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Julian couldn’t pinpoint when it started.
He remembered how his mom cried and laughed when the courier came with the news. In their apartment on the third floor, barely a room and a balcony, the royal attire looked vividly colored. After all the exams, he’d been selected as the Princess’s private tutor, and he was happily bewildered by that first tiny gold bag of “salary,” whatever that meant.
They got drinks and cakes and practically everyone he knew came to congratulate him.
His dream just got bigger and wilder as they led him on his first tour of the palace. He had to catch his breath when he first saw his room; he had to live in the palace, per his contract, and he only had two weekends off. But that was alright. His mother packed him a huge stack of stationery, didn’t she? And scented, too, so that his letters might be especially from him especially to her.
Everything was grand and lovely, from the chandeliers to the doorknobs. Food was served on the hour three times a day, sometimes more if they had tea. It was the first time in his life—even including his formal training at Oakwood University—that he never worried about what to eat.
And then he saw her.
Anneliese.
Even her name was heavenly to him.
Her eyes were a thoughtful ocean blue.
As he bowed at the close of their first acquaintance, his heart sank. He was simple, bookish, clumsy, and she was the Princess. If not by station, then by personality: he would never have her. So he locked up whatever surged in him tightly, and turned to tomes of science and mathematics and promised to think only on the next gold purse he’d pass along to his mother.
He kept to his rooms: his personal quarters, the mailroom, and the library, where he’d meet the Princess for four hours of study in the morning and another two in the afternoon. He was charged with linguistics, writing and speech; mathematics; science and classifications; and foreign language. He tried not to laugh too much. He tried to stick to protocol.
When she left for etiquette lessons and charity events, he’d stay in the library and study for tomorrow’s lessons. He was intimately aware of her flaws. She was unable to accurately pronounce nasal vowels in French, she got the politics of the War of 1218 confused with the conflict of 1396, she always misspelled the word “definitely” and she was far too quick to fall for a Straw Man.
As he flipped through the pages of Piaget, he tried to consider how he might challenge her further—whether he could ever create a quiz of identification that would be difficult enough to make her chew her lip or scrunch her brow–whether she truly need to identify four key differences between picea abies and pinus lambertiana was really beside the point.
He knew she couldn’t produce a proper cursive “f” and made a mental note to help her glide her hand across the paper in an appropriate form; it simply would not do for a Princess to be named Anneliese Moirae Fabiella Isadora and not know how to construct an “f.”
And she’d have to rehearse for her public appearance on Sunday, so he’d have to make sure they set up next to the east side of the room, because on the west, the maids would overhear her speech and it would make Anneliese self-conscious. Also, it was getting on summer, and the corners of the library could be stifling. He made a note to make sure to leave his overcoat in his wardrobe—or perhaps he could bring it, just in case she were cold.
In like fashion the years went by and the chemistry grew and then it was quite impossible to untangle Princess Anneliese from the secret, briary rose garden in his heart.
But then someone tried to kill her.
Or so believed the Queen. Over the years, Julian came to know her as a well-meaning woman who desperately craved the dramatic. She loved to find meaty gossip, loved to pretend at offense, and yet managed to be rather blind to both the tangible and imagined subjects presented to her—including her own daughter
So when a (rather large) baseball came through a (rather expensive) stained glass window in the library…Yes, it was deemed an assassination attempt (although the ball landed a solid half-meter to Anneliese’s left, and hardly even sprinkled glass on the floor).
The culprits, two (rather under-educated) twins with a nobly deceased father at the top of the metaphorical totem pole of the royal mining industry, were swiftly disposed to menial labor punishment by a (rather too-gleeful) Master Preminger, and Anneliese was forbidden from the Royal Library that very day.
“She can’t do this to me! The library is my favorite place in the entire world!” she said, and so of course, Julian himself went to negotiate with the Queen on Anneliese’s behalf, leading with the rather compelling argument of “Where will the Highness hold her lessons without the proximity to the library?” The Queen promptly decided that it was in every party’s best and safest interest to keep Annelise exclusively in her chambers, unless called on important royal business.
In effect, Anneliese went from princess to prisoner in a single afternoon.
A beautiful, melancholy prisoner.
Which is how Julian came to know the Princess’s bedroom.
It was the size of house. Probably bigger. The bedroom alone was at least quintuple his room with his mother, and that was attached to a small study, a walk-in closet, an extravagant bathroom, and an extensive balcony.
Even her cat, the lovely and flighty Serafina, had her own royal bed next to the Princess’s. The cushions were genuine velvet.
And when the lessons were finished, he sometimes would look at her bed a little too long, wondering how her hair looked in the morning, or if she ever wore the green nightgown in her closet. When he caught himself doing it, he would chastise himself thoroughly. But at night, in his own silk sheets, he would wonder if it really were so wrong to fantasize about something that could never happen.
“Julian, come look at this!”
It wasn’t a formal greeting, and his stomach lurched, tugged in two directions: one, a softness that she saw him more intimately than her usual crowd, and the other, that she was neglecting the very roles he was relegated to reinforce.
“Your Highness,” he said, stepping gingerly to her side.
“No, no, you won’t be able to see it from there,” she said, pulling his arm closer to her waist. “It’s very small.”
He allowed her to put his face next to hers, crouching over a tiny little plant to see what hung on a tiny branch in the flower box.
“Do you see it?” her cheeks were full, and she bounced on her toes with eagerness.
“Do my eyes deceive me, or am I looking at a chrysalis?” Julian asked, meeting her gaze, a matching smile mirrored on his own face.
“It is! Right here on the balcony! And if I’m not mistaken, it’s going to be Morpho menelaus. It’s the right season, right species…”
“How long is a typical butterfly chrysalis stage, Princess?”
