BENCHED (41 page)

"What kind?"

"All of it."

I sit down next to Thorlief. "I want what he's having, but more of it."

"Please don't trash my bar again," he sighs.

Akele, Aheahe, and Dee crowd in behind us.

The bartender pushes me a tumbler of brown something, and I drink half of it in one go, hoping the poison will kill the pain and the rest of me with it.

"There's nothing we can do?" Dee asks.

Thorlief shakes his head. "My travel privileges have been revoked. I can never set foot on the island again. The queen informed me personally before the other guards dragged Ana to the airport."

"Why are we sitting here? We could still catch her," Dee shouts.

Thorlief shakes his head. "She is already in the air. She was gone hours ago. It is over. I have nothing left."

"Join the club," I groan.

"You're both fucking pathetic," Dee says. "Come on, Jason. I know you want to do something!"

"What, Dee? Fly to Jyvaslka and do what? Maybe I should charter a boat?"

"Perhaps I can help?"

The five of us whirl. Thorlief barely keeps himself on his stool. I have to steady him with one hand on his boulder-like shoulder.

Standing in the door is a tall, young man with blond hair, maybe seventeen at the most, in a sea-green polo shirt and slacks. He wears his ashen hair in a ponytail and carries himself with a straight-backed grace that commands the attention of the few drunks who are getting primed for tonight, and our sad little band.

"Who are you?" I demand.

Thorlief gets up and falls into a drunken bow that almost face-plants him on the floor.

"Your Grace," he mumbles.

"I'm Prince Konstantin. Princess Ana's brother."

"Seriously?" Akele says.

"Hi, Prince," Aheahe says.

"Are you going to trash my bar?" the bartender says.

I stand up. "Why are you here?"

He puts his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "I am here because I love, how are you saying, big sister? Yes, I love big sister and I want to help her. She is very sad. Unless you are why she is sad, then I must cut your dick off."

"It's not my fault," I choke out.

"Let me translate for you," Thorlief says, rising.

They go back and forth in their native tongue. I have no idea what they're saying, but the prince turns redder and redder with every word.

"This whore did this thing to my sister?" he says to me.

"Uh, yeah."

"Then she must pay," he says, slamming his fist into his hand. "But first we must be stopping the wedding."

I blink. "Wait, what wedding?"

"The wedding of Ana to Mortimer."

"Hold up," Dee says. "Wedding to—?"

"Why am I in repeating? Are you having sawdust in your ears? Princess Ana must marry. The queen has decreed it."

"Okay," I sigh, "so if I want to get Ana back, I have to somehow get to a foreign country thousands of miles away with no transportation and no passport and somehow get into a closely guarded wedding and break it up without getting executed by my girlfriend's mother?"

"Yes!"

"Oh fuck me, more booze."

Just then, more people to start to pile in.

Izzy comes first, with Chester Caulfield on his heels, and the rest of the team files in behind him, most of them still in their pads. Half the cheerleading squad packs into the bar, and finally the De La Warr Knight in his giant foam costume ducks under the lintel and tromps into the bar carrying his seven-foot foam lance.

"What is this?" the bartender demands. "Some kind of a joke?"

Akele stands to his full height.

"Brothers and sisters," he thunders, his voice rolling along the ceiling like a distant storm, shaking the rusty, old chandeliers. "We have been called together today on a holy quest. We have been bound in blood and pain on the field of battle, a bond that no one can understand who has not shared it."

He walks around the room, arms up, preaching.

"Our mission is a difficult one. An ocean and a castle stand between us and victory. I ask you this day to put everything on the line for Jason Powell and Ana De Vries, to risk everything. There may be difficulties. There may be casualties. We may not return, but if we fall, we will ride in Valhalla eternal as warriors of renown. What we do today will be legendary. We will be more than players, more than cheerleaders, more than a guy in a foam suit. We will be heroes. Who's with me!"

"I am," Aheahe roars.

Then the room goes completely silent. Everybody kind of shuffles around on their feet.

Oh, okay then.

"I am going," Thorlief says, rising to stand, shakily, next to Akele.

The prince walks over and slaps the huge guard's shoulder.

"I too am joining this, ah, quest."

"You don't need to go, Akele," I sigh, walking to the middle of the room. "I can handle this myself."

