A Prologue

Once upon a time, there was a king who had three daughters.

The first, the eldest, was from her very first year a well-mannered and studious child, so the king called her Wisdom, and raised her in the matters of statecraft and science, to one day be married to some far off prince and bring the knowledge of the two kingdoms together into a brighter age.

The second was from her very youth taken with dance and ritual, so the king called her Grace, and she was taught in poise and elegance, to one day be married off to a rambunctious and adventuresome prince, who would be in need of a wife who was calm and collected yet charming.

The third was the youngest and she was not like her sisters. But her being unlike her sisters was not in the way of heroes, of youngest sons who know virtue and humility, no, her way was that she was neither wise nor graceful, but a daughter. A daughter who the physician had deemed fragile, for there was a thorn bush in her ribcage, and sometimes, it rustled and the princess hurt for its rustling. She hurt in twist-up-her insides ways that made it impossible to sleep some nights and made others fearful, for the pain could come at any moment. Tinctures and salves and small bouts of exercise helped to trim the thorn bush, but there it remained.

 So the daughter was neither a charmer nor a scholar, but a waif with an unseen wound, and so the king named her Reserve. Not for her shyness, which ebbed and flowed like the tide, nor for her moroseness, which was at times interrupted with her odd humor. He named her such for he thought it best to save her for a future occasion, when his two best daughters were married off and yet another prince needed a bride. Who knew, perhaps he’d be a hero, and venture to lands far to find a cure for the thorn-bush. But these thoughts were but hopes, so they were put away and the king carried on with the affairs of his kingdom.

His two elder daughters he continued to raise in their respective manners, and the youngest one he had confined to the castle. She was already fragile, he reasoned to himself and to his advisors, and she was nothing special, not someone who could bend the world to her whims with rhetoric or charm. She was but a reserve. The world, if she ever fell into its clutches, would break her. The king kept this notion until the day he died, and his most trusted advisor stepped up as regent.

A regent’s position after the death of his king is tenuous at best. No sooner than one takes up the scepter and circlet that people begin whispering of poison and treachery, and knights begin to polish their swords in preparation of separating a wicked ruler’s head from his body. It did not matter who he was, only that he was an advisor to a king and the king had died and he had profited. Kings did not just die, the word went, they either died of battle or treachery, and no one in the position to decide opinions ever did anything to counter-act that claim.

So, even if the king’s true betrayer was his appendix and a life spent diluting his blood with wine, the advisor still found that if things continued as they were and rumor spread, the sands in the hourglass of his life would begin to run short. So, he decided that he needed to do something about his status of regent before it got taken away from him in a most unpleasant fashion by well meaning heroes.

So, he hosted a ball, to marry off the Princesses Wisdom and Grace and secure a king for the castle and prolong his lifespan considerably.

The regent called upon the finest dressmakers and cooks and decorators and host the finest ball this side of the great forest, and if all went well, the two eldest daughters would have fiancees by midnight. Granted, if both princesses married, the status of kingship would be a point of contest between their husbands, but the vizier was of the opinion that at least it wouldn't be his problem any more. 

Yet while her two elder sisters would wine and dine and dance and mingle, the Princess Reserve would be kept to her room. She was already fragile, this the advisor knew, and the stresses and surprises common to a royal ball would be too much for her, that was clear. He had promised to the king on his deathbed that he would take care of the princesses in the same manner that the king had until his final day. So, Princess Reserve would stay in her bedchambers, and brush her hair, and, the vizier sadly thought, likely dream of the world she would never truly have.

If this was a different story, perhaps the princess would have had a loyal maidservant procure for her the finest dress in the kingdom, would have sung to the birds on her windowsill and had them bring for her a comb of ivory, and had a cook seek out a potion that would allow her to dance as much as she wanted for a single night. Perhaps she would have snuck out to the ball and been the finest beauty there, outshining even her sisters. Perhaps a prince from a land far-away would fall in love with her at first sight, see her faint of her pains after a night’s fervent dancing, and quest off in search for a cure. He might have found it too, and the thorn-bush might have been burned away by the power of some miracle cure and they would marry and they would all live happily ever after.

That all implies that this is that kind of story. Which, I’m afraid, it’s not.

Instead, let me tell you of the true Princess Reserve. Let me, for the first time in this story, cut the bullshit.

This is not the story of a prince or a dead king or even a hapless regent. This is the story of Reserve, and the night she looked death in the face and said, “Fuck no.”

END OF PROLOGUE

THE STORY PROPER, ENTITLED "LE MORT D'ARDOUR" WILL BEGIN SOON