themselves as they witnessed the full fury of an Antarian up close for the first time. To their credit, none of them looked at Max. Instead, they scanned the area around them to see if there were any threats the squire had missed.

Max, meanwhile, was thinking. He pointed to one of the unwounded men and commanded him to ride back to the manor to raise the alarm. “Stay off the road in case there is a secondary ambush. Make sure our people come in force and bring a few wagons with them for our wounded and dead.”

“What about the attackers?”

Max grinned wolfishly. “Maybe you could have someone bring back an urn for their ashes.” His blood was up now; social niceties be damned. Once the man was on the way, Max stepped over to the side of the carriage and opened the door. “It is safe out here now, Elizabeth, but I do not advise coming out or even looking unless you have a strong stomach.”

The dressmaker climbed off of Elizabeth, struggled into her seat, and then turned to help her lady up. Elizabeth lurched to the door Max had just opened, eyes frantically checking him from head to toe. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw he appeared to be unharmed. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“Are you alright, Zan? Please tell me you are okay.”

Max hurried to assure her. “I am all right, but thank you for asking.”

“Are you sure?” she asked anxiously.

“I came through without a scratch on me. Trust me.”

Max sent another of the remaining horsemen back toward the city to raise the alarm with the city guards. The last uninjured horseman was busy helping the wounded knight off of his horse so both man and beast could rest. The horse was wounded, but was still moving.

Max turned back to Elizabeth. “I will be back,” he said, “but right now I need to check on the wounded.”

“Let me do that, Zan,” she replied. “You have done so much already, and besides, these men were hurt guarding me. Caring for them is the least I can do in return.” She was about to have her dressmaker break out the roll of muslin they had just bought for use as bandages when Max waved her back into the carriage.

“I respect and admire your position more than you know,” he said, “but I can do more for the men than you can right now.”

Determined to be of use to someone, Elizabeth made her way out of the carriage and stepped into a nightmare. Blood was everywhere, and so was Max. He went to one body that was dressed in her father’s purple and gold and checked him. Then he checked on another and another, until he reached the fourth body. He then bent low over the man and seemed to be almost praying, and then she saw him roughly rip away the man’s armor from his wound. The man groaned in agony, and she rushed over to stop Max from hurting him any further, when he laid the palm of his hand right on top of the wound.

Elizabeth watched in amazement as the horrifying wound closed up right in front of her eyes. She was flabbergasted, but Max ignored her and moved on to the next body. After healing two more men he was staggering, but he forced himself to make his way to every last body. The last one was the knight, who had just been helped off his horse. Max nearly fell at the man’s side.

“Look at me, Sir,” he commanded. “If you want to walk again, look at me.”

The knight had seen what Max had done, both for the other guards, and to their enemies. The other three he had been able to heal were already sitting up and the first was getting to his feet. He knew their enemies would never breathe again. “Okay, Boy. But don’t kill yourself on my account. Lord Parker may need those skills again before we head for home.”

One last time, Max roughly shoved his hand on top of a wound and made a mental connection with the man he was trying to heal. One last time he poured his energy into a wound and watched as it closed up beneath his hand. Only this time, he collapsed onto the rutted surface of the road, completely unable to move another step.

Elizabeth saw him collapse and raced to his side. Just like Tess, she knew what a it meant for someone to have his abilities. “You’re Antarian,” she said with wonder, after rolling him over on his back.

“Yes,” Max agreed, his voice barely above a whisper. “I am sorry I did not get to tell you that myself.” He nodded back toward the remains of the burnt attackers. “That is not how I wanted you to learn.”

“I have to admit I would also have preferred you telling me, and while I want to sit here and keep talking with you, I think I can do better than that. Suiting her actions to her words, Elizabeth went back to the carriage and grabbed a silk-covered cushion. When she came back to Max, she sat in the middle of the road and with some help from the just-healed knight, pulled his head and shoulders up onto her lap. The cushion was then stuffed under his head to both cushion it and help prop it up.

Elizabeth wiped the sweat off of his forehead and gazed down into his big, beautiful eyes. Max looked at her, apprehension written all over his face, and asked, “My being who I am…does it matter to you?”

The apprehension was as easy to hear in his voice as it was to see on his face, and she moved to nip that worry in the bud. “No, Zan. Being Antarian does not matter to me at all.” The dressmaker was still in the carriage, but her head was leaning out of the small window to keep an eye on her lady.

Elizabeth saw her and chuckled, thinking that they had a chaperone even out here, in the aftermath of an ambush. She turned back to Max and began idly stroking his face and hair. “As I was saying, being who you are just adds a little spice, a little mystery if you will, to our relationship.”

“And yet I still cannot tell you who I am,” Max wheezed.

The horseman he had sent to raise the alarm at the manor did as ordered, staying well clear of the road and avoiding any possible secondary ambush. He’d ridden his horse hard, and both horse and rider were worn out as they passed through the guarded entrance to the manor grounds.

Michael had been working the other soldiers, including the ten veterans he privately referred to as ‘Max’s ten,’ on a series of movements designed to improve their flexibility and strength. The moment the exhausted horseman entered the manor’s grounds, Max’s ten knew something was wrong and sprinted as a unit for the soldier’s stables. They saddled their horses in record time, and with little regard paid to the comfort of the beasts, they were mounted and out of the stables just as Michael started toward the stables on his own with another forty soldiers in his wake.

Michael had to choose between his fully trained warhorse, who was massively strong, and a fearsome weapon in his own right in the hands of his master, or his palfrey, which was smaller and untrained for fighting, but much, much faster. The palfrey would get him there while the lumbering courser was still a long way off. Knowing there had been an attack, and that there could be another one at any time, he chose speed over power and saddled up the palfrey. Strapped to his side was his katana, a long, curved, single-edged blade he’d earned through years of training in far off Cipango, at the same place and time that he had learned his hand-to-hand fighting skills.

Michael was ready quickly and went storming off, determined to use his superior mount to catch Max’s ten, while the forty men the guard captain was sending had instructions to sweep both sides of the road as they advanced to make sure there was no secondary ambush waiting. They also had the job of escorting the wagons Max had requested for the wounded and dead soldiers.

While they waited for the relief force from the manor, Max and Elizabeth kept chatting, while the newly healed men formed a ring of steel around their lady and the exhausted squire.

“Can you at least tell me which family is yours?” Elizabeth asked.

“Not even if we were in private, which we are not,” Max pointed out. Then he whispered. “Keeping my identity secret is for your safety and my security.”

“Then why were you about to make a bank withdrawal?” Lana countered. “I bet you had to tell them who you are to make a withdrawal. Was not that going to be dangerous?”

“Not likely. The entire banking business of the Fuggieri family is based on dependability and confidentiality. They know if they ever get involved in politics, such as would happen if they were to reveal my identity, they will never be able to get back out, and then they will lose a huge amount of business from other customers who could no longer trust them.”

“You are sure of that?”

“Yes, I was…but you convinced me to not risk my life on it.” Wanting to change the subject, Max rubbed the palms of his hands on his thighs, and asked, “Any other questions? I know you learning about my heritage might be a bit to deal with.”

“Well…I already suspected you were more than just a simple squire, though I have to admit I had not been thinking you were Antarian.” Elizabeth drummed her small fingers on the compacted road dirt, then bit her lower lip and looked at him. “What does that mean for us?”

“I do not know. Since you said me being Antarian does not bother you, I cannot imagine how else it might impact us, but other things can and will. Is knowing we might not have a future going to stop you now?”

She put a hand on his chest and felt its rise and fall. “No, it will not. Whatever happens in the future is something to worry about later. Right now, I just want to enjoy being with you.”

“Does it bother you that I am a killer now?”

“No,” she replied, as she eased her hand around his wrist and slipped it into his hand. “Those men were after us. I do not know if they wanted to kidnap me for a ransom, or if their intentions were worse, but they killed six of my father’s men and wounded four others, so those people deserved to die, and I dare anyone to say differently.”

Elizabeth and Max stayed like that until Michael and Max’s ten came thundering down the road. Seeing no fighting going on, the Black Knight pulled up well short of the carnage and ran in on foot, leaving his horse with the ten to tie with their horses.

Michael came upon the formerly wounded knight first. He had a hundred questions on his mind, but managed to hold off on asking the unnecessary ones. “Where’s Lady Elizabeth? Does she live? Have they taken her?” He asked about Elizabeth first because it would help shield Max’s importance. Michael also assumed that wherever she was, his squire would be also.

“Lady Elizabeth is fine, Sir Michael,” the knight said. “Those sonsabitches never got close to the carriage, much less to the lady herself.”

Puzzled, Michael asked, “How many were there?” He couldn’t imagine anyone taking a risk like this and then not sending enough men to do the job.

“A dozen heavy infantry…probably that many crossbowmen…and before you ask, it wasn’t me or my men who saved the day,” he spat roughly on the ground, before continuing, “your squire roasted them like pigs on feast day.

“In one second we had two-thirds of our force down and the rest of us about to die, and the next second, all the attackers were burnt to ashes.”

Michael ran a hand over his face. So much for keeping a low profile. I can only hope he managed to not tell everyone who he was in the process.

The knight then added, “I’ve been told if you’ll look over there,” he pointed to where the hedge had been not half an hour earlier, “and step through the remnants of the hedge, you’ll see a sight you’ve never even imagined.”

Michael did as suggested and saw a sight that was not to be believed. Twenty-four lumps of misshapen metal, armor an weapons that had been melted by incredible heat. He’d seen a lot in his time, but that sight made him want to puke.

“Where is the lady?” Michael asked.

“Back that way,” the knight said as he awkwardly pointed back over his head. “Probably canoodling with her hero. Hell, if I was a girl her age, I’d be trying to give him my most personal thanks, too.” That weak joke made the knight laugh, which started him on a coughing fit.

Michael walked on and finally found Max and Elizabeth on the far side of the carriage. His head was in her lap and they were holding hands as they talked quietly. Michael felt a huge load leave his shoulders at the sight.

“You are both okay, right?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you, Sir Michael,” Elizabeth replied. “Thanks to my hero here.” She looked back down at Max and returned to fondly stroking his face and hair. For his part, Max managed a feeble wave at his knight.

Michael got closer and saw some blood on Max’s clothes. “Well then, how’d he get bloody?”

“After saving us all, Zan checked on our wounded soldiers and healed the ones who had not died yet. I guess he got too close to a couple of them.”

