Princess of Ayden

Chapter 7

Pretty

It was Saturday. That meant elimination. Ms Sybil had not taken the last one so well, so Pretty and Tandi would have to spend the evening with her. Her closest friends had been selected to go to the prestigious July Classic, though, so they should be safe. For now, at least. For as much as Pretty wished it would be Sybil in the end, her heart went out to all the girls who would lose their lives in this process.
Pretty was working on a dress for Ms Sybil in the sewing room when Ayize, one of Ms Suzette's handmaidens, entered the room. In her arms was the most beautiful blue lace Pretty had ever seen.
"I see we've had the same idea." Ayize said with a smile. She sat down next to Pretty. "Strange," Ayize mused, "here we are, sewing new dresses for girls who might not even be alive tomorrow." That was when Pretty realised why they were the only two handmaidens in the room.
"I guess you could call me an optimist." Pretty gave her a grim smile. Ayize replied with a scoff. "And to think, when they got their Social Scores, we were all jealous of them." She went on, "don't you think it's pathetic? A bunch of rich white girls get killed and the United States take it upon themselves to go to war for their honour, but us black people are oppressed by this system for generations, just because of the colour of our skin, and no one lifts a finger?"
Pretty's eyes go wide. It was not only treason to have this conversation, but to have it within palace walls was a death wish.
"What was your intelligence score?" Ayize demanded.
Pretty shook her head.
"Mine was twenty. Out of twenty. I should be one of the girls in this competition. But, no. My 'family history' text came back as a four out of twenty. That's racism; through and through," Ayize declared. "And don't tell me that there's equality because one girl of colour made it into the competition. Hillary is only half black and if she wasn't this light skinned she would have been out of the competition already."
"Keep it down!" Pretty whisper-yelled. "Someone might hear you!"
Ayize sneered. "And then what? Scared of the truth, are they? I deserve better than this." She gestured to her sewing work. Pretty frowned. "I thought you were rooting for Ms Hillary? Weren't you telling us all the other day how she has so much grace you're sure she's going to win the competition?"
"Don't get me wrong," Ayize replied, "I really like Hillary and I'm sure she'll make a fine queen, but if this country has any hope of undoing its racist beginnings, a true-born native South African needs to sit on the throne alongside our prince."
"Maybe our throne does need some diversity," Pretty defended, "but forcing Prince Charles to choose a black bride for her skin colour is the same as him now being forced to choose a white girl for her skin colour. The whole system is fucked."
Ayize opened her mouth to say more, but just then one of Alice Swanepoel's handmaidens walked into the room. Obviously sensing the tension in the room, the handmaiden gave the girls tight smiles and silently continued on with her work.
The three girls spent the next hour working in peaceful silence, until Pretty's work was done. She gathered up her things and left, making sure to reassuringly squeeze Ayize's shoulder on her way past.
It was already past seven o' clock. The airing of the competition would be in less than an hour. Fully aware of how late she already was, Pretty whipped around a corner and found herself colliding with someone quite forcefully. Not again, please not again! Pretty prayed. But as she peeked to see who she had crashed into, her worst fear had come true. It was the prince.
Having had expected him to yell at her, she found herself shocked as she heard his hearty laugh. "We've got to stop meeting like this, Beautiful," he said to her with a wink.
"Ac…actually, it's Pretty, Your Highness," Pretty stammered out.
"I can't see why you can't both," he teased. "And call me Charlie, remember?"
"Don't you have somewhere to be Charlie?" Pretty asked pointedly.
"Oh. Of course," he rubbed the back of his head, "the competition will be airing soon." He started to leave but Pretty called him back. "Was it difficult?" She asked, "to choose who is going to live and who is going to die?"
As he turned back to her, she saw his eyes glistening with tears. "It's the most difficult decision I've ever had to make."
"I'm sorry. As much as these girls are being forced into this, so are you. You didn't decide to have the princess of Ayden be chosen this way."
