Too Many Faery Princes

By Alex Beecroft

When Joel Wilson’s boss clears out the coffers of his failing art gallery and disappears, leaving him to confront an angry loan shark and his brutal henchmen alone, the last thing he needs to find, behind the bins at the back of his house, is a fugitive elven prince.

Kjartan has quite enough to do, defending himself against his murderous brothers in the competition for succession to his kingdom’s throne, without having to get involved with Dave’s financial problems too.

But they’re both going to have to make the best of it, because fairy tales run rough-shod over reluctant heroes. Especially if they start off with too many princes and not enough happy endings to go around.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alex Beecroft
• Release date: Nov 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386479109

Alex Beecroft

Alex Beecroft was born in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and grew up in the wild countryside of the Peak District. Alex studied English and Philosophy before accepting employment with the Crown Court where she worked for a number of years. Now a stay-at-home mum and full time author, Alex lives with her husband and two daughters in a little village near Cambridge and tries to avoid being mistaken for a tourist. Alex is only intermittently present in the real world. She has lead a Saxon shield wall into battle, toiled as a Georgian kitchen maid, and recently taken up an 800 year old form of English folk dance, but she still hasn't learned to operate a mobile phone.

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Dedication

To everyone who has ever written me an email of support or left me a friendly comment on any of my blogs. You make it all worthwhile. Thank you.

Chapter One

THERE ONCE WAS A KING who had three sons.

That was how the tale should have started, Volmar thought, as he eased his disintegrating bones on a throne grown too hard. What kind of a tale starts with There once was a king who had five sons and tried to live forever so he could afford to kill them all?

King Volmar of Vagar withdrew his stormy gaze from the sea that curled in steel-grey waves below the open balcony of his throne room, withdrew his hearing from the cries of the gulls, and looked again on the three dutiful boys who stood below the dais, as decked out, primped and prepared as their maid and manservants could make them. He sighed and motioned to his chamberlain with a creaky wrist. And the other one is...?

On his way, my lord. I sent a messenger only a heartbeat ago. He assures me the prince will not be long now.

He’d better not be, said the king, rubbing his fingers comfortingly over the sceptre carved from the queen’s thighbone. This was all her fault. Everything was always her fault. Or we’ll strike him out and go with the traditional number after all.

My prince...

Kjartan looked up from the pot of gold leaf he had been using to gild his nails and found the chamberlain’s messenger still there, hovering in the doorway like an omen. He raised an eyebrow in permission, and the elf ducked under the lintel and wrung his hands. You are to present yourself before the king. It is not a request, my prince, and your father is not a patient man. For your own sake, go see what he commands.

He has called for his sons. He will forget I belong among them. He always does, and I will hear of whatever it is later, sparing myself his company in the process.

For my sake then. He will punish me if I do not bring you.

All ten fingers glittered now, the same red-gold as Kjartan’s robes, the same as painted his eyelids and hung in softly chiming chains from the circlet that held back his sweeping silver hair. When he looked in the mirror, he saw he had already achieved perfection.

He had played every instrument in the citadel and read every book, interviewed every ambassador and won every game. He had walked all the corridors and knew the nests and names of the riding birds, had tried each one and learned their foibles. And he looked as exquisite as it was possible to look. He sighed.

Oh, very well. I have nothing better to do.

His brothers were there before him—naturally. For all their own disregard of their father’s wishes, they had none of them the guts to defy him. Not since Dagnar, the favourite, had been disowned and thrown to the wolves.

Bjarti stood closest to the grey stone throne, on the step of silver beneath it reserved for the crown prince. Though he was bright as a poppy with that red hair, he stood with the calm patience of a stone. A pair of swords crossed in scabbards at his back, and a morning star and an axe hung from either side of a belt otherwise decorated with the shrunken heads of his enemies. Solid as a stone, content as a stone, and every bit as clever as a stone.

Two steps down from him, on the stair of bronze, Tyrnir shot Kjartan a glance of profound disgust that turned into courteous welcome the moment he knew himself watched. Tyrnir wore blue like the sea at night and nothing reflective on him. Ornaments of unpolished stone, and a black-hilted sword with a blued blade. After the austerity of his dress, it was a shock to find him handsome as sunlight and topped with a fall of gold curls almost the same colour as Kjartan’s fingernails.

The youngest, Gisli, stood on the lowest wooden step, one up from the ground. It was a good thing—so said the king—that the queen had died when she had, for if there had been another son, the whole ground level of the king’s cave would have had to be lowered to fit.

At last you’re here! said Gisli. He came running across the mosaic floor to throw his arms around Kjartan’s waist and squeeze tight. He had Bjarti’s shade of polished copper hair, but otherwise a nature that puzzled them all—that seemed to be sad when others were sad, and to be happy when they were glad, instead of the other way around. Now we can start.

Thank you for that, youngest, King Volmar of Vagar said in a dry voice, as Kjartan slipped into his place below Bjarti, with a whisper of silk and a curling trace of the scent of honeysuckle. Since Kjartan has taken up all the time I had set aside in which to do this gently, I shall do it harshly and blame him.

