Chapter 64: Princess Dorn (3)

The morning found me feeling stiff and uncomfortable. Not really surprising given everything that had happened the previous day. Kerrass kicked me awake with his boot, a gentler act than is probably envisioned, and we set about packing up the camp. We seemed to be packing up. I looked over at where the Princess had been sleeping and she wasn't there. I raised my eyebrows at Kerrass who shrugged. Ariadne was also missing. Malevolence was pacing, looking as though she was working herself up into a proper fit of temper. I ate some leftover boar meat and washed it down with some well watered wine while at the same time noticing that we were just about at the end of our supplies.

We had the bags tied up and stacked. I went down to the Kitchen where I wasted a small chunk of my life getting the donkey up the stairs to the main hall where we tied a lot of the empty sacks to him. He bore this with only a little bit of a protest, baring his teeth at me a couple of times. Then we settled down to wait.

Malevolence's temper was not improving.

“Where the hell has she taken her?” was the first thing that she said to me when I coaxed the donkey through the arch-way into the main hall.

“By she, you mean Ariadne, and by “her” you mean the Princess?” I still struggled to refer to the Princess Dorn as anything other than “The Princess.” I found that I struggled to think of her in any other way than “The Princess”, even if she marries and eventually becomes Queen. Or runs off with Kerrass or one of the many, many men that will be drawn to her beauty, then she will still remain “The Princess” to my mind.

“Yes of course I do. Who else would I mean?”

“It's important to check these things.” I said as Kerrass and I started to tie our belongings about the poor much put upon beast of burden.

“Have a care, you forget who you are speaking to.”

“I think it would be impossible to forget who he is talking to.” came a voice. It was cold, hard and utterly unbending. The Princess had come back. She looked better, still tired and haunted but she looked better. I knelt. It seemed like the right thing to do and I was dimly aware of Kerrass following my example behind me. “I will never forget who you are.” The Princess snapped at her mother. “The Dragon Sorceress that cursed a nation.” There was anger in her voice. A terrible rage that hinted at a huge and buried well of feeling.

“I...” Began Malevolence.”

“Be silent, I will come to you shortly.”

I had forgotten, we all had I suppose. Sixteen she might be. The original damsel in distress, she might have been. But she had been trained to be a Queen and her aura of command was absolute.

“Rise Frederick.” I climbed to my feet and gazed at the Princess as she walked past me to stand on the dais where the royal throne mus have stood. I had looked for it at one point but Kerrass suggested that it would have been torn apart by looters in an effort to get to the riches that were contained within it. I was dimly aware that Ariadne took up a position in the background, but not on the dais.

“Lord Frederick.” The Princess began. “We owe you thanks. Our Queenship and rule over these lands might only be a temporary thing. But while it exists we would have you know that we are endlessly grateful for your service to our nation. It is our understanding that you have rank and title elsewhere, also that your loyalty lies to a foreign crown. Know that if that were not the case then we would offer what title and land it was within our power to grant. Also such things would not be small. Alas we currently have no other way to show our gratitude but know that it is boundless. If you ever have anything that we might be able to help with, then send word and if it is within our power to grant, then it will be so.”

I bowed. She gestured and I stepped aside to where Ariadne was standing.

“You gave her lessons?” I whispered.

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“No, it's all her. She asked some advice but otherwise. It's all her.”

The Princess stands at around 5ft 4in tall. She was dwarfed by both Malevolence and Kerrass, but she dominated the room.

But someone wasn't dominated.

“Are you done playing royalty?” Malevolence hissed. “This is neither the time or the place for such....”

“BE SILENT.” Thundered the Princess, her voice echoing round the room. “You will be silent. We are not playing at anything. What state this hall is in. What state this country is in does not matter. It is ours. We understand that the nation is a shadow of what it was. That we stand in real danger of being eaten up by our neighbours and that is a problem that we intend to deal with one way or the other but... We have also not forgotten that the reason that this is the case is BECAUSE OF YOUR ACTIONS.”

“That's a....”

“DO NOT SPEAK YOUR TIRED EXCUSES TO ME.” The Princesses voice was a thing of perfect tone and intonation. It only cracked a little through lack of use. I was watching her carefully though and the crack at the end was not due to emotion. “Our Father could have handled things better. Our Mother could have done things differently. But that is regardless of the point that you went into the situation willingly and with the knowledge of the circumstances and knowing what might happen. You forced your way into a banquet and CURSED OUR NATION. Every single death, every single corpse, every lost life in those hundred and twenty years since that curse lies at your feet.

