have human enemies,” he said taking a puff of his pipe. “I have a twin brother. His name is Harold.”
“Why haven’t we ever met him?” Catherine asked.
My father glared at her. “When I tell you to not speak, you will not speak, do you understand child?” He barked.
Catherine nodded and moved next to me so that our shoulders were touching.
“Growing up, our father raised us so that one day we would rule the kingdom jointly. But as we got older, Harold became power hungry, and abused his position as a prince. He took whatever he wanted from anyone and if people tried to resist, he beat them. My father tried to control him, but was unable to. Eventually my father banished him from the kingdom. Now Harold wants to come back and claim his right to the throne,” My father finished. “That is all you need to know for tonight. But for these reasons, I need you to stay out of the forest. Both of you, the last thing we need are for you to be abducted or worse. But since you did venture out into the forest this morning, and you discovered the rock, I need to tell you its purpose.”
He took a sip out of his wine goblet, and smoked his pipe for a few minutes. “I have long feared that Harold would come back. When my father banished him from the kingdom he was angry, and he swore vengeance.”
I still didn’t understand what all of this meant, but I knew that it was serious and I was afraid.
“In case the castle is ever attacked, I had a white witch named Sirma build a secret rock. A magical rock. If we are ever to come under attack, you are to find a way to the rock. Only a royal hand can open the doorway. If we are attacked you are to go to the rock, and escape through the tunnels. The tunnels lead to safe houses. When you get to the safe houses, villagers will see to it that you escape safely. Now for your punishment.”
I cringed. I hated to be hit with his cane. “Every princess should know how to tame a horse and how to take care of it. If we ever come under attack, you may need to use a horse to escape, so for your punishment, you are to work in the stables twice a week until further notice. You will help the hands with whatever they need help with, and you will learn everything they teach you.”
I nodded and ran into his arms. When I was a girl that was my favorite place to be. Nowhere in the world felt safer then when my father was holding me.
My mother stroked my hair as he held me. “Don’t ever scare us like that again,” she whispered. “I was so afraid that you had been taken.”
William
I was the son of a knight, but I was educated as a prince. The fate of the royal family has long been tied to my own. For the first years of my life, our kingdom was at peace. But before I was born, our kingdom had long been plagued with war with the oar demons that roamed the forest. My father’s father had been a knight and died during battle protecting the king. He saw one of the beasts had aimed an arrow at the King, and he jumped in front of it to save the King’s life. My father was only a young boy when his father was killed. The king was thankful for his life, and took my father in. My father was raised alongside with his own sons. When the king died, and Prince Henry became king, my father became his most trusted knight.
As a boy, I would watch my father and King Henry for hours while they trained. When they had target practice, I would collect the arrows afterwards, if they needed their swords to be sharpened, I would see to it that it was done. It was my dream to be a knight just like my father, and his father before him. I wanted to be the most trusted knight to a King, like my father was.
King Henry only had a daughter. She was younger than me by a few years. I didn’t formally meet her until I was seven. Before that, I had only seen her at several banquets and ceremonies, but I had never approached her. She was always with that cousin of hers. They looked more like twins then cousins. They both had the same long strawberry blonde curly hair, with oval faces, and green eyes.
I was working in the horse stables the first day that I actually spent any real time with her. Working in the stables was my favorite place to be, and I preferred to be there alone. When she came into the stables, I wasn’t very pleased to see her. At first I wasn’t really sure if it was her, or Catherine, since they looked so much alike, and I didn’t really care which one it was. In my opinion a five year old, had no place being in the stables. I bowed, because it was the proper thing to do, and went back to my work.
A few minutes later, I noticed that she was still standing there watching me. “Yes?” I asked.
She blushed. “My father has sent me here,” she said quietly.
“For what?” I asked.
She squirmed for a minute as if she were shy. “To help you.”
I stood there stunned. I didn’t need any help, nor did I understand why he would send a princess to help me. Princesses didn’t help. But I wasn’t about to disobey the order of a King. “Very well,” I said. “You can move that hay to over there,” I told her pointing to where the hay needed to go. It seemed like a simple enough tasks. I eyed her dress. “You might not want to wear that,” I said. “It will get dirty. There are some kid’s works clothes hanging in that stall over there.”
She looked at me. “But I like my dress,” she complained.
“Then do what you will,” I said. “But don’t come crying to me when it gets ruined.” I turned my back and continued with the cleaning the stables. Later when I turned around, she was sitting on a mound of hay that had not yet been moved. I looked to see what she had moved, and it was barely anything. I was annoyed, but I knew that it wasn’t my place to reprimand a princess.
She was sitting there with her elbows pressing against her knees practically pouting. I wondered again what she was doing there. It was bizarre the king would send her here. “Do you need some help?” I finally asked.
“Oh yes please!” she said.
I sighed. I hadn’t asked her to do that much. I began to move the hay. At least if I helped her do it, then I could be done sooner, and be rid of her. I was stunned when I started to move the hay, and she didn’t help at all. She just sat there. It made me uncomfortable. The King had sent her here to help, and she wasn’t helping. By doing all her work, I was in a way, disobeying his orders. But I couldn’t say anything to her, because that would be just as improper as disobeying his orders. “You can go,” I said when I was finally done. I wanted to be rid of her as fast as I could. She smiled and skipped away.
