1

Prince Thomas galloped towards the gates of Orwell Kingdom. He was on a mission. Well, he had been on a mission. His ride through the countryside had been an attempt to escape the grief of his father’s recent passing. He had died only days before the prince’s eighteenth birthday, but the flowers covering the cobbled roadside, honoring the former king, made it hard to ignore the fact that his father was dead.

Prince Thomas slowed his horse to a canter as he entered the kingdom. The commoners bowed as he approached on his way to the palace, but their sense of obligation was not lost on him. There was no joy on their faces, only obedience. Prince Thomas knew how much the people had loved and respected his father. He also knew how little the people respected him. He had never seen the commoners look at him – not even just once – the way they had looked at King Harold during his reign.  

Arriving outside the palace, Thomas descended from his horse before it came to a complete stop and ignored the servants that were waiting to return his black stallion to the stable. He stomped inside amidst their whispers, disregarding the less than flattering remarks directed at him. Let them talk, he thought. For their opinion didn’t bother him in the slightest. He was the future king of Orwell Kingdom. They were mere servants, nobodies of unimportance.

When he entered the dining room, Queen Margaret was halfway through her eggs Benedict. Another servant, who Thomas could never remember by name – because he never bothered to learn it – pulled out the prince’s chair and placed a napkin on Thomas’s lap before scurrying away.

“Mother,” Prince Thomas muttered sinking into the golden-framed chair, choosing to ignore the queen’s suspicious hint of a smile.

“Darling, how are you on this fine morning?”

He also chose to ignore her questionably upbeat tone. “Famished.”

He reached for a buttery croissant, ravenous from his long ride. Amidst his creamy delight, the scurrying servant returned and fumbled with a tray filled with portraits of princesses from near and far. The prince’s appetite was immediately replaced with annoyance. He turned to his mother, her smile now completely formed as she sipped her cup of tea.

“What is this?”

“We have another five suitors.”

 “You promised no more visits unless I approved them.”

“And you promised me a bride.”

Thomas glared at his mother but she was immune to his bratty antics and stubbornness. And she was also the queen. It was inevitable that she would achieve the outcome she so desired.

Thomas knew better than to challenge his mother to a stare off, for he had inherited her stubborn streak. Instead, he conceded, perusing the profiles of the royal women before him. All were quite beautiful in their own right, but the prince was able to find fault with each one.

Too fat. Too thin. Wrong eye color. Crooked smile. Freckles.

“No. No. No. No … and No.”

In the short time since his father’s passing, the queen had wasted no time in finding Thomas a princess to marry, and he had not been short of suitors. For Prince Thomas was dashingly handsome at six-foot-two, with tousled dark hair, a chiseled jaw, and piercing blue eyes. His physique was buffed, his voice as smooth as velvet. All this along with the whole prestige of royalty — he was quite the catch.

Over recent weeks, it had resulted in many proposals from princesses willing to go to extremes to marry him. The Princess of Amoura had renamed mountains in his honor. The Duchess of Fenway had moved one in the most literal sense. She had demanded her cousin, King Howard, have his army cut the base of Mount Wascoe and shift it to the right two paces. It reduced a good six weeks off her journey between her kingdom and Orwell Kingdom. She had to make certain she beat her thinner and younger cousin to Orwell Kingdom so the prince would propose to her instead.

Not surprisingly, Prince Thomas proposed to neither.

Queen Margaret pulled the portrait of a freckled princess from the pile and held it before her son once more.

“What about this one? She’s rather handsome.”

Thomas turned back to his croissant and bit into it angrily, concentrating on the light splattering of spots across the nose and cheeks of the princess’s otherwise acceptable face.

“Not handsome enough.”

“Darling, I wish you would focus less on beauty and more on what is in one’s heart,” Queen Margaret scolded her son. She was unable to pinpoint exactly when her son had begun to lack substance and depth.  

Thomas rolled his eyes and prepared himself for another lecture on the apparent deeper and more meaningful things in life.

“Thomas, love encourages you to grow, to put others first. It challenges you to accomplish feats you never dreamed of. That takes character and the purest of intentions. The woman you marry will shape the man you become.”

But the prince failed to understand why his future queen’s character or intentions, or even the contents of her heart for that matter, were paramount. The biggest dilemma his queen would ever face would be deciding which dress to wear to a ball. The least she could do was look good in it. Still, all this talk of marriage was threatening to give the prince a nosebleed, and red was a color he failed to wear well.

“If I am to marry someone, I should at least get a say in the matter,” Prince Thomas spat as he rubbed his temples in between deep breaths.  

“I am more than happy for you to choose your bride, but do so quickly, son, for you cannot take the throne without a queen.”

“It has been three weeks, Mother!” Thomas snapped, rising from his chair like a cannon. Talk of becoming Orwell Kingdom’s future ruler was certain to have blood gushing from his nose like a waterfall. He wasn’t ready to talk of ruling a kingdom. He had barely mourned the loss of his father.

The queen stood beside him and cupped his dashingly handsome face in her delicate hands, wishing his transformation from boy to man would come sooner rather than later.

“And this kingdom needs a king, Thomas,” she told him bluntly. She held his gaze, lips firm, and expression decisive. She had made up her mind and her son would yield. Whether he liked it or not.

“Perhaps they will appear more appealing in person. Come now.”

She patted his cheek and exited the room. Thomas threw down his napkin and scowled as Queen Margaret disappeared through the French doors of the dining room. He sunk into his chair, determined not to follow her. For goodness sake, he thought, I am a man! I should not have to take orders from my mother, even if she is queen.

The prince had experienced his mother’s temper only once in his life. When he was eight he had given the king’s favorite horse, a white Andalusia mare, a haircut before the annual royal parade. What was left of the thick and lustrous mane and flowing tail (that was immaculately braided with colorful ribbons and on display for the occasion) was little more than a spikey inch running down the animal’s neck and a short white tuft sitting above her behind. The king looked rather comical riding a tail-less and mane-less horse, but he had insisted (the horse was his favorite) and Queen Margaret scolded the prince like an angry bull. It had been quite an ordeal for an eight-year-old and Prince Thomas vowed that he would never again witness his usually sweet and kind mother morph into an ogre, and for ten years he had been successful in this endeavor.

Unfortunately, he knew his mother all too well and if he refused to meet these girls in person, there was a real possibility that her reprimand would be much worse and, man or not, he wasn’t keen to be subjected his mother’s wrath any time soon. So, he begrudgingly rose, kicking his chair back and storming out after his mother.