put on your red shoes | part two
Jan. 17th, 2011 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saint_veeClick here for part one, headers, and warnings
It quickly became clear to everyone that the laurels were magic. They were as tall as Brendon within a week, just in time for Pete to ask him to make bouquets for the royals.
"How many should I make? There are two princesses, right?" Brendon asked.
Pete got a wicked glint in his eye, the sort that Brendon had learned to distrust within his first day. "Oh, three. That way each of the king's children gets one," he said. Brendon stared at him, suspicious.
"Why does the prince need a bouquet?" he asked.
Pete shrugged. "Don't ask me. He likes flowers, though. Haven't you seen him around?"
Brendon hadn't, but he decided it would be more trouble than it was worth to argue with Pete. He would just make the bouquets--how bad could it be?
He took his time, assembling the flowers with care. This seemed more important than pruning rose bushes no one paid any attention to. If someone made him a bouquet, he would want them to put some thought into it.
He gathered roses and baby's breath and then he paused in front of the laurels. They weren't exactly traditional for bouquets, but...well, they were magic. And, he thought, staring at the plants, they just happened to be budding.
"Ross, I swear, if this is your idea of a joke, I will--" he started, and then abruptly stopped. What would he do, exactly? He hadn't dreamt of the oak tree since Ryan gave him the laurels.
Brendon cut sprigs from each for the bouquets, and set about tying them together.
***
He was going to kill Pete, he really was. Just as soon as the prince stopped glaring at him
"What is this?" he asked Brendon. He was frowning at the bouquet like it had insulted his mother. Brendon could feel his cheeks heating up, but he couldn't tell if the blush was caused by anger or embarrassment. He figured it was probably equal parts of each.
"It's a bouquet, your highness," he said. Why had Pete thought this would be funny? It wasn't. It was horrible. The princesses had loved their flowers, but the prince was an entirely different story.
"A bouquet. Do I look like I need a bouquet?" the prince said. The courtiers surrounding him all laughed, and Brendon wished he could just disappear. This was worse than anything that had happened in Summerlin. This was the prince mad at him, nobles laughing, not just the baker's son and his friends.
"I don't know, your highness," Brendon said, and immediately felt like kicking himself. It had been exactly the wrong thing to say.
"You don't know?" Prince Spencer asked, eyes flashing with annoyance. Or maybe it was anger. Brendon wasn't sure, he hadn't exactly faced down royalty before. He hoped it was just annoyance.
"I mean. I mean, you don't look like you need one, no," Brendon said, backpedaling. "I just thought you might like one. The, uh, the mountain laurel matches your belt." It even had the benefit of being true, thank God. The prince was wearing a pink sash--and he was asking if it looked like he needed a bouquet, seriously--and the roses and the ring of color in the middle of the laurels matched it exactly. The prince stared at him, eyes narrowed.
"In the future, please limit yourself to making bouquets for my sisters--and perhaps any dalliances you manage to attract," he said, and turned back to his friends, bouquet lying forgotten on the table beside him. Brendon knew when to take a hint. He left, already planning how to get back at Pete.
***
The next day Brendon found himself cursing Pete again. He had never even seen Prince Spencer before yesterday, which was totally Pete's fault, and here he was, faced with the prince's scowl again, the very next day. And this time was Pete's fault, too.
Brendon had been sent to get more burlap from the palace while Pete stayed out in the gardens and continued to work. The task hadn't seemed difficult when he set out, but he'd never been in the wing of the palace with the fabric stores before, and, thanks to Pete, he didn't know his way around the palace at all. So of course he got incredibly lost. He had finally resorted to opening the nearest door and looking inside, and had come face-to-face with an angry, shirtless prince.
"What do you think you're doing?" Prince Spencer hissed as he yanked his shirt on and started buttoning it. Part of Brendon--the part that wasn't mortified--mourned the loss of the view. "Don't you know how to knock, or were you never taught basic manners?"
"Sorry!" Brendon squeaked, and slammed the door shut again. Seriously, Pete was dead.
***
He ran into the prince again the next day. Brendon was getting really sick of seeing Prince Spencer. He never seemed to smile, and it was really hard for Brendon to get along with people who hated joy. He ignored the fact that Prince Spencer was very, very attractive. Plenty of people were attractive, and not all of them were jerks. He really hoped this wasn't the prince Ryan had been talking about--if it was, he really hoped Ryan had been delusional. (He would hope that Ryan had been a figment of his imagination, but there were the laurels.)
Brendon was in his own wing of the palace this time, not lost at all, minding his own business and carrying a pitcher of water outside for Pete. He may have been hurrying a little, but tonight was a music night, and the sooner they finished their work, the sooner he could play Patrick's guitar again.
He sped around the corner and immediately collided with someone else. The water in the pitcher, of course, spilled all over both of them. Brendon didn't even have to look up to know he'd run into Prince Spencer. He could so feel the icy stare, no matter what Alex said about crazy delusions. He slowly looked up.
He knew it. There was Prince Spencer, sopping wet and looking like a drowned cat. His glare was almost shocked this time. Brendon wondered if he should be proud of that--the prince seemed difficult to shock.
"Hello again, your highness," Brendon said, trying to remain cheerful in the face of certain doom. Somehow, he was sure, this could still all be blamed on Pete. He started to plan his defense for assaulting a peer of the realm.
"Hello," said the prince. "Do you ever manage to do anything right?" he asked.
This, Brendon felt, was going too far. "I do plenty of things right," he said. "Did you even look at that bouquet? It was fucking gorgeous."
The prince looked a little taken aback. Well, good, thought Brendon, it served him right. He was kind of sick of the prince being a dick when none of this was Brendon's fault.
"Now, I'm very sorry, but I really need to get more water. Pete could faint of dehydration, and then where would we be?" he said, and swept away. It made him feel a little better to have left the prince speechless for once.
***
That night Brendon poured all of his embarrassment and stress into the music so he could just forget it all and relax. He couldn't wait until he'd saved enough to buy his own guitar. It still didn't feel like enough, just playing Patrick's spare once a week. It was miles more music than he'd been able to play at home, of course, but not nearly as much as he wanted to, even though Pete let him sing all he wanted as they worked and he had some spare time each night to play his pipes. There could never be enough music for Brendon, though.
He'd just finished his second turn at the guitar and passed it to Frank when he saw him. The prince was standing in the hallway outside the kitchen, watching them. Brendon looked away, not wanting to alert anyone else to his presence. But he kept an eye out, sending glances the prince's way as he shook his tambourine and sang along.
The prince was smiling, and he was gorgeous. Brendon wished he would smile like that all the time. He almost seemed like someone Brendon could like when he smiled.
***
Over the next week Brendon continued to see the prince around, but he (thank God) stopped embarrassing himself in front of him. Instead, he saw the prince talking with his younger sisters, or helping one of the court children fly a kite, or curled up with one of the hunting dogs. It became obvious that the prince was a generally nice person, and that Brendon brought out the worst in him.
