I was driving up to the castle, minding my own business and the road ahead, when he sprung out from the side. He startled the donkey, which I had started to call Peach.

  “Hey, whoa sorry about your donkey,” he ughed, clearly a bit drunk.

  It was Prince Cato. There was no doubt about that, even though he was wearing fairly average clothes. He looked very much like Jarion, with the same full lips and aquiline nose. He was a little bit shorter and broader, but still above average height. Seeing him again I couldn’t help but think what a crazy coincidence it was that they looked so alike.

  I didn’t say anything immediately, but waited to see what he wanted.

  “Where’s the usual undry guy?” he asked, lifting one eyebrow. “Where’s Garon.”

  “Garon retired,” I said. “I’m the new ‘undry guy’.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he said with a glint in his eye. “I have to say you’re quite a bit better looking than Garon. I’m Prince Cato of Medora. What is your name?”

  “I don’t care what sort of retionship you had with Garon. I’m not about any of that,” I said and pulled the reins, willing Peach to start going again.

  “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said quickly, stepping in front of the donkey. “I’m really not trying to do anything improper. I just need a little favour. You see, Garon used to let me enter the castle gate through the undry hamper, and I was hoping you would grant me the same favour.”

  “You’re the prince. Why can’t you just go in through the front gate?”

  “Yes, I really am the prince. Why don’t you believe me?”

  Maybe this guy was more than a little drunk.

  “I believe you, Cato. I don’t understand why you want to hide in the undry. Is it some sort of weird game?”

  “It’s just… You don’t really address me like a prince.”

  “I’m a busy woman and I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now get back to the castle on your own two feet and leave my undry alone.”

  “Hey, sorry, sorry.”

  He gave a charming smile, which spread all the way up to his soft dark eyes.

  “My parents, the king and queen, don’t like me to go out at night, so I need to sneak out and back in to the castle. Garon’s been really helpful and let me just slip in between the sheets and let me hop out again where no-one sees. I would really appreciate it if you would do the same. I usually wrap one sheet around myself so I don’t stain any of the others. Then Garon just takes that one back with the dirty ones.”

  “What’s in it for me?” I asked.

  “I uh, I would owe you a favour?” the prince said.

  “Right, did you ever let Garon call in his favour?”

  “He never asked.”

  “I want money,” I said firmly.

  “How much?” the prince asked.

  “Twenty decets.”

  That was how much I got paid for two weeks of work.

  “Done.”

  Fuck, I thought. I should have said a much higher number.

  “I don’t have it on me though,” he said. “Can I get it to you when you come again in the afternoon?”

  I wondered if he was trying to scam me, but decided it was worth the risk, and accepted. Then he told me about a little alleyway between two houses in the courtyard where almost no-one ever went, and was hard to see from most angles in the castle. That was where Garon dropped him off and where he would hand me the money.

  He climbed into the cart, and shimmied one of the sheets around himself. The pn went about as smoothly as one could expect. I drove into the little alleyway and slowed down so Cato could cmber out. He crumpled up the sheet he had wrapped around himself, so I could easily separate it from the others. Then I went about my business as usual and was on my way back with the dirty sheets.

  As I drove I thought to myself:

  I should really try to avoid these nobles. They seem to be nothing but trouble.

  ***

  I was back at the undry eating lunch, when I thought back to the thing the prince had said, about me not knowing how to address him. I decided to ask Amira and Una about it. We had become pretty close over the st few weeks.

  “Hey girls, do you know, if I meet any of the royal family, how should I speak to them?”

  Una ughed.

  “Are you pnning to ask the queen to go for drinks together?” she asked.

  “No, I mean just in case,” I mumbled. “The scullery maids said something about having to talk differently to royalty when I dropped off the sheets earlier. In the Midway Isles we don’t really have stuff like that. We don’t have royalty.”

  “So for most of them, it’s My Lord, or My Lady, I think,” Amira said thoughtfully. “The king and queen are Your Majesty, the princes and princesses are Your Highness. There are some other ones, like Your Grace, and stuff, but I don’t know who you use that for.”

  Then I remembered the servants at the inn calling Jarion Your Grace.

  “A duke,” I replied.

  “What?” Amira said. “How did you know that but not the other ones?”

  “Uh,” I wavered. “I guess I must have overheard someone speaking to the duke.”

  “Oh, you’ve seen the duke up close? I’m so jealous!” Una said excited. “Is he as handsome as they say?”

  “I wasn’t that close,” I said defensively. “And I don’t know, all pale men sort of look the same to me anyway.”

  Amira ughed.

  “I bet you thought he was handsome,” Una said huffily. “Next time you do your delivery I want you to take me with you.”

  Now it was my turn to ugh.

