Bondage (formerly Escape from the Obstinate Prince)

The air was clean. Not stuffy as the castle had been. Not stale as her Royal bedroom had been. It was breezy. A gentle mist of ocean water sprayed her face as she looked over the railing of the Valerie.

She slept restlessly that night. Her argument with Jack was ridiculous, petty, and ruined the rest of her day. The little that was left anyway.

She woke up not any more rested than when her head hit her pillow the night before, nevertheless, she forced herself out of bed and into a dress that Lars “acquired” for the trip. (She did not want to know if he stole the dress or not.) It was a sky blue dress — a shade brighter than her own eyes, and a crisscross ribbon trailed down the back, lacing the back of the dress together. It wasn’t fashioned like Rhone’s dresses, but with the hot weather, Ami found that she had grown accustomed to Carenthia’s style.

A soft tug at her wrist reminded her that she was not free. She was bound; tied to Robert. He stood to her left and the rope kept Ami from escaping by jumping off the ship. (A ridiculous thought since Ami couldn’t swim, and had nowhere to swim to.)

The sea moved as it wished. It rolled along, crashing against the sides of the ship. One wave morphed into another and caused them to constantly trade places.

“You let me go you clumsy clod!”

Who brought Jack up into the light? Ami sighed and turned, forcing Robert’s hand in a rather twisted position.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she untangled the mess of hands and approached Jack. “What are you doing above deck and what on earth are yelling about?”

His hair is dirty. And it’s falling in his face, Ami cringed. Did I have to think that?

“Didn’t your darling Lars tell you?” he asked, a scowl on his face. “Land has been spotted and we are to land by sundown. After that, we shall be taken to Lars’ wonderful mansion to work as slaves. Marvelous, isn’t it? And this sailor has a death grip,” he turned to the sailor. “Has anyone told you that?”

The oversized, tattooed sailor just grunted, dragging Jack by his bound hands.

“But where are they taking you?” Ami called.

“I’m going to be dunked in seawater for a bath, my spoiled Princess,” he was not amused. “I don’t suppose you want to take my place.”

“No, I don’t suppose I would,” Ami watched him leave.

She would have welcomed a steaming hot bath, but the seawater looked cool, and definitely not steaming.

The sun floated across the sky. Her shadow shank and grew. Boredom came for a visit and stayed for a very long time.

Just when Ami started to consider playing hopscotch with Robert, men shouted orders and buzzed around the deck like a colony of ants.

A big, burly man shoved past Ami.

She glared into him.

“Forgive him, Ami. He’s big, yes, but rather dull in the head,” Lars hopped down from the captain’s wheel and stood beside her.

“I can see that,” she muttered.

“We’re close to Svenland,” Lars said, a bright smile on his face. “Should be at my place by nightfall.”

“How lovely.”

True to his word, they landed long before the orange sphere could disappear and the crew was forced to walk inland. Ami, with her torn slippers, was unfortunate enough to step on every possible thorn, briar and thistle. (Or so it seemed to her blistering feet.)

She looked back at Jack. He didn’t seem to be having a ball either. A guard stood to his back, a wooden pole on his back, tied to his arms. Their eyes met. No glares. No malicious snarls. He looked as weary as she felt.

She wished she could tell him she didn’t mean what she said the night before. What if he makes a spectacle out of me in front of Lars, Robert, and all of these sailors?

“This is it,” Lars put an arm around Ami’s shoulder.

She shrugged it off, fixing her gaze ahead. “What’s it? All I see is a house and a little shack.”

“Mansion, honey cakes,” Lars said. “And you get to live with the rest of the servants.”

“Where’s that?”

“There,” he pointed to the shack.

Ami did not put it past Lars to house her in rotten logs, and was too tired to be shocked.

“And you sleep on a mat on the floor.”

She whipped her head around and glared at Lars. She was a Princess, not some slave that Lars could push around. She was his hostage and if she was dead before the ransom came, Lars would be one at loss.

“I refuse to sleep in such horrid conditions!” she stamped her foot. The dull ache in her legs and feet only worsened. “If I am not alive by the time the ransom comes, you-”

“You shall live, dramatic woman! Many people live in these conditions normally and they are alive all the time!” he scrunched his hand and sighed. “Such a spoiled brat.”

“You may not call my wife a brat!”

Ami turned at the sound of Jack’s voice.

“I never asked if I could call her a brat,” Lars replied and turned his lip up. “You are currently under my mercy and I would not choose right now to be defiant.”