"How many times has he carried us?" Aheahe shouts. "Will we abandon him in his time of need? Is that how you will remember this day? When you let your friend face danger alone?"

Izzy walks over. "In."

Cheesy Caulfield is next. "In," he agrees.

"Please leave," the bartender pleads.

The Knight walks over and pumps his foam lance in the air.

Suddenly I'm surrounded by hands slapping my shoulders and back.

"Together we are stronger," Akele declares. "We need cars, boats, helicopters, whatever we need to get to… how are we doing this again?"

"I am having a private airplane," Prince Konstantin says. "It will holding all the people. We must go now!"

"All right!" Akele roars, "Everybody get in the van! We're breaking up a wedding!"

I turn to Thorlief and Konstantin.

"You can get us on the island?"

Konstantin grins. "For Ana? I can move the world."

That hole in my chest begins to fill with something swelling up inside, a fire that burns through my veins.

"Let's go," I bellow. "We've got work to do!"

A
na

I
had not expected
to set foot here for a long time. It no longer feels real. My bed is broad enough for me to lie across it with room to spare. My rooms are huge, as big as a house all by themselves. I am surrounded by opulence and history, ensconced in an ancient castle with all the modern creature comforts and luxuries that would make a rich man gasp.

I was born in this room. Literally; my mother gave birth on this bed, surrounded by doctors and midwives and attendants. My entire childhood was spent here. This is my place, where I began. It should be a comfort to sit here again in this room I know so well, with the distant sea and its lush crashing sound echoing through my open window as the cool, damp air washes over me.

I want to go home.

Less than seven hours ago, I was standing in my room at my house in Newark, and I was screaming. When I saw
The Royal Exposé
, it was like a spear thrust through my heart, like a terrible iron fist smashed through my ribs, grabbed it, and ripped it free, still beating.

Now there is only a dull, raw ache, like an open wound in my soul. Nothing feels real anymore. Nothing matters. I am wearing the same clothes I was, sitting here on this different bed so far from the place where I left my soul behind. I vaguely remember tearing the paper crown to pieces in my anguished rage.

I gave him everything. All of me. How could he do this? Not only sleep with another woman, but sleep with
her
, that repulsive harridan that hounded me from when I first set foot on campus. The betrayal is crushing, but the insult is salt on the wounds, and these wounds run deep.

They will never heal, only scab over. My skin is unbroken, but my soul is bleeding to death, and soon there will be nothing but a bitter shell, an echo of the person I always wished I was. I am my own grave.

I hate him.

That is what I repeat to myself, over and over and over. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. I try to make it true. Hate would be sweet now, like a bitter draught to cleanse the palate after a heavy meal that turned greasy and cold in my mouth.

I cannot make myself hate him. I can think only of his love and tenderness and gentleness and joy in me and wonder, is all such love a lie? Can there be any truth to any of it anywhere? If something so sweet can be so false, what hope is there in happiness?

Not for the first time since I arrived, I lean my hands on the worn rail of the parapet and think of vaulting over it to throw myself onto the jagged rocks below and let the sea lap up my broken body. How can I survive this, being alive and yet dead in my soul?

I begin to weep, and my door opens.

J
ason

T
wo weeks ago
, if you told me I'd be standing on an airport tarmac surrounded by a football team, cheerleading squad, marching band, and a guy in a foam-rubber knight suit, I'd believe everything but the airport part.

When Prince Konstantin said he had a plane, I sort of facetiously pictured the kind of little prop plane Reggie Macintosh flies as part of his skywriting business. This thing is a jet, big enough to hold all of us with room to spare.

"How are we going to get into the country?"

"I'm invited to the wedding," Konstantin says. "I'll get us in."

He shifts on his feet and sighs. "Mother has commanded Anastasia to marry Mortimer Andrew Karl Victor de Kupp and take him as her prince consort when she ascends to the crown."

I stare at him. Akele and Aheahe stare at him. Dee checks her phone.

"Wow, Grandolf has her relationship status marked 'it's complicated' on Facebook."

Everyone turns to her.

"What?" I say.

"Nothing. Guess she got in trouble for trying to step out on her hubby. Poor guy."

"Really," I groan.

"When we are arriving," Prince Konstantin says, sharply, "I will be doing the talking. We cannot all of you just walk into the castle."

