The Lady and the Prince

Winkershime roused Prince Nicky early the next morning per instructions. The prince wore a robe and bare feet to breakfast and ate heartily of smoked fish, eggs, and biscuits. Once dressed, he headed for his office to start his first day as Head of Commerce, carrying his paper case.

His two clerks were waiting for him in the hallway, and they all went in together. The office was actually quite large and well-appointed, with a new-looking wooden desk, four padded wooden chairs, a filing cabinet, and bookshelves that all matched. Nicky was impressed, especially when he sat in the chair behind the desk and discovered how comfortable it was.

The two clerks, Wadsworth and Livingston, were clearly very knowledgeable and led him line by line through the first report he needed to sign. Once that had been completed, they gave him a number of analyses to read and left him alone to explore his new office.

The desk was well-equipped with the usual supplies needed for office work. However, the prince was a little dismayed that the hundred books or more on the bookshelves all appeared to be laws and regulations pertaining to commerce or dry treatises on the subject.

He left the papers from his case that he had read in the desk and stuffed the case with the analyses from his clerks and the first book of a set of four of basic commercial laws. The set was worn and had apparently been extensively used by his predecessors, unlike some of the treatises that appeared brand-new. Then he changed his mind and took the analyses out again.

Nicky opened his office door and sat at the desk and read the papers. People should get used to seeing him there with the door open, so they might well assume he was there when the door was closed sometimes too. Being Head of Commerce should be seen as taking fully half of his time so that no one wondered where he was when he was learning spying.

At some level he understood what he read, but he knew he was likely missing a lot since he had no context for the information. When he finished the papers, he found previous sets of analysis in the filing cabinet and put four of them in his paper case to read later.

He left his office door closed and went back to his suite, feeling virtuous that he had spent an hour and a half on Commerce and looking forward to his first lesson in spying.

Winkershime was waiting for him with another paper case in his hands. He took Prince Nicky’s case and laid them side by side on the table.

“Your Highness, are these two cases identical?”

Nicky looked at them carefully. They were the same color, the same size, and they did look identical except….

“One has a round clasp, the other an oval clasp.”

“Very good. The round clasp is on your Commerce papers case. The oval is on the case that I will use to bring you confidential and secret papers for you to read as spymaster. The two cases should not be seen together, Your Highness, so everyone will assume they are both your Commerce case.”

Nicky picked up and opened the oval-clasped case. It contained only twenty or so sheets of paper.

“You may read those later, Your Highness. I suggest you keep that case in a drawer in your bedroom and the Commerce case out here in the sitting room.”

“All right,” Nicky replied and took the spy information into his bedroom and put it away. He came back and sat down, ready for his first lesson.

“Your first lesson is in observation. It is the least dangerous but an extremely useful function of a spy—to gather information that is given to him freely. For example, if you are in a strange house and receive instructions to leave certain information in a red vase, it is useful to know where the red vase is so you don’t have to wander about looking for it. Or if you are to signal someone outside from a room with blue drapes, knowing which room that is could save you being caught while you search for it. You see?”

Nicky nodded. He doubted he would be doing much of that sort of thing, but certainly paying attention to what was around him was a good idea.

Winkershime continued, “So I will make lesson one easy for you. Tell me exactly what is in your bedroom.”

Prince Nicky confidently recited all the furniture in his room, including the colors of his coverlet and drapes.

“Hmm. And what is on the desk? How many drawers does it have? And do the drawers lock? And the same questions for the chest of drawers. What are the titles, or least the subjects of the books on the bookshelves? Without looking, is there a lock on the door? Is there anything hanging on the walls?”

Nicky realized he had left out quite a lot and tried again. He knew he was still likely missing some things, particularly among the books, but he did his best. It was frustrating. He saw the room every day, but now he realized he really didn’t look at it much.

But Winkershime was satisfied this time. “Better. In a way, it is more difficult to notice things you see every day than something new. So come along, and we will go look at something less familiar.”

