A Dove's Tale

Chapter 33

I almost wanted to follow Prince Clavis to the kitchens just to see what he was like with the other servants, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t let an audience interfere with his weird teasing and flirting. He probably would enjoy it even more. So, I cut away from him as quickly as possible and went to the laundry to dry off and change. Prince Chevalier’s clothes were still hanging neatly on the clotheslines crisscrossing the makeshift drying room. I knew nobody would touch them until I arrived. It was sometimes comical how much he scared the servants. People who’d never had a single interaction with him avoided him and everything associated with him like the plague. Nobody complained about the chores I took upon myself, things that weren’t specifically assigned to me, like doing his laundry. I was fairly certain the cook would gladly hand his job off to me, too, if I asked. It was like everybody thought a single mistake would result in Prince Chevalier executing them on the spot.

Maybe he had done that before.

He was hard to figure out. I felt like I knew him better than most, which made no sense, because I’d only known him for less than two weeks. Prince Clavis grew up with him. If anybody knew Prince Chevalier inside and out, it should be Prince Clavis. And yet, the things he told me didn’t always line up with the things I’d discovered on my own. Maybe I had fabricated an image of Prince Chevalier in my mind, as Prince Clavis put it. But Prince Clavis had his own fabrication, filtered through a lens of hatred and inferiority, one that blamed Prince Chevalier for everything, justified or not. I couldn’t say for sure that Prince Chevalier caused his own mother’s death, or Prince Clavis’ mother’s suicide. I wasn’t there. I didn’t know. It seemed to me that there were a lot of factors in play, though. Prince Clavis’ mother wasn’t married to the king, for instance. At least, that’s what it sounded like, based on what he told me. Her best friend’s husband, a man who didn’t return the love his wife felt for him, fathered her child. That had to cause a huge strain on their relationship. And then when Prince Jin arrived with the news of his mother’s death, the king should have turned to the queen, the woman who loved him and was right there waiting for him, but he turned away instead. That must have broken her heart all over again. She had plenty of reason to lose hope, and that was before considering Prince Chevalier, a mere child, being weighed down by heavy expectations from the day of his birth, and being targeted for assassination right in front of her.

And then killing said assassin right in front of her.

No wonder he was so cold.

His cloak didn’t survive this assassination attempt, despite my best efforts to save it. I left it in the laundry and took the rest of his clothes back to his room. The seamstresses would probably want the original cloak for reference when they made him a new one, so I’d come back to pick it up after I finished in his room. And then I’d sequester myself in the library and finish the polishing from yesterday.

Assuming everybody left me alone, that is.

It was still strange to walk into Prince Chevalier’s room and find it dark, but at least I didn’t have to worry about waking him up when I lit the candles scattered about the room. He never woke easily. I folded his laundry and left it on the sofa, and then I got into my regular routine. With any luck, that’s what today would be. Regular and routine. No surprises, no complications, just me, alone with my thoughts and my cleaning.

At nine o’clock, I opened his drapes and woke him with the usual greeting. And, as usual, he was not quick to get out of bed. He didn’t even push back the covers. He was just a lump under the blankets, barely moving in response to my greeting. The tactic I’d developed for this situation was to annoy him with pointless chatter until he got up.

“This is quite the storm, your highness,” I started, pulling clothes from the bureau to replace the casualties from yesterday and complete the outfit on the sofa. “I was afraid the carriage would tip over from the wind yesterday.”

“Why is your hair wet?” he mumbled.

That didn’t take long.

I turned around, and his sleepy blue eyes were peeking over the covers, watching me, like those of a reluctant child who didn’t want to get out of bed. The servants who feared for their lives in his presence never saw him like this.

“I wasn’t sure if you were sending a carriage, your highness, and I didn’t want to be late, so I walked part of the way until I met the carriage in the city,” I explained, setting his clothes on the bench. “And I may as well warn you now that Prince Clavis was in the carriage. I’m sure he’ll be talking about it later.”

Prince Chevalier sighed irritably and pushed the blankets back. “That coachman has a standing order to provide you with transportation in the event of inclement weather,” he said, stretching languidly. “You’re of no use to me if you get sick.”

Right. Because that’s what he was worried about. I smiled to myself as I headed to the door.

“I’ll keep that in mind, your highness.”

Was it only yesterday that he tried to scare me away? And now everything was back to normal. His normal breakfast, hot and ready when I got to the kitchens; our normal routine, with me setting his desk with his food and then making his bed while he dressed in the bathroom; the normal silent crossing when he left the bathroom and I went into it. Like clockwork. Efficient, quiet, comfortable.

