Chapter
3
Kingdom
2: "Virtue, Valor… and Extortion"
The dull clang of practice swords meeting, blow
for blow, echoed through the all but empty courtyard. Thrust. Parry. Jab.
The two young fighters carried on until one managed to knock the weapon
from the other's hand. In his haste to
retreat from his opponent, the unarmed young man tripped over a wayward
cobblestone and landed hard on the ground, only to find the dull edge of the
other's sword keeping him from getting back up.
"Really, Emilio, you can do better than that,"
the victor chastised.
"No, I can't.
I'm just a stable hand!" Emilio exclaimed once the sword was removed
from his throat.
"A poor excuse. Stable hand or not, you've been doing this almost as long as I
have… you should have been able to avoid that last move," his partner
continued, shifting a clumsily fitted steel helmet.
Emilio glared at his friend. Too sweaty, sore and tired to put up with
even the mild rebuke, he snapped, "Yes, maybe, if I weren't already exhausted
from doing my work. Unlike some spoiled
princesses, I don't have all the time in the world to rest up between practice
sessions."
"I am not a spoiled princess!" his companion
exclaimed indignantly, pulling her helmet off her head, letting her unruly
auburn hair tumble down.
As Emilio moved to pick himself up off the
ground, he found a foot placed squarely on his chest, just before he was shoved
back down. With an amused smile, he
asked, "Tell me, Vir, what bothers you more—the 'spoiled' part, or the
'princess' part?"
An angry glare was his only response. Emilio sighed and this time when he tried to
get up, he did so successfully, and without any interference. "I don't see why it bothers you so
much. You are a princess. And besides, there are so many people who
would jump at the chance to be in your position."
"It bothers me," the princess replied with
forced calmness, "because I don't want to be a princess. I want to be a knight, and I can't be one
because no one wants to see me as anything more than a princess."
Before Emilio could reply, to apologize to his
friend, a new figure entered the courtyard and interrupted the
conversation. "Princess Virtue,"
announced the middle-aged woman, Florence, a long-time servant of the royal
family, who had seen through the birthing and rearing of both the royal
children. A generally good and kind
person, dear old Florence had the simple, yet annoying, drawback of being a
fretfully anxious person. As was usual
in any situation where the possibility of unpleasantness loomed nearby, she
relayed in her agitated manner, "Your mother, the Queen, has requested your
presence."
The princess grunted, annoyed with both the
inevitable clash with her mother, and the use of her proper name. At the age of sixteen, being fully aware of
all the implications of that name, Vir (as she preferred to be called) found it
to be a source of great embarrassment, never failing to cause her to shudder
inwardly whenever she was addressed so in public.
**************************
Clang.
Clang. Clang.
"Dear god, don't let that be what I think it
is," Queen Snow groaned as she awaited the arrival of her children in the
drawing room. Her fears were confirmed
when her only daughter entered dressed in the complete body armor of a knight.
"Where did you get that?" Snow asked
disdainfully, indicating her daughter's outfit.
"I found it," Vir answered evasively, shifting
her glance about nervously.
"Found it where?" her mother asked wearily in a
manner that indicated that the pair had held many similar conversations in the
past.
A moment's pause as Vir contemplated whether
the truth or a fabrication would be the best solution. Finally, she settled on the truth. "In the armor room."
"Virtue—"
"Vir."
"—you know that armor is for the knights and soldiers. You're not supposed to take it without
permission."
"I wouldn't have had to, mom, if you'd given me
permission when I asked."
"I didn't give you permission because I didn't
want you to take it."
"Exactly.
So the only way I could take it was without permission."
"Virtue!"
"Vir."
"Put the armor back, and don't take it out
again. You are not a knight, nor will
you ever be one. You're a princess,"
her mother declared firmly.
"Why can't I be both?" Vir insisted.
"Because you can't."
"But why?"
"You just can't. That's how things are.
Princesses are princesses.
Noblemen are knights."
"Oh, mom, you're so old-fashioned. You're constrained by society's perceptions
of 'traditional' roles," Vir said, rolling her eyes.
"And you are constrained by my perceptions of
appropriate roles for you," Snow replied.
Giving up on the argument temporarily, Vir
turned to the matter at hand. "Why did
you want to see me?"
The queen rubbed her temples wearily, grateful
that her daughter had decided to let the issue drop, but suddenly faced with
the problems of her other child.
"Actually, I wanted to see both you and your brother, together. But it seems that your brother has decided
he no longer has to respond to my requests.
At least, not when they're delivered by my servants."
"You want me to go get him?" Vir offered.
"If you think you have a chance at succeeding,
please do try."
"I'll get him here," her daughter replied
confidently, a small smile on her face.
