by Sheela Word
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Other stories by Sheela Word are available wherever “The Very Large Princess” is sold. An excerpt from “The Princess in the Armory,” is below.
The Princess in the Armory (Excerpt)
On the name day of her eighth year, Princess Theresa of Alcedonia was presented with a poppet, fashioned from alabaster and painted to resemble herself. It was clad in a comely gown of yellow silk trimmed with lace and ribbons, and it smiled graciously upon its mistress, yet it pleased her not.
“I would sooner have a culverin, a falconet, or other such light cannon,” she murmured.
“What sayest thou?” asked her mother, Princess Gertrude, raising a hand to her ear to shield it from the ambient din. Many were gathered in the solar chamber: the Queen (Theresa’s aunt), the Dowager Queen (her grandmother), Prince Antoine (her father), several other aunts and uncles, numerous cousins, and assorted lords and ladies.
“I would have a cannon,” said Theresa, raising her voice. “Or mayhap a side-sword and buckler.” She cast a glance at her cousin Mark, a lad of nine years, and saw that he was plunged in melancholy. ‘Twas hard that all their expectations should thus be o’erthrown. Mark had a crossbow of sorts, though ‘twas not well strung, and Theresa had fashioned a cudgel from the limb of an oak, but what worth these against a monstrous horde of Vandals? Their fortress, belike, would fall.
“Sword and buckler?” interposed the Dowager Queen. “These are not seemly gifts for a maiden.”
“E’en a halberd or a pike would be most welcome,” said Theresa.
Prince Antoine laughed, then bade his daughter to hold her tongue.