by Andersen,Kai
“I’m sorry you’re trapped in here with us. You shouldn’t have come in the first place.”
“I had to. Your father is worried about you; he wanted me to talk to you and help you make up your mind regarding your marriage.”
By thrusting Giselda at him. It would be his pleasure to inform the queen that her ploy hadn’t worked.
“As a matter of fact, I have already chosen my bride.” Even as the words left his mouth, he questioned the wisdom of his intended revelation.
“Yes?” The queen asked, her eyes eager and expectant.
“You have to promise me, Stepmother, not to breathe a word of this to anyone. I’ve only just made my decision, and I haven’t even asked my intended this most important question yet.”
“Of course she’ll say yes.”
“How would Your Majesty know?” Frederick pretended uncertainty, knowing exactly what she meant and whom she was referring to.
“I mean, you’re the prince of one of the mightiest and richest kingdoms. Not only that, but you’re young and strong, able to father many healthy babies. Any sane girl would love to have you for her husband.”
He made a face. “I don’t think I like being sought after for my wealth and reproductive capacity. But because you thought so highly of me, I’ll take you into my confidence. Stepmother, I’ve decided to ask ...” The queen hung onto his next words with bated breath, though she tried to keep her excitement under a cool dignified exterior. “... Serena to be my bride.”
“How wonderful!” Her eyes lit up with joy. As the full import of his words sank in, her brow furrowed with dismay. “Serena?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Surely you know why.” He deliberately let her think it was just sexual. His love was all too new to be announced yet, especially as he hadn’t yet declared it to the one who deserved to hear it first.
Her eyes widened with shock. “But -- but you have to marry a real princess.”
“I’ve decided it doesn’t matter anymore.” If he married the woman he loved, would that not honor his mother’s last wish? He didn’t see why he had to explain to anybody else.
“But it should!” Desperation was etched on her face. “An oath is very sacred. Once you break it, no one will believe you anymore.” When he just laughed, she continued, rushing through her words, “Frederick, if you’ll allow me, I know of a test which we can put Serena through to determine if she’s really a princess. If she is, you can marry her with my blessings. If she’s not, I think I owe it to your dead mother to speak on her behalf.”
My foot, he thought in disgust. Just because she was queen didn’t mean she was fit to speak on his mother’s behalf. But he knew that if he didn’t give in, she’d never let the matter rest. It would mean that Serena wouldn’t have an easy life after their wedding, if the queen kept on harping about it. So, strictly for Serena’s sake, he decided to go along with her -- for the moment.
“All right. What’s on your mind?”
“You must first promise not to speak to either Serena or your father about this before we’ve proven whether Serena’s a real princess or not.”
How did it come about that she’s giving him conditions? But to maintain the peace in the family after his wedding ...
“Agreed.”
“I’ve heard it said that the skin of a real princess is very soft and very sensitive. If we place a small pea beneath her mattress and if Serena’s a real princess, she should be able to feel it and not sleep a wink tonight. Tomorrow morning, we shall judge from her reaction if she was able to pass the test.”
Frederick scoffed. “That’s just an old wives’ tale. No one can have skin that sensitive.”
“Not so!” She was quick to refute him. “I’ve heard it said that a thousand years ago, the then King of Lazvinium had thrown a ball for his son, and every eligible princess in the world was invited. The crafty old king had made it a weeklong celebration. Hence, the princesses were obliged to stay for that span of time at the palace.”
“Let me guess. He placed a pea under each of their beds and the next morning, the princess who hadn’t been able to sleep a wink was chosen to be the prince’s bride.”
The queen sniffed. “It happened as you said. The king even had his servants place six additional mattresses on top of the original bedding.”
Frederick whistled. “That must be really sensitive skin, to feel the imprint of a tiny pea beneath all those mattresses.”
“Unfortunately, all the princesses complained of having something hard underneath their mattresses the next morning.”
He laughed. “The king must have been in quite a fix.”
“He was. He didn’t know what to do after that. Then, as the princesses were having a picnic in the garden, a strong gust of wind blew and rattled all the leaves from the trees. The leaves fell on the princesses, and one princess was heavily injured from having the leaves fall on her.”
“Really?” Frederick was plainly skeptical. “Leaves can do that much injury? Perhaps a branch had hit her as the leaves were falling.”
“No branch was recorded in Lazvinium’s annals.”
“And I suppose you’ve read each one of them.”
“Believe what you will. But the pea test is the one I propose. I wouldn’t want you to marry a fake princess and break your oath.”
“As long as we agree that if Serena passed this test, you would give this union your blessings. And no further tests.”
“Agreed.”
“All right. Do what you have to.”
Chapter Fourteen
That night, after the entertainment in the music room, Serena traipsed happily to her bedchamber, wondering if Frederick would come to her again tonight. The queen had joined them for dinner, something she hadn’t done for the past few nights, and she seemed full of suppressed excitement. Giselda was the same as usual, doing all she could to draw Frederick’s attention. But Serena wouldn’t let that thought get in the way, not now, when she was looking forward to Frederick’s night-time visit. Rodin was silent. He usually was, preferring to blend in with the background rather than call attention to himself. But then, that was the way with bodyguards. Then she thought no more about it as the image of Frederick came into her mind.