"Pete, I saw Kate from the laundry knock him over yesterday, and all he did was laugh and offer her a hand up. If I had done that I'd be in the dungeon right now!" he said one day in the rose garden.
"Brendon, Prince Spencer doesn't hate you. Now hand me the trowel," said Pete. Brendon glared at him, but handed the trowel over without saying anything further.
He tried to convince Patrick over dinner that night.
"Today I passed him in the hallway and he stared right through me. Which, OK, that's his prerogative as prince, but Pete was walking beside me and he got a wave and a smile."
Patrick shrugged. "Maybe he's shy or something. If he hated people just because they spilled things on him or gave him bouquets he would definitely not be smiling at Pete," he said. "Do you think the chicken needs more rosemary?"
Brendon scowled at his plate. If Spencer didn't hate him for any of those reasons, it meant he hated who Brendon was instead of the dumb things he'd done. Brendon could always apologize but he couldn't change himself.
"The chicken's fine, Patrick," he said, and pushed his plate away. He wasn't hungry tonight.
***
Prince Spencer, Brendon decided, looked absolutely exhausted. The shadows under his eyes had started to overwhelm his face, his hair lay limp and dull against his head, and his smile became strained. The rumor about Spencer's shoes was spreading, too. People were speaking about it openly instead of in whispers, wondering if the prince was just sneaking out to meet a lover or if he was possessed. Servants who worked near the king said he was furious with his son, ready to send him off to a cloister.
Brendon was worried about him, and felt ridiculous for it. Spencer hated him. And anyway, Brendon was just a gardener who could sing pretty well and strum a few songs. Before, it had never mattered that he wasn't particularly brave, and couldn't fight, and was sort of scrawny and not at all intimidating. He didn't need to be huge and brave to play the guitar, or to compose a song. But now Spencer needed someone who could be a hero, and that person was definitely not Brendon, and he kind of hated that.
The king seemed to agree about the need for a hero. He issued a proclamation throughout the kingdom saying that whoever figured out where Spencer went each night and what happened to his shoes would be awarded the prince's hand in marriage. Whoever failed, it said, would be put to death.
***
"Can you believe this?" he asked Pete and the Alexes over dinner a week later. "What if Spencer doesn't want to marry whichever arrogant asshole figures this out?" Brendon had run into one of the visiting princes earlier that day. It hadn't gone well--Pete had deemed his black eye "totally awesome, my tiny friend," which hadn't made Brendon feel any better. Being tiny was the only thing stopping him from helping Spencer.
"Brendon, he's the prince. He's pretty much stuck marrying an asshole no matter what happens. That, my friend, is politics," Pete said.
Patrick set his bowl down across from Brendon. "Why are we talking about politics? Brendon, I heard an awesome song in the market today, don't let me forget to teach it to you later," he said.
Pete got that horrible glint in his eye. "Brendon is pining over the prince. He thinks our royal guests aren't good enough for him."
Patrick frowned at his soup. "Well, they're not. Spencer's a pretty good guy, and he deserves better than the jerks we're getting with this challenge."
"Guys," Brendon mumbled, "please stop talking about this."
"Oh, don't worry about it, Brendon," Pete said. "Prince Spencer is smart. He won't marry anyone he doesn't want to marry. In fact," he said, his most manic grin spreading across his face, "you should accept the challenge. You can use your ridiculous bush--it must be good for something, right?--and rescue the prince, and then the two of you can live happily ever after."
Brendon choked on his water and started coughing so hard that the nearest Alex had to pound him on the back to get him to stop.
"I don't want to die, Pete, which is what will happen if I take up the challenge," he said, still gasping for breath. "And the prince hates me, in case you've forgotten."
"That's where you're wrong. Patrick, tell him how wrong he is," Pete said. Patrick looked pained.
"The prince doesn't hate you, Brendon. Haven't you noticed him at the music nights? I have. He stares at you, Brendon, it's honestly kind of creepy," Patrick said.
"But not as creepy as me, right, Spencer? I am always the first creeper in your heart."
"Yes, Pete, you're the creepiest," the table chorused.
***
The prince who hit Brendon was given three days and three nights to solve the mystery.
Brendon waited impatiently for the three days to pass, and it felt as though the entire palace was waiting with him. People loitered in the hallways and speculated on his chances in hushed voices. It really did feel as though there was a curse--what else could it be, to dim Spencer's smile to nothing?
The third night came, and the prince hadn't found anything. Spencer had destroyed three pairs of shoes, and his door had been locked every morning when the guard checked it. The prince said that he had slept through each night without hearing or seeing anything. The king has him beheaded.
People did their work diligently for the first time in three days. No one stopped to talk in the hallways; people hardly spoke at all. What had seemed like a fanciful diversion before was now horribly real. People were dying because Spencer disappeared each night after being locked in his room.
Brendon was thoroughly sick of the entire thing.
***
Brendon barely had a chance to recognize the clearing before Ryan was in his face.
"OK, I get it, you're sort of stupid. But how stupid can you get, really? Rescue Spencer. This shouldn't be that hard, even for you. What do I need to do, hold your hand? I can hold your fucking hand."
Brendon stumbled backward.
"Hey, Ryan, whoa. What are you talking about?" Brendon said.
Ryan growled, a low note in the back of his throat that was pure frustration. "Save. Spencer. I know all you want to do is play music, but surely even you can see how bad this will be for the kingdom if this continues?"
Brendon suddenly felt like crying, which was strange. Ryan was always like this. "I'm not a hero. I can't do anything, I'm just a gardener. Nothing special. Not that it would matter, all the heros are dying, too," he said. "I wish I could, Ryan, but I can't."
"Are you an idiot? Seriously, did I pick an idiot? Fuck," Ryan said. "Fuck. I gave you fucking magic bushes, Brendon, what do you mean you're just a gardener? Magic bushes! They're magic!"
"Ryan, it doesn't matter. I'm still me. I can't do it. I just can't, and if I try, they'll kill me," Brendon said.
Ryan's mouth was a straight, tight line as he glared at Brendon. He stared long enough that it became uncomfortable, long enough that Brendon started to shift his weight and wish he could just wake up.
"Fine," he finally said. "Fine. Be that way. Just, just ignore it, hope it goes away. And Spencer will waste away to nothing, and all the bright stars of the kingdom will volunteer and be executed. And then Spencer will die, and the kingdom will suffer ten years of drought and ten years of plague. And I hope you survive it all, so you can see what happens when you're a coward."
Brendon woke up, and wished Ryan's words hadn't sounded so much like a prophecy. He knew what he had to do either way, though. He couldn't stand to see Spencer lose any more weight, and Ryan had said that would happen. Spencer would die.
He went to ask for an audience with the king.
