Guarding Princess--Chapter 3

Mattie watched as her classmates helped move the benches and tables back to their usual places. She looked down at her dress and sighed.

“It’s okay Mat, we’ll make sure you work later,” David murmured as he passed her with a table.

“No, it’s not okay. I’m not an invalid,” she grumbled.

“Of course not. You’re just garmently challenged with a mother who will ring your neck if you tear that dress,” Frederick smiled down at his daughter and hugged her shoulders. “They aren’t going to hold it against you dressed like that.” He glanced towards the kitchen door. “Ah, there’s Agnes’ crew with dinner.”

“I thought we were eating with our guests,” Mat nodded towards King Otto who’d moved to chat with a few of the Guards.

“Otto would prefer to eat with the Guards. He hates formal functions as much as you do. Beatrice told him that we could eat here so she could spend more time catching up with your mother.”

Mat couldn’t believe her ears. “Then why the hell am I wearing this stupid dress?!” she asked through gritted teeth.

“Language, Mattie. Your mother’s rules and you know it. Besides, you will dress in this manner for all your interactions with the Guards outside of actual training, so you might as well get used to it,” he said sharply.

Mat inwardly flinched at the testiness she heard in his voice. “Sorry about my language. I’ll try to keep my complaints to myself in future.”

“That’s my girl,” he said with a smile. “Now let’s go fill our plates before the Guards eat everything.

Mattie knew she was in trouble as she followed her father to the table laden with food. She was glad that she’d be able to eat her fill, but the odds were good that her dress would not survive the meal unscathed.

She didn’t know what was wrong with her. She wasn’t necessarily a klutz, but whenever it came time to eat, she was all elbows. On one occasion she’d somehow managed to flick a spoonful of peas over the heads of three dignitaries only for them to land on the ambassador from Weiher. Luckily the man had a great sense of humor and spent the rest of the dinner trying to figure out the trajectory on how she’d missed the rest of the diners.

It wasn’t that she was a slob when it came to eating, in fact she was very careful to take small bites and to reach slowly, but nearly every night something would happen and there’d be butter on the ceiling or gravy on her hem. She sighed and reached for a plate.

“Nice dress.”

She looked up to see Wilhelm across the table, scowling at her.

“What is your problem?” she asked as she placed two slices of bread on her plate.

“You should be spending your time sewing and thinking about raising babies, not playing around with men’s work.”

Mat frowned at her father’s back. Not because he hadn’t said anything to Wilhelm. She appreciated that. No, she frowned because the lines down both sides of the table were moving so slowly there was no way to escape her classmate’s rudeness.

“I’m not playing Guard. I’m just as good at it as any of you boys and if I wasn’t, Captain Christensen would toss me out quick, same as any other trainee. So you just need to get off your high horse and accept the fact that I’m in your training class.” She added another slice of venison to her plate and because she was suddenly in a terrible mood, drowned it all in gravy, her dress be damned. She decided to forego any vegetables or desert and stepped out of line to eat in peace.

Of course, she couldn’t go off to the dark corner where she usually hid, not with King Otto to entertain. Her father wouldn’t have minded, and truth be told, she thought that Otto would understand as well, but she was her mother’s daughter and would not be rude.

Damn him, she thought. It wasn’t like she’d never heard such comments, but usually the men who made them shut up as soon as she showed them that she was just as strong and determined as the boys. And damn my mother’s insistence on politeness.

She’d wanted to make a comment on the fact that she knew Wilhelm was well past the age of twelve. She didn’t think she’d seen him try out in the two years prior, but even if he hadn’t, being the oldest wasn’t something he’d want publicized. In the Guards, the better you were was only as good as how young you were. Youth was not frowned upon. In fact it was encouraged that Guards show their worth early

At just barely ten, she was the youngest of their group and if she was able to beat the others at her age and size, there was no way they’d ever catch up. Wilhelm, as the biggest and oldest, had to be at the top of the class or his pride would never recover. She thought that was the reason he was so rude to her, but replying to his comments with questions about his abilities would earn her a sharp frown, and possibly a sharp whack, from her mother.

Mat let her plate hit the table a little too hard and some gravy sloshed over the edge. She wiped a bit off the rim with her finger and stuck it in her mouth before remembering where she was and what she was wearing. She glanced around and was relieved that if anyone had seen her actions, at least they weren’t staring.

◙◙◙

“Are you okay?” Frederick sat across from his daughter and eyed the plate full of gravy.

“Yeah.” She loaded her fork with a large mouthful of bread, venison and gravy. Frederick watched the gravy drip thickly onto the plate and was amused to see Mattie sigh and set it down in favor of a spoon. By using the edge of the plate to wipe the back of the spoon she was able to eat more or less without incident.

