Books by KAFE

His Royal Highness Pierce Gilmore rode through the kingdom, smiling gallantly at all of his adoring fans. He nodded at some, waved to others, and for a special few he swept his hat off his head and winked, allowing them to revel in his good looks. And at just over six feet tall with thick, dark locks and piercing blue eyes, he looked really good – and he knew it. Everyone else knew it, too, and he knew they knew, making this journey through the meadow that much more satisfying.

Funny, a moment ago he had been riding on the main path to the palace, and now he was in a wide, flat meadow covered in purple flowers. He must have been so busy waving that he took a wrong turn without noticing. But he couldn’t quite remember there ever being a meadow near his castle before – was it possible he had crossed the province lines without realizing it?

Before he could think about it anymore, a group of pretty girls began screaming at the sight of him, and he doffed his hat and gave them the wink. They all swooned and had to be carried away. One of them was waving and shouting his name over and over: “I love you, Prince Pierce! You’re the dreamiest! Long live Prince Pierce!”

She broke free from the group and ran toward him, arms wide open. She had beautiful golden hair and a voice like an angel. “I’ll be your bride, Prince Pierce! Pick me! Pick me, Your Highness!”

But as he was reaching his hand down to sweep her up onto his horse and ride with her into the sunset, she faded away. The rest of the crowd began to fade away, too, and soon all he could hear was the girl’s voice, saying his name over and over again. Darkness fell and he tumbled off his horse, landing in a soft clearing.

“Prince Pierce!” Someone was shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes to see his valet, Schmancy, standing over him.

“Schmancy! Where are all the girls?” he asked, sitting up and looking around his room.

The valet raised an eyebrow. “I expect they are all in town, Your Highness, at their homes. Were you expecting someone?”

Pierce rubbed his eyes as the memory of his dream faded. “No. I wasn’t expecting anyone.”  Schmancy didn’t say anything, and Pierce looked up at him. “Something wrong?”

“Well, sire… Their Majesties were expecting you in their chambers ten minutes ago.  When you didn’t arrive, they asked me to come find you.” Schmancy shifted back and forth a little, obviously uncomfortable.

“And you found me. Good job, Schmancy. They’ll be proud.”

“Yes, sire.” Schmancy still looked like he was trying to think of a way to respectfully approach the issue he saw brewing.

“Don’t worry, Schmancy – I’m going,” Pierce said, swinging his legs over the bed and reaching for his robe.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Schmancy said, his face showing the relief he felt. He was technically employed to serve the Prince, but when the King and Queen were in a disagreement with Pierce – which was often – Schmancy was never quite sure which side to choose.

Pierce watched Schmancy for a moment. The valet seemed lost in thought, and Pierce decided not to disturb him.  “Okay, well, I’m off, then.” He flung the doors to his room open and began marching down the hallway.

“Your Highness!”

Pierce turned around. Schmancy was walking quickly toward him, the panicked look from before creeping back onto his face. “Your Highness, perhaps you would like to be dressed when you address their Majesties?”

Pierce looked down at his plaid bathrobe with the royal seal embroidered on the left breast pocket. Underneath he was wearing his favorite pajamas, a blue silk pair that had a picture of him wearing sunglasses and giving the peace sign to several beautiful women embroidered on the back. He’d had them made by the palace seamstress and wore them at least three times a week.

“Nah, I think I’m good,” he said, turning on the spot and continuing down the hallway. “Coming, Schmancy?” he called over his shoulder as he tied the belt on his robe.

Even from half a corridor away, the valet’s sigh was audible. “Yes, sire,” he said, hurrying to catch up.  

Pierce arrived at his parents’ chambers and nodded to the guard who was posted in the doorway. The guard bowed deeply and opened the door for Pierce. Followed by Schmancy, the Prince made his way to the red-and-gold-striped couches and took a seat. Schmancy continued to another door off the main room, knocked quietly, and informed the King and Queen that the Prince had entered the building.

They waited for a few moments before joining Pierce in the sitting room – he knew it was to make a point about timeliness and schedules and something else he hadn’t been paying attention to – and he was starting to wonder if he could slip out quietly before they actually saw him sitting there. He was just standing up when King Maxwell and Queen Trudy of Eldaria entered the room.  Both looked a little annoyed.

“Sit down, son,” the King said, taking a seat on the opposite couch. “Schmancy, you may wait for us outside.”

