The world was fuzzy when I came to.

Brownie-Paulo was some ways away, munching on a mouthful of grass.

Traitor, I thought.

I could hear the soft thud of hooves hitting the ground, each step slow and calculated. Blearily I looked above me and saw him, first two horses and then one, as my double vision fit back together.

The King trotted around my body in a wide circle, the space between us tightening with each lap.

If you awoke, dazed and confused, and looked up to see a beautiful man circling you on a tall white horse, you might think you were hallucinating. You might think you were dead. You might think, so this is how angels look.

That's how I knew for sure I was alive.

There was no fucking way I was going to Heaven.

"You're such a liar," he said.

This is it, I thought. He's going to trample me now. Crush my skull and leave me out here for the birds to pick at.

The King halted his horse and got to the ground in a solid, sweeping motion. I watched, my head lolling to the side, as he walked across the grass and stood over me, a champion above his fallen enemy.

"You absolute scoundrel." The toe of his shoe pressed hard to my cheek. I smiled, enjoying it more than I should. "You're a terrible rider! You act as if you've never been on a horse before."

"I haven't," I said, because I figured I was about to die anyway.

"Goodness." To my surprise, he crouched in the grass, a crease of worry tight on his brow. "Are you alright?"

I struggled to sit up. "Sort of. I didn't-"

The blow came faster than I could blink. I flexed my jaw where he'd slapped me.

"That's for making up stories," he said.

"It's not my fault if you believe them."

"Mr Murray." He sank into the grass and stared at the cloudless sky. "You shouldn't feel so compelled to lie. I'm sure you're just as interesting even if you weren't taming grand beasts as a toddler."

"I'm not," I promised. "I'm the least interesting person in the whole world."

It wasn't true, I supposed. But all the interesting things about me were awful. Horrifying. The kinds of things that made nuns clutch their rosaries and upstanding townsmen pull out their pitchforks.

"Do you have a family?" he asked.

"Yes." I said it almost sadly, but I didn't know why, because I liked my family. For the most part. "I have my mother and five brothers."

Ronan was the oldest, nine years my senior. He was always kindest to me, but after the war, he changed. We grew apart. After that was Gale, the blacksmith's apprentice, Artwin, who had a lame foot, Martin, who was studying to be a doctor, and Westley. He was the one that made my life hell.

"Your father?" he murmured, still looking at the clouds.

My father? I thought. What about your father?

"He passed serving his duty to England," I said. "To you."

His head turned at that, and for a silent, still moment, his eyes were on mine. A lock of red hair slipped across his forehead.

"My mother used to tell me a story about us," I murmured. "We were born in the same month of the same year, did you know that? Of course you wouldn't." I laughed at myself. "The whole country was going mad, celebrating the birth of a prince."

Finally, a prince, they had said. Philip III's previous wives had given him a handful of daughters, all married off to foreign powers now, but not a single boy. And then he married Elsbeth, his captive bride from the Highlands. She gave him one son and never carried again. But it mattered not. The King had an heir.

"It was late December," I said. "The coldest winter in a decade. My father built a cradle for me by the fireplace and my mother would watch it from their bed. I would scream and scream for hours on end. One morning she fell asleep- is this boring?"

"No." He'd been watching me the whole time I spoke.

"When she awoke I was not in my cradle. Frantic, she searched the entire house for me. She looked under the table and in every drawer and even her egg basket. When she couldn't find me, she ran, still weak and recovering from the birth, out into the cold and wept. 'Someone has taken my baby,' she cried. She stayed out there, digging in the ice and bleeding through her skirts, until my father returned with a deer slung round his shoulders.

"'Our baby is gone!' she said. She was feverish and sweating. He dropped the deer and carried her inside. There, in the cradle, I lay sleeping. 'Hysterical woman,' he called her, and went back for the deer. She always insisted that I really was gone, that she knew for certain the baby was missing.

"'A fairy came for the other baby,' she would tell me as I grew older. 'That baby that cried so frightfully. It brought me you instead. You never cried. Do you know what I think? I think the fairy has brought me the Prince to be my baby.' She would tuck me in and say, 'Good night, my prince.'"

The King blinked. "So the babies got switched?"

I shrugged.

"That doesn't make sense," he said. His brow pinched like he was deep in concentration. "I look exactly like my mother."

"It's not supposed to make sense," I said. "It's just a story. It's not true."

"Oh." He smiled and the crease in his brow went away. "My father dropped me on the stairs when I was a baby."

"Did he?"

"And look, look." He crawled to me and I held my breath, suddenly frozen in place. "I have a scar on my head from it." He parted his curls with one hand so I could see.

