Anika kept on looking around, admiring the way every soldier was perfectly aligned, and in their pristine uniforms.
A group of five Royal Guards entered through the main gate, mounted on white horses that had their manes and tails intricately braided. They stopped near the stairs and took a look around, immediately followed by the royal carriage with its gold-coloured engravings and decorations. Two of the stable boys approached the horses and the page jumped to the floor and quickly opened the door of the carriage, and made a deep bow. The King exited first, and Alex and everyone else made a deep bow to him. The King then looked back and helped his daughter to descend the small step, and the Princess lady’s maid followed her. As they were walking the stairs to meet Alex, the stable boys guided the horses to the stable, and another carriage arrived, with two Nobles and their wives that were often in the Royal Castle with either the Princesses or the Queen. As soon as that carriage left, three others entered, deploying more Nobles.
Alex frowned at the sight of so many Nobles that were looking around at his soldiers and servants, like if they were evaluating them. The King noticed the way Alex was looking past him and spoke in a low voice:
“Try not to look so annoyed, I couldn’t shake them off. As soon as the news of my visit reached my Castle, they were almost going at each other’s throat, to join me. You know how much they all like to come here.”
Alex answered in a low voice as well, trying not to sound too rude, but failing:
“The invitation was for the King and his daughter, not to a bunch of Nobles. Can I at least send them to a long walk to the farthest side of the Castle?”
The Princess overheard them, and asked her father while raising one eyebrow towards Alex:
“Father, the… Earl… seems to have forgotten his place. Either we came alone or with all our friends is not up to him to decide!”
The King answered in a low voice:
“Earl Alex has every right to be apprehensive, considering what happened in the Chamber of Lords this morning. Smile, Ebell, at least pretend not to be annoyed by his lack of tact. We don’t need a bunch of Nobles making a fuss in here and getting their heads chopped because Alex over-reacted.”
Princess Ebell faced her father and spoke in a louder tone, making the Nobles and their wives stare at Alex:
“Why should we worry about him? He is just an Earl, is he not?”
Before the King could signal his daughter to be quiet, Alex spoke while looking directly at the group of frowning Nobles:
“No one needs to worry about me, Princess. Or at least, not usually, but today I am not in a good mood. Commander Shinatobe is in my dungeon, torturing and questioning a man that tried to infiltrate this Castle disguised as one of my new soldiers. Depending on her questioning, we will see if he is the only one to die today, or if a bunch of people is going to keep him company, in his grave.”
The name and title of the former Commander of the alliance’s troops made a few of the older Nobles jolt while the Princess was puzzled by their reaction and the murmurs coming from them, at the back. The King stuttered, with his face completely pale:
“C-Commander S-Shinatobe is here? How… How is she?”
“Not very happy, actually, because that disguised soldier was aiming to kill me. She will find out who helped him get here, and who his employer is. She can be very persuasive when she wants to.”
The King gulped:
“Yes, I know… Is she… in her armour as well? Because when she is like that…”
Alex completed the King’s sentence:
“… means that the situation is serious. Yes, she is. Worry not about those details, my King. Please, join me in the dining room, I am sure you and the Princess would like to relax for a while, over a cup of wine. Or maybe two.”
As the King smiled, the Princess glanced at the three serious women near Viscount Finley, and she then noticed the enormous Magical Orb that Pearl was still carrying. She gasped and spoke with a faltered voice:
“That’s… the biggest Magical Orb I ever saw! Why… is an Elfian carrying such a thing? That should be in our Castle, Father, for safekeeping!”
Pearl frowned a little and answered:
“By all means, try to take it from me, child. I don’t think you brought enough soldiers to force me to deliver you the present that Alex so kindly gave me.”
As the Princess was about to speak with her face covered in rage, Pearl asked the King:
“Your child lived a very sheltered life, didn’t she? That’s no way to address an Elfian, or anyone, by that matter. I could very well be an Elfian Queen and her lack of care in speaking with me could condemn her to sudden death. Or a few slaps in the butt, like every rude child deserves!”
The Princess stomped her feet on the ground:
– Stop calling me child, Elfian! I am a grown-up woman!”
Pearl looked at the Princess from top to bottom and shrugged:
“You are too childish for a grown-up woman. Don’t mind my words, child. Compared to me and my century and twenty years of age, I only see children around me, besides Wenammy and Anika here.”
