The Princess

  Aria rolled down the window and let her hair get mussed. She felt extraordinarily free and happy. She had a day of no duties, she was alone in a car with a handsome, sexy man, and she had left her heavy corset at home.

  J.T. kept glancing at her until he could stand it no more. In a practiced American gesture, he put out his right hand, caught her by the back of the head, and pulled her over to kiss him while keeping his eyes on the road. “Good to see you again, baby,” he said, releasing her.

  She settled back in her seat, smiling. “Where are you taking me?”

  “First we’re going to your Royal Guard’s training grounds. Ever been there?”

  Aria laughed. “When I was fifteen I sneaked away one afternoon and hid in the bushes and watched the men train. They are all quite beautiful.”

  J.T. laughed. “They’ll take away your princess badge if they find out.”

  She laughed again, feeling very unprincesslike.

  The guards’ training ground was nearly a mile from the palace on a broad plain that had always been free of trees and was traditionally used as the site of tournaments and trials by combat. Around the edge of the two-acre plain was a long, low open-front stone building.

  When they were within sight of the men, J.T. stopped the car and looked. There were about a hundred and fifty men, all rather eerily the same size, all of them wearing nothing but a white garment that could only be described as a loincloth. Their nearly nude bodies rippled with muscles under sun-bronzed skin covered with sweat. They were involved in a great variety of sports: wrestling, archery, fighting with long thick sticks, sword fights with broadswords, hand-to-hand combat. Here and there was a gray-haired man wearing a red armband who now and then shouted at the combatants. Their gray hair did not lessen the magnificence of their bodies.

  J.T. felt as if he had stepped into a time warp. This scene, these men with their old-fashioned weapons, their primitive garments, the stone shed in back, was something from long ago. “Straight out of your thirteenth-century Rowan, isn’t it?” J.T. said softly, his voice filled with awe. Suddenly he realized he would like to train with these men. If there had to be fighting between men, it should be like this, not the dropping of bombs on anonymous thousands.

  “Uh-oh, they’ve seen us,” Aria said.

  A moment later, one of the gray-haired men blew a whistle and the guardsmen disappeared from the field, returning in seconds wearing long gray robes and standing at attention in a perfect line. They were an impressive sight.

  J.T. eased the car forward.

  “They won’t like that I’m here,” Aria said.

  “You’re their princess, don’t forget that.”

  “But they are very private people. Grans says—”

  “Stick by me, honey, I’ll protect you.”

  “Ha! They are my guard, my men, my…” She trailed off and smiled as the gray-haired man, now wearing a long, black robe, came forward to open her door.

  “Your Highness,” he said formally, “welcome.”

  J.T. and the captain of the guard looked one another over and judged each other quickly. “I need your help,” J.T. said.

  “You have it,” the captain answered without question.

  Medieval-looking wooden chairs were brought and J.T. and the captain were seated under one end of the stone building while Aria was given a chair several feet away. Contrary to Aria’s belief that she would not be welcomed by the men, they made her a little too welcome for J.T.’s taste. One man brought out a fat-bellied guitar that J.T. supposed was a lute and began to strum it, another man offered her cakes from a plate, two other men held out silver goblets of drink. And whatever they were saying was putting an enormous smile on Aria’s face. She looked like a princess of old surrounded by her handsome courtiers whose heavy, muscular legs stuck out bare beneath their scanty clothes.

  The captain looked from Aria to J.T.’s frowning face and smiled. “We do not get many visitors to our training ground and our princess has never been here.” He chuckled. “Except once when we were not supposed to know she was here.”

  J.T. smiled. “How much do you know about what is going on?”

  “Someone shot at Her Royal Highness,” the captain said, his mouth set in a grim line.

  “It has been more than that.” J.T. knew that he could trust this man. Perhaps because they were descended from the same warrior stock, but J.T. knew he could trust this man with his life. He told him that someone had tried to kill Aria in America. He told of the other attempts on her life and J.T. could feel the captain’s growing anger.

  “We have been told nothing of this,” the older man seethed. “In the past hundred years we have been relegated to doing nothing but opening and closing doors. Our king may have forgotten our true use, but we have not. We are ready to lay down our lives for our king and his two granddaughters.”

  “And the rest of them be hanged,” J.T. said. “I agree with you. I want her watched every minute of every day. I wish there were women who could stay with her in her bedroom. I don’t trust any of those women with her now.”

  “Perhaps there is someone. Come with me.”

  J.T. was reluctant to leave Aria alone with those half-naked men but he followed the captain.

  “There was a time,” the captain said as they walked, “when Lanconian warriors were the finest in the world. Over the centuries most of the people have turned to farming but a few of us have kept the tradition of training. We are not as much in favor now since Lanconia has been declared a neutral country.”

  They turned a curve in the path and rounded a grove of trees. Opening before them was a small clearing and here ten women wearing white, draped garments that reached only to the tops of their magnificent legs were participating in games like the men’s.

  “My God,” J.T. said with sharp intake of breath.

  The captain smiled. “Centuries ago, the women were trained beside the men. Beautiful, aren’t they?”

