The Gingerbread Dungeon

www.lazydaypub.com

The Gingerbread Dungeon

Digital
ISBN-
9781612580296

Print
ISBN-
1-61258-029-7

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Copyright © 2011 Elizabeth Thorne

Cover art by Bret Poinier

This book is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, any events or locales is purely coincidental.  The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission from the publisher LazyDay, with the exception of quotes used in reviews and critical articles.

Dedication

I would like to thank:
Michael & Sara for inspiring me,
Shoshanna for editing me,
Johanna for encouraging me,
Jen for providing me with a title,
and Jessica for the unicorn semen.
Without them, this would have been a different book.

THE GINGERBREAD DUNGEON

BY

ELIZABETH THORNE

Sensitive

The problem was that the prince didn’t actually want to get married. His parents wanted him to, the country wanted him to, even his younger brothers wanted him to – so that then they could get married themselves. The prince, however,  just wasn’t that interested.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like girls. It wasn’t that at all. The prince was extraordinarily fond of women of all shapes and sizes. He just didn’t like princesses. In his experience, they were, to a perfectly manicured toenail, some of the most boring creatures on the planet.

Now, the prince understood that the people of his country needed him to provide them with heirs, but he was filled with a cold sense of dread at the thought of spending every night of the rest of his life tied to someone who could speak passionately for hours about the difference between silk and cotton embroidery threads (apparently one was better for fine decorative work, but he couldn’t remember which. Not that he cared, it was mostly that there were four hours of his life that not only he could never get back but that, worse, had poisoned his brain for life. Not even several bottles of the good brandy could erase the memory of that horrible evening with Princess Stephanie – written with a heart over the "i” – which he seemed doomed to recall every time his eye fell on a delicate bit of embroidery work. Fashions would clearly have to change when he became king, the prince often thought, or else he would surely go mad.) He loved his people, but the thought of such a marriage was so horrible that he was almost ready to cede the title, and the country, to one of his slightly dippy, and not terribly competent, younger brothers. They would be happy to marry princesses. He even thought that he’d once seen his brother, Gabriel, flirting with the dreaded Stephanie during a ball.

Unfortunately, the prince knew full well that marriage simply wasn’t negotiable if he wished to rule and neither was the station of the bride. The king, the queen, the court, even the common folk would have nothing for their beloved prince but a bride who was as royal and exalted as he. If we was going to be free to rule, and live happily unencumbered by thoughts of embroidery and the proper color of rose used to signify not true love, but only a passionate affection, he was going to have to find another way.

And that, my darlings, although most bards and minstrels leave it from their tales, is the story of why the prince invented the Princess Test, and why the whole country went along. He wished to marry no one, and so he invented a test that he believed no one could pass. Standing on the balcony of the castle, he stood before his people and announced that he was finally ready to wed, but only if a truly princessly princess could be found – one who was so sensitive of nature, so delicate of skin, that placing even a single pea under seven mattresses of softest down would keep her from her rest.

****

Now, Adamantium wasn’t your typical princess. That fact was immediately clear to even the most casual of observers. She had brown hair instead of blonde, dusky skin instead of fair, and instead of being delicate and willowy she was strong and well muscled. She was also completely and utterly uninterested in any of the things that so clearly fascinated the other princesses who were her peers.

Adamantium, you see, hadn’t had a typical upbringing. Her mother had died when she was born and her father never really recovered. He therefore raised her as he would have raised a son – political scholarship, battle practice, and all – for most of her childhood. It was only when his top advisor convinced him to remarry that Adamantium was first exposed to what would normally be considered to be properly princessly pursuits.

She ran away from them as fast as her well muscled legs could travel. It wasn’t that she wasn’t smart, competent, or graceful. She could do all the things the other royal women did, and do them well; she simply didn’t find them interesting. After a childhood of adventure and training to be an actual ruler, the idea of spending her time inside, sitting around, doing make-work, and learning how to be some daft, incompetent prince’s arm candy was simply intolerable.

