Knit, Tink

The Prince’s Ball is a dreadfully boring affair. It’s too bad that I am the only one in the whole kingdom that can’t get out of it.

“Calloway, dear. Please put on a smile, my love,” My mother, Queen Hazel Simone of Sairence said. To my father, King Ellington, she said, “You would think we were sending him to the gallows.” We gathered next to Ambrose who would be announcing our arrival

 “Happy faces,” she warned.

He blew obnoxiously into his trumpet. Once a hush fell on the gathered guests, Ambrose boomed, “His Majesty King Ellington, Her Majesty Queen Hazel Simone and His Highness Prince Calloway.”

Everyone applauded as we made our way down the staircase, the focal point of the palace’s grandest room which had a fancy name that I hadn’t bothered learning how to pronounce since I always called it the Ball Hall. Mercifully, my mother didn’t make me pose for photographs with them though I am sure she was itching to.

Instead, she gave me orders to mingle which to me meant find someplace to hide for the duration. I walked steadily through the crowd, smiling at passerby, and even chatted to a person or two. That was my limit for social interaction so, I scanned the nearby tables for an empty chair. Curiously, there was a table near the wall with only one girl sitting at it. Her natural hair was twisted up into an intricate updo and the sky blue gown she wore perfectly complemented her brown skin. The two tables that flanked hers were filled with people laughing and engrossed in conversation. The girl sat oblivious to the ball around her, her eyes downcast. At first I thought she was sad, but as I approached, I saw her attention was directed at the knitting needles she was moving skillfully and at an impressive pace. Needle and yarn danced together in her hands and I admit to being mesmerized by the sight. I hadn’t realized I’d been staring until she said, “Hi, do you knit?” Her smile was luminescent and for a moment, I forgot who I was.  

“Me?” I asked, as if it wasn’t obvious who she was talking to. “No?” I groaned at the inflection in my voice that made it a question. Was I really not sure if I knitted or not?

She smiled in response and patted the seat next to her. “Come on, I can teach you.”

It was her smile and her eagerness to teach me that made me sit down. As soon as I did, she handed the needles to me. “Okay, first you want to push the needle in your right hand into the first stitch in the row of stitches on your left needle.”

“Like this?” I asked, holding the needles up for her to see. The needles formed an x with the left needle in front of the right needle and the two needles were joined together by the stitch they were both in.

She nodded. “And then you wrap the yarn around the needle like this.” She wrapped the yarn around the back of the right needle and then forward between the right and left needle. “Then with the right needle, pull the loop of yarn through the stitch. Keep the new stitch on the right needle and slide the pulled through stitch off the left needle.”

I followed her direction. “You did it!” She praised me, raising her arms in celebration. Her energy was infectious and I couldn’t help, but join in. She pointed at the project in my hands. “You got the first stitch down. Now do it again.”

And I did. She coached me through it reminding of the steps when I forgot, how tightly to hold the yarn so the stitches would be even and how to start on the new row. As I knitted, I went into a sort of zone where I could forget about the ball and everything about it that annoyed me.

Suddenly, I realized I had commandeered this poor girl’s project. When I thought to return it, I laughed to find that she was working on another project that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Had she been prepared for a dastardly prince to steal her project from her?

“I’m Cal, by the way,” I said. “Thanks for teaching me this.” I dropped my title and my full name. For once, I wanted to be whoever I wanted to be. Though I knew inevitably something would come by to remind me who I was, for now, I would be just Cal.

“I’m Eloise,” she said. “Thanks for taking the time to learn.” Though her attention was on me, her hands were still knitting just as fast. She’d have to teach me her tricks one day. “None of these other fuddy duddies have the patience,” she said, gesturing to the other tables with her elbow. It was their loss that they didn’t have the patience and my gain that I could spend what could’ve been a boring night with a beautiful girl.

We sat in silence for a while with just the sound of our needles clicking against each other and the music my parents had hired for the occasion.

When the sound of her needles stopped, I looked up to see what was going on. She had stopped knitting and was looking past me, her eyebrows raised slightly. When I tried to turn around to see where she was looking, she held my chin to keep me from moving.

She leaned in and whispered, “Someone’s trying to kill you.”

She looked to her left and to her right without moving her head. She looked down and then nodded, “Under the table, quick as you can.” The urgency of her voice made me move. If this was a cruel joke, she would pay the consequences later, but there wasn’t any time to waste arguing if she was right.

