Page 25 of Once Upon a Crown
“Your Majesty, if I may.” Anesta spoke up with uncertainty. She’d been very quiet thus far. “What do you think we’ll find in the diary?”
“Hopefully some answers as to what went down in the kingdom during the reign of our first king.” I had a gut feeling that a lot of history was about to be unravelled.
Chapter 11
Gwen
I stepped into the stables, the sound of my walking stick loud on the cobbled floor. As much as I’d wanted to avoid a physician, when the swelling in my ankle only got worse, I knew I didn’t have much of a choice. It had taken me a few days to get used to my new walking aid and my wrist was hurting terribly from carrying most of my weight, but at least the pressure was off my ankle, which helped a little.
It was quite annoying that I wouldn’t be able to ride for a while, though. But at the very least I could come and see how the mare was doing. She did, after all, get just as big a fright as I did.
Hobbling through the stables, I didn’t notice the stable boy anywhere, and I wondered if he was out training one of the other horses.
Luckily, I knew my way around pretty well by now. The air smelled of fresh hay and leather. It took me a while, especially considering the size of the royal stables, but I eventually managed to reach the stall of the grey mare. I hadn’t seen her in one of the paddocks outside, which had to mean she was still in here, recovering.
Huffing out a breath, I peeked over the heavy, dark wood door. The sweet little mare happily grazed on a bale of lucerne, appearing unbothered. I also found the stable boy, with his back towards me, bent over the horse’s hoof.
My arm reached just far enough over the door to pet the horse’s head.
“I was wondering where you were,” I told the shy boy, who had to be quite a few years younger than me. He had a stable master who oversaw him, but most of the time he did a prettygood job of taking care of all these horses. I hoped they treated him well.
The boy with the dark hair stilled, obviously startled by my sudden presence behind him, though I was sure, with my walking stick, he could have heard me coming for miles.
“It’s really not fair that I won’t be able to ride her for a while now. I hope whatever farrier did her shoes got into big trouble for not doing them properly,” I said earnestly. I felt quite sorry for the mare despite how happy she looked to be staying in the warm stables with the extra food and attention.
“He definitely did,” the stable boy said, with a voice that did not belong to him. He stood up, taller than he’d been before, and it took me a moment to realise that it was, in fact, not the stable boy standing there, covered in hay and dust.
Prince Lance turned to face me. “We’ll have to find something else for you to ride then.”
He was dressed unlike I’d ever seen him before. Gone were his lavish clothes made of expensive fabrics. Instead, the prince before me wore a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a pair of well-worn riding breeches. No wonder I’d momentarily mistaken him for the stable boy.
“What?” I blurted out.
“One of the other horses.” He cleared his throat. “You can pick any of the other horses to ride when your ankle is better.”
“What are you doing here?” A piece of hay had got caught in his hair. He looked so unlike the prince I knew.
“I came to take a look at Bessie’s hoof.” Lance gestured to the mare standing behind him.
“I can see that. But why? Don’t you have servants for this kind of thing?”
“Well, yes,” he said almost hesitantly. “But I wanted to see for myself. She is my horse, after all.”
My throat had gone dry. His horse?
All this time, I’d been riding his horse.
My face scrunched up in anger at the stable boy, who’d apparently forgotten to inform me of this very important detail.
“Your horse?”
Lance nodded. “Bessie’s been in the family for quite some time, haven’t you, girl?” He patted her neck, and I almost started looking around in case the prince also had a twin, because this definitely wasn’t Lance.
“Are you all right?” He must have seen my shocked expression.
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Yes, I am. It’s just... I’m surprised to see you here.”
“I used to come here a lot when I was younger. Haven’t been riding much in the past few years, though.”