So, whenever she could get away with it, she didn’t. The moment the new queen turned her back, Adamantium would go out and work on her fencing skills with the weapons master or sit in on her father’s policy discussions with foreign ambassadors. While the other girls recited romantic poetry and practiced their embroidery, Adamantium would sew Latin insults onto handkerchiefs to give as courting gifts to illiterate princes who could barely read in their own tongue. And, when the court ladies came to giggle and show off their flower arranging skills, Adamantium would escape into the back of the garden with a book and a shovel to contemplate the many uses of deadly nightshade.

Despite her unorthodox behavior, the people of her country loved their strange, competent princess, but they worried that her lack of interest in the acquisition of proper womanly virtues might cause her to spend the rest of her days alone. They told dark stories about the terrible things that could happen to unwed princesses. Their nice, if untraditional, princess might grow up to be an Evil Queen! After all, the people whispered, where else could evil queens come from? No nice young prince would ever let his wife get away with poisoning apples, casting spells, or turning well brought up young peasant girls into frogs.  If Adamantium could have heard them talking, she would have laughed. She knew there was no way she would ever become an evil queen, but she also had absolutely no interest in finding a nice young prince.

Adamantium had a thing for smart young men with strong minds, firm hands, and no concern for a princess’s propriety. Since she was too well known in her own kingdom to go around picking them up, and didn’t want to diminish herself in the eyes of her people, she would often put on her fighting leathers, hide her hair under her cap, and sneak across the border into the next kingdom over – a land known for its loud taverns, mercenary soldiers, and houses of ill repute.

Her favorite haunt was The Satyr’s Staff, a tavern that provided not only excellent mead, but private rooms for soldiers and other itinerants who were less interested in sleeping than engaging in other more prurient pursuits. Adamantium loved the time she spent at the Satyr and was always surprised at how safe she felt there. Not only were the other customers always an interesting group, ready and looking for adventure, but, because of its specialized clientele, she was certain that even were she recognized no word would be carried back to her people.  Besides, her adventures there always turned out to be quite… pleasurable.

One evening, while Adamantium was sitting and talking to some of the Satyr’s other regulars who had slowly become her friends, a strange young man walked into the tavern. He was handsome and well but plainly dressed, with a clearly well-used sword and whip at his waist, and as he looked around the room he seemed to slowly relax, as though the sights he saw made him comfortable that he would fit in. Adamantium liked the look of him and, excusing herself from her companions with a comment of “fresh meat,” stood up and went to say hello.

Having momentarily escaped from the burdens of his diplomatic visit to a neighboring kingdom, the prince was excited to finally have an opportunity to visit the Satyr’s Staff, a tavern he had heard about from some of his companions but not yet had the chance to experience. As he looked around it seemed to be just as it had been described, a place where his preferred kinds of debauchery would not only go unnoticed but, perhaps, even be welcomed.

As he stood near the door, letting his vision adjust to the smoky firelight of the tavern, he found his eye caught by the figure of a woman walking towards him. Almost as tall as he was, her body was firm and well muscled under tight black leathers, and her hair fell in thick, dark curls most of the way to her waist. She was clearly a mercenary of some sort, the prince thought, just his type, and he smiled as she stepped up to him with an inviting glance.

“Welcome to the Satyr,” Adamantium said. “Your first time here?”

“Yes,” the prince replied, still looking around the room. “I had heard about it, but never had the chance to visit. It’s not exactly like I imagined.”

“How so?”

“No tortured screams coming from the corners, no heavy steel chains hanging from the wall.” The prince flashed a grin at her horrified look. “Not really. It’s just that the people seem friendlier than I thought they would be, like they’re just here having fun.”

“Well they are.” Adamantium smiled back at the young man’s good humor. “This is the place we go to when we want to escape from our lives, and spend a little time simply being who we want to be.”