“I believe it would be more than eight weeks, but no longer than twelve,” she answered confidently.
“Right, as usual,” Julian responded proudly.
Anneliese—the Princess—reached out as if she were going to touch the glistening chrysalis, before letting her hand fall. “We’ll have to wait.”
“It will be yours before you know it,” Julian assured.
It was Greek, today, and culture, and history, and Julian laughed when she laughed, and scolded her for daydreaming, and secretly wished he was daydreaming too. His seat was far too close to the Princess’s when Amelia, her chambermaid, bustled in with tea and biscuits before quickly coming to a halt. “Excuse me, milady, I didn’t mean to interrupt." Her eyes darted back and forth between the two of them, before she asserted, "It is tea time.”
Fear shocked Julian’s system. It was too easy with Anneliese, too easy to let her lay her hand on his arm, too easy to look at the bare skin at her neck when she talked. Too easy to talk, too easy to lose track of time. Tea time was an hour past. An entire hour of the royal schedule!
He shot backwards, cleared his throat. “I’ll be here tomorrow, bright and early, Your Highness. Study up,” he said nonchalantly, hoping he didn’t sound too hurried.
“Oh, okay,” Anneliese replied. The Princess. “See you tomorrow, Julian.”
He didn’t trust his voice, so he nodded and bowed, like he always had. Normal. Normal. Breathe.
Around the corner, he tried not to look back at her room. He failed.
It was relatively late when the Queen called them in for an impromptu royal counsel.
“Seeing as Princess Anneliese is increasingly unsafe within our castle walls—and that the royal treasury is far lighter than it used to be, a certain proposition has been made with the young King of Dulcinea, King Dominick,” the Queen said, in her certain way. “Princess Anneliese is to meet with him to confirm her royal engagement, after which a swift courtship will lead to the marriage of our two kingdoms.”
Anneliese was the focal point of the room. Everyone saw her eyes glaze over, her posture go slack. She was in shock. She didn’t know.
“It is the greatest duty of a young heir to choose a lifetime partner, and in so doing, protect the longevity of our jewel kingdom, our highest priority,” the Queen continued, blind once again to the glaring response of her daughter.
Anneliese met Julian’s eyes from across the room, a sudden cry for help that jolted his entire system. She was going to cry. He knew it. He knew exactly how her tears would play out from here.
“I announce this publicly so that all of us, here within the palace walls, are prepared to meet and host a king, as well as a wedding. I expect nothing less than perfect service, from cleanliness to service. Anneliese is well-prepared for her duty, and she’ll bear it well,” the Queen pratted.
The Princess’s lack of composure told otherwise.
Say something.
Say something.
Julian was bound by his station. If he spoke for her now, he risked being permanently dismissed.
Anneliese, say something.
He tried to initiate something in her eyes from across the room, begging her for once in her life to throw away protocol and stand up for herself. He knew that if she left this meeting without speaking to her mother, she’d doom herself to the arrangement.
And then something absolutely unbelievable happened. He saw her straighten, saw her expression harden. And when Anneliese’s insight to the proposal was sought after formally, she didn’t offer more than this sturdy sentence: “It’s my duty.”
Julian bit his cheek. Hard.
She was going to do it.
She was going to marry a man, probably not even near her age, from a neighboring kingdom, sight unseen. And it was admirable; a part of him deeply respected her for it, it's true. And she was going to do it in a week. But he’d never…
And now he’d run out of time.
It was a dream, anyway. A beautiful dream.
When the meeting ended, Anneliese left the council with decorum. When Julian passed by her room that night (he’d forgotten papers in the study, if anyone asked), all he could hear was crying.
When no one was looking, he pressed his forehead to the door, and wished desperately, for the first time in his life, to be a king.
“Your highness,” he greeted. The morning birds were cheerful, a mockery of the mist that hung over her bedroom.
She turned to him, interested. Her eyes were swollen from crying. “Yes?” It was her proper greeting. Hesitant.
“If it pleases you, I brought in a selection of samples for identification–a good practice for your science lesson.”
She inclined her head, an acceptance, but her eyebrow arched elegantly when she saw what he’d brought: flowers from the royal garden, a simple enough classification exercise that she probably could have accomplished it with complete accuracy two years ago.
He hurried, trying to get her to understand. “You need to brush up. So, how about you give the scientific name for each as quickly as possible?”
Anneliese’s fingers brushed the petals. “Well, this would be Tulipa gesneriana , this is Paoenia suffruticosa , Hydrangea macrophylla , Dianthus caryophyllus , and this one—” she met his eyes, smiling, “would be Rosa centifolia . My favorite,” she said shyly, “but you already knew that.”
Julian couldn’t help the blush that bloomed across his cheeks at her tone. “Yes,” he said, straightening his coat, “Well. Excellent work, Princess. I had–ehm, underestimated your capacity, so I’ll have to give you the morning off. Perhaps study these in the meantime.” He dropped, a little too loudly, a stack of literature on her desk. Only her favorites: Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes, The Count of Monte Cristo. With hardly a movement, he pulled a sliver of paper from the pages. “I’ll be back tomorrow on my usual schedule. I’ll take my leave,” he said, bowing.
“Julian,” she pleaded.
She was so beautiful and he couldn’t help it. He wanted…In lieu of words, he placed the sample of Rosa centifolia, a single stem of rose, across the top of Romeo and Juliet, letting his fingers linger a little too long.
She noticed, he knew she did, and his heart thudded. Fearing she’d understand his confession, his affection laid scathingly bare in front of her—
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“Anneliese.” He made a soft hm in his throat, bowed again, and swiftly left the room.
Back in his bedroom, he stuffed two tickets for passage by ship into a drawer. It was stupid idea anyway.