“There are two reasons why I am not asking the Witcher to slay you. The first is that the mistake was unintentional. Yours was merely the first step towards disaster. But you could have decided not to take that step in the first place.

“The second reason is that you are our mother.” I saw the Princess swallow. It was the first sign of her emotion. I looked sidelong at Ariadne who was watching the Princesses display with rapt attention and maybe, just maybe, a little pride. The swallow was perfectly timed. With just that hint of vulnerability, the Princess tamed the dragon. One day, I hope to ask the Princess whether that swallow was deliberate.

Malevolence bowed her head and sank to her knees before her daughter and wept. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

The diminutive Princess stepped down to where her mother was kneeling.

“I am so angry with you mother. So very angry, but I find that I cannot hate you. I wanted to. I really did and I tried, so very hard during the night and most of this morning. But I cannot. Father treated you badly. They say that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Well let that count double for a dragon-woman. I would also learn more about that side of my heritage. But not now.”

The Princess lifted her mother to her feet before walking back to the dais.

“However we cannot call you Draig or whatever you called your self. We have heard others call you Malevolence but we cannot think of you like that either. If you would indulge us. We recall expressing a thought as to what it would be to be a dragon and to fly to the heavens. We wondered what that would be like and our other Mother, the Queen, said it would be Magnificent. So We will call you both together, Malevolence and Magnificent. We name you Maleficent. Does that suit?”

The newly named Maleficent rose up. I am confident that I was not imagining the pride on her face. “It will suit very well. My Queen.”

“Good. We are also aware of the role you had to play in our awakening. Know that we are not ungrateful.”

Maleficent bowed again. The Princess gestured and Maleficent joined Ariadne and I. The two women put their heads together and had a short, whispered conversation that I didn't hear. I was too busy watching Kerrass.

“Witcher Kerrass, rise and face us.” The Princesses voice was warm. Kerrass did as he was told.

“Witcher Kerrass. Kerrass. We are aware of what you intend to do. You intend to call out to me your crimes. You intend to confess to every assault on our royal person and everything that you did not do to protect us. You intend to admit your complicity in those same crimes as well as the executions, murders and other dark deeds that you undertook in our name in the pursuit of justice and then you demand judgement for those same crimes.”

Kerras said nothing. He didn't even move as the Princess stepped down off the dais.

“What you did was awful.” She said. “I do not mean, standing by and allowing your then companions to.... to assault our royal person. You had no choice then or you would have died yourself. But the actions afterwards? I cannot condone those actions. But nor can I condemn them. Who is to know what those same men would have done if left unchecked. In the perfect world that we all wish that we lived in, those same men would be brought to trial and justice could be achieved. But this is not a perfect world and the feudal system would have seen them go free.

“What you did was awful.” She said again. “However, I also remember you coming to see me. The very fact that I stand here, dressed is down to you. Without you I would still be asleep. Without you, I would have been alone as I remembered your words to me while I slept. All of those times where you kept me company over long nights. Not assaulting or touching me. But caring for me as a friend. For that I am grateful and I find that I cannot condemn you either.”

The Princess climbed back onto the dais.

“There may come a time, Witcher Kerrass where this Kingdom is fully restored in all it's glory. When knights and warriors, courtiers and townsfolk, farmers and villagers come to our halls and lift up their voices to cheer whoever stands on this dais at that time. It might be that, come that day, we no longer have need of your services. But until that day, I would ask that you serve as champion. I am aware that that will take you from your path, until I am in such a position that I no longer need your services, but even then I would still ask for your friendship.”

Kerrass bowed.

“And you would have it. But I do not doubt that you will soon have your champion.”

The Princess smiled. “Maybe. But not today.”

She gestured and we all joined Kerrass on the throne room floor.

“From here, Countess Ariadne has offered to teleport us to the outskirts of the forest where we intend to make ourselves known to what remains of our people. This is not something that can be avoided, nor would we wish it to be so. Thereupon we will leave, in the company of the Countess and our champion to the royal court where we will place our case at the feet of the Empress, where we hope that we will be able to better acclimatise ourself to the times that we now live in. This will be, an undoubtedly long process. Maleficent we believe that it would probably be wise if you would meet us later at the Countesses residence, either in the capital itself or in her home country of Angral.”

