Chapter 21 - Maiden in the Carriage

The Prince hit his boot hard on the floor of the carriage, next to Alexa's head, who squinted and rolled instinctively. The coachman understood this as a signal to begin the journey, which caused the whole car to shake as the maiden fled from the Prince's large hands,

"A Greek mouse!" Although he had a falsely angry expression, his eyes betrayed his fun with the situation.

"It's a very serious conversation and it needs to be discreet, Your Highness," she said, once again escaping deftly from his fingers, slipping under his arm to the other side, taking advantage of her small size in the narrow space. Her escape techniques were usually very good, even for a trained warrior like the Crown Prince, but having no real escape from the wagon was a problem. For now, she just wanted to keep away from the prince's eager hands.

"Uhn, you really are a little sweet mouse… Besides the quick tongue… But if you came to share my wagon, did you finally decided to reveal yourself to me?" It was his question as he finally used his own body to corner the maiden in a corner, blocking her escape. "Shhhh… This game is exciting… The hunt… But couldn't you have picked a bigger place to make it even more tilitating?"

Matching his words, the carriage went through a hole in the road and Magnus hit his head on the carriage's ceiling, and Alexa took the opportunity to make another escape move. Between the Prince's cursing, threatening the coachman, and Alexa's nimble escape, the Prince hoisted her by the eyelets on the back of the maiden's dress, with a victorious, wicked half-smile. Another hole in the road, and both were thrown against each other.

Magnus parried the maiden's fall by pulling her toward him, and so they fell together in the gap between the two opposite benches. The Saxon Prince laughed hard while still suspending her up by the cords of her outer corset, Alexa using her hands and feet to keep away from the Prince's body. He said,

"No, you are not a little mouse. You're a kitten with puffy mittens!"

When he tried to pull her harder into his body, the Greek girl plastered the paper over his face with a flat hand.

"I told you, Your Highness, that you should stop treating me like I'm a commoner!"

As Magnus needed his hands free this time, to remove the paper from his face, she escaped and sat on one of the benches, panting and angry. All the effort had made her hands hurt again, and she looked at her palms to see if the bandage was stained with blood. This conversation with the First Prince was being harder than imagined.

Out of the corner of her eye Alexa noticed that he checked the paper with just a glance, but wasted no time reading the contents, just tossed it into a corner while sitting next to her.

"Don't you think the same? That this marriage is not good for either of us?" he asked, and took her hands into his. "Don't pull them or I'll crush your hands, I promise. I want to see those wounds of yours…" Magnus started to unroll the fabric around one of her hands, who protested,

"You don't have the right..."

"I'm a Prince, maiden. You slipped into my carriage. What did you want? Murder me? Rub a paper on my face? None of this will sound good, so act wisely and be cooperative."

"Nor will the story that the Royal groom humiliated his bride in such a cowardly way through a note, a not signed note, by the way."

He snorted, exasperated, when he finally took off the long strip of bandage, seeing some bloody spots on it, and then, the pitiful state of her palms. He made an expression of disgust, and began to roll the fabric again, carefully,

"For God's sake go see one of the doctors as we arr ... Oh, I forgot, you killed the doctors."

"I did not kill anyone. Who demanded their death was the Regent Prince."

He laughed, actually laughed heartily, and Alexa almost laughed too, but those deaths weren't funny at all.

"Well, new doctors will arrive. Just stop using your hands and don't let it get infected, you don't have to be the next to die."

The maiden nodded to his words, after all he couldn't imagine that she wouldn't die from this kind of injury, derived from the use of her gift. People usually used to confuse this with the stigmata that some martyrs had, but it seemed that the thought didn't even cross the Prince's mind.

"Why did Your Highness do something so cruel to your bride?" she asked, using the moment he was focused on the task of redoing the bandage.

"It would be better if Lady Cordelia and her vessels returned where they came from," he said cryptically, not bothering to deny that the note had been his own work.

Of course Alexa understood the power of such a fantastic dowry.

"She's a good girl, can't you just take care of her? If she loses everything after she have come this far, her life will be over…And it's not her fault, too..."

"Humpf, what are you talking about, what do you understand? Just be quiet, it's really impossible for you to be a maiden of a noble family with this crazy behavior," he grunted, finishing the bandage. "Look at me," he ordered, but his tone had a new fun tone. Alexa looked suspiciously out of the corner of her eye, which only made him crack a bigger smile,

"What are you doing now?"

"Uhn?" Alexa couldn't imagine what he was thinking, but he just nodded, saying,

"Right. You've been questioned once and done very well, but there are still a lot of questions unanswered. I'm not going to start this now, but I have a question you need to answer now."

"Which one?" she still acted suspiciously at his amused look.

"With my fiancee and family coming right behind us, how do you intend to justify your presence in my carriage?"

"Uh… Well, I don't need to justify, I just stay here where I am and come back as I came, if it's not a trouble for Your Highness."

"Very funny how you remember the formalities and good manners when it suits you… But so be it, you stay in the carriage, and keep your good-girl mask for everyone as I carry this wedding farce forward. Then we can continue our conversation on the way back.'

'Uhn, he's really thinking he'll have his way with me. What an arrogant fool,' she only agreed, for as she knew, she could not be seen by Cordelia or others, as her presence couldn't be justified.

"Of course, Your Highness," though Alexa did not like the sardonic smile the Prince gave as he leaned back in his seat, still watching her intently.

Soon they arrived, and Alexa could only see briefly the facade of the palace with a beautiful front garden, which would be the official residence of Magnus and Cordelia, Prince and Princess of Holstein. But he jokingly smashed her head down in his way out of the carriage, reminding her to stay hidden. Turning to close the carriage door, he flashed a malicious wink, seeming to be having a great time with the whole situation.

Not quite how Alexa had envisioned the whole situation, but she would be more incisive and serious on the way back.

She heard the loud chatter of Cordelia's and the Prince's parents, moving away from the carriage, and sighed, thinking it would be long hours of waiting. She wrapped herself in the traveling cloak the Prince had left on the bench, as it was a cold and misty afternoon. The cover had his scent, and it was good. Her body began to warm, and she shifted as comfortably as she could on the bench.

The maiden's eyes began to weigh with boredom, and she thought it would be no problem to take a little nap…

"Shhh… Kitten Kitten, you weigh nothing…" Prince Magnus shushed when Alexa woke up in his arms, being carried to the house. It was night.

"Uhn?!"