Chapter 20

The returning Princess patted the horse's head and urged it into a gallop. She was somewhat behind schedule after being diverted several times from her proper route by one damned thing and another.

Once she had been attacked by three robbers, whom she had managed to kill, but not before receiving a shocking blow to her beautiful face, leaving a deep wound that went down her nose and upper lip, causing blood to flow copiously from both.

In the exhilaration of combat and her unlikely victory, the Princess had paid little heed to this injury. She had even gloried in it for a while, treating it as a rite of passage into a new phase of her life, in which she would be a warrior Queen, earning herself an imperishable name as a woman of valour. Two days after the incident, she was less happy. The wound started to throb painfully and was obviously badly infected, oozing pus and causing the most intense agony whenever she touched it, no matter how gently. She could sense that the poison was invading the rest of her body, and cried out to the unseen Fairy for help.

A further day passed and the sick and suffering girl could go not a step further, sinking onto the grass at the roadside and falling straight away into a feverish sleep. When she woke up, her pains had gone. She touched the injured face to find the skin smooth and unscarred. It would seem that the Fairy world had again taken her into their care after they had withdrawn it as a punishment for her cruel treatment of the young King.

She wished they could have left her just the faintest mark, though, in order to remind her of her great victory in the first ever fight of her life - the first of very many, she still hoped! When she next had the chance to inspect herself in a looking glass, she was overjoyed to see that they had!

A day after this, the Fairy had appeared to her and told she could now mount her horse, which she had just decided to name Champion. She was now near the borders of her own land and in two days' time, her long exile would be over. The bird messengers told her of the preparations that had been made for her return, with a great festival in the Palace, as well as many separate fetes and fairs in her honour throughout all the land, with free food and wine for every citizen - as much as all could eat or drink.

She was trying to decide what to wear for this glittering pageant, and finally made her decision. She would wear nothing! As long as her father did not insist on her conforming once again to the norms of that society to which she had been so long a stranger and from which she had been exiled, she would grace the celebrations attired as she had been for the past year, in the fair, and by this time greatly beloved, garb of Mother Nature.

Only when all the guests had departed would she finally and very reluctantly don once more the clothes which she had once loved and treasured and now despised, dreading their rough, unwelcome and abrasive touch on her long exposed skin - skin which had come to love the caresses and blows, tender as well as harsh, of the vernal breezes, the winter rain and hail and the hot, searing burning of the summer sun.

As her horse, galloping in response to her urging, took her nearer and nearer to a joyful reunion with family and friends, she felt the air cooling her skin as the wind blew in her face, and the sun's rays on her back warming her with their kind and gentle heat, knowing that these physical sensations, these simple joys, which she had come to take for granted over these last wonderful months would soon be rare pleasures as she undertook once more, the duties of her royal rank and prepared for other solemn duties - those of a wife and future mother. There was more than a hint of sadness to set against the increasing joy she felt at the prospect of her reunion with her beloved Martha and the long hoped for andconfidently expected engagement to Prince Adelbert.

This last year had transformed her. The shy and frail Princess, afraid to show her nakedness even to her dearest friend, who had set out on that fateful day, had now become a self-confident woman, strong and proud of her body and not caring who knew it. She had survived freezing cold and burning heat, been attacked by robbers and prevailed over them, and helped in the establishment of a new kingdom after first helping the brave young king slay the ogre that had been sucking the life blood out of his community for so many years. Life was going to seem so terribly mediocre and deadly boring in the weeks and months ahead!

This was a young person whom danger and hardship had rendered as fearless and bold as she had become resourceful. All the arrogant and unthinking assumptions she had always held, regarding her own fitness to command obedience and respect, had been confirmed by the way she had triumphed over one peril after another. She knew with an absolute cast-iron certainty that she was rightly destined for better things than mere wifehood and motherhood and was determined to secure for herself a great position in the counsels of the land, taking her place by the side of her father, her future husband and all the other great figures in the realm.

As she was considering all these matters, she crossed the border into her own land and soon began to pass people by the roadside, standing in their hundreds and thousands peering to catch a glimpse of her after her year's absence. There was much surprised drawing in of breath, as the bronzed and supple figure of the naked Princess, with her long and unkempt mane of golden hair galloped past. There were many cheers as well - especially from the men!

She rode through the night to reach the Royal Palace just as dawn was breaking. As the exhausted horse approached the Palace gates she saw, standing at the gateway, her darling Martha, that well remembered and more than ever beloved childhood friend whose loyal attempt to follow her into exile had led to her enchantment by the Good Fairy. Princess Sara let out a scream of joy, which rang and echoed around the Palace precincts, and leapt with her newly acquired agility from Champion's back, her tanned and hardened little feet landing nimbly and lightly on the ground in front of her friend.

She embraced her, fiercely at first, and then with gentle and increasingly longing tenderness, her hands stroking every inch of that beloved and much missed companion's warm and shapely body, receiving, in return, an equally loving and emotional response from the tearfully happy Martha. It was many minutes before their lips drew apart, their arms released each other and they had their first real long, searching and joyful look at one another in many a long month.