Michael got the picture. His knuckleheaded squire had, for the first time, shown the quality that was expected of a prince. He suspected there was more to the story than just a save and then a mass healing, but it would have to wait until later. Right now, he was solely concerned with keeping the prince and his lady healthy until the guard captain and his forty soldiers showed up. He spent a couple of minutes posting the men at hand to improve the protection of Max and Elizabeth, and even had a couple of men remount and start scouting the area to ensure no one took them by surprise again. When he was satisfied with his security arrangements, Michael returned to chat with the young couple.

“Milady,” he asked, “shouldn’t you be in the carriage where you can stay out of the sun?”

“No,” Elizabeth replied bluntly. “When Zan said it was safe, I had to come out and see what had happened, I just had to.” She eyed Max with a mixture of admiration and annoyance. “In truth, I wanted to tend to the wounded, but Zan healed them before I had a chance.” Her look switched to a rueful gaze, but her eyes never left Max’s. “I guess that is an idiotic thing of which to be jealous, but some of those men died, and others were injured, all for me. I owed them whatever service I could render, no matter how small.”

Michael shifted his gaze to Max, who nodded his confirmation of her version of events. “Not at all, Milady,” Michael disagreed. Like with Max, his estimation of Lady Elizabeth was growing in leaps and bounds. “You never have to apologize for wanting to see after the welfare of your men.”

Michael just stood there for a minute, appreciating the quiet grace of a noble who got it, one who really understood the obligation she had to those who served her. He knew from experience there were far too few of those, and he began to wonder if it was too late to hope for more between Max and Lady Elizabeth besides an essentially harmless teenage romance.

Maybe Prince Maximilian has found a young woman worthy of being his bride, his duchess, and the next queen of Alemannia.

[Cardinal]

First, a little housekeeping. There's an impromptu ceremony in this chapter. Because I wrote the source files for this chapter almost three years ago, I can't recall if I wrote the ceremony myself, if I wrote it with help from an internet source, or if I copied it from an internet source.

Since I can't remember, I'm crediting the internet as an entity because remembering the specific site is absolutely impossible at this remove.

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Chapter 24

Tonight’s the Knight…

Upon receiving word that Elizabeth was safe, Lord Parker had chosen to stay at home, since almost half of his soldiers were already gone, along with his guard captain. First back at the manor were the two wagons containing the bodies of his five dead soldiers, plus the body of the carriage driver.

The carriage driver had been married to one of the assistant cooks. She had been bravely holding in her fears until she saw her man in the wagon bed with the soldiers, but that broke her. She was inconsolable from that point on.

After a seemingly long wait, the carriage came back, under heavy guard, with all forty of the Parker men who had just ridden out arrayed around the carriage. They were spoiling for a fight and just hoping someone else would try for their lady. Michael and Max’s ten trailed behind just slightly, content to bring up the rear with the survivors from the original carriage guard now that the prince was safe.

And as for inside the carriage, the dressmaker sat on one side, but kept her eyes busy with something out the window so the young couple could have a modicum of privacy. What little privacy they had was made use of. Elizabeth and Max sat side by side, holding hands and talking quietly the whole way back. He had thought she might not think him as quite so much of a hero once she realized how easy it had been for him to kill their attackers, but he found she felt quite differently about the whole situation.

Elizabeth felt Max had given up a large part of his carefully hidden identity, and thus had put himself in mortal danger of some sort, just to save her. She liked to think he would have acted the same way had she not been there, but she knew she had been his primary concern. She didn’t know whether to think of his act as romantic or chivalrous or what, but she knew she was in love. Elizabeth didn’t know all the rules of the situation, but she intended to reward Max in one concrete way that was fully within her father’s power to grant. And when the carriage came to a full stop, she launched her plan into action.

Elizabeth motioned for her dressmaker to leave the carriage first, as she supposed there would be some commotion once she and Max followed. Grateful to avoid getting caught in the crush, the dressmaker slid out and then Elizabeth looked over at him and squeezed his hand.

“Are you ready for this?” he nodded. “Good, because Father’s people can be pretty possessive.”

“It sounds like that is your problem, not mine.”

“No, Zan, I think you will find you have just been adopted.”

Elizabeth’s prediction was right on the nose. A large crowd had gathered around the carriage, all waiting to see their beloved Lady Elizabeth and her heroic rescuer, Squire Zan. When the door popped open a second time, a slightly frazzled-looking Elizabeth stepped out of the carriage to an enthusiastic roar. Lord Parker was waiting at the bottom of the steps, and took his daughter into his arms as he cried his relief into her hair.

When they ended their fierce hug, Elizabeth pulled back just far enough to be able to see her father’s face. “Daddy?” she asked, using a name for her father she rarely used anymore.

“Yes, Pumpkin?” Jeffrey replied in kind.

“Zan saved me. Without him, I would be dead or kidnapped for ransom.”

“I know. The soldier who came back to raise the alarm told us.”

“Then knight him,” Elizabeth said.

“No. You know by now what he is and just how easy it was for him to handle those soldiers. A knighthood has to be earned.”

“And it was, Father, but not with physical bravery.” Elizabeth gave her father her most earnest puppy dog gaze. “Zan won a knighthood by risking everything for me. He gave up his carefully concealed secret to save me…and everyone else there.”

Jeffrey looked down indulgently at his daughter. “Are you sure this is not just a case of you wanting things for the boy you like?”

Elizabeth pressed both fists tightly to her sides. “Just ask yourself this: would you hesitate to knight him if he had saved someone other than one of your daughters?” Then she got an idea she really didn’t like. “Or are you letting his family connections, whatever they are, dictate whether or not you knight him? If so, that is unworthy of you.

“And one more thing, if you do not knight him, how will that make you look?” she asked. She was speaking as softly as she could and still be heard right now. “Besides me, there is a knight, six other soldiers, and a dressmaker who owe their lives to his willingness to sacrifice his own security just to save them, so if you do not knight him, you will look damned ungracious.”

Jeffrey held up his hands in a placating gesture. “All right, Elizabeth. All right. You win. Squire Zan will get his ‘battlefield commission’” he looked up into the carriage and smiled, “just as soon as you let him out of the carriage.”

Elizabeth looked back and saw she had been blocking Max’s exit from the carriage. Embarrassed, she almost jumped to get out of his way and then waited for him with shining eyes and rosy cheeks. When he finally stepped down out of the carriage, he received a hero’s welcome. The crowd was boisterous in their cheers, ending with one of the other dressmakers leading them in ‘three cheers for Squire Zan.’

Once the last hip, hip, hooray! faded away, Lord Parker stepped in close and thanked Max personally with a handshake and then a back-slapping hug for saving his daughter.

“And now, Squire, if you will kneel.” Lord Parker had strapped on his own sword earlier before deciding he wasn’t needed at the ambush site, so he drew his blade, which glimmered in the late afternoon sunlight, and said, “There is a long ceremony that goes with this in the normal course of events, including an overnight vigil in a chapel, but knighthoods can be earned with valorous behavior on the battlefield, and such was the case today.”

The crowd quieted expectantly as Lord Parker backed up enough to be able to extend his sword to knight Max.

“In remembrance of all that you have been and have yet to be.” Lord Parker touched Max on the right shoulder. “In remembrance of who you are and the obligations that entails.” Lord Parker touched the squire on the left shoulder. “Be thou a good and faithful knight.” One last touch, this time on top of Max’s head. “Rise, Sir Zan.”

As Max stood, he smiled widely and the crowd cheered lustily for their hero, but Lord Parker wasn’t finished. “You are a knight now. You are charged to help those who cannot help themselves, seek justice in every situation, and by your actions, maintain the honor accounted to all knights.”

“I will,” Max solemnly intoned.

Michael was dying, both because Max had been knighted, and because he wanted to drag him away from Elizabeth to find out in minute detail what had happened. The crowd descended on Max after his impromptu knighting ceremony, though, which made it obvious to Michael that the squi…no, the knight…would not be available to him for quite some time. Likely not until after dinner.

But when he saw Max beg off, citing his need to get out of his bloody garments and take a hot bath, the crowd parted, and then various servants ran off to be the first ones to help him by setting up a portable tub in Michael’s room and getting a cauldron of water ready to boil. Elizabeth even had one of her maids take a cake of her special lavender soap to Max so he would have something nice to smell other than dried blood and the reek of the lye soap the men usually used.

Having so many people leap to do things for him started to make Max feel uncomfortable. It was what he was used to as Prince Maximilian, but he hadn’t been the prince in at least two months, and had gotten used to doing things for himself, not to mention having to do things for Michael, too.

But he remembered one of the things Lord Parker had said, ‘In remembrance of who you are and the obligations that entails.’ In this case, he had to remember he was the prince and that the prince had to endure all sorts of things to allow his people the satisfaction of doing their jobs.

The worst humiliation was having to stand in the tub and allow the male servants to scrub him from head to toe, when he knew he could do it more efficiently without letting anyone else handle his body. Then the servants dressed him in another one of the decent suits of clothing that had been made for him at the time he had been appointed to dance with the girls.

For his part, Michael was laughing almost constantly as he watched the whole circus as the servants tried their best to thank Max for his efforts with their services, and his obviously uncomfortable reactions to everything they tried.

Once the servants had finished dressing the new knight, they picked up the tub, and scurried out of the room, leaving the two men alone. “You look disgustingly handsome in that getup, Max.”

“Thank you, Michael,” he replied, smiling slightly at not having to use the honorific ‘Sir’ anymore. “And you look like something the palace cats just dragged in. You might want to change.”

“Oh, I do, but I wasn’t about to do so until your horde of admirers left, for fear they might decide I was next.”

As Michael stripped down, Max found a servant and asked for a simple wash basin of hot water. He still had some of Elizabeth’s lavender soap, which he intended for Michael to use, until he realized it was a personal gift from her that she might not appreciate him sharing, so he added a request for some plain lye soap.

Michael was done washing himself and had started to dress before he started quizzing Max about what had happened. The prince gave him a precise rundown of the attack, and included his thoughts about who could have sent them. Michael just listened as he evaluated Max’s thought process.

“What really gets me, Michael, is that there are some specific requirements for an ambush.”

“Like?” Michael asked, testing Max’s knowledge.

“Like, they had that spot picked out long before they hit us, likely before we left this morning, which means they knew where we were going and probably had a rough idea of when, too. Then, they had to have some kind of warning that we were close to their kill zone just before they struck.”