Last night was ... indescribable. She hadn’t known such pleasure was possible. As she recalled their activities, her pussy pooled hot with her juices. She remembered how she had tasted and how he had tasted, and she shivered, with longing, with desire.
She wished Frederick would come to her tonight.
A thought came to her, and she smiled wickedly.
Maybe she would go to him.
Serena entered her bedroom and gaped open-mouthed as she stopped short in the doorway. The mattresses on her bed now stood a little above her head. She wondered how she was supposed to climb up when she noticed a ladder standing beside her bed.
She closed the door and frowned. So this was what the servants were about this afternoon. Presumably, they’d been busy stripping the other beds of their mattresses and placing them on her bed. But she didn’t need any extra mattresses. She hadn’t complained of any hardness or bumps or springs or whatever. So why did they feel they needed to pile her bed more than five feet high with mattresses?
She inched closer and started to count. One, two, three, four, five ... eleven, twelve ... eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Twenty! What was she supposed to do with twenty mattresses?
She supposed she should be grateful the canopy was so high, else she wondered how she would be able to sleep on her bed tonight.
Frowning, she suddenly remembered something odd.
Red, the servant girl with hair the color of her name, was in a dither this afternoon because she couldn’t find any peas either in the cupboard or in the stock room. Serena had gone to the kitchen to help out, since Frederick seemed to be busy somewhere, and she’d heard Red said to Cook that they had to find one or else the queen would have their heads
. She hadn’t paid it much attention, assuming the queen just wanted some pea soup for dinner.
At the table that evening, there hadn’t been pea soup or any pea dish, so she’d assumed Red hadn’t been able to find the peas. She hoped that the kitchen staff’s heads wouldn’t roll however, and said as much to the queen, who’d given her a strange look.
Now, Serena’s eyes narrowed.
Legend had it that the skin of a princess was so soft she would feel the imprint of a tiny pea even under a mound of mattresses.
Her eyes trailed up the mattresses.
So, they meant to test her, huh? She hoped maliciously that the queen and Giselda and Frederick would find their beds hard to sleep on tonight.
Knowing that Frederick wouldn’t come to her tonight, Serena prepared herself for bed. The maid came in a little while later to help her. Her preparations done and the candle extinguished, Serena climbed the ladder, flopped onto her twenty-mattress bed and slept.
* * * * *
The next day as they were having breakfast, Serena made a show of yawning and stretching her body, as if to drive out all the kinks. She knew such an exercise would also draw Frederick’s eyes to her curves, so she gave it everything she had. She was wearing one of the dresses that Giselda had lent her, and it would really serve him right if her breasts fell out. She hadn’t forgiven him for allowing the little test last night, yet she hoped that he’d ache enough to come to her again tonight.
She missed him last night, the cur.
As she had lain on her twenty mattresses, she realized a painful truth. She loved him. Him -- Frederick. Despite the fact that he didn’t love her, despite the fact that he wanted only her body, despite her resolve to love only a man who loved her, she had fallen deeply and irrevocably in love with him.
How else to explain her fascination with him, her admiration for his knowledge and quick mind, her respect for his obvious regard for his father’s subjects and his strength of character? It might also explain why she wanted to be with him at all hours of the day, be it to talk with him, to laugh with him or even just to see him.
The queen’s voice startled her out of her thoughts, bringing her back to the present and to the role she was supposed to be playing. Only, her body really ached and her eyes were gritty from lack of sleep.
“What’s the matter, Serena?” The queen asked solicitously, a worried frown between her brows as her eyes lingered on the dark circles under Serena’s eyes.
“Your Majesty, I’m glad you asked. Something’s wrong with my bed,” Serena hoped she looked pitiful and delicate, “I couldn’t sleep last night; it felt as if something was under all those mattresses.”
The queen paled. “Are you sure, Serena? Could it be because your mattress is a bit thin?”
So, she’s pretending she hadn’t anything to do with the fact that my bed was five feet high. “Oh, no, Your Majesty. My bed last night was twenty mattresses high.”
“So many mattresses! How could you still feel anything?”
“I don’t know, Your Majesty.” Serena made her eyes go as wide as they could. “I admit to being puzzled too. The past few nights, I slept very well, even though I had only one mattress. But I had twenty last night and it felt as though something were sticking into me, no matter where I lie.”
A sound like a snort escaped Frederick’s lips. Serena looked over to see that he was manfully hiding his mirth.
The queen sniffed. “I don’t see what’s so funny, Frederick. That such a guest would complain signifies that our arrangements are lacking.” She turned back to Serena. “I’ll take care of it, Serena. I’ll personally ensure that you have a good night’s rest tonight.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
* * * * *
Later that morning, Frederick and the queen were ensconced in his sitting room. The queen paced up and down as Frederick watched her from where he was leaning negligently against a wall. One didn’t sit when the queen or the king was standing.
“Do you admit now that Serena is a real princess, Stepmother?”
“I don’t believe it! She must have heard from the servants --”
“No one knew about it but the two of us.”
