take care of children after their father’s died in battle. He felt like his men would fight more bravely if their families were taken care of after they died. It hadn’t been a bad childhood. I was well educated, and well fed. I didn’t want for anything, except for love. The King and Queen approved of me, but they didn’t love me, not the way that I wanted them to. Or at least I didn’t think that they did.
I envied the boy for that. The King and Queen lavished him with love, and treated them as their own child. Of course his circumstances had been different. His father had been like a brother to the King. The boy had practically been his nephew since birth. I was told the boy often even referred to the King as Uncle.
I didn’t envy the responsibilities of being a prince however. I couldn’t imagine the burden it would be for a boy who hadn’t been much more than a commoner. I remember when I first started my education at court, the children of knights kept distance from the children of the nobles. They were from two different worlds. William wouldn’t fit into any now. Had things been different, he would have remained with the orphans of knights, and grown up to be a knight himself.
But I knew those children well. They could never be his friends now. He would grow up to be a court man, not a commoner. I also knew the court children would not accept him. They would treat him with respect because of the King, but he was not one of them. He had not grown up with the finer things, or the fancy education, and I knew that he probably wanted none of them. For the rest of his life, he would have to straddle the two worlds, not ever fitting into either one.
I thought of his father. His father had done it, hadn’t he? His father had been the son of a knight, and raised as a royal after his father had died. His father had straddled both worlds and seemed happy. Or had he? Maybe his only real friend was the King.
I didn’t envy the boys new lot in life, but I envied the love he had of the King and Queen. I wondered why they had never loved me the way they loved the boy. I had always done what I was told and tried to please them. I snapped out of my thoughts when I heard the rustling behind me. It was Anna.
“Shouldn’t you be getting back to court now?” She asked. “They are going to start suspecting something,” she said.
“I keep thinking that it could happen any minute now,” I said. “I don’t want you to be alone when it happens.”
“You have to tell the king,” she replied “If you tell him, then maybe he won’t be so mad.”
“Of course he’ll be mad,” I snapped. “He’ll probably have my head on the chopping block, and if he doesn’t, your father will.”
She hung her head. I knew that she felt ashamed. No one even knew where she was. Her parents thought she was still serving as a lady in waiting to the Queen, and the Queen thought she had returned to her parent’s months ago.
We both knew the punishment for a lady in waiting to become pregnant before marriage.
“I don’t want anything bad to happen to us,” she said.
I laced her fingers through mine. “Don’t worry, nothing will happen. I’ll figure something out. Just give me time,” I said. I kissed her, and rode off on my horse towards the palace.
Isabel
At first I took pity on William. When my parents first told me that they were going to raise him, I was even excited. I had always wanted a sibling to play with, and I thought that I’d finally have a big brother. But William had no interest in me whatsoever.
I didn’t quite understand it. He was a royal now. That meant that the other kids wouldn’t want to play with him. The other kids never wanted anything to do with the royals. They resented us. When they were nice to you, you never knew if it was because they really liked you, or if it was because they just wanted to suck up to you. Father had even warned me on a few occasions, that sometimes the parents encourage their children to befriend me, when they wanted something from the King. Most five year olds wouldn’t be aware of any of this. But my parents had warned me from a young age to be suspicious of people that wanted to get close to me. To be a royal, means that you have to question the motives of everyone around you.
So I was shocked when William wanted nothing to do with me. Overtime I began to resent him for it. By the time I was seven, I hated him. The only time he ever spoke to me, was when we were working in the stables, and he was never nice to me. I was never sure why, but I knew that he detested me as well.
The only people he seemed interested in at all were my parents, and Catherine. I couldn’t understand why he was so nice to Catherine, and not me. Catherine and I weren’t so different.
“Why does William hate me?” I asked my father one day.
He looked at me curiously. “Why do you think that he hates you? He asked me.
“Well,” I began. “He never wants to play with me, but he plays with Catherine sometimes, and he tries to avoid speaking to me at all cost, except for when we’re in the stables. When we’re in the stables he’s always bossy and harsh with me.”
“I assume that he’s harsh with you when you’re in the stables, because you’re not a very good worker.”
I shrieked back hurt, and then prepared for his wrath. I thought that I had been doing fine with my work. It was true that I hated doing it, and complained from time to time, but I always did what I was told. “What do you mean?” I asked afraid. “I do what I’m told.”
“You’re resistant to doing what you’re told. You’re miserable the whole time, and you complain about everything that you’re asked to do. I did not raise you to complain.”
I was shocked. I didn’t realize my behavior came off as being that bad. Then I felt angry. I wondered who had been saying all these bad things about me. People weren’t supposed to talk badly about a princess behind her back. I clenched my fist in anger. “Who said that?” I demanded to know. “It’s not true, and I’ll have their necks for talking about me. Was it William? I’ll kill him if it was!”
“Isabel!” My father barked. “Don’t you dare say another word! I’ve instructed William, and the others to keep me informed on your work. I assigned you to palace chores for your own good, and I’m insulted that you complain. It’s an embarrassment to your mother and I, and you come off like a spoiled little brat.”
Tears began to flood from my eyes. He had never spoken to me so harshly before. Suddenly I seemed to be collapsing under the pressure of being my father’s child. Suddenly I was sick of being a princess. No matter what I did, someone was always scolding me. I could never be proper enough, I could never do well enough in my studies, and now I couldn’t even do chores correctly. Would anything that I did, ever be good enough? It was that moment that I began to hate William.
Suddenly, I felt like he was the child that my parents wanted to have. It seemed like no matter what my parents were always praising him. At banquets, they were always telling everyone how proud they were, and how proud his father would be of him. When he did do something wrong, my parents were never as hard on him, as they were on me.
I felt angry. It seemed like the only time my parents ever paid any attention to me anymore was to scold me. As my father continued to yell at me, the tears became hot, until finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I ran off, my father screamed for me to come back, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be a princess anymore; I just wanted to get away, far away.
I ran into the woods that I had been forbidden to go into. I knew that he wouldn’t dare come into the forest without being armed. I’m sure he had gone back into the palace to get his knights, and weapons. I smiled, it meant more time for me to get away. It didn’t occur to me, that it was just giving me more time, to find danger.
I walked down by a stream picking up pebbles and trying to skip them across the water’s surface. I was unaware, but I was being hunted. I pranced along, smiling to myself for getting away. I was done with being a princess. I was done with being yelled at, I was done with responsibilities, and I was done with chores. I could finally just be a normal kid. I imagine
d a hunter in the woods finding me. I would tell him that I was an orphan, and he would take me home and raise me. I would finally have a normal childhood.
Suddenly, I heard leaves crunching and heavy footsteps. It had to be a hunter. I didn’t think it would happen that fast. I looked around. Surely, it had to be a hunting party, no one ever hunted in the woods alone. But as I looked around I didn’t see anything. I wondered if it was father, but then I realized it couldn’t be. There hadn’t been enough time, and he would be with a group.
I thought I saw something large moving behind the trees, but then brushed it off as my eyes playing tricks on me. Maybe I hadn’t heard anything. I turned my back to continued walking along the stream, and then I heard it. It was the unmistakable sound of feet hitting the ground running, and fast. I glanced over my shoulder, and was horrified.
It was something that I had never seen before. It was bigger than any many that I had ever set eyes on, yet it looked like a man running on all fours, barring sharp teeth like a dog. But it was unlike a man, because it had large paws, with claws, and he was covered in fur, with horns sticking out from his head.
I screamed and took off running terrified. It didn’t take long for it to gain on me. To this day, I’m sure the only reason that I survived was