How the Seventh Princess Swore Revenge on the Royal Treasurer

Once upon Sunday the 2nd of August, at 12 noon, a gnarled old soldier announced to the throne room that he was no longer young man so the eldest princess would be fine by him. Preparations for the wedding were immediately begun and there was a general rejoicing. The eldest princess did not look particularly pleased but four of her sisters eventually coaxed a strained smile to her lips.

The seventh princess quietly drew her father aside. "Please correct me if I am wrong, but did you say that the cost of replacing our slippers was draining the royal treasury?"

The king gave her a hard stare. "No not 'draining', dear girl; 'sucked bone dry' would be a more accurate approximation."

The seventh princess took a slow breath in and quietly let it out again. Up in the royal astronomer's turret room there was a small ping as the tail fell off a brass monkey. "And just whose authority do you have that on?" she asked quite calmly.

"The Royal Treasurer's, sweetpea, who else? Sweetpea, where are you going?"

He found her eventually in the royal treasurer's apartment which was completely devoid of order, small expensive things that could be easily stowed in a traveling trunk, and royal treasurers.

"Every night," the seventh princess began, in a voice so low that the king had trouble hearing her over the noise of the wind whistling in through a window. A window held ajar by a rope made of sheets. "Every single night that we went dancing, I brought back some twigs from the forests of silver and gold and diamonds. I was granted a special permit to do so (that old soldier of yours has committed a felony punishable by eternal ensorcellment by the way, a factor you perhaps should have uncovered before blithely naming him heir apparent, without any advisory council). The special permit ensured we could continue our visits indefinitely without causing undue economic strain; they were happy, we were happy, a win-win situation for all; it should have been perfect. And I gave every cutting over to him. I trusted him. Don't worry, father," she tossed a small, chilly smile at the king. "I'll set things to right. Royal Treasurer is a particularly redundant and silly position anyway."

Later that night, the seventh princess slipped into the secret passageway intending to explain the unfortunate situation to the dancing princes and hopefully do a little more pruning. She walked through a hall filled with ashes, then another full of sand, and yet another choked with coal dust. When she found the vast lake shrunk to a small, dirty puddle and no sign at all of the enchanted palace, the seventh princess indulged in a full minute of unprincess-like foot stamping and swore vehement, humiliating revenge on the royal treasurer.

The end.


To whom it may concern, a year later the royal treasurer returns as a duke, having bought the title with his ill-gotten gains, and proposes to the seventh princess professing he loved her all along. His suit is rejected but he is a very persistent lover, he serenades her, she slaps him a couple of times, it turns into one of those terrible sappy she-hates-him-but-really-she-loves-him stories and they all live happily ever after.

The end.

Again.