A Tale of Crown and Country

Philton

Philton admitted that he didn't know the girl, and that this was not for his own feelings but for the alliance of his country and hers, but he was giddy with excitement at meeting his future bride. He was even more excited that he and his manservant, Mailui, were to travel to the Allriyan capital together. He had yet to receive Princess Amalea's portrait though he had sent his own some time ago, but he was nevertheless in high spirits. His life was perfect; he had nothing to complain about, so why find something to get in the way of his perpetual good mood?

    Even Mailui's constant advisements, usually of the paranoid sort, never got to him. He was a prince; he had been tutored by the smartest and brightest. He could very well detect nefarious plots all by himself.

    So while Philton requested minimal guards for the journey and Mailui requested far too many, the Queen herself hand-picked an average of the two requests and that was that. Even if Mailui didn't always listen to him, at least he listened to his mother.

    Mailui knew the route and Philton knew how to handle days of travel in a carriage. It was the perfect combination. Despite the many differences between them–age, size, social rank, fashion sense–in Philton's mind they made the perfect duo. Sometimes he dreamed of them forming a fantastic duo of heroes like in those fairy tale books he'd heard Princess Amalea liked. Then he remembered that if he was a storybook hero he couldn't have apple strudel for breakfast and he abandoned the idea.

    With everything packed onto the carriage and everyone ready to go, all Philton had to do was select an outfit. The problem was, it had to be perfect. It was the last outfit his people would see him in for some time, so it had to reflect all the right ideas. It had to have formality, but also represent his fun spirit. It had to tell the people he cared about them as their prince, but that he was leaving them for their own sake. It had to be fitted but loose enough to sit in for hours on end. Finally, it had to be fancy enough for an outing, but not enough for a ball, and it had to be red.

    By the time he had selected a collection of trousers, blouse, vest, boots, belt, and hat with no less than two feathers, he was fashionably late. Philton pranced down the grand staircase of the front hall and found his mother and one of his several sisters waiting. Mailui too was already down there, having left Philton as he selected one of the five belts he wasn't going to bring with him to wear.

    He said goodbye to his family, to his favourite servants, and joined Mailui in the courtyard at the carriage. He felt tears well up in his eyes but like a proper member of royalty he commanded them to return to where they had come from. He was going to see his family eventually, and it wasn't like any of them were about to shed a tear for him. As the only surviving male member of the family he wasn't generally appreciated under his mother's reign. His eldest sister was to become queen and the younger ones were next in line should anything go wrong. He was just a pawn, sent away to secure an alliance for Jayakan, but he was going to be the best pawn there ever was.