Chapter 3 #3
Or perhaps—and this thought twisted something painful in Jakob's chest—perhaps the prince simply wanted to ensure Jakob understood his place in the hierarchy. A reminder that challenging Christian Vasa, even in academic debate, carried consequences.
The sound of approaching footsteps made Jakob's shoulders tense.
He kept his eyes fixed on his work, the neat rows of figures blurring slightly.
A complicated mix of emotions churned beneath his carefully maintained composure—resentment at being discussed like a problem to be managed, grudging gratitude that the prince had apparently argued for him to remain in advanced courses, and something else, something dangerous he refused to name.
Because the truth was, despite everything, part of him had been drawn to Prince Harald from the first day— initially to the quiet Prince who had seemed so out of his element at a school that was created solely to cater to people like him.
But over the past few days of formation and classes and meals, he'd found himself noticing the thoughtful questions he asked quietly in the classroom and the way he sometimes seemed just as uncomfortable with his position as Jakob was with his own.
Jakob had found himself starting to believe despite himself that perhaps there was a world where he and the Prince could be friends.
Which made the prince's words to Commandant Lindquist all the more cutting.
Jakob dipped his pen in the inkwell, forcing his hand to remain steady. Whatever His Highness Prince Harald Edvard wanted, Jakob wouldn't run away from it. He would face it with the same discipline he applied to everything else. He would be polite, correct, and absolutely impenetrable.
After all, he'd learned long ago that for people like him, survival depended on understanding exactly where the boundaries lay—and the cost of crossing them.
He bent closer to his work, focusing on a particularly complicated bit of math behind whether he could improve the artillery positioning. The scratch of his pen covered the soft noise of steps approaching his corner until a shadow fell across his page.
Jakob started to rise, military training taking over, but the Prince raised a hand, stopping him halfway.
"Please," he whispered, barely audible. "Don't let me disturb you."
Autumn sunlight slanted through the library's tall windows, casting long shadows across the floor. For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Harald slid into the chair on the other side of the table, drawing a book from inside his uniform jacket and beginning to read.
"The Hobbit?" Jakob kept his voice low, conscious of the senior cadet's watchful presence. "I wouldn't have expected that in a military academy."
A faint flush colored Harald's cheeks. "It's not exactly approved reading." He glanced at Jakob's engineering texts. "Unlike your selection. Advanced Artillery Positioning?"
"Mathematics is mathematics," Jakob said. "Whether you're calculating the trajectory of a cannonball or—" he hesitated, then forged ahead, "—working out how far a stone will skip across a lake."
The senior cadet passed their corner. Both boys bent over their respective books until the noise of foot steps faded.
"About this morning," the prince began, his voice quiet. "In the Commandant's office—"
"Your Highness, please." Jakob's pencil pressed so hard against his paper that the lead snapped. "I don't need—"
"Harald," he interrupted. "Please? At least here." He gestured to their hidden corner of the library, this pocket of quiet between the military manuals and classical poetry. "And I think you do need to hear this. What Christian said to the Commandant—it wasn't right."
Jakob stared at his pen. A prince was asking him to use his given name. A prince. "With all due respect, Your— Harald," the name felt foreign on his tongue, dangerous and thrilling all at once, "I don't need you to fight my battles."
"No," Harald agreed, surprising him. "You clearly don't need anyone to fight your battles. But that doesn't mean you should have to fight them alone."
Jakob's chest tightened. He'd been fighting his own battles since he was twelve years old, since that frantic night they'd fled St. Petersburg with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Since his father...
"I appreciate the thought," he said carefully, each word measured against years of learned caution. "But Your— Harald," he stumbled over the name again, "you can't just... step in. Not for someone like me."
"Someone like you?" Harald's voice sharpened, though he kept it barely above a whisper. "You mean someone who is brilliant enough to calculate artillery trajectories and confident enough to do it in ink, rather than pencil?"
"Someone who doesn't belong here." Jakob gestured at his worn uniform, at the carefully mended seam along one sleeve. "Look around. Every other cadet here comes from generations of military service. Their fathers were officers, their grandfathers were officers—"
"And they've grown complacent," Harald interrupted.
