Page 2 of Untouched Queen by Royal Command

‘It’s art, you moron.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I wish we could see better in here,’ his sister said.

‘For that we would need electricity. Or burning torches for all the holders in the walls.’ He closed his eyes and a picture came to mind, clear as day. Not knights and warriors living in this part of the palace and bathing in this room, but women, bound in service to the reigning King.

Augustus had never read about any of his ancestors having a harem, but then, as their eighty-year-old history teacher was fond of telling them, not all facts made it into their history books. ‘So, bedrooms, communal bathing room, big gathering room…what else?’

There were more rooms leading from the centre dome. An ancient kitchen, storage rooms with bare shelves, larger rooms with fireplaces, smaller rooms with candle stubs still sitting in carved-out hollows in the walls. They found chests of drawers and sideboards beneath heavy canvas cloth, long mirrors that his sister swore made her look thinner, and even an old hairbrush.

‘I don’t think people even know this stuff is here,’ Moriana said as she put the brush gently back into place. ‘I don’t know why they’re ignoring it. Some of it’s really old. Museum-old. The back of this brush looks like ivory, inlaid with silver, and it’s just been abandoned. Maybe we should bring the history prof down here. He’d have a ball.’

‘No.’ His voice came out sharper than he meant it to. ‘This is a private place. He doesn’t get to come here.’

Moriana glanced at him warily but made no comment as they left the side room they’d been exploring.

All doorways and arches led back to the main room. It was like a mini town square—or town circle. He looked up at the almost magical glass ceiling. ‘Maybe our forefathers studied the stars from here. Mapped them.’ Perhaps he could come back one night and do the same. And if he took another look at those naked people tiles in the room with the empty pool, so be it. Even future kings had to get their information from somewhere. ‘Maybe they hung a big telescope from the ropes up there and moved it around. Maybe if they climbed the stairs over there…’ He gestured towards the stairs that ran halfway up the wall and ended in a stone landing with not a railing in sight. ‘Maybe they had pulleys and ropes that shifted stuff. Maybe this was a place for astronomers.’

‘Augustus, that’s a circus trapeze.’

‘You think they kept a circus in here?’

‘I think this is a harem.’

So much for his innocent little sister not guessing what this place had once been. ‘I’m going up the stairs. Coming?’

Moriana followed him. She didn’t always agree with him but she could always be counted on to be there for him at the pointy end of things. It didn’t help that their mother praised Augustus to the skies for his sharp mind and impeccable self-control, and never failed to criticise Moriana’s emotional excesses. As far as Augustus could tell, he was just as fiery as his sister, maybe more so. He was just better at turning hot temper into icy, impenetrable regard.

A king must always put the needs of his people before his own desires.

His father’s words. Words to live by. Words to rule by.

A king must never lose control.

Words to be ruled by, whether he wanted to be ruled by them or not.

They made it to the ledge and he made his sister sit rather than stand. He sat too, his back to the wall as he looked up to the roof and then down at the intricately patterned marble floor.

‘I feel like a bird in a cage,’ said Moriana. ‘Wonder what the women who once lived here felt like?’

‘Sounds about right.’ He wasn’t a woman but he knew what being trapped by duty felt like.

‘We could practise our archery from up here.’ Moriana made fists out in front of her and drew back one arm as if pulling back an imaginary arrow. ‘Set up targets down below. Pfft. Practise our aim.’

‘Bloodthirsty. I like it.’ Bottled-up anger had to go somewhere. He could use this place at other times too. Get away from the eyes that watched and judged his every move. ‘Swear to me you won’t tell anyone that we’ve been here.’

‘I swear.’ Her eyes gleamed.

‘And that you won’t come here by yourself.’

‘Why not? You’re going to.’

Sometimes his sister was a mind-reader.

‘What are you going to do here all by yourself?’ she wanted to know.

Roar. Weep. Let everything out that he felt compelled to keep in. ‘Don’t you ever want to be some place where no one’s watching and judging your every move? Sit in the sun if you want to sit in the sun. Lose your temper and finally say all those things you want to say, even if no one’s listening. Especially because no one’s listening.’ Strip back the layers of caution and restraint he clothed himself in and see what was underneath. Even if it was all selfish and ugly and wrong. ‘I need somewhere to go where I’m free to be myself. This could be that place.’

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