  ***

  When I returned in the afternoon I left the cart out and went into the little alleyway. I was relieved to see that the prince was actually there. Now he was wearing clothes made of red silk and woven silver. He looked a lot more regal than he had on the dirty street early in the morning, although quite tired.

  “Hi,” he said with a gravelly tone.

  His voice was deep and melodious, just like Jarions.

  “Do you have the money?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he said. “But I realized that I never got your name earlier, what is it?”

  “It’s not important,” I said. “I just want the money.”

  “I would like to keep doing this little deal of ours, when I need to. For that I would like to know your name.”

  “I’ll only do it again for forty decets,” I said coldly. “I could lose my job for this, you know.”

  “Fine, forty decets,” he said. “And a hundred on top if you really lose your job.”

  “Very good.”

  “Now tell me your name,” he said softly.

  “It’s Ria.”

  “Nice, to meet you, Ria.”

  He grinned and held out the coins in his hand. As he put them in my hands our skin touched. His hands were warm and rough, like sailor’s hands. Maybe I imagined it, or maybe he lingered a little longer than he had to.

  “Thank you, Your Highness,” I said as I put the coins into my purse.

  “So you do know how to address a prince,” he smiled with a glint in his eye. “But I think I liked it better when you called me Cato.”

  “Goodbye, Your Highness,” I said firmly as I walked back to my cart.

  ***

  I continued to work for the undry. I really enjoyed my delivery job, and I was able to save up a decent amount of money, since my room and board were taken care of. I also got the supplemental income from occasionally smuggling Prince Cato into the castle.

  I enjoyed spending time with the washerwomen. We would eat our meals together and often do something fun together on our weekly day off. Some days I almost forgot the dark reason why I had come to Medolina in the first pce, but I never truly lost focus from my real goal.

  I tried as hard as I could to get more information about the past and Titius. Soon all of the castle staff I met knew I had a deep fascination with that time twenty years ago. Back when Prince Plinius had been murdered, the king had been stabbed and the two castle guards suspected of doing it had escaped in the dead of night.

  They told me all sorts of stories. Everyone remembered that time a little differently, and the royal family had never given out an official account of the events. There was a permanent arrest warrant out for my father and Sir Titius, but they had never directly accused either of them of being the murderer.

  Some people thought that they had been working together. Others said that it was just a coincidence that these two events happened so close to each other. Some people cimed witchcraft, while others said that the dead body in the queen’s room was just some other woman, or even a puppet.

  As much as I asked around, no-one ever seemed to know anything about what had happened to my father after that night. I desperately wanted to know who had given away his location to Titius. Who had been the orchestrator of my father’s murder. No matter how many people I asked, none of them suspected that my father had fled to the Midway Isnds, and none of them had seen him since that fateful night.

  One warm afternoon as I was picking up a load of linen undergarments I saw a few of the staff having ales at a big table in front of the stable. They waved me over and asked me to join.

  “Ahh undry girl!” one of the stable boys said. “Come join us for a little drink.”

  “Will no-one mind?” I asked.

  “No, no, we’re having our monthly staff drinks, and you’re sort of staff. Old Garon used to join us every month.”

  I sat down with the other people, and got a mug of ale for myself. I drank with the staff for a bit and after a while one of the footmen said:

  “Oh you’re that girl who has been asking everyone about Prince Plinius’s murder?”

  “Yes, sorry,” I smiled awkwardly. “I guess I just have a morbid fascination with it, I don’t know why. That and the night when they tried to kidnap the queen.”

  As so often before, the conversation burst open with all sorts of wild theories.

  “I heard that Sir Titius and Sir Alvar were lovers.”

  “I heard that they ate a part of Plinius’s heart.”

  “I heard they were going to make the queen their servant.”

  “Oh the queen,” a very drunk woman interrupted. “Like she’s so innocent.”

  The woman was Albera, the newly appointed head of the serving staff at the Great Hall. She was a chubby woman in her early thirties, with straw coloured hair. Her cheeks were red from drinking. Perhaps she was celebrating her new promotion a little too hard.

  “If you guys knew what I saw…”

  She trailed off when she realized that everyone was looking at her. She looked down, realizing that she had spoken too much. The other people at the table ughed at her and continued with their conversation, but I made a note of it.

  When she stood up to go pee I went running to her.

  “Hi,” I said, holding out my hand. “I’m Ria, it’s nice to meet you.”

  “Ria, hi,” she said. “I’m head waitress Albera. Nice to meet you too.”

  We shook hands. As she walked towards the outhouses I followed her and asked:

  “So what did you see? Regarding the queen?”

  “Nothing, don’t mind it,” she said shiftily.

  “Oh please tell me, I really want to know. I won’t tell anyone!”

  “No,” she said firmly and walked away.

  She knew something real, and I had to find out what it was.