Maleficent nodded, a slight smile suggesting that her wicked sense of humour was coming back. “Probably wise.”

“Lord Frederick. We would ask that you join us in coming to the outskirts but from there we have no hold over you.”

I nodded.

“Then I shall summon the gate.” Ariadne signalled.

I'd never travelled by gate before. I've done it once since and it's an odd feeling. I tried to detect the very moment of transport. That moment when I wasn't in one place but I was in both. I shivered and looked back as I walked but there was nothing there. An archway leading into blackness but that was it.

Kerrass followed me through the gate, leading the donkey. He was scowling a little. He had spoken before about not liking using transport gates although he wouldn't say why. They just seemed to make him uncomfortable.

Ariadne had moved us to a small clearing, a little distance away from the village and we took a moment to get our bearings. Also to calm the donkey down who was wild-eyed with terror. I saw the Princess walk over to one of the vines and touch it. She also examined one of the thorns. The air was missing something that had been there when we had been walking through the vines before. An atmosphere, or a pressure that I couldn't put my finger on. It felt, lighter, less oppressive maybe.

Kerrass led the way back to the village. The Princess came next with Ariadne walking beside her. I came last with the donkey. Maleficent was presumably off somewhere, maybe even back in her tower by that point. Both Ariadne and I were watching the young Princess and so we both saw the moment where she had to take a breath to steady herself before stepping out to meet her people.

It is odd to say that one of the people that I look up to is one of the people that I have only just met. I admire Kerrass, Mark as well, Father Jerome as well as a number of the other people in my field. But this Princess had some stuff in her. I could not and can not imagine what she was going through but it must have been awful. But she squared her shoulders and strode forth. Again it was that small moment, the difference between being the beautiful young sixteen year old girl and then being a Queen. Nothing had changed, not her clothing, hair or make-up but suddenly again I was looking at a Queen.

We walked through a gap in the trees and there was the village. Just as we had left it. The air seemed unnaturally quiet but then I realised that the axes had stopped their constant music. The song to keep the rhythm was no longer being sung. I didn't see the people gather, I was too busy pulling a still reluctant donkey along by it's halter so instead I only saw the finished... product if you will. People were still coming. Streaming from where they were, leaving axes, tools and chores half done, doors were banging and names were being called as more and more people came, running to see what had happened.

I stopped short, Ariadne was watching the Princess carefully. Kerrass had stepped aside, also watching the Princess. His face was a mask but I am glad that I didn't see triumph there. It would have been all to easy for a man returning to a place that hated him with the object of his quest, to have worn triumph in his eyes. But I didn't see it in him. I am glad. I'm not sure I would have been able to manage the same thing in his place.

The Princess stood, still as a statue as she watched. The village was on a little rise up from where the edge of the thorn forest was and the people were running down the hill. But then they just knelt, taking a knee before their Princess. Before their Queen.

I heard more than one person weeping openly.

“Oh my people.” The Princess began. “Oh my people.” I saw confusion on their faces. The Princess saw it as well. “My people?” She tried again but in a different tongue. It must have been a dialect or a heavily accented version of what was now the common Nilfgaardian language. I didn't understand it and I could see that more than one person was straining to understand.

“Frederick,” she called. “Could you translate for me. I don't have time for language issues.”

Ariadne took the donkey's halter off me and I jogged up to where she was standing and translated from the elven.

“Another heartbreak.” She said. “Another tragedy that I should be kept from my people. Another barrier that stands between us, like the wall of time between the day I was cursed and the day that I was freed.

“Oh my people. Do not kneel. Stand. Please stand.”

She walked forward and physically lifted one of the first people there to their feet.

“Please stand. You should not kneel to me. You who have kept faith for all of these years. You who have lived on the edges of that land that is your home, that should have been your home, eking out a living when you should have had all of this at your disposal. You, who stayed and fought that no-one should forget who I am, who you are and who we are together. I should bow to you.

“No in fact...”

She held her skirts and dropped in the lowest curtsy that I had ever seen. As low as I ever expect to see.

There were still more people crying now. In the dim part of the back of my mind I was aware that I wanted to join that flood of emotion but I had a task now. I was a translator.

A woman rushed out of the crowd. I recognised her as Sarah, the Innkeeper. Kerrass' companion from before we had departed.

“Highness,” she said. She looked up at me, tears standing in her eyes. “Highness, don't bow, don't kneel. You ...” She stammered to a halt. Others in the crowd were calling their denial.