  J.T. couldn’t close his mouth as he looked at the six-foot-tall, bronzed goddesses wrestling and fighting. A whistle blew and the women lined up, and a dark-haired woman wearing a longer red garment started walking toward them.

  The captain turned his back to her for a moment. “Jarnel trains the women. She is also my wife.”

  J.T.’s eyes were on the woman. “No wonder you stay so fit.”

  J.T. and the captain talked to Jarnel and it was agreed that, somehow, one of the guardswomen would be substituted for one of Aria’s ladies-in-waiting.

  Later, as he and the captain were walking back to the men’s training ground, J.T. said, “Tell me, do the guardswomen welcome men like your men welcome the princess?”

  “No,” the captain answered. “Lanconian women are pursued. They do nothing to win a man; he must go to them. Of course there have been exceptions. In Rowan’s day sometimes the women fought each other for a man. In fact, that was the case with Rowan himself.”

  “You mean this Rowan I keep hearing about was the prize in a contest? Some muscular broad won him?” J.T. laughed.

  “I imagine the warriors looked somewhat like our guardswomen,” the captain said mildly.

  J.T. remembered the ten tall, beautiful women in the field behind him, their skin gleaming with sweat, and he stopped laughing.

  It was nearly noon by the time Aria and J.T. drove off in the Cord, three carloads of guardsmen behind them in old but perfectly kept black Fords. J.T. wanted to see a vineyard. He followed the directions the captain had given him and arrived just as the workers were sitting down to their midday meal.

  Aria often saw the city dwellers but these country people had too much work to do to stand in line to gawk at a pretty princess. They were stunned into speechlessness at the sight of her looking a great deal like their own daughters and sweethearts.

  “Your…Your Highness,” one woman stuttered while the others stood quietly, their lunches forgotten at their feet.

  “May we join you?” J.T. asked. “We brought
our own food.”

  The people nodded hesitantly.

  Aria followed J.T. to the trunk of the car. “We did bring food? Are you sure this is all right? They don’t seem very friendly.”

  “They’re scared to death of Her Royal Highness but I bet they’ll like Mrs. Montgomery.”

  He was right. It took Aria awhile to forget that she was a princess and the people a little longer to lose their awe of her, but it did happen. They ate and talked, Aria telling them about the wonders of America and the people answering J.T.’s questions about the drought and the state of the grapes.

  The Lanconians were a tall, good-looking people, both men and women slim and muscular from years of going up and down steep hills carrying big baskets of produce. They planted on top of the hills and lived below in tiny villages.

  Everyone worked, from toddler to ancient. Young women strapped babies to their backs and went up the hills. Quite often the men took care of the younger children and it wasn’t unusual to see a fifty-year-old man trailed by three four-year-olds.

  J.T. realized that he was looking at what had once been a great society but now he knew it was dying. There were so very few children in Lanconia. Here, sitting at lunch with twenty-seven people, he guessed the average age to be fifty-two. There were only four children under sixteen when there should have been a dozen or more. He knew that too often the young people left home at an early age, prowled the streets and cafes of Escalon for a while, then left the country altogether.

  At three o’clock he realized the people were impatient with politeness and wanted to get back to work. He asked if they could see the vineyard.

  He had been given a tour before but then he had looked at the place with disgust. Now he wondered if there was something he could do to help the economy of the country.

  Aria seemed to be happy, walking up the mountain with three women, one of whom had a baby that Aria seemed fascinated with, four guardsmen surrounding her about twenty feet away and watching the area with hawklike gazes.

  The women started picking grapes and Aria, without thinking, joined them. He smiled at the looks on the faces of the Lanconian women but they recovered quickly and picked alongside their princess. Aria passed out sticks of Juicy Fruit and moments later he heard laughter.

  He left her with the women and guards as he went back down the mountains to the old winery that was dug into the side of the hill. This year’s grape crop was the best in four years, but it still wasn’t enough to make a profit. The wine had to age for three years, so even if this year had been magnificent, it would be three years before the wine could be sold. And in three years’ time hundreds more Lanconians would be forced to leave the country.

  J.T. stood outside in the sunshine and held a bunch of ripe green grapes and watched the people carrying basket loads of grapes down the mountainside. If only there was a quick cash crop for grapes.

  Raisins, he thought. Men at war living on canned field rations might welcome the freshness of raisins. Maybe he could persuade the U.S. government to buy raisins along with the vanadium. Maybe his majesty the king would refuse to allow American bases in Lanconia if America didn’t buy raisins.

  As J.T. thought, he wondered how the Lanconians would take to the idea of raisins. They were a proud people and they might refuse to have anything to do with something as lowly as a raisin.

  “Have you ever thought of doing something with the grapes besides making wine?” he began, talking to the four older Lanconian men near him.

  J.T. needn’t have worried. Lanconians were proud but not stupidly so. They were willing to try anything to help their impoverished country. Their only concern was that if they used the grapes now for raisins, three years from now they would have no wine.

  “Next year we irrigate and we have a bumper crop.” The words weren’t out of his mouth before he realized he wouldn’t be there next year.

  It was six before he got Aria back into the car and they headed back to the palace. She was sunburned, windblown, and tired—and he had never wanted anything so much in his life as he wanted to make love to her.