***
"Do you understand what you're doing, son?" the king asked. Brendon thought he should be offended by that--he doubted the king had asked the other hopefuls if they were sure, or called them "son." Then he thought that maybe he should be flattered. He realized the king was waiting for his answer.
"I understand, your majesty," he said. And he did. Patrick had tried to talk him out of it, even though he'd brought it up it in the first place. Pete had yelled. He hadn't waited around to hear what anyone else had to say, had just left early for the audience room instead. He supposed he was lucky that he had friends who cared, and wondered if they'd find a way to let his parents know if he died.
"Well, if you're sure," the king said, sounding dubious. Brendon decided he would be offended. Then the king did something he hadn't expected; he turned around and beckoned at someone in the hallway. "Spencer," he said, "come in and meet Brendon. He's going to stand guard tonight."
Brendon ducked his head in embarrassment. He hadn't spoken to Spencer since he'd spilled the water on him, had only watched him from a distance. He hoped Spencer didn't remember the water incident, but suspected that he would.
Spencer certainly recognized him. "Brendon?" he said, and Brendon couldn't help but look up. Spencer looked absolutely stricken. Of course he did, Brendon told himself. Who would want to be rescued by the gardener's assistant?
"Brendon, what are you doing? What does he mean, stand guard tonight? You're a gardener," Spencer said.
"Spencer, you know this man?" the king asked.
Spencer flushed. "I--yes, father. We're acquainted," he said.
"I see," said the king, and shot a knowing look at his son. "Well, Brendon, I wish you the best of luck," he said. "Someone will come for you after dinner tonight, and your time will start then."
Brendon bowed and left without meeting Spencer's eyes again.
***
That evening before dinner he went up to the laurels--the ridiculous not-actually-laurels that he sung to every day--and tried to remember what Ryan had told him to say.
"Um. Beautiful laurels, with this golden rake I have raked you, with this golden bucket I have watered you, with this silken towel I have wiped you. Um. If you could please give me something to keep me from being seen tonight, that would be amazing," he said.
One of the buds on the mountain laurel opened, and Brendon stared at it. "I really hope this works," he muttered, and plucked the flower. He stuck it into his buttonhole and went to test it out on Pete. He threw pinecones at him, jumped up and down in front of him, even got up in his face and made ridiculous faces, but Pete didn't even blink.
"OK," said Brendon, "I guess it works, then." He was about to go on his way when he remembered that Spencer would be locked in his room, and Brendon locked outside. He went back to the laurels.
"We're trying this again, I guess," he told them nervously. "Beautiful laurels, with this golden rake I have raked you, with this golden bucket I have watered you, with this silken towel I have wiped you. And if you had something to open locked doors I would really appreciate it," he said. This time it was the oleander that bloomed, and he picked the flower and put it in his pocket with the first. Then Brendon went to get some food to take to his room. He didn't particularly want to face his friends right then.
***
Someone from the palace guard came to collect Brendon after the dinner hour was over. Brendon had seen him around before, normally trailing after Spencer. He introduced himself as Zack. They went to a wing of the palace Brendon was unfamiliar with and Zack ushered him into one of the rooms.
The room was obviously meant for important guests, with plush carpets on the floors and tapestries covering the walls. There was a fireplace blasting out heat and a bed piled high with pillows. Zack gestured at the bed.
"You can sleep there if you'd like, but I don't recommend it," he said. He waved toward the only other door in the room. "That's his highness' room. The door should already be locked--you can check before I leave if you'd like."
"Probably a good idea," Brendon said with a nod and walked over to the door. He jiggled the handle and it didn't budge. It was locked, just as Zack had said.
"I'll come back at dawn. Good luck," Zack said, and he left the room. Brendon stuck the mountain laurel in his lapel again and went back to Spencer's door. He took out the oleander and looked at it dubiously before waving it in front of the lock. He didn't hear anything change, but tried the handle anyway. It opened soundlessly and he peeked in. Spencer was asleep. Brendon didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until it left him in a sudden whoosh. He stood in the corner and waited for Spencer to wake up and do...whatever it was that wore out his shoes. He hoped it wouldn't take all three nights.
***
Less than an hour had passed when Spencer began to wake up. Brendon startled where he was standing--he'd been composing a new song in his head to pass the time--and walked closer. Spencer stretched and got out of bed. Brendon tried to tell if he was awake or sleepwalking, but couldn't decide either way. Spencer walked over to a wardrobe and started rummaging in its drawers. He pulled out shirt after shirt and more pairs of trousers than Brendon had ever owned, throwing them all at his bed in disgust. He finally settled on dark gray trousers and a creamy shirt, and went to a different wardrobe to pick a jacket. Once he was satisfied with his outfit, Spencer went over to the mirror and fussed with his hair and face, pinching his cheeks and lips so that they pinked up and turning his head from side to side to examine his reflection. He finally nodded at himself and bent to put on a pair of shoes.
Brendon almost gave himself away by gasping aloud when he saw the shoes. They were the most delicate shoes he had ever seen, made of silk instead of leather and embroidered all over. He understood how these shoes could cost more than a year of his wages in a way he never had before. Spencer went through a pair of these every night? No wonder there was gossip about it.
Spencer seemed to be done with his preparations, but he had paused by the wardrobe for some reason. He wasn't looking at his reflection in the mirror, he was just...standing. And then he moved to pick something up, and Brendon finally understood what Patrick had been talking about.
Spencer had saved the bouquet Brendon made for him, dried it and displayed it in his room. He plucked a sprig of the baby's breath and tucked it behind his ear. Brendon just stared at him in shock until Spencer turned around and hit something on his bed post. Then he was stuck watching in horror as a trap door opened in the wall. How had the king and the other heroes managed to miss this? From where he stood he could see the first few steps of a staircase leading downward. Spencer grabbed a candle and started down the stair, and Brendon hurried to follow him.
***
The staircase seemed to go down forever, a dizzying spiral lit only by Spencer's candle. At one point Brendon misjudged the distance between steps and tripped forward, brushing Spencer's sleeve. Spencer stopped and spent a minute looking around, trying to see what he'd run into, but kept going when he didn't see anything. Brendon gave silent thanks to Ryan for giving him the bushes.
The stairs finally ended on a small landing. Brendon thought it was a dead end at first, but when Spencer raised the candle a little he saw the door. Spencer went straight toward it. He opened it and went through, and Brendon followed.
They were in a forest, but it wasn't at all like the forest from his dreams or the one by the river in Summerlin. Brendon had never seen anything like it. Brendon recognized all of the trees--oak and ash and pine, just like at home--but they had leaves made of silver instead of the normal sort. Brendon stared at the branches in awe until he realized he'd lost sight of Spencer and snapped his gaze forward. He could just see Spencer's hair through the brush, and hurried to catch up.
They walked through the forest of silver until the trees began to thin and Brendon started to hope they were nearing their destination. His heart sank when he saw there was another forest directly after the one they were leaving. In this one the trees all had leaves of gold, and Brendon began to worry about just what Spencer had gotten tangled up in here.
