Page 30 of Songs and Spun Gold
Suppressing his instinct to flee, Axel forced his body to stay relaxed and increased his pace to match that of his father. The best course of action would be to appear perfectly calm. Panicking would suggest a guilty conscience.
The king pulled Axel through the door to his study, slamming it closed behind them. Axel winced at the loud noise but made sure to have his face straightened back into a pleasant expression by the time his father whirled to confront him.
“I’ve heard a disturbing rumor,” the king began. He wore a grim smile.
“Oh?” Axel said, displaying polite curiosity.
His father glared at him. “Are you going to claim you don’tknow what it is?”
Shrugging, Axel replied, “I’m afraid I haven’t kept up with gossip today.”
“Keeping up isn’t necessary if you’re the cause,” his father growled back at him. Axel placed one hand over his chest and assumed a shocked – but innocent – expression. “Are you really going to stand there and tell me that you didnotknow the lead actor in last night’s show fell ill just before the performance?”
Axel’s eyebrows pulled together. “As Georg was injured in an accident a week ago, it is unfortunate that he is ill as well. However, I fail to see why it would be the source of a rumor.”
“I don’t know the actors’ names,” the king grumbled. “All I know is that the one who was supposed to perform last night didn’t.”
Frowning, Axel replied, “But I didn’t hear anything about the performance being canceled.”
“No, apparently another young man volunteered to fill in at the last moment.” The king fixed his son with an intense stare.
“That was fortunate for the theater,” Axel said, leaning on the back of a chair with a casual air. “However, I’m afraid I still do not understand how you believe it relates to me.”
His father continued to stare him down, his nostrils still flared. “Where were you during the performance, boy?”
“I was with Heidi, as I told you before.” He gazed calmly at his father for a few moments, then abruptly stood up straight as his eyes widened. “Wait, you aren’t suggesting that—! Surely not. You don’t think—thatIwas the young man who performed, do you?”
His father continued to glare at him.
Axel held his hands up in an appealing gesture. “You’ve forbidden me to participate in the performances at the theater, Father. Do you truly believe that I would disregard yourcommands in such a way?”
“Did you?”
Axel grimaced. “Is that what the rumors say? Surely you verified with the director at the theater, Father. What did he tell you?”
Turning away at last, his father grumbled, “He said the young man’s name was Gunther. A merchant who had studied the part in his private lessons.”
“And where in that description do you find your son?”
“They say he looks like you,” the king muttered. “And you’ve been singing the part at inappropriate moments for weeks.”
“Father…” Axel lifted a hand toward him, then let it fall with a sigh. “You know I love to sing. I often learn the songs before a new show opens.” His father acknowledged this with a begrudging nod. “I am sorry you trust me so little.”
Father narrowed his eyes as he stormed around the back of his desk. “I have too much experience with your escapades.” Dragging his large chair roughly across the floor, he settled himself into it. “I know where you go in the mornings.”
Axel felt his face freeze. “In the mornings? But I—”
“I’ve had the gardens thoroughly searched during your absences. You were nowhere to be found.”
He scrambled for a response, but his mind was blank in the face of this unexpected information. Even his newest excuse was useless; whichever days his father’s men had searched the gardens, they were before he’d met her.
Could his father be bluffing? Axel felt certain he would have noticed if he’d been followed, but if he was wrong, his father must know which guard always let him through. Yet to his knowledge, no harm had come to Otto.
Was it Otto who ratted him out?
But why look in the gardens if Father knew he was at thetheater? That sounded like he had only suspected that Axel wasn’t where he said he was.
“I do sometimes wander through the stables or down into the trees,” he said lightly, testing the waters. “The allure of our noble steeds and of the majesty of our glorious arboretum is not always possible for me to resist. Especially on a fine morning with the early mist wafting through the trunks as the shafts of sunlight pierce the foliage.”
