A Most Charming Prince

Four: A Kleptomaniac Cleaning Woman with a Prophecy

Rebec finished scrubbing the entry hall to the Summer Manor and rocked back on her heels with a satisfied sigh. As she suspected, the old goat leered at her from the door to the garden, watching her work, and by old goat she meant the farm animal who followed her about day and night to chew on her clean laundry and gaze at her in rectangular-pupilled adoration. But the mice were worse.

Master Répoute cleared his throat from the hall archway. She jumped, and knocked over her bucket of soapy water. "Aye! And there goes my clean floor under a muddy puddle!"

"Did I ever tell you, Rebec, that after we found you half drowned by the river as a small child, I paid a soothsayer to tell me your destiny?"

Rebec shook her head, confused. Normally, her master's presence during the hot summer months meant more cleaning or more standing about bored while holding a tray of dainty morsels she wasn't allowed to eat. His talking to her was highly unusual...but since he was talking about her and not the magnificence of his family, she perked up.

He nodded, staring at her rather like the goat always stared, but with round pupils. "Yes, I did. You still owe me three pennies for the prophecy, by the way. Would you like to hear it?"

"If I'm payin' three whole pennies for the pleasure of knowin', then yes I would." Three pennies was a week's wage. Not that she ever saw any wages once her room and board were deducted.

"She was quite the chatterbox when it came to you, my dear. Yes. Yes. She said your nature would remain hidden beneath a swath of rough falsity until the day you found true love. She said you would follow a line of dirty linens to your heart's desire, and that you would protect your true love's treasure from thieves. Also, on the sixty-eighth day before your twenty-first birthday, you would make him king of Darndiddle. What of that, Rebec? What do you have to say?"

"Sorry to say, m' Lord, but I'm afeared ya paid three pennies too many." She tossed a couple of towels on the soaked stones and began soaking up the water. Follow a line of dirty linens to her heart's desire? Surely a mess o' oppressive, propagander pigeon-coop filth dressed up in Sunday finery, the likes she'd never heard afore. As if washing up ever made any woman, anywhere, happy in her life.

Master Répoute took her arm. "Ah, but I put great stock in the destinies of all those in my house. We didn't take you in out of the kindness of our hearts. I have high hopes for you, which is why I have taken care of you, housed and fed you all these years."

"High hopes, m' Lord. I am yer servant, as always." She patted the intricate brocade of his doublet and bowed her head meekly. Oddly enough, his silver lapel pin came loose in her hand and she pocketed it, so as it wouldn't get lost.

For his part, Master Répoute breathed in deeply, unusually satisfied with himself. He had finally been able to put in motion the first step of his plan. Soon, dirty linens would lead the ugly, wart covered girl straight to his eldest son's bed, and from there to the alter. He was that much closer to being the father of the King of Darndiddle.

*** The villain has revealed himself! But what plots are brewing in his loathesome brain? ***