The Princess, the Witch and the Pirate

It is NOT a Date

It is sunny and warm on the veranda, cloudless and windy. Ansa, not yet 5, clutches the rag doll her mother made her as she sits on the lap of a young man. He wears a red turban. His gilded tunic speaks of wealth and status, though he cannot grow a beard yet. Their eyes have the same green catlike quality and her little dress matches the sash holding the jewel encrusted knife sheath his father gave him before setting sail. Provincial men and women form parallel lines moving to and from the veranda on the bridge. From under the shade of a canvas sheet held up by a pair of gaunt, blonde slaves, she watches the townsfolk fill a coffer before her.

An elderly man approaches. His clothes are tattered. He drags a goat by a lasso. He bows before the young man, though it's the burly guards he keeps glancing at. He appeals to the young man to let him settle the debt with the goat.

"Hand or foot?" asks the guard.

"Shouldn't we sell him?" asks the young man.

"At his age, he's not worth the rations. He can't row. Hand or foot?" asks the guard, clutching the hilt of his scimitar.

"Let's ask Ansa." suggests the young man, looking down at her. "Hand or foot? Which shall we cut off?"

Ansa shakes her head, stands, and places her doll in the coffer.

The elderly man falls on his knees before the girl and starts to cry, bowing his forehead to the ground, touching her sandaled feet. The goat takes the opportunity to ram the man from behind. Everyone laughs. Everyone besides the three peasants standing in the sun, wrists and ankles bound in rope. A whip cracks somewhere in the distance...

Ansa woke with a jerk, rousing her bedmate. 

Olivia opened her eyes sleepily. "Nightmare?"

"Memory."

At breakfast, Mikael was as chipper as he'd ever been.

"...and mainland settlements were not impervious to pirate attacks. They didn't just rob the people, they took people too, and sold them as slaves in foreign lands," he declared energetically to his captive audience of one. "I intend on going to the mainland to speak with locals about the history of attacks on the castle and town. There's a modest library..." He shifted his attention, "Katia?"

"Yes, Mikey?"

"Would you be so kind as to accompany me into town?"

"I'd be delighted."

Mikey went back to his conversation with a quiet and patient Ansa.

"How quickly they do recover from heartache," murmured Katia as she sliced her buttered bread with fork and knife, before bringing a perfectly triangular bite to her crimson lips with the former.

"Why can't you just grab a slice and eat it with your hand like a normal person?" said Olivia, slice of buttered bread between her fingers. She took a bite.

Katia finished chewing, wiped her mouth with her napkin and said, "Don't be ridiculous, Olivia. That would be improper. There's nothing normal about it."

Olivia looked about for a minute. Arthur ate with the finesse of a baroness, she observed, cutting his food into minimal bites. Mikael did the same. Watching Serge, she realized he was the only one who'd ventured to touch his breakfast with his hands. She watched him a moment longer than necessary. There was an ease about his movements; neither studied, nor feminine, nor forced. Olivia tapped Katia's arm without taking her eyes from him and whispered, "See there? Serge is picking up his toast with his hand!"

Katia scoffed, "Serge is hardly a model of propriety. I've seen better mannered hens."

"Arthur eats like a baroness. Would you rather sit by him?"