“Anything else strike you as being unusual?”

“Yes…at first it was that they did not attack us on the way to the city, when our arrival in the kill zone would have been more predictable. Maybe they saw the size of Elizabeth’s guard contingent and had to call in more men to attack us on the return trip.”

“Those footmen,” Michael asked, “when did they run?”

“They were disappearing as I came out of the carriage.”

“Do you remember hearing them yell anything that might have tipped off the ambushers?”

Max shook his head. “No, and my memory is sharp. No sounds from the back of the carriage.”

“Had any of Lord Parker’s few remaining uninjured men been riding up front well ahead of the carriage?”

“They could have been,” Max replied, “but that is because the guard force split in two at that point, with half in front and half behind, due to the narrowness of the road.”

“So it wasn’t likely an inside job.”

“No.”

Michael decided to change the subject when it became plain they weren’t going to find the answers before dinner. “Was that the first time you have had to kill?”

“Yes,” Max said. His quietness let Michael know he was still thinking about it. “It did not bother me right after it was over, but now I wonder if there might have been a different way.”

“Max, there were twenty-four of them! What did you expect them to do? Fall down and beg once you announced your name?”

Max smiled at Michael’s rhetorical question, as the older knight pulled on his red dress jacket, “No, I was just thinking I could have spent an extra few seconds preparing and used a mind warp to send them away empty handed.”

The two men headed downstairs and made their way to the dining hall. Michael headed for the head table while Max headed for his usual seat with the soldiers. One of the servants was quick to come over to him and make it clear he was to join the Parkers at the head table.

Max followed the servant until he was pointed to a particular spot. Just then, the Parkers came filing in and he stayed standing. The ornate chair to his left told him he’d be sitting at Lord Parker’s right hand as his honored guest, but it wasn’t until Elizabeth took the seat on his right, that he knew he was truly being honored. Holding her seat for her and then pushing it in when she was ready, Max then took his own seat and slid his right hand under the table. Elizabeth saw that and tucked her hand into his.

This could be the best meal ever, he thought.

[Cardinal]

When you read this chapter, keep in mind that this Max likes to leap in with both feet and then think later.

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Chapter 25

The Best Intentions

Lord Parker’s first move was to introduce ‘Sir Zan’ to the assembled diners, loosely explain what he had done for the few who didn’t already know, and then make sure they all knew he was knight now instead of a squire.

Max and Elizabeth couldn’t hold hands all night long, not and still manage to eat, but they shared so many looks and smiles that it hardly mattered. After dinner, Lord Parker pulled her aside long enough to let her know she was allowed to spend time with Max outside of her remedial dance classes, but that when she did, she needed to make doubly sure they were either chaperoned or the door to the room was wide open. Jeffrey didn’t say that out of any fear that Max might ravage her, but any closeness between them after the way he had saved her might make people wonder.

Elizabeth wanted to talk privately with Max and tried to think of a place where she could while still being observed by a maid or someone else who could testify that nothing improper had happened. She finally chose the interior courtyard where they had shared a late lunch the other day just before her father had banned her from seeing him. She thought the place was decently romantic and the burbling water would make it difficult for anyone to overhear them. She sent one of her maids to find Max and ask him to follow her to the courtyard to meet Elizabeth.

Meanwhile, Michael and Max had gone outside for a talk of their own. Once he was sure no one was close enough to overhear, Michael said, “You know, Max, you seem to have your choice of the Parker women.”

“Hmm?” Max wasn’t really focused on Michael yet. His mind was fully on Elizabeth and the time they’d spent together. He was convinced she was the one for him. He just despaired of ever getting his parents to see that, too.

“I was saying that while Lady Elizabeth’s interest in you is obvious, it seems that Lady Maria and Lady Tess have an interest, too.”

“Lady Maria?” Max asked incredulously. “In me? Oh yes, I really want a girl who gets mad and beats me when she fails to get her way.”

“But you did say she apologized very nicely the other day.”

“Yes she did. It was everything I could have hoped for. A woman like that could turn a lot of heads. My problem with Lady Maria is I think the girl with the temper is more likely the real her than the sweet girl who apologized. And having a girl who jumped back and forth between the two would be pure torture.”

“What about Lady Tess?”

“Beautiful girl. Nice. Quiet.” Max turned to Michael. “Whatever makes you think she’s interested?”

“I’ve seen her look at you when you weren’t watching. I was sitting next to her tonight, and when Lord Parker told everyone what you had done, she sighed and got these big eyes.”

“I hope you are joking. I already have the Lady Parker I want.”

“Not joking. Not at all. And while I think you can chase Lady Maria away by making it clear you’re not interested, I can’t say the same for Lady Tess.” Michael kicked at a pebble and watched it bounce away. “She’s a third daughter and is used to waiting, sometimes a long time, for her turn. She will wait patiently for her chance, and then seize it.”

“She can seize whatever she wants, as long as it is not me.”

About that time, the poor maid finally found Max talking to Michael outside. She’d been all over the manor and was nearly exhausted, so she caught her breath for a moment and then relayed her lady’s message. “Sir Zan, Lady Elizabeth asks for your attendance upon her in the courtyard. If you will follow me?”

“The courtyard?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“I believe it’s time for me to go, Michael. My Lady Parker is calling.” He started to walk off, but then stopped and looked back at his mentor. “But your Lady Parker…your Lady Parker may be waiting for you to grow a pair.” Max winked. “I will see you in the morning, Michael. I now have a room of my own right next to yours.”

My Lady Parker? Michael wondered. How’d he make that leap? I’m landless, make a comfortable living as a knight, but not nearly enough to support a lady, and I’m more than ten years older than the oldest of those girls. My Lady Parker indeed.

Max walked into the torch-lit courtyard to find Elizabeth seated on the coping of the fountain, trailing a hand through the clear water. He cleared his throat, startling her and causing her to almost fall into the fountain before she caught herself. Max ran to her side, while the maid stayed back by the door to watch them.

“I came close to falling in,” Elizabeth said in wonderment.

“Michael says close only counts in horseshoes,” he shrugged his shoulders, “but I am still not sure what a horse’s shoes have to do with anything.”

Elizabeth gestured for Max to take a seat on the coping next to her, but then she was suddenly too nervous to sit. She stood, and he immediately stood with her. Her hands started to flutter around until he clasped her fingertips with his own.

“Why so nervous?”

“Being here, alone, with you.”

“We are not alone.” He tilted his head toward the doorway where the maid waited patiently. “Your maid is waiting over there, protecting your reputation.”

“You are not insulted, are you?”

“Insulted? No. I understand completely. A young woman’s most valuable personal asset these days is her, uh, purity. If that comes into serious question, even once, it can have a material effect on her chances of marrying well.” He grinned slightly. “In fact, if I was your father, I wouldn’t let me within a mile of you.”

“Why not?”

Max squeezed Elizabeth’s fingertips and looked into her eyes, wanting her to know the truth of what he had to say. “Because I know how much I love you.”

Elizabeth’s mouth opened wide, and she gasped, not having hoped to hear that from him, not yet anyway. “You love me?”

Max nodded readily, a sudden smile threatening to consume his face. “Yes, I love you.” He looked at the expression on her face, and asked, “Is it so hard to believe someone could love you?”

Elizabeth shifted her speech from Alemanni to Iberian, “I love you, too, Zan. From the moment you knelt in front of me to apologize, I knew you were special, and I have found myself falling deeper and harder for you with each passing day.”

Her command of the language was slightly less perfect than his, but that didn’t keep her emotion from shining through. Max grinned ruefully, knowing she had understood him completely when he’d admitted his growing attraction to her days ago in the library.

“You…” He used his fingertip grip to pull her in close, so close in fact that their chests were almost touching. She looped her arms around his thick neck and he held her lightly at the waist, looming over her like a cliff face above the shore.

Elizabeth never once took her eyes off of Max’s, even though she had to crane her neck to do so. He lowered his head and she raised up on her toes; their lips touched and two sets of eyes fluttered closed. The first kiss was short and sweet, and both pulled back just long enough to see the other smile before rushing in to kiss harder and deeper.

* FLASH *

Max saw a small brown-headed toddler dressed all in black. She sitting with a man, and an older girl, with a nursemaid holding a black-clad baby at what looked to him to be a funeral. The girl was sad, but didn’t quite understand what was going on.

* FLASH *

He saw a girl who looked to be not quite ten, in fact, she appeared to be a younger Elizabeth. Max could tell she felt she was outclassed by the older, athletic Maria, and the younger, oh so pretty Tess. He felt her need to distinguish herself and knew how hard she’d redoubled her efforts at studying everything the tutors set before her. If she couldn’t be the strongest, or the prettiest, Elizabeth was determined to be the smartest.

* FLASH *

He saw a soot-covered Elizabeth talking to an equally filthy squire that he had no trouble recognizing. His felt her sudden humiliation when his dirty self assumed she was a stable girl and handed off the reins to his two horses.


Max pulled back then, as much to end the flashes as to get a double lungful of air. Elizabeth had no idea anything had happened beyond having just received her first kiss. The maid had moved a few steps toward them when their kiss became heated, but backed off when the young knight ended it.

“D - did you see anything?” Max asked tentatively. He knew from his studies that mental flashes only happened between two people who were close, and only then when at least one of the two people relaxed enough to open up completely. Max wanted Elizabeth to have seen something of him, and yet, he knew he couldn’t afford for that to have happened, as there was no way for him to control exactly what she saw. In his current state, that would be risky.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, had no clue when it came to mental flashes. The only flashes she knew anything about were the hot flashes some of her older chambermaids sometimes complained about. But she had seen something.

“Yes,” she answered dreamily. “Stars.”

Max breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t given away his identity and pulled her into a hug. Rocking her gently he said, “A copper for you thoughts.”

Elizabeth was mostly thinking about the kiss, savoring the taste and feel of his lips and the way she felt while pressed so closely to his body, but there was no way she was going to tell him that. Looking for something else she could share was easy, once her thoughts moved beyond their immediate closeness.

“I am scared about us,” she said.

“Why?”

“With the Harvest Ball coming up in a few weeks, it is entirely possible I may start receiving suitors after attending, and father intends to find me a husband soon.”

