Who ordered this?!
The one and only thing that kept Eddie and Anne Cathrine alive was the simple fact that, powerful as they were, those ten-inch guns took a long time to reload. So, they'd reached the bottom floor and were already out the door into the courtyard where a coach was waiting for them when the second broadside from the Constitution started finally collapsing the Blue Tower. Not completely, not yet-but looking back hurriedly Eddie could see that the top two stories had come down already and what remained beneath was looking very, very shaky. He also saw the cloud of dust and debris that blew out of the doorway they'd just emerged from, and knew that the interior staircase must have been brought down. If they'd been just a few seconds later getting out of there, they'd have been crushed.
"In," Anne Cathrine hissed, more or less tossing Eddie into the carriage. She clambered in behind him, then had to stretch to close the door. The coach driver had already had the team of horses moving before she'd gotten all the way in, and the door had been flung wide open.
"Idiot!" she muttered. Eddie, on the other hand, thought the driver was a genius. He leaned his head out the window and looked back. From the looks of it, the Blue Tower would be coming down on its own, soon enough, even if the ironclads didn't fire any more rounds. It was already on fire, of course. The explosive material in those ten-inch shells was simply black powder. They weren't designed to be incendiary rounds, as such. But firing into a castle full of flammable materials, it hardly made any practical difference.
Anne Cathrine's head came into the window right next to his, her cheek pressed against his cheek and the rest of her in a full-body press against his back and the back of his legs.
"Oh!" she gasped, staring up wide-eyed. "Papa will have a fit. Your admiral will be lucky if he keeps his head!"
Eddie would have giggled again, except his whole throat was constricted. He felt like a one-man hormone factory. A very, very big factory-and the only boss in charge seemed to have the intelligence of a rabbit. A tiny little scrap of a brain with only enough room in it for one thought, and that one as primitive as it gets.
And then, what little scrap remained shrank down to maybe four functioning neurons. Anne Cathrine pulled him out of the window and closed the curtains. "You musn't be seen," she murmured. Right into his ear, because her cheek was pressed more closely still. So was her full-body press, except within seconds it wasn't pressed against his back.
"You musn't be seen," she repeated, still murmuring. "The driver and two coachmen probably know who you are, but they've been very well paid. Still, the less they see, the less they have to remember to lie about."
Then, she giggled. "Too bad it's not a very long trip." She was nuzzling his ear, now. "But we'll have lots of time when we get there."
Eddie tried to rally. His cortex did, anyway. The rest of his nervous system seemed to be on autonomous mode, with his hands moving here and there of their own volition. It didn't help that everywhere they roamed, Anne Cathrine's body came to meet them.
"Where are we going?" he croaked.
"Frederiksborg Palace. Ulrik and I figured out a good place to hide you. Good thing we did, too."
Eddie croaked a little laugh. "Yeah, I'd say so. Or I'd be hamburger a la Tower."
"Oh, yes." She kissed him. "We were pretty sure Papa would be angry. So we had to hide you from him, for a while. Or he might take it out on you."
She kissed him again. "He certainly would now, unless your admiral surrendered so Papa could cut his head off instead."
The third kiss was long and slow. As were all the ones that followed. They didn't speak again until the coach finally came to a stop.
Regretfully, Anne Cathrine pulled away and opened the trunk that served as the bench across from theirs. She came out with some nondescript-looking garments.
"Put these on, quickly. We will pretend you are a servant who came with me."
That was a ploy so threadbare it almost seemed pointless. Mere servants did not ride in coaches with king's daughters. Certainly not male ones, with all the curtains drawn.
But Eddie didn't argue the point. First, because his brain was still not functioning that well and, second, because its level of functioning declined still further when he realized that Anne Cathrine had every intention-unabashed, almost gleeful; did the girl have any sense of shame at all?-of watching him get undressed.
Fortunately, since the curtains were still drawn, it was fairly dark inside the coach. But Eddie was still red-faced by the time he finished changing his clothes.
"You are so cute!" she said, then reached with her hand to pinch his cheek, and then brought him close enough for a quick kiss. "But, come! Place the old clothes in the trunk and close the lid. We must hurry!"
And out she went. As soon as she reached the ground, she drew herself up in a decent imitation of a haughty princess-well, imitation of a haughty one, since she was a princess-and began striding away. Completely ignoring Eddie-as, indeed, a royal scion would completely ignore a servant who was supposed to know what to do when his royal mistress hared off somewhere.
Hurriedly, he stuffed his old clothing into the trunk and got out of the carriage. A bit awkwardly, because of the peg leg, but easily enough. With months of experience, Eddie had learned how to get about fairly well.
Still, by the time he reached the ground, Anne Cathrine was already halfway to the nearest building. Eddie barely noticed the coach setting off again, as he peered around curiously.
The coach had let them out in a part of the extensive palace grounds he wasn't familiar with. From what he could tell, they were on the southernmost of the three islands in the lake that made up the palace grounds, and he'd always been kept in the big royal palace on the northern island.
Anne Cathrine was striding toward two round towers that looked much older than the part of Frederiksborg Castle he knew. Almost, if not quite, medieval construction.
But she didn't enter them. Just before she got there, she began to head around what looked like big stables. And smelled like it, for that matter. She stopped abruptly, half-turned, and gave Eddie a very disapproving look. Not a personal look, though, just the sort of generic princess-or-noblewoman's glare at a sluggish servant who wasn't keeping up.
Eddie could take a hint. He started hobbling toward her as fast as he could. He had to be a little careful, because a lot of the courtyard he was crossing was cobblestoned and he'd learned the hard way that peg legs with narrow tips did not do well on such paving. On the other hand, he wasn't at all tempted to go off to the side and walk through the unpaved surfaces, since those left no doubt at all that they were in horse-stable territory.
Just before he caught up with her, Anne Cathrine started striding off again. But she'd waited long enough so that Eddie could follow her. Once she got around the corner, she headed straight for a big and very new-looking building, which had both a small entrance door and, quite a bit further down, a set of double-doors that were even bigger than you'd find in a stable. As if something very large had to be periodically taken in or out of the edifice.
She went through the small door, however, still as haughtily as she'd been walking since she got out of the carriage. She didn't glance back once to see if the menial servant was still following. Obviously, he would be, since that's what servants did.
The door closed behind her. Muttering under his breath-very unkind words on the subject of snotty princesses-Eddie followed through.
The moment he got inside, all unkind thoughts about snotty princesses vanished immediately. Anne Cathrine was back to the full-body press business, complete with long and lingering kiss. Eddie forgave her all her sins and any she might accumulate in at least the next five lives.
"Come," she finally said. "Baldur dismissed all the workmen, for a week, but someone might still come in. We must hide."