No change there, Kjartan thought, watching a new-hatched moth make its way out of his father’s mouth and fly towards the light of the sea.

Today, the king went on, stopping carefully between each phrase to reinflate his lungs, marks the hundredth anniversary of my execution by the sea-people, at the instigation of your exiled brother Dagnar. I like to think that the intervening years have rubbed their faces in the fact that they didn’t win that one.

He paused to wipe a cobweb from his left eye. However, it seems the magic sustaining me can only do so much, and I have... a court mage leaned down to whisper in his ear, ...only a month or so left.

No! cried Gisli, apparently quite genuinely. Father!

Kjartan and Tyrnir shook their heads, one fondly, one in irritation. Bjarti just waited to find out what would happen next.

So each of you has one month, the king continued, unmoved, to prove himself worthy of inheriting the throne. As he wiped more moth larvae from his lips, his eyelids closed, apparently by themselves. He dragged them open wearily. There was meant to be more pomp and ceremony, but Kjartan spoiled that. So off you go. Do something impressive, come back in a month and a day with proof, and I will decide between you.

He waved them off with a testy gesture.

I will conquer a dozen countries for Vagar’s honour! Bjarti vowed, in a voice that appropriately enough was like two stones being knocked together. He bowed and left for the barracks.

I’ll...go away and think of something. Gisli darted up the stairs and squeezed his father carefully enough that nothing emerged but a cloud of dust. I’m just sorry that you... But I’ll make you proud.

I will bring you a score of the souls of kings and queens, imprisoned in a jar, to bury with you. Tyrnir watched his father’s face for a sign of approval, but Kjartan could not tell whether he got it or not.

When they had left, Volmar’s gaze turned jerkily to Kjartan. He felt it like a weight all down his spine. And you? Is there anything to you aside from the ornamental?

That stung, but only a little—a place irritated too often became numb in defence. It all sounds like a lot of trouble, Father. I’m not sure I want to be king.

Oh? A glint of interest, and he resented it for happening now, now he had grown comfortable with his father’s contempt. You would prefer to live under Bjarti’s rule—permanently at war with all our neighbours? Or Tyrnir’s, who has all his mother’s cruelty, and mine besides?

Gisli may yet surprise you, said Kjartan in defiance, though he felt as though the king had just emptied a chamber pot over his head. No, no, he would not prefer either. He could not think of anything worse. He is the youngest after all, and in matters like this the youngest always wins. It is some kind of law.

DO YOU MIND OPENING up today, Joel? The boss’s voice on the end of the phone was breezy as if with relief, and immediately Joel didn’t mind so much that his wet hair was dripping onto his T-shirt and his porridge on the stove was slowly turning solid.

No, that’s fine. Let me just see... He opened the drawer of the telephone table and rootled among takeaway menus and rolled-up bin bags. Yes, got the keys. I’ll be along in about half an hour. You sound cheerful this morning. Are you...?

I think I’ve found the solution to all our money problems. Mr. Ringle’s voice shook a bit as he said it, with excitement, Joel thought. But I’ll talk to you about it when I get there. I’ve got to see a potential buyer first.

Joel scrubbed at his hair with the towel slung around his neck and felt hope like a long-lost cousin sidle back into his life. No wages last month, no prospect of wages this, and the electricity bill had been on the table for two weeks, rebuking him every time he came in or went out. That’s brilliant news, Mr. R! Well done, you.

Mr. Ringle gave a breathy laugh. I’ll see you later, then, and put the phone down, leaving Joel to edge past his bike in the hall and return to the kitchen, where his breakfast could now have done with a knife and fork to cut it out of the pan.

What did that matter, if the gallery was safe?

He ate up fast, flung on the leather jacket that had been a lucky find in the Help the Aged shop, and wrestled his bike out of the door into another hopeful sign. After a long winter, the weather had turned mild and sunny. Paddington’s long streets of tall Victorian terraces were at their best under cool golden light, with crocuses coming up in the window boxes and sparrows fighting on the pavements outside the train station.

The blast of diesel and oil smoke, warm dust and mud on the road, gave way to the much rarer scent of trees as he cycled down Gloucester Terrace and across Kensington Gardens. The Teasel Gallery occupied a prime corner spot between Kensington and Brompton Road, its genteel bow windows facing both directions and shuttered fast with iron blinds.

Joel loved the place. It had been his ambition since leaving university to find an exclusive gallery to house his paintings, so that he and it could become famous and rich together. He loved the way that, morning and afternoon alike, light flooded through those big windows and stroked everything inside with white lines and intense blue shadows. As he opened up and rolled the security blinds into their boxes, with the snick and jangle that had become the start of the soundtrack of his day, he looked at the far wall first, where morning spotlit his canvases. The oil-paint-and-thinner smell he associated with freedom still clung to them, faint and fresh.

Percolator on, filling the airy white rooms with the scent of coffee. He grabbed a mug for himself as he went into the small office to open the safe.

