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The Stolen Kingdom

Mariah H. N. Hawkins

    “Are you ready to go?” I hold out my hand, offering to help her onto the windowsill, like I was a gentleman helping her into a grand carriage and not someone well beneath her helping her out a window.
    The Princess of Mornton ignores it and climbs onto the sill of the window herself. After checking the positions of the guards, she lets herself out onto the wall. I follow.
    The castle we live in is made of this porous grey stone that lends itself to climbing. It is set up with a main wall around the extravagant court yards that guards are stationed on. We avoid the wall at all costs, it’s too hard to avoid guards and the King has no need of knowing our activities, although I suspect that the Queen knows.
    Kate, the Princess, enters the window of a stairwell that she unlocked only an hour earlier. She watches as I lower myself haphazardly from the window. I say lower, I guess the correct word is fall the four or five feet from the window onto the stairs. She barks out a laugh.
    “You had to pick the one window that wasn’t at a landing?”
    “I can’t believe you, the named Thief, can be so ungraceful.” She winks at me and shuts the shutters of the window. We will use a different window later.
    I don’t remind her that the thing that earned me the joke-title of Thief was her heist. Imagine my confusion when I woke up to the King’s crown resting on my dresser after a night of uninterrupted sleep. The note on my pillow said, “I told you I could.” When I had returned the crown instead of hanging me, the King had simply remarked that perhaps they should name me the court Thief. The Princess adopted the nickname saying it’s better than simply being a ward of the King, I disagree.
    She grabs my hand and rushes down the stairs, absolutely not wanting to be in the Palace a moment longer. When we get to the door placed well below the surface of the earth, I let her pick the lock.
    Once through the door, I lock it behind us. No point in leaving a trail. We sly foot it down the passage. It’s connected to the dungeons and while it’s somewhat unlikely that we’d be heard, we’re not taking any chances. I take the next lock, not to be shown up. She locks it behind us but does it slowly out of necessity. It’s heavy and loud.
    The door lets us into a room, meant only so both sides could have the lock on the outside of the door. Kate unlocks the dead bolt, and as soon as she gets the whiff of fresh air from outside the wall, she glances back at me and grins. I like that grin, it’s the one she gives right before an adventure. We melt into the forest, staying quiet until we are absolutely certain the guards on the wall won’t hear us.
    “I heard eight times today, eight, the phrase ‘You must choose an advantageous husband.’ From at least three separate people,” she says.
    I make myself smile. “They only want the Kingdom to be secured.”
    “Do you realize I haven’t met a single one of these men? I can name all the advantages they have for my Kingdom but I don’t know whether they eat funny or if their portrait is even anything like them and most haven’t written me a single letter.”
    “Of course they eat funny, they were born and raised in higher society.” I pull her onto the road into town, now that we are far enough from the Palace.
    “I was born and raised in high society.”
    Travelers pass us on horseback. “You might want to keep that to yourself.” She glares at me. “Besides, you do eat funny.”
    “For the last time eating one dish at a time is not funny.”
    “It is.”
    She slaps me, lightly.
    When we get into town we head for our favorite tavern. I hold the door open and she slips in with me at her heels. Despite it being a run down, falling apart building, the scent is of fresh baked bread and beef stew. You’d think eating at the King’s table would cure us of ever wanting something else, but this, this is our favorite meal.
    The waitress, Rose, grins when she comes over. “The usual?”
    Kate sinks into the booth, “Of course!”
    Neither of us went to the King’s dinner today. I wonder if he has realized that my headaches correspond with when the Princess retires early.
    We both are starving, and when the bowls of steaming stew come out, we dive in like we haven’t been through hours of instructions on manners. I am almost through with my second bowl when someone shouts, “Hey pretty lady, want to bring me more mead.”
    I glance around, trying to place the shout. I find a man who is stumbling towards Rose holding his mug up. Kate intercepts the man and tries to pull the mug out of the man’s hold. Once I get close enough, I can hear her muttering to the man about manners. As she finally gets control of the mug he hauls back and punches her in the face, far quicker than should be possible for a man as drunk as he is.