The Princess stared at Anika and Wenammy with disgust, and Wenammy immediately revealed her six wings and spoke in a serious tone with her voice amplified with Magic, and her words echoed in the walls around:
“Look down, child! You are not worthy of looking to me like that, for I am Wenammy! The last of your kind to look at a High Fairy like you are doing, was many centuries ago, and his head is still adorning one of the rooms in my father’s Palace!”
The Princess gasped, completely mesmerized by the shining wings that were trembling with Wenammy’s anger, and the King raised one open palm and said:
“Please, let’s not get angry about trivial matters. I may have some blame for my daughter’s behaviour because I failed to warn her while we were coming here. I thought it would be funny to see the look on her face when she saw all the surprising things in this Castle, but everything turned wrong too quickly. Alex, let’s go have that cup of wine, perhaps after a drink everyone relaxes a bit, and we can talk properly.”
Alex spoke while staring directly at the Princess:
“I agree because your daughter is really not aware of how dangerously close she is from dying right here. It’s never a good idea to annoy someone way more powerful than you and everyone around, Princess. Their looks might be a little deceiving because they seem like harmless women in pretty and expensive dresses, but each of them is more than able to kill everyone around us, in the blink of an eye. Perhaps we could talk privately for a moment after some wine, my King, because there is a matter that we must discuss as soon as possible.”
The King nodded and gently pulled the hand of his daughter to make her walk:
“I agree, and my daughter also needs to listen because it concerns her. It’s only Wenammy, Anika and Pearl with you? No one else?”
Alex explained as they were walking along the main corridor, with the King’s entourage following them while murmuring about the fuss that happened seconds ago:
“The others will soon be here. They were with Miss Olive visiting the facilities in my mountain, but I was told that they are about to arrive. Am I wrong in assuming that the King wishes to stay the night? Because my staff already prepared everything for that eventuality.”
“Of course we are staying, no way I was going back without relaxing for a bit in that hot spring of yours, and have a splendid dinner with some tasty delicacy! The Nobles came with that in mind, I am sure.”
Alex slowly nodded:
“I believe everything is taken care of, already. If by any chance a room is missing, I am sure it will be prepared swiftly.”
Alex nodded at one maid that was on the left side of the door of a room as he was speaking, and she made a slight bow and said:
“We will prepare the remaining rooms, Earl. They will be ready in a few moments.”
Alex made a slight smile and continued his walk, with Wenammy holding his right arm and Pearl the left one, still carrying the Orb while the Princess was glancing at it, unable to decide what was more amazing, the size of that Orb, or the fact that a High Fairy was right next to her, staring at her from time to time with an angry look.
Anika was right after the King and his daughter, holding the arm of her father and listening to the murmur of the Nobles at the back, still discussing the events in the patio between the Princess and the two women. She didn’t fail to notice that they were condemning the way the women and Alex addressed the Princess, showing an enormous disrespect towards someone of her position and upbringing. Anika disguised a smile because she was more than used to Human Nobles being too full of themselves when they had such short lives to atone for their sins or to actually learn how to treat others with kindness.
At the end of the corridor, two servants quickly opened the big wooden door, and Alex saw the ‘U’ shaped table already with cups, bottles of wine and small plates with cubes of cheese and slices of salami.
The King went to a chair right in the centre of the ‘U’ with his daughter at his right, and her maid close to her. A servant pulled a chair for them and to the other Nobles and their wives, and the Princess glanced around, wondering how many servants and maids worked in that Castle, because there was either a servant or a maid behind each person, waiting for orders or questions. Not even in her father’s Castle, there were so many servants near a table.
The lady’s maid disguisedly pointed to a small plate in front of her with slices of salami and asked:
“Princess, do you know what is that? I never saw such a thing.”
Princess Ebell stared at the slices and frowned. She waved at the servant behind her to approach and asked while signalling with her head to the plate:
“What are those?”
“That is called salami, Princess. It’s seasoned pork meat that is then smoked for a few hours and left to dry for two weeks. Those dark slices are salty, and the light slices on the plate nearby, are spicy. Both are very tasty, and are the favourite delicacy of the King.”
The Princess slowly nodded and as the maid retreat to her place at the back, she looked at her father that had a plate near him and was eating slice after slice while talking with that smiling young Earl. She took a slice of the light salami with the tip of her fingers and smelled it. Her young lady’s maid took one as well and munched it. She opened her eyes wide and whispered:
“Princess, this is amazingly good! It’s indeed spicy, I may need a cup of wine to ease the heat on my tongue!”