As they walked through the halls, Nicky found he was actually looking at the paintings on the walls, and the vases and urns scattered around on small tables that they passed. Usually he looked at them just enough to avoid walking into them. Winkershime took him to a guest room and sent him inside, telling him he could look for as long as he liked but that when he came out he should know exactly what was in the room.

At first, the prince thought he would be in the room for an hour at least, but as he glanced around he realized there really wasn’t that much to see. There were no personal items, just the furnishings. He made sure to note the presence or absence of locks, colors, and sizes of everything. He closed his eyes and recited to himself what was along one wall and then looked and corrected and added to his recitation. He finished in twenty minutes and went back to the hallway.

Winkershime didn’t ask him to recite then, though, and he led Nicky back to his own suite, chatting about the paintings in the hallway as they went. The prince discussed the paintings with him, understanding that it was part of the test. Once back in his own sitting room, Winkershime let him recite his list of what he had seen in the guest room.

When he had finished, the valet said, “Not bad. But you didn’t mention if the bed hangings could be closed or were just decorative, the fact that the frame of the painting was chipped indicating the painting was not at all valuable, or the piece of paper hidden behind the mirror. I left a tiny corner showing so you could see it without searching.”

“You’re right, I missed those things,” Nicky admitted.

“Nevertheless, for a first attempt you did very well. Let us try a different sort of exercise. This box has a number of objects in it. I will open it briefly and then close it, and you will tell me what is in it to the best of your ability. Ready, Your Highness?”

Nicky nodded, but in the few seconds he had to look inside the box, he wasn’t able to observe very much. Winkershime assured him that was not unusual and that he would improve with repetition. They practiced such exercises until the valet went to fetch lunch. By then the prince felt like his brain hurt, and he still had his afternoon classes.

Elizabeth had an equally interesting morning. She went to her Arms class expecting Master Connidian to tell her to change into something she could move in better than her usual dress and petticoats, but he didn’t.

“The point of Arms training,” he lectured, “is survival. If you believe an attacker will wait while you change clothes, then certainly go put on something else. No? Then you must learn to be prepared and to protect yourself as you normally dress.”

He handed her a beige sheath with straps at the top and bottom containing a knife of some sort. “Put this on.”

Elizabeth looked at it, confused. Put it on where?

“It goes on your leg, the top strap just below the knee, the bottom above your ankle. You have long legs so I am giving you a ten-inch blade.”

Elizabeth hesitated to lift her skirt and expose her legs to him. Connidian looked impatient and said, “You must get over such modesty. You cannot be shy about retrieving your weapon when you are in danger; hesitation could get you killed.”

She lifted her skirt and petticoats and tried to hold them all up somehow and still strap the sheath on to her leg. The buckles took both hands and it was a struggle, but she finally got it in place and straightened up, triumphant.

“Draw the dagger.”

Elizabeth looked down at her skirt. It was under there somewhere, but getting to it wasn’t going to be easy. She lifted handfuls of material again and, after another struggle, managed to get the dagger out.

“You would be dead if it took you that long in an attack. Put it back. This is something you must figure out—how to get the weapon into your hands quickly—by tomorrow hopefully.”

She got the dagger back in the sheath on her leg after another fight with her clothing.

“You must wear this whenever you leave the palace, even on the palace grounds. Decide on a place in your rooms to leave it where you can reach it from your bed and always leave it in the same place so you can find it, even in the dark. Now, what is the first thing to do if someone is coming at you to do you harm?”

“Draw my dagger.”

“No, no, the dagger is your last resort. You do not wish to get that close to an attacker. Chances are he will have at least a sword, possibly a bow or throwing knives. No, the first thing is to look for a place of safety. Can you get a locked door between you and him? At the same time, you must try to summon help by screaming. Please scream for me, Lady Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth called out, “Help!” but it didn’t sound very loud, even to her own ears. Ladies weren’t supposed to yell. She remembered when she had been chased by the two mounted men and tried again. It was a little louder, but not much.

