Oh, yuck.
But, since Eddie couldn't see anywhere he could hide that would make any difference, he decided to stay at the window. What the hell. Might as well enjoy a good show, short and unfortunately truncated as it would be, on his way out.
He heard something behind him and turned. To his surprise, the door was being unlocked. A small hope flared up. Could the guards have decided to take him out?
But the person who came through the door was not one of the palace guards, it was Anne Cathrine.
"Hurry, Eddie!" she hissed, waving at him. "We don't have much time."
Eddie wasn't about to argue the point. He didn't quite race for the door-not with a peg leg-but came damn close. If he survived all this, maybe he'd look into setting up a Special Olympics. He'd probably be a cinch for the gold medal in the 100 Meter Stump.
"You aren't kidding we don't have much time," he said, as he got to the door. "Won't be more than-"
Anne Cathrine was already hustling him down the corridor, her shoulder under one of his arms, carrying him as much as he was moving himself. Under other circumstances, he might have been irritated and he'd certainly have been embarrassed, but he wasn't going to worry about that now. The simple fact was that, as strong as she was, Anne Cathrine was getting him down that corridor faster than he'd have managed on his own.
"The guards only agreed to leave for twenty minutes," she hissed. "The greedy swine. Hurry!"
And, of course, the feel of that young and incredibly vigorous and healthy and very female body pressed so closely to him was half-scrambling his brains. As he had before, for what now seemed a million times, he tried to remind himself sternly that the girl was only fifteen. No cradle robber he, damnation.
Alas, his mind-as it had the same million times before-refused to cooperate.
Her birthday's August 10th, so she's actually fifteen and three-quarters years old, which is a lot closer to sixteen, and sixteen ain't so bad when you really start thinking about it-sweet sixteen, remember?-not to mention that it's the age of consent in West Virginia and even if it weren't, a quick car ride across the state line from where Grantville used to be puts you in either Pennsylvania or Ohio where it's also sixteen and in a real pinch Jimmy Andersen once told me he'd heard it was only fifteen or maybe even fourteen in South Carolina although he thought you had to get parental permission for that to apply and fat chance of that even leaving aside the fact that Papa in this case is the king of fucking Denmark and just because it wasn't all that long ago that the hypocritical Norse bastards were ravishing Irish virgins didn't mean they took the same attitude when it was THEIR virgin daughters involved-
By now, they'd reached one of the servants' narrow staircases and were working their way down to the next floor. An incredible explosion above them wiped Eddie's feverish reveries right out of his mind. He was almost relieved.
The whole staircase shook-and it was mostly stone. Fortunately, no rubble came down.
Yet.
"What was that?" cried out Anne Cathrine, stopping for a moment and staring back up the stairs.
"That," said Eddie grimly, "was the first of what will be as many ten-inch explosive shells as my boss Admiral Simpson thinks it takes to turn this place into rubble. Let's get moving again, king's daughter."
She stared at him. "Your admiral is shooting at the Blue Tower?"
"Sure is. Please, Anne Cathrine, we have to get moving. This whole thing's going to come down. Trust me, it will. Even up-time construction couldn't stand up to what's coming."
She did as he bade her, moving even more quickly than before. It was pure Valkyrie now, with not even a trace of her former-none too elaborate, damn the girl-attempts to salve Eddie's pride whenever she helped him along. For all practical purposes, she'd more or less picked him up and had him half-slung over her hip-
Imminent death and destruction be damned, that hip kicked all his reveries back into full gear. How could one teenage girl so completely demolish an adult man's hold on reality?
– and was practically bounding down the stairs, her mane of red-gold hair coming loose and starting to spill over half of Eddie's face.
Okay, fine. He was only a twenty-year old adult man, not some kinda codger, and even the girl's hair was gorgeous. Still and all!
She reached the landing and kept going down the next flight of stairs. Another incredible concussion rattled the whole structure. There was no way, with the slow rate of fire of the big ten-inch guns, that the Constitution could have fired a second broadside that quickly. Which meant that Simpson must have ordered another ironclad to start firing on the castle.
"My father will be furious!" she yelped. "Your admiral will be in a lot of trouble!"
Eddie giggled. Literally giggled. He couldn't help himself.
"And what's so funny?" she demanded. Not, however, breaking any strides to do so, thank God.
"Ah, nothing," said Eddie. There was no point trying to explain. Not now, for sure. Like every royal Eddie had met except Prince Ulrik-not that he'd met all that many-there was one side to Anne Cathrine that just plain lived in a fantasy world. For the most part, the girl was level-headed and practical. More so than any of her sisters that Eddie had met, and certainly more so than her mother Kirsten Munk, from all reports. Anne Cathrine not only had the constitution of a Danish dairy maid, she actually did know how to milk a cow.
Still, being raised in a royal family was bound to distort your sense of reality, unless you had the rare faculty that Ulrik possessed of being very clear-sighted and very ruthless with your own preconceptions. It was difficult to understand that the map was not the territory. Surrounded by the trappings of power, those became confused with the reality that lay beneath those trappings. Even to the point where a royal father's temper still seemed more powerful and potent than the ten-inch explosive shells that were bringing his capital city down around him.
So be it. Eddie didn't mind, actually. Why should he? Most of the teenage girls he'd known back up-time had been at least as prone to confusing fantasy with reality. Even if, in their case, the confusion was between a credit card and the money that had to pay the bills, instead of a confusion between castles and debris.
It wasn't a perfect world-and never had been, for a skinny and socially inept red-headed kid raised in a trailer park, even when he still had two feet. The fact was, Anne Cathrine just plain bowled him over. The only thing that really bothered him was that he just couldn't see any way to make a real romantic relationship between them work, even assuming she was willing. And the fact that she did seem to be willing just made it all the worse.
Her age wasn't even the problem. Eddie would wait, and be glad to do so. But you don't "wait" for a princess to get older, because it doesn't matter how old she gets. She'll always be a princess-fine; "king's daughter." Big fricking difference, when you're still a one-footed chump of a junior naval officer with no title to your name beyond "Lieutenant"-a dime a dozen, that title was, in this world even more than the one up-time-and no fancy family connections-no family left at all, actually-and the only influential human being you had any close connection to-
Oh, the icing on the cake!
– was the same admiral who was blowing Daddy's Place to smithereens.