The Steadfast Soldier

(I submitted this to The Florida Weekly for the Writing Challenge Round 3. The prompt was an empty jewelry box.)

They would leave together—as soon as Stannum could secure the jewels. That had been their plan. That had been his plan, anyway. Francesca’s commitment was as liquid as her pallor. As a pledge of his intent, though, he had given his beloved a small tin heart.

“A promise of our future,” he pledged. She shrugged.

Their future was bleak and his mission was not easy. Espionage never was. It required patience and attention to detail. Yet valor surged in Stannum’s veins. Prior to having his leg blown off in battle, he had been a tracker. He could smell his prey, and it smelled like Jacques.

Well paid for coddling The Queen and safeguarding the royal treasure, Jacques was a common knave. He hid behind saccharine words and ingratiating gestures—like wooden salutes to him, a bona fide soldier, and unctuous kisses on Francesca’s papery hand.

The steadfast soldier feared that Francesca mistook Jacques’s clever affectations as true affection. It was he, Stannum, who had rescued Francesca from drug-fueled street work, who brought her to The Queen, who saw to it that she was properly clothed and rightly fed. Yet it was Jacques who lusted after her. And perhaps she for him.

To The Queen and his drag show, Francesca was worth her upkeep. Audiences paid tidy sums for his untidy burlesque of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of the steadfast soldier, starring Stannum and Francesca. The Queen, however, injected a cruel twist. Bejeweled and plumed, he would flounce in and save the paper ballerina, leaving the one-legged tin soldier to melt in the fire. Stannum’s fiery demise and Francesca’s vapid performance bankrolled The Queen’s lavish lifestyle with outpourings of cash from swarms of smarmy crowds.

As fake as the show was, The Queen’s jewels were real—blood diamonds from Africa; stolen sapphires from Sri Lanka; and six-pointed ransom rubies from Myanmar, back when it was Burma.

After the performance, Jacques would disappear into the night to hide the jewels. But Stannum had tracked Jacques’s circuitous route. Hidden behind thick tapestries, the spy watched the knave hover over a cloisonné box that gulped diamonds, sapphires, and rubies. As Jacques secured the box, Stannum heard the gems sigh in relief.

Jacques retired to the Wild Swan to fill his gullet with absinthe, leaving Stannum with his treasure. With fingernails scrawling against periwinkle velveteen cradles, he fondled each stone. The time was nigh to relieve them of their bondage and abscond with them. And Francesca. The jewels would fit neatly in his prosthetic leg, Francesca on his steady arm.

“My love,” he whispered the next day, slipping into the ballerina’s dressing room. “We’ll leave tonight, after the last show.”

“Tonight?”

“I found The Queen’s jewels! I followed Jacques. Off Pirates Alley. Third door. Up the stairs. We’ll…”

Holding a lacquered nail to painted lips, Francesca shushed him, her lackluster curls whiffling like an aura.

“I don’t know, Stannum. The Queen is good to me. Jacques is good…”

“Good? I’ve been good to you! I saved you.” Stannum fell to bended knee, mewling with outstretched arms. “I am your steadfast protector. You must come with me. This is our chance. To escape.”

“Escape? Where?”

“Florida. The keys. A mangrove beach. No one will know us. We’ll fence the jewels. We can be happy.”

Happy? Confusion clouded her ashen face. No one is happy. The best one can do is find comfort. Jacques offered comfort. But happiness? She inhaled the deepest breath of her life.

“Yes, Stannum.” Pliéing her skinny limbs into the only ballet move needed for her performance, she blew him a tepid kiss and signaled his dismissal. “Tonight. After the show.”

Bowing deeply in return, the soldier took his leave.

Stannum nailed his final performance, finding vindication in his humiliation. When the precise time elapsed, he crept to The Queen’s lair. Lifting the cover of the cloisonné box, he gasped.

His eyes scratched the empty nest.

He hurried past the Jacques-less Swan. Then to Francesca’s quarters. She was gone, too, leaving only the tin star on her dressing table. Resisting the urge to hurl it toward her discarded tutu, he forgave Francesca’s betrayal and pocketed the keepsake.

With no time for sorrow, the steadfast soldier stood at attention. He was, after all, a tracker. Inhaling deeply, he caught the scent of the ballerina. And the knave. And the jewels. Revenge spewed in his veins.

He would slay the knave. For the jewels—and Francesca—belonged to him.