A few minutes later, I sensed that I was being watched again. Figuring that it was her again, I felt annoyed. When I turned around however, I could see very plainly that it was not her. I bowed quickly, “Good afternoon, Your Majesty,” I said.
“Hello William,” his voice boomed. Even when he was speaking quietly, it seems as if his voice echoed like thunder. I loved the king as if he were my own family, in many ways I saw him as a second father. He smiled at me, “What is this, you don’t greet me with a hug anymore?”
“Of course,” I said flying into his arms. He picked me up and ruffled my hair. “I just wasn’t sure if it was proper any more now that I’m older,” I explained.
He set me down. “William, you are like my nephew, for you, it is always proper,” he beamed.
I smiled, I was happy for his approval, which I knew wasn’t easy to come by. “I’m glad,” I said. “I’ve missed you in the hunting fields with my father.”
“I’ve missed being there,” he said. “I’ve had some important matters to see too,” he explained. “That’s part of why I came here today.”
I stood still. I knew that he was about to tell me something important, and I squirmed. I wondered what it could be. I was only seven, so I knew that it couldn’t be too important.
“We might be in danger,” he began. “That’s why I sent my daughter here today.”
I was puzzled. I didn’t understand why he would send his daughter to help me in the stables if she was in danger.
“Let me explain,” he said. “We are under threat from the oar demons that roam the forest, and my other brother.
My other brother wants the throne, but he has been removed from the line of succession. The only way he could become king now, is if he were to overcome us. The people would never accept him, unless...” he let his voice trail. I was young, but I knew where he was going.
“If anything ever happens to me and my other brother, I’ve arranged for Isabel and Catherine to go into hiding, until they’re old enough to rule. If anything happens to us, they are the future of this country. Do you understand that?”
I nodded. “Yes, Uncle,” I replied. I often called him Uncle. “I just don’t understand what this has to do with working with me in the stables.”
“Hiding, you see is the most effective, when hiding in plain sight. I want the princesses to be able to blend in if they have to go into hiding. They need to be able to do all the things commoners would usually do.”
I understood. I thought it was a really smart idea. No one would ever expect a princess to be doing stable work. But suddenly I felt afraid. “But nothing is going to happen to you right?”
“Of course not,” he said. “It’s just a precaution.” I thought I saw fear in his eyes as he said that, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Listen, I have something else that I want to talk to you about,”
“Yes, Uncle?”
“You spend a lot of time in the stables, and with your father and me.”
“I don’t mind,” I said.
“I know that you don’t mind. But I think it’s time for a new adventure for you.”
“What adventure?” I asked excited.
He smiled. “I’ve seen to it that next week, you will start training to become a knight.”
“A knight?” I practically screamed. It was only seven, it was almost unheard of.
“Yes,” he said. “If we end up in war, I’m going to need every good knight that I can get,” he said.
I could hardly contain myself. “I’m going to be a knight,” I said. “But what about the rules?”
Palace rules said that no one could become a knight until the age of 14.
He waved his hand in the air. “You still won’t be knighted until the age of 14; I just want you to start your training now. The more time you have to train the better. And besides, that I’m the King, I get to change the rules if I want.” I sensed that he was concealing something from me. “So, how did my daughter do today?”
I felt my face grow warm. I didn’t want to tell him the truth, but I knew that it would be improper not to. When I told him what had happened, he reassured me that in this situation it was perfectly fine to reprimand the Princess, but he told me not to inform her of the reasons why he was making her help in the barn. He then grew serious again. “William, I’d like you to come for a walk with me.” He walked towards the entrance of the stables, and I trailed after him as fast as I could.
He walked towards the forest, and I stopped. I had never been allowed to go anywhere near the forest. I had always been told the wild beast roamed the forest, and they could hurt me. I didn’t know anything about the wild beast, other than they were dangerous, and sometimes they killed the villagers. That had always been enough for me.
When the King finally noticed that I was no longer lagging behind him, he stopped and looked back at me. “Come on lad,” he motioned. “It’s ok; my men are waiting for me over the hill.”
I ran to edge of the hill, and looked down at the knights waiting. I squirmed once again with excitement. I didn’t know what he had in store with me, but I loved nothing more than spending the day with the King’s private knights.
It was the first day that my sense of security had been shattered. It didn’t scare me though, I was young and the thought of war excited me. The king explained to me that we would soon be fighting, not only the oar demon the roamed the forest, but also a human enemy. That surprised me because I didn’t think we had any human enemies.
“Have you ever seen an oar demon?” I asked the King.
He hesitated. “Yes.”
“You have?” I asked wide-eyed. “Did you kill it?”
“William, I want to make perfectly clear to you, that seeing an oar demon isn’t exciting.
Hey are extremely dangerous, and the odds of a human surviving an attack are very slim.”
“What do they look like?” I asked.