  “Have a good time?” he asked in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

  “Oh yes, a lovely time. You seemed to enjoy it too.”

  “I did,” he said, somewhat surprised.

  At the palace they were whisked back into the present. Lady Werta was there, angry beyond words at Aria. Julian was livid and wanted to discuss her behavior. J.T. thought a couple of her retainers were going to choke when Aria thanked her guardsmen for watching over her.

  J.T. put his hands in his pockets and went off whistling.

  He felt more secure now that the guardsmen were watching her. The day had been a good one and he didn’t even mind the way Walters fussed over him. J.T. let the little man tell him all the gossip Aria’s unusual day had caused. There were stories of the crown princess drinking alone with goatherders, of Her Royal Highness working as a field hand. And some people were beginning to hate Lieutenant Montgomery, who was trying to make a monarchist country into a socialist one.

  J.T. sat in the tub and smiled.

  He didn’t think he could face dinner with Aria’s disapproving relatives and he was pleased with the palace system when he realized he could order dinner to be taken wherever he wanted. Walters told him how to get to the library and J.T. went there to eat and be alone and think.

  * * *

  Aria left the drawing room as soon as she could get away. It had been a heavenly day of laughter and then she had returned to the palace to find everyone treating her as if she were a traitor to her country. Julian was angry because she had been alone with “that despicable American.” The Lord High Chamberlain had berated her because he thought she was actually Kathy Montgomery and had been out with her husband and because her behavior was very common.

  But no matter what anyone said, Aria was deliciously happy. Maybe she had been so demanding all her life because, in her heart, she felt herself to be useless. Today she got some idea of how important her role was to her country.

  And how important Jarl Montgomery was to her life.

  It seemed that the happiest times in her life had been spent with him: cooking out on the beach, making love on the stairs, even crying in his arms had been a pleasure.

  She had been very disappointed when he had not come to dinner. She walked down the hall and saw one of the Royal Guardsmen standing as if he were a statue instead of a man. A few days ago she would never have considered speaking to a guard.

  “Excuse me,” she said politely, “do you know where Lieutenant Montgomery is?”

  “In the library, Your Highness,” he answered.

  “Thank you.”

  “You are most welcome.”

  She saw the briefest hint of a smile on his handsome face. Please and thank you, she thought. Magic words.

  She found her husband in the big library bent over one of the four long walnut tables, books scattered around him, the green shaded lamp on while he sketched on a pad of paper.

  “Hello,” she said when he didn’t look up. “Did you have dinner? What are you doing?”

  He rubbed his eyes and smiled at her. “Come here, honey, and look at this.”

  He showed her a drawing of gears and pulleys that meant nothing to her. She moved closer to him as he began to explain his ideas for bringing the grapes down from the hills via a motorized pulley system. He planned to use the motors of the derelict cars rusting in the fields of Lanconia to run the pulleys. “That’ll free more people to dry the grapes,” he explained.

  “Dried grapes?” she asked.

  As he explained about the raisins, she looked at him—and realized that she loved him. This was where she wanted to be more than anywhere else in the world: sitting here at night close to him and talking about future plans. She wished she were wearing a nightgown and they were in their little Key West home.

  J.T. was asking her a question. “What?” she asked.

  “Yo
ur little count mentioned a radio. Is there a two-way radio around here that I can use to call the States?”

  “I guess so. Who are you going to call?”

  J.T. pushed his chair back and stood, and when she stayed seated he took her hand and pulled her up. “Come on, let’s go find the radio. I’m going to call my father and see if he can get Frank out here.” Before she asked, he explained. “Frank is my seventeen-year-old Taggert cousin—knows more about cars than anybody else alive.” He was holding Aria’s hand as he strode down the long library then out into the corridor. “Last I heard Frank was mad because his father refused to let him join up. Frank in a good mood is difficult enough but Frank in a bad mood is not something I’d like to see.”

  “And you’re going to invite him here?”

  “We need him. If you had ships, I’d be able to help, but cars I don’t know too much about.” He stopped and asked one of the guardsmen where the radio was. Of course the guardsman knew and Aria led J.T. down to the northeast chamber of the vaulted cellars.

  Chapter Twenty

  ARIA came awake slowly, rubbing her eyes and yawning. She had been up late last night with J.T. and the man who she found out was the Royal Herald. His predecessors had cried the news throughout the towns but now he radioed his news. It was the first Aria had heard of him.

  It took two hours to get through to Maine in the U.S., then they had to wait while someone drove to J.T.’s father’s house and got him. Aria got to speak to Mr. Montgomery for a moment to ask him to say hello to Mrs. Montgomery.

  Later, J.T. had mumbled something about his parents making his life miserable when this was over.

  Mr. Montgomery said he would send young Frank out as soon as possible.

  It was midnight before J.T. walked Aria to her bedroom. He glanced at the two guards flanking the doors and abruptly left her standing alone.

  Now she stretched and wondered what he had planned for today. She knew that at ten A.M. she had to be sixty miles south of Escalon at a vineyard for the blessing of the harvest. She wondered what J.T. would do and say today, how he would make the day interesting.