Book 2, Chapter 1: Waking Up To A New Journey

I woke up because someone was shaking me. “Ok, ok, stop.”

“Good morning, Your Highness,” said Tread, “Morry made me come wake you up.”

Your Highness? It took me a bit, right, still a princess. Day four of being a princess, the annoying part of my brain told me. Tread prodded me again, shaking my shoulder.

“I’m up, I’m up. Give me a moment.” I tried to sit, but some girl was sleeping on me. Oh, yeah. I shook her in turn, “Brin, Brin! It’s time to wake up.”

“It’s so early.”

“Take your time. I gotta get going. See how everything’s coming along.” I swung my feet out of the bed and made it without falling on the ground this time. Maybe getting used to the body. I was still sleepy, it was early and, leaving the tent, the sun hadn’t come up yet, though dawn was breaking.

Tread had left. I thought I’d test it again. “Computer, save and exit.” Nothing. “Exit and save? Control, shift, escape?” Nothing, so I mumbled angrily, “You’re a very bad computer and a terrible program!”

Well, I was still here, it looked like. I’d loosely solved my dowager problem. She apparently wanted to control the kingdom, marry me off to some puppet. And Sapphire’s father, Duke Barclay, who was outright trying to replace the king, probably had my family killed by the enemy, the, uh, Ketzillians, whoever they were, and was in the process of pacifying my army through decimation before I somehow put a stop to it. The soldiers helped. Turns out, they don’t like being crucified.

But I was still here. If this was a game, I apparently didn’t finish the quest line. If this was life, well, this body had a long time to go before its quest line was over. Sigh.

What to do next? “Quest log. Journal!” No quest log, but the answer was clear: flee from the pursuing army. Somehow make it to the evil cousin’s castle, Brin’s uncle, try to survive and rebuild an army to I guess retake this kingdom. With less than half our original army, it wasn’t looking good.

Ah, well, I had to pay attention to my new mantra: ‘when you can’t change the course, practice sword fighting. But breakfast first.’

Tread and Morry were waiting outside. “Good morning, Princess.”

“’Morning. I thought I ordered an early departure. Before sunrise.”

Morry held my gaze, but Tread’s wandered up and down my frame. “We let you sleep in. Everything but this tent is ready to go.”

“Why’d you let me sleep in? I wanted to see how it was done, maybe help out.”

“You’re the princess, Princess.”

“Ah.” Beyond them, he was right, it was no longer a tent city. Mine was perhaps the last tent, aside from a couple still being pulled down. “How’d I sleep through all that?”

“You had a busy night.”

Tread waved at a table near him, “Here, look, we put out morning tea for you.” It had eggs, cheese, bacon, toast and tea.

“Wow, thanks. Be right back.” I went to the little princess’s room, then re-woke Brin. “Hey, sorry, looks like you have to get up. We’re leaving soon.”

“Oh!” She shot out of bed, throwing clothes on.

“I’ll be outside.”

“You can’t go out in that!”

“Why not?”

She just shook her head, dragged me over to a wardrobe, picked out a dress, then started taking mine off. “It’s ok, really, I got this.”

“I’m mistress of the bedroom now, so I have to ensure you look your station. Here, this shift is thicker, more suitable to daytime.”

I rolled my eyes as she placed it on me. “Didn’t I say I was getting rid of that position?”

“You’re the princess, not a god. The position stands! Uh, this dress was Sapphire’s. It’ll have to do for now.” She threw a dark metallic red dress over my head and pulled it down. “Not as regal as you’re used to, but we’re leaving soon and yours are all packed.”

My shoulders slumped a bit at the mention of Sapphire. I was starting to like her. I hoped she was ok, getting dragged off in the middle of the night by the nasty old dowager can’t be fun. But she had gone with her father’s body back to their castle. Another thing I had messed up. Duke Barclay had been a traitor, and I just sent his body back for a state funeral.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ah, nothing. Just thinking about the girls.” That reminded me of the explanation Brin had given me last night. My ladies in waiting had all been hostages, sent to the throne under the premise of education, but really to keep their parents in line. And the surprising thing? They really were educated in statecraft. That meant Brin knew more than I did about politics. “I was thinking, I want you to be more than my bedroom mistress.”

“Cayce! Mistress of the bedroom, not the other way around.” She gave me a look.

“Yeah, well I want you to sit in on my council. Be a member, I mean. Join the council. I need your advice.”

“Oh. I can do both! ‘Head Council Brin and Mistress of the Bedroom.”

