The Crown Affair - 7. Chapter 7 - Truth is in the Eye of the Beholder

Eighth day of the eleventh lumin (Kask-Lumin) 2025 of the modern calendar (earlier in the evening):

Max was lying down on his bed, staring at the ceiling and pondering his fate, when he was startled by a knock on his door. He didn’t feel like getting up so he simply called out that the door was unlocked and for the person to enter. When he saw Josh standing in the doorway he knew his fate was sealed; this visit could really bode no good for him.

He dropped to his knees in front of Josh and wrapped both of his arms around one of the prince’s legs.

“Y-Y-Your H-H-Highness. I’m . . . I’m sorry . . . I beg of you . . . p-p-please . . . Your H-H-Highness–”

“Max.” Max either didn’t or couldn’t hear Josh; he just clung on to the prince’s legs even tighter.

“Please . . . I . . . I . . . b-b-beg you . . . d-d-don’t . . . .” Tears were streaming down Max’s face, snot was running from his nose in rivulets, and his voice shook even worse than his body was.

“Max, get up!”

“Your Highness, p-p-p-please–” Max’s voice was getting louder and louder the more he attempted to plead with the prince not to eject him from the palace. “I . . . I . . . b-b-beg of you . . . Your H-H-Highness-”

“Maximillian Jeremiah Jacobs! Shut up and get the fuck up!” Josh’s voice, usually so soft and gentle, echoed and reverberated in Max’s room, and then carried itself up and down the hallways of the entire fifth floor.

Max’s begging abruptly stopped and his crying diminished into whimpering; however, he still remained kowtowed and trembling on the floor. He was now terrified as to what punishment awaited him. He felt an ever-growing pool of snot forming over his upper lip, but he dared not move; the slightest twitch on his part might start the prince off in earnest. Max had not even as much as looked Josh in the face, apart from the initial brief moment when Josh had first appeared in his room like The Avenging Angel Himself.

Josh took Max by the arm and tried to encourage him to stand, but Max backpedalled so quickly that he stumbled and landed on his backside.

Josh looked down at him, and was about to ask what was wrong, when Max scooted backwards along the floor until he reached the sidewall and could go no further; though Josh thought that it wouldn’t take much for Max to try to backpedal through the wall and into the adjoining room. Realising that he had no hope of escape, Max got up off the floor, sat down on his bed and wept.

Josh sat down on the bed next to the terrified page boy. “Max? What’s wrong?”

Max’s face had turned ashen. His pupils had dilated to such a degree that they nearly covered his ice blue irises, and his eyelids were puffy from where he had been crying. He trembled as the prince got nearer to him.

“Oh, Max. What’s happened? Talk to me.”

Max shook his head violently.

“Max, please.” Josh reached over and took one of Max’s hands in his own. The page’s hand trembled in the prince’s and he refused to look Josh in the eyes. “What has gotten you so scared?”

The frightened page looked at the prince; the prince who had been so kind to him, the prince who had caused him to overstep himself. In a barely audible whisper, Max said, “W-W-What you h-h-have t-t-t-t-to do t-t-to m-m-m-me.”

Josh was completely nonplussed. “What do you mean by that, Max? What do I have to do?”

Max dropped his head as he found he was unable to face the prince. “Because of w-w-what h-h-happened in y-y-your r-r-r-rooms earlier t-t-t-his eve-eve-evening.”

Josh thought back over the evening’s events and couldn’t think of anything that Max could possibly be referring to. “Max, nothing happened in my room.”

Max glanced back up at the prince, as he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. It appeared as though the prince was willing to overlook his indiscretion.

“You don’t mean when you almost called me by my proper name do you?”

Max saw his world implode. The prince had lulled him into a false sense of security and was now about to well and truly put the page firmly in his place. Max looked back down into his lap and slowly nodded, as he accepted his fate.

Josh had no idea why such a thing would scare Max so badly. True, Max was a servant and he, Josh, was the heir to the throne of Salania, but why should that stop Max from using his proper name? Josh hoped that in the short time that Max had known him he had never given the page boy any reason to believe that he was in the service of a tyrant. Josh was about to ask Max what the big deal was about using his proper name, when one of his school lessons bubbled to the surface of his mind, and he was horrified by its implication.

