"I still don't understand," he said.
"Papà said you were feeling better when he came to tell us good night," she said again, this time speaking very slowly, as though he were brain-damaged, "so I thought I would visit you. I have never seen anyone from the future before."
He ran his fingers through his bedraggled ginger-colored hair, vainly attempting to restore some order. It had grown shaggy since his mishap at Wismar. "Who is your Papà?" Maybe the doctor or one of the court officials? he thought.
"Oh, he is the king." She cocked her head, studying him. "I thought everyone knew that."
His heart thudded and he became acutely aware that he hadn't washed in days. His scalp began to itch and he had to force his hands not to scratch. "Then you are a princess," he said.
"No, my official title is King's Daughter," Anne Cathrine said and picked at a bit on lint on her bodice with slim fingers. "The marriage with my mother was morganatic. Her rank was too far below his, so she was never queen and none of her children can inherit the crown." She sighed. "I did have a fiancé once, but Frantz drowned, swimming in the moat. Now Papà will marry me off to another nobleman, probably much older than me. Several have recently petitioned for my hand. I do not care for any of them."
"Gee, sounds like fun," he mumbled in English.
She leaned toward him, eyes bright. They were the same piercing pale blue of her father. "Is that American?" she asked. "If so, I should like to learn. I am very good with languages."
"Won't you get in trouble, if someone finds you here?" he said. "For that matter, won't they be angry with me?"
"Mamà was always very cross with us, so now that she's been exiled, Papà lets me do as I please," she said loftily. "At least until I am married. Then I suppose I will have to obey my husband."
"Well, he doesn't give me that kind of freedom," he said. Sweat pooled in the hollow of his back. "I think you had better go before someone finds you here."
"You are telling me to leave?" She blinked in surprise.
Eddie was no expert in royal protocol, but he didn't have trouble visualizing what folks would think if a jailbait-aged princess, king's daughter, whatever, was caught hanging around with a disreputable prisoner—in his bedroom—unchaperoned.
"It's late," he said and turned his face to the wall. Jeez, he hadn't shaved in days either. Suddenly, he itched from head to toe, or at least the toes that he still had. "I am tired. I want to sleep."
Her skirts rustled. "Very well," she said. "I will go—for the sake of your health."
Footsteps, light and precise as a dance figure, crossed the floor. The door opened and closed. He rolled back over and stared at the empty room. Light flickered from the remnants of the fire in the grate and the scent of roses lingered in the air.
The next morning, he asked for hot water and a razor when the maid brought him the usual bowl of warm milk and thick slices of cinnamon bread for breakfast, then did his best to eat all of the food. Most mornings he hadn't bothered. The washing water, when it came in a basin, was tepid, the soap yellow and harsh.
He pulled off his nightshirt, then sat on the edge of his bed and sponged himself down, trying not to look at his stump. In the light flooding in through his window, he could count his ribs. He'd lost a lot of weight since being injured, and he hadn't exactly been sporting any extra pounds in this pre-junk-food world.
He sighed. What he wouldn't give for a bag of Doritos or an egg McMuffin or even one lousy bite of a Hershey bar.
The door creaked open and he made a grab for his lacy bed-shirt, which guys back in Grantville would have snickered at as a nightgown. "Who is it?"
"Anne Cathrine." Her expectant face peered around the edge.
He tugged the shirt over his head, but it caught on his ears. "Go away! I'm not dressed!" he said, struggling to get his arms in the sleeves.
"Good," she said and pushed the door inward. "I have brought new clothes."
"Jeez!" His face flushed. He thrust his right arm through the sleeve, then clutched the covers over his bare legs. "What is it with you people?" he burst out in English. "This isn't a damned bus station, you know!"
Anne Cathrine's arms were full of clothing. One red-gold eyebrow lifted. "Could you say that again in German?"
"It, um, wouldn't translate very well." He could feel his ears burning. "Don't you have a—" He wanted to say "keeper." "A servant to watch after you or something?"