There weren't any animals, so it was eerily quiet. Brendon tried to step softly so that Spencer wouldn't hear his footsteps until he realized that the laurel was silencing them. Brendon felt his skin prickling into goosebumps as they kept walking. The trees were beautiful, but they were wrong. They didn't reflect light quite the way they should, and the sound the leaves made when they brushed together was too harsh.
The forest of gold turned into another with leaves of diamond. Brendon had to blink several times to convince himself that what he was seeing was real. He was tempted to pluck a leaf from one of the trees. A pine needle would buy him a new guitar several times over. It would buy a new piano several times over, an organ if he wanted one. He could quit his job as a gardener and just play music all day. But then he flashed to an image of Spencer lurking in a doorway and listening to him sing, and shook his head at himself. He wasn't here for money, he wasn't at the castle for the money. He'd told Ryan he wouldn't marry a prince just so he wouldn't have to work, and so he wouldn't. But neither would he abandon a prince so that he wouldn't have to work, especially not one that he loved as much as he loved Spencer. He kept walking, and left the trees alone.
The path finally ended at a lake, and Brendon wondered where they'd go next. There weren't any boats in sight, and there was only forest to their sides. Then Spencer brought his fingers to his mouth and whistled. A light bobbed into life out on the lake and started moving steadily toward them.
Brendon watched as it slowly neared and resolved itself into a boat with a single man at the helm. The boat beached itself on the bank in front of Spencer, who quickly climbed in. Brendon followed, trying not to rock it unnecessarily or run into either Spencer or the oarsman, who was just as finely dressed as the prince.
They set off across the lake. Spencer stared hard at the place where Brendon was sitting, and for a moment he thought that Spencer had seen him and was going to alert the oarsman that there was a stowaway. But Spencer only turned around and said, "We're going slower than usual." Brendon tried not to breathe too hard.
"We're not going any slower than we usually do, your highness," the man said. "Relax and enjoy the ride, and we'll arrive at the pavilion soon enough." Spencer didn't reply.
Brendon looked over the prow at the fast-approaching lights. As they drew closer to the bank Brendon could make out an impressive orchestra playing as though at a ball. The boat docked and the oarsman clambered out before turning and offering Spencer his arm. They set off toward the pavilion while Brendon was still struggling get out of the boat without overturning it.
He managed to soak both trouser legs before he made it to land, but he did make it. He could see Spencer's candle in the distance. Spencer and his escort had almost reached the pavilion. Brendon ran after them but by the time he reached the pavilion doors they had already disappeared into the crush of guests. Brendon looked around for a chair he could stand on to scan the room and spotted one by a table heavily laden with food. He made for that, heedless of all the people he brushed against and ran into on his way. He was almost there when he saw a flash of cream and gray to his left.
Spencer looked healthy, not sick or tired, as he spun around the dance floor with the man from the boat. And he was smiling.
Brendon had never considered that Spencer might not want rescuing.
***
Five minutes later he stood over one of the guests in the darkest corner he'd been able to find and shook out his hand. Pete had never said that punching people hurt. He massaged his knuckles a little before bending to snag the peacock feather mask. Brendon grimaced at his dirty sleeves and decided he'd better take the coat as well. He wrestled it off the man and brushed ineffectually at the dust. Too big, but it would have to do. He didn't want Spencer to recognize him. Before he left the corner he plucked the mountain laurel blossom from his lapel and pocketed it.
He was going to figure out what was going on here.
***
"May I have this dance?"
Spencer turned away from his escort and smiled at Brendon. "You may," he said. As a minuet started to play they clasped hands.
"I don't think I've seen you here before," Spencer said.
"You wouldn't have, as this is the first time I've been here," Brendon replied. "Everything seems very strange."
Spencer shrugged. "You'll get used to it," he said.
"Still," said Brendon, "I'm not sure if I'm enjoying myself. What about you? Do you like this sort of thing?"
Spencer smiled tightly. "I'm don't exactly have a choice."
"What do you mean, you don't have a choice? It's just a ball, isn't it?" Brendon asked.
"It may be just a ball for you, but it's punishment for me. I have to attend every night, and it's starting to get old. The orchestra only knows about twenty songs, and they play them every night. Worse, the timpanis are out of tune," Spencer said.
Brendon grinned at him as they glided through the steps. "Well if the timpanis are out of tune, there's no question that it's a bore. What do I need to do to get you out of here, fair prince?"
Spencer stopped and pulled him to the side. "Look, thanks for being nice and all, but you can't help me. I'm cursed--all standard rules apply, including the bit about true love's kiss. And the only person who can help with that is going to die in a few days, so I need you to leave me alone right now." He walked away while Brendon was still stuck on the part where Spencer loved him
***
Spencer didn't leave until the early morning, and Brendon was almost asleep on his feet as he followed him through the dwindling crowd of ball guests and out to the boat. They had a different oarsman for the trip back across the lake, and Spencer didn't ask him any questions. The trek through the forests was equally silent until Brendon grabbed one of the silver branches and snapped it off. He and Spencer both jumped as the sharp crack sounded.
"Who's there?" called Spencer. Brendon froze in place. After staring suspiciously into the dark forest edging the path Spencer continued on.
They made it back to the palace without any further incidents, and Brendon crouched by the prince's bed until he fell asleep and Brendon could creep back into his own room. He tumbled into bed and sleep accompanied by Ryan's voice saying, "Well it took you two long enough. Thanks for watching out for him."
***
The banging at his door started at an utterly obscene hour of the morning.
"Go away," Brendon muttered into his pillow. "Some of us were solving mysteries last night."
"Open up, the king wants to speak with you!" shouted the person outside and Brendon jerked awake and out of bed so fast that he tripped over the bedclothes.
"Just a minute!" he cried. He threw on yesterday's shirt and pants and flung open the door. Zack was the only one outside.
"You said the king was here!" Brendon said.
"No, I said the king wanted to speak with you, and he does," Zack said. "Hurry up or we'll be late."
Brendon trailed behind Zack as they walked through the hallways to the throne room. his first thought when they arrived was that the king hadn't arrive yet, but then he spotted the king standing by one of the great glass windows, Spencer at his side. Brendon swallowed hard and hoped for the best as he stepped forward.
"Good morning, your majesty, your highness," he said with a bow.
"Brendon! How wonderful to see you again," the king said. "What did you learn last night?"
Brendon fumbled at his pockets and pulled out three branches, one made of silver, one of gold, and one of diamond. Spencer's eyes widened for a second before he broke into the largest, most beautiful smile Brendon had ever seen.
"Well, your majesty, it's a funny story," Brendon began with an answering smile. The king never did get to hear the story, though, as Spencer grabbed Brendon and drew him into the sort of kiss that they write poems about.
