Two Steps

He wouldn’t be my first kill.

My hand rests on my thigh. Running my thumb up and down over the fabric I can just feel the bone hilt of the dagger sheathed beneath it, cool against my skin. Neat notches are carved into the base, each a life cut short.

No. Definitely not my first kill.

Not a hard kill, either. One arm around his shoulder to reel him in, keep him still. The other reaching across his front, pulling back to drag my blade across his throat, before both hand and knife disappear into the overlong sleeves of my gown. One smooth motion, simple as breathing. Step in, step out.

Two steps, to change the fate of a nation.

The Prince sits beside me, legs swinging back and forth. He sneaks yet another glance at my pouch - one of mere interest, nothing so concerning as suspicion. Still, I pull my cloak tighter around myself at the next gust of wind, concealing it from view. The contents of the pouch aren’t themselves incriminating - scraps of rope, some parchment, folded to obscure the writing on it - and certainly not to a child, but you can never take too much care. The coachman may not be looking into the carriage Her Highness bade us take, but he can still hear, and it is vital that no one suspect.

A jab at my side. I have but the one blade, strapped to my left, and the boy on my right with only myself between the two. I felt curiously underdressed whilst stepping out this morning, but it was the right choice, to arm myself with nothing else. For one, it would speak poorly of my abilities, to need multiple tools for so simple a task. For another…

A second jab, this one more impatient and less aimed.

For another, anything else - a second knife, a quiver of darts, the leather corset that serves as a discrete armour - would have doubtless been soon discovered by the Prince’s wayward limbs.

I look down at him, questioning, before I catch a third elbow. 

“How far until the market?”

Ah, the market. One, carefully timed, carefree comment to spark the fuse of a nine year old’s excitement, the private patronage of Her Highness, and here I am, solely responsible for the youngest royal for the day. 

I give him some vague, non-specific answer. Useless, but he seems satisfied. He asks what we’ll find when we arrive. I recycle the answers I gave him when he first overheard me mention the place, with new details and embellishments, not caring that they may contradict my previous responses. He accepts whatever I tell him easily, regardless.

Easily satisfied. Accepting.

Useless.

He should be an easy kill.

The carriage halts suddenly - I hear the horses squeal in complaint. The coachman makes some noises about a tree blocking the road. I’d offer to help him clear it, but he doesn’t expect me to, and right now it’s vital I play to expectations. A frail woman am I, companion to the eldest Princess, here only through exceptional circumstance and the Queen’s fortuitous favour. That is who I have been asked to be, and now more than ever, that is who I must remain.

The Prince turns to me again, eyes bright. “Could it be bandits?” he asks, voice hushed, but face thrilled in the way only a child’s can be, sure of his own safety even as he continues to ask if we are in danger, if we shall die, if “my enemies have found us at last.”.

I’ve never been one for metaphor, but I can almost feel the parchment in my pouch flutter.

Ah, dramatic irony. I can see this scene as part of some stage-play, with myself the villain. “Are we to die here, you and I?” he’d ask. “Not I, your Highness,” I’d reply. Perhaps I’d bend low, the mockery of a loyal servant. With one hand, I’d reach for my dagger, through the concealed slit in the skirt of my gown. Perhaps I’d reach for the Prince’s own with my other, draw it close to my mouth. From my new vantage point, I’d plunge my blade deep into his stomach, and whisper “Long Live the Prince” against his fifth finger, bare - he wears no signet, what need has a child for one? I’d pull out the knife, stained in the pig’s blood of the theatre, and make my escape to the sobs and boos of the spellbound audience, not to return until my righteous downfall at the end of the third act. And the young Prince would fall with the curtains, face forever frozen in shock and terror.

I see it all too well. He’s still talking, here in the present, moving from highwaymen to smugglers to pirates and privateers. He’s animated, face alight with joy at the prospect of harrowing battles with murderers and thieves. I have one ear listening for the coachman’s return, and the other half-attentive to the Prince’s chatter. And all I can see is that frozen face, conjured by my own mind, my own worst enemy. 

He would be such an easy kill.

But he’s so young. 

I hear the coachman climb back into his seat. The moment is over, the hesitation ought to end with it.

There is an old children’s tale, where a huntsman led a young princess into the forest to kill her at the request of his Queen. Our respective Queens have vastly different motives, to be sure, but the parallels are not lost on me.

I have killed nearly a dozen people at Her Highness’s behest. I am yet to truly regret one. They were not all bad men, perhaps, but they needed to die nonetheless. In death they each served a cause greater than any they might have done alive. 

Our Kingdom is weak, and its King weaker still, and the Lords and Dukes squander the wealth their serfs labour long hours to produce. Children starve and men work themselves to death and women sign away their lives and love, and all to perpetuate the pleasure of the handful of people who possess real power. In that world, what are the deaths of a few, if they will ultimately save many? The nobility is full of weak men who think themselves strong, and as such are a threat. They need careful pruning, and I - in the service of my Queen - provide. 

Killing the Prince is effectively no different. It carries with it greater risk perhaps - the death of a Prince will merit more thorough investigation than that of a mere Baron. But it is necessary and it will save lives, and it has been sanctioned by the Queen herself, who has yet to lead me astray.

Yet it is different. I have killed nearly a dozen people but not one has been younger than I. His Highness is but a child. I will not pretend that is not wrong.

In the story, the huntsman cannot bring himself to kill the princess. He lets her go free, and warns her to never return. An act of kindness.

I always read his motives as selfish. He could neither bring himself to kill the princess, nor to take responsibility for her life. His choice is one of fear. He felt he could not live with himself if he obeyed his Queen - he knew his Queen would not let him live if he failed. Too scared to kill, too scared to not. Afraid.