Schmancy quickly bowed and stepped out of the room. Once the heavy wooden door clicked shut, there was silence for quite some time. Pierce counted to thirty before he got tired of counting and concentrated on remembering his dream instead.

Finally, the queen cleared her throat expectantly. Pierce glanced up in time to see her elbow his father in the ribs. The king frowned at her for a moment, then sighed and folded his hands, a sure sign that this was going to be a Serious Talk.

“You were supposed to be here almost twenty minutes ago,” the king said. “Why are you late?”

“I overslept,” Pierce answered, already wondering how long this was going to take. “Sorry,” he added when the queen looked at him pointedly.

His father sighed. “Son, you’re almost twenty-one years old.”

Pierce waited for a few seconds. The king didn’t continue. “And… you just wanted to wish me an early happy birthday?” he ventured.

The king sighed again. “No. I want you to be able to form your conclusions from that, but since you’re obviously too simple for that to work –”

“Max,” the queen interjected, giving him the same look she had given Pierce a few moments ago.

“Sorry; I meant that you’re a very bright boy and that I am going to be a loving father by explaining my thoughts to you,” the king continued. “Son, you’re almost twenty-one. That means you’re almost an adult, according to our laws.”

His tone conveyed that he clearly didn’t believe Pierce was actually an adult but had no choice but to accept it as fact.

“It’s time for you to start accepting certain responsibilities. You’ll be ruling this kingdom someday, and in case something happens to your mother or me we want you to be ready for the job.”

Pierce wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but he had a feeling it wasn’t anything good. “So that means no clown at the birthday party this year?”

“No, dimwit –”

“Max,” the queen interrupted again.

“Right, sorry. No, it means that you need to start acting like an adult. You need to start attending palace functions and representing our kingdom. You need to show up to your lessons, and try to actually learn something. You need to stop riding around the kingdom and giving locks of your hair to members of your fan club. And you need to do it all starting now.” The king sat back, evidently done with his speech.

Pierce didn’t say anything for a moment. He had figured the reason for their talk would have something to do with him growing up and taking on responsibility, but his parents had been giving him that lecture at least twice a month for the last two years, and so far he’d managed to fake an illness for every ribbon-cutting and had been able to ditch most of his lessons by saying he had religious objections to the material.

But this time – this time the king sounded serious. This could be trickier to get out of than usual… he would need to change his tactics.

 “Okay, so, you want me to start showing up to stuff. I can do that,” he said, his mind already working to think of new ways to avoid kissing any babies and congratulating spelling bee winners. “So, good talk. See you later.” He got to his feet again, but the king held up his hand for him to stop.

“One more thing,” his father said, motioning for him to sit back down.  Pierce did so, and the king spoke again. “It is customary for certain traditions to take place before anyone ascends the throne.”

He paused and seemed to steel himself for his next words, as if knowing they would not be well-received.

“I know you enjoy the attention of a lot of the young ladies in Eldaria. And they indubitably seem to enjoy yours. Until now we’ve decided to let it go on, hoping you would grow out of simply socializing and instead begin looking for someone to settle down with. But now that you’re preparing to be king, you need to find someone who can stand by your side and support you while you rule Eldaria together.”

“Well, I have Schmancy –” the prince began.

“Your father means it’s time for you to find a wife, dear,” the queen interrupted. “Ruling a kingdom is a difficult task, no matter how easy and carefree we make it look. Having the right kind of woman by your side is important.”

Pierce couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Were they saying what he thought they were saying? “You mean I have to get married?”

The king and queen exchanged an uncomfortable glance. “Well,” the queen said, “not right away. Certainly not today or even this week. But soon.”

“Before your birthday,” the king added. “If something should happen to us, Eldaria needs to know that they have a reliable king and queen to lead them.”

“Well, I guess Eldaria needs to get over it, because if you think I’m getting married –”

“We’re not asking your opinion, son,” the king cut him off. “This is part of becoming king. And if you aren’t willing to abide by our rules, then we’ll have to make other arrangements.”

“’Other arrangements’?” Pierce repeated. “Like what, you’re going to lock me in the dungeon until I find someone to marry? Because I have to tell you, it’s awfully hard to meet people down there.”

“This isn’t funny,” his father said. “If you want to become king, you will find someone to marry before your birthday next month. If you don’t find someone, we will find someone for you.  Is that clear?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s clear,” Pierce said angrily, standing up for what he hoped would be the final time. “It’s clear that you have lost your mind. You’re actually going to force me to marry someone? What century is this?”