"In one piece, please," Snow requested as she
watched the princess leave the room, not at all liking the crafty expression
she couldn't quite manage to keep off her face.
"No problem."
"And keep yourself that way too!"
**************************
"Wakey, wakey, dear brother."
A muffled groan escaped from the pile of
blankets and limbs that was the prince, Valor.
"G'way, Vir. 'Stoo early for
this."
With a clatter of metal that sent forth a spew
of curses from her brother, Vir plopped onto a small vacant patch on the
bed. "It's late afternoon."
One tired bloodshot eye peered out from the
darkness beneath the covers. "Still too
early."
Shifting to a more comfortable position, "Mom
wants to see us both."
"Ouch!
Watch the armor!"
"Sorry."
"Bout what?"
"I don't know.
She wouldn't say until you came down."
There was an extended period of silence during which Vir began to
suspect that her brother had fallen asleep.
"Val?"
"Hrmph…?"
"Are you coming?"
A deep and mournful sighed was heard before the
prince's tousled dark head emerged from underneath the blankets. A pair of bloodshot eyes squinted against
the sudden light that assaulted them.
"I'm coming."
Vir wrinkled her nose in disgust. "You might want to bathe first. You smell worse than Uncle Grumpy did that
time he passed out drunk in the livery and one of the horses ended up relieving
itself on him."
"Screw off…" Val muttered.
"Sound like him too."
**************************
Of the two, Vir was the first to arrive back at
the drawing room, having changed out of the earlier armor into something that
her mother would find more "appropriate" for her daughter to wear. Upon her entrance, she was surprised to
discover that her father had managed to join them during her absence.
"Dad!
You're here," she exclaimed cheerfully.
"Shhh, honey, daddy has a headache," the king
replied, wincing.
"Uh huh," Vir said rolling her eyes. Like father, like son. She looked over at her mother who sat
glaring at her husband. By the tension
in the room, it was clear the couple had had some sort of argument just prior
to their daughter's arrival and Vir had a good idea that it had something to do
with her father's present condition.
"Where's your brother?" Snow inquired.
"Right here," a strained voice answered from
the doorway.
Mother glanced at her son, noting that despite
his attempt to clean up, it was quite evident what had sort of activities had
kept the prince occupied the previous night.
Sparing another glance toward her husband, she thought, probably the
same sort of activities that had kept his father occupied.
Val quickly took a seat across from his
parents, and tired and shaky legs not capable of holding up for long. "You wanted to see me?"
"Us," Vir corrected.
"Yes, we did," the queen replied,
glancing pointedly at her husband.
The king, who seemed to have managed to get his
headache under control, looked up at his son for the first time, taking in his
haggard appearance. "What happened to
you?"
"Um," the prince stumbled, "I think I'm just
coming down with something. What about you?"
he asked, hoping to divert his father's attention.
"Oh," the king replied, equally taken aback by
the question. "I think I caught the
same thing that you did… it seems to be going around."
Hearing her father and brother's answers, Vir
let out a snort.
"Virtue!" Snow admonished. "That's no way for a princess to act."
"Right, like we're so into 'proper appearances'
in this family," Vir scoffed.
Opting to ignore that last comment, Snow
continued, "Valor, darling, your father and I both agree that it's time for you
to settle down and have a family."
"Huh?"
Val was speechless. Clearly,
this was not a conversation that he had been expecting to have, at least not
anytime soon.
"You're getting married, " Snow declared.
"I thought I was hung over, but apparently I'm
still drunk," the prince muttered to himself.
After a pause, a rather large question appeared in his rather muddled
mind. "To who?"
"To Princess Vivienne, daughter of King
Charming and Queen Ella," his mother answered.
"And why exactly would I agree to marry someone
I barely even know?"
"Because," here the king decided to enter the
conversation, "we said so. And since we
decide who will succeed to the throne after us, it might be in your best
interest to do as we tell you to."
Pause.
"Good enough for me."
"Wait a minute," Vir interjected. "If Val goes through with this wedding, he's
guaranteed the throne after you… so what reason would I have to listen to you?"
"Virtue…"
"Hah!
You've used up your trump card.
I don't have to listen to a word you say. I can become a knight!" the princess declared triumphantly.
"Not exactly," her father said, interrupting
her celebration.
"Why's that?" she asked, eyes narrowing.
"Because you would have to be knighted by the
ruling monarch."
"Ah, shit!"
"Virtue!"
**************************
"That was pretty easy, considering," Snow told
her husband after their children had left.
"Hmm, I guess as long as you know what your
children want most, and then hold it over their heads, you can get them to do
pretty much anything." The couple
shared a little laugh that parents often do in private, when they've bested
their children and gotten them to defer to their wishes.
"I hope it went just as well for Ella and
Vivienne."
