Excerpt: Quest Perilous

One

Princess Sara had never been so bored in her life, which was bad, considering she was in the middle of a marriage proposal.
“Your eyes sparkle like the stars,” her suitor told her, his body leaning slightly forward on the garden bench where they were sitting. Red, white, and yellow roses bloomed all around them, the sun was shining, the fountains were babbling in the background, and a slight breeze was keeping the day from being simply overheated and unbearable. It was a perfect summer day and altogether so romantic that it was the stuff of fairy tales, the very fabric of it even.
Still, Sara was not pleased. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the shower of compliments headed her way—the fact that they were quite possibly largely exaggerated made little difference to her—but she knew that the end result of this would be a negative answer, a semi-broken heart, and the cause of another lecture from her father who was determined to see his only child and heir to the throne securely married before the end of the month was out, before Sara turned eighteen.
“And your hair, is a glorious shade of, of, hazelnut,” the young man continued, hesitating only slightly as he struggled to describe the princess’ long brown hair. She was simply glad that he hadn’t begun to go on about how her hair and eyes reminded him of delectable chocolate that he could gobble up. The suitor that had made that mistake, as well as a rather bold move immediately afterwards, had literally paid for it through the teeth.
Sara sighed, which was a mistake. “Do not be afraid of your feelings dear princess,” the suitor said in reply. “I feel it too, the pains of love, the longings, the passion, right here.” He pointed to his heart.
Sara tried to remember his name. It came to her in a flash of realization and she reached out her hand, once described as pale and delicate as a newly blooming rose, and took his in her own.
“Roger,” she began, trying to keep irritation out of her voice as his eyes lit up. “Please know that I do not take these things lightly.”
“Oh no my princess,” Roger cried, his dashing fabrics of purple and blue clashing with very earnest light brown eyes. “I would never dream of it. Please do not think I am being too forward so soon, but I felt I had to profess my feelings, or else my heart would burst.”
Sara tried again. “Sir Roger, you have not been overhasty. However…”
“Then you will permit me to continue? I must speak my heart.” Roger was now on the ground, as predicted, his hat which sported a brilliant white feather plucked from one of the rarest birds of his country no doubt, in his hands as a sign of deference. Sara allowed herself a moment of shock when she saw that Roger was bald underneath. She mentally began to recalculate his age and tried in vain to remember if she had ever seen him without outrageous hats on.
Roger did not wait for an answer, kneeling in front of her. “My princess, my love, my life.”
Sara braced herself. This was going to be one of the harder ones, she knew.
“Ever since we met I have dreamed of nothing but of making you my wife. I long to take you on my stallion back to Frekzar, riding away into the sunset. I wish to make you my queen, if not in title, then in style. I have many gardens like this to offer and my grounds are extensive. My home, while not a castle, has been dubbed a palace. I will love you with every bone in my body until the day I die and always treat you as a princess.”
Sara opened her mouth, but Roger was not finished yet. The birds chirped merrily in the background and if the princess hadn’t known any better, she could have sworn they were laughing at the suitor’s ridiculousness.
“Princess Sara Alisa Marianne Dupont, will you marry me?”
“No,” Sara answered honestly, not allowing the silence to drag out more than a few seconds. “I’m sorry.”
She withdrew her hand and waited for impact. It didn’t take long.
“I…what?” Roger had a dazed look on his face. “What did you say?”
“No,” Sara tried her best to look contrite. “I did enjoy the compliments however, and I’m impressed that you learned my full birth name.”
Roger was turning purple at an alarming rate. Sara stood up hastily, her green skirts rustling, sensing that the man was going to be an angry rejected suitor rather than a melancholy one. She did not fear for her safety, as at least one bodyguard was never more than a few feet away from her on these outings, but she disliked emotional outbursts.
“You have been a kind friend and one of my finest suitors,” the princess continued. “Please believe me when I say I’ve enjoyed many of our moments together. However, my heart belongs to another.”
At this, as Sara might have predicted Roger bounced up and jammed his hat onto his bald pate firmly, a new ferocity shining in his eyes.