The Princess ate the slice she was holding and as she munched, her eyes opened wide in surprise. The maid was taking a sip of her cup and clicked her tongue:
“Princess, this wine… is so good! I think the King has a few bottles of it, and I once saw him asking one of the maids to bring one bottle for him to drink, together with the Queen. Try it, and you will see!”
The Princess took a sip of her cup and nodded:
“You are right, this is very good, way better than any wine I ever tasted!”
She then called the maid again and asked:
“This salami and the wine, where were they bought?”
“They are done here, Princess. The salami was made in our kitchen, but we make other varieties and cheaper ones in a facility nearby. As for the wine, that is a very special grape variety that we make in a winery in the East of this Castle. This wine and the two kinds of salami are extremely expensive, and not many people can afford them. That’s why we are also changing a few methods to make cheaper ones, for everyone to enjoy.”
The Princess looked at her cup again, and the maid returned to her spot without making a sound. A quick look around showed her that all the Nobles and their wives were enjoying the salami, the wine and the strange cubes of cheese. She pointed with her head to one plate near her maid and whispered:
“Try that one, to see if it’s any good. I see some of the Nobles smiling a lot while munching one of those cubes.”
The maid looked at the three plates near her with different types of cured cheese and tried one of each. At each bite, she smiled and her eyes illuminated in delight, unable to muster a single word. The Princess tried the spicy variety that the maid was showing her, and she too was ecstatic. She felt as if her tongue was clapping, before the unfamiliar taste. After tasting the other two kinds, she took a big gulp of the wine, and Alex warned her:
“Careful, Princess Ebell. That wine is sweet, but it’s also extremely strong. You should take small sips and enjoy the taste. Considering the absurd price of each bottle, it would be a waste to gulp it down as if it was water.”
The Princess raised one eyebrow and answered:
“I am used to drinking wine, I don’t need a mere Earl to worry about me.”
Alex frowned and lowered his voice so that only the King and the Princess could hear him:
“Is she going to be like this all day long? It’s becoming kind of hard to be polite to her when she keeps on talking like that.”
The King looked at his daughter with such a serious look that she stopped munching the cube of cheese that she had just placed in her mouth:
“I am starting to agree with you. She is acting more and more like a rude brat, instead of a Princess of our fine country. Perhaps we should go with her to a more private room so that she can be… educated… about you and what she is supposed to do because she can’t go to Bouria and act like this, she will put our country, and myself as her father, to shame.”
Then, the noise of the door being open dragged every look towards it, and Miss Olive entered, followed right behind by Ghar, James Macdonald, Bethany Mathews, Gabriel Dawson, Okami and Suijin.
Alex looked at Ghar in amazement. She had a dark brown turban covering her head and half of her face, leaving only visible her dark green eyes. She was wearing a short skirt made of leather, with long leather boots up to her knees, showing off her muscular thighs. A short blouse that barely covered her breasts, leaving in plain sight her amazingly toned abs, and with short sleeves that ended at the elbows. She had metallized gauntlets protecting her wrists and the back of her hands and was carrying a belt with two short swords and a double sheath at her back with two long swords. Alex realized that the others also had the same type of sheaths and swords, and he made a slight smile because he recognized the design of the hilt.
They made a line in the open space in front of the table and bowed to the King that was looking at them, puzzled. Olive Andrews made a slight smile and spoke:
“I am glad to see you well, King Otto. I hope you had a pleasant voyage. Is that the young Princess Ebell that I see at your side? Not so young like the last time I saw her, in fact.”
The King made a big smile:
“Miss Olive, so nice of you to join us! Are those the Adventurers that accepted…?”
Princess Ebell jolted because she knew what her father was talking about, and then her jaw dropped at Olive Andrew’s introduction:
“Indeed they are. Not only these six but also Miss Wenammy, Miss Anika and Miss Pearl. You already know Okami, and this big man here is Suijin. The silent woman at the back is Ghar.”
The King got up, making everyone at the table to imitate him and he looked at Alex:
“Perhaps we should have a private talk with them, Alex. Ebell, come with us. As for everyone else, enjoy the wine and these fine delicacies, we will return momentarily.”