Chapter 11
THE GUARD’S NAME was Henrik.
Nellie had known him since they were both children. He used to live a couple of houses down from where she lived with her parents back when she was a little skinny girl with a plait on either side of her head.
He was one of those boys who grew tall without being lanky, which, with his thick blond hair and broad shoulders, made for a strapping appearance. Of course he’d joined the palace guards as soon as he was sixteen. Boys like him seemed to have been born for it. He had looked so dapper when he first came through the street wearing his guard uniform. Nellie and her shy friends would dream about how he would ask them to come for a walk, but being a couple of years older, he probably never noticed she existed.
Well, wasn’t that a silly time?
He