“He does?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

The idea that Elizabeth could be taken from him just as they were getting close hurt Max. It hurt him more than he would have ever believed possible. “Then…maybe I can use some influence. We have got some time, so if I can send off a letter to the right person, and he decides to intervene on our behalf, it may buy us some more time.”

“Time for what?”

“For me to fight for you, to convince my parents that you are the one for me.”

Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “I-I do not know what to say.”

“You do not have to say anything just yet. This is going to be a lot for you to deal with, but know now that my intentions, which have never been less than honorable, are now of the highest quality.

“Lady Elizabeth Parker, I intend to marry you.”

[Cardinal]

Chapter 26

Aftermath

Being so happy with what she’d just heard, Elizabeth’s eyes shed tears as she tried to talk. “Marry m-me? That…that’s w-wonderful.” Her lips sought out his, and they crashed together in an impetuous kiss. Besides being an expression of her feelings, the kiss was also the beginning of her pledge to him.

“I love you, Sir Zan,” Elizabeth said. Her words were formal, but her voice was filled with warmth and good humor. “I swear I will offer no encouragement to any other man while you fight for my hand.”

Max winced inside when he heard her use his false name. He wanted her to know all about himself and about the difficulties they would face in trying to earn his parents’ permission to marry. True, he was now old enough to marry on his own. As a knight, he was considered to be an adult and didn’t have to wait until he was twenty, but as a noble, his marriage had to be approved, and since he was a prince and a duke, it meant he had to gain the king’s approval.

A darker thought was that if his father died, he could choose his own wife, but even then the Council of Dukes would want to know why he was marrying the second daughter of a relatively insignificant man. And in any case, Max didn’t want to have to lose his father to gain Elizabeth’s hand; he wanted to convince his parents of her suitability to be his bride.

Knowing he needed approval of his prospective bride gave Max an idea. It was something he wished he had thought of before. As Duke of Borussia, he was the liege lord of several counts, and below them, a large number of barons…one of which happened to be the Baron of Roswell, Elizabeth’s father. Max realized he could use the power of his own office to prevent Elizabeth from having to marry anyone else while she waited for him.

I can write a letter in my own hand, Max thought, using the ducal signet ring hidden in my traveler’s belt to make it official, and declare an absolute ban on Lord Parker marrying Elizabeth to anyone. I'll have to wait to have that letter delivered until it's time for me to leave though or else risk detection. I don't care who guesses my identity once I've left.

After a moment’s reflection, he realized how risky and unworthy his plan was. He hastily decided on something simpler and safer. I could use my position to convince Lord Parker to give me the time I need, he mused. Maybe run a little bluff. If he thinks I’ll block his girls from marrying, he might acquiesce.

Pleased he’d thought up a better idea for stopping anyone from marrying Elizabeth, at least until he’d had a chance to work on his parents, Max gestured toward the coping of the fountain, and Elizabeth sat. As he took the spot next to her, he wondered, Who would have ever thought I would be hoping to marry for love?

“So what do we do now?” she asked, as she leaned sideways and rested the side of her face on his shoulder.

“We spend time together, as much as we can and get to know each other better, because there is no telling how much longer it will be safe for me to stay here after today’s exhibition.”

“Why do you hide? Who hunts you?”

“You have heard about the rebellion back home, correct?” Elizabeth nodded and Max continued. “Someone having me in their possession might try to influence my family one way or the other. Or they could just kill me to get me out of the way.

“And if my parents disappear or are killed, I will have to return to Alemannia to help take care of my family’s interests.”

Elizabeth squeezed Max harder when she heard he might have to venture into what was shaping up to be, according to the few vague reports they’d gotten, a full-blown rebellion. “Please be careful. With things as you say they are, you are in danger wherever you go.” She moved in close once more, leaving her lips only inches from his. “And know that wherever you go, you take my heart with you.”

A final kiss, warm and sweet, before Elizabeth reluctantly straightened up. “I need to go. I have to get some sleep to look my best tomorrow.”

“Why? Who is coming?”

“Prince Kyle is coming so we can get to know each other a little bit better before the Harvest Ball.”

The reminder that Elizabeth would be attending such an occasion in another man’s company, especially a man Max knew and liked but did not especially trust with women, made a flash of anger shoot through his body. For her sake he had to take a small risk.

“Elizabeth…”

“Yes?”

“Please be extra careful with the prince.”

Curious, and wondering what was causing the worried look on his face, Elizabeth said slowly, “Why? I will be just as careful with Prince Kyle as with any man.”

“Prince Kyle recently spent a year in Alemannia. He and I became friends and the women all seemed to think him charming. All except for my sister.”

“Your sister? What happened?”

Max shrugged and began to wander around the courtyard. “She would not say, but there came a time when she could no longer abide his presence. He seemed to think she was playing hard to get and he still has hopes she will come around.

“She will not though. Not my sister. I have learned to trust her judgment about people. So while Kyle and I get along famously, I do not trust him alone with a woman.” Max stopped walking and he looked at Elizabeth with an intensity she had seen earlier in the day when he had left the carriage to defend her. “And now, he is going to be escorting the woman I love to a huge event in his family’s own palace. Please be careful. Do not let him take you off alone, for if I carry your heart with me, you surely have mine wrapped around your finger.”

Max emphasized his point. “Friend or not, prince or not, if he harms you in any way at that ball, I will kill him.”

Elizabeth paled, convinced Max meant precisely what he said. The idea that she was going to the ball with someone who might like women a bit too much, much too soon, worried her. But surely the prince would not risk an incident, she thought. And anyway, maybe Zan is just being a bit paranoid, or even a bit jealous. Still, she’d keep be on her toes. After all, she recalled the words of an old royal security chief in one of her favorite history books; the man had said sometimes paranoid people are right.

“Don’t worry, Zan.” Elizabeth held one finger up in the air. Significantly, it was the traditional finger for an Alemanni noblewoman to wear her wedding ring. She made a twisting gesture with the fingertips of her other hand around the base of that finger, and said, “I will take good care of your heart.” With that, she stood and dipped into an elegant curtsey, which he returned with his most formal bow. Then she moved back toward the door, collected her maid, and disappeared into the manor.

Max figured Elizabeth could take care of herself, now that she had been forewarned, but he was of a mind to see Kyle when he came, both to call in some favors so his friend wouldn’t give away his identity, and to let him know in no uncertain terms that Elizabeth was off limits. The next morning, he was up very early, along with everyone else in the manor, for the funerals of the five soldiers and the carriage driver. Once they were over, Max changed into his workout clothing and headed down to the waryard for hand-to-hand combat practice with Michael.

“You know,” Max said, by way of greeting his instructor good morning, “Lady Tess told me the other day during her dancing lesson, that she thought this waryard should be dug up and planted as a formal garden and that the waryard should be in back of the soldiers stables.”

“Oh really?” Michael was slightly surprised to see Max here, now that he had earned his knighthood. Quite frankly, he had expected the young prince to go back to bed and sleep until it was time for lunch.

Max slouched against a wall. “Do not worry, Michael, take your time. We have time enough to let an old guy like you warm up before I give you a beating.”

“Sounds like someone’s been into Lord Parker’s 4X ale this morning,” Michael shot back as he limbered up, “because that’s a lot of tough talk for a pretty boy.” Michael quieted then until he was warm and then walked up to an arm’s length from Max, who finally straightened up out of his slouch. Looking slightly to the right, Michael said, “I hope I don’t end up having to embarrass you in front of your new girlfriend.”

“Huh? What?” Max’s head whipped in the direction Michael looked and Michael took that moment of distraction to launch a punch right at Max’s head. There was no one there, Michael had been bluffing, but the mistake he made was that the long shadow cast by his body in the early morning sunlight fell in that direction. Max saw the shadow’s arm move forward and instinctively dropped to the ground. Michael, fully committed to the punch, missed Max’s head by inches, and his hand crunched into the brick wall behind him.

Michael screamed like his warhorse had just kicked him in the nuts. It felt to him as if he had broken every bone in his hand. After that first scream, came a string of complex curses that did everything from question the marital status of Max’s parents when he was born, to suggest he might be closer to his mother than any prince since Oedipus…and that was when Michael just was warming up.

Max waited until the flow of curses subsided somewhat and then forced Michael to let him take a look at his injured hand. The unfortunate part of the swearing was that it had attracted a sizeable crowd.

“Sorry, Old Man,” Max muttered. “It looks like you’ll have to suffer for awhile. If anyone here sees me heal you, I’ll have a line of sick servants and soldiers by lunchtime, and an even longer line of locals with sick children and farm animals by the next morning.

“The good news is that your hand is fixable. Too bad it’s summer. No ice for you.”

“But what about yesterday?” Michael growled. “The entire manor has to know you healed four soldiers.”

Max looked pole-axed, as if the attack and its aftermath had completely slipped his mind. “Oh…right…that.” He face-palmed himself and then smiled brightly. “In that case, let’s get you healed.”

“You think?” Michael asked sarcastically.

Max made eye contact with Michael, and once he had established a connection with him, he placed his hand on top of Michael’s and healed it. Badly scraped skin suddenly smoothed over, leaving only dried flakes of blood, and inside, cracked bones fused together as if nothing had happened.

Once again, Michael felt the wave of energy pulse through him, and when the energy was gone, so was the pain. “You are a miracle worker!” he exulted, as he flexed his newly healed hand.

“Yeah, well, that gives us plenty of time for me to finish giving you a beating.”

“Finish? You never started!”

Max gestured at Michael’s hand. “You have already broken one hand this morning. Want to break something else?”

“No, I think I’ve had enough humble pie for one morning. You go on and eat.” He looked at his hand, still wondering at how perfectly it was healed. Even old scars he’d had for years were now gone, as were all the callouses he’d earned from years of sword fighting practice. “I’m going to relax a bit and then have a late breakfast. Today’s a sleepy day anyway.”

“Don’t you have drills with the troops after breakfast?”

“Not today,” Michael said. “Lord Parker cancelled all drills because of the funerals early this morning and because of the afternoon visit by the prince.”

“Dancing lessons were not cancelled,” Max replied. “So I will be busy.” He was about to leave, and then he shot Michael a look. “You know, with the aggressive way Maria dances sometimes, maybe you ought to be her dancing instructor. You could teach her holds, flips, leg sweeps…the whole lot, and she would like it ever so much more than what I teach her.”

Michael chuckled. “Leaving you more time to spend with Lady Elizabeth.”

Max bowed slightly and acknowledged the accuracy of Michael’s statement. “What can I say? For the first time in my life, I am in love.”