“Who is he? I will challenge him and duel to the death!” the man proclaimed, searching in vain for his sword, which had been confiscated upon his entering the palace grounds.
Sara shook her head. “I am sworn to tell none of my suitors. I am sorry, but I cannot love you. I wish you all the best.”
The final words were the cue for her bodyguard to step out of his hiding place and kindly, but firmly, escort Roger back to the palace and give him the boot back to Frezkar. On cue, Denis was there, looking amused as usual at the situation. He had seen many of these proposals and all of the reactions possible to rejection. One time he had lightly chastised the princess for being so firm, but when questioned, had admitted that if he had proposed to his own wife by saying she was “an exotic piece of flesh” he would never have gotten an affirmative answer and in fact, might not still be living today.
“Sara,” Roger’s eyes were full of tears now and Sara had to steel her heart. The whole scene was becoming too maudlin.
“Goodbye Roger,” Sara replied.
“Come now lad,” Denis said. “There’s naught here for you now. This way, that’s a good boy.”
Denis had Roger by the arm and pulled him away even as the man continued to shout back declarations of passion and fervor, of how he’d find her true heart’s love, how he’d never give up, he’d wait for her and come storming back to take her away to wedded bliss and so forth. Sara let the comments roll like water off her back as she sat back down on the garden bench. She’d come to think of the spot as the Bench of Tears, which was very fanciful of her, but she couldn’t help it.
“Your father will be angry milady.”
Sara jumped up from the bench and whipped her head around, peeking past the rosebushes. She came face to face with Lia, her first handmaiden and best friend. Quite possibly the short bubbly blonde maid was her only friend.
“Blast Lia,” Sara sighed as she sat down again. “You scared me. Were you watching the whole time? Who else is hiding in the bushes here?”
Lia shook her head. “No one as far as I can tell, milady. I was here on an errand to find you, actually. I saw Denis and your suitor on the way out and surmised the rest. This one was blubbering something awful.”
“Oh?” Sara fidgeted with an embroidered white lily on the bodice of her dress. “He was one of the kinder ones.”
“I don’t understand you milady,” Lia shook her head, placing herself on the bench besides the princess. “All these suitors! All these young men, princes, dukes, lords, knights, even some of the higher aristocrats without titles. All of them from our six neighboring kingdoms and some of the stranger realms. All sixty-two…”
“Sixty-five,” Sara corrected, somewhat bashfully.
Lia paused. “Gods, sixty-five now?”
The princess nodded. “Roger is the sixty-fifth suitor, starting from about five years ago.”
“Milady, it’s not right,” Lia looked indignant, her own clear blue eyes mirroring the still beautiful sky. “Surely there is one of them that you love? That you could learn to love?”
Sara shook her head. “Lia you know that is impossible.”
“Not even for your father?” Lia asked.
Sara slipped her soft satin slippers off, feeling the cool dampness of the dew-stained grass underneath as she contemplated answering. She knew that Lia had a point. She also knew that besides her father, only Lia would dare say such things to her face. There were plenty of rumors about how Sara was a cold-hearted witch with little regard for human beings in general, let along pining young men with hearts of gold. Never mind the fact that out of her sixty-five suitors, sixty had moved immediately on to other pursuits and by all accounts were happily settled down in their ever afters. The young princess also knew that they were probably laughing at her unsettledness, but she did not care. Much.
“I have tried,” Sara began slowly. “But I have never felt that I truly loved, or liked any suitor I have met. Call me an impossible romantic, but I wish to marry for love, or not marry at all.”
Lia paused. “Not marry at all? What would you do then, how would you rule the country?”
“With a council much like my father does,” Sara answered. “My father rules well now that my mother has left him. In fact, he rules a lot better than he did before when she was around to provoke his temper and he, hers.”
The handmaiden shook her head. “I’m sorry princess. I did not mean to bring up a sore spot.”
“It’s quite alright Lia,” Sara waved her hand in dismissal, eyes scanning the horizon, resting on a bush of red roses before her. “I know she is happier with the Duke of Arnin, and I do not consider her a traitor.”
