The Thirteenth Princess

by Nina Clare

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2016

  A Kindle Scout selection

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  For my mum, who named me, and whose own name means beautiful

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Prologue

  “ONCE UPON A TIME there were twelve princesses . . .”

  “Excuse me, but you know that is not quite right.”

  The Master Chronicler raises a long, bony hand to halt his young apprentice in his reading. The face of the master is as pale and creased as the white linen cap upon his head, and it is a vexed-looking face, due to my interruption.

  “This is the ordered version,” he asserts. “The first lesson a chronicler must learn is that for history to make sense there must be some order applied, some symmetry of meaning. Otherwise all is a lawless jumble of facts!”

  He looks to his apprentice for acknowledgment, the young lad nods with enough fervour to cause his own cap to slide down over his eyes. The Master lifts a finger by way of a signal, and the reading resumes.

  “Once upon a time there were twelve princesses, each more beautiful than the last.”

  “That part is true,” I grant.

  “But a great mystery surrounded the princesses, for every morning when they awoke their slippers were found to be worn through. But where they had gone and how they wore their slippers out, no one knew.”

  “That also is correct, but you have left so much out.”

  “So the king issued a proclamation that any prince who could solve the mystery would win the hand of the eldest princess and inherit the crown.”

  “What about the part where he would be killed if he failed?”

  Weary eyes scowl at me. Eyes as opaque as the vellum parchments he pores over day by day.

  “Each prince in turn was given three nights to solve the mystery. But if he failed, he would be executed. One brave young prince came forward and was given a room adjoining the princesses’ bedchamber.”

  “Yes—my room,” I say under my breath.

  “But he lay down, his eyes grew heavy, and he fell asleep. When he awoke, there were the princesses’ slippers—all worn through.”

  “The same thing happened on the second and the third night, and so the prince was sentenced to execution.”

  “Many suitors came forward, but the same fate befell them all.”

  “We did feel very sorry for them.”

  “After many days one final suitor arrived at the palace. That night the princesses dressed themselves with great gaiety.”

  “‘Another poor fool who has thrown away his life!’ the eldest sister laughed.”

  “Now stop there—I take great objection—she does not speak in such a manner!”

  The Master halts the reading. He glares at me across the horns and stone jars of ink lined up between us on the wide oak table. He snatches the manuscript from his young apprentice and waves it at me.

  “It is representative of the general feeling of the people at that time,” he insists. “It is a necessary tension to the balance of order.”

  I stare indignantly in return.

  “Do you care to hear the rest?”

  “Yes. I do care to hear the rest.”

  He pushes his reading monocle into his eye socket and wrinkles his pale nose as he finds the place in the manuscript.

  “This is the fantastical part,” he mutters. “Invisible cloaks and magical kingdoms —humph!”

  “You should not be so quick to dismiss things just because you have not seen them yourself,” I tell him. “I have found life to be much more extraordinary than it appears.”

  “Humph! If you want to hear the rest of it—no more interruptions!”

  I can see he is growing most displeased now.

  “Very well,” I promise. “No more interruptions. But please, go to the end of the story, I have heard the middle part already. Go right to the end, if you please, for that is what I am most interested to hear.”

  The Master turns to the final page. He squints through his monocle and murmurs to himself.

  “Hmm . . . silver, gold, diamonds . . . goblet of gold . . . hmm . . . crystal lake, castle of black opal . . . sent before the king . . . here we are.” He reads aloud.

  “And so the successful prince claimed the eldest princess, married her, and inherited the crown.”

  “But that is not how it ended, as well you know!”

  “As I have said,” replies the Master, removing his monocle to scowl at me again, “History has to be arranged in a rational way or it makes no pattern of logic. We cannot retell gross subversions of order—logic has four corners, linear lines—not great meandering tangents and sudden turnabouts. Even such unusual accounts as this have to be squared and organized for posterity, or I may as well be a peasant folktale-teller as a royal chronicler!”

  “But what about the truth? Should we not preserve and retell things as they really happened?”

  “Truth is subjective. Order must reign supreme. This is the formal version!”

  “Well then, if that is how it must be . . . Give me that sheaf of new-pressed paper and a sharp quill,” I ordered the young apprentice. “I see I must write down the informal version myself. Now. Where to begin . . . ?”

  Once upon a time . . . I was born . . .

  “Yes. That is where it all began. At least, that is where it all began for me.”

  I was born a thirteenth princess . . .

  Chapter One

  I was born a thirteenth princess.