“Try speaking a bit slower.” I told the woman. “Slowly and clearly, avoid slang and remember the oldest documents that you might have read as to how people spoke back then.

Sarah nodded. “Please don't kneel Highness. We are, and have always been, your devoted subjects.”

The Princess straightened, looked the woman in her eyes and embraced her.

There was cheering then and I allowed myself a small tear. I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned. Ariadne smiled at me. I very nearly lost my control then but I managed to return the smile.

More people came, fortunately they were fairly orderly and they didn't crush the Princess to death.

I witnessed a couple more moments that were unexpected. I saw Sarah, the innkeeper who had previously expressed hatred walk over to Kerrass. They stood facing each other for a moment, clearly a little unsure as to what to do next before she threw her arms around him. I saw her whisper something in his ear although I don't know what it was and I shall let the two of them keep that secret. The villagers led the Princess around and slowly I found that my services as a translator were needed less and less. The Princess had to concentrate to understand and occasionally I had to shout for quiet so that she could hear what was happening and what was being said to her. She was showing off that “wit” that she she had been gifted with all of those years ago and was picking things up at a remarkable rate.

She was shown everything. The inn, the cottages, the storage place for the weapons. They brought her to the orchards and to the bee-hives. I looked for Marion but I couldn't see her although I was often diverted from looking properly as I still had to provide the meaning behind odd words here and there.

The Princess stood and looked out over the cemetery for a long time. She wept then and I didn't blame her. Even Ariadne seemed a little taken aback by that, the scale of the thing is shocking when you don't know what to expect. She saw the cabins were long term visitors stayed and the warehouses and granaries that stored the supplies over the winter. She also took on an incredible amount of information. I never once had to remind her of a name or a persons occupation. She kept that knowledge somewhere and produced it easily.

From the various bits of conversation we learned that the thorns had stopped growing the previous day, roughly when the curse had been broken. Apparently there was a comical few moments when people kept chopping at the vines, only for there to be nothing to chop. We also knew that the influence of the dreams had also left. People were calm and collected whereas before they were passionate and driven. One person said that it was like a noise in the back of your mind that you had known about for years. You had always known that it was there but for some reason, you didn't miss it until it was gone.

They had guessed that the curse had been lifted and were in the process of putting an expedition together to go and see what was what when we came out of the trees.

I don't remember much of it. There were a lot of emotions that day. A lot of tears and a general sense of something ending. An era had passed and we were watching the death of it while also witnessing the birth of a new one. I felt a certain sense of anti-climax myself. The Princess was needing me less and less and I found that I wanted nothing more than to go off somewhere quiet and be by myself. I saw Kerrass several times in what I guessed was a similar mindset. He was watching everything going on around him. There was such stillness about him and an air of quiet melancholy. Periodically people would approach him to shake his hand or to give him a hug. Suddenly he would appear animated, smiling and laughing but then, as soon as the person had left he would be back to being quiet and pensive.

There was a feast organised.

We were now into autumn.

That was it, that's the thing I'm thinking about. When we had departed for the Princesses castle, it had been though we had left the fairytale village in the fairy tale version of autumn. But now that was done. Now it was autumn itself. The leaves were visibly changing shade and I felt the desire to go and find a warm cloak to wear.

But the feast.

The villagers did themselves proud and cooked up a veritable feast. If the Princess noticed anything lacking from it and the feasts that she used to attend when royalty, we saw nothing to express that. There was no seating arrangement and it was conducted outside under the stars. A huge bonfire was built and the flames leapt up to the sky.

I was staying near the Princess, on hand for translations should I be needed. I hadn't eaten much and had drunk even less. I noticed how little the Princess was drinking and was enjoying watching a couple of the villagers comments on how much their princess could drink. That they said it with such pride made me smile. But I was standing close by when Ariadne found me.

“Are you alright?” she asked me.

I looked down at her face, her eyes were a very pale blue I noticed. I also saw, not for the first time that she was a little smaller than I was. Not by much, a couple of inches or so. Her face showed concern so I decided to treat it as what it appeared to be.

“No.” I said. “I feel an immense sadness. I feel as though I'm missing something here and I don't know what it is. So much has been brought to this moment and now...”

She smiled in gentle sympathy.

“You did a great thing Frederick. A very great thing. A thing that no-one else has been able to do in over a hundred years.”