Josh placed a finger under Max’s chin and gently lifted the page’s face up so that he could look him the eyes. “Max, I swear to you, with The Great Serpent as my witness, that you have nothing to fear over that.”

The page looked back at the prince, unable to believe his ears. “B-B-But the l-l-law?”

Josh smiled at Max, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Max, where you are concerned, I say to the Ten Hells with the law.”

The torrent of emotions, combined with the adrenaline overload and the sudden feeling of relief, caused Max to lose his stomach, all over himself and the prince. So profound was his relief, that he started crying and clung onto Josh like a Tilban limpet.

In spite of the overwhelming smell and the thought of what they were both covered in, Josh pulled Max closer and ran a hand through the page’s hair. “It’s all right, Max.”

The two boys sat together on the bed wrapped in each other’s arms, and as much as Max wanted to resist, he yielded to the inevitable; the two of them truly became friends.

Josh continued to comfort the page boy as Max slowly regained control of his faculties. For someone who so freely displayed his own emotions, Josh sometimes found it difficult to cope with other people’s emotions. He hated seeing others in pain or distress, and he knew that, unintentionally, he had been the source of much of Max’s distress that night. He knew that he needed to work a lot harder with Max to get the page to let go of those ingrained notions of protocol, decorum, and servitude.

As the heir to the throne, Josh knew that he must command the respect of those around him, but he did not want to gain that respect through intimidation and the fear of the power he wielded. As a prince, he was powerful enough already, even without having yet been coronated; only the fact that his parents were still alive limited the amount of power he could exert. When he eventually one day became king, he would be the ruler of Salania, the head of the army, and supreme leader of the clergy; he would quite literally hold life and death over every citizen in the kingdom.

The fact that that amount of power resided in one person was a terrifying enough concept for the young prince, but the fact that one day all of that power would reside in him was even more terrifying. If he were able to put the fear of the gods themselves into a page boy whilst at the tender age of fourteen without even thinking about it, then what kind of fear would he be able to elicit from people as an adult and their king if he truly put his mind to the task?

Max wondered what the future held for him. He had been raised in the palace, and he saw how the servants treated Queen Maria and King Kenneth. In spite of how well the servants were treated by their monarchs, none of them, not even Mrs Montjoy or Mr Baxter, ever dared to presume to engage them in any discussion as an equal. Max knew that the palace required protocol and procedures to run smoothly. Every servant, from the housekeeper and head butler right the way down to the lowliest scullery girl and hall boy, knew their job, and they carried out their jobs with pride.

Every servant hoped for promotion, and they knew that promotion came from impressing their majesties, not by attempting to ingratiate themselves or trying to engage the king or queen as equals. The employer and employee relationship was important in all walks of life, but it was paramount in the functioning of the royal palace. Max made no secret of the fact that he one day hoped to rise to the rank of butler, he even dared on occasion to dream of reaching the dizzying heights of head butler, but he wanted to attain that post on his merits, not through the taint of having been a childhood friend of the future king.

Josh was the first to break the silence. “Come on Max, let’s get you cleaned up. You’re starting to smell a little.”

Max looked up at Josh, and saw that the prince was smiling, and he couldn’t help but return the smile. “With all due respect J- . . . Your Highness . . . you don’t exactly smell like a bouquet of Thalian Primroses yourself.”

Both boys looked at each other, each trying to gauge if perhaps they weren’t ready to engage in such banter, but after a few seconds both started laughing.

When they stopped, Josh turned serious. “Max, if you ever want to call me ‘Josh’ then please feel free to do so. If you need me to make it a royal command or something, then I will.”

Max was both perturbed and excited by the idea. “I will think on it, but it may take me a while to become comfortable with the idea.” ‘That’s an understatement if I’ve heard one’ Max thought.

Josh stood first and then helped Max up. “Let’s head down to my rooms and we can get cleaned up.”

Max looked down at himself and was horrified at what he saw. “I can’t walk through the palace like this!”

“Have you got a dressing gown?” Max nodded; of course he had a dressing gown. In a kingdom like Salania, where winters were short-lived yet bitterly cold, a dressing gown was very high up on most people’s shopping lists. “Then strip, change into the dressing gown, and just leave your soiled clothes here. I’ll send one of the maids up later to tidy your room.”