“Go on. Get out of here before I puke. This lovey-dovey crap’s more than I can take.”

During his two hours dancing with Maria, Max had to admit how good she was becoming, despite his earlier comments to Michael. She did still have an occasional tendency to lead, but even that was coming under control. That, however, wasn’t the biggest surprise. That honor went to Maria’s question about what exactly had happened to Michael. Her expression of sympathy for the man nearly bowled Max over. Deciding Michael could use some female company, Max said, “If you would like to, Lady Maria, you could visit him. I am sure he would appreciate a friendly face.”

Elizabeth was up next, and to his mind, the radiant smile she sported and the extra care she’d obviously taken to look good today made her look more beautiful to him than ever. He couldn’t wait to tell her so. Speaking softly to ensure no one out in the hallway heard him, Max said, “I have had hundreds of dreams of what my future wife would look like. They all fall short of reality…far short.”

Pleased with Max’s reaction, Elizabeth twirled in place, showing off her dress along with a quick glimpse of her calves that his eyes did not miss. She was also pleased, and a bit puzzled, that he didn’t seem to be the least bit jealous over her impending meeting with the prince. Her puzzlement lasted only a moment and then she realized he had no reason to be jealous. After all, he had already warned her about the prince’s sense of entitlement when it came to women and she had already pledged to not encourage any other man.

Their time dancing went well considering Max was introducing Elizabeth to a dance that was completely new to her. It was close to their usual noontime lunch break, when a breathless servant came scurrying to the door to inform Lady Elizabeth that Prince Kyle had arrived and hoped to join her for lunch.

“Well,” Max said, “that sounds like the end of our day together. See you at dinner?”

“Of course, but be forewarned that Father will likely invite Prince Kyle to stay for that meal, too.”

“Oh great. Kyle has never met a meal he did not like. He might end up staying long enough to be offered a sweet for a late night snack.”

Elizabeth was just about to leave the dancing room and straighten up her appearance before heading down to meet the prince, when the prince in question entered the dancing room itself, in hope of escorting her down to the dining hall.

[Cardinal]

Chapter 27

Man to Man

When Kyle came in, looking resplendent in his blue coat, white shirt, cream knee breeches, and black boots, Elizabeth was near the door, She quickly became the focus of his attention, while Max drifted back. His large body was strongly backlit by the room’s open windows, allowing Kyle to see him only as a looming shadow. Elizabeth wanted to introduce Max to the prince, mostly because she knew they were already acquainted, but as the prince was the social superior here and showed no interest in an introduction, she dared not try it.

Elizabeth took her leave from ‘Zan’ and allowed Kyle to escort her as far as the entrance to the family’s private quarters. She left him there, promising to be right out. He’d had enough experience with women to know ‘I’ll be right out’ could actually take awhile, so he took advantage of a chair he found nearby and sat.

Max began to wonder if it was a good thing for Elizabeth to be looking more beautiful than ever on the day Kyle showed up for a visit. He knew if Kyle saw her the way he himself did, she would have two very interested princes on her hands instead of just one.

Knowing Kyle couldn’t have recognized him against the backdrop of the open windows, Max had been happy to stay silent and keep from being recognized. He definitely wanted to talk to Kyle, just not in Elizabeth’s presence. He needed to make sure his friend would keep his secret; he had a number of favors that Kyle owed him, and all of them would be called in if necessary. As for Elizabeth herself, he wanted to let Kyle know she was on the other side of a line he did not want to cross.

Once Kyle and Elizabeth left, Max hurried downstairs, hoping to finish eating before they arrived, but he found out the cooks had been told to hold the meal for the prince and Elizabeth’s appearance. Everyone stood once they walked in, but since Max was facing the other way, had the short hair, and had chosen to sit down with the soldiers, all he was to Kyle’s eyes was another hulking soldier.

During the meal, Max tried to keep himself from looking in Kyle’s direction, which was hard for him to do with Elizabeth sitting by Kyle’s side. In the end, his efforts were for naught, though, as Kyle happened to look down the room just as Max started to laugh at a joke made by one of the soldiers sitting nearby.

“Excuse me please, Lady Elizabeth,” Kyle said, “I have just seen someone in your hall that should not be within five hundred miles of here.” Not without having paid me a visit first anyway.

Not sure he was seeing who he thought he was seeing, Kyle rose and walked down the room until he reached a point directly behind Max. Everyone had started to rise when the prince stood, but he had waved them all back to their seats, so Max was sitting when Kyle tapped him on the shoulder. Max set down his utensils, rose, and stepped well away from the table to face the Krakovian prince.

Kyle had thought he had seen Crown Prince Maximilian, but he hadn’t been sure. And now, faced with the reality of the situation, he paused for a moment, which was enough for Max to lift his finger to his own mouth, to ask for quiet, or at least restraint, from his friend.

Max then leaned in close and whispered, “Please, do not mention my name or rank to anyone. No one can know I am here.”

“What name do you use then?” Kyle whispered back.

“Sir Zan. I will explain later.”

Curious, Kyle thought he’d play along. “You sonofabitch!” he said out loud, as he pulled Max into a strong, backslapping hug. “When you come out this way, you are supposed to be polite and make a stop at the palace.”

“There are reasons not to,” Max grinned, “most of which you should already know.” He then spoke softly again. “Now be a good guest and get back up there with Lady Elizabeth. She is the one you came to see, not me.”

“We will talk later though, correct?”

“I will not let you leave without at least a short chat,” Max assured him.

“Good.”

Kyle returned to Elizabeth, who was finding the prince to be a very amiable companion, not to mention very nice looking. She could see how it would be easy for most girls to develop an interest in him. But not her, and after an afternoon filled with a long, parasol-shaded walk, and a couple of intricate games of chess, Kyle declined a dinner invitation, saying he had to get back to the palace.

Out in front of the manor where Kyle’s carriage waited, Max was waiting, too. After Kyle took his leave from Elizabeth on the front steps, he and Max walked off to one side for some needed privacy.

“Now…what has kept you from visiting me, other than your desire to hide?”

“I have obligations here which keep me busy most of the day.”

“What kind of obligations? Chasing skirts?”

Max grimaced and shot a quick look in the direction of the front door where Elizabeth was watching. Kyle followed the line of Max’s glance, and wondered if his friend was actually interested in the lady. It wouldn’t be a first, but it was rare enough to earn some notice.

“No, Kyle, not chasing skirts. That is your pastime. Right now, mine is making them spin.” Kyle raised his eyebrows. “Lord Parker has tasked me with giving the ladies of the house a refresher in dancing.”

The surprise of finding that his friend Max, who hated dancing or at least hated attending dances the last time he’d heard, was now a dancing instructor, took Kyle’s breath away for a second before launching him into a burst of uncontrolled laughter. “Oh God! That was you? Up there teaching Lady Elizabeth to dance?”

“Yes, it was, and you had better hope I am good at it.”

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Kyle asked, “Why?”

“Because you are escorting her to the Harvest Ball,” Max said. “I mean, if she steps on your toes, maybe it will be because her dancing master taught her the wrong steps.”

Kyle grunted and then his eyes opened wide as he got an idea. “Speaking of the ball, Maximilian…”

“It’s Zan, remember?”

“Oh yeah, sorry.” Kyle started over. “Speaking of the ball, Zan, you should come. Serena’s been dying to meet you, and there will be plenty of good food.”

“But I am trying to hide.”

“You already are hiding.” Kyle assured him. “Sir Zan? Who knows him? And you chopped off that thick mane of hair. Besides, people see what they expect to see. No one in their right mind will believe the crown prince of Alemannia is slumming as a simple knight in Krakovia.”

“And where am I supposed to find a suitable escort on such short notice?”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “I seem to remember there being three beautiful young women of quality in this household. Surely one of the other two finds you attractive enough to attend the ball with you.”

Max thought briefly of attending with Maria and shivered. Nah, Maria and I are getting along just fine the way we are now. No need to risk it with the pressure of an occasion like this. I might end up with a dagger in my back. Then his thoughts drifted to Tess. Beautiful, well-mannered, and excellent dancer. And as he remembered, she hadn’t yet made her debut at a society function. Having become old enough just before they’d left Roswell, her father hadn’t had time to arrange anything yet. Surely she’d say yes, even to a newly-minted knight like me.

“Likely,” Max conceded, “if their father allows it anyway.”

“Good! An invitation for you plus one will arrive by special courier tomorrow. And Max…”

“Zan!” Max muttered.

“Zan, right. I keep forgetting that.”

“Forget that around the wrong person, combined with yesterday’s roadside slaughter, and you will be giving away my complete identity.”

“I heard something about that this morning, but had no idea you were involved. Who were they?”

“Damned if I know, though I do have my suspicions. This is your place, remember? All I remember is that there were two dozen of them. The crossbowmen were no better than average, and I did not give the heavy infantry time to show their quality.” Max paused and chewed lightly on the inside of his cheek as he thought. “I would like to know who was behind the attack though. I would also like to know whether Elizabeth or I was their target.”

“Tell you what, Zan, tell me what, umm, Vilondra’s been up to, and I will do some digging to find out if the city watch has come up with anything yet. Deal?”

Max snickered at Kyle’s creative use of one of Isabel’s middle names to ask about her in a safe manner. He pulled Kyle much farther away from everyone to ensure no one could overhear them. “Sure, I left the Summer Palace before she did. She told me her ladies had overheard she was to be sent away herself for security reasons. You know if Khivar gets a hold of her, she will become his bride, whether she wills it or not.”

“Where did they send her?”

“No idea. She is more secure if no one knows, so even I was not told.” Max eyed his friend and decided he needed to be told, again, that he had no shot to win Isabel’s heart, even though an arranged, strictly political marriage was still possible. “You do know she basically despises you, correct?”

“So you say…and have said before…but I believe, in time, she’ll succumb to my charms and petition your father to arrange the marriage.”

Max shook his head slightly and smiled at his friend’s obstinate refusal to admit Isabel was out of his reach. There was one other woman’s reaction to Kyle that he was interested in. “Why are you not staying for dinner? Elizabeth was sure her father would extend the invitation and I know how much you like to eat.”

“Lady Elizabeth was polite and an engaging conversationalist, but never more than cool to me. It is obvious from her intelligence that she has been educated more like one of our ladies than one of yours - which is a serious plus - but…a woman has got to have that fire burning inside of her to attract me. Beauty alone will not do.”