I was far more concerned with how close we'd become - my lips a breath from his cheek, my nose nearly brushing his temple.

I could lean in, just one inch, and kiss you. It could be an accident.

"Do you see it?"

"Yes," I whispered.

I'd been scared to be this close to Geoff.

Why wasn't I scared now? Why wasn't I scared of a man that could snap his fingers and have me executed because he didn't like the color of my shirt?

"What?" he asked, his smile crooked and confused. "What's the matter?"

My mind. My horrid mind is the matter. "Um... dunno, my head's still all scrambled, I suppose. From- from the fall." I slumped into the grass as if to show him how weak a state I was in.

"Yes, you did take a tumble, didn't you?" he chuckled. I lay mesmerized, trapped under his amber gaze. "You're amusing," he said. "I quite like you. And you're the only person I know that actually looks at me. No one looks at me."

"Oh god." My eyes fell to the grass. Now I remembered my efforts to stare at the floor the first time I met him. "I didn't even realize."

He giggled. "I meant it as a good thing."

Silently, I looked back up. The breeze ruffled the billowy sleeves of his shirt and made the thin material stick to his form. His red curls bobbed before his eyes until he reached up to brush them away.

He watched me watch him, the calm curiosity in his gaze meeting the hopeless longing in mine.

My eyes traveled down the gentle slope of his nose to his rounded lips. I wondered how they would feel to kiss. Soft, I surmised. So different from the rough, panting mouths that had forced themselves to mine in the alleyway behind the tavern. I leaned closer, just enough to feel his breath cool my burning cheeks.

His eyes closed.

For a second, I almost did it.

"We should head back soon," he said. "I have plans to dine with the Duc de Montpensier and his daughter."

"Oh." The word stuck in my throat. "Lovely."

"No, it's not." He laughed. "I detest these sorts of things. Luncheons are long and boring already, but a luncheon with the French? I would rather take a sword to my own heart."

"I'm sure it can't be that bad."

"It is. I can't stand them. They've been our enemy for centuries. One of the most powerful nations in Europe. And now suddenly we're meant to be friends? It's all my father's doing. He was so obsessed with war and conquests. Always begging for funds and never paying his debts." His fingers wove rings around each other. "Would you come with me?" he blurted suddenly.

"Um. To the... lunch thing?"

"Yes. You could find a job to do, couldn't you? Oh, it would be so wonderful if you came, Mr Murray. Then I wouldn't feel so alone."

"Alright." I blinked to keep my head from spinning. Sometime later, when all this was over, I would sit and process everything I'd heard. "Could I pour the drinks or something?"

He smiled. "Only if you agree to pour Beauregard's down his shirt."

Beauregard. I'd heard that name. Who was Beauregard?

"That I'd definitely get whipped for."

His eyes seemed to twinkle. "I could get you out of it."

"Should we go now?" I asked.

"We can." As he pushed himself off the grass, I noted small things about him. The dip of his collarbone, exposed as his shirt rippled in the breeze. The smoothness of his fingers, adorned in bulky rings and free of any calluses. The curve of his mouth, pink and full.

My legs wobbled as I stood. The dizziness from before returned in a flash.

The King caught my arm as I staggered to the side. "You going to make it, Mr Murray?"

"I bloody hope so," I grunted, bent with my palms on my knees like a drunkard.

"Do you think you can ride home?"

Fuck. I searched the field for Brownie-Paulo. He was there, still chewing on grass. "Of course." Idiot! I screamed at myself. Which would you prefer, saving your dignity or saving your arse from flying off that damn horse?

"Alright. If you say so."

"Wait, wait." I coughed and squinted up at him through the blinding sunlight. "Perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me a hand? Your... Your Majesty?"

He giggled. "Come on, then." I let him guide my arm over his shoulders and lead me up the hill. Brownie-Paulo lifted his head warily as we approached.

"Despite what you might think," I told the horse, "I still rather like you and would appreciate it if you might try to get on with me. I think we could be quite the team."

The stallion's ears pricked as I reached for the reins.

"Hold on," said the King. "Let me." He held his palm out near Brownie-Paulo's nose and let the horse sniff him. "There." He moved his hand gently up the horse's muzzle. "Good boy." He looked at me. "Get on."

I took slow steps, letting the horse watch me, and rested my palm along his back. Then, bracing myself on the saddle, I put my left foot on the stirrup and pulled myself up.

Brownie-Paulo bucked.

I yelped.

"Shh shh," the King murmured. "Shh, Paulo. Calm." He stroked the horse's neck. "Calm, Paulo. Good boy."

"He doesn't like me," I said.