  Which is the same thing as saying I am an inconvenience.

  For in our kingdom —the glorious kingdom of Cataluna, celebrated throughout the known world as “the Jewel of the Realms” —in our kingdom whose borders reach up to the mountain lands of the east and stretch as far as the forest lands of the west, extending down to the coast lands of the south. In our beautiful kingdom of
Cataluna, symmetry is everything.

  Symmetry is beauty and beauty is symmetry.

  Everyone understands this law. It is literally carved into the palace keystones and lintels: “La bellesa es la simetria i la simetria es la bellesa.” These were the first words we were ever taught to read, write, and embroider.

  How I hated embroidery lessons.

  You cannot have good taste without symmetry. You cannot have order without perfect proportion. Our palace is designed symmetrically. The rooms are perfectly square, or perfectly rectangular, or, as in the Great Ballroom, perfectly octagonal. Every chamber, every wing, every door, window, chimney, and turret is arranged with perfect regularity. No Catalunan architect would dream of drawing his plans otherwise.

  And it is not just the architecture that must conform—the number of tapestries on any one wall, the items of furniture, the place settings, the ornamental flower borders, the servants waiting at a table, the candles in the chandeliers, even the rows of ribbon on one’s nightgown–all must be regular, precise, orderly, uniform.

  Now when there are twelve daughters born to a family, all is well. Twelve is a good number—twelve can be divided by six and four, by three and two—twelve is an excellent number. Twelve carved bedsteads with twelve cloth-of-silver canopies stand beautifully six to a wall in a royal grand bedchamber. But what does one do when a thirteenth daughter is unexpectedly born? Where does her canopied bed stand?

  Twelve daughters can sit very well four to a golden carriage pulled by four beautifully matched white horses. But where does one fit in a thirteenth?

  And so it is. I am a misfit. An appendage. An anomaly.

  Apparently the news of my birth was greeted with confident hopes that my mother would have still another child—a fourteenth to round up our family again nicely. But alas, Mother died shortly after my birth. and so there was no fourteenth.

  So then it was much hoped my father would remarry and have more royal children. Most especially, it was hoped he would have a son, for not only was my birth something of a concern, but having yet another daughter born to a king without a male heir was a bitter disappointment. But, alas again, my father died within a year of his queen’s tragic demise. It was said with great reverence he died of grief, so greatly had he loved my mother.

  And so it came to pass that Uncle came to sit upon our father’s throne, for the law of the kingdom declares that only the son of a king may rule—a son by birth or a son by marriage. So until our eldest sister could marry and provide a royal son-in-law to take the crown, Uncle was to rule as the Honorary Temporal King by Crown Proxy.

  Uncle very much liked to be referred to by such titles as: The Magnificent Monarch, The Incomparable Ruler, The Supreme Sovereign, The Divine Defender of the Realm. The Lord High Chancellor did try to remind Uncle that he was only the Honorary Temporal King by Crown Proxy, but it made little difference to Uncle. Uncle was not one for listening to people if he did not like what they were saying. And he especially did not like listening to government ministers, for he always suspected they were out to trick him into signing some new law that would remove him from the throne.

  And so it came to pass that I was born into such a family–one ambitious uncle and twelve beautiful, talented sisters.

  Four sets of triplets.

  And me.

  Producing four sets of triplets is undoubtedly remarkable, and requires especial mention, but my mother did have a little help—what some people would call “a little faery help.” She never called herself a faery, but she said there was no other word in our language to describe exactly what she was, so faery would have to do.

  She told me she was amongst the last of her kind in our part of the world, for her kind belonged to an older age; faeries are “rarer than an unoiled emerald”, as the saying goes. I am told it was once usual for royal children to have faery guardians—it used to be expected—but that was in the old days. Why my mother was one of the remaining few to have one is a question I have never received a satisfactory answer to, but the happy fact is that she did.

  No one else knew Mother had a faery guardian. If people knew where a faery was to be found they would be pestering for love potions, anti-aging ointments, or magic beans and suchlike. Though I doubt few people in Cataluna would believe in a faery even if they met one, for the notion of faeries is not acceptable. It is not rational, not reasonable, and faeries certainly do not adhere to logic as it is commonly understood.

  The faery tales of old record quite accurately that it is traditional for them to give special blessings at births and weddings—bringing about weddings of the happy kind is a particular ministry of faeries. I have been reliably informed that on the eve of my mother’s wedding her faery guardian asked her what she would most like to be blessed with. My mother replied that she had only one desire in the world: to have children. Lots and lots of children. Lots of healthy, beautiful, good, kind children, each with his or her own especial gift. Oh, and may they all be good dancers too. Next to children, Mother loved dancing best of all.

