Christine Rimmer - The Man Behind the Mask

I loved this kind of stuff and Brit knew it. “Tell.”

“In the mid-nineteenth century, King Solmund Gudmond took the throne. King Solmund was, shall we say, more than a little bit eccentric—enough so that by the end of his reign he was known as Mad King Solmund. In the final years before his death, he would wash his hands a hundred times a day and wander the great halls at night wearing nothing but a look of total confusion.”

“And King Solmund had exactly what to do with the passageways?”

“Before he lost his grip on reality, he had them modernized, adding more hidden entrances and exits, improving the internal mechanisms within the secret doors.”

“Fascinating,” I said, and meant it.

“Yeah. It’s become a minor hobby of mine, to hunt down all the secret hallways and follow them wherever they lead.” Her face was flushed, excited. I’d never seen her look happier.

Or more at home.

“You love it here.” There was a tightness in my chest.

She quirked an eyebrow at me. “Is that an accusation?”

I shook my head. “I guess it just hit me all over again. You’re really never coming home.”

“This is my home.” She spoke gently, with only the faintest note of reproach.

I scrunched up my eyes. Hard. No way I was letting the waterworks get started. “I’ll miss you, that’s all.”

Her mouth kind of twisted. She patted my arm. “Don’t forget the royal jet. Flies both ways. And the phone. And what about e-mail? You know we’ll be in touch.”

“I know,” I said and gave her a big smile. I didn’t want to be a downer, but I was thinking that visits and phone calls and e-mails could never stack up with her living directly across the walkway from me in our charmingly derelict courtyard-style apartment building. In the months she’d been gone, I’d come to realize how much I counted on her friendship.

East Hollywood with no Brit. Could it really be happening?

She grabbed my hand. “I know I’ve been neglecting you.”

Wrong. Yes, I missed her. Yes, I hated that I was going to have to accept that her life was different now and our friendship would change. But I did not feel neglected. “Oh, come on. You’ve knocked yourself out checking on me every chance you get. You’ve been crazy busy.…”

“Still. We’ve hardly had a moment to ourselves since you got here. I’m fixing that. Now. Let’s go to my rooms. We’ll talk till our tongues go numb. Do the mutual pedicure thing. You can mess with my hair.”

I had a way with hair. Other people’s, anyway. Mine was wild and curly and I pretty much left it alone. I fluffed the sides of her blond mop with my fingers. The cut was fine, really. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to improve on it. “Hmm. Maybe just a trim. Reemphasize the feathering around your face…”

“Who knows when we’ll get the chance again?”

I didn’t want to think about that. Hair, I thought. Hair is the question. “Do you have some decent scissors?”

“I’m sure I can dig up a pair.”

I bargained shamelessly. “You’ll have to tell me all your exploits since June. I get the sense it’s been action-packed.”

“One death-defying challenge after another.” She said it dryly, but something in her voice told me it wasn’t a joke. I thought of the scar on her shoulder.

Finally I confessed softly, “As if I’m going to turn you down, whatever we do.”

She caught my hand again. “Come on.”

“Let me grab my robe and slippers.”

It was cold in the passageway—all that stone, with no heat source, I guess. I shivered and pulled my robe closer as we hustled along.

Her rooms were in a different wing than mine, on the next floor up. At one point, we emerged onto a landing in a back stairwell. Brit shut the section of wall that had opened for us, leaving the wall looking as if the doorway we’d come through had never been. We climbed the narrow stairs. She opened a door—a real one, with a porcelain knob. On the other side was a main hallway.

She shot glances both ways, then turned a wide grin on me. “Let’s go for it.”

Giggling, we took off, racing along the thick Turkish runner as fast as our flapping slippers would allow. Around the next corner, with nobody else in sight to witness Her Royal Highness behaving in such an undignified manner, she led me through a door onto another back stairwell. We stood on a landing. She pushed a place on the wall—and yet another door opened up. We went through. She pushed another spot and the section of wall swung silently shut. I stared. The “door” was gone. All I saw was solid wall. It really was amazing.

Brit had already turned and headed off down the gleaming secret passage. I rushed to catch up.

Two more hallways, and she stopped to open another section of wall. She pressed a latch and the wall swung toward us. On the other side, a full-length mirror gleamed. Beyond the hole it left in the wall, I could see a bedroom even bigger and more luxurious than the one assigned to me.

We went through. She pushed a spot on the heavy gold-leafed mirror frame and the mirror swung silently back into place. “Wait here,” she commanded, and went out through a set of high, carved double doors.

I stood by the mirror and gaped at her gorgeous room. The heavy velvet drapes were drawn across the windows. Her bed was bigger than mine—could that be possible?—up on a dais, so much carving on the bedposts and finials, you could sit there staring forever, picking out the moons and suns, the longboats and dragons and mermaids with long, twining hair. Her bedding was crimson velvet, the sheets snowy white against the red. I mounted the dais and sat on the bed, pulling a round red velvet pillow into my lap. I was stroking the thick, soft pile when she returned.

“We’re alone,” she announced. “And look what I found?” She held up a pair of scissors, snicked them open and shut. “Also, my rooms are undisturbed.” I must have looked puzzled. She explained, “It’s my dad.”

I’d met King Osrik just that evening, at dinner. He was tall and lean. Good-looking, for an older guy. Distinguished, I guess you’d say. Dark hair going gray. Dark eyes—Valbrand’s eyes. Upon being introduced, I performed the Gullandrian bow Brit had taught me—fisted hand to heart, a dip of the head—and said how thrilled I was to meet His Majesty.

He gave me a regal nod. “It is my hope that you enjoy your brief stay in my daughter’s homeland.”

End of conversation. My sense was of a man very few people really knew.

The way she spoke of him, with such affection and humor, I guessed that Brit felt she knew him just fine. She went on, “You know I adore him, but he drives me nuts sometimes. He keeps tabs on me. He’s actually bugged my rooms more than once. Which means I’ve learned to seek out and neutralize all electronic surveillance devices on a regular basis. That leaves only my personal maid and cook and the ongoing fiction that the servants don’t spy for my father. Them, I give errands. Lots and lots of errands. Tonight is no exception. I’ve sent them off to do my bidding. No way they’ll be back before dawn. And since we came through the secret passageway, the guards at the main door to the suite don’t even know you’re in here. We have total privacy, a luxury I appreciate a lot more than I used to. It’s so rare these days.”

I was stuck on the part about the guards. “You have guards at your door?”

She nodded. “All the members of the royal family do.”

“You need guards?”

“Let me put it this way. The guards are there because it’s palace protocol. Of course, they’ll protect me, if a sticky situation arises—which it never has so far. In the meantime, they’re in a perfect position to report all my comings and goings to His Royal Majesty—” she grinned “—at least when I leave through the main doors.” I tossed the pillow back into the giant pile at the head of the bed. She added, “The life of a princess does have its little challenges.”