A Story about a Princess

Once upon a time, there was a princess who lived in a very small and unimportant country far up in the mountains, named Euskal. There were ten villages and a lot of forests in this kingdom, and their castle was a little small and old-fashioned. Maybe the castle walls were a little derelict, since nobody had bothered to attack them in well over a hundred years, by the time this princess was born, and they weren't very well-off, because there weren't many neighboring countries and even fewer peasants, and so there was no real reason to repair them. It was a sensible place, Euskal, for the most part. They just weren't very rich or powerful.

Still, it was a very stable and mostly happy place, not at all in danger of being consumed by its larger neighbors--partially because there weren't any large or important neighbors at all, not for quite some distance, but also because it simply wasn't important to be worth conquering. By the time Princess Elixabete was born, nobody really thought about Euskal unless they were a logging company or particularly interested in artisanal cheeses.

Elixabete was an ugly baby and an awkward child. She grew into a woman most commonly described as stunning. She quickly became the most eligible girl in the whole empire, because she wasn't the first cousin of hardly anyone in the noble families, since they'd stayed out of the marriage games, being so unimportant--but she was still of royal blood, when it counted. Her beauty made her popular, and her attitude made her infamous and, more than that, a challenge.

The princess herself wasn't particularly interested in what went on. She was more concerned about the flooded market for pinewood, and the diseases lowering milk production in the sheep. Someone needed to be sensible, and her father, King Zuzen, was ailing. That only made the pressure for her to find a suitable husband (hopefully marrying up, since she was pretty enough to make up for her relatively low importance) that much worse, because once he was dead, the family would need some man to take over the role of ruler, and that meant Elixabete's husband-to-be, since there weren't any other men in the family eligible for the role. And to be without a king--that was unthinkable.

King Zuzen tried to encourage his daughter, as much as he could, but Elixabete was a little selfish and willful, as an only child who's position had been exaggerated far beyond what it normally would have been. He recruited his wife and queen into the matter, as she was very anxious as well, but Edurne proved just as ineffective. Elixabete's lady-in-waiting, and even her maids, all tried their hands at convincing the princess that some decision should be made--subtly, of course, because they knew what their place was.

"Prince Iñigo is very handsome," they'd say. "Did you see Lord Cipriano? He's very powerful, they say that he's favored by the emperor himself. Isidro is only a merchant, but he's very rich, and there wouldn't be any concern about the country being lost to another family if you married him..."

Princess Elixabete was entirely uninterested in the matter.

That alone was enough to discourage most of the suitors, after a while. Prince Iñigo left for a more profitable marriage to a better-connected second daughter of the rulers of a southern country, expressing his disgust at northern mountain weather (and their similarities to the inclinations of northern mountain princesses) as he went. Isidro lost interest, especially once he'd ascertained that the economics of country were so unprofitable. Lord Cipriano got called away to the emperor's side and, rumor had it, found a fair number of female companions in the process.

"It's for the best, really, then," Kistiñe said.

"I don't think it's appropriate for you to comment on that," Elixabete snapped, a little too on edge after all this nightmare business with finding a husband to tolerate that sort of backtalk from her lady's maid.

Finally, only two suitors remained. Officially, at least--there was a third, Elixabete was realizing. He left her clever little carvings of animals from the forest, little souvenirs of life in their idyllic village: perfectly carved cows made from wood almost the same warm tan color as the real animals, dark-haired children playing, old men with their pipes and txapelas. Certainly it wasn't anything that Matxin or Santiago would leave her.

They were the last two of her serious suitors, of the ones who hadn't been scared off or discarded as right out of the question by either Elixabete or, more often, Zuzen and Edurne. Matxin was the second son of the king of Nafarroa, a small country so much like Euskal that most of the southerners confused them; Santiago was, by comparison, a first cousin of the ruling family of Andalucía, very far to the south, making him very well-connected even if he wasn't local. He'd fallen head-over-heels for the rare beauty of Elixabete, especially when paired with her common-sense: he dreamed of her dark hair and her flashing blue eyes, the delicate curve of her throat, wrapped in translucent olive skin, and so he continued to pursue her, even though there were more auspicious matches available to him.

That was just like him, though. Santiago was romantic and impetuous, enamored of grand gestures and declarations of love. Elixabete thought him rather fool-hardy. She didn't think any better of Matxin: he was imperious and sometimes cold, and almost domineering in how he acted--which was, of course, appropriate for a ruler such as he was.

It was also true, though, no matter how uncomfortable she felt with Matxin and Santiago, ruling the country was her duty, and it would require a man. It could have been worse, as well: neither of her suitors (and certainly not her anonymous beau) would eat up her country into their own.

And so, she tolerated it when Matxin took her riding, and when Santiago read her love poetry, and when someone left her flowers and sweets, fresh fruit. She tolerated it when Matxin and Santiago would glare and sulk at each other, depending on who got to sit closest to her at the evening dinner table, and she tolerated it when both attempted, and failed, to maneuver her into more isolated (and intimate) areas.

"You're going to need to choose," King Zuzen told her one day, when she went to attend to him.

"I really don't feel that any of them are suitable," Elixabete said, voice soft but unyielding. She truly was willful soul.

"What do you mean?" her father replied, sounding confused--he truly was starting to sound his age, which made the princess's eyes fill with tears. "They're fine young men, both of them--you've been given so much choice--"

"Matxin is commandeering. He doesn't listen to his people, or consider them, which will drive the country into ruin. He doesn't understand how things word. Santiago is silly, and more in love with the idea of me than anything else."

"That's not enough to ruin a marriage," said Queen Edurne, voice pitched to carry. "They're young men who will do you well."

"I really don't feel that either is competent enough to rule the country!" Elixabete replied, voice rising in her anger. She flushed, knowing that she was being uncouth and unladylike, and tried not to stomp as she left.

"Such a selfish girl," Edurne said as Elixabete left, loud enough that the princess could hear her.

After a half hour of pacing and a few minutes of weeping, Elixabete felt better, if somewhat drained. She needed to go apologize to her parents, she knew, so she wiped her face clean and dry and shook the wrinkles out of her long skirt, pinned her hair back up, and left for dinner. She was only a few minutes late, and she slipped into her chair with a murmur of noncommittal apology.

She'd planned on apologizing after desert, catching up with her mother and father as they departed for their chambers, but right before the cuajada was served, even before the cheese and membrillo was brought out, her father rose, signaling the hall into silence.

"My health is failing," King Zuzen announced. There was a murmur of surprise. For that to be said so bluntly! "And my daughter is in the process of choosing a suitor. I know that all of you know this. Since it is such a hard choice for her, as both Prince Matxin and Lord Santiago are fine and honorable men who would honor our family, the next few weeks will be a series of tests, so that we are able to judge the no-doubt-great extent of valor, courage and righteousness that these fine young men have. The choice is so hard in part because of the extremely high caliber of both of them..."

Elixabete sat back, horrified but masking it with a blank face, as was only proper. And she decided not to speak to her parents this night, as it would only go poorly.

(To be continued!)