I’ve felt fear before. Often. And for myself. Never of my death, though. Life itself holds horrors aplenty. 

Killing children is wrong. Killing the Prince, is wrong. 

Yet I know that he cannot live. 

The huntsman was selfish. He feared his own death, for his own sake. Am I better or worse, for fearing only the thought of betraying the trust of my Queen.

We’re nearing the market now. The carriage will pull to a stop just outside of town, a short walk away. It will journey on - the coachman has duties of his own. A short walk, me and the Prince, alone. So the stage is set. Step in, step out.

The Prince is talking now about how he’d defeat potential threats to the throne. The plan seems to involve angels. He throws his arms wide, hand in front of my face, and I recall that image, that frozen face, those dead eyes. Shock and terror and dread.

No betrayal. It would be an act of betrayal of course - treason, betrayal of the highest order. But what is betrayal in the face of pure fear? He wouldn’t understand, and he doesn’t suspect, so he’d have no chance to feel betrayed.

He cannot understand why I might do him harm, and that naivety is precisely the reason I must.

The Kingdom is weak and its King still weaker, and if nothing changes neither will last long. 

His Majesty is in his last days - the current reign draws to a close, and the future of the nation has never been less certain. This Prince, this child sat beside me, kicking his legs and flailing his arms, narrating naval battles now, cannot be allowed to take the throne. To hand him the Kingdom would be to hand it over to the very noblemen who let it come so close to ruin. It would be displaying weakness, flaunting it, inviting attack and revolt from enemies within and without. 

Battles are fought by soldiers. Soldiers must be fit and loyal. Fat men on horses do not wars win - soldiers must come from the masses, and you can never have the loyalty of the starving. Should the Kingdom be called to arms, it will fall. And when Kingdoms fall, anyone might pay the price.

So the Prince cannot be allowed to take the throne. The nation is in no state to survive a war, a Boy King is no deterrent, and any aides he may take would come from the ruling King’s Court, and they are all self-serving or stupid or both.

Instead, the first Princess, to whom officially I am companion, is both of an age to rule alone, and capable enough to be trusted to do so. She is just, and intelligent, and has been raised on the arts of diplomacy and subterfuge as only women ever are. The crown must go to her - there is no other choice - and that will never happen as long as a male Heir lives.

My eye lingers on the Prince’s hand, then falls to my own. His fingers are unadorned; I wear on my left hand a ring bearing the Queen’s seal. It is an irrefutable sign of her favour, and that favour was hard earned.

I could let the Prince live, and betray that trust in doing so.

Her Highness has no need of a seal, bearing no official power. The ring is symbolic, but it is also a covenant, between her and every woman she bade wear one, an oath of loyalty and of secrecy.

Would she be at least sympathetic, if I could not follow through on my task?

This will be a murder in two acts. The curtains draw on the first with the killing of the Prince, and will open for the second once I’ve dressed the set appropriately for raising the alarm.

The dagger disappears back under my tunic, the ring alongside it. The pouch is untied, emptied and discarded some distance away, left to the wind. The parchment is unfolded and placed near the prince, the letter the calling card of some rogue faction of nobles that never existed. The rope loops around each of my wrists in turn, tight and rough, reddening them to leave them as marked as they would be had I truly been restrained during an assasination. Then the rope too disappears.

The curtains will open with me, muddied and stripped of all valuables, pushing myself off the ground, stumbling over to the Prince’s body and yelling for help. When the coachman returns, we will bring him back to Court. The Kingdom will mourn. A traitor will be produced, a Lord ill liked and known for knowing people a little too well. He will not be missed. Likely he will be executed for orchestrating the Prince’s death, though his accomplices will curiously never be found. 

And at some point, that first night, Her Highness will seek me out, as she always does. And I shall offer my condolences, and she will look me in the eyes and thank me, her sole acknowledgement of the events of the day. I will carve a new notch into my dagger, and with that the whole matter shall be ended and behind us.

Everything as planned and everything in its place. 

The Queen would not sympathise at all. Perhaps that is right too. If she can order the death of her son, she can hardly be expected to muster sympathy for a woman unknown to him who cannot deliver.

Could I betray her and everything she’s worked for, that she’s allowed me to help her work for?

Should I?

We have once more drawn to a halt. I step down. The Prince nearly falls over himself in his eagerness to leave the carriage.

I slip a hand through my tunic to brush the hilt of my dagger, just the once. Just testing. The Prince is distracted by the horses as they pull away.

There is no more time. There can be no more hesitation.

Sometimes there is no good decision, no clear course of action or moral high ground. Every choice you have is wrong, and yet still you must choose. 

My black ring glints in the sunlight.

I start to walk forward. The Prince has run ahead, but now he stalls, unsure of the way.

All I know is this. In the coming days, there will be a death, followed by the crowning of a new monarch. For as long as this boy is alive, that new monarch will be him. If he is crowned King, people will die.

The Prince looks back at me, face awash with excitement, body thrumming with poorly concealed impatience. The street is empty, and he has stopped just before a fork - he doesn’t know which way to turn. I walk leisurely - I’ve nearly caught up.

Perhaps people will die anyway. Perhaps not all people can be saved. But if this boy dies, more lives will be saved than if he does not.

And I would not have come all this way if I had not already long decided what I must do.

I’m just two steps away from drawing level with him. My left hand rests on my thigh.

No more hesitations. No more pretence. There has always been but one way this day would end.

Two steps. One easy kill.

My right arm reaches out for his shoulder.