This was comfortable.

The shattered mirror and a small jar of ointment on the sink stood as the only reminders of yesterday morning. I hadn’t noticed his hand today. Maybe he did a better job of hiding it, or maybe I did a worse job of looking. The handwritten label scribbled on the jar of ointment gave strict instructions to apply twice a day and leave the cuts exposed to the air to heal. I shook my head and smiled again. He was already wearing his gloves. But that was his business, not mine.

“Oh, Prince Chevalier,” I said, poking my head back into the bedroom. “I couldn’t salvage your cloak, so I’ll have to stop by the seamstresses to order a new one.”

“They likely have one already made,” he replied coolly, without turning to face me.

I froze for a moment, staring at the back of his head as the implication sank in. At least once a month for a while now, Prince Leon said. Right now, Prince Chevalier was sitting at his writing desk, eating breakfast, not tense by any means, but not really relaxed, either. The sword at his left hip spoke of his constant readiness, the tip of its black sheath touching the floor beside his chair. There was no slouch to his broad, powerful shoulders, their shape emphasized by his tailored white jacket and no less imposing without the additional bulk of his cloak. His pale blonde hair was short and neat from this angle, and even though it was long enough in the front to form a fringe over his face, his piercing blue eyes missed nothing. He was always ready for the next attack, and it always came.

I swallowed hard and ducked back into the bathroom. Of course, the seamstresses had a spare cloak ready. To everybody but me, this was normal. He was the Bloody Tiger, after all. I had to get used to that.

The idea of dealing with that much blood all over again turned my stomach. I returned to scrubbing the bathtub, trying to block the images out of my mind, but it had taken me well over an hour to clean up the mess of bloody handprints in this very room yesterday, and that was from Prince Chevalier punching a mirror. Then there was the laundry, and the congealed puddle of blood in the gardens…

I really hated the sight of blood. I always had. And I had to get assigned to the Bloody Tiger, of all people.

“Leave it here when you get it.”

I was just straightening up when Prince Chevalier’s voice startled me into jumping and spinning around. He stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest and one foot crossed over the other ankle as he leaned against the frame, watching me. Even though he was an inch or two shorter than Prince Luke, and his musculature was less bulky, he was still a lot bigger than me, and he still filled the doorway just as effectively. I suddenly felt very cornered.

“The cloak, your highness?” I asked, careful to slip back into the mask and bury any fear or anxiety deep down in my chest.

He nodded.

“You were concerned about your mother yesterday.”

His voice was flat, cool, disinterested, but there was a question hidden in that statement, and the mask nearly fell off with my shock. He was asking about my mother. What was I supposed to tell him? He’d already paid the doctor’s bill and arranged for transportation for me when it was raining. Was he going to redo my roof if I told him I was worried that it might leak? Or rebuild my house from the ground up if I told him how drafty it was? He didn’t do things in half measure, and putting Mother in the middle of a construction zone wouldn’t exactly give her the peace and quiet I wanted her to have during her last days. The doctor approved of what I was doing, and the house was fine most of the time. It didn’t rain hard like this often enough to warrant any changes now. Not when she was so close to-

I couldn’t think about that if I wanted to maintain the mask.

“She gets cold easily, your highness,” I said calmly and evenly. “I wasn’t expecting that storm, and I didn’t take precautions, so she was a little chilled when I got home. But she’s fine now, thank you. If you’ll excuse me.”

He stepped aside for me to exit the bathroom. I went to his desk, stacking the dirty dishes on the tray, not looking at him and trying not to hold my breath. It wasn’t a lie, just not the complete truth. But was it enough to satisfy him?

“I won’t be in my office today,” he said simply, and then he left.

I exhaled loudly as soon as the door closed. He probably saw right through me, but he didn’t press the issue, and that was all I cared about right now.

Prince Clavis was so wrong about him.

I dropped his dishes off in the kitchens, retrieved the stained cloak from the laundry and discarded it, and then I was off to find the seamstresses. The palace was less of a maze to me now than it had been at first, but I’d never had occasion to deal with the seamstresses before, and I took several wrong turns before I reached my destination. As Prince Chevalier said, they had a cloak already made and ready, along with a complete set of his usual attire. Not a single woman batted an eyelash at my request, and they were already starting on his next replacement cloak as I walked out the door. Anxiety gnawed at my stomach. This was normal for them. I hated that this was normal for them. I didn’t think it would ever be normal for me.