4 Princes

XI

"'... and yet my mistress and the cook don't thank me for my pains, but threaten to cut off my head tomorrow, and make broth of me for the guests that are coming on Sunday!'"
(Brothers Grimm: The Travelling Musicians)

ROOK
THERE'S AN UNDERLYING HATRED for everything when you're at war. Weddings? Not on my mind. Women? Not in my head.

I walked through the camp we had set up secretly on the East. "Seth," I came up behind him, grabbing his sword from his sheath.

I spun around his back and then pointed the sword to his throat, my eyebrow raised cockily.

Today was the day of reckoning. We'd be back at war, our soldiers sent out to their deaths and their glory.

Seth, however, would not be.

He was a 15 year old, young and spiteful. I met him when I was going through the village, looking for an escaped prisoner.

The prisoner never came back, but I did find Seth, 12, fighting a drunken sailor and losing.

"What is the meaning of this!?" I shouted, sliding off my horse, Chesh. My boots stomped into the mud, splattering it to the sides. My hooded cape draped down my back, dragging behind me, as I walked to the fight.

The drunken sailor laughed. "A friend of yours?" He looked down at the boy he was fighting and then to me. "A rich son of a whore I presume?"

"A rich son of Queen Carmine Snow White, actually." I narrowed my eyes at the man.

"That's likely, boy." he scoffed.

I drew my sword made of silver. Whether he was too drunk to realize or too stupid to know, only Princes were granted the right to have their family crest on their blade. And my family crest, a swan wearing a crown around its neck, a chain connected to it that hung under its belly, was etched very elegantly into the metal.

I tilted my head at him. "You shall address me as Your Royal Highness."

The sailor laughed and then took a bold step towards me, stepping over the kid. I smirked to myself. I was 17, a kid as well, but nobody would dare use that term on me. I sheathed my sword.

The sailor gave a drunken yell as he swung his fist down at me. With my hands behind my back, I leaned to the side and dodged the blow.

The sailor tried to swipe left with a huge paw, but his movements were lazy and tired. I was so close to him that I could smell the liquor on his tongue and the shit on his shirt. It was my time to put this man out of his misery.

I ducked under his next punch, and while I was down I grabbed the dagger from my boot. I came up with my dagger held tightly in front of me, blade pointing out.

I took a step away from him.

The man fell back, revealing a stomach cut open from a vertical line. His innards poured out one side. Poor fool. He started a fight he was not smart enough to run away from.

I put my dagger back in my boot and walked to the boy.

The boy stood up and dusted his ratty pants off. He was dark-skinned with short, curly, hair. It wasn't just his hair that was short, however, his height was a foot and a half below mine.

I looked down at the bloody boy. "Who are you?"

"Seth. Seth Mondown." He stood a little straighter, but it didn't make him any taller.

"Well, Seth, why were you fighting that sailor?" I asked.

He looked down at the body, no remorse shown in his eyes. "Shouldn't you have asked that before you killed him?"