“That is good to hear,” Max replied. “Very good.”

“What do you mean?”

“I am glad you are not interested in her, because I am, and I do not mean just as someone to pass the time with.”

“So? You know you cannot marry her,” Kyle said. “Court gossip when I was in visiting Alemannia had you paired off with either Serena, Princess Maria of Iberia, or even Princess Alexandrie of Franconia.”

“No Alemannian women at all? Not even Lord de Laney’s daughter, Lady Victoria?”

“You wish they would let you get your grubby hands on Lady Victoria. She is almost as gorgeous as Isabel.”

“No, not Victoria, though she is attractive.” Max made sure he had Kyle’s full attention, so his friend would see how serious he was. “I have my heart set on Elizabeth, and intend to convince my parents of her eminent suitability for the role and for me.”

“No fucking way!” Kyle was flabbergasted. “You want to waste your position as crown prince on a relative nobody?”

“Be careful how you speak about my intended bride, Kyle.” Max said darkly.

Kyle could see thunderclouds on the horizon as Max’s slow-burning fuse was lit. He did not want his friend’s fabled hot temper to reveal itself now.

“Elizabeth is the one woman I know that does not need my title to be a woman of consequence,” Max said. “She already is. And know this: if you lay a disrespectful finger on her before, during, or after the ball, our friendship will be no protection for you from my anger. Treat her as if she was already my wife, and everything will be fine.”

Kyle realized Max was serious about this. He was in love with Lady Elizabeth Parker and fully intended to marry her. Besides the pleasant fact that Max marrying a nobody would make one more princess available for him to marry, should Isabel not relent, Kyle also knew this meant no post-ball hanky-panky with the nubile Lady Elizabeth unless he really wanted a front row seat as Max unleashed his anger and power.

“Okay,” Kyle said, hands raised in a pacifying manner. “I can see you have actually lucked into love, and I am not going to mess with that. You have my word that I will help Lady Elizabeth enjoy herself at the ball, but I will not attempt to enjoy her.”

Relieved, Max reached over and shook hands with him. “Thanks for that, Kyle. I know you are a man of your word.” Max then saw his friend to the carriage steps before turning back to the manor, where Elizabeth was waiting.

[Cardinal]

Chapter 28

Invitations

When Max left Kyle and headed back toward the building, all Elizabeth wanted to do was greet him with a chaste kiss, but a kiss in front of the prince was the last thing she’d do right now. It might end up giving him an idea that she hands out kisses freely. Besides, a public show of such a personal emotion wasn’t her style. Not allowing herself to kiss Max didn’t stop her from giving him a warm greeting though.

“Hi, Zan,” Elizabeth said, as he bounded up the steps. When he offered her his arm, she looped her arm around his and walked back into the manor with him. “How did your talk with the prince go?”

Max looked at her out of the corner of his eye, and said, “I should ask the same thing of you.”

“Maybe you should, but I asked first.”

“All right. I told him about us and that I was serious about convincing my parents that you should be my wife. I also warned him to keep his hands off you, and he promised to do so…”

“Does that mean I can trust him now?”

“Mmm…be careful anyway. This is Kyle’s home. He may not feel bound to keep his word to me since I threatened him to make him give it to me.”

“You threatened a prince,” Elizabeth deadpanned. “Here. In his own land.”

“Making sure he knew you were off-limits was my primary goal. I thought it was the best way to keep you safe.” Max shrugged his shoulders. “Besides, it would not be fair for me to kill him if I had not warned him first.”

“You men…” Elizabeth’s face looked like she was somewhere between amazed and annoyed and not sure what to think next.

“Us men…what?”

“You all talk about killing like it is an every day occurrence, and in this case, you are talking about killing a friend as easily as if you were talking about killing a mad dog. It bothers me. A lot.”

“I am sorry, Elizabeth,” Max replied. “I will try to avoid talking about that with you in the future. But you have to know there are some people who only respond to force, or the threat of force.”

“And being a prince, Kyle is likely one of those people?”

“For sure. Here in his own land, there are few constraints on him.” Max stopped a passing servant, and asked, “Has dinner been announced?” Finding the answer to be ‘no,’ he asked Elizabeth, “Where to now?”

She chose a sitting room on the east side of the house, figuring it would be cooler due to being sheltered from the afternoon sun.

Once he’d seated her and then taken a seat himself, Max said, “And now comes the difficult part of what I have to tell you.” Elizabeth just raised her eyebrows as an inducement for him to continue. “Kyle invited me to the ball and said there would be a special courier tomorrow delivering an official invitation for me plus a guest.”

Elizabeth saw where this was going right away. All she asked was, “Which one do you want to ask?”

“I was thinking of asking Tess. She seems more likely to be an agreeable companion, and I also recall she has never gotten to attend a function like this before, so she should love to go.”

“Why not Maria?”

“Huh?”

“You heard me. You two are just starting to get along.”

“Yes, and…?”

“And now you want to go and insult her…again.”

“Insult her? How? I will not even be talking to her.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes extravagantly and scooted forward to the edge of her seat to emphasize her point. “She is the older sister. It was embarrassing enough for her to stand and watch as I was matched up with the prince. She could not complain though because it was all done by the grand duke.

“If you come along and ask Tess first, it will be seen by Maria, and possibly by Father, as an insult.”

Max’s head sank into his hands, as stared at the floor and muttered, “Please tell me Maria does not have to get married before your father will allow you to marry. I have heard of that nonsense before, but never believed anyone still observed the custom.”

“Get used to it, Zan. My family lives as far away from the capital as possible while still living in the kingdom. I suspect we may observe a number of customs that are wildly out of date in more fashionable circles.”

“Oh…” …crap! Max thought. “Soooo…what should I do? Advise me please.”

“Advice? Okay, talk to Father first. Explain your situation. My guess is he will respect that you are asking him about how to deal with his daughters, and in the end, I believe he will want you to ask Maria.”

“And here I thought purgatory was saved for after death.”

Elizabeth couldn’t help but smile, though she tried to hide it behind her hand. “Honestly, Zan, Maria is not so bad. You two just got off on the wrong foot.”

Max winced. “You would have to use a figure of speech that involves bad dancing.” His stomach began to rumble, causing him to blush with embarrassment. “Sorry. Just hungry, I guess.” Looking for something to change the subject, he asked, “How did your day with Kyle go?”

“Fine. After lunch, I took a parasol and we went for a long walk on the grounds. One of my maids followed us along, at a discreet distance, and we talked.”

“What did you think?”

“You were right about him being charming, but he seemed to have a strong sense of self-importance, and placed a high value on his own opinions.”

“Oh?”

“He did not like it on the occasions when I did not agree with him.” Max barked a short laugh. “And he really didn’t like it later on when we split our two games of chess.”

Now it was Max’s turn to stifle a laugh. “You must be good. I know Kyle’s a bit of a reckless attacker on the chessboard, but he is a decent player. You and I will have to play sometime.”

“You play? Oh good! Maria likes to play, but treats each game like a life-or-death experience, and Tess can’t be bothered.” She got an idea then. “Maybe you should play Father tonight after dinner and ask him for his advice then.”

Max and Elizabeth sat together through dinner, and afterward, he went to talk to Lord Parker in the library, but was pulled aside by Michael.

“How’s the hand?” Max joked.

“Very funny,” Michael muttered. Despite his comment, Michael looked inordinately pleased, making Max wonder what was going on. “I spent a very interesting afternoon with Lady Maria. Once you get past her bluster, she’s a warm, sweet, and very funny woman. I hear I have you to thank for her visit, so let me get that out of the way first.” Michael looked pained as he faced Max and gave him a slight bow. “Thank you, now,” Michael’s expression became harder, “on to tearing you a new asshole.”

Here it comes, Max thought as he braced himself for the onslaught.

“In our talks today, Lady Maria told me a number of things, including a story that when you went with Lady Elizabeth on her shopping trip, you wanted to go a Fuggieri bank to withdraw a large sum of gold. Please, please tell me she is confused.”

“No,” Max replied, “she got it correct.”

Michael pounded his fist against a wall. Seeing they were in public, he took care in what he said. “Damn it, Zan! Why not just hire a herald to walk all over the city and announce you’re here? Telling the bank personnel who you are, which you would have had to do to withdraw any money, would have put you and me and your ten guards all at much higher risk. That was a thoughtless and selfish idea. I’m just glad Lady Elizabeth showed some common sense.”

“You and me both. She convinced me even the tiny risk of danger in that case was not worth it.” Max eyed Michael, wondering if he should tell him about being invited to the dance by Kyle. Deciding his guardian was already upset with him for having thought of taking money out of the bank, Max figured there was no point in waiting. “There is one more thing I ought to tell you now.”

Hearing a start like that did not improve Michael’s mood any. “What?” he asked with trepidation.

“Just before he left, Prince Kyle asked me to come to the Harvest Ball. An official invitation should be arriving tomorrow.”

“Is that invitation for Sir Zan,” Michael murmured, “or that other name we need not mention?”

“It should be for Sir Zan. If not, Kyle’s in for a reaming.”

“You’re going to go, aren’t you?” That was a statement, not a question.

“At the direct invitation from the prince? Of course I am going. I cannot afford to not go. That would draw unnecessary attention from the palace, and Kyle might have a hard time explaining who he had invited that thought himself above attending the event.”

Michael ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Shit.” He thought quietly, and came to the only conclusion possible. “Is there any chance you can get me an invitation as well? I know you’ll be taking your guards with you, but they won’t be inside the palace if you get into trouble.”

Max didn’t need much time to think at all. “Yes, I imagine the idea of having the Black Knight as a guest would be exciting enough to warrant an invitation from Kyle.” Max eyed Michael’s clothing. “But you and I will both need a something new to wear for this.”

“Crap. The money I’m being paid for my work here as arms master is starting to get stretched thin.”

“And as a simple knight, I’m not even making that much.” Max shrugged his shoulders as if money problems were just a minor annoyance. “We will borrow a few golds from Lord Parker if we have to. Otherwise, I might have to tap my bank account after all.

“And another thing. You are going to need an escort. I was about to allow myself to be talked into asking Lady Maria for myself, but if you are going, I will leave her to you and I will ask Lady Tess instead.” As Max started to walk off to see Lord Parker, he called back over his shoulder, “Oh, and if you need a refresher on the current dances, rearrange your schedule with the soldiers and come by the dancing room after breakfast so you can practice with Maria.”