"Has anyone ever told you that you talk like the Swedish Chef?" Izzy says.

Akele elbows him, which almost knocks him on his ass.

Konstantin gives this all a blank look. "Moving on. We will be sneaking in."

"Sneaking. Sneaking into a castle." I sigh, hard, and pinch my nose.

"Yes. Am I saying the English wrong?"

"No, I understand. You want to sneak all of these people into a castle."

He looks around. "Bringing them was not my idea."

"It's a great idea," Akele says, clapping Konstantin on the shoulder. The slender prince's knees buckle from the impact.

He looks at Akele's ham-hand and smiles awkwardly, then gently lifts it away. Or tries to, anyway.

"Hurry," the prince orders. "Following me."

He jogs up the stairs, and I follow. The plane is fueling up while everyone else gets on board. All of the seats are big, like first-class. After I sit down, the rest of the team clambers on board, filling up the seats. Aheahe and Akele wedge themselves into the set of seats behind mine, and Izzy drops in beside me.

"Is there going to be a movie?" Aheahe says. "In-flight snack? I need a snack."

Dee sits next to Konstantin.

"This is actually happening," she says.

"Yeah," I agree.

The fuel truck disconnects and rolls away. The flight attendant closes the door, and I wonder if that's the right term,
flight attendant
.

Thorlief steps up and looks at Izzy.

"Switch seats."

"Hey man—" Izzy starts.

Thorlief folds his giant arms over his chest and flexes them. He's abandoned his usual suit coat and his massive muscles bulge in his dress shirt, bunching up the seams.

"Now."

"Okay," Izzy squeaks.

After Izzy climbs over me, Thorlief grabs the overhead bins and levers himself into the seat.

"Uh, hi."

He glances at me and leans back in the seat. "The princess loves you."

"Yeah," I say in a thick voice. "I know. She deserves better."

He gives me a side-eyed glance but says nothing.

"You're supposed to argue with me."

"I'm not going to. She does, but she chose you."

"Uh. Thanks."

His huge shoulders shrug. "I believe you did not sleep with the woman professor."

"Thanks again."

"If you do ever hurt Princess Anastasia, I will rip your spine out and fuck you with it."

"Okay, duly noted."

"She is like a daughter to me."

"Yeah, I gathered that."

As the plane taxis along, Konstantin glances at us but says nothing.

The air feels a little empty. I try to fill it. Inanely.

"So, uh, you and the queen?"

"No."

"Oh. But—"

"I was twenty when I was taken into the royal service and appointed her bodyguard. She was sixteen years old. She was a child. I looked at her as a child. Then she grew up and I began to look at her as a woman."

"She must be hot. I mean she's Ana's mom. Wow this is awkward."

"No. She is cold as ice."

"Oh. So what—?"

"She was warm once, but there was a boy like you who broke her heart."

I swallow, hard. "Uh, yeah. Okay. I'm not going to do anything to Ana. Well, I am, but not bad things. I mean I will if she asks me, but—"

"Dude, shut up," Akele says.

I grip the sides of the seat as the plane starts to speed up.

Have I mentioned I hate flying?

Thorlief gives me an amused look. "Afraid of planes?"

"No, afraid of crashing."

He laughs. It sounds like a mountain crashing into another, slightly larger mountain.

"Who isn't?"

There's a pause, and then he says, "I'm not."

I white-knuckle my way through the takeoff and finally start to feel my heart slow when the plane levels out. I don't dare look out the window. I don't like heights much, either.

If I had to sit on the nose of the plane, I would. Anything for Ana.

"So you, ah," I start, half-mumbling, "you had a thing for the queen."

"Have."

"Oh. Must be tough. You were around her a lot?"

"Until I became Anastasia's bodyguard. Before that I was in her presence at all times except when she was alone in her apartments in the castle, when I stood guard outside the door. I was only apart from her then, and when I was asleep."

"Wow. What's she like? Ana's mom."

"Cold. Severe. Stern. Focused. Her country is everything to her. Her legacy is everything to her. Ana is everything to her."

"Really? Ana never talked about her."

"There is a rift between them. The queen does not wish to see Anastasia repeat her mistakes."

I chew on that for a while. "What do you wish?"

"I wish to see her happy."