He flicked his wrist and his men dragged Jack towards the shack that Lars had identified as the servants house.

Ami found herself being dragged towards the same, small shack.

Are we to stay in the same house? With only one room? With tons of other servants? she glared at those with hands latched on her arms and wished they could collapse at the snap of her fingers..

“Get some rest, Ami! You’ll have to be awake nice and early tomorrow,” Lars called.

Those words did not help her unsettled stomach.

The men pushed her through the doorway after Jack.

She stood back up after the men had shut the door and looked around. It was dingy. A layer of dust covered a few shelves that the room possessed. A row of beds lined the opposing wall, their sheets had seen cleaner days, and they were worn down to the bare minimum, not worthy to be called sheets. The floor was a mixture of stone and dirt — mostly dirt, as the stones had sunk into the ground, leaving dirt in its place.

Several servants stared at Jack and Ami.

Ami grabbed the wooden dowel from between Jack’s arms and started untying the ropes that bound him.

A girl approached Ami. “Are you the Princess?” her voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

Ami nodded and finished untying Jack’s ropes. What was she to expect from servants? A welcoming? Rejection? Were they friendly? Jack stood up and brushed his hands together.

“I heard rumors that you were coming, but I never imagined to see a real princess,” the girl, with a timid hand, reached up and touched Ami’s gold braided hair.

“It’s not such a great thing to be Princess,” Ami knelt down to the girl’s level. “What’s your name?”

“Jardia. What’s yours?”

“You can call me Ami,” she said, “and that’s Jack-”

“The Prince?” Jardia looked at the young man on the floor with awe.

Ami smiled. If only she knew what the Prince was really like.

“So this is where we’re expected to sleep?” Jack surveyed the room.

“Aye,” Jardia tilted her head up to Jack.

Ami looked at the few other servants that hasn’t approached. They were older than Jardia, but not completely formidable.

“Jardia, get away from them,” said an accented voice from the group of servants.

Jardia rolled her eyes. “They aren’t out to get us Marie.”

Jardia said Marie with an “ah” sound.

“They’re going to war with us, I’d hardly consider that ‘not out to get us’,” Marie answered, stepping forward.

Ami looked her over and decided Marie couldn’t be any older than fourteen years.

“Let them be, Marie. They won’t last long out here,” a boy of maybe eighteen years blended into the shadows with his dirt stained clothes, dark hair, and mud colored eyes.

He swung an axe onto his shoulder. Ami took a small step back.

“What do you mean we won’t last?” Jack eyed the boy.

“You Royal Bloods never do. You’ve got white pretty little hands and couldn’t chop a single log if you had an axe in your hands. “

“Is that what I’m expected to do?” Jack asked. “I am a Prince and should be treated with higher respect.”

“Are you saying you can’t even chop wood?” he raised an eyebrow.

“I’m saying I shouldn’t have to,” Jack spat on the ground.

“Stop, Eric,” Jardia said and looked down at the floor.

“Then prove it,” Eric ignored Jardia and swung the axe off his shoulder and poked the end into Jack’s chest.

Jack’s jaw clenched.

Ami scanned his face for emotion. Could he actually chop wood? It seemed easy to do when she had seen other servants doing it, but she hadn’t tried it herself.

Jack snatched the axe out of Eric’s hand. “I can chop it fine. Show me where the log pile is and I’ll chop enough wood for winter.”

Eric smirked and walked out the front door, Jack right behind.

Ami watched Jack leave and hoped he wouldn’t make a fool of himself.

“Here,” Jardia grabbed Ami’s hand. “You can sleep on this bed, and Marie and I can share a bed.”

“Jardia!” Marie hissed. “You know there isn’t enough room enough for two. There’s barely enough room for me as it is!”

Ami glanced at the few beds that sat pushed up against the wall. “Are there much more servants?”

She walked towards the shutters. The woodpile was conveniently placed behind the servants quarters, and Jack stood in front of the stump and log placed on top. Eric stood, arms crossed, and a smug grin plastered on his face.

Jack gripped the axe hard, his hands turned white.

He didn’t know how to chop wood. “Don’t miss the log, my love!” Ami snickered.

Jack glanced back at her, then back at the wood. The axe glided through air and hit the log, splintering the wood down the side.

Jack gloated back at her.

Lucky hit, Ami shook her head.

“Again,” Eric’s arms were still crossed.

