It was his face that entranced her the most. It was so beautiful that it was sure to sell for enormous amounts if she peeled it from his skull. She especially liked the black curls that fell on his forehead. She didn’t know hair could fall like that. He had elegant brown hands with long shapely fingers, and as they escaped the tangle of his curls, the little mermaid imagined his palms pressing into the nape of her neck. But then she recalled her own unsightly gills, heaving heavily now from rejecting the air, red, seething, ugly gashes. How they would surely repel a man like him.
It did not yet seem unnatural to her as the Prince drew a dagger from his side, and it winked in the candlelight. It did not interrupt the eerie allure of the scene as the boy slowly stroked his throat with its gleaming narrow blade. He held it up to the window, examining it, his eyes barely skirting the top of the mermaid’s head as she ducked, blood pounding in her ears. When she summoned enough courage to raise herself back to the window, she saw that he had rolled onto his stomach, sighing deeply, the dagger gone. There was a little glint on his face, like water caught in the light.
He was alarmed by a sudden pounding at the door. The little mermaid, in a state of panic yet strangely elated, returned to the depths, the spell all but faded away.
Before the Prince could stash the dagger deeper inside the snarl of sheets, the door opened and the room was flooded with light. He shielded his eyes and opened his mouth to reprimand the visitor when he heard an old voice, a much-loved voice call his name.
The boy scrambled to his feet and hurried to the man. “Uncle,” he said, and allowed himself to be drawn into long-awaited arms like a child. “The advisors told me they could not find you.”
“It isn’t their fault,” said the man. “I can’t be found if I don’t wish to be. I came as soon as I heard.”
The young Prince looked up at the careworn face before him, a face smeared with sun and wind, sweat and heartbreak. He smelled like he hadn’t washed in weeks. His hair grew over his collar, and a heavy beard concealed a face that was caught in the middle years. But the Prince didn’t care. “Where were you?” he asked, and his voice was high-pitched, if not a little shaky.
“Romania,” replied his Uncle nonchalantly, shrugging.
“Where’s that?”
The Uncle eyed his nephew carefully. “It’s one country of many that you must not only learn of, but maintain peace with, now that you are King.”
“King!” spat the boy, and he turned his back on his Uncle and moved to the window, gazing out to sea.
The Uncle examined the chamber with disapproval. “And now that you are King, these rooms will not do. They are too easily penetrated, any assassin could creep here in the middle of the night and take your life.”
“My guards are right outside the door.”
“Your guards are so dense they will think twice if they hear you scream.”
“I prefer them that way,” said the boy, with the air of someone who spends a great deal of time screaming. “And I don’t care if some assassin wants to kill me. They’d be doing the kingdom a favour.”
“Don’t talk rot,” snapped the Uncle.
“And what about you?” sneered the boy. “You’re the real King, the Prince Regent. Isn’t that why you really came back? My father is dead, and haven’t you always wanted his throne?”
He was not insulted by the boy’s wild accusations, instead he was sorry for this young life already affected so painfully by tragedy. The Prince’s words were true, as the King’s brother he could readily take the throne. But as a man who enjoyed the rank and privileges connected with sovereignty, he did not relish the responsibility, and had never hankered for more power than he already had. “You are of age now, my boy. You are neither too young nor incapacitated. There is no court in the land that would grant me ruling.”
The boy’s eyes were wild with fever. “But I’ll give you the kingdom,” he gushed. “Don’t you understand? It’s yours. I don’t want it.”
“With your every word, your infantile experience becomes more apparent. What makes you think I’d ever come back here? Don’t you remember what happened?”
The Prince understood, but he was not prepared to listen. “Oh, that. That was ages ago, Uncle. Surely you are past all that? All of your gallivanting around the continent, the world no less? Oh, you ran so far. You ran to Antarctica! Or did you think I was too infantile to know where that was?”
But the Uncle was too wise and too kind to rise to the bait. “I only returned because my dear brother has died, and his own son needs me.”
The Prince’s face crumpled as if he might cry, but he steeled himself. I cannot do this,” he admitted. “I was not born to be a King. I want to go away, far away. I want to be like you.” His eyes brightened with an unnatural light. “Let’s leave,” he said, “and just disappear. And the whole world will think we are dead, and go on without us.”
But his Uncle shook his head. “And leave all the good work your father did undone?”
A sliver of guilt plucked at the Prince now, for he remembered his father, and the hardships he had endured. He recalled the atmosphere of the whole world on the day he was born. The tension, like a dry bone with no marrow, aching to snap. The evacuations, the invasions. Waking up to the view of a thousand bodies decapitated on the shores of this very coast. Marching in the funeral procession of his own mother, in trousers too long that nobody had thought to hem.
He watched agony and strain age his father beyond recognition. He endured the long absences, months spent with his gut so twisted that doctors foretold his own death if he did not soon defecate, all because he was never sure that his father would return. But the King won the alliance of all the neighbouring kingdoms one by one, and once he had achieved peace in all the land, he returned to the palace and never left again. In fact, he promptly died of exhaustion, leaving a son he barely knew, but a kingdom ripe on the cusp of greatness.
“I will undo every good thing he ever did. I know nothing about running a kingdom.”
“You will learn.”
“He taught me nothing!”
“His lords and advisors are worthy men, and they will—“
“Those old fools? It was my father who did the real work, and they just went around collecting taxes and glory!” The Prince began to pace around the room darkly. “No, no, they will conspire against me. They want the kingdom for themselves!”
“Forgive me, my lad, but it seems to me that the only thing standing between you and your kingdom is the very great likeness you have to a menstruating woman.”
The Prince stopped still like he was punched in the jaw. He turned to his uncle, eyes wide with astonishment. “What did you say?” he stammered.
“I said you’re like a woman,” was the calm reply.
“A woman?”
“A woman!” roared his Uncle. “A woman on her menses, crying one moment, looking for a fight the next! Driving mad all the men in her household! But on second thoughts, to compare you to a woman seems an insult to the worthy sex. No, you’re a wilful, disobedient puppy who doesn’t respect his master and discharges filth all over the house, despite his training. You’re irrational and weak and ridiculous! Where’s your backbone? Where is your courage? I thought my brother died and left a son, the very image of himself. But I am convinced you don’t have a single drop of his blood in your veins.”