"So when you see the queen—"

He shifts in his seat. "I have not seen her in almost three years, since Anastasia came to the United States. I have seen her in pictures. Spoken to her, but she speaks to me as she would any of her servants. I am nothing to her."

"That ain't right, man. You're totally carrying a torch."

"Yes. Others look at her and see only the hardness on the surface. The glacier. I see what lies beneath but was once on the surface. The softness beneath the armor."

"So why don't you tell her?"

"Me? I am no one. A queen is above my station."

"I'm pretty sure a princess is above my station."

"You do not actually have a station."

"Whatever, the point is—"

"I see the point. It means nothing."

"You should tell her how you feel."

He shifts in the seat again and folds his huge hands in his lap. Good, I was getting a little crowded even in the big first-class seats.

"I can't."

"Why?"

"I can't."

"That's not a reason. You just repeated yourself."

He growls. Literally growls, a deep rumble from inside his chest.

I shrug. "You don't actually have a reason, do you?"

"It doesn't matter. It's too late."

"Is it? It's not too late until you die, dude. The only shot you know you'll miss is the one you don't take."

"That is easy for you to say."

"Yeah, it is. I bagged a princess."

He turns to me with a sharp look. "If you use that word again—"

"Sorry. Look, all I'm trying to say is that you need to take a chance, man. How do you know she doesn't feel the same way about you?"

"She doesn't."

"What if she does?"

"Why would she?"

"Hell, I don't know. Does anyone understand women?"

"No," Konstantin breaks in, laughing.

I hear some scoffs and snorts from farther back on the plane.

The cheerleading squad heard that too.

"Smooth, guys," Akele says.

"You should talk," Dee sighs.

Aheahe snorts loudly.

This is going to be a long flight.

A
na

M
other enters dressed
in a simple black gown. Black has ever been her color since father died; she never cast off her mourning clothes. The gown makes a stark contrast against her pale face and snowy hair that hangs loose to her back, bound only by the simple circlet she wears tucked in her hair when she is not required to wear the ceremonial crown that rests in a vault below the castle.

"Step away from there."

I tremble in place, gripping the old stone. How many princesses before me have done the same, I wonder? Is it such a terrible thing, to be royalty? To utterly belong to your people?

Truly it is terrible. I am not sure I can survive it.

"Anastasia, step away from there and come inside. Sit on the bed."

Even now, I dare not prompt her to command me a third time.

I walk to the bed sullen and sit down. Mother strides over and seats herself beside me, smoothing her dress over her legs. We look so much alike, we could be twins but for the crow’s feet around her eyes, and the sadness that stains them like blood on water.

A gasp strikes me as she rests her hand on my back, tenderly.

"Anastasia," she sighs, "I so wished to spare you this. I wish I had never sent you to America at all."

I look down at my feet and say nothing for a while.

"That is an awful thing to say."

"Why, daughter?"

"Then I never would have met him. I was happy for a time. Happier than I have ever been. I have never been happy. Only lost and lonely. He made me feel what a human being feels. I thought I was turning into a star."

The words fall out of me and shatter on the floor, like a glass slipping from a drunkard's hand.

The sobs comes a moment later.

Mother does something she has never done before in my entire life. She puts her arms around me and pulls my head to her chest.

"Cry," she says. "Cry, child. I'm here."

I want to push her away, but I can't. I need the embrace, I need the softness of her to weep into bitterly. I hug her as though I never have before—in truth, I never really have—and tighten my arms, holding on to the only thing that is still solid in my life.

Despite all that she is, she is still my mother. She pats my head and strokes my hair, and hugs me back.

"I've failed you," she says with a deep, withering sigh. "I never wanted this to happen. I wanted us to be closer, but there was so much. Always so much."

"I don't want to be queen," I moan.

"I once told my father the same," she says. "In much the same circumstances. When I was to be wed to your father. There was—"

"A man. In America. Did you sleep with him?"

She sighs. "Yes. I did. He took my virginity, and I gave him my heart. He was the world to me. He was kind and good and made me feel like no one else ever had. He made me feel like I mattered. The person, not the title. Not the crown. It was a magical feeling. It made me feel invincible, perfect. I thought of all the changes I would make with him by my side, how I would be the one to change the tradition."

I push her away and sit up.

"Now you want me to marry a man I loathe for 'reasons of state.'" I throw her own words over the phone back at her.