A Grim Fairy Tale

Chapter Sixty-Four

The entire kingdom of Poland had gone into a great panic when they discovered that their prince was missing. The servants were a buzz with questions, the queen was heartbroken with worry, and the king was enraged. To him Anthony's disappearance was insult to him cause he believed it made him look irresponsible and useless in front of his subjects. Making him into a joke.

"The ungrateful brat!" He raved. "How could he do this to me?! Does he have any idea how this makes me look?!"

"Is that all you care about Vincent?" The queen replied with a tear-stained face. "Your image? What about our son?! He's out there, alone, God knows where and against Heaven knows what! He could be lost! Or hurt! Or sick! Or...Oh!"

"Calm yourself woman, we'll find him. He couldn't have gone that far. After all he's not that bright."

"Oh why must you always say such cruel and miserable things about him? You know it's your fault he ran away! You were always belittling him and treating him like he was nothing! What kind of father are you?!"

"Silence!" He roared at her. "Don't you ever speak to me that way again! Don't forget that I can strike you down as quickly as I raised you! Tis lucky you have your crown already Madame because if you did not, I would not give it to you again!"

Giuseppina was quickly stricken quiet with fear. Needless to say, the king and queen of Poland were not happily married. In fact they disposed each other, more so than King Stolas and Queen Stella of Austria. But Giuseppina had always done her best to be a loyal and supportive wife, especially after Anthony was born. Everything she did was either for the good of the kingdom or for her son. Sometimes her love for her son would out weight her duty to the crown and that led her to make questionable choices.

"It is your fault he left anyway!" The king continued. "That rebellious streak of his comes from the influence of that idiot half-moor you allowed to tutor him! I rue the day I allowed to Isaiah to remain here after father died! I should have banished him the minute the old fool drew his last breath!"

"You should have done that instead of what you did nine years later. I still can't believe you actually did to that to your own-"

"Quiet! You want someone to hear?! And don't you get all high and mighty with me! We both agreed that it was in the kingdom's best interest."

"No! No I never agreed to that! You lied to me about what you were going to do!"

"I had to. I didn't want to burden you with that tragedy."

"You didn't want me to tell anyone and that's the truth."

"Well even when you did find out, you still didn't say anything."

"It wasn't to protect you. It was to protect our son's future. What you did was high treason and if we were both executed for the crime, Anthony would be left an orphan and I couldn't bear that. That's why I kept your dirty little secret all these years, for his sake."

"Yes and let me remind you, that if you open your mouth he'll lose everything!"

"Oh trust me my Lord, I haven't forgotten. It's the only thing that allows me to sleep at night with this terrible secret."

What was this terrible secret that Poland was hiding? Or rather what the recent king of Poland was hiding? Well that's what the squire Husk about to find out. He had heard the king and queen's spat and that made him very suspicious. Those suspicions then rose even higher when a few days later, the king received a secret message from the queen of Germany and he practically exploded.

"No!" Husk heard Jim bellow from within his private chambers. "No! It can't be! It can't be him! He's dead! He has to be!"

"Dead?" Husk wondered. "Who's dead?"