There is no sex, it is a soppy romantic fairy story for adults wanting to warm the cockles of their heart.
*****
Now
Prince Arrik peered out of the Palace tower window, his breath misting the thin plate glass. As far as the eye could see, and he could see a long way over the flat terrain from this high up, the ground lay white in a thick layer of freshly-fallen snow. More thick soft white flakes gently floated down from a still leaden sky. His mother had forecast the snowstorm yesterday, so he shouldn't have been surprised by it. She was so wise and he had yet to learn such wisdom.
Every morning lately when he arose, he was sad. Something was missing from his life. He knew what it was, of course, but felt powerless to do anything about it. It all stemmed from that cursed Chocolate Rose. He first heard about it two months ago, was curious about its existence, followed it up and within the space of a single day his life had been completely turned upside down.
Before the chocolate rose episode Arrik's life was simple, ordered and safe. He could have been killed during the adventure and now he was virtually imprisoned, though not physically, but his heart felt constricted as if it was bound in heavy chains.
"In three months' time I will be crowned King Arrik, the most powerful man in my kingdom. But I am alone and friendless without the princess of my choosing to share my crown, powerless to change my unhappiness."
He spoke to himself, alone in his isolated chamber. He had been doing a lot of that lately, as well as sleeping alone. He felt the absence of his cousin more than he thought possible.
Every morning recently he had to fire himself up to face the day. He had so much to learn, and so many people, a whole nation, who depended on his being able to hold court, make fair and far reaching decisions that affected the wellbeing and happiness of all he ruled. It was a big responsibility and it was important to project confidence and a positive attitude. Despite his misery, any cutting himself off from his family, advisers, subjects and appellants was simply not possible.
The only relief to his constant misery came unexpectedly last night when his other cousin, Princess Loquaria, to whom he had been engaged for over three years, threw herself into his arms, overcome with happiness and joy at his decision. Her actions surprised him, but made a welcome change.
Today there were no lessons, no hours of court sitting, no queues of advisers clamouring to press their point of view. The day was his to do with what he wanted. His mother the Queen was his teacher in matters of state now and, after she had forecast the first lowland snow of the winter, she had given him the day off.
"Right, Connie," he said out aloud as he dressed himself, preparing to leave his modest lofty chamber, "you better have the bacon on!"
He laughed now, determined to pretend to the world that he was cheerful, as he gathered his skis, delivered from his old home only a week earlier. He remembered the last time that it snowed as thickly as this. In the mountains it was, at the hunting lodge that had been his refuge and home since he was six. He had left the mountains just two months ago. How much had changed in a matter of weeks.
***
Two months ago.
It was cold and the young man had his face pressed so close to the tiny thick glass window that his breath instantly froze on the surface and he had to use the sleeve of his night shirt to see out through the slightly greenish, imperfectly bubbly, glass.
"It's the first snow of the winter!" he said, more to himself than anyone else. A groan from the second single bed in the chamber meant that someone else was disturbed by his excitement.
"What are you up for Rik?" the second voice, deep and gruff with sleep, said, "it's barely light and there's no school for you today. Your lucky tutor has gone to warmer climes for the winter."
"That makes it even better, Tom!" the first young man said as he jumped onto his friend's bed, "come on lazy bones, get up, wash, shave and dress, it's been snowing all night!"
"Let me sleep, you monster, I hate the snow, I hate the cold, I hate it here in the mountains most of all!"
"Ha! Look, there are fresh tracks up the track from the village, I bet the butcher's been and Connie's cooking our breakfast, because I can smell bacon!"
"You can always smell bacon. I don't know where you put it all. You eat like a king but you are as thin as a beggar! It's not fair. I only need to smell bacon and I start bloating up like a pig."
"Fiddlesticks! You are as fit as any knight of the realm that I know."
"And just how many knights do you know, O mighty Prince Arrik, to be crowned king of this fair land in the spring, upon his 21st birthday, whilst still so wet behind his ears?" his friend mocked.
"Only you, cousin," Arrik admitted, running a hand through his long thick tousled blond hair, "but you are bigger than all the guards and half a hand taller than me."
"Well, I'm five years older. You're still growing, and you'll fill out more too, if any of that bacon ever sticks to your ribs. Damn it, Rik, now I can smell bacon, too!"
"Well, first one in the kitchen gets the better rashers!"
Prince Arrik first heard about the chocolate rose from Connie the cook, when he sat down in the kitchen at the mountain chalet. This wooden building was no palace but an extended hunting lodge, which had been his only home since shortly after his father the King died fifteen years earlier, when Arrik was a boy only five or six years old.
He had begun to gulp down his breakfast, of bread, bacon and eggs, as quickly as he could, keen to get out and enjoy the fresh fall of thick white snow. The snows had come early this year, even in the mountains it was considered so. Perhaps it foretold the coming of a hard winter. Arrik was eager to don his skis and set out into the fresh air and onto the slopes while the virgin snow was still crisp and fresh.
The cook was in conversation with the butcher, who was warming himself in the kitchen after delivering fresh bacon and meat for the evening meal. He'd had to carry it up from the nearby village. He said that all the talk in the village, in fact the whole kingdom, was of nothing else but the miraculous chocolate rose.
Count Condran, Prince Arrik's uncle, the brother-in-law of the late king, had ruled the kingdom as Regent, following King Bygord's death in a chariot racing accident. Prince Arrik was expecting to be crowned in the spring. His mother, Queen Etherida, was married to the Count soon after being widowed, to "secure the throne", but was almost immediately banished to the Castle on the Lake "for her safety". The Count continually warned that the borders were under threat from the other four kingdoms, hence the difficulty of importing goods like chocolate. The Queen was forbidden to see her son as it was unsafe for both to be in the same place at the same time. Arrik had immediately been taken to the isolated hunting lodge, high in the mountains and difficult to get to. All the horses and carriages used by the ever changing guard were kept stabled in the village.
