The higher I climb, the more people cram the street heading toward the castle. Ecstatic female voices whisper in barely restrained tones, “Prince Liam!”
Yes!
Prince Liam, or Prince Manwhore, as he’s called in Western media. Just the man I want to meet. A colorful picture of him lounging on the Italian Riviera on his yacht with ten half-naked women burns in my mind. I remember the tabloid story: Prince Liam’s Prostitute-Filled Booze Cruise. There were many other articles in the same vein: Prince Manwhore—Brazil’s Bad Boy, PRINCE LIAM STARK NAKED, and I’ll never forget DIRTY PRINCE (Playboy Prince Cops a Feel!), which had a blown-up photo of Liam’s arm wrapped around a woman with very large and very fake breasts, one of which he was groping. His face was turned away from the camera, but there was no mistaking that handsome profile and the angular shape of his jaw. Oh yeah, I’ve read all about him. Eldest son. First in line for the throne. And yet no matter how wild his sexcapades seem to get, the fact his father is a loathsome bastard doesn’t seem to register in the lizard brains of his female fans. You should see his Twitter feed.
Revolting.
I find myself taken in by the charm of the village. The roads are narrow, and there are even tall, red phone booths just like the ones you see everywhere in England. How enchanting. Maybe I could swing this exposé into a more positive direction. My classmates would call me a copout, but still.
Up the steep hill sits a marvelous castle. Among the village’s palette of green and subdued yellows, it looks like a giant gray rock, as though it’s just a natural fixture in the scenery. I walk up the hill, quietly snapping photos as I listen to strong English-sounding accents. Anglefell is not England, I remind myself. It’s an island east of the United Kingdom in the North Sea.
I try to assess the mood. It’s a pretty calm village, and the people seem content enough at eleven in the morning. It’s not as though their faces are lined with torment, but no one is beaming ear-to-ear. It looks like I’m not going to glean much from just glancing at their faces, but that’s fine. I’ll ask the whole village for interviews if I have to.
My lungs burn as I climb the last stretch to the town square. It reminds me of the piazzas in Florence. There’s lots of open space for the farmers market, local artists, and there’s a church whose massive stones are worn with age. The stained-glass windows look faded, but it has an old-world charm that irresistibly reminds me of Europe. I aim my camera toward it and take a picture.
The square is covered with people. I nudge myself closer to the mass, my eyes peeled for the any sign of Prince Liam, who is rumored to be here, but the crowd is thick and I was blessed with only five feet of height. A sea of heads block my view as I lean forward on my toes, straining my neck to see a man dressed in a rich blue doublet with a gold sash running across his chest. He throws back his head, laughing at something.
That’s got to be him.
Damn it. I can’t see a thing. There’s no way I can miss an opportunity for a nice photo of Prince Liam. It would be a great addition to the piece I’m writing. I should get a picture of the rich bastard laughing and stick it right next to the part about Anglefell’s notorious prison labor camps.
A woman standing a few feet in front of me turns away, her face a mask of disgust. She’s so upset she doesn’t say a word when her shoulder rams into mine.
Wow, what’s her deal?
I ignore the burst of pain, walking forward to fill in the gap she left behind, the gap that finally allows me to see what’s going on.
The man wearing the doublet stands in front of seven women wearing nearly identical looks of desperate longing. The crowd, which seems like it’s made up of mostly twentysomething-year-old women, cry out for the man in the center. Dozens of female voices scream for Prince Liam, who seems unaffected by the commotion. I’m elbowed sharply in the ribs as a girl claws her way to the circle and pries open her blouse, her breasts spilling out.