The entire kingdom of Poland had gone into a great panic when they discovered that their prince was missing. The servants were a buzz with questions, the queen was heartbroken with worry, and the king was enraged. To him Anthony's disappearance was insult to him cause he believed it made him look irresponsible and useless in front of his subjects. Making him into a joke.
"The ungrateful brat!" He raved. "How could he do this to me?! Does he have any idea how this makes me look?!"
"Is that all you care about Vincent?" The queen replied with a tear-stained face. "Your image? What about our son?! He's out there, alone, God knows where and against Heaven knows what! He could be lost! Or hurt! Or sick! Or...Oh!"
"Calm yourself woman, we'll find him. He couldn't have gone that far. After all he's not that bright."
"Oh why must you always say such cruel and miserable things about him? You know it's your fault he ran away! You were always belittling him and treating him like he was nothing! What kind of father are you?!"
"Silence!" He roared at her. "Don't you ever speak to me that way again! Don't forget that I can strike you down as quickly as I raised you! Tis lucky you have your crown already Madame because if you did not, I would not give it to you again!"
Giuseppina was quickly stricken quiet with fear. Needless to say, the king and queen of Poland were not happily married. In fact they disposed each other, more so than King Stolas and Queen Stella of Austria. But Giuseppina had always done her best to be a loyal and supportive wife, especially after Anthony was born. Everything she did was either for the good of the kingdom or for her son. Sometimes her love for her son would out weight her duty to the crown and that led her to make questionable choices.
"It is your fault he left anyway!" The king continued. "That rebellious streak of his comes from the influence of that idiot half-moor you allowed to tutor him! I rue the day I allowed to Isaiah to remain here after father died! I should have banished him the minute the old fool drew his last breath!"
"You should have done that instead of what you did nine years later. I still can't believe you actually did to that to your own-"
"Quiet! You want someone to hear?! And don't you get all high and mighty with me! We both agreed that it was in the kingdom's best interest."
"No! No I never agreed to that! You lied to me about what you were going to do!"
"I had to. I didn't want to burden you with that tragedy."
"You didn't want me to tell anyone and that's the truth."
"Well even when you did find out, you still didn't say anything."
"It wasn't to protect you. It was to protect our son's future. What you did was high treason and if we were both executed for the crime, Anthony would be left an orphan and I couldn't bear that. That's why I kept your dirty little secret all these years, for his sake."
"Yes and let me remind you, that if you open your mouth he'll lose everything!"
"Oh trust me my Lord, I haven't forgotten. It's the only thing that allows me to sleep at night with this terrible secret."
What was this terrible secret that Poland was hiding? Or rather what the recent king of Poland was hiding? Well that's what the squire Husk about to find out. He had heard the king and queen's spat and that made him very suspicious. Those suspicions then rose even higher when a few days later, the king received a secret message from the queen of Germany and he practically exploded.
"No!" Husk heard Jim bellow from within his private chambers. "No! It can't be! It can't be him! He's dead! He has to be!"
"Dead?" Husk wondered. "Who's dead?"
It didn't take long for Husk to come to the conclusion that there was something going on within the palace walls. So that night, Husk broke into the royal records and started gathering up all important documents. During the search, he found a letter addressed to Isaiah from the late King Ludwick, dated to around the time the king had taken ill. It was against royal law to read the private letters and messages of any monarch even if they had been long deceased, but something about this letter bothered Husk. The seal was broken so that meant the letter had been opened, but if this letter had been sent to Isaiah, a common squire, then why was it here with the royal records?
Concealing the letter, he sneaked back to his quarters and read what Ludwick had written. What that letter said left him gobsmacked.
"Oh my God!" He gasped.
At first he wasn't sure if the letter was real, but after re-reading it several times and carefully studied the penmanship, he realized that this was in fact written by Ludwick's hand. Then he started to think. Think about Vincent and Giuseppina's argument, and the way Vincent had always behaved around Isaiah. It put a scary thought in his head and he became scared.
"What do I do? What do I do?" He thought.
Something like this couldn't remain a secret. Husk's conscience wouldn't allow it, because you see Husk and Isaiah had been friends since they were boys. Isaiah's mother had been kind enough to take Husk in and raise him alongside her own son after Husk was abandoned by his family. The two had been like brothers, though they went their separate ways upon reaching early adulthood. Isaiah had gone to the castle to be a squire and Husk had gone off sailing to try to learn a trade. When he learned of his death, he was devastated and wished that he could have been there to help him. But maybe exposing this letter would make up for it?
