Piggybacking- The Duke

Piggybacking – The Duke




"We all have flaws," said the Duke. "Mine is being wicked."
He sipped wine from a jeweled goblet and stroked his hairy chin most thoughtfully. The gleam in his eyes turned from excited to down-right devilish.
"Of course, wickedness is awfully fun."
Greta hugged the cold stone wall, hoping that her heart would stop racing long enough for her brain to start. Think! There had to be some way out of here. She’d always known that her uncle was off, maybe even a little mean, but evil? She would never have believed that of him, at least not until today.
When she woke this morning, she was a carefree princess, not old enough to feel the weight of her position. She knew that she would have to marry someday, and that it would be more an affair of state than of the heart, these were truths she had been prepared for always. However, at twelve, she was still young enough to believe that her betrothed would indeed turn out to be Prince Charming. He could be everything her country needed and exactly what she wanted as well. Why not? She was dressing for breakfast, dreaming of things that could be, when her safe little world had come crashing down.
As most castles do, theirs had many secret passages and tunnels, trapdoors and hidden latches, escape routes and servants’ halls. Greta was tucking the ends of her hair into her chignon, her thoughts wandering from the new books in the library to her horse and back again, when she was startled by the grinding of the false wall scraping across the floor.
When she had become old enough to move out of the nursery and into her own rooms, her father had shown her the panel and the bolthole behind it. He had taught her exactly where to press on the wall to open it and had walked her through the narrow corridor, indicating the passage to his rooms, and the other, which led under the castle walls and out into the eastern gardens. He had warned her never, ever to use them except in extreme emergency, lest a servant should discover them, and had never spoken of it since. The sight of the door cracking open startled her, and in the intervening seconds of silence the hair at the nape of her neck bristled.
“Daddy?”
Greta stood, then hesitated as the panel slid another few inches in. She heard panting, then a small thump. She pushed her stool back and hurried across the room. A few feet from the opening, she stopped so quickly that she almost pitched forward. There was an inky, thick stream of dark red oozing from behind the door.
“Daddy?” She called again, a note of panic in her voice. She picked up her skirts and stepped over the mess, her heart suddenly a small bird fighting to free itself from the cage of her chest. Her father’s great robes were unmistakable, and she felt the aching sob tearing through her as she fell beside him, no longer worried about staining her dress.
“Oh, Daddy! What happened? Who did this to you?” She pressed her hand over the wound in his stomach, trying to hold in the steady stream of his precious life that continued to flow out.