“Are you mad at me for not speaking to him?” he asked, taking a bite of venison himself.

“No, I’m glad you ignored him. That would just have made things worse. I have to deal with this on my own.”

Frederick didn’t like to see his daughter upset, but he knew he couldn’t smack Wilhelm for being an ass even if he wasn’t his best friend’s son. In fact, Frederick was sure Otto would wring Wil’s neck himself if he’d heard him speak to Mattie that way and he wouldn’t hold it against Fred for correcting the boy’s manners.

When Otto had written to him about his youngest son’s future, Frederick had assumed boy’s parentage would be common knowledge. But Wilhelm had wanted to be judged based on his own merit not that of his parents and now Frederick was going to have a stern conversation with him on the meaning of irony. And respect.

“What’s with the frown?” Otto asked, taking a seat on the bench next to him.

Frederick watched Mattie shovel more of her dinner in her mouth, ignoring the room around her. “Your son,” he murmured so to not catch her attention.

Otto sighed. “What did he do?” he asked, also keeping his voice low.

“Told her she’s not fit to be a Guard.”

“I’ll have a talk with him. I don’t know what’s changed. He’s always been a polite boy.”

They watched as Mattie turned to look at the table her classmates had gathered around. She only watched them for a second before she glanced at her father. Her slight jump at seeing Otto eased Frederick’s worry that she might have overheard. Even with Wil’s poor attitude, it seemed unwise to tell her of his royal status.

“Sorry, sir. I’m afraid I didn’t notice you sit down.”

“That’s alright. Um. You seem to have gravy on your shoulder.”

She sighed and mumbled, “Of course there is gravy on my shoulder. Why shouldn’t there be gravy on my shoulder.”

 Frederick hid his smile, my poor daughter with food issues. He silently handed her his napkin.

They finished their meal quietly and Mattie volunteered to take their dishes to the basket Agnes left in the room to keep everyone out of the kitchen. To get there she had to pass the boys’ table where Wil was sitting at one corner.

Frederick saw his foot, but didn’t have time to warn Mattie before she went sprawling.

The room went completely silent except for the metallic sound of a plate coming to rest against the stone floor. Then there came the muffled chuckles as some of the men tried in vain to hide their laughter.

Mattie lay prone on the floor for a full minute and Frederick began to worry that she’d seriously hurt herself before she slowly rose to her feet. Somehow, even though the plates had flown from her hands, the front of her dress was ruined by a large blot of gravy.

Frederick wondered how she would respond to Wilhelm’s prank. He wanted to grab the boy by the ear and toss him into the dungeon for the night and a glance at Otto said that he’d make sure his son wouldn’t be able to sit for a few days.

Mattie, it seemed, was debating the proper punishment for her tormentor and Frederick almost thought she was going to let it go without incident as she walked to the serving table. But no, she picked up the bowl that still held some congealed gravy and brought it back to where Wilhelm sat waiting.

“He should have run,” Otto murmured in his ear.

Frederick nodded as he watched his daughter smile sweetly before turning the bowl upside down over him.

Wilhelm stood up, but he seemed hesitant to retaliate further with their fathers present. He looked down at her and said something with a snide smirk that Frederick couldn’t hear. He saw Mattie’s eyes go wide for a moment before she replied and turned to pick up the fallen plates.

“I wonder what she said to him,” Otto said as they stood to walk back to Frederick’s office.

“We’ll find out shortly,” he replied as they stopped just outside the room to wait for Mattie.

She appeared shortly, her dress damp where Frederick assumed Agnes had tried to help her with the gravy.

“What did he say?” he asked, a bit more tartly than he intended.

“Oh, just that it was a girly move to dump gravy on him and that if I was a real Guard I would have hit him or something.”

“And you told him what?”

“I reminded him of Captain Christensen’s warning this morning about hitting while not in training and that I wasn’t stupid enough to risk my chances over spilled gravy. Then I told him he’d best be wary on the training field tomorrow.” She gave a genuine smile.

“Are you planning anything?” Frederick was a bit worried she might go overboard.

“Just that if I get the opportunity to hit him with my staff I will. He can’t complain about it to the captain without looking like a pansy, so he’ll probably come at me in some way and if there’s no one around, I’ll fight him for real.” She paused and looked up at her father. “Unless you’d rather I handle this some other way.”

Frederick sighed. He didn’t want his daughter fighting. Not because he didn’t think she could handle herself, but because she was going to end up with bumps and bruises from it no matter what. But he fully supported her decision to become a guard and he knew the only way she’d succeed is if she did this on her own. She wasn’t going to be his little girl forever and if she was going to be a strong queen he couldn’t always fix her problems, no matter how much he’d like to.

“Do as you must, but the consequences are your own. And don’t break him. Or yourself for that matter.”

“I’ll be careful.”