And they lived mostly happily for a very long time thereafter, and their orchestra never had an out of tune timpani or any shortage of songs.
the end
It quickly became clear to everyone that the laurels were magic. They were as tall as Brendon within a week, just in time for Pete to ask him to make bouquets for the royals.
"How many should I make? There are two princesses, right?" Brendon asked.
Pete got a wicked glint in his eye, the sort that Brendon had learned to distrust within his first day. "Oh, three. That way each of the king's children gets one," he said. Brendon stared at him, suspicious.
"Why does the prince need a bouquet?" he asked.
Pete shrugged. "Don't ask me. He likes flowers, though. Haven't you seen him around?"
Brendon hadn't, but he decided it would be more trouble than it was worth to argue with Pete. He would just make the bouquets--how bad could it be?
He took his time, assembling the flowers with care. This seemed more important than pruning rose bushes no one paid any attention to. If someone made him a bouquet, he would want them to put some thought into it.
He gathered roses and baby's breath and then he paused in front of the laurels. They weren't exactly traditional for bouquets, but...well, they were magic. And, he thought, staring at the plants, they just happened to be budding.
"Ross, I swear, if this is your idea of a joke, I will--" he started, and then abruptly stopped. What would he do, exactly? He hadn't dreamt of the oak tree since Ryan gave him the laurels.
Brendon cut sprigs from each for the bouquets, and set about tying them together.
He was going to kill Pete, he really was. Just as soon as the prince stopped glaring at him
"What is this?" he asked Brendon. He was frowning at the bouquet like it had insulted his mother. Brendon could feel his cheeks heating up, but he couldn't tell if the blush was caused by anger or embarrassment. He figured it was probably equal parts of each.
"It's a bouquet, your highness," he said. Why had Pete thought this would be funny? It wasn't. It was horrible. The princesses had loved their flowers, but the prince was an entirely different story.
"A bouquet. Do I look like I need a bouquet?" the prince said. The courtiers surrounding him all laughed, and Brendon wished he could just disappear. This was worse than anything that had happened in Summerlin. This was the prince mad at him, nobles laughing, not just the baker's son and his friends.
"I don't know, your highness," Brendon said, and immediately felt like kicking himself. It had been exactly the wrong thing to say.
"You don't know?" Prince Spencer asked, eyes flashing with annoyance. Or maybe it was anger. Brendon wasn't sure, he hadn't exactly faced down royalty before. He hoped it was just annoyance.
"I mean. I mean, you don't look like you need one, no," Brendon said, backpedaling. "I just thought you might like one. The, uh, the mountain laurel matches your belt." It even had the benefit of being true, thank God. The prince was wearing a pink sash--and he was asking if it looked like he needed a bouquet, seriously--and the roses and the ring of color in the middle of the laurels matched it exactly. The prince stared at him, eyes narrowed.
"In the future, please limit yourself to making bouquets for my sisters--and perhaps any dalliances you manage to attract," he said, and turned back to his friends, bouquet lying forgotten on the table beside him. Brendon knew when to take a hint. He left, already planning how to get back at Pete.
The next day Brendon found himself cursing Pete again. He had never even seen Prince Spencer before yesterday, which was totally Pete's fault, and here he was, faced with the prince's scowl again, the very next day. And this time was Pete's fault, too.
Brendon had been sent to get more burlap from the palace while Pete stayed out in the gardens and continued to work. The task hadn't seemed difficult when he set out, but he'd never been in the wing of the palace with the fabric stores before, and, thanks to Pete, he didn't know his way around the palace at all. So of course he got incredibly lost. He had finally resorted to opening the nearest door and looking inside, and had come face-to-face with an angry, shirtless prince.
"What do you think you're doing?" Prince Spencer hissed as he yanked his shirt on and started buttoning it. Part of Brendon--the part that wasn't mortified--mourned the loss of the view. "Don't you know how to knock, or were you never taught basic manners?"
"Sorry!" Brendon squeaked, and slammed the door shut again. Seriously, Pete was dead.
He ran into the prince again the next day. Brendon was getting really sick of seeing Prince Spencer. He never seemed to smile, and it was really hard for Brendon to get along with people who hated joy. He ignored the fact that Prince Spencer was very, very attractive. Plenty of people were attractive, and not all of them were jerks. He really hoped this wasn't the prince Ryan had been talking about--if it was, he really hoped Ryan had been delusional. (He would hope that Ryan had been a figment of his imagination, but there were the laurels.)
Brendon was in his own wing of the palace this time, not lost at all, minding his own business and carrying a pitcher of water outside for Pete. He may have been hurrying a little, but tonight was a music night, and the sooner they finished their work, the sooner he could play Patrick's guitar again.
He sped around the corner and immediately collided with someone else. The water in the pitcher, of course, spilled all over both of them. Brendon didn't even have to look up to know he'd run into Prince Spencer. He could so feel the icy stare, no matter what Alex said about crazy delusions. He slowly looked up.
He knew it. There was Prince Spencer, sopping wet and looking like a drowned cat. His glare was almost shocked this time. Brendon wondered if he should be proud of that--the prince seemed difficult to shock.
"Hello again, your highness," Brendon said, trying to remain cheerful in the face of certain doom. Somehow, he was sure, this could still all be blamed on Pete. He started to plan his defense for assaulting a peer of the realm.
"Hello," said the prince. "Do you ever manage to do anything right?" he asked.
This, Brendon felt, was going too far. "I do plenty of things right," he said. "Did you even look at that bouquet? It was fucking gorgeous."
The prince looked a little taken aback. Well, good, thought Brendon, it served him right. He was kind of sick of the prince being a dick when none of this was Brendon's fault.
"Now, I'm very sorry, but I really need to get more water. Pete could faint of dehydration, and then where would we be?" he said, and swept away. It made him feel a little better to have left the prince speechless for once.
That night Brendon poured all of his embarrassment and stress into the music so he could just forget it all and relax. He couldn't wait until he'd saved enough to buy his own guitar. It still didn't feel like enough, just playing Patrick's spare once a week. It was miles more music than he'd been able to play at home, of course, but not nearly as much as he wanted to, even though Pete let him sing all he wanted as they worked and he had some spare time each night to play his pipes. There could never be enough music for Brendon, though.
He'd just finished his second turn at the guitar and passed it to Frank when he saw him. The prince was standing in the hallway outside the kitchen, watching them. Brendon looked away, not wanting to alert anyone else to his presence. But he kept an eye out, sending glances the prince's way as he shook his tambourine and sang along.
The prince was smiling, and he was gorgeous. Brendon wished he would smile like that all the time. He almost seemed like someone Brendon could like when he smiled.
Over the next week Brendon continued to see the prince around, but he (thank God) stopped embarrassing himself in front of him. Instead, he saw the prince talking with his younger sisters, or helping one of the court children fly a kite, or curled up with one of the hunting dogs. It became obvious that the prince was a generally nice person, and that Brendon brought out the worst in him.
