Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde Read Free Book Online

Dad,
I thought,
you shouldn't have.
    When I was introduced to Counselor Rawdon, I interrupted him when he said he'd take me to meet my family.
    "And what are they like?" I asked, though I knew well enough. "Are they to be trusted?"
    "'Trusted,' Princess Janine?" Rawdon repeated.
    "Do they present a danger to me?"
    "Well..." Rawdon said, and I was sure he was going to give an evasive answer. But he said, "Probably."
    OK, I liked that honesty. "Should I take steps?" I asked.
    "Assuredly," he told me.
    For a counselor, he wasn't very forthcoming with counsel.
    "Would, for example—just in theory here—would it be a good idea to have my family confined?"
    "It
might,
" Rawdon agreed. "On the other hand, you
are
new here. An unknown element. The soldiers who would have jumped to your late father's orders might not be so quick to respond to you." He smiled and added, "In theory."
    "I understand," I said. No royal beheadings on the first morning.
    I sighed, suspecting that I wasn't imaginative enough to figure out half of what needed to be figured out. I was already in a rut: hill, Deming, Rawdon, family, death by various unpleasant means. I said, "Perhaps I should dress more suitably before I meet my royal kin. So I don't offend them."
    "Certainly," Rawdon told me.
    After I was scrubbed and coiffed—that was the word Lady Cynthia, my newly appointed lady-in-waiting used,
coiffed
—and perfumed, I was given a beautiful gown of burgundy-colored velvet.
    I almost did feel like a princess as Lady Cynthia brought me to the Great Hall.
    The guards blew their fanfare, opened the doors for me to walk in, closed the doors after me.
    And nobody was there.
    Oops.
    Apparently my royal kin didn't like to be kept waiting—even more than they didn't like me smelling of sheep. Who could have guessed?
    I went out the way I had gone that first time with Kenric. No sign of the royal family in the courtyard, although one of the guards was raking the dirt. I started to go over, then realized what he was doing: covering up blood. With a sinking feeling, I remembered the peasant boy accused of poaching. Apparently by taking the time to bathe, I'd missed the opportunity to keep the guards from chopping his head off.
    It was just a game, but I didn't like the turn it had taken.
    "Guard!" I called the man over to me so that I wouldn't have to go any nearer.
    "Princess Justine," he said.
    I didn't correct him. "Where's the queen?" I asked.
    "I believe she and Prince Wulfgar are in the topiary maze."
    Maze.
I sighed. "I don't suppose you know the way through?"
    He looked surprised that I would ask such a thing. "It would be more fun if you figured it out on your own."
    "Show me," I ordered.
    The hedges were boxwood, which is a smell that always makes me think of cat pee. The bushes were full, so that I couldn't see through them at all, and they were about seven feet high, which is about two feet taller than me. I was just thinking that I should have been paying closer attention to the turns, when we found ourselves in the center, an open area with a pair of stone benches, and sitting there—drinking tea—was Queen Andreanna. But the guard was mistaken: With her was her youngest son, Kenric, not Wulfgar.
    "Ah," Andreanna said, "the sheep princess. I thought I smelled something bad."
    "I
did
take a bath," I said.
    "A bath," the queen said, "no matter how long, is not sufficient to wash off the stink of a bad birth." She waved her hand at the guard, so that her ring caught a glint of the sun. "You," she ordered him, "go."
    "I'm sorry I kept you waiting," I said. "I tried to make myself presentable before appearing before you. I know this is a difficult time for you—"
    "Oh, hush, you tiresome thing!" the queen commanded. "Kenric, can't you do something about her?"
    "What exactly?" he asked.
    "Well, I was thinking you could kill her."
    Apparently there was no pleasing the woman.
    "She
has
been seen here," Kenric pointed out.
    "Maybe she'll have an