Both of us slid our chairs back from the table and then eased ourselves down to the floor, careful not to draw anyone’s attention. Everyone was occupied with their conversations and didn’t seem to notice us. Once on the floor, Eloise lifted the tablecloth up, so I could make my way underneath and she followed behind me replacing the tablecloth in its place so any passerby would be none the wiser.   

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

She rummaged through an oversized purse that was overflowing with yarn and knitting needles. “I told you,” she said. “Someone’s trying to kill you or kidnap you. I didn’t think it prudent to go up to them and ask which.”

“What makes you think someone’s trying to kill me?”

“A couple of angry looking men with bulging jackets obviously concealing weapons.” She spoke almost as fast as her hands moved when she knitted. “This is the farthest spot from the stairs, so it stands to reason, they would’ve already looked everywhere else. And you are the only person of importance in the immediate vicinity. Ergo, call me crazy, but I don’t think they’re here to wish you a long life. Ahh! There you are!” She pulled out a set of needles that looked exactly like the one’s she’d been using all along. She put her thumb on the flat end of the needle and pushed in. With a spring, the needle unfolded into a dagger with a 1 inch wide blade. “And Arthur said don’t bring the dagger needles,” she murmured to myself. “Who’s laughing now, huh?”

She passed the dagger to me handle first. “Stay put, okay. And if anyone comes, stab them with the pointy end.”

She took the other needle in the set for herself and pressed the button to activate it. Then, she left from under the table before I could even think to ask her to stay.

Long moments passed while I held tightly onto the dagger. I could still hear the music, but nothing else that would be a cause for alarm. This is just a joke, I tried to tell myself. I’m going to come from under the table and everyone is going to laugh at how gullible I was.

There was a knock on the table above me and I stifled a scream in response. “Your highness, are you there?” I heard someone say. “Come quickly, we must get you to safety.” The tablecloth rose and I recognized the man looking back at me as one of the Palace Guard’s, his name though escaped me.

He grabbed my arm to help me up. The scene was as I left it, people chatting and dancing without a care in the world.

“Your highness?” The guard tapped my shoulder. “We need to move.” But where’s Eloise? I wanted to ask. Was it really just a joke?

I was escorted out with a total of five guards in tow. Something was definitely going on. They took me to the throne room where my parents were already waiting. My mother rushed to me.

“My dear baby. Are you alright? Let me have a look at you.” She held me away from her at arm’s length and then brought me in for a tight hug. “I am so glad you’re safe.” She pulled away and glowered at the guards accompanying me. “Where were his guards? Why wasn’t he protected? Whose neck is about to end up on the chopping block?” That’s my mother for you. She could be a dove one second and a fire breathing dragon the next.

The guard that had found me spoke. “We had not perceived the threat as quickly as Ellie die.”

Someone groaned behind me. I turned and there was Eloise, her dress was rumpled and her bag was gone, but she still looked put together.  She came to stand next to me. “My name is Eloise, Artie,” she said, staring pointedly at the guard that spoke.

“It’s Arthur,” he grumbled in response. To the queen, he said, “This is my sister, Eloise. She noticed the threat and directed the prince to hide. She alerted me so that we could get your Majesties out and then return for the prince. We thought it best not to raise the high alert which would disturb the guests and the would-be kidnappers.”

“So, someone really was trying to kidnap me,” I said. It wasn’t a joke.

Arthur nodded. “If it weren’t for Eloise, they would’ve. Eloise and two of our guards quietly disarmed them. They are currently being held in the dungeon to await questioning.”

I looked at Eloise in amazement. Eloise, who just a few hours ago taught me how to knit and also somehow took down a bevy of would be kidnappers meant to do me harm.

My mother tapped her finger to her lips. I knew how dangerous that expression was. It most often meant she was going to come up with an idea that I didn’t like.

“Miss Eloise, you have proven yourself capable of keeping my son safe. If there was an open guard position, it would be yours. Instead, my son is in need of an assistant. You shall take on that role and if you happen to save him from anyone that wishes to do him harm, then we can consider that a bonus.”

I groaned. “Mother, are you really setting me up with a babysitter like a child?”

She leveled me with an intimidating glare. “Your safety is the only thing that matters. We cannot have a repeat of tonight’s events. Do you understand?”

For one blessed night, I’d forgotten who I was and what would be at stake should anything happen to me. Were I a regular guy I could live as I pleased, but I did not have that luxury.” Of course,” I said. “I understand.”