“I know. I should be happy. I should. And I don't know why I'm not, which makes it worse.”

“The human condition?” She put an edge to it, just a hint of teasing.

I smiled a little to show that I had seen the joke.

“Maybe.” I said.

She patted my shoulder. “I'll take over for a bit.” she said.

“It's ok.” I tried.

Ariadne just pointed. Marion was standing on the edge of the firelight. She looked a little different. A little taller, a little thinner perhaps, her features were a little more pronounced than I remembered. Harder lines where I had remembered softness. She was looking at Ariadne and I. An unreadable expression on her face.

“Ariadne I...”

“Go to her. It's ok. I'm not angry. Go on. You deserve some celebration too. But I want to talk to her as well when you are done so bring her back here when you've said what you needed to say.”

I looked back at Ariadne.

“Don't worry,” Ariadne smiled. “I'm not going to eat her. But I've got some things to say to her and some questions to ask. That is all. I'm a grown woman and I'm not jealous. But I do need to talk to her and it's important. Go on, take your time.”

She gave me a little push.

Marion saw me coming and was smiling a little sadly as I approached.

“You were right.” She said. “She is very beautiful.”

I looked at her for a long time. “What in the world am I supposed to say to that?” I asked, trying for a smile but I heard my voice crack at the end as my own melancholy threatened to overcome me.

“Oh Freddie,” she said. “Come here.” She held her arms out and like the petulant child that I felt I was being, I stepped into her embrace. She held me for a number of minutes.

“I'm so sorry.” I said when I eventually pulled away.

“What for?”

“For being down on what's supposed to be a day of celebration.”

“It's no bad thing to mourn the passing of something.” She said.

“I guess not.”

“I also know something else. Something that I've been watching for.”

“What's that?”

“No-one has thanked you yet.” She hugged me again. “Thank you Freddie. Thank you for your kindness and your spirit. Thank you for saving her and saving us while you were doing it. Thank you.” She kissed my cheek before pulling away.

“Are you saying goodbye?” I heard myself ask.

“I don't know. Maybe. I feel.... Oh Freddie, I feel free.” She danced a little twirling step. There's nothing keeping me here now. Oh, I'm going to stay and help out but knowing that there is a decision there. That I could choose something else. Oh, it's intoxicating.”

“Well don't get too intoxicated. Ariadne wants to meet you.”

“Oh? What for? Should I be worried?”

“I don't know. I don't think so.”

Marion nodded.

When we got back to Ariadne, she was eating a chicken leg with a cloth under her chin, she set the two of them aside and wiped her hands.

“That didn't take long,” Ariadne commented. “I was expecting the two of you to go off for a good couple of hours at the least. Should I be concerned about your stamina Frederick?”

I must have looked suitably horrified because Ariadne laughed. The sound was musical and ripe with amusement.

Marion curtsied, more out of reflex than anything else.

“You don't need to do that.” Ariadne said. “Please. I want us to be friends.”

“Your grace, I don't see how.”

“Then we shall show them. Come, I have words that are only for you,” Ariadne smiled sweetly at me, “and away from Freddie's prying ears.”

She took Marion's hands and the two of them went a little way off. I saw them talk for a little while and felt ashamed that I felt the need to check up on them. Then Marion laughed long and loud. She looked delighted. She stood up and waved to me before vanishing off somewhere.

Ariadne returned with a look of satisfaction.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Oh. The Princess is going to have to come to the capital to meet the Empress. There is a very good possibility that she will be there for sometime. I will be there certainly but I thought that Marion would do well as a companion for the Princess. A friend, to remind her of home. She's charming, intelligent, educated and so on so she will emphasise that these people are not back country hicks. The fact that you were attracted to her speaks well of her. I think the two of them will do well together.”

I looked at the vampire Queen.

“I must ask. Are you really not jealous?”

Ariadne looked at me levelly for a while.

“We are not promised to each other Freddie,” she said after a while. “I have no right to be jealous. Yet.”

She grinned at me.

“I also know what effect this place has, or rather had on the human mind. Marion was good for you. I think.”

I nodded although I still don't understand what happened there.

There was some dancing. I danced with Sarah, Marion and a few of the other village women. I even danced with the Princess once who, although she didn't know the dances, gave as good as she had. I managed to screw up my courage to invite Ariadne for a dance once which she declined graciously.

I was disturbed by my relief at that.

