Baron Adroit paced outside the gates of his palace, eagerly anticipating the arrival of an old friend. Beyond on the road, came two sets of heavy hoof steps.
"What news have you of the Prince's return?" he called to the messengers, marked by the Baron's own seal upon their royal blue sashes.
"His army rides here my lord," one of them puffed.
"He bids good morrow to you and announced that he shall arrive the next day, no later than this hour," huffed the second messenger.
"My thanks, messengers," replied the Baron, and he led the two stallions into the palace.
Inside, servants and maids moved with frantic pace, wheeling wine barrels and hundreds of plates, along with an assortment of fresh towels and incense for the rooms. News of victory spread fast, and the Baron expected his palace to be ready to host a feast fit for conquering heroes.
"Great news!" he proclaimed to his staff as they galloped through the halls. "Prince Plenty and his knights shall arrive victorious earlier than anticipated. See to it that we grace them with the hospitality befitting such hasty march."
The maids and servants cheered along with their master, all the while hiding their groans at more work inside.
The Baron bid his messengers farewell as they headed for their stables to rest. He turned to a young colt sweeping the soot from the fireplaces in the foyer and called for him.
"Boy! Whereabouts are my daughter and niece?" he asked. "I must inform them of the Prince's arrival, lest they be unprepared."
"Their hide and hair ne'er cross me path today m'lord," answered the chimney sweep.
"As you were," sighed the Baron. Swiftly, he left the foyer and his staff, quick to search the palace grounds for the fair maidens.
+++++++++++++++++
"Hurry along now, we've no time for the roses," Iris told her mane dresser. "The Prince stands at the gate on this morning. Were it not for the raising of the sun, I fear I'd now be colored a truant and a delay."
"Would the Baron's daughter be needing her ladies-in-waiting this morning?" the hairdresser inquired, laying down the roses intended to decorate Iris's mane.
"My cousin Moonseed is visiting while her father negotiates with the pegasi again," Iris considered. "Summon dear Rosary, she's the only one who can keep my sanity while I'm around my cousin for too long."
The hair dresser smiled and looked at Iris though the mirror. "I know sir Midas returns as well. He seems to now stand as a more reputable knight than when he last left, and has been favored by the Prince on many accounts. What of your sanity around him my lady?"
"Shall I lose my wit, or my wit lose me, I'll count on Rosary to let me be," answered Iris, "for if war hath tempered the stallion to be finer than I know him, and I do know to be very fine, then I shall be merry with madness."
"My lady, do be careful," cautioned the hair dresser with a cheeky smile.
With all details of the mane resolved, the hair dresser vacated Iris's room. It wasn't long before her close friend and favored lady-in-waiting arrived as accompaniment to the reception of the Prince. The soldiers had all left for their barracks, eager to eat and rest ere their next march, though a few honored stallions remained in dialogue with the Baron.
"There she is, my daughter," the Baron introduced. "Though not as you knew her years ago."
The Prince offered his courteous bow and a gentle kiss upon Iris's hoof. " I envy my friend to have a daughter such as you. As for me, I fear the King is far to fastidious for my success in courting, and I should hope for a bride and child ere I am buried and entombed."
"I do apologize for my niece," said the Baron. "I wonder where she may be this hour, but have yet to hear from her ladies-in-waiting."
"Quite alright," the Prince assured. "If I am to be honest, the formalities of generals in war has left me no appetite for the court. I shall meet her at the feast, ere the dance if the Sun favors me." The Baron indulged him, and bringing Iris, they made for the dining hall.
"Haste would do us well," agreed a decorated knight who stood aside with Midas. "I feel my will sinking from my heart to my stomach."
"It's a wonder you have any heart left to hold your will, Oleander," beckoned a voice from across the foyer. "You give so much of it to yourself."
"The Baron's beloved niece, I presume?" the knight asked, though she needn't answer, as the knight Oleander was well acquainted with the Baron's family -almost as well as the Prince- and suffered many tests of wit as a colt against Adriot's niece.
"And how does the Lady of Disdain fair this day?" Oleander prodded back at Moonseed.
Moonseed was quick to reply. "How can disdain fair anyway but well when it feeds on your presence? Even common courtesy itself becomes a convert when you present yourself."
"Then is courtesy a turncoat," responded Oleander. "'Tis true, I am loved of all ladies, save you, and I would I could find it in my heart that my heart were not hard, for I love none."
"Merriment to mares!" cried Moonseed at Oleadner's remark. "They else would have been plagued with a pernicious suitor. Praise the Sun and my cold blood, for I am of your humor for that. I would my hounds to howl at the moon by my bedside if a stallion had me sit though a recounting of his love and adoration."
"Keep still in that," advised Oleander, "so some poor stallion or other may evade a bruised face."
"Had they a face such as yours, a bruising shan't make it worse," Moonseed remarked.
"Have you eaten a parrot my lady?" said Oleander, pointing to her mouth.
"The bird on my tongue is better than the beast on yours," Moonseed snapped back.
Oleander scoffed, mocking the manner in which Moonseed regarded many things. "Had I a squire with the speed of your tongue, all wars would be won. I would to take my leave now, your uncle's feast does him more honor than company."