Sara was still angry and hurt from her mother’s flight when she was a young child. She’d not often seen her young mother while the queen was still around, but when she had, she’d sensed a profound sadness in the woman. Queen Ana had not been a happy ruler, for she’d always preferred the duke, one Ivan Candor. When Ivan had finally achieved a rank and title, the queen had wasted no time in fleeing from her loveless marriage for what was, by all accounts and rumors, a happier union. Sara knew she had three half siblings half a world away and she still read the letters her mother sent her on such matters, curious in spite of herself. She still refused to reply, however.
“But,” Sara continued. “You know that this is why my marriage is so important to me. Not only will he have to be a fit and firm king, but we will have to be happy. At any rate, happier than my father and mother were. I will not let that ruin my kingdom.”
Lia looked tragically and even nobly upset. Sara wondered at the fact that Lia, by accident of birth, was not a princess as well. Oftentimes the royal youngster felt that Lia, with her golden tresses, fair oval shaped face, soft voice, shy looks, and graceful manner would have made a far better princess than she did.
“I understand milady,” Lia said. “But I do not think your father will. Nor the people.”
“My father cannot force me against my will though,” Sara pointed out. “My mother made sure to have that law changed when she got into the palace.”
“Yes milady,” Lia answered. “But I fear that your father will find some other means to procure you a husband and I am not sure if those will be worse or better than your situation now.”
“Well,” Sara said. “Those are baseless fears at the moment. I wouldn’t worry about it. You know me.”
Lia smiled, mirth showing in her eyes. “Always the rebel milady?” She raised one eyebrow to show her slight distaste.
“Not always Lia,” Sara answered. “Just often.”
“I hope you find your true love soon then,” Lia answered. “For the sake of all of this. Your father’s health…”
“Princess?”
Both young women jumped at the sudden deep voice that resonated from behind them.
“Denis,” Sara replied. Lia shot one glance at her lady and with a slight curtsy disappeared once more into the extensive labyrinth that was the king’s gardens.
“Your highness, your father the king is requesting your presence in his antechamber,” Denis said. “May I escort you there?”
“That was fast,” Sara said with a nod. The two proceeded across the lawn. The tall white spires of the palace, her home and sometimes prison, loomed before her, glinting in the sunlight. The princess was briefly reminded of the gleaming top of Roger’s head and she stifled a giggle. “How much trouble am I in?”
Denis shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “He is upset my princess, but seems more tired and on edge than anything else.”
Sara was alert at the word “tired”. Her father’s health, Lia had begun, but Sara knew the rest. Her father’s health was fast failing and ever increasingly his right hand man, Lord Bisson was taking over matters. He was another courtier urging her hasty marriage to some noble man for this reason. Lord Bisson was not the stereotypical evil henchman waiting in the wings for the king to die and take over, but there were plenty of courtiers who were. Sara was very aware of the dangers if she did not make some sort of move before her eighteenth birthday, which was rapidly approaching.
“I understand,” the two figures crossed out of the gardens in silence and entered through a small wooden door. Here Sara followed Denis past large arching walls of white marble, covered in exquisite tapestries, past portraits of previous generations of her family, past long floor length windows that gave beautiful views of the gardens, the countryside, the outlying town, and far off in the distance, the forest. Maids and footmen bustled about, busy at doing everything and nothing. The palace was an active living thing and all stopped to curtsy to her, however sincerely or disdainfully they meant it. Sara nodded in acknowledgment, her mind racing.
“Here we are your highness,” Denis stopped after turning a few corners. “Good luck.”
With those words he pulled open old wooden doors that creaked with protest at their very use. Sara had been in her father’s antechambers a few times before, usually for talks like these, but she saw that it was dark inside and her father was not in immediate sight.
“Thank you Denis,” she said and stepped into the small bedroom-like area, her heart thumping slightly.
“Father?” she asked as the door closed behind her.
“Sara,” she heard her father say from beside a window whose curtains were partially open, letting only a small amount of sunlight into the room. “Please sit down on the divan. I’m afraid we need to talk.”