While Max stripped out of his puke covered clothes and dug out some fresh ones, Josh went into the bathroom to check in the mirror to see if he was decent enough himself to be walking through the palace. It would be one thing for a member of the palace staff to be seen wandering about the place covered in vomit, however it would be quite another for the prince to be seen doing the same.

After a quick perusal, Josh came to the conclusion that his shirt had suffered the brunt of Max’s gastric assault and the rest of his clothes were only covered in spits and spots. He quickly pulled his shirt off, turned it inside out, and, as much as he hated the feel of it, put it back on again. It looked a little odd; however, it would live up to any but the closest of scrutinies.

The two boys ran down the main staircase as fast as their feet could carry them, and they made it into Josh’s rooms without having been seen by anyone. They assumed that the palace’s corridors were deserted as everyone was attending to dinner; little did they realise that the gossip mill they had fed was in full motion. In the forty or forty five minutes since Josh had first opened Max’s door, every member of the palace staff had heard the rumours, most had expanded upon them, and even worse his parents had heard them.

The two boys quickly scrubbed themselves clean. They each permitted the other to use the bathroom in complete privacy. Josh allowed Max to clean himself up first. While Max was in the shower, Josh poured himself a glass of cloudfruit juice and pulled out his well-read and well-loved ‘Odyssey of the Souls’.

Max only took ten minutes to get cleaned up, and just as Josh closed the door to the bathroom before he showered himself, he told Max to help himself to the cloudfruit juice. Josh was just as quick in the shower as Max had been.

When he got out of the bathroom, Josh sat on his bed, and patted the space next space next to him. “Max, have a seat. We need to talk.”

Max walked over to the bed and sat down next to the prince. He left a respectful distance between himself and Josh. He sat there rigid, with his hands in his lap, as though waiting for the prince’s next command.

Josh playfully poked him in the ribs. “Max, you need to relax a little around me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Max could help but giggle, as Josh had poked him in his most ticklish spot. However, he quickly became serious again and looked over at Josh. “Your Highness, you need to understand that I have been raised to behave a certain way around the royal family. I have been a page here for a couple of cycles, and there are just certain things that are not done.”

“Like what, Max?” Josh was honestly interested. ‘If I hope to ever get Max to be a bit more easy-going around me, then I need to find out what makes him so . . . so . . . so damned Max.’

“Like this, for one.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean me sitting on your bed next to you, with us talking to each other as though we are equals.”

“Max, aside from me being the prince, what makes you think we are not equals?”

Max was startled at the question. If he had asked anyone it, then it could have implied treason, yet it was the prince who had asked it. Max thought for a few moments about how to answer the question, yet he could come up with nothing beyond what he had been raised with.

“Your Highness, even if you were not the prince, I am still a servant here in the palace. Your aunt is not royalty, yet as the queen’s sister she still has command over the servants here. Even if you were not prince, if you were the second or even third child of Their Majesties, then you would still have command over the servants here as a son of the queen.”

“Max, just because you are one of the staff here, just because you my personal aide, it does mean that we are not equals. The Goddess teaches us to love each other, to love all of our brothers and sisters in this world, to treat each other how we would want to treated, for in Her eyes, we are all the same, we are all equal.”

Max shook his head. “Your Highness, those are just words from The Holy Brashna. Nobody believes that any longer. Her words died out centuries ago.”

“I believe in them Max, and so does my aunt. So I ask you again, what makes you think we are not equals?”

“Your Highness . . . .” Max suddenly fell silent as he realised he had no answer beyond that he had been raised as a servant in the palace. He was subject to the commands of the king and queen, he was subject to orders of those above him in the complex servant hierarchy, and those below him in the hierarchy were subject to his orders.

“Max, do you think we are not equals simply because I am the prince and you have to obey my commands?” Max nodded his head. “In that respect you are correct, but that does not mean that you are somehow beneath me.” Although the inadvertent double entendre passed unnoticed by Josh, Max picked up on it and had to stifle a giggle. “In all walks of life, in every job in the kingdom, there is always one person who is more senior than another. In their jobs they are not equals, but that does not preclude them from being equals in their private lives.”

“I think I understand what you are saying, Your Highness. But still—”

“All right, Max. Answer me this then. Do you think my father and mother are equals?”

More treason implied by the prince! “Of course they are,” Max answered without thinking.

“Why are they equals, Max?”