The tears streamed down Charles's face. Pretty found herself flinging her arms around the prince. This action shocked her. It was not her place. But what truly shocked her was what happened next. As she pulled away from the hug, the prince brought his lips to hers, only for a moment. For a second afterwards she wondered if she had just imagined it, but then she saw the blush on the prince's face.
"I- I have to go… Ms Sybil will be waiting for me." Pretty quickly explained and practically broke into a run to get away from the prince. As she rounded a corner, she stopped and let what had just happened sink in. Pretty covered her face with her hands to stop from giggling. Had she really just kissed the prince of Ayden? What did it mean? Did he like her or was he just swept up into the emotion of the moment?
"Pretty! There you are!" cried Tandi, gasping for breath. Where have you been?" She demanded.
"I-I…" Pretty began but Tandi cut her off.
"We need to go now. The Princess of Ayden is about to air!" Tandi dragged Pretty all the way down the hall, into a passage way and to Sybil's room. They had just entered when Sybil came out of her bathroom, newly washed hair wrapped up in a towel.
"there you guys are! I thought you had abandoned me in my time of need." She joked with them. But then her face straightened. "I'm scared," she confessed. "I'm one of the only girls who Prince Charles hasn't spent alone time with yet. How will he keep me here if he doesn't even know me?"
This made Pretty wonder, too. How was he making the selections of the girls if he wasn't able to spend too much time with them? And those who he did spend time with? Where there any of them that he liked? Was it possible that he could have kissed one, if not more, of the girls? Pretty had to remind herself it was not her place to question, or even care about, the choices the prince made in his competition.
Tandi reassured Sybil, "The reason he hasn't spent time with you was probably because something about you made him confident about your connection or your eligibility to be queen. It makes more sense for him to spend time with girls he's unsure about to make sure there's no connection there. Don't worry, your time will come to meet with the prince."
Pretty sapped out of her thoughts at this. Of course, she should be consoling Sybil, not thinking about her own frivolous affections for the prince. Sybil was, in the end, the one who truly had a chance to marry the prince. Pretty tried her best, and failed, to not be jealous of her mistress.
"There's nothing for you to be concerned about, Ms Sybil. Only five girls will be eliminated tonight," Pretty tried to help with reassuring Sybil.
"Look," Tandi pointed to the clock against the wall. It was quarter to eight. The eliminated contestants would be collected from their rooms around about then.
Pretty heard the shuffling of feet outside the door. She held her breath and closed her eyes. The feet moved passed Sybil's door. Pretty heaved a sigh of relief. Sybil would live another day. And Pretty would still be working in the palace, where she would see the prince.
She scolded herself for her selfish thinking. Sybil was playing a game for her life and here Pretty was, secretly hoping to derail the entire competition.
Tandi then turned on the television, just as The Princess of Ayden started airing. Fredrik Felix introduced the show and narrated over the visuals. It started off with shots of girls walking around the palace on the arm of the prince. It then shifted to show the July Classic.
Pretty could see that the prince was obviously favouring one of the girls, whose name she didn't know, as they were sitting in the royal seats, surrounded by dignitaries and famous people. Near the back of the crowd, she spotted Ms Hillary. She knew it was not her place to have an opinion, but she could see that Hillary's position in the crowd said nothing good about her position in the competition.
"Oh! Don't Jess and Hillary look so beautiful?" Sybil remarked with the pride of a loyal friend. Pretty had to hum in agreement. The dresses their handmaidens had made were flawless. "We don't appreciate you enough!" Sybil exclaimed and squeezed the hand of Tandi.
"And now for the eliminations!" Announced the voice of Mr Felix. Pretty watched Sybil as she took a deep breath and tried to steady her shaking hands by clasping them in her lap. She looked a wreck.
"First off we have… Ms Alice Swanepoel."
Pretty recognised the name. She had worked alongside her Handmaiden just that evening. The camera cut to a petite girl with a fringe that, now, as she hung her head in defeat, covered her face from the camera. Her body was convulsing is great sobs. They needed to bring in extra guards to keep her arm still enough to euthanize her. Pretty felt, for the first time, true disgust sink in. These were really just young girls, her own age, and they were being murdering.
