Chapter Ten
There was a knock on the door, followed by a louder knock.
Then another. It wasn’t a pleasant sound to hear upon waking, especially when your head was throbbing.
I should have stopped at five pints. Or was it eight?
Or was it wine? The knocking turned to pounding and included a bit of shouting from the other side.
He tried to roll over, but something was against his back.
Actually, it was someone. But there was another someone against his front.
And possibly a third between his legs, at the foot of the bed.
He tried to look, but everything was blurry.
Grunting, he rubbed his eyes. The door opened and someone entered, crossing over to the balcony and throwing back the curtains.
“Bastard! What are you doing?” Xavier shouted, trying to shield himself from the rays of sunlight that were burning his eyes.
“That is hardly suitable language to use in the presence of a lady… or three of them,” Tristan said, shaking his head. He avoided looking too long at the display of skin on the bed, a sight he had unfortunately seen a lot of lately.
“Bad language?” Xavier snorted. “That would be the least scandalous thing to happen in this room today.” He rolled over the bare body of one of the sleeping women and stood up. Naked, he walked over to his armoire and took out a clean pair of pants and an emerald green tunic, slipping them on.
“I’m sure,” Tristan mumbled, but loud enough for his brother to hear.
“What do you want, Tristan?” Xavier asked as he pulled on a pair of boots.
He could feel Tristan’s disapproving glare on him.
His brother would never be seen wearing anything that didn’t resemble royalty.
Even now, he was standing across the room in his hosiery and blue puffy-sleeved jacket.
And though they were wearing the exact same type of boots, Tristan’s were polished and shiny, just like his buttons.
There were only four years of age between them.
However, their personalities couldn’t have been more opposite.
Their responsibilities were far different from each other as well, with Tristan being the heir apparent to the throne of Labara.
He was expected to conduct himself in a manner that was appropriate for a future king.
And Tristan did at least attempt to behave accordingly, most of the time. His younger brother, on the other hand…
It wasn’t as if Xavier even wanted the throne.
He detested the idea. The pressure of holding an entire kingdom’s wellbeing in his hands would be stressful and much too demanding of his time.
So it was fortunate that he would never need to take on the role, so long as his father and brother were alive.
Tristan sighed and frowned at Xavier’s complete disregard for decency. It was becoming routine and his brother’s newfound hobbies were taking a toll on his patience. Had it been Tristan who was behaving in this manner, their father would have been a lot less tolerant.
Even so, Tristan thought it best to handle the situation himself.
He was trying to be understanding of his younger brother’s grief.
Xavier had been in love with a young lady, the daughter of a noble Labaran family, for the past two years.
Unfortunately, the woman in question was recently wed to a wealthy lord who was on his fourth marriage.
But Tristan found Xavier’s ill attempts of medicating his pain with wine and women to be foolish. It wasn’t as if either of them really had a choice in who they could marry anyway, being sons of the king. Xavier was lucky that, thus far, he wasn’t betrothed.
Tristan, however, was set to marry Princess Seraphina of Taten.
He’d only met her once when he was a child and she’d been a baby.
But the idea of his betrothal didn’t bother him, seeing as marriage in a royal family was done out of duty and not love.
He had come to terms with that fact a long time ago.
In fact, his wedding to the Taten princess should have happened three years prior when she’d turned sixteen years old.
But a disagreement between his father, King Nolan, and the princess’ father, King Leonard, had caused their engagement to become extended.
He wasn’t sure exactly when he could be expected to wed the woman.
“What do you want?” Xavier repeated.
“I want a great many things.” Tristan straightened his sleeves, pretending to ignore his brother’s sharp tone. “However, at this moment, it isn’t I that wants anything from you. It is our mother. But if you would rather, I can tell her that you’re occupied…” He gestured to the bed.
“No,” Xavier said, quickly. There were some things a mother just shouldn’t know of.
“Well then, shall we?”