Still he had to be smart about this. Information like this couldn't just be blabbed randomly to the whole world. If Vincent knew that Husk knew about this, then it would be off with the squire's head. He also couldn't tell the servants because they feared him too much to ever be disloyal. They'd rat him out immediately. He needed someone he could trust. Someone who was courageous and loyal enough to help him regardless of whatever threat King Vincent may pose.
That's when he remembered an old friend of his. Someone who he had known since he was a boy and like him had been a dear friend to Isaiah and worked as a servant in a royal family. He wrote a secret message to her, using the same spell she had taught him long ago and she quickly replied. They made plans to meet in the town square after the king and queen had left for Germany.
They met at dawn, the morning after the royal couple departed. She arrived riding on a horse, with her face concealed by a dark-purple velvet cloak.
"Hello Niffty." Husk smiled, helping her down from her steed. "It's been a long time."
"Too long." She replied with a smile. "But I'm glad to see that you're still a gentleman at heart."
"And I'm glad to see that age has been kind to you. You don't look any different from the last time I saw ya. Still the prettiest girl in town."
"Flatterer." She giggled. "Now what's this all about? I've recently become a fugitive you know, so I can't be showing my face around a lot."
"You? A fugitive? What happened, did you finally harass the wrong man?" He chuckled.
"For your information I've never had one complaint from my gentlemen callers. The royal pain of Germany just found out that my loyalties lie with her husband and her stepdaughter, not her."
"Well that's something we have in common. I've never been loyal to Vincent. Just his wife and son. But I think they along with the good of Poland might be in jeopardy."
"How do you mean?"
He handed her the letter and she read it just as carefully has he had done the other night.
"Good heavens!" She cried. "Is this legitimate?"
"It is."
"So what does this mean for the royal family?"
"I don't know yet. But I have a debt to repay and that means finding this boy."
"But I thought he died in that fire along with Isaiah and Bonnibel."
"If my theory about who started that fire is correct, then the boy may still be alive because there's no way Giuseppina would have allowed a child to be murdered for any reason."
"If you say so, but how would you be able to find him? It's been so long, would you even recognize him now?"
"Maybe. I remember that he has his father's eyes and eyes that dark aren't common among people in these parts, and I know for a fact that his mother gave him an heirloom ring from her home land."
"That's not much to go on I'm afraid."
"I know but it's all I've of got, and I really need your help on this."
"Of course. Anything you need."
"I need you to talk to those fairy friends of yours. Maybe some of their magic could give us a better chance at finding him."
"I'll try but I gotta warn you Husk, fairies are very picky about who they help. They only do it if it proves to be amusing to watch the effects. And sometimes they might cause problems for humans if they think it more entertaining."
"But they like you, don't they?"
"Only The ones related to my sister in-law."
"Well why not just talk to her?"
"Because she's dead."
"Oh..."
"But I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, try to act like nothing's changed. Just because the king isn't here, doesn't mean someone here can't spread the word to him that you've been snooping around."
"Right."
"And while you're at it, I'd like you to go inside the royal library and dig up some information for me."
"Information on what?"
"Witches and witchcraft."
"What are you nuts? Do you know how much trouble I could get in just by looking up witches? You could even get into trouble just by talking about it."
"I know but this is important. You're not the only one who serves a ruler that maybe capable of pure evil. I have reason to believe that the queen of Germany is in fact a witch and that she's done something to the Princess Charlotte."
"Do you have any proof?"
"Not yet and that's why I need your help. If she is a witch then we need to know everything there is to know about witches in order to stop her. Please Husk, you know a witch on the throne can only lead to disaster for everyone in the kingdom, maybe even in other kingdoms like this one."
"Alright, alright, I'll do my research in private to avoid starting a witch hunt but I doubt the library will have such books. Witches are taboo especially in royalty."
"Just try to find something. Anything."
"Fine. When do you want to meet up again?"
"Tomorrow morning, same place, I'll tell you what the fairies said."
With that plan made, they went their separate ways to do research and make a few contacts, hoping that the wrong people wouldn't catch them in the act.