From that day on, Eloise became my assistant and I had no choice in the matter, not like I was complaining. She was a skilled fighter, but also intelligent and funny and a little weird at times if I’m being honest. She had a way of seeing the world that could only see the good and it in turn made you want to see the good, too. Every day when all of the work and obligations were done we’d sit together by the fire and knit. Actually, she had made herself a knitting nook by the fire and I joined her one night and she never made me leave. It became tradition for us. I would never be as good at it as she was and I always made mistake after mistake.

One day, I showed her the mess I made, begging for advice or help.

She’d tell me, “It’s not that serious, just tink.”

“Tink?” I asked her.

She smiled that infectious smile. “It’s knit spelled backwards. It’s when you pull the stitches loose one by one and start over. It doesn’t matter what mistake you make, you can always tink back to before you made it.”

As you can imagine, you don’t spend as much time as we spent together without it meaning something. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves in a bit of a predicament.

“Eloise, please. Can you hold on a second?” She was speed walking down the palace halls away from me, and I was right behind her.

“Do you realize what you’re doing? This is not a game”

I jumped in front of her path, and shot my hand out to keep her from getting away. “Of course, it’s not,” I said. “I love you, Eloise. What’s so wrong about that?”

“This can’t happen. You know that. Why won’t you stop pushing?”

“You won’t tell me why,” I said. “You love me. I know you do, so why can’t we be together.” I tried to look in her eyes for the answer. The proof I knew would be there, but she wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“Just let me do my job, Calloway. Don’t make this hard for me.”

“I want to be with you, Eloise!” I yelled and I didn’t care who heard. “Is there something about that that you’re not understanding?”

“Calloway, get this through your head. You’re going to marry a princess or some other daughter of the aristocracy, and you’re going to have loads of children and it will be my job to keep you all safe. Even if you don’t want to see the line between us, that doesn’t mean it’s not there. We can’t cross it no matter how much you want to or how much you think you love me. So just drop it already, please.”

I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I thought back to do the day we first met. How much easier things were then. Sure, I almost got kidnapped that night, but things were easier. “Can’t we just tink back to when we were just a boy and a girl knitting at a party?”

She shook her head. “No, we can’t because we were never just a boy and a girl, were we?”

She was serious. There was nothing I could say that would convince her otherwise. “I can’t force you. You can pretend you don’t feel the same way all you want, but I know better. You can run away, but me, I’m not going anywhere.”

I would not be the first to walk away. If she wanted to leave then she would have to be the first to go. But she didn’t leave and I was surprised when I saw the first teardrop fall down her cheek.

“You want to know why?” Her voice was thick with tears. “Why I won’t let you love me? It’s because I was told if you fell in love with me, I would be forced to leave. The Queen said she will not have a commoner for a daughter in law and she will not risk her son laying down his life for some peasant. It doesn’t matter how much you love me or that I love you. I’m not strong enough to walk away from you and I don’t want to lose you, so for both of our sake’s, can you please, please just leave it alone?”

She loves me? I knew it, but hearing her say it still made me hear soar. And then it plummeted when I remembered what else she said. “My mother said what?”

“Calloway…”

“You think I’m going to let her keep me from the best thing that ever happened to me?” I grabbed for her hand. “Come with me.”

I found my parents in their office. I announced, “I love Eloise and there is nothing either of you can do about it.”

My mother put down the document she was reading and laughed, “You will do no such thing,” she said. “Do not forget. I am your queen.”

“And I will be king,” I shot back

“Not yet,” she said. “So you would be wise to remember your place.”

I pointed to Eloise. “My place is wherever she is. If you force her to leave, you lose me, too. That means no heir, no next in line. Watch as the future of Sairence crumbles because of you.”

“Hazel…” My father begged.

She shot her hand up to silence him. “I will not be threatened.”

I scoffed. “Come on mother, you’ve taught me well. We do not threaten. We promise.” I held Eloise’s hand in mind and spared my mother one final glance. “You will not touch her. You hear me? I will sacrifice everything else for this kingdom, but not her. Do you understand?”

For an entire lifetime, it seemed I’d forgotten who I was. It took a girl at a party who taught be how to knit to remind me. I will be King and there was nothing I wouldn’t do to fight for the woman I loved. Hand in hand, we would brave whatever the world had in store.