The question threw Max. The answer was obvious, but he saw no reason not to answer the question. “They are equals because neither has control over the other. They rule Salania equally.”

“Yes, that is true, now. But what about when they were our age?”

Max furrowed his brow; the answer was utterly seditious in its simplicity! He decided it was safer to play dumb, and see where Josh was going with it. “What do you mean, Your Highness?”

‘This boy is far smarter than he has ever been given credit for,’ Josh thought to himself. “My mother was the daughter of the queen, she was the heir to the throne. My father was a plebeian working in the fields, the poor son of an even poorer grocer. So, were they equals when they were children?”

As much as Max didn’t want to admit it, he had to. “No, I guess not.”

“Why not?”

“She was the heir to the throne, he was a commoner.”

“So when they were children they were not equals, but now they are?”

Max’s head was reeling as he struggled to reconcile what he had been raised to believe in with the heresy coming from the prince. “Well . . . yes . . . of course.”

Josh smiled, hoping he had the page boy where he wanted him; either Max would begin to see sense or not. “Simply because they married?”

“I . . . I guess.” Max knew it was the right answer, yet why should a marriage suddenly make to two people so unequal by birth, become equals.

“And why should a piece of paper make any difference?”

Josh knew he was becoming angry, but he wasn’t angry with Max, not exactly. He was becoming infuriated with the fact that Max seemed to believe that so many other people were better than he was, simply though accidents of birth.

Max’s brain went into overload. He just couldn’t handle the questions being fired at him anymore. The answers to them seemed so simple, yet they contradicted so horrifically with how had been raised. He was slowly beginning to understand what Josh was trying to tell him, but the implications terrified him.

“Your Highness—”

Josh held his hand up, stopping Max. “Max, I’m sorry. All I want is for you to see that in private, when we are alone together like this, there is nothing to stop us from being friends.”

“But Your Highness, what about the idiom ‘Informality between master and servant leads to disrepute’?”

“That is an ancient saying, and not one of my personal favourites. I really don’t think us being friends is going to destroy the kingdom.”

“Your Highness, I have always been taught that it is vital to maintain a certain distance from the family.”

“And my aunt tried to get me to understand the exact same bullshit about maintaining a distance from the staff. That’s not who I am Max. If I can’t have a laugh and a joke with the kids here in the palace, I’m going to start going peculiar.”

“Your Highness—”

“Max, just try and call me ‘Josh’. Just once. See how it feels.”

Max blanched. “Maybe . . . Maybe later.” Although the prince had said that Max could use his proper name, the page knew it would be a long time before he could summon the courage to even think about calling the prince ‘Josh’.

“All right, Max. Try this instead. Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Just trust me, Max. Close your eyes.”

Max did as he was asked.

“Now take a couple of deep breaths.”

Max trusted the prince and allowed himself to relax a little.

“Max, you’re in a wide open meadow. The sun is shining and there is a gentle breeze blowing.” Max sighed as he relaxed even more. “Keep breathing, Max.” The page boy nodded and resumed taking deep breaths. “Bluelark birds are singing. You can smell sweet honeyflowers on the breeze. You can feel the morning dew beneath your bare feet. You hear the screech of a Talzaden Falcon.” At that moment, the prince screeched in Max’s ear as loudly as he could. In his shock, Max fell off the bed and onto the floor.

Max jumped up rubbing his bruised behind and his cheeks were flushed. “You fucking bastard! Why did you do that?” The words had left Max’s mouth before his brain could assert control. He was absolutely horrified at what he had said. “I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m—”

Josh started laughing. “Now Max, is that any way to talk to the Prince of Salania?”

Max started crying. “I’m s-s-sorry I s-s-shouldn’t—” His voice caught in his throat as he struggled to hold back the tears. He sat down heavily on the bed next to Josh, close enough that their legs were touching. Max was trembling, not because he thought Josh would do anything to him, it was a reaction to the way he had spoken to the prince.

Josh wrapped an arm around Max’s shoulders as he tried to comfort the page boy. “It’s all right Max.” Max shook his head. Josh sighed and said, “Max, it really is all right.”

Max shook his head again. “—shouldn’t . . . shouldn’t . . . shouldn’t have said that.”