[Cardinal]

Chapter 29

An Understanding

After Max left Michael, he resumed his walk to the library. When he knocked on the door, he received a surprised greeting from the lord of the manor.

“Well, hello, Sir Zan. It is a pleasure to see you at some time other than a meal. I figured my daughter was going to end up monopolizing all your free time.”

“Most, your Lordship, but not all.” Max gestured to a finely carved chess set that sat on a small game table nearby. “Elizabeth tells me you play a skilled game of chess.”

“I have my moments,” Jeffrey allowed.

“Would you favor me with a game then, your Lordship?”

The two men sat down to play and few words were spoken during the first half hour of the game. Elizabeth came to the door once to check up on her men, and backed away unnoticed when she saw them engrossed by their game. It wasn’t until Jeffrey was sure he was going to lose that he began to talk.

“This game has been over for ten moves. I resign.” He suited his actions to his words by reaching for his king and tipping it over on the board. As they set the pieces up on the board again, this time giving Max the white pieces, Jeffrey asked, “So what caused you to search me out at this time of night? If it was business, I would have expected you to find me in the middle of the day while I was working…seeing you here now, when I am relaxing, especially with the way you and Elizabeth keep looking at each other, makes me decidedly nervous.”

“I do not deny how I feel about Elizabeth, your Lordship, but she is not what I have come here to talk about…at least, she is not all I have come here to talk about.” Thinking this conversation could cover topics best left unheard by outside ears, Max got up to close the door and then gestured at the far end of the room.

Lord Parker nodded in agreement and the two men walked down to where they couldn’t be overheard. “No? What then?”

“The Harvest Ball,” Max said simply.

“Why? Elizabeth is going, thanks mostly to her stubborn protest against me keeping you two apart, and you are not. And do not think I can get you in either. If so, I would be wrangling an invitation for Maria, who needs the exposure, or even for Tess, who would die to finally get to try her wings.”

“How about both?”

Lord Parker said nothing, but raised his eyebrows in a show of polite interest.

“Prince Kyle, who is well known to me, told me he was going to invite me to the Harvest Ball. The invitation is to arrive tomorrow by special courier, and despite my preference for remaining as private as I can after that incident on the road, this is an invitation I cannot safely ignore. Someone at the palace would be sure to comment on the self-possessed knight who dared dismiss such an important invitation.

“When Sir Michael learned of this public engagement, he became worried I would be inside the palace with my guards outside, so I promised to use my connection with Kyle to get him an invitation also.

“Thing is, in Krakovia, those invites come with obligations to find proper escorts.” Max shook his head slightly. “At least back home we just have to deal with dance cards.”

“I know. You cannot get stuck with a bad match all night long that way. Much more civilized…but, we are here and thus have to do it their way.”

“Which brings me to my point. Michael would like to ask Lady Maria to accompany him, and I would like to ask the same of Lady Tess. We do not want this becoming public knowledge until the invitations actually arrive, just in case Kyle forgets mine and thus keeps me from relaying my request to his courier for Michael, but both of us are asking for your permission to ask your daughters.

“Oh, and if you, and they, say yes…we would also need to borrow your best carriage, a team of horses, a driver, and footmen. The whole works.”

“Is that all?”

“Mmm…yes, I think so…unless you are ready for me to talk with you about Elizabeth.”

Jeffrey closed his eyes and rested his forehead in his hands. “Oh God. What now?”

“It has come to my attention that you intend to find her a husband as soon as possible.”

“That is correct. She has already invested too much of herself into a relationship, with you, that has no good ending. The sooner I get her permanently settled, the better.”

“When I first heard that,” Max said, “my immediate reaction was to send you a letter in my capacity as the Duke of Borussia that would forbid you from making marriage contracts of any kind for any of your daughters.”

“But you are still a minor…oh my God. You were a minor until I knighted you. And as I owe fealty to the Count of Ostfalen, who in turn owes fealty to you as the Duke of Borussia, approval of any and all potential marriages in my family is up to you.”

“Yes it is. But I have thought better of that letter. You can make all the arrangements for Maria and Tess that you choose to, but I will block any attempt to attach Elizabeth to anyone until the rebellion is over and I have had a proper chance to convince my parents that she is the bride for me. Remember, no betrothal contract is valid without my seal and signature on it.”

“You are actually serious about making my daughter the next Queen of Alemannia.” Lord Parker looked like he was caught somewhere between disbelief and awe. My little Elizabeth…Queen Elizabeth. Jeffrey was so caught up in that idea that he failed to make the mental leap to the next generation, so Max did it for him.

“Yes, I am…and that would also make Elizabeth’s firstborn son, your grandson, my successor as king.”

Jeffrey got a stupid grin that just wouldn’t go away.

“King Maximilian and Queen Elizabeth,” Max said. “I fully intend to make it happen somehow, someway. Just please do not try to take her from me first.”

Jeffrey mulled his options and quickly decided he did not have many good ones. “Okay…until you have had a chance to win over your parents, I will not try to set her up with a marriage. But how on Earth do you intend to…?” He held his hands high in the air above his head, palms facing outward, and dipped his head. “Wait a minute, I do not want to know. Just get it done.”

“Thank you.” Max led them back to the pristine chessboard, and slid his king pawn two spaces forward. Having succeeded at his missions for the evening, he was exuberant and felt like playing aggressively as he planned on using a wild variant of the King’s Gambit.

Jeffrey followed suit, sliding his black King’s pawn forward two squares also. “You do know your parents will soil themselves when you tell them you wish to marry Elizabeth instead of some princess with political power, or another girl with a massive dowry.”

“That they will. I hope they will give me the chance to explain, and then give Elizabeth the chance to prove herself. I swear five minutes alone with her should be enough to convince anyone.”

While Max had spent the day dancing and then talking to Kyle and Elizabeth, several hundred miles to the northwest, his sister Isabel was living an idyllic life. The weather in Anglia was moderate, a welcome respite for her and her ladies from the heat of Alemannia.

What she did notice was her host had gone to some lengths to entertain her. The Anglian noble ladies that joined her every day were a treat. After her first few days at court, when the people in charge learned what Isabel was like, the ladies sent to her seemed to have been drawn from those with the sharpest minds and most punishing wits, because she thoroughly enjoyed their company.

Isabel didn’t hunt for deer or boar like the men did, because she didn’t like that sort of aggressive riding through sometimes dense thickets of trees, but she did like to go hawking. She had a pair of prized peregrine falcons and took every chance she had to exercise them. At least once a week, King Alexander and a modest retinue would come along and join her hunt. He had a goshawk of his own, and they would spend a few hours at it before returning to the castle.

Evening meals were long banquets with varying forms of entertainers each night. A traveling acting troupe might put one or two of their best plays one night, a lutist might sing heartachingly beautiful songs of bravery and chivalrous love the next night, while a craggy, old storyteller might have the crowd spellbound the next night with tales that were always on the edge of being too fantastic to be believed.

As for what was happening back on the distant continent, Isabel knew even less than her brother did. The distance was farther, and there were far fewer travelers between the island kingdom of Anglia and Alemannia. Still, Alexander had standing orders for any word of the Alemanni rebellion to be brought directly to the princess first, and then to him.

All of these little attentions took the embers of Isabel’s initial interest in the king and fanned them into a small flame. It glowed brightly and hopefully, but was still small enough to be snuffed out.

As for Alexander, he was finding more to like than just her incomparable beauty. She never told him what she thought he wanted to hear, instead, she told him what she thought. When they played board games like chess or backgammon, she didn’t try to stoke his ego by allowing him to win; she tried to try to beat him, and succeeded more often than not.

As the mass of men and women rode back from a hawking expedition one day, a couple of Alexander’s closest confidants rode off with him at some distance from the milling throng and began to question him closely.

“What is it like to be pursuing a woman instead of having her throw herself at your feet, Alexander?” Baron Howard asked.

“I feel more like a man and less like a king. To know a woman is completely unimpressed by my titles, and yet seems to be interested anyway is exhilarating.”

“What I want to know,” Baron Percy asked, “is what it is like pursuing a woman who could destroy you, literally, without even breathing hard.”

“What I want to know,” Alexander said quietly, ignoring the baron’s comment, “is how a woman that strong and tough, can seem so soft, feminine, and utterly appealing…and then there is her intelligence.”

While King Alexander was pondering his own question, Isabel’s parents were involved in asking a more serious question. They had been watching Khivar’s army slowly trickle into camp around the castle ever since they had holed up here a short while earlier, and were wondering how much time they had bought for their supporters.

Outside the castle, Khivar kept his light cavalry detachment on patrol to help prevent any escapes by the king and queen, who he believed had been in the carriage he had chased almost to the castle gates. He wasn’t sure, but definitely couldn’t afford to take a chance, so, as he waited for the rest of his army to catch up with him over the next several days, he reviewed the terrain around the castle and made long-term plans for detaching a small part of his army to lay siege to the castle.

Khivar then spent time arranging a rudimentary supply line for the besieging troops as he waited for his scouts and spies to bring him word of the location of the loyalist army. He needed to find that army and smash it before it’s very existence encouraged more wavering nobles to support Phillip.

The loyalist army was commanded by another duke, the Duke of Pannonia, Lord Edward de Laney. He knew he only had a limited amount of time to integrate the various smaller armies into one homogenous whole, before Khivar would be after him. It didn’t help matters that he had no idea where any member of the royal family was located. He figured it would help his forces to have a member of the royal family amongst them so they’d have something tangible for which to fight.

Worst of all from his perspective, was that the steward in charge of Borussia while Maximilian waited to come of age did not appear to be releasing Borussia’s rather large army to join in the royal cause. The one message he’d gotten from the steward was that his job was to preserve Borussia to the best of his ability and to not get involved in politics.

“Damned idiot!!” Lord de Laney had raged upon reading that message, “if he does not get involved in ‘politics,’ there will not be a duchy for Maximilian to inherit. It will have been given to someone else by the new king.”

[Cardinal]

Chapter 30

Dates

The next morning, the courier from the palace showed up with an official invitation for ‘Sir Zan’ and a guest while he was busy working on his hand-to-hand combat skills with Michael. Along with the invitation had come an informal message from Kyle telling Max that the ambush was not the work of bandits. Though the men wore no uniforms, their armor and weapons were identical, indicating they’d all come from the same armory. That meant they were a noble’s soldiers.