"Pete, I saw Kate from the laundry knock him over yesterday, and all he did was laugh and offer her a hand up. If I had done that I'd be in the dungeon right now!" he said one day in the rose garden.
"Brendon, Prince Spencer doesn't hate you. Now hand me the trowel," said Pete. Brendon glared at him, but handed the trowel over without saying anything further.
He tried to convince Patrick over dinner that night.
"Today I passed him in the hallway and he stared right through me. Which, OK, that's his prerogative as prince, but Pete was walking beside me and he got a wave and a smile."
Patrick shrugged. "Maybe he's shy or something. If he hated people just because they spilled things on him or gave him bouquets he would definitely not be smiling at Pete," he said. "Do you think the chicken needs more rosemary?"
Brendon scowled at his plate. If Spencer didn't hate him for any of those reasons, it meant he hated who Brendon was instead of the dumb things he'd done. Brendon could always apologize but he couldn't change himself.
"The chicken's fine, Patrick," he said, and pushed his plate away. He wasn't hungry tonight.
Prince Spencer, Brendon decided, looked absolutely exhausted. The shadows under his eyes had started to overwhelm his face, his hair lay limp and dull against his head, and his smile became strained. The rumor about Spencer's shoes was spreading, too. People were speaking about it openly instead of in whispers, wondering if the prince was just sneaking out to meet a lover or if he was possessed. Servants who worked near the king said he was furious with his son, ready to send him off to a cloister.
Brendon was worried about him, and felt ridiculous for it. Spencer hated him. And anyway, Brendon was just a gardener who could sing pretty well and strum a few songs. Before, it had never mattered that he wasn't particularly brave, and couldn't fight, and was sort of scrawny and not at all intimidating. He didn't need to be huge and brave to play the guitar, or to compose a song. But now Spencer needed someone who could be a hero, and that person was definitely not Brendon, and he kind of hated that.
The king seemed to agree about the need for a hero. He issued a proclamation throughout the kingdom saying that whoever figured out where Spencer went each night and what happened to his shoes would be awarded the prince's hand in marriage. Whoever failed, it said, would be put to death.
"Can you believe this?" he asked Pete and the Alexes over dinner a week later. "What if Spencer doesn't want to marry whichever arrogant asshole figures this out?" Brendon had run into one of the visiting princes earlier that day. It hadn't gone well--Pete had deemed his black eye "totally awesome, my tiny friend," which hadn't made Brendon feel any better. Being tiny was the only thing stopping him from helping Spencer.
"Brendon, he's the prince. He's pretty much stuck marrying an asshole no matter what happens. That, my friend, is politics," Pete said.
Patrick set his bowl down across from Brendon. "Why are we talking about politics? Brendon, I heard an awesome song in the market today, don't let me forget to teach it to you later," he said.
Pete got that horrible glint in his eye. "Brendon is pining over the prince. He thinks our royal guests aren't good enough for him."
Patrick frowned at his soup. "Well, they're not. Spencer's a pretty good guy, and he deserves better than the jerks we're getting with this challenge."
"Guys," Brendon mumbled, "please stop talking about this."
"Oh, don't worry about it, Brendon," Pete said. "Prince Spencer is smart. He won't marry anyone he doesn't want to marry. In fact," he said, his most manic grin spreading across his face, "you should accept the challenge. You can use your ridiculous bush--it must be good for something, right?--and rescue the prince, and then the two of you can live happily ever after."
Brendon choked on his water and started coughing so hard that the nearest Alex had to pound him on the back to get him to stop.
"I don't want to die, Pete, which is what will happen if I take up the challenge," he said, still gasping for breath. "And the prince hates me, in case you've forgotten."
"That's where you're wrong. Patrick, tell him how wrong he is," Pete said. Patrick looked pained.
"The prince doesn't hate you, Brendon. Haven't you noticed him at the music nights? I have. He stares at you, Brendon, it's honestly kind of creepy," Patrick said.
"But not as creepy as me, right, Spencer? I am always the first creeper in your heart."
"Yes, Pete, you're the creepiest," the table chorused.
The prince who hit Brendon was given three days and three nights to solve the mystery.
Brendon waited impatiently for the three days to pass, and it felt as though the entire palace was waiting with him. People loitered in the hallways and speculated on his chances in hushed voices. It really did feel as though there was a curse--what else could it be, to dim Spencer's smile to nothing?
The third night came, and the prince hadn't found anything. Spencer had destroyed three pairs of shoes, and his door had been locked every morning when the guard checked it. The prince said that he had slept through each night without hearing or seeing anything. The king has him beheaded.
People did their work diligently for the first time in three days. No one stopped to talk in the hallways; people hardly spoke at all. What had seemed like a fanciful diversion before was now horribly real. People were dying because Spencer disappeared each night after being locked in his room.
Brendon was thoroughly sick of the entire thing.
Brendon barely had a chance to recognize the clearing before Ryan was in his face.
"OK, I get it, you're sort of stupid. But how stupid can you get, really? Rescue Spencer. This shouldn't be that hard, even for you. What do I need to do, hold your hand? I can hold your fucking hand."
Brendon stumbled backward.
"Hey, Ryan, whoa. What are you talking about?" Brendon said.
Ryan growled, a low note in the back of his throat that was pure frustration. "Save. Spencer. I know all you want to do is play music, but surely even you can see how bad this will be for the kingdom if this continues?"
Brendon suddenly felt like crying, which was strange. Ryan was always like this. "I'm not a hero. I can't do anything, I'm just a gardener. Nothing special. Not that it would matter, all the heros are dying, too," he said. "I wish I could, Ryan, but I can't."
"Are you an idiot? Seriously, did I pick an idiot? Fuck," Ryan said. "Fuck. I gave you fucking magic bushes, Brendon, what do you mean you're just a gardener? Magic bushes! They're magic!"
"Ryan, it doesn't matter. I'm still me. I can't do it. I just can't, and if I try, they'll kill me," Brendon said.
Ryan's mouth was a straight, tight line as he glared at Brendon. He stared long enough that it became uncomfortable, long enough that Brendon started to shift his weight and wish he could just wake up.
"Fine," he finally said. "Fine. Be that way. Just, just ignore it, hope it goes away. And Spencer will waste away to nothing, and all the bright stars of the kingdom will volunteer and be executed. And then Spencer will die, and the kingdom will suffer ten years of drought and ten years of plague. And I hope you survive it all, so you can see what happens when you're a coward."
Brendon woke up, and wished Ryan's words hadn't sounded so much like a prophecy. He knew what he had to do either way, though. He couldn't stand to see Spencer lose any more weight, and Ryan had said that would happen. Spencer would die.
He went to ask for an audience with the king.
"Do you understand what you're doing, son?" the king asked. Brendon thought he should be offended by that--he doubted the king had asked the other hopefuls if they were sure, or called them "son." Then he thought that maybe he should be flattered. He realized the king was waiting for his answer.