“Many happy marriages have been arranged,” his mother pointed out. “Look at your Uncle Duncan and Aunt Helen – they met three days before they married, and they were together for thirty years.”

“Uncle Duncan and Aunt Helen hated each other!” Pierce said. “They slept in separate rooms until she left him! He still has that scar from when she went after him with the potato peeler!”

“That was an accident,” his mother said quickly.

“No, it was attempted murder,” Pierce retorted. “But if you’re so proud of Uncle Duncan, why don’t you let him be king? He’s next in line after me, anyway, and clearly he’s already qualified since he managed to find a wife.”

“Duncan is not meant to be king of Eldaria. You are,” his father said. “We’re done discussing this.” He got to his feet and strode to the double doors in the back of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Great. That’s just great.” Pierce made his way back to the main door.

“Honey, we know it sounds unfair,” the queen said, just as he was turning the knob. “But try to understand. Please.”

Pierce gave her a sardonic smile. “Sure. I love this idea. In fact, I better get going – if I’m going to court someone and convince her to marry me, I’d better get a move on. I’ve only got a few weeks to find someone to spend the rest of my life with, right?”

His mother’s face fell, and for a moment he felt bad for hurting her feelings. But it wasn’t enough to make him forgive her, and he jerked the door open and stalked down the hallway, Schmancy hurrying behind him.

“Can you believe them, Schmancy?” the prince asked as he walked angrily down the hallway. “I mean, they have some nerve, trying to tell me I better get married or else. I thought marriage was supposed to be a happy thing, not a form of blackmail!”

Servants and guards were turning toward him as he marched past them, but he didn’t care. “The whole concept is ridiculous. How am I supposed to find someone to marry in a month?”

“Yes, sire,” Schmancy said, opening the door to Pierce’s room.

“Well, I’m not doing it,” Pierce said as he sat on his favorite chair in front of the window. He had a great view from his room – he could see the palace courtyard and most of the woods. Usually he enjoyed people-watching – okay, mostly female people-watching – but today nothing could cheer him up.

“I mean, really,” he said, spinning in his chair to face Schmancy, “who wants to be king? If it means abiding by ancient laws and forcing people to do stupid things like marry a stranger so that Eldaria won’t revolt, then Uncle Duncan can have it! Of course, since Duncan is about as smart as a talking tree stump, that should work out great. Then maybe my parents will see how insane it is to decide who should be king based off of how long you’ve been chained to another person.”

Schmancy merely raised his eyebrows and didn’t comment. Pierce realized the valet, who was happily married, might have taken offense at his words.

“Not that getting married is a waste,” he added quickly. “I just don’t want to be forced into picking someone at random. Aren’t you glad you got to date, uh, don’t tell me…”

“Vanessa, sire,” Schmancy said.

“Right, I was just about to say that. Aren’t you glad that you got to date Vanessa and get to know her for a while before you got married?”

“Certainly, sire. But if I may, I recently overheard some information that you might find useful.”

“Shoot.”

Schmancy sat down on the bed and leaned in close to Pierce. “Your parents are determined to find you a partner whether you like it or not. And between you and me, sire, the young lady they plan to choose for you if you don’t find a suitable partner isn’t the most, shall we say, affable person.”

Pierce felt a little alarmed. “Who is it?” He knew nearly all the girls in Sherram, and even a few in other provinces.

 “She’s rather new to Sherram – the immigration paperwork only went through last week. Her name is Tildy Wracksley – she’s from…” Schmancy took a dramatic pause to heighten the effect of his words. “She’s from the Danilu Province, sire.”

Pierce gasped. The Danilunians were known for being absolutely, unforgivably, undeniably… country.

Eldaria was altogether a rural kingdom, sure, but nowhere was as rural as Danilu. They had weekly fishing tournaments where the prize was always one of the local farmers’ daughters, they only wore shoes during the annual mite infestation, and the king was his own uncle.

No one from other provinces ever visited Danilu, and yet the population continued to grow, which had started to make sense over the last ten years as the children had began to resemble each other more and more. Many a visitor to Danilu had found themselves standing waist deep in a mud pit outside of some official’s house – mud pits, of course, were the home defense method of choice for many Daniluanians.