    She crumples and Rose screams, but I step up and punch the man, he hit Kate and deserves retaliation. Unfortunately for me, he doesn’t crumple. He lunges. I stumble back, but he has me by the collar. Behind him Kate whacks his head with the mug. He releases me and before he can do anything else the Princess has my hand and we are running out of the tavern.
    “Did you see his uniform?” She shouts back to me.
    “Uniform?”
    “He’s city guard.”
    Oh. Oh, no. It is then, as if they appeared simply because she said something, I hear footsteps chasing us. We fling around corners, but they are too close for us to lose them. We attacked a city guard. For a Princess and even possibly for the King’s ward this wouldn’t be a huge deal, but we aren’t a Princess and a ward right now. We look like anyone else. We can go to jail for this, or worse be beaten to death for it.
    “Church.” The Princess says through labored breaths.
    “You want to pray now?”
    She shakes her head.
    We practically knock down the tiny church’s doors. As soon as we cross the property line she shouts “Sanctuary” at the men chasing us. They back off, but begin pacing in front of the church, waiting for us to come out.
    “Awe, such a sweet young couple.”
    I turn to see a Priest bouncing toward us.
    “Are you sure you thought this through?” I mutter.
    The Princess elbows me in the ribs, “Don’t be rude.”
    The Priest takes her face in his hands and studies the swelling where the man’s fist connected with her jaw. “He didn’t do this, did he?” The Priest nods towards me.
    She laughs, “Theo? No, if he did this, he’d look far worse.”
    The Priest nods. Then he raises an eyebrow, “You seem in a hurry, I assume the parents don’t approve of the match.”
    “Sir, you’re mistaken, we—”
    “Our parents are not a problem.” The Princess grabs my hand.
    The Priest claps his hands together, “Goodie, I’ll go grab the proper papers and things.” He leaves.
    I turn so my mouth is right next to her ear, “Princess, what are you doing?”
    She smiles up at me, “Marrying my best friend.”
    Words aren’t working, actually my brain isn’t working. “What?”
    The Priest bounces back into the room. “Come along, to the alter with you.” He then steps us through steps and vows and I am numb the entire time. When the Priest says “You may kiss the Bride.” I am still frozen.
    The Princess grabs me by my cheeks and pulls my face to hers. We have never kissed before. I may have thought about it, but whatever I thought, her kissing me slowly and carefully wrecks what part of me was working.
    When I wake up the next morning, in a tangle of our limbs with dim sunlight pouring in from high windows in the church, happiness is the first thing I feel. The second thing is horror and I scramble away from her.
    She wakes then and gives me a lazy smile. “Hello husband.”
    I shake my head. “That didn’t happen.”
    “But it did.”
    “We need to get to the Palace, we will be missed.” I don’t want to know what will happen when the King finds out. Because he will find out.
    “Fine, but kiss me first.”
    I obey. I’ve never been particularly skilled at denying her anything.
    We walk back hand in hand and I am still in shock. We let ourselves in the same way we got out and on the stairwell she wraps her arms around me, burying her face in my chest. “Is something wrong?” I say to the top of her head.
    She pulls away, and I see tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you wanted. I just, every time someone mentioned marrying me off to someone, IÉI couldn’t lose you.” And then she pulls against me again.
    “I didn’t want to lose you either.” I wrap my arms around her tightly.
    We decide to use the doors to get into our respective rooms, our absence will have already been discovered.
    “Sir?” My valet says when I enter my room.
    “Did you tell anyone I was gone?”
    He shakes his head. “I figured you’d be back soon.”
    “Good. Now I need my best suit.”
    “Sir?”
    “I am late for breakfast, my best suit if you please.”
    He listens and gets me in the nicest suit I have. It’s a ridiculous thing, red pants and a gold embroidered waist coat, made for the grandest dinners in the Palace.
    I meet the Princess outside the dining room. She is in a very elaborate dress and make up has been applied in an attempt to hide her bruised jaw. It doesn’t do a good job. She kisses me lightly and we enter the room.
    The King stands at the sight of us. “What is the meaning of this?”
    “I want to present you with my husband Theo.” The Princess gestures to me.
    I watch the King’s face go through about ten expressions before it lands on one that looks like he took a bite of lemon thinking it was an orange. “Husband?”
    She nods. “Official as of last night.” She holds up the paper that is our wedding certificate.
    The King stares at it, and then his glare turns to me. “Theo, you really are a Thief and I will address you as such.” It is only then I realize I didn’t just marry his daughter, but in his point of view, I stole his kingdom.
    Her mother, the Queen, smirks at her breakfast, making sure her husband doesn’t notice.

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