"I understand, your majesty," he said. And he did. Patrick had tried to talk him out of it, even though he'd brought it up it in the first place. Pete had yelled. He hadn't waited around to hear what anyone else had to say, had just left early for the audience room instead. He supposed he was lucky that he had friends who cared, and wondered if they'd find a way to let his parents know if he died.
"Well, if you're sure," the king said, sounding dubious. Brendon decided he would be offended. Then the king did something he hadn't expected; he turned around and beckoned at someone in the hallway. "Spencer," he said, "come in and meet Brendon. He's going to stand guard tonight."
Brendon ducked his head in embarrassment. He hadn't spoken to Spencer since he'd spilled the water on him, had only watched him from a distance. He hoped Spencer didn't remember the water incident, but suspected that he would.
Spencer certainly recognized him. "Brendon?" he said, and Brendon couldn't help but look up. Spencer looked absolutely stricken. Of course he did, Brendon told himself. Who would want to be rescued by the gardener's assistant?
"Brendon, what are you doing? What does he mean, stand guard tonight? You're a gardener," Spencer said.
"Spencer, you know this man?" the king asked.
Spencer flushed. "I--yes, father. We're acquainted," he said.
"I see," said the king, and shot a knowing look at his son. "Well, Brendon, I wish you the best of luck," he said. "Someone will come for you after dinner tonight, and your time will start then."
Brendon bowed and left without meeting Spencer's eyes again.
That evening before dinner he went up to the laurels--the ridiculous not-actually-laurels that he sung to every day--and tried to remember what Ryan had told him to say.
"Um. Beautiful laurels, with this golden rake I have raked you, with this golden bucket I have watered you, with this silken towel I have wiped you. Um. If you could please give me something to keep me from being seen tonight, that would be amazing," he said.
One of the buds on the mountain laurel opened, and Brendon stared at it. "I really hope this works," he muttered, and plucked the flower. He stuck it into his buttonhole and went to test it out on Pete. He threw pinecones at him, jumped up and down in front of him, even got up in his face and made ridiculous faces, but Pete didn't even blink.
"OK," said Brendon, "I guess it works, then." He was about to go on his way when he remembered that Spencer would be locked in his room, and Brendon locked outside. He went back to the laurels.
"We're trying this again, I guess," he told them nervously. "Beautiful laurels, with this golden rake I have raked you, with this golden bucket I have watered you, with this silken towel I have wiped you. And if you had something to open locked doors I would really appreciate it," he said. This time it was the oleander that bloomed, and he picked the flower and put it in his pocket with the first. Then Brendon went to get some food to take to his room. He didn't particularly want to face his friends right then.
Someone from the palace guard came to collect Brendon after the dinner hour was over. Brendon had seen him around before, normally trailing after Spencer. He introduced himself as Zack. They went to a wing of the palace Brendon was unfamiliar with and Zack ushered him into one of the rooms.
The room was obviously meant for important guests, with plush carpets on the floors and tapestries covering the walls. There was a fireplace blasting out heat and a bed piled high with pillows. Zack gestured at the bed.
"You can sleep there if you'd like, but I don't recommend it," he said. He waved toward the only other door in the room. "That's his highness' room. The door should already be locked--you can check before I leave if you'd like."
"Probably a good idea," Brendon said with a nod and walked over to the door. He jiggled the handle and it didn't budge. It was locked, just as Zack had said.
"I'll come back at dawn. Good luck," Zack said, and he left the room. Brendon stuck the mountain laurel in his lapel again and went back to Spencer's door. He took out the oleander and looked at it dubiously before waving it in front of the lock. He didn't hear anything change, but tried the handle anyway. It opened soundlessly and he peeked in. Spencer was asleep. Brendon didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until it left him in a sudden whoosh. He stood in the corner and waited for Spencer to wake up and do...whatever it was that wore out his shoes. He hoped it wouldn't take all three nights.
Less than an hour had passed when Spencer began to wake up. Brendon startled where he was standing--he'd been composing a new song in his head to pass the time--and walked closer. Spencer stretched and got out of bed. Brendon tried to tell if he was awake or sleepwalking, but couldn't decide either way. Spencer walked over to a wardrobe and started rummaging in its drawers. He pulled out shirt after shirt and more pairs of trousers than Brendon had ever owned, throwing them all at his bed in disgust. He finally settled on dark gray trousers and a creamy shirt, and went to a different wardrobe to pick a jacket. Once he was satisfied with his outfit, Spencer went over to the mirror and fussed with his hair and face, pinching his cheeks and lips so that they pinked up and turning his head from side to side to examine his reflection. He finally nodded at himself and bent to put on a pair of shoes.
Brendon almost gave himself away by gasping aloud when he saw the shoes. They were the most delicate shoes he had ever seen, made of silk instead of leather and embroidered all over. He understood how these shoes could cost more than a year of his wages in a way he never had before. Spencer went through a pair of these every night? No wonder there was gossip about it.
Spencer seemed to be done with his preparations, but he had paused by the wardrobe for some reason. He wasn't looking at his reflection in the mirror, he was just...standing. And then he moved to pick something up, and Brendon finally understood what Patrick had been talking about.
Spencer had saved the bouquet Brendon made for him, dried it and displayed it in his room. He plucked a sprig of the baby's breath and tucked it behind his ear. Brendon just stared at him in shock until Spencer turned around and hit something on his bed post. Then he was stuck watching in horror as a trap door opened in the wall. How had the king and the other heroes managed to miss this? From where he stood he could see the first few steps of a staircase leading downward. Spencer grabbed a candle and started down the stair, and Brendon hurried to follow him.
The staircase seemed to go down forever, a dizzying spiral lit only by Spencer's candle. At one point Brendon misjudged the distance between steps and tripped forward, brushing Spencer's sleeve. Spencer stopped and spent a minute looking around, trying to see what he'd run into, but kept going when he didn't see anything. Brendon gave silent thanks to Ryan for giving him the bushes.
The stairs finally ended on a small landing. Brendon thought it was a dead end at first, but when Spencer raised the candle a little he saw the door. Spencer went straight toward it. He opened it and went through, and Brendon followed.
They were in a forest, but it wasn't at all like the forest from his dreams or the one by the river in Summerlin. Brendon had never seen anything like it. Brendon recognized all of the trees--oak and ash and pine, just like at home--but they had leaves made of silver instead of the normal sort. Brendon stared at the branches in awe until he realized he'd lost sight of Spencer and snapped his gaze forward. He could just see Spencer's hair through the brush, and hurried to catch up.
They walked through the forest of silver until the trees began to thin and Brendon started to hope they were nearing their destination. His heart sank when he saw there was another forest directly after the one they were leaving. In this one the trees all had leaves of gold, and Brendon began to worry about just what Spencer had gotten tangled up in here.