Connidian shook his head in disgust. “Your life is in danger, and that is the best you can do? And you must sound terrified, whether you are or not, so the guards or any potential rescuer will respond more quickly. Once you start, do not stop, the sound will help them locate you. Now try again.”

Elizabeth practiced screaming until she was letting out shrieks that surprised her both by their loudness and intensity. Connidian finally seemed satisfied.

“Good. Now scream and run around the practice area as quickly as you can.”

She was quickly winded, and Connidian gestured for her to stop and catch her breath. “You have good lungs, but you see you cannot do both for long, so you must judge at some point whether to keep running or keep screaming. How do you decide?”

“I suppose by whichever will do me the most good.”

“Yes. We will discuss particulars in the future—what type of attack merits what type of response. The important thing is to keep your wits about you. If you use your head, you have a good chance. Wear the dagger the rest of the day and to class tomorrow so the weight becomes familiar. Now I will show you a little archery.”

“Archery? Am I likely to have a bow with me?”

Connidian actually smiled. “Good, you are thinking. The answer is that it is not likely, but I will train you in various weapons for two reasons. One, because it is possible there will be a weapon of some sort nearby for you to use, but it will do you no good if you do not know how to use it. Two, because most of my pupils have more skill with one type of weapon than another, and my job is to develop that skill to its fullest while making you as competent as possible with all types of armament. You would be surprised, I think, at what some of the royal princesses can do. Now, archery.”

Elizabeth spent the rest of the session learning to string a light bow, select practice arrows, nock them, and release them to fly straight. It seemed as if the target was so close she could throw a rock and hit it, but it was harder than she expected to put her arrows even into the target, much less the bull’s-eye.

When Arms class was over, she went to her room and freshened up a bit. Then she went to Genealogy Protocol and Etiquette. Lady Hornswaggle was a large, heavyset, somewhat formally dressed woman who welcomed her warmly. Elizabeth’s first lesson was proper forms of address for every potential person of rank she might ever meet. It was far more complex than she had thought since the seemingly same rank in different countries sometimes required different forms of address. The accompanying curtsies varied too. Lady Hornswaggle taught her the appropriate curtsy depth and head and eye positions for curtsying to different ranks both as Lady Elizabeth and as Princess Elizabeth. By the time the lesson was finished, Elizabeth wasn’t sure she knew anything other than greeting someone was far more complicated than she had ever imagined.

She was glad to finally be finished with GPE for the day and go to Giselle’s suite for Franckish. The maid let her in, and Giselle began speaking to her in Franckish with gestures and occasional Anglian words as hints to her meaning. But soon Giselle had her repeating simple phrases while correcting Elizabeth’s accent, and they began simple “Hello, how are you” types of conversations.

Giselle continued with the lesson through lunch, indicating various dishes and objects and providing the nouns that went with them. By the time Elizabeth left, she could say a number of phrases perfectly although not much else. She felt that using Franckish with Giselle every day would help her learn the language quickly.

Afterward Elizabeth went to visit Anne. If Anne was good with a knife, then she surely must know the trick of getting it out from beneath one’s petticoats.

When she asked, Anne just laughed and said, “Connidian is still using that trick, is he? You see, he always tells the ladies to figure out how to deal with their clothing themselves because he doesn’t know how to do it himself. He’s not married and, like most men, finds petticoats simply incomprehensible.

I’ll show you how it’s done. I don’t know who the first royal woman was who invented it, but we’ve been passing it down for generations. The solution is a long sleeve sewn into the skirt like a pocket that runs through slits in the petticoats. The dagger is strapped to your thigh, not your calf, and you just reach through, and there it is. Just tell Sylvie what you need, and she can have one of the seamstresses fix up a skirt and petticoats for you for tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Anne. That is positively brilliant. I thought it was impossible without flashing my legs to every man in sight, but being able to pull the dagger out through my clothing is much better. But I haven’t really noticed pockets in your skirts.”