Jack swung again, this time grazing the wood down the side. It toppled off the stump.

Eric snorted and Ami chortled.

Jack glared back at Ami.

She quickly composed her features into an innocent composite.

The door to the quarters burst open and a round woman fixed her eyes on Ami. “You are to have a bath, right away. Master’s orders.”

Ami pointed to herself. The lady nodded and tilted her nose into the air. She could catch flies with a single nostril. Ami sighed and followed the lady.

Ami grimaced at the color of the dress. A wonderful bleak color. Fits me perfectly.

It did, however, fit and she was able to do any sort of task. Tasks ranging from scrubbing pots (Ami was not sure how one went about such a task), pulling weeds, sweeping floors, or mending clothes.

“Ready to start working?” the lady, whom everyone called Cheffy, asked. “Now that the master is back, there’ll be no playing around and no lazy days. Master wasn’t happy to find out Marie and Jardia hadn’t been working. Had them whupped, he did.”

Ami gasped. “Lars did that?”

The Lars she met on the ship had been kind, loving, gentle. How could be be capable of such cruelty?

“Mercy no,” Cheffy said. “It’s his father who’s the master. He just got back yesterday from his excursion to the city.”

“The capital?” Ami tugged at the sleeves of her dress. Much too short. It doesn’t even cover the top of my elbow.

“No no no. Hilkna. It’s an another island. The island we’re on is surrounded by water — miles of water. Can’t escape even if you wanted to.”

Ami shivered. “What do you mean, ‘even if you wanted to’?”

Cheffy sighed and pushed a bowl of unshelled nuts into Ami’s hands. Ami looked down at the hard shells. “Let me put it this way. The Master is a fair one; he feeds us, he houses us, he clothes us. What more could you want? Besides, I’ve been an ugly sort all my life, and none of the village boys ever took a fancy to my plain old face, then the Master took me and I’ve been here ever since.”

“You’ve been here very long?” Ami tried to break the shell of the nut, but failed in doing so. “What is this made out of?” she mulled to herself.

“Here,” Cheffy took the nut and put the nut in between her two palms and cruuunch, a teardrop shaped nut fell into her palm. “I’ve been here for awhile, yes.”

“Is the Master’s wife still living?” Ami asked. She tried the new tactic, dropped the nut into the bowl and dropped the shell onto the ground.

“How should I know? I have enough things to keep my mind busy.” Cheffy said. “Once you’re done there, you can bring the nuts to me. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Ami nodded, confused with everything.

The sun sank (it didn’t care if Ami had finished shelling the nuts or not) and left the sky to make room for the moon.

Ami sat outside on a stump with the bowl of nuts on her lap. The moonlight stained wood, shells cluttered the ground beside her, and exotic nuts filled the bowl. Last one, Ami sneezed into her dress.

Dead leaves rustled across her path. She shivered. Something landed on Ami’s shoulders. A shriek escaped her lips.

“Hush up, woman!” Jack covered her mouth and plopped down beside her. “Don’t want anyone thinking you’re being murdered.”

“What are you doing here?” she dropped the last nut into the bowl and pulled the blanket close to her shoulders.

“Not working,” he said. “They’ve had me slaving away all day, chopping wood, carrying it all over the place, doing heavy lifting and I am pooped.”

“I mean why are you here? How did you find me?” she asked. The wind whipped around Ami, gaining speed.

“I followed the sound of chattering teeth.”

Ami stood up. “I’m not that cold. I just, haven’t been moving. That’s all.”

Jack stood up as well. “I’ve been overheating all day.”

“You smell like it,” Ami smirked. SAVAGE AMI. “And your hair’s a mess.”

Jack ran his hand through it. “Yours looks worse.”

“Does not.”

“Actually no, probably not.”

“What has gotten into you?” Ami asked.

Jack rubbed the back of his sore neck. “I uh, well actually, I’ve come to, uh, say sorry for last night. I wasn’t thinking straight and it was a little, um, upset. Sorry?”

Where did that come from? Ami gaped at him. In all of Ami’s life, she never expected to hear a “sorry” extracted from Jack’s mouth.

Jack stood, waiting for a response.

“Um, it’s alright, I guess we were all a little bit on edge,” Ami muttered and tucked a clump of stray hairs behind her ear.

They stood in silence, looking at the ground — anything but each other.

“We’re stuck here until the ransom is dealt with,” Jack turned to her.

Ami nodded, her eyebrows furrowed.

“So why don’t we run away?”