There weren't any animals, so it was eerily quiet. Brendon tried to step softly so that Spencer wouldn't hear his footsteps until he realized that the laurel was silencing them. Brendon felt his skin prickling into goosebumps as they kept walking. The trees were beautiful, but they were wrong. They didn't reflect light quite the way they should, and the sound the leaves made when they brushed together was too harsh.
The forest of gold turned into another with leaves of diamond. Brendon had to blink several times to convince himself that what he was seeing was real. He was tempted to pluck a leaf from one of the trees. A pine needle would buy him a new guitar several times over. It would buy a new piano several times over, an organ if he wanted one. He could quit his job as a gardener and just play music all day. But then he flashed to an image of Spencer lurking in a doorway and listening to him sing, and shook his head at himself. He wasn't here for money, he wasn't at the castle for the money. He'd told Ryan he wouldn't marry a prince just so he wouldn't have to work, and so he wouldn't. But neither would he abandon a prince so that he wouldn't have to work, especially not one that he loved as much as he loved Spencer. He kept walking, and left the trees alone.
The path finally ended at a lake, and Brendon wondered where they'd go next. There weren't any boats in sight, and there was only forest to their sides. Then Spencer brought his fingers to his mouth and whistled. A light bobbed into life out on the lake and started moving steadily toward them.
Brendon watched as it slowly neared and resolved itself into a boat with a single man at the helm. The boat beached itself on the bank in front of Spencer, who quickly climbed in. Brendon followed, trying not to rock it unnecessarily or run into either Spencer or the oarsman, who was just as finely dressed as the prince.
They set off across the lake. Spencer stared hard at the place where Brendon was sitting, and for a moment he thought that Spencer had seen him and was going to alert the oarsman that there was a stowaway. But Spencer only turned around and said, "We're going slower than usual." Brendon tried not to breathe too hard.
"We're not going any slower than we usually do, your highness," the man said. "Relax and enjoy the ride, and we'll arrive at the pavilion soon enough." Spencer didn't reply.
Brendon looked over the prow at the fast-approaching lights. As they drew closer to the bank Brendon could make out an impressive orchestra playing as though at a ball. The boat docked and the oarsman clambered out before turning and offering Spencer his arm. They set off toward the pavilion while Brendon was still struggling get out of the boat without overturning it.
He managed to soak both trouser legs before he made it to land, but he did make it. He could see Spencer's candle in the distance. Spencer and his escort had almost reached the pavilion. Brendon ran after them but by the time he reached the pavilion doors they had already disappeared into the crush of guests. Brendon looked around for a chair he could stand on to scan the room and spotted one by a table heavily laden with food. He made for that, heedless of all the people he brushed against and ran into on his way. He was almost there when he saw a flash of cream and gray to his left.
Spencer looked healthy, not sick or tired, as he spun around the dance floor with the man from the boat. And he was smiling.
Brendon had never considered that Spencer might not want rescuing.
Five minutes later he stood over one of the guests in the darkest corner he'd been able to find and shook out his hand. Pete had never said that punching people hurt. He massaged his knuckles a little before bending to snag the peacock feather mask. Brendon grimaced at his dirty sleeves and decided he'd better take the coat as well. He wrestled it off the man and brushed ineffectually at the dust. Too big, but it would have to do. He didn't want Spencer to recognize him. Before he left the corner he plucked the mountain laurel blossom from his lapel and pocketed it.
He was going to figure out what was going on here.
"May I have this dance?"
Spencer turned away from his escort and smiled at Brendon. "You may," he said. As a minuet started to play they clasped hands.
"I don't think I've seen you here before," Spencer said.
"You wouldn't have, as this is the first time I've been here," Brendon replied. "Everything seems very strange."
Spencer shrugged. "You'll get used to it," he said.
"Still," said Brendon, "I'm not sure if I'm enjoying myself. What about you? Do you like this sort of thing?"
Spencer smiled tightly. "I'm don't exactly have a choice."
"What do you mean, you don't have a choice? It's just a ball, isn't it?" Brendon asked.
"It may be just a ball for you, but it's punishment for me. I have to attend every night, and it's starting to get old. The orchestra only knows about twenty songs, and they play them every night. Worse, the timpanis are out of tune," Spencer said.
Brendon grinned at him as they glided through the steps. "Well if the timpanis are out of tune, there's no question that it's a bore. What do I need to do to get you out of here, fair prince?"
Spencer stopped and pulled him to the side. "Look, thanks for being nice and all, but you can't help me. I'm cursed--all standard rules apply, including the bit about true love's kiss. And the only person who can help with that is going to die in a few days, so I need you to leave me alone right now." He walked away while Brendon was still stuck on the part where Spencer loved him
Spencer didn't leave until the early morning, and Brendon was almost asleep on his feet as he followed him through the dwindling crowd of ball guests and out to the boat. They had a different oarsman for the trip back across the lake, and Spencer didn't ask him any questions. The trek through the forests was equally silent until Brendon grabbed one of the silver branches and snapped it off. He and Spencer both jumped as the sharp crack sounded.
"Who's there?" called Spencer. Brendon froze in place. After staring suspiciously into the dark forest edging the path Spencer continued on.
They made it back to the palace without any further incidents, and Brendon crouched by the prince's bed until he fell asleep and Brendon could creep back into his own room. He tumbled into bed and sleep accompanied by Ryan's voice saying, "Well it took you two long enough. Thanks for watching out for him."
The banging at his door started at an utterly obscene hour of the morning.
"Go away," Brendon muttered into his pillow. "Some of us were solving mysteries last night."
"Open up, the king wants to speak with you!" shouted the person outside and Brendon jerked awake and out of bed so fast that he tripped over the bedclothes.
"Just a minute!" he cried. He threw on yesterday's shirt and pants and flung open the door. Zack was the only one outside.
"You said the king was here!" Brendon said.
"No, I said the king wanted to speak with you, and he does," Zack said. "Hurry up or we'll be late."
Brendon trailed behind Zack as they walked through the hallways to the throne room. his first thought when they arrived was that the king hadn't arrive yet, but then he spotted the king standing by one of the great glass windows, Spencer at his side. Brendon swallowed hard and hoped for the best as he stepped forward.
"Good morning, your majesty, your highness," he said with a bow.
"Brendon! How wonderful to see you again," the king said. "What did you learn last night?"
Brendon fumbled at his pockets and pulled out three branches, one made of silver, one of gold, and one of diamond. Spencer's eyes widened for a second before he broke into the largest, most beautiful smile Brendon had ever seen.
"Well, your majesty, it's a funny story," Brendon began with an answering smile. The king never did get to hear the story, though, as Spencer grabbed Brendon and drew him into the sort of kiss that they write poems about.
And they lived mostly happily for a very long time thereafter, and their orchestra never had an out of tune timpani or any shortage of songs.
the end