"You're not giving him a chance."

I leaned forward to try petting the horse.

"Sit up straight. It'll help you keep balance," he told me. "I'm going to hold his reins, alright? You just sit there."

Suppressing a sigh, I sat back as the King led Brownie-Paulo to his own horse and mounted with no difficulty.

"I don't have time to give you lessons," he said, as if I would even think of asking such a thing. "The stable master can teach you."

"Amadi? Oh god." I imagined the tall man grinning as he allowed my horse to throw me over and over. "I'll just learn myself."

"Right, because you've been doing so splendidly on your own."

I snickered. I was beginning to appreciate his stinging remarks. They didn't boil my blood enough to make me want to kill him, anyway.

We rode in silence through the pasture gate, which was kept open when the horses weren't out feeding, and then down the path to the stable.

Three men, all dressed in identical lime-green waistcoats and short black wigs, came rushing from the stable as we neared. Between them, they carried a lengthy red overcoat.

"Dash it," the King said. "They've found me."

"Who's found you?" I asked, thinking they were some sort of French assassins.

"Beauregard's sent them, no doubt. He's got spies tracking me everywhere."

He got down from his steed, then went around to steady Brownie-Paulo for me as I made my clumsy descent to the ground. My foot got tripped up in the stirrup and I almost fell over.

"It's windy out, Your Majesty," one of the men spoke. He lifted an arm of the overcoat. "The Lord Chamberlain advised you wear this."

The Lord Chamberlain. Now I remembered. Beauregard, the Lord Chamberlain. He was the one that jabbed me in the foot.

"I'm still in my riding clothes," the King said. "I'll have to change first."

The man swallowed thickly and exchanged a glance with the others. "The Lord Chamberlain requested you come as soon as possible," he said. "The Duke has arrived."

"Fine. Go on."

After a prolonged struggle, the three men managed to get the King's coat on him. He wriggled around as they began buttoning, their heads knocking together as they fought for space.

"Allow me!" one snapped.

Another elbowed the first. "I assure you, sire, I have it handled."

"Make way!" the third bellowed before pushing them both aside.

By the time they finished, the coat was buttoned haphazardly and half the collar stuck straight up while the other half was tucked down underneath.

Without thinking, I blurted, "I'll do it."

The three men stood back as the King turned to face me, a small, almost embarrassed smile growing on his lips. "Thank you."

Stay focused. I didn't look at him as I undid all eight of the round gold buttons. I couldn't.

I had never touched him deliberately before, never been this close for so long.

I felt his eyes burn into me like a flame.

I watched his chest rise and fall, listened to every shallow breath. At last I fixed the sides of his collar and reached around to adjust it in back. Our eyes met for a fleeting second, the gap between us narrowing.

"There," I said, smoothing the collar down. "Done."

He turned away from me in a heartbeat and reached for Archibald's reins. "Wait here," he told the three men. "I must see to my horse."

I grabbed Brownie-Paulo's reins and hurried after him into the stable. "I can put the horses away," I offered. "You go ahead."

He flashed me a glittering grin. "I'm stalling, if you did not notice."

A stable groom appeared from one of the stalls and approached us to take Archibald's reins.

"From now on," the King said, "you can call me Philip."

The spinning in my head was back. "Are you serious?"

He smiled.

"Sorry." I pressed my fingers to my brow, trying to force away the dizziness. And now the nausea flooding in my gut. "This is a lot." I wasn't even on a first-name basis with the merchants on Market Lane I'd known all my life, and now the King wanted me to call him Philip?

What the hell?

"No, I'm sorry." He lowered his head. "I'm terrible at making friends."

"Friends?" I said weakly.

"I never..." He fell silent as the stable groom came back for Brownie-Paulo. "I never really had playmates when I was little. My sisters are ages older than me and Father always kept me apart from the other boys so I could study arithmetic and astronomy and science and a hundred other subjects. I could read at age four and I can play chess and draughts but I don't-" His breath came out all in a rush. He shook his head. "I don't know how to talk to people."

I was quiet for a moment. Then I reached for his hand and squeezed it softly. "You're doing fine."

He laughed all once, breathless and flushed, and looked up at me. "I really like you. You're interesting and you... make me smile and... you actually talk to me instead of-" He looked toward the stable entrance where the three wigs waited. "So. Do you want to be friends?"

"Is that allowed? A king and a... well, me."

He chewed his lip hard for a moment. "You're right," he said. "'Friends' was too strong a word. I should have asked if you wished to be associates. I shall try again." He took a deep breath. "Do you want to be friends?"

I grinned. "Yes."

"Good," he said. "Because I really need one."