The official currency was twigs and branches, and fistfights regularly broke out over whether you could break a long twig in half to make change or if you needed two small twigs to begin with.

In short, it was not exactly the most favored of all the kingdoms in the area.

“No,” Pierce said. “No, you must be mistaken.”

“One of the maids told me so herself, sire.”

“Who?”

“Emily, sire. You know her; she attends to the throne room.”

“Emily Bolesmeyer? She can’t clean anything to save her life!”

“She is a terrible maid but a very reliable gossip.”

“Then she needs to start brushing up on her eavesdropping, because there is no way my mom and dad would pick someone from Danilu for me to marry. It’s just a scare tactic, so that I’ll pick someone myself. As if I would fall for that.”  

But the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach was telling him he would actually fall for that pretty easily. Would his parents really pick out a girl from Danilu for him? What could they be thinking? Of course, he reasoned, his initial reaction could have been right – they could just be using this to scare him into following their rules.

But then why hadn’t they told him themselves instead of letting Schmancy find out about it from a maid? Unless they had planned all along for Schmancy to find out in what appeared to be an accident but what was actually an in-depth and deceptive plan to get him to choose a wife.

Or maybe Schmancy was in on it – he had been acting rather suspicious lately, being nice to Pierce even when the Prince had thrown several shoes at him upon being woken up early on a Saturday. No valet in their right mind would take that kind of abuse unless he was getting something else out of it. Then again, Schmancy had always possessed a seemingly infinite supply of patience, much more than the average valet, so perhaps the shoe thing really hadn’t bothered him. Which meant he probably wasn’t in on it, and there probably was no conspiracy; only facts.

All these possibilities took the Prince about thirty seconds to work through in his mind. He put his face in his hands and shook his head, trying to come to any other conclusion than the one he had finally drawn.

“Schmancy, I’m going to have to find a girl to marry,” he said through his hands. The words had an ominous finality to them that Pierce didn’t care for. “Even if they’re bluffing, the risk is too great. I don’t want to marry someone who thinks that bathing is only an annual activity.”

 He didn’t want to marry anyone at all. But there just didn’t seem to be a way around it. His parents had played their hand very well, and now he really had no choice. Unless…

“Wait, Schmancy,” he said to the valet, who had gone to the closet and was rifling through all of Pierce’s high school yearbooks, presumably to help him choose a suitable girl. The valet paused, balancing two thick volumes on his hands. “What if I don’t marry anyone?”

“Sire, were you listening to what His Majesty said? You must choose someone by your birthday next month, or you will marry Tildy!”

“I heard what he said.” An idea was forming in Pierce’s head. “But what if I was to find a lovely girl, we got engaged, and then she dumped me and I was so terribly distraught that my parents couldn’t bear to make me go through it again?”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow, Your Highness.”

Pierce had it all worked out. It would be perfect. “Listen, I’ll find a girl from around here, maybe someone on break from school or something. I can offer her whatever she wants – money, a trip to the most expensive clothing store, a pony – and in exchange she’ll agree to pretend to date me and then break up with me. That way, I’ve still done just as my dad wanted me to do, and I don’t have to marry anyone!”

Schmancy looked doubtful. “You want to pay a young lady to pretend to date you, sire?”

“Yes! Don’t you see, it’s foolproof – she and I will both get what we want! And I would be honest with her from the beginning – no leading her on or anything because that wouldn’t be right,” Pierce added, hoping that would appeal to Schmancy, who was still looking at the Prince like he had completely lost his mind.

“But how will you keep anyone from finding out?” Schmancy asked.

“That will be part of the agreement. In exchange for her silence on the matter and a dramatic, cruel break-up, she can ask me for anything she wants. Except to marry her, of course, because that would defeat the whole point.” The more Pierce considered his idea, the more he was convinced that he was a genius. How had he not thought of this before?

Schmancy still looked unconvinced, but he sighed and placed the yearbooks back inside the closet. “How will you decide who to make your deal with, sire?”

“I’ll have to find someone relatively popular,” Pierce said, thinking out loud. “But not too popular, or the kingdom will be angry at me for the break-up. It’s always the man’s fault according to the tabloids, and I need my parents to feel as sorry for me as possible.”

“Popular but not too popular,” Schmancy repeated. “I’ll keep my eyes open and let you know if anyone comes to mind, sire.”

“Good man, Schmancy,” the Prince said, clapping the valet on the back. “This is going to work out great.”