“Well, they don’t all have them, but most do. The pocket fabric matches the skirt fabric, and the opening is just a slit. You’ll have to get used to knowing where it is so you’re not fumbling about when you need your dagger. I actually have slit pockets on both sides of my skirts since I carry a dagger on one side and throwing knives on the other. Anyone who attacks me is going to be very, very sorry just before I plant a knife in his heart.”

Elizabeth was a little surprised. The princess was smiling as she said it, but Elizabeth suspected she meant it. She hadn’t expected friendly Anne to be so aggressive. Apparently there was more to Nick’s sister than she thought, and Nick hadn’t been kidding about Anne being fast with a knife. Elizabeth’s opinion of Arms training went up considerably. She would very much like having that sort of confidence in herself in a dangerous situation.

She and Anne went to review Elizabeth’s wardrobe again. Elizabeth had never spent so much time on her clothes as she had since coming to the palace. What she had worn at home to carry in wood or beat the rugs really hadn’t mattered very much. Now she needed to have an “inside the palace” wardrobe and an “outside the palace with armament” wardrobe.

Nicky had Winkershime serve him his lunch in his bedroom and then told his valet he needed to leave so he could read the spy papers. Winkershime protested a little.

“I have already seen the papers, Your Highness. I brought you the papers, didn’t I? You might have questions—”

“Sorry, I need to establish good habits right from the start, right? So I’ll read these in private, and if I have questions, we’ll talk later. Later, Winkershime,” Nick said as he shooed his valet out and locked the door after him.

As it turned out, the spy information wasn’t really much more interesting than the Commerce analyses had been. Some of it seemed extremely detailed information about not much, and some seemed to be more guesswork than facts. The most interesting part was trying to figure out who had written each report. Who was in position to obtain this information? Nick’s imagination invented all sorts of scenarios, but in the end he could only make guesses about the source of some of the reports. Well, he would find out later who the operatives were.

He put the information away and went to math. Straightforward number manipulation was a relief after Commerce and spy information. He took his Commerce analyses to PTM class and went over them with his tutor. Even Master Orwell couldn’t explain some of it, but Nick did understand them better by the time class was done.

Then he had to go to Arms class again. He had found out from his little magic book why he had so much trouble with swords. Magic and iron didn’t mingle well. His channels tended to reject more than trace amounts of the metal, and his ejectors in his hands positively hated the stuff. Holding the hilt of a steel sword, even with the tang well-wrapped made his ejectors try to completely shut down. According to the book that wasn’t possible. So his hand hurt abominably, and the channels that led to his ejectors hurt too all the way to his shoulder or more.

Tableware, however, didn’t bother him a bit. The royal family used silver, and the silver handle on the steel knives somehow prevented the reaction. The only thing Nick couldn’t figure out was some excuse for taking apart a sword and having the tang coated in silver before it was rewrapped. He suspected that would relieve most of the pain, but he hadn’t the skill to do it himself and couldn’t imagine any logical reason to order it done to his sword.

So he struggled through another Arms class. He resheathed his practice sword whenever he could and wiped his hands like they were sweaty, giving himself a break from the pain of holding the weapon. He knew Connidian just thought he was stalling, and he was, although not for the reason the Arms master thought.

Finally Connidian called a halt. “Prince Nicholas, in a half year you will come of age and be proposed for knighthood. To become a knight, a man must be able to handle a sword properly. No man who is as poor with a sword as you will be knighted, even if he is a prince.”

“I understand that, Master Connidian.”

“Then what is the problem? You have been instructed in weapons since you were six. You showed quite a bit of promise with your little wooden dowel. Then when you advanced to a dull-edged metal sword you seemed to lose everything you had learned, and you have been getting nowhere since. The last six months, you have actually been getting worse. Are you afraid of being injured?”