Then, as night was really falling the Princess stood out before the fire, the flames lit up the sky and illuminated her face. She gestured me forwards.

“Friends,” she began in everyone's common tongue. “I have things to say and I will ask Frederick to say them as I still struggle.”

She nodded to me and I translated as she spoke.

“My friends. You call yourselves my subjects but I would call you my friends, for calling you “subjects” seems too low a term to describe such excellent and noble people. Know that I love you all and am grateful for your faith that one day, our nation would be restored to the glory that it once was. I am overwhelmed by your welcome but know that on the morrow I must depart to the capital of Nilfgaard to present myself before the Empress. I will not be called a rebel. Nor will I hide. I am sorry that this means that we must be parted so soon after we are reunited but this is vital if we are going to govern ourselves under Nilfgaardian rule.”

“What should we do while you are gone?” a few voices called. The Princess had been warning people that she would have to go all day so it wasn't a complete shock.

She thought for a while. Or rather, she appeared to think for a while. I couldn't tell because she had to have known that this question was going to come up.

“We are a Kingdom. We have to start thinking like we are a Kingdom and we need to start building things for our future. We shall assume that the Empress will give us our autonomy and act accordingly as I have heard nothing but good about that soon to be crowned personage.”

Clever touch that. In saying that she expected the Empress to be kind. Bureaucracy is bureaucracy the world over and if the Princess was delayed in seeing the Empress for any reason then the people at home could become restless and resentful. Rebellions have formed over less and the Empress would have to stamp out even the smallest uprising with a speedy ruthlessness.

“Our first priority is that we must stop depending on others for our food. At the moment we trade wood for food but now that must change. We have a Kingdom of thorns now but that will not last forever. So to start with we must clear the land for farms. For crops and for our herds. That must be our priority.

“There is also the matter of the vines themselves. We have used that wood as building materials and other such matters. Bend your minds my people, what else could we use that wood for. I have seen these thorns that grew out of them and remarked on their sharp edges. Could we turn those things into weapons, could they be made, or linked in some way. Could we turn that into our industry? No-one else has these thorns or these vines as they are magical in nature. Can we grow them? Can we cultivate them? In short, can we use them? These things that have kept our Kingdom choked off for so long.”

She thought for a bit longer.

“Next. I tell you this. I wept to see the graves of our fallen. For every person who died when the curse struck and every person who died in the efforts to lift that curse, regardless of where they came from. They are our fallen and they deserve to be remembered. But that part of our lives is over now. Now we must work to forge our Kingdom into something for the living. To that end, the cemetery will cease to grow from this day forward. No new graves will be made in that area. What is there shall be maintained as a monument so that we can remember those who died so that we might live. But if we keep giving land to the dead, then soon there will be no land for the living. If we find bodies as we clear our Kingdom, then they shall be buried or burned according to current religious practices but they will be remembered.”

There was some unease in the crowd although I agreed with the Princess. Building a necropolis is a seductive prospect but she was right, in devoting resources to looking after the dead, then those resources could be used to look after the living. The next few years would be... dangerous for this community. They would live on a knife-edge with progress on one side and utter destruction on the other. They would need everything that they could get.

“But anything for you your Majesty?” Someone asked, I didn't notice who it was.

The Princess looked taken aback. As well she might.

She looked round the place and then looked up at the stars and I saw, or thought I saw, tears in her eyes.

“Build me a home.” She said. “Something for me to come back to. Somewhere I can receive guests. A place that is mine a place where, where I do not need to defend myself and can feel safe. I do not want a palace or a castle, no manor house or stately mansion. I want a home. Something that is mine where I can receive friends, read books and write letters.”

She lowered her gaze and the tears fell then.

“Do you understand?”

She was greeted by silence.

“Do not take away from your other efforts to see to my comfort.” She said. “But we have been given a gift. A gift that we must never take for granted. We are no longer ourselves, or the people that have come before us. We are the future as well, our children and our grandchildren as well as those settlers that will undoubtedly come here in an effort to make a name and a life for themselves. We must build for them, as well as for ourselves.”

People were nodding.

The Princess let her head fall.

“Three cheers for the Princess.” Someone shouted and the people screamed themselves ragged. I could no longer stand it and I stepped forward into the circle of light and held my hands up for silence.

When it came I turned to her.

“Three cheers for the Queen.” I said and fell to my knees.