  Now, to most people “lots of children” means any high multiple of two. So while two children are not lots and four children is a good number but still not “lots,” six is the minimum that would be considered “lots of children.” Eight is comfortably considered “a lot of children,” and ten is the ideal definition of “lots of children.” Nobody wants an odd number of offspring, of course. Symmetry is everything.

  But Mother’s faery guardian must have saved up all her wedding and birth blessings for the one given to my mother that auspicious eve, for a year after Mother married, she gave birth to triplets.

  Three daughters at once is very unusual, though not unheard of, and was a very exciting event in the kingdom—although it was a little overshadowed by anxiety because of the odd number. But very happily, just one year later, Mother produced her second set of triplets, which made for a perfectly acceptable number of six daughters.

  My father sent out adventurers to the ends of the known earth each time a child was born, tasked with discovering and bringing back precious stones. Each daughter was given a grand naming ceremony and named after her individual stone—the celebrated Great Lapido himself cut the newfound precious stones into gleaming jewels in honour of each princess and then bestowed their respective names upon them.

  But the blessings did not end there.

  One year later, Mother had a third set of triplets. Three more healthy, beautiful daughters. Father was astonished, the people of Cataluna were astounded, and there were further grand celebrations and three additional naming ceremonies—which meant more new jewels to fill the royal jewel house. And each new princess was given the name of her precious stone.

  After the third set of triplets was born, there were whispers not only of wonder, but also of concern, for after nine children, there was still not yet one prince born who could be heir to the king. And when one year later Mother had her fourth and final set of triplets, Father and the kingdom were dumbfounded.

  Never had such a superabundance of offspring been witnessed before. Through all the celebrations and naming ceremonies, the people rejoiced that the king and queen had a perfectly symmetrical number of daughters, each more beautiful than the last.

  Twelve healthy children in four years was a wondrous accomplishment, and until the month before she died Mother had to sit with Father in the monthly public petitions, for dozens of childless women would queue all night outside the palace gates to request she touch them, in hopes that some of her great fertility might transfer to them. The Lord High Chancellor was quite perturbed by this, for it was most irrational. There was talk of passing a law to forbid such illogical behaviour, but my father persuaded the chancellor to exercise restraint. For after all, he reminded him, “a happy mother makes a happy kingdom,” as the saying goes.

  But a most surprising result was that a great many of those women did indeed return the following year to show my mother their new babies.

  I
have been told that Mother did ask her faery guardian if perhaps she had some faery power herself—as so many women seemed to have been blessed. Her faery guardian told her perhaps she did. Or perhaps it may have been that the women had such faith in Mother’s touch that their belief had been enough to work a little miracle in their own lives. It is not so hard to make your own blessings, Mother’s faery guardian has often told me.

  Unfortunately, it is not so hard to make your own curses either.

  And so Mother was known as Good Queen Pearl, The Abundant Mother. Every woman in the kingdom wept at her death and brought flowers and fruit and laid them at the palace gates when she died. And the women of Cataluna made such a persistent petition to the Lord High Chancellor that he agreed to use government money to commission a statue of her, carved from marble and mounted on a plinth covered in mother-of-pearl. And so it stands in the city square this day. There has never been a queen in the history of our kingdom so beloved as our mother.

  But I do not know why Mother’s faery blessing did not seem to extend to me; why was I not one-third of a set of triplets, or even one-half of a pair of twins? And I was certainly not the dearly desired royal son and heir. I was just . . . me. A thirteenth daughter.

  There were no grand celebrations for my birth, for my mother fell ill immediately afterwards. And in my father’s grief, he neglected to send out adventurers to seek jewels in my honour. So there was no naming ceremony conducted by the Great Lapido for me, and therefore no name given to me. I am only known as “Princess”.

  Mother’s faery guardian promised her on her deathbed she would watch over her daughters until they were married. So our guardian is still with us, though it cannot be revealed that there is a faery amongst us. Only I know that.

  So. Thirteen sisters are we. Growing up without mother, or father. With only Beryl, our faery guardian, watching over us.

  Chapter Two

  I do not know how it was that I alone knew Beryl was extraordinary. I believe I first realised it when I was in my fourth year, on the day I hurt myself following a squirrel up a tree.