“No, Master Connidian. I’ve taken my share of bruises and cuts in practice, you know that.”

“I do, but I can think of no reason for you to be unable to master a sword, Your Highness. I have never had a student fail to improve as you have failed to improve. Explain to me why this is.”

Nicky could tell the Arms master was frustrated, and he wished he could give him some sort of explanation, but he couldn’t. The only explanation was the truth, and that would get him executed, possibly the only thing worse than have one of his teachers look at him like Connidian was looking at him.

“I have no explanation. I do try, and I will keep on trying.” I’ll just never succeed.

“Enough for today, Your Highness. Please think about this. You are moderately good with a bow, your lance work is acceptable. There must be a reason you are not progressing with the sword. But no one knows what that is but you, so try to figure it out.”

Nicky nodded. His lance work was acceptable because the practice lances were wood, so they would break and hopefully avoid killing anyone. When he shot a bow, he only had to bring the metal head of the arrow near his hand for an instant, and that hand only needed to grip the bow without flinching. He could manage that, but he just couldn’t hold on to a dratted sword handle like he should.

He sent word to Elizabeth that he would not be joining her this evening and to have Arthur escort her to dinner along with Anne. He gobbled his food in his suite. He knew from the way Winkershime was watching him eat that his valet did not approve of him consuming his dinner in that fashion. A gentleman ate slowly, with good manners, savoring his meal. Nicky felt he had too much to do to bother with that. He would be a gentleman some other time.

As soon as he was finished, Nick asked, “So what kind of spy training are we doing this evening? More memory work?”

“Yes, Your Highness, and I will show you coding and decoding messages as well.”

“That actually sounds like fun. What else do I have to learn?”

Winkershime cleared the dishes and loaded them back on the dinner cart while he said, “There are quite a few skills you should know. Lock picking and pocket picking, poisons and their antidotes, concealment and how to move silently are a few for actually doing the work of a spy. As Spymaster, you will need to know a great deal more.”

“You make it sound like I’m going to be a criminal of some kind instead of a spy.”

“Your Highness is very perceptive. A spy is at odds with other spies and governments, and to them, in a way, you are a criminal. You certainly do not have their best interests at heart, nor they yours.”

“So spies are all enemies?”

“Like political alliances, your enemy today may be your ally tomorrow and vice versa. It is a delicate and ever-changing dance punctuated by violence.” Winkershime was watching him closely.

“Very poetic. So are you going to flash your box at me first, or shall we do codes first?”

Winkershime seemed pleased by his reaction, although Nick didn’t know why. “You’ve had a long day, Your Highness. A treat seems in order, so we will do codes tonight and leave the box for tomorrow.”

Nick grinned happily at him. And after you’ve gone to bed, I can read my magic book, catch a little sleep, and do it all again tomorrow.

After her clothes conference with Anne, Elizabeth invited her for a ride, and they went together on some easy trails. Anne wanted to take a more challenging route, but Elizabeth explained that she was still learning to ride and swore Anne to secrecy. Anne liked having a secret with Elizabeth that her little brother didn’t know about.

At dinnertime, for the first time since Richard’s injury, Giselle came to sit at the high table. As usual the conversation was in Franckish, and Elizabeth didn’t understand anything but a few words. But Giselle made a point of asking after her health, and Elizabeth was pleased to reply she was well and return the question in perfect Franckish, which earned her a small nod of approval from the king.

Overall, Elizabeth was pleased at how her day had gone. She had learned a few things and looked forward to her lessons tomorrow. The only missing piece was Nick. She hadn’t seen him all day. Between her classes and his new job, she realized she wasn’t going to see him much now—at least not for a while. They both had a lot to learn.

Back in her bedroom, she picked up Betsy and looked at her old doll for a moment. She gave her a hug, but instead of putting her back on the bed, she wrapped her doll in a scarf and put her away in a drawer. She was going to be a princess. She just didn’t have time for dolls.