As far as Max was concerned, that likely meant the ambush had been set by the Duke of Alfaro as revenge for the beating laid upon his relative. But suspicion was not proof, and in any case, he still wanted to know whether the ambush was directed at Elizabeth or at him.

If she had been the target, he shivered to think what might have happened to her in their clutches. Since the dancing master had been humiliated and then beaten, he wondered if they would want a ransom, or if they would have publicly humiliated her and then thoroughly beaten her as payback.

If he had been the target, he thought they would have tried to kill him, but Max thought that unlikely as even the grand duke had thought he would just be considered a soldier who was obeying his master.

Before the courier left, Max gave him a verbal message asking for an invitation for Sir Michael Guerin, the Black Knight, to attend the ball with a guest of his own. He figured the cachet of having a guest with Michael’s dark reputation would more than make up for his distinct lack of rank.

Until Michael had his invitation in hand, Max wasn’t about to let anyone know what was inside the thick, expensive-looking paper that had been folded over twice and sealed closed with red sealing wax and Kyle’s signet ring.

By the time Max and Michael had cleaned up and joined the household at breakfast, everyone knew a courier had come from the palace to deliver something to the young knight, instead of to Elizabeth. They were all abuzz, wanting to know what Prince Kyle could possibly want with Max. Elizabeth knew what it had to be, but she played ignorant, allowing Max to keep his secret. By late afternoon, just when he was finishing up dancing practice with Tess and was thinking of sword practice, another courier arrived from the palace with the hoped-for invitation for Michael.

Late that night, not long before the Parker ladies would normally head to bed, Michael sent a note to their quarters asking for a private word with Lady Maria. Surprised and pleased, Maria walked out to meet Michael with one of her maids in tow.

“Yes, Sir Michael?” she asked.

Finding himself unaccountably nervous, Michael used a finger to try and loosen his shirt collar, which was suddenly feeling tight. Give me an identifiable enemy to fight, someone with a sword, Michael thought, not this ephemeral fire in my gut that flares up whenever I think of Lady Maria.

Not being one to mince words, Michael held up the opened paper, and said, “I suppose you’ve heard I received a sealed note from the prince today just before dinner.”

“So we were told. No one could figure out how a knight had attracted the attention of the prince, but everyone was dying to know what your message said.”

Wordlessly, he handed over the paper and allowed her to read it.

Maria’s eyes grew bigger with each new line she read, until she came to the bottom and the large, hastily scrawled signature she found there. It looked to her as if Prince Kyle had dictated the document itself to a scribe, but had taken the time to scrawl his signature at the bottom. She could not imagine how a knight had earned such an invitation, but there was his name as plain as day. When she finished and looked up at him, he made his move, before his courage failed him.

“Lady Maria, I would like to know if you would consent to attend the Harvest Ball as my guest.” He paused a moment and then forged ahead. “I know I’m not the sort of escort to which a lady of your status is entitled, but I hope you’ll look favorably upon my request despite that handicap.”

Maria wanted to go and she was starting to look on Sir Michael with a favorable eye, but it was true that she would prefer a nobleman as her escort. She wanted someone she could work on with an eye toward a satisfactory marriage. More than ever she was feeling her responsibility to marry well, and since it seemed Elizabeth had Sir Zan all tied up and because they didn’t know if he was an heir or a spare anyway, she had to let her idea of pursuing him go for now.

Still, going to the ball would give her a chance to meet available noblemen, and just getting to go might be fun, now that she had brushed up on her dancing skills. She eyed Michael’s ruggedly handsome face and wondered just how well he could dance, as she said, “Yes, Sir Michael, I think I should very much like attending the Harvest Ball with you.”

He smiled in sheer relief, as the nervous energy that had threatened to consume him dissipated with her acceptance. After a moment, his relieved smile turned to something warmer and more personal.

Maria caught that look and thought she knew what it meant: Sir Michael Guerin was interested in her…in that way. That single moment of recognition changed things for her, in ways she couldn’t even begin to say. His smile, the first one she’d ever seen from him that made it all the way up to his eyes, was answered by a sudden gnawing hunger in her to see that smile again, and more importantly, to be the woman who generated that smile.

Oh Hell no! Not now, Maria thought. I can’t be falling for Sir Michael. I just can’t! He’s a nobody! But then her small voice spoke up and pointed out how handsome he was and how he’s always treated her not as a woman who had to be protected like a porcelain doll, but as another person who just happened to be a woman.

She still remembered the way he’d ordered his squire to give her a beating back in Roswell Castle. At the time she had been incensed by his assumption that his squire would thrash her, but now she looked back with great fondness on his treatment of her as just another soldier. It was all she had ever wanted from a man, but she got it from a plain knight with a vicious reputation instead of the man she’d been trying to please her whole life.

I wonder what else I can get from him, Maria wondered, as she returned his warm smile with one of her own.

When Max came in for breakfast the next morning, everyone in the entire household was excitedly talking about Lady Maria’s surprise invitation to the ball, and how handsome a couple she and Sir Michael would make.

Everyone but Tess that is.

She moped through breakfast, spending more time playing with her food than eating it. The night before, she and Elizabeth were dressed for bed when Maria came charging back into their quarters with the news of her invitation to the ball. Maria had been so pleased with her sudden good fortune, that she had failed to see how every word she spoke drove her youngest sister deeper and deeper into depression.

I’m never going to get to go to a dance, Tess had pouted, heedless of the fact this was only the first dance she was old enough to attend.

Elizabeth tried to cheer her up, but the easily affected youngster wasn’t listening and missed her sister’s hints that things would be looking up for her soon. Elizabeth finally gave up trying to get Tess to understand that since both Max and Michael had received letters from the prince, it was likely both had received invitations, too. Instead, she held her sister close and let her vent.

Max started off the dancing lessons that morning with a bang by bringing Michael up to the dancing room to learn side by side with Maria. The significant difference in their ages seemed to help Maria more easily accept that he was going to be leading during their dances, which made things go more smoothly. It was bad enough that Michael was having to learn these dances from scratch.

Max was fairly surprised to find Michael was self-deprecating about his dancing, but wondered if that was his way of dealing with the embarrassment of not knowing what he was doing. It was clear Maria wouldn’t be spending the entire night dancing with Michael, as there was not enough time before the Harvest Ball to teach him all of the dances on the list provided to Lord Parker. Still, with a little luck, he should be able to learn enough to fulfill his duties to Maria on the dance floor.

When Max spent his four hours dancing with Elizabeth, the first words out of her mouth were about Tess. “I see you found a way to go to the ball with Tess anyway.”

“Yes.” Then he changed the subject on Elizabeth, totally surprising her with what he had to say. “I think Michael likes Maria.”

“Likes her? In what way?”

“In the normal way a man likes a woman,” Max said.

“How do you know?”

“When Michael came back to his bedroom to go to bed last night, I peeked into his room, and he had this smile…I do not know if I can explain it to you or not, but he looked so happy, so pleased with himself, and that is not something I have ever seen in the time I have known him. Up until now, I had assumed that ‘happy’ and ‘Michael’ were mutually exclusive terms.”

“Okay, so that explains why Michael asked Maria.” Elizabeth folded her arms beneath her breasts. “So, are you going to ask Tess soon? Or are you going to let her stew all day long and wonder why she is being left behind?”

“Don’t worry, my sweet. I will ask her as soon as she arrives for her lesson. That is instruction she doesn’t really need by the way. I am thinking of ending her lessons and spending the extra time on Maria and Michael. They do need the time. Especially Michael.”

“Well…I’m sure she’ll agree to whatever you want after you ask her to the ball.”

“I sure hope so.”

“She will,” Elizabeth said with confidence. Then she decided to pass along a caution before they began to practice. “I know who you love, so I am not worried about you, but I think Tess likes you, too, so do not lead her on, even accidentally. She can be fragile.”

Spending four hours with Elizabeth always left Max on an emotional high, and today was no different. Tess made her way into the dancing room not long after Elizabeth left, but she seemed to be dragging, and in fact, was in the process of telling Max she didn’t feel like dancing today, when he apologized and then cut in.

“Lady Tess?”

“Yes, Sir Zan?”

Max paused for a moment, looking at her distraught face as he wanted to see the change as he asked her his question.

“Will you go to the Harvest Ball with me?”

The question was simple, direct, and completely unexpected by Tess, who still hadn’t absorbed what Elizabeth had tried to tell her the night before.

“Excuse me?” she asked, sounding both hopeful and disbelieving at the same time.

Max took Tess’ hand, enfolded it between his hands, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Will you, Lady Tess Parker, attend the Harvest Ball with me?”

The change that swept over her face was immediate and absolute. From despondent and frustrated to eager and excited in a mere second. As soon as she comprehended Max’s question, she threw her arms around his chest and hugged him fiercely.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”

“Oh yes!” When Tess pulled back, her eyes were shining and her smile was genuine. “Thank you. I thought I was going to be left behind on the big night to wait for my sisters. Having to wait was bad enough back home when father decreed I was too young to go, but now that I am old enough, waiting would’ve been intolerable.”

Now that all three daughters of the house were going to the ball, and with only a little more than two weeks left to go, there was plenty to be done. Max had to work with Lord Parker’s tailor on proper formal attire for both himself and Michael. The girls, of course, had to have new ball gowns for such a grand occasion, which meant another trip into Varshova for costly fabrics. This time, the shoppers went under very heavy guard to make sure nothing happened like the last major shopping trip. Max went along on that trip, having promised to use his abilities to defend the Parker sisters if necessary.

All during this time, Max continued to teach Michael and Maria for two hours in the morning, then four more hours with Elizabeth to make sure she was perfect for Kyle, before spending a couple of hours every afternoon with Tess. The youngest Parker didn’t need the practice, but she said she was nervous about her society debut and she just wanted to be sure she had everything down pat. Max bought that and continued her lessons even though he wanted to end them. The thing was, Tess wasn’t really nervous, she just wanted to spend more time with Max.

Meanwhile, Michael was so determined to do well and not embarrass Maria or himself, that he insisted on extra practices before dinner instead of their sword training sessions. He put in an exhaustive effort every day and went to bed footsore every night, but it was worth it. When the day of the Harvest Ball rolled around, he could competently handle half the dances on the schedule.

Finally, after what seemed to have been an eternal wait for all involved, the day of the Harvest Ball was upon them.