The Princess who Fell in a Pond

Once upon Friday the 4th of February, at 12.04pm, a princess fell into a pond through no fault of her own; the rocks surrounding the pond had been encouraged to grow artistic patches of moss, and her slippers, while perfectly coordinated with her gown and jewellery, had no tread to speak of.

Unfortunately for the princess, fault or no, she had fallen into a pond and on the one day when such an act would bring about international ridicule, the eternal hatred of the royal librarian, and enquiries about the legitimacy of her station in life.

The princess was not sure exactly when royalty had become no longer a question of birth but of the ability to walk three times around a pond with a stack of books perched on one's head, but apparently it had and she was not impressed.

The princess glowered at the carpet of her room, found a tract of pattern she particularly disliked, stalked along it, turned, and paced back again. She did this several times until she felt it was properly subdued, then stopped and announced, "I wish to speak to you," to the empty room.

Around the edge of a suspiciously innocuous tapestry appeared a man silent as a whisper and more non-descript than a thingamebob.

"Your Highness," he said by way of greeting in his infinitely subtle voice.

"Spy master, I have an assignation for you."

"Your Highness," he repeated though this time his meaning was more along the lines of 'so I had already surmised on the strength that when my sovereign princess invites me to her private chamber it is on matters of business, never any other reason, for I am no idiot, and neither are you so let's leave off stalling and get to the point. And haven't we had a discussion about not addressing me by my title or any other moniker unless absolutely necessary?'

The princess tossed her head at the reprimand, but continued, "Which female in this castle would nobody miss? Who is so mannerless, so greedy, so vile and infuriating that all who know her will rejoice to see the back of her? Where do I find the person whose very absence would make my country a better place?"

To his credit, the spy master did not so much as bat an eyelid. "Your Highness."

"I don't need to explain myself to you, just give me the name."

"The pigsty girl, your Highness."

"Why are you amused? What could you possibly find amusing? This is not a situation that calls for amusement."

"Your Highness."

"And don't patronise me."

It was the turn of the woven mat beneath the window to suffer the princess's displeasure. "Take my copy of the princess rules," presumably she was still addressing the spy master though the direction of her attention suggested she thought the mat was equally well suited to deploying the instructions. "I have no further use for them, and did not in the first place either – walking around a pond, I mean really. Tell this pigsty girl if she follows them to the letter and she will win herself a prince; if she fails, no one in this kingdom will have ever heard of her. Tell her that. And go after her and make sure she does it properly for I will not tolerate that prince" - she managed to insult the prince's sexual preferences and question the fidelity of his mother with a single word as it ground its way through her teeth - "to think he has the better of me. I will make him rue the day that he did not beg me to become his consort before subjecting me to the enactment of parlour tricks. Parlour tricks, sir - let there be no end to his suffering."

"You highness."

"Of course eliminate any evidence linking the girl back to us. Why even ask? You are no idiot, nor am I."

"Your Higness."

"Thank you," she snapped. "That will be all."

"Your Highness."

"I will not calm down."

"You Highness."

There was something in the way he murmured her title that made her shiver. But she hadn't yet removed her soaking dress, stockings, slippers, petticoats, and other paraphernalia deemed necessary for a real princess, so it was no surprise really, truly.

"You'll catch your death," he said quietly.

"I will not! No matter what he thinks, princesses are not flipperty little dolls with perfectly expressed features, deportment, and temperament, to be wrapped in cotton-wool and glittery ribbons, and molly-coddled for the rest of their earthly lives! And if you even dare think that . . ." her voice trailed off as she caught the tail-end of a look that vanished without a trace.

"I never wanted to marry that silly prince anyway," she mumbled to the possibly empty room.

The end.


I honestly couldn't say why so many of these stories are concerned with revenging oneself upon another, it's just the way they've turned out.