He shifted again uncomfortably. I suddenly got the feeling this wasn’t something he really wanted to talk to me about. “They are twice the size of a man,” he began. “They are covered in hair, and have claws for hands with razor sharp nails that could tear a man to pieces.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t think of anything. It occurred to me that the King was holding back on something he wanted to tell me. It was the first time that he had ever been serious with me. I realized that the way the King was treating me was slowly drifting away from the way he treated a child, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“I’ve brought you out here today, because I need to show you something important,” the King said when we finally reached a large rock. “This is the boulder of the underground. If we are ever to come under attack, I want you to find as many as the woman and children in the palace and in the village, and bring them here. The rock can only be moved by the hand of a royal, so you’ll need to have the queen or one of the princesses with you.”
“What about you?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about me. If we come under attack, I will be fighting to protect the kingdom.”
“What about me?” I asked. “If we come under attack, I want to protect the kingdom too.”
He smiled, and touched my chin. “You will be,” he said.
“But how can I protect the kingdom if I’m running away from the fight?”
“Because you’ll be seeing the queen and the princesses to safety.” I still didn’t understand, but when I was older, and the time came, I understood completely. The King went on to explain to me that the boulder led to underground safe houses. He explained to me that the King had secret knights undercover all over the kingdom; they were called the guardians of the throne.
Only a hand full of people even knew that they existed, and I was now one of them. I felt special. The more into the conversation we got, the darker the King’s mood became. It was finally occurring to me, that we had never been safe, and the King had barely held the kingdom together for the last ten years. If we were to be attacked, the secret knights would protect the princesses and the rest of the royal family until they were safe.
“If I am killed in battle, you are to make sure that Isabel is safe,” he told me. “I’ve seen to it, that the knights will look out for her, and give her a proper upbringing, but it’s up to you to make sure she gets from place to place safely. You may have to move often,” he said. “That’s why I want her helping with chores around the palace. I want to make sure that she can fit it.”
“If you die, do we have to hide forever?” I asked.
He shook his head. “If anything happens to me, Isabel will remain in hiding until she’s old enough to rule. The guardians of the throne will build up a resistance, and when the time is right they will take back the kingdom.”
“Like the Trojan horse story?” I asked.
He half smiled. “Yes, I suppose it’s something like that, except Harold won’t let his guard down. He’ll continue to look for her.” His mood grew darker again. “It’s my brother that I fear more than the oar demons,” he explained. “The beast can be repelled with weapons, and patrols. If my brother comes to power, it will not be good for any of our people.” He drew a deep breath in.
“Well, I think that’s enough of that serious business today,” he finally said. “How about if I give you your first official lesson with the bow and arrow?”
“Really?” I practically screamed. I pushed aside all of the stuff that he had just told me. At that moment I was a little boy being given a lesson from his hero.
Princess Isabel
Catherine and I dragged our feet to the stables. Neither one of us wanted to go. We had been playing in the gardens again when my mother had come to fetch us. I tried to beg my way out of it, but mother wouldn’t hear of it. I remember she even threatened to spank me if I didn’t go, so I pulled myself together and pouted all the way to the garden.
“I don’t understand why we have to do palace chores now,” I whined to my mother.
“Because the king commanded it,” my mother explained. Her eyes narrowed on me. “Even if he wasn’t the king, you must still always respect the fact that he is your father.” She stopped and pulled on my hand. “That goes for me as well. To everyone else, we are the Queen and King, but to you we are your parents first.”
I nodded.
“What about me?” Catherine asked.
The look on Mother’s face softened, and she touched Catherine’s cheek. “To you, we are your aunt and uncle before anything else.”
I grabbed onto my mother’s neck as did Catherine. I was too young to really understand what it meant to be royalty, and I saw my parents like any other young child saw their parents. I didn’t want to do palace chores, but like any other child I didn’t want my parents to be angry with me either. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Last time the stable boy had done most of the work for me.
I had seen him a few other times at banquets, although I wasn’t quite sure of his name, but I knew that he was the son of my Father’s favorite knight. I knew his father as Sir Walter. Although my interactions with Sir Walter’s son were limited, I knew Sir Walter quite well.
Sir Walter was almost like another uncle to me. He was always with Father and Uncle Charles’s. He was a tall man with thick blond hair that was often tied in a ponytail and ocean blue eyes. I liked him because he was playful, and often brought me dolls when he dined with my family, which was often.
Father told me that Sir Walters’s family had always been good to ours and that if anything should ever happen to him, to trust Sir Walter.
As we approached the stables, I saw Sir Walter leaning against the outside of the building. I ran to him, flying into his arms. He laughed, and then put me down.
“How are you today Princess Isabel?” He asked.
“I’m good!” I exclaimed. “Do you have a doll for me?”
“Isabel!” My mother scolded.
“I’m sorry, not today, but maybe next time.”
“I’m sorry,” my mother apologized. “I can see that I need to tend to her manners more.”
“No worries, you’re majesty,” he shrugged. “She’s still a young child,”
“A princess should behave better,” my mother said, her eyes narrowing on me.
Catherine tugged at Sir Walter’s sleeve.
“Princess Catherine!” He exclaimed, picking her up and twirling her around as she giggled. A second later, he picked me up as