“Head Council?”

“Yes!”

“Let’s not get carried away. How about ‘very important councilwoman, Brin.’”

“Hrmph, alright.” She pulled the dress up at my shoulders, brushed something off of it. “I think it’ll do for you today. For riding.”

“This dress is fine. Honestly,” we headed outside to the breakfast table, “I kinda want to get away from wearing dresses. I think I’m more of a trousers kind of girl.”

She laughed as we sat down. “Your own father outlawed women from wearing trousers.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“It’s against the crown for women to dress as men, pretend to be men, hold men’s-”

“That is insane.”

“When you’re queen, maybe you can get your husband, the king, to change it.”

“There is so much wrong with your sentiments, Brin, I don’t know where to begin. Let’s, uh, have tea.” Illegal to wear pants? No wonder the dowager was apoplectic when I brought that up. I was wishing I could look up the legality of it in medieval Europe but had no Google. I seemed to remember something about unlawfully dressing as a man, but it could have been my imagination because of what Brin had just said. Life is . . . dark without the internet.

Tread actually pulled out Brinley’s chair. I blinked at that, then pulled my own chair out and sat. Morry just stood there with his arms crossed, smiling at some private joke.

Just then General Brundle walked up. “Glad to have found you awake, Your Highness.”

I stood, “General Brundle, good to see you. Please, have a seat. Apologies that we’re eating.” We both sat. “What’s the situation?” He looked worried.

“The encampment is down, troops mustered and almost ready to leave.”

“Almost?”

“Just a few last issues.”

“Ok, that’s good news. What’s the bad news?”

“Well, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it appears the Barclay army made off with all the gold.”

“Huh. And that is a problem because why?”

He raised his eyebrow. “Your gold is gone.”

I was hoping he’d describe to me what it’d be used for, but probably the answer was obvious and involved paying the troops. “Alright. What are my options here?”

He ticked off his right forefinger. “One, we can go after it. But that will be difficult at this point.”

“Why is that?”

“We have the larger baggage train, with all the smithies, the hospital and the supplies. We’d have to leave behind our train to catch them, and it would be at the mercy of the enemy, should the Ketzellian force cross the bridge. If that happened, we’d have to continue on to Castle Barclay and make our stand there, but with much reduced forces after fighting the Barclay forces.”

“That doesn’t sound wise.”

“Also,” he lowered his eyes, “they left behind their wounded.”

“Holy, that bitc-, uh, awful woman. She left injured soldiers behind? To slow us down, I assume.”

“Or to ensure their army quick retreat. We can still march for ten hours, but our baggage train is long and slow. It’d be in our best interests to have the troops march alongside it.”

“I see. Ok, option two?”

“We forgo the gold for now and head straight to Duke Bechalle.”

“Who’s that again?”

Brinley coughed into her plate, the general cocked his head at me. Brin said, “My uncle, the duke! How many Duke Bechalles are there?”

“Oh, right, my cousin. Got it. I think it’d be best if we simply headed straight to his castle.”

“I’m in agreement. That’s the wisest course of action, my lady.”

“What about these wounded soldiers then? Do we absorb them into our army as they heal? Send them on their way?”

“That’s a tricky one.”

“Well, we’re not leaving them here.”

He relaxed his tight posture a bit. He seriously thought I’d leave wounded soldiers behind. “That is good news. Perhaps we can persuade them to join our army as they heal.”

“What does this mean, in terms of the Ketzillian army and our speed to my cousin’s?”

“They won’t slow us much. We already have quite the hospital train. We’ll make the best time we can.”

“Alright.” I drank a bit of tea, “Morry!”

“Yes?”

“More horse-riding lessons.”

“You can just say ‘riding’ you know. It’s the only animal around here we ride.”

I gave him a glare and a smile. At least I’d get plenty of riding practice in. Hopefully the horse wouldn’t throw me again.

“Hey, where is my armor?”

“Drying out I imagine,” Brin said. “The servants probably had it washed. Your gambeson was full of blood.”

“Ah. I’d hoped to wear it today.”

“Whatever for?”

I rolled my eyes. “Training, exercise. Plus, I want the soldiers to think of me as a warrior, not a dressed-up doll.” I had been looking forward to wearing the armor rather than a dress, but dresses were almost becoming normal for me. I’d kill for a Levi’s though. Perhaps I should enact a law that women could only wear jeans. Or something equally silly. At least, I’d have pants then.