"No different than a foal, you follow the call of your stomach," hissed Moonseed, as she left with her ladies to drink and dine away from the rowdy soldiers.
Following Oleander, Midas scurried along the hallway and halted his friend. "Brother in arms, before we eat I must seek your council."
"Pray tell, what is it?" inquired his friend.
"You marked Iris, the Baron's daughter, as she entered the foyer, did you not?" Midas began.
Oleander nodded. "I did."
"And you have been acquainted with her as well?" he continued.
"As well as any squire would have," answered Oleander, " you know this well, to practice under the Baron's lancers leaves little time to chat."
"Oh, is she not a modest mare, my dear friend?" Midas asked, before interrupting his friend's unexpectedly crude remark. "I pray thee speak sober, not after thine own custom as a tyrant of their sex."
"Very well," replied Oleander, with more than a hint of disappointment in his tone. "If I am to be honest stallion, I shall tell you this: I find her too short to gaze up to, too close to her namesake to gaze onto, and too petite to hold a grander applause. Though if she were not as she is I would call her unhandsome, and since she can only be as she is, I must profess that I do not like her."
"You think me a jester. I pray thee to speak truths," said Midas.
Oleander hesitated before a search for clarification. "Is it that you buy her, that you inquire after her?"
"Buy?" Midas asked, smiling at his thoughts. "Could the world have gold enough to buy such a jewel?"
"It could and it does, many times over and with frames for all," suggested Oleander. "Come now, surely you jest. A simple mare of age cannot begin your marriage!"
"Spare me your wit, Oleander," chuckled Midas. "I'll not trust myself to keep our promise of bachelorhood, if Iris be my wife."
Oleander, mouth ajar and thoughts scattered, backed slowly from his friend. He caught his breath in the foyer, and with the sun rising high, bent to his knees and shouted through the windows. "Fie on't ah fie!" echoed his voice. "To this, has it come? Hath not the world one stallion but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never bear witness to a wizened bachelor again? Go on, an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke and sigh away weekends. Oh, mark, the Prince returns for us."
The Prince trotted from the dining hall, interjecting the conversation. "My gentlecolts, what needs hold you from the feast?"
"On behalf of my friend and yours," Oleander said with smile, "I would your grace would constrain me to tell."
The Prince raise a brow at his knight. "Oh? Then I charge thee on thy allegiance."
"You see, Sir Midas? I can be as secret as a mute, but on my allegiance -mark you this, my allegiance- I must speak." Oleander turned from his friend and spoke frankly to his prince. "He is in love."
"'Tis true?" asked the Prince, stepping over to Midas. "With whom?"
Though asked by his prince, the knight was reluctant to speak. "I was merely inquiring, sir, and entertaining such thought that-"
"With Iris!" Oleander answered abruptly, "The Baron's short daughter."
Given to the Prince by his dearest friend, Midas sighed. "If my passion change not shortly, the Sun forbid it be otherwise."
"'Tis well that you should love her," grinned the Prince. "She is worthy of your love, and you of hers. By my troth, I speak my thought."
"And, in faith, I spoke mine," said Midas.
Oleander in turn sighed and rolled his eyes. "And by my two faiths and troths I spoke mine."
"I feel that I love her, my prince," continued Midas.
The Prince nodded in return. "That she is worthy, I know."
Oleander shook his head at the both of them. "That I neither feel how she should be loved or know how she should be worthy is my stance that the fires of Tartarus cannot melt out of me. This I shall bring to my grave."
"Ever the unfaithful to love's power," observed the Prince.
"Hear me well. I thank my mother, and her mother before her," explained Oleander, "But that I be made a fool of by a mare, all shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none. And the fine is, for the which I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor."
"Ere I die I will see you sick with love," Midas remarked.
"May the Sun bless you eternally then," responded Oleander. "Or, prove that I ever lose more blood with love than I regain by drinking, pick out mine eyes and hang me on a brothel as the sign of blind Cupid."
"Ah, come now, that's quite enough," the Prince lamented. "Ere we mock one another to death. Come, the feast is waiting."
Oleander bowed to his prince and made quickly for the dining hall, following hastily the scent of fresh cornbread decorated by sugar cubes.
"My lord," Midas said before the Prince made his way back to the dining hall. "Your highness may now do me good."
"My love is thine to teach," the Prince eagerly answered. "Teach it but how, and thou shalt see how apt it is to learn any hard lesson that may do thee good."
Midas nodded and went on his way explaining his situation. "My lord, ere I left the training grounds, I looked upon Iris with such adoration as I do now, but had a rougher task in hoof than to press further. Now I am returned, and war thoughts have left their places vacant."
"If thou dost love Iris, cherish it," the Prince told him. "I will break with her father and her, and she shall be yours."
"Well," Midas said, stunned at his prince's readiness to aid. "lest my liking might too sudden seem, I would have salved it with a longer treatise."
The Prince shook his head. "No need. I know we shall have a reveling tonight, a celebration to a peaceful moonrise. There you may treat her, and during or after with her father I will break." He beckoned his knight down the hallway to the dining hall, where all the merriment of a hearty feast could be heard. "But let us fill ourselves presently, then in practice we can put it."