Xavier glanced back at the bed, still covered with dozing naked women wrapped in silk sheets and shrugged.
He didn’t even bother trying to remember their names at this point.
He knew they would be gone by the time he returned.
His brother would see to it. And each woman would be paid graciously in an attempt to keep the situation quiet.
It wasn’t as if he cared to preserve his reputation, but it would anger their father to know that his son was treating women so callously. Xavier had a hard time feeling guilt when these ladies had approached him in the village the evening prior, after all.
He slipped out of the room and closed the door behind him. Tristan was waiting at the top of the stairs and they descended together, in blissful silence. The pair crossed to the northern side of the castle and exited, stepping into the cool morning air.
Out on the terrace, their mother was waiting for them.
The table was covered in sweet breads, biscuits, cheese, fruit, and wine.
It had been a tradition since her children were young to eat breakfast together on the first day of each week.
Lately, Isabelle had found it nearly impossible to gather all three of her children, even for a moment, let alone an entire meal.
On this day, however, she’d been determined to make it happen.
Princess Rianne was already sitting when her two older brothers arrived. Neither looked any happier to be out in the chilly spring morning air than she did. Her silk pastel green gown was getting damp from the dew on the stone bench beneath her.
She pulled her skirts close when Tristan sat down beside her, then proceeded to take off her ivory-colored gloves, placing them on her lap.
It was colder without them, but she wouldn’t take a chance of getting raspberry preserves on her new gloves.
Like Tristan, Rianne was fond of the finer clothes that being the daughter of a king could afford her.
And at seventeen years of age, she was already used to getting most of the things she wanted when it came to her father.
Isabelle reached over to kiss Xavier on the cheek after he sat beside her.
She could smell the alcohol still on her son’s breath from the night before.
He might try to hide it but she was no fool.
She also knew all about the women who’d accompanied her son to his chambers in the night.
She would continue to pretend that she was clueless, but nothing went on in her castle that she wasn’t aware of.
Even the hunt for wild boar that her husband was currently on, even though he told her he was taking a tour of the new stables.
“Good morning, Mother,” Xavier said. He picked up his goblet, which he knew would be filled with wine, his mother’s choice of drink for almost every meal.
He had to drink it or else he feared she would suspect something was wrong.
But the smell of the wine only reminded him of the shameful acts he’d committed the night before.
Slowly, he sat the goblet back down and opted for a simple slice of bread instead.
They ate in silence for a while, watching the wild geese that were landing in the lake near the terrace.
Isabelle knew that a short time later her two sons would be out near the same lake with their bows to shoot the geese, or at least a couple of them.
It was good practice for the boys and a treat for the castle servants, who would receive the dead birds as part of their meal this evening.
The routine of the kingdom had been the same for as long as she could remember.
There was little deviation from that routine as nothing much changed in their area of the realm.
Labara was the oldest kingdom in the southeast and the third oldest in Everealm.
The kingdom had earned and sustained a great amount of wealth throughout the years by exporting wine from its vast fields of mulberry trees.
They were also fortunate to collect from the silkworms who fed on the trees.
Merchants would travel from the furthest northern coast to acquire a bolt of fine silk or a wagon full of wine barrels, at a hefty price.
Of course, there were smaller vineyards all over the land, but nothing compared to a glass of deep, violet-red Labaran wine.
Isabelle took another sip and sat her goblet down, looking around at her children. Xavier looked miserable and tired. Tristan appeared bored and Rianne seemed ready to flee at any moment. Seeing no better time to share her news, she cleared her throat.
“It has been several weeks since we’ve all shared an early meal together,” she said. “And I know that you have much more important matters to attend to, so I will not keep you long.”
“We’re here for as long as you’d like, Mother,” Tristan said, earning a sharp glare from his brother across the table.
“Actually, the seamstress is on her way here to fit me for a new gown,” Rianne said, hoping it may excuse her. However, her mother paid her no mind.