Josh pulled Max closer to him. He wrapped both arms around the page boy and hugged him tightly. “Max, all I want is to be able to enjoy some time in private with you, away from the prying eyes of the palace. All I want is a few hours a day as a regular child. All I want—” Josh swallowed and he realised he was close to tears himself “—all I want . . . all I need, is a friend.”

“I just forgot—”

Josh smiled and nodded; the sparkling of his eyes went unnoticed by the page boy. “Yes, Max. For a moment you forgot where you were. For a moment, you forgot that you were a page and that I am a prince. For that one split second you reacted as you would around anyone else. That’s all that I want Max.”

The two boys sat together on Josh’s bed; the page and prince still in each other’s arms. Josh thought back over the events of the day. He believed that he was getting somewhere with Max. Maybe it was just how . . . natural . . . it felt to have Max in his arms, but he was sure that Max was warming up to the idea of being his friend. He knew that it would take a lot more than just a few heart to hearts for Max to get over his ingrained notions of how he should act around the prince. Josh just hoped that tonight really had been the turning point with Max; he just wished that the events of the day had not been as full of turmoil and emotion as it had.

For Max on the other hand, the whole evening’s affair really had proved too much for him, and he was far beyond thought. He was drained and felt exhausted now that the adrenaline that had flooded his system earlier had all been burned up. He let out a long yawn and felt himself starting to doze.

As Max closed his eyes, Josh began to hum the tune to an ancient Salanian lullaby known as The Berceuse of the Gods. Mildrea had sung it to her nephew practically every night when he was younger, and she had sung it to him one final time a few nights before his fourteenth birthday.

The origins of the Berceuse were lost in the sands of time, but the lyrics could be traced back at least six thousand cycles. In ancient times, the lyrics simply mentioned ‘my child’, however in modern times ‘my child’ had been replaced with the name of the person the lullaby was being sung to.

Max curled up in Josh’s arms and smiled; it had been a long time since anyone had sung the Berceuse to him, and it was one of his favourite songs. Josh wiped a stray lock of hair from Max’s forehead, and his humming was suddenly replaced as he started singing the lyrics.

(Author’s note: The Berceuse of the Gods has been written to the tune of Brahms’ Lullaby).

Hear me now Great Serpent

Max is so tired

With your strength, keep him

Safe until the morn breaks

Go to sleep little one

In my arms, you’re safe

Go to sleep little one

In my arms, you’re safe

Hear me now loved Goddess

Max is so tired

With your love, send him

To the land of dreams

Go to sleep precious one

In my heart you’re loved

Go to sleep precious one

In my heart you’re loved

Go to sleep precious one

In my heart you’re loved

Go to sleep precious one

In my heart you’re loved

Josh went back to humming while he wiped the tears from his eyes. He knew that now that he had had his Coming of Age, nobody would be singing the Berceuse of the Gods to him any more. It was a song sung to children to send them to sleep. It was tradition to stop singing it to someone after they had turned fourteen cycles, it was a way of acknowledging that person as no longer being a child. It was a stupid tradition and one that Josh hated. Once he had composed himself, Josh resumed singing.

Hear me now Infinite One

Max is so tired

I beg you watch him

As he sleeps this night

Go to sleep lovely one

You’ll slumber in peace

Go to sleep lovely one

You’ll slumber in peace

Hear me now all our gods

Max is so tired

This I ask of thee

Let him sleep serene

Go to sleep special one

I wish you sweet dreams

Go to sleep special one

I wish you sweet dreams

Go to sleep special one

I wish you sweet dreams

Go to sleep special one

I wish you sweet dreams

As Josh finished singing the last line, the door to his room was ripped open by Mr Flowers.

“What the fu-”

“Ssshhhh, Flowers,” Josh whispered, placing a finger over his lips. “I’ve only just gotten him to sleep.”

Mr Flowers was stunned beyond words to find both boys sitting on Josh’s bed, Max snugly wrapped up in Josh’s arms, fast asleep and snoring; it also appeared as though the prince had been crying.

“One minute, Flowers.” Josh gently laid Max on his bed, pulled the quilt over him, and then brushed a few loose hairs from the sleeping page’s forehead. Josh knelt down next to Max and whispered, “Sleep calmly, my friend.” Josh then kissed him on the forehead, and led Mr Flowers from his room, closing the door behind him with a gentle snick.

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“The rest you are aware of.”

“My apologies, Your Highness. I have seriously misjudged you.”