With as much reverence—perhaps a little more—than he would give to his own art, for these things were the handmade works of the heart of other artists, he put the jewellery out on display. He felt guilty as he always did at the thought that they weren’t quite as unique as their makers hoped. Every artist seemed to think they were inventing something new, and yet every gallery he passed seemed to have variations on the same theme.

He worried sometimes—all the time—that there wasn’t enough originality in what the Teasel Gallery sold to give it the edge it needed. As he picked up the bills from the floor, three of them in red-topped envelopes, addressed in red ink, he was damn sure of it. They’d played it safe, and safe had turned out to be like one of those James Bond villain traps—like standing in a room that was being flooded, feeling the water slowly rise to under your chin.

But apparently Mr. R had a solution to all of that. Joel couldn’t imagine what it was, but he couldn’t wait to hear. In the meantime he indulged himself by moving the smallest of his paintings—the two holly leaves that, when looked at in another way, were actually two fighting dragons—into the window.

Oh, and there Mr. Ringle was, swinging round the roundabout in his reclining bike, a plump, bespectacled man in luminous wet-weather overalls, with a blue flag riding high behind him on a flexible flagstaff to alert sleepy drivers to the fact that he was there.

Joel threw open the door and went out to stand on the corner with a welcoming smile, just as a black Mazda accelerated through the red traffic lights, burst out of Basil Street and saw the flag too late. With a vain shriek of brakes, the driver swerved the car sideways, hitting Mr. Ringle with the back wing, throwing him and the bike, tangled together, into the middle of the busy junction. Revving hard, the Mazda mounted the pavement, pedestrians scattering out of its way, cut the corner, gained speed and disappeared up Knightsbridge.

After a breathless, helpless moment when Joel had to restrain himself from running out into the maelstrom of panicking cars, making everything worse, the junction ground to a screeching halt, cars jackknifed and stalled with horns blaring, and furious drivers yelled obscenities at one another out of lowered windows.

Picking as fast a way as he could between them, strangely clear of mind and numb of feelings, Joel ran to his boss’s side. Blood on Mr. Ringle’s head, on the pavement, streaking down his cheek. Blood on his collar and on his lips.

Oh God!

His eyes were closed; he lay limp as a sleeper, or as a dead man. Don’t move him! said a dozen episodes of Casualty in Joel’s head as his mobile seemed to leap into his hand of its own accord.

He dialled for an ambulance, waited—calm, calm—in the centre of the gathering crowd, as drivers sorted themselves out around him, and passersby drifted up to stare for a moment and then wander off in search of something more interesting.

Next of kin? asked the ambulance man when they came, briskly but kindly, as his mates strapped the still-unconscious man onto a backboard and carried him into the vehicle.

I don’t... His wife. But she’s not... The calm had grown quite thin by then. Joel was shaking, and he felt strangely impatient at the thought that the ambulance man didn’t know he’d been trying to get through to Mrs. Ringle for the past ten minutes. The guy should know she went to Tesco on a Monday and didn’t carry a mobile phone. It should be obvious to anyone. Let me lock up the shop. I’ll come with him until I’m sure he’s okay.

He wondered, miserably, as he rolled down the shutters again and locked every lock, how terrible a person it made him that in amongst the genuine horror and sympathy and concern for his boss was a small, serpentine voice that wished fervently Mr. Ringle had felt able to tell him how to save the gallery first.

Truly terrible, obviously. But though he felt sick with shame at himself as he hung on for dear life around the inner-city bends, he couldn’t make the thought go away.

Chapter Two

AFTER A MORNING SPENT being shuffled from one hospital desk to another, via long corridors sporting socially aware but not terribly good artwork done by the local community, Joel finally filled in his last form and was allowed to go to the hospital food court to buy himself some lunch. Here, confronted with the usual array of coffee shops and pizza places, he went gratefully into the small grocers and splashed out two pounds on a loaf of bread and a pot of Nutella, which would not only make him sandwiches for today, but breakfast and lunch for several days after, if he was careful.

He sniffed regretfully at the scents of chai latte and mocha Frappuccino wafting from the coffee shops, found someone’s abandoned mug, washed and filled it with water from the washroom. As he sat and put together a sandwich with the same obliging person’s abandoned knife, hastily wiped on a free napkin, he told himself to be thankful he had no mortgage, no house to repossess.

But that only brought home the very real prospect of defaulting on the rent, of his landlady gently but firmly telling him that she was sorry, but she couldn’t afford to keep on a tenant who couldn’t pay. No one to blame, but it didn’t stop the lead in his veins from weighing him down. He wanted to eat all the Nutella at once with a dessert spoon, then put his head on the table and sleep until everything got better without him.

Instead he got up, found the ward on which Mr. Ringle had finally been given a bed, and trekked back up sunlit corridors that smelled of urinals and antiseptic, until he could push open the final set of double doors and come quietly into the room.

Six hospital beds surrounded by green curtains, and patients on each. They looked at him briefly, making sure he was none of their business, and then notional, social privacy shields came down, and they pretended they could not see him. He pretended the only person in the room