The other four names were of girls Pretty didn't know. Their deaths were quite unremarkable, Pretty thought. She then felt revulsion at the fact that she was becoming so desensitised to think of a death on live television as being 'unremarkable'.
"I don't feel so great." Sybil confessed and ran into the bathroom. There she retched up her dinner and fell onto the floor; crying and dry heaving. Clearly, she had not been as desensitised as her handmaiden.
"I'll go fetch a nurse from the infirmary." Pretty then quickly went through the door and down the passage. On her way, she heard something that stopped her in her tracks. More sobbing, this time coming from a maid. Not just any maid, but Alice Swanepoel's maid.
"I'm sorry for your loss." Pretty quietly said as she placed her hand on the maid's shoulder. She didn't even know her name. "I'm Pretty" she quietly introduced herself.
"What, giving yourself compliments, are you?" The maid teased. Pretty playfully rolled her eyes at her.
"I'm Kyra," she shared as she wiped a tear from her face. "Well Kyra, it's nice to meet you. I don't suppose I'll be seeing you much around here anymore, though?" Pretty asked, and then immediately realised how rude that question was. Not only had Kyra lost someone important to her, but she probably lost her job as well. Pretty should really be more sensitive sometimes.
"No, actually." Kyra gave her a ghost of a smile. "I'm regularly a maid here. I've been working here as a maid for three years, I just got promoted for the sake of the competition. I believe that I'll go back to my old duties, now that Alice is, you know… out of the contest."
"Well, we are to be friends, then!" Pretty declared and earned a true smile from Kyra. "I need to go to the infirmary now, but we should talk soon," she told Kyra and then left her to pick up the pieces of her own heart. Pretty was sure she would be just as touched if Ms Sybil had been the one to be eliminated.
As she rounded the corner to the hospital wing she spotted something that made her blood run cold. There, lying on the floor, in a pool of her own blood, was Ms Jessica Viljoen. Pretty collapsed to the floor beside the body and screamed for help.
Guards came running as soon as they heard her. How had they not heard Ms Jessica's attack and come to her aid?
One of them took Ms Jessica's wrist in his hand. "No pulse," the one guard told the other.
Just then, the door to the left opened. Out stepped Jessica's handmaidens, their eyes wide open.
"What was she doing outside her room without supervision during a screening of the competition?" The guard barked at her handmaidens.
"She was told to meet the royal family in the dining room for a private dinner tonight," the maid managed to choke out. "She was so excited. How did this happen? Who would have done this to poor Ms Jessica?" She sounded dismayed.
"You," the guard directed towards Pretty, "go to the infirmary and fetch the doctor."
Pretty then set off at a run and soon made her way. She burst into the room and grabbed a nearby nurse. "Please, where's the doctor. He's needed right now!"
"Follow me," the nurse replied with a calming tone. "What is he needed for?"
Pretty filled in the maid about Ms Jessica being found with her throat slit. Deep down, Pretty knew there was nothing the doctor could do for her now. There was just too much blood. They entered a back room where the doctor was attending to some paperwork. "Please, doctor, someone has been attacked. One of the Princess of Ayden girls. She needs you desperately."
"Take me to her at once" the doctor ordered.
By the time they reached the body, there were already four guards and three maids crowding around it.
"Make room!" commanded the doctor. They all parted to let him through. "No pulse," the doctor confirmed what the guard has said only minutes before. "There's nothing to be done for her," he turned to the guards, "Help carry her to the infirmary." He then shifted his gaze to the maids. "Someone needs to inform the king." At once, one of the maids scurried away and left the rest of them feeling as though they didn't know what to do. After some moments of silence, Pretty tuned away and went to fetch the medicine for Sybil.
The coroner later confirmed that there were no defensive wounds found on Jessica's body. She was either taken by surprise or attacked by someone she trusted. Pretty didn't know which possibility disturbed her more.