Ariadne opened a gate for me to go home the following morning, papers in hand for Emma to start proceedings on the young Queen's behalf. Ariadne wrote a short note to Emma saying what her plans were with regards to get the Princess legitimised into being a Queen in actuality rather than just in my declaration.

Kerrass and I parted ways there as he intended to stay with the Princess as her champion until a new one is chosen which he doesn't think will be long. He cited her youth and physical appearance as evidence for this, suggesting that knights will be falling over themselves to swear their swords to the Young Princesses service. He is probably right. He gave me a huge hug before we parted and he was the second person to thank me for my efforts.

The ramifications of what happened that day are still being felt in the southern part of the Continent. A lot of people have been really concerned that a northern Lord, no matter how minor my lord-ship may be, and a Northern Witcher have seen fit to travel south and interfere with problems that were none of our business.

My response to that is a nice and firm “Go Fuck yourself”.

I've also heard a lot about the questions of her...legitimacy as an heir for so large a portion of the southern Empire given the questions regarding her parentage.

Let me be clear. I sought and was given permission to publish those details by the persons involved so that there would be no lasting questions on the matter. If you have a problem with this I would refer you to the aforementioned Angry Dragon. If you are lucky enough to survive the matter then I suspect that you might wish that you had stuck with my perfectly polite “Go fuck yourself.”

As to the matter of the Princesses Legitimacy, I have no doubts that she was legitimately decreed heiress to that particular crown. The concern is not whether she is legitimate but rather, what status does she have now? You only have to look at her to know that she is royal but what does that mean in a modern Nilfgaardian empire?

That is beyond my wisdom.

All of the paperwork has been sent off for verification. Luckily there are magical people that can verify the validity of the documents in question so the question of them being forgeries will not be a question for much longer. The rest of it lies in the hands of the courts and indeed the hands of the soon to be Empress.

My hope is that she be allowed to rule over her small patch of land as a titled Lord of some kind or, at best, one of those many client Kingdoms that swear their allegiance to the Imperial throne.

What will probably happen is that the poor girl will be married off to the highest bidder who will then assume Lordship over the area.

If it was still the Emperor that was in charge then I would be surprised if that hadn't already happened. I rather suspect that the Princesses only hope lies in the fact that the soon to be ruler of the Empire is going to

be a woman herself.

I like to think of them, a few powerful women getting together in a kind of tea circle. Where they decide things of vast and international import over tea and cake and small polite words. For all I know, that's how the Kings used to do it as well but I can't help but think that the very fact that the King's all being men, would mean that such meetings would soon turn into dick measuring contests.

The realm itself is rich enough to be able to survive. One of the first things to be seen as valid were the old merchant contracts that Kerrass and I had found. Those papers are being challenged in the courts but the long and short of it is that the wealth that had been invested in various merchant ventures. Some have failed, some have multiplied out a thousandfold. If even one of those many (many) cases are found in favour of the Princesses people then the Kingdom will survive. It's more a problem of lack of people to work such a large landmass.

There will certainly be settlers needed and support as well from their neighbours. But I can't help but think that there are lots of people who are sharpening knives in the hope of taking advantage of the situation.

It all comes down to the whims of the woman on the throne.

Yes, Emhyr is still the Emperor and will be until Cirilla is crowned in the Spring. But I am told that he all but defers to his daughter now and openly comments on what he's going to do with his retirement and I strongly suspect that this is the kind of decision that you leave to the new people. It's probably not the biggest decision the new Empress will have to make in her first few days on the throne but it won't be small. I've tried reaching out to the few friends I have at court but apparently the one thing that can be said, with any certainty about the future Empress is that “On any given day, there is no telling what she will choose to care about.”

I've heard that described as both a virtue and as a weakness but I suppose time will tell on that regard.

As for the Princess herself? I understand she is doing as well as can be expected. Kerrass is with her and I expect to meet up with him around the time of the Empress' coronation in the Spring. She also has her mother with her (for better or worse) and spends her time between her Kingdom and the Imperial capital.

I have received many letters since this story began including many people demanding to know what was happening with regards to the Princess so there is a brief and potted overview.

No she is not romantically interested in anyone.

No, not Kerrass either.

If you want to try your luck you can go for it if you like. Just remember who her mother is and be aware that as far as she's concerned, she's trying to provide security for her people at the moment and her own prospects are way down on her list of priorities.

Also, try not to forget the Angry Dragon that watches over her.