Prince Alexander was a busy man. He despised it when people wasted his time, especially people who did so for no good reason. The girl, Catherine, spent so much time being afraid of him, that he had to ask her everything twice. He wanted to resort to his usual methods, he felt like shaking her, or slapping her, to get her to pull herself together, but remembering her in her wedding dress kept him from trying it out. He supposed the novelty of violence had long since worn off on her.
He had to make a real effort to calm himself down whenever he had been talking to her. The magic from the spell he had so naively cast crawled up and down his spine and stung him like a thousand tiny daggers when it found his anger directed at her. It was, at times, like a living being, surveying his every thought and emotion, clouding his mind with stupidity.
It was still absolutely unclear to him why Catherine had been picked out somehow. She could not compare to his other options in the least, but the spell seemed to want to force him to pick her. He no longer felt a pull towards any of the other women, and he now had to go by the memory of those vague pokes. He knew he was only fooling himself; there had been no detectable difference, and it had taken him the entire day to notice what had happened.
Catherine on the other hand. When he was close to her all he wanted to do was to press her against his chest to make the ache go away. When she was outside his rooms he could hardly think. The pain was overwhelming. But he did not want her, not in any way. She was too young, too small, too ugly, too much of a peasant, too scared of him, too scared of power and wealth to ever be of any use.
He had almost immediately decided to get her to stay close by. It had seemed logical that he would be able to reap the benefits of the spell without having to marry a small, ugly girl. For now he would use her as a way to spy on his other options. When he had made his pick, he would marry, be rid of the spell, and keep Catherine around for whatever purpose she was supposed to serve.
It made little difference to him. As long as he was still officially the crown prince, and he was, he had the liberty to do almost anything. He could not be punished for committing minor crimes, and he could spend large sums on anything he saw as a worthy cause. Keeping a girl in a small set of rooms was about as much trouble as buying a new horse.
Running over these thoughts in his head did wonders to calm him down. He remembered that he was supposed to win the girl's friendship, and grabbed a chess set on his way back to his study. She was still sitting on his chair in front of the fireplace. Her eyes were turned away from him, but he had seen her shoulders stiffen when he opened the door. She was at least trying to conceal her fear from him which, he supposed, was a step in the right direction. He held out the closed, checkered box towards her.
“Do you play,” he asked.
She looked up at him, studying the contents of his hand for a moment, not bothering not to frown at it. He sighed inwardly, but reminded himself to be patient.
“Play what, sir?”
“It's chess, my dear,” he said. “A game supposed to simulate two armies in battle. I thought you might play with me for a while since you are not needed elsewhere.”
Catherine looked at him blankly again, as if the words he had just said had been in a foreign tongue, and he felt his blood rising. She nodded, and he left to find a small table and an additional chair so he could sit next to her.
Explaining her the rules took so long that they did not actually play the game. He was not sure if she was aware of the fact that he was merely showing her how to move the small figurines about. Her concentrated frown made him suspect that she thought she was supposed to do something.
By the time he allowed her to leave, she looked as tired as he felt, which annoyed him. He had done almost all the talking, and he had done his best to be pleasant company. He did not think it was fair of her to look that tired when it was her fault that they did nothing but speak about rules.
When he was certain she had left, he went to his bedroom and pulled out a worn bag from a trunk under his bed. He still kept all of his most treasured belongings packed so he might take them with him at short notice. He was still not used to being back at a castle. His every instinct told him to be ready, to be careful.
He pulled out garments from the bag and undressed. Holding up each piece before putting it on, he changed into something that made him look like the people that had been surrounding Catherine just a few days before. He thought about her father and her husband, and his stomach churned. If - when he was king he would make sure to make it a lot more difficult to marry off children. He thought that raising the punishment from a few years in prison to death might have an effect as well.
Soot from the fireplace and an old hat completed his disguise. It was far from perfect, but as long as his most recognisable features and the scars were covered, he did not think he would be recognised. He left by door known only to very few people and went outside. He knew the city well, having entertained this habit of his for several years before enrolling himself in the army and tainting his reputation with magic.
He found his favourite inn looking much as it always had. There was a smell of rancid piss and vomit clinging to the rotting, wooden walls. Mud clung to his boots despite the fact that it had not rained for more than a week. Underneath his grimace of disgust, he smiled. It was like coming home.
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