“Oh, poor Santiago,” the captain said, though he made no move to help him.
“Don’t tell me you have a name for that creature.”
“Don’t be cross, Bonbon. He really is an intelligent fellow. Very helpful. He cleans, you know.”
“I don’t care if he’s a ballerina. I’ll have no rats on my ship!”
“Of course not, Bonbon, whatever you wish.” And unbelievably the captain kicked Santiago out of the room. Actually kicked him with the toe of his ugly red shoes!
Santiago rolled and landed on his feet. He turned around and hissed.
The woman pulled out a dagger and threw it at Santiago. It didn’t hit him, but it shaved one side of his whiskers.
Captain’s Bonbon evil! Ugly! Poop! Stink! Santiago screeched all the ugly human words he could think of.
The captain only laughed. “Off with you, Santiago. Go and find something to eat.”
Santiago obeyed. Angry feelings aside, he was still the captain’s most loyal companion. And so here he was, hiding in a dark chest, gorging himself on peanut butter pretzels. Only a few left.
Santiago had been banished. Replaced. The captain might as well have discarded him.
He reached the end of the peanut butter pretzels. He swished his tail back and forth, tried to stay hidden, but that bottomless pit of hunger overwhelmed him. He needed more food.
He crawled out of the chest, climbed up the wall and scurried between the rafters. He heard the voices of the captain and Bonbon.
“I don’t like this crew,” Bonbon said. “Only Albert will follow my orders, and even then, he defers to you. Am I no longer captain of this ship? Where is Demetria? Where’s Neeti and Tui?”
Santiago could feel the captain’s thoughts spinning. He’d been so focused on finding the Aeternum, destroying the Hudsons, getting back his Bonbon, he had not prepared for the questions she might have upon returning. “They were traitors,” the captain lied smoothly.
Bonbon gasped. “Traitors? Impossible!”
“It’s true. They mutinied against you, stole your compass, and had you discarded. But I fought for you. I discarded them. I found my own loyal crew, and then I found the Aeternum in order to bring you back to me.”
Santiago could feel the captain was expecting gratitude from his Bonbon, for a sweeping romantic gesture and for his gallantry, but none came. “Traitors,” she said again. “I don’t believe it.”
“We will forget them,” the captain said. “We don’t need anyone but us. Now come, I have a surprise for you.”
“You know I don’t like surprises.”
“You’ll like this one. I promise.”
Santiago scurried away. He didn’t like surprises either. But just as he got to the pantry, he heard the bell for travel. Santiago felt the walls of the Vermillion start to shift. He clung to one of the rafters as the Vermillion turned into a boat, sailing along a winding river between green mountains. Ahead, a castle stood high on a mountaintop, its many towers and turrets sparkling silver in the sunlight.
“Neuschwanstein Castle,” Captain Vincent said, placing his arm about his Bonbon’s waist.
“It looks just like a fairy tale,” she said.
“And we shall live there happily ever after. As king and queen.”
Bonbon smiled, but it faltered. “Doesn’t this kingdom already have a king and queen?”
“No,” the captain said. “We’re king and queen now. All this is our kingdom.”
And his word made it true. The captain claimed the castle and the kingdom within hours of their arrival. They only needed to pull a few time tapestries, shift a few things around, and the deed was done. The captain was King Vincent now, and his queen, Queen Belamie. No one questioned it, not the servants and advisers or lords or ladies or peasants.
Santiago questioned it, however. He hated the castle. The instant he entered he was attacked by a flock of swans! They came honking and flapping right at him. One even bit at his tail! He overheard Wiley say something about how the former king had loved the birds and kept them in the castle. Santiago tried to complain to the captain-now-king, tell him to banish the evil birds, or better yet, make them not exist at all, but the captain was preoccupied with his Bonbon. He didn’t even seem to hear Santiago anymore.
He found the castle food stores. He gnawed through the bags of flour and the sugar and ate and ate and ate, trying to fill that bottomless pit he knew could not be filled, all while the captain was occupied with his Bonbon who really shouldn’t have been his Bonbon at all, and the kingdom that really wasn’t his.
Only a week after their arrival at the palace the king and queen held a ball. Guests arrived in great swarms, dressed in their silks and furs and jewels, but it was the new queen everyone admired, dressed in a glittering gown and crown. Santiago overheard Brocco boasting to Wiley that her dress was his finest achievement. “Finally, we got a dress-wearing female on board the Vermillion. She’s fabulous, isn’t she?”
Wiley shrugged. “She doesn’t seem too happy to be here,” he said, looking at the queen as another guest bowed to her.
“Probably just the shock of everything that’s happened,” Brocco said. “She’ll adjust.”
“Maybe,” Wiley said, but Santiago thought perhaps Wiley was right. The new queen didn’t seem happy. She didn’t smile at any of her new subjects. She pressed a hand to her head as though it ached.
There was a feast, and then there was music and dancing. Santiago stayed well-hidden, but in a place where he could see most everything and be in close proximity to the food. He feasted on a meat pie while he watched. The king smiled and laughed all night long, but the queen didn’t so much. She kept looking around like she was looking for someone, or maybe lost something, like a glove or a hairpin. She wandered out of the ballroom, and then Santiago noticed the king was looking for her. Santiago saw this as an