"They know the theories, the traditions, but you...
" He reached for Jakob's engineering text, his fingers brushing Jakob's as he turned it to see the complex equations Jakob had been working on.
"You understand how things work. And not just how they're supposed to work based on manual and doctrine.
And I'm afraid we're going to need your type of soldier more than anyone anticipates, and soon. "
The senior cadet's footsteps approached again. They both fell silent, Harald withdrawing his hand from the book as if burned. Jakob focused on his breathing, on maintaining his military bearing and posture despite the way his skin tingled where Harald had touched him.
When the footsteps faded, Jakob found his voice again. "It's not that simple."
"Why not?"
"Because," Jakob said, frustration making him forget protocol, forget that he was speaking to a prince, "tomorrow morning I still have to milk the cows before reveille.
I still have to help my mother with the school's washing.
And Christian will still be there, waiting for me to make one mistake, to prove that I don't deserve—"
He cut himself off, horrified. He'd never admitted any of that aloud, not even to his mother.
"I'm not saying it will be easy," Harald continued, closing the book.
"But you belong here, Eliasberg. And the next time Christian or anyone else suggests otherwise, let me remind them that Riddarhuset's purpose is to train the best soldiers for Sweden.
Not just the ones with the right names and pedigrees. "
The afternoon sun had shifted, painting Harald's hair gold where it escaped his formal military cap. He looked, Jakob thought suddenly, far more like a knight than like the stern portraits of his ancestors that lined the academy's halls.
"I should go," Jakob said, gathering his books. "Evening chores." He hesitated, then added, "Thank you, Harald." The name still felt dangerous on his tongue, but no longer quite so foreign.
Harald's smile was quick and bright. "Until tomorrow's tactical class?"
"Until tomorrow," Jakob agreed, then remembered himself. He snapped to attention. "Your Highness."
The cottage smelled of potato soup and the remnants of the morning's coffee, warm and familiar.
Jakob settled at the table, wood worn smooth from use.
His mother ladled out bowls, steam rising in the lamplight.
The soup was full of last year's potatoes, fresh onions and carrots, and the broth was rich with cream and pale yellow bits of butter from their cows.
If there was a lack of meat, the richness more than made up for it.
Rachel bounced in her seat, dark curls escaping the ribbon she'd tried to tame them with.
She reached for the dark rye bread their mother had baked that morning, breaking off a piece with disregard for the proper way to slice it.
"Mama, remember how Papa used to say breaking bread brings good fortune? "
"Your father said many things," Sarah replied, her accent thickening slightly as it always did when Chaim was mentioned. She spooned the soup with careful precision, ensuring equal portions. "Most of them from books rather than common sense."
"But his books were wonderful." Rachel's eyes lit up. "I found his old copy of Spinoza today, the one with all his notes in the margins. His thoughts are so beautiful, even if I can barely read the handwriting."
Jakob caught the slight tremor in his mother's hand at the mention of their father's books.
They'd sold as many as they could after his death, needing the money that they'd bring far more than they needed the leather-bound volumes of Talmud and philosophy.
He cleared his throat. "How was school today? "
"Nu," Rachel waved her spoon dramatically, "we're working on anatomy in science.
We'll be dissecting a frog next week, which I find fascinating, even if Anna Larsson nearly fainted at the mere mention.
" She paused, then added with careful casualness, "Of course, it's nothing compared to what you must be learning at Riddarhuset. "
Jakob recognized the trap in her tone – Rachel had always been clever at getting what she wanted through sideways conversations. Just like their father. He took another spoonful of soup, buying time.
"Speaking of Riddarhuset..." Rachel leaned forward, elbows on the table despite their mother's disapproving click of tongue. "Is it true that Prince Harald is in your class?"
"Hmm?" Jakob tapped his spoon against the bowl's rim, a nervous habit he'd picked up from their father.
"Oh, yes, I suppose. I don't really know him well, though.
He's not about to hang around with the washerwoman's son.
" The half-truth sat heavy in his stomach, worse than lying somehow.
He could almost hear his father's voice: "The worst sin is lying to yourself, Yasha. "