She whirled on him. “Then you must have told her.”
“I told her nothing.”
“Then how could she --”
“The only explanation left is that she’s a real princess, which is why she has such soft and sensitive skin that she could feel a tiny pea under twenty mattresses.” If Frederick’s voice was a little sarcastic, the queen paid him no mind. “Surely with such proof, you wouldn’t have further objections to our marriage. Even my mother would’ve been satisfied.”
She drew herself up regally. “Very well.” As queen, her word, once said, couldn’t be retracted. “I’ll retire to my rooms.”
Frederick watched her leave, a satisfied smile on his face. He intended to go to Serena’s bedchamber tonight and propose to her. Then maybe they could do some serious playing.
Chapter Fifteen
“Giselda, wake up, you sleepyhead!” The queen nudged and pinched her sleeping daughter into wakefulness. She didn’t know how Giselda could be so unconcerned. If they didn’t do something, Giselda wouldn’t have a chance at being queen.
“Ow! Mother, stop pinching me!” One hand rubbed at her eyes and the other at her thigh where her mother’s fingers had landed. She yawned and stretched like a cat.
“Really, Giselda! I don’t know how you can sleep in the afternoon and be sleepy again at night.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked down at her stretching daughter. “You aren’t pregnant, are you?”
“Mother!” The shock in Giselda’s eyes assured her. “How could you ask that? You know I’ve been keeping myself pure for Frederick.”
“See that it remains that way. But you have to wake up now.” She paced the room, brows knitted. “We have a problem.”
“What is it?”
“That fool Frederick means to marry Serena.”
Giselda sat up and sputtered, “But -- but -- she’s not a princess!”
“Apparently, it doesn’t matter to him.” The queen paused and stared at her. “Weren’t you the one who conjectured that she might be? Well, that’s not a question anymore. She is a princess, if you’d been paying attention at the breakfast table.”
Giselda frowned. “I distinctly remember something about mattresses and her high-pitched complaints -- God! She squealed like a pig about to be butchered.”
“Well, that pig is about to be the future queen of Mithirien, if we don’t do something about it.” The queen related the test she and Frederick had agreed on and the subsequent outcome.
“Surely, you don’t give much credence to that bullshit, do you?”
“Giselda! Is that proper language for a princess?”
“All right, all right, I’ll watch it.”
“After seven years of deportment training --”
“Mother, can we get back to the topic?”
“We’re not through with that, young lady.” Sometimes, like tonight, the queen wondered if she was doing Mithirien a disservice by maneuvering her daughter in the position of future queen. Suddenly impatient with herself, she pushed these unworthy thoughts aside. She was queen, and her daughter deserved nothing else but to be queen too. Anything less was unacceptable. “But now, we have to talk about Serena. The way I see it, we can’t let the wedding take place. We have to stop Frederick from even writing that letter.”
“Gods! I really really hate that bi-- Serena.” Giselda stalked to the closet and rummaged through her clothes, throwing dresses and underwear to the floor. “I wish she’d lost her way into that fenced area with all those wild beasts.”
“An admirable sentiment, dear, but useless to us.” The queen understood. It couldn’t have been easy for her daughter to watch Frederick lust after Serena. She wished she could spare her, but if Giselda was to be married to Frederick, she needed to learn how to cope with it, Freder
ick being what he was.
Giselda suddenly whirled around, a pool of clothes at her feet. “Why don’t we ruin Serena totally? You know, get Frederick to discover her in bed with another man. I’ll wager he won’t want her then.”
“Go on.”
“The thing is, we can’t confirm Serena’s status, whether royalty or commoner. If she were royal, having her de-virginized would be enough to ruin her prospects for a good marriage forever. But if she were a commoner, she’s probably not even a virgin anymore. Considering that Frederick wants to marry her despite the uncertainty of her status, that means only one thing.” Giselda waded through the clothes, her movements jerky and urgent.
The queen wasn’t surprised to see an unholy light in Giselda’s eyes, though she was shocked when Giselda took her by the shoulders and shook her. Nobody has ever taken such liberty before.
“One thing, Mother!”
The queen’s teeth rattled. “What’s that?”
“He’s been bewitched.”
“That’s enough. Take your hands off me!”
Giselda obeyed, but she continued her protests. “But I really think he is. Serena’s cast a spell over him; that’s why he didn’t even care that he might be breaking his oath.” She advanced toward the queen. “Mo-ther, I --”
“Stop right there.” The queen moved swiftly to the other side of the bed. “I don’t fancy losing all my teeth.”
“Mother, you have to help me.”
“I am, you dolt. Even though you didn’t do some of the things that you were supposed to. If you did, Frederick would’ve been yours by now. That’s it!” The queen’s face lit up. “You have to seduce Frederick tonight.”
“Seduce?”
Talk of sex and her eyes lit up.
“Yes. You have to give up your virginity to him. In the morning, he’ll be obliged to marry you.”
“But ... but he’ll know I’m not Serena --”
“Not to worry.” The queen hurriedly left the room and came back seconds later with a small vial clutched triumphantly in her hand. “I have this!”