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Wimfred scratched his chin. “Who said anything about marriage?”
Straightening in his chair, the king turned to his old friend.
Wimfred rose and approached the table with the golden cup and wine carafes on it.
“You said to me before that Princess Mina does not understand the difference between a gold coin and a button. So make her understand. Force her to learn different ways; provide for her a chance to change.”Wimfred handed the king the cup of wine. “People can’t love the blue of the sky if not for the gray of the clouds.”
“Make her life a simpler life?” The king took a sip of the wine. It sounded mad, but then looking back at his own life, he knew it was the freezing cold of the rain on the battlefield, not his golden sheets in his bed, that made him so grateful for a warm fireplace.
As things stood, Mina wasn’t capable of understanding the real danger she and the kingdom were in.
“My wife has a relative in the North.” He’d saidhasbefore he could stop himself. He often did that, spoke of her as if she were still alive. He cleared his throat. “A simple noble family. A distant cousin. We haven’t spoken in years. But I have provided for him well throughout the war, and he is in my debt. So I’m not certain how much my daughter would learn of a simpler life there. In fact, there is no place on earth where people would not treat her like the spoiled princess she is for fear of me.”
“Yet so much depends on her abandoning her ways.”
Sighing deeply, the king emptied his glass. “Everything depends on it.”
Wimfred scratched his chin again, deep in thought. “What if she were forced to learn a different life? Even for a short while?”
It was the most interesting idea indeed. The king’s first encounter with the horrors of battle had changed him forever. It had forced him to abandon his childish ways and become the king his father needed him to be.
A soft knock came at the door.
“Your Highness.”
“Come in.”
One of the servants stepped in and bowed. “I apologize for interrupting you, but Alrick von Wilbrandt requests a brief word.”
The king rose to his feet, an instant headache forming. Never had he felt so ashamed in his life. He knew he owed the families an apology, but he was hoping it would have time until tomorrow, so he could regather the strength his daughter had sucked from him.
“At this hour?” Wimfred asked the servant in a cool tone.
“Lord Kulgrat and his sister Lady Henrike are to depart north early in the morning, and the lord wanted to pay his respects.”
“North,” the king repeated and looked at Wimfred. “An honorable man like him accompanied by his sister. Suppose he were to take Mina with him . . . up to her cousin Ulf. To learn new ways, see the world beyond the eyes of a selfish princess drowned in gold.”
“She would never go with Alrick von Wilbrandt. And if you somehow could make her, she would simply treat him like a servant and learn nothing on her way up there,” Wimfred countered.
“What if she thought it was her idea to go with him?”
“Low birth or not, he is a knight and follows a strict code. She knows that and will use it to her advantage to make him bend like grass in the wind.”
The king briefly thought about it, then raised his left brow. “If it was Alrick, Lord of Kulgrat, she was traveling with, then yes, she would command him to obey. But if Alrick was no man she could control? If she couldn’t recognize him for who he truly is? She is so focused on herself that she barely remembers the maids who enter her chambers daily. And at the ball, she didn’t even notice his sister Henrike was present.”
“But who else would Lord Alrick be?” Wimfred wondered, his voice filled with curiosity.
Walking over to the table with the wine, the king cleared his throat, grabbed another golden glass, and filled it.Even a blind man could see how much all of this pained him. Yet, he was running out of hope and time.
“The first unmarried man walking through my gates. A simple beggar, to be precise . . .”
Wimfred wrinkled his forehead high. “A beggar?”
The king shook his head. How bizarre his world had become. Yet he would go much further than this to save the life of his only child and kingdom along with it.
“You are right,” the king said, losing hope in his idea. “Alrick would never agree to any of this anyway.”
Wimfred rose, deep in thought, then nodded. “He would if it was presented to him the right way.”
“And what way could that possibly be?”
Wimfred faintly smiled. “Leave it to me, my king... Just send him in.”