The Palace had been wakened by the sound of Princess Sara's delighted shout and the courtyard began to fill with people, chief among them her father and mother. She kissed them and embraced as many of the gathered servants and courtiers as she could before being urged inside, to find herself no longer under the open skies, but back inside the Palace. This was after a year, during which she had known no other roof than the dome of the heavens and had come dearly and irrevocably to love its freedom and immensity.

The palace, spacious building though it was, seemed to be closing in around her and crushing the breath out of her body. She wanted to scream in sheer blind panic, but controlled herself. The people around her were so happy to see her safely returned. This was not the time to be weak and, with all her formidable powers of will, she beat down the urge to dash outside, mount her horse and ride away, never to return.

Conclusion - Part 1

For four years after her return from her exile, Princess Sara dutifully played the role of wife and mother, in keeping with the expectations of her family and her new husband, the Prince Adelbert. She bore him two sons, both lusty and healthy infants who throve strongly from the day they came bawling into the world. Although she was only a small woman, she was strong and survived the horrors of childbirth well. With the elder of her sons now nearly three years old, her figure was as trim and captivating as ever, her great beauty undiminished.

Her husband had not aged as well as his wife! That impressive bulk had turned to fat, a process hastened by the Prince's increasingly idle, gluttonous and pleasure seeking lifestyle. As she lay beside him in bed one morning, feeling his sweaty corpulence against her, the Princess decided that she would sleep alone in future. She thought of that noble youth whom she had helped turn into a king and sighed to herself. What her husband needed, she sadly reflected, was a war to fight, or at least another man once in a while, to face in a good hard brawling fight, but he was a coward at heart - she could see that all too clearly.

"If I had been a man and blessed with such a body as his, I should have used it to prove myself a hero and a warrior, not let it degenerate in to that mass of blubber" she said to her friend Martha one day, as they rode together, naked in the crisp, cold early morning air as they both still loved to be, into the hills and forests. Martha laughed sympathetically - her own husband, Baron Schroder, was still a fine figure of a man with an athlete's build and a love of sport, wrestling, fencing and hunting on horseback three times a week (he still gave her a splendid time in bed every night - and she him!)

She again asked Sara to tell her more stories of her year and a day as a wanderer, having never tired of hearing again and again of the amazing adventures her friend had experienced during those long months away. The Princess happily obliged her closest companion, as it gave her great joy to remind herself of that year of freedom and challenge. As she told of her adventures, she relived them inwardly and recaptured the many differing sensations she had experienced at the time. How dearly she wished she were still on her travels, sleeping on the rough and dirty ground every night instead of those hateful soft beds between those despised and loathsome white, freshly laundered, scented sheets!

She had kept her promise to herself on her first day back home, to attend the reception as naked as she had been for the past year, only allowing her maid to dress her once the last guest had departed. As the clothes had been slipped over her still dainty, but bronzed and deceptively powerful shoulders, the ring, long immovably fixed to her finger, had fallen off, tinkling on the stone floor of her apartment. That gentle, scarcely audible noise had sounded to her like a funeral bell drearily tolling the end of her liberty.

She had picked up the gold band and shed a tear for her lost freedom. The ring was now kept in a leather pouch, which she always wore next to her skin. Today it bobbed up and down in keeping with the rhythm of Champion's strides, knocking gently and regularly against her delicious breasts as they rode together.

"Whatever happened to your determination to take part in the Council of State, Sara? Too busy being a wife and mother?" asked Martha, when the Princess had finished her story of the day. She herself had no child, a cause of some sorrow, although there was still plenty of time.

"No, Martha. I leave the upbringing of the children to their nurses and soon they will begin their long process of instruction and education. I see them once a day and that is it. The joys of childhood are unworthy of future Kings and warriors. I am prevented by the stupidity of men, whose ineptitude brings the Kingdom ever deeper into crisis, from having my rightful say. I will prevail one day, however. There are many who are appalled at the way things are going and I am in constant touch with them. My time will come!"

Martha glanced at the young Princess beside her as they rode towards their favourite picnic spot. She was as proud as ever and a hundred times more determined. She did not doubt that the day would come when her childhood friend would indeed come to have her say in the governance of the land, and that this day would be a happy one for all but the indolent and stupid.

There were many dangers impending at the present time. A neighboring King had been eyeing some of the country's richest provinces for some years and the reaction of the King, her father, had been weak and pusillanimous in the extreme, offering concessions and bribes which had only served to spur the aggressor to make further demands. Things were beginning to look deadly serious.

Princess Sara knew that the army was ready to march at her father's command, but this command never came. There was only one solution, a solution so drastic, that even this highly determined young woman still shrank with horror and distaste from implementing the measures necessary to achieve it!

Conclusion - Part 2

Another week passed and the Princess become more and more withdrawn. The troubles and perils which were beginning to overwhelm the Kingdom were on her mind all day and every day. Messengers were seen coming and going from her Spartan apartment where each night, she slept alone, naked and unprotected, on the cold stone floor, the windows wide open to let in the icy, purifyingly clean night air.

She could no longer be prompted to regale her companion with thrilling tales of her adventures. Martha still accompanied her darling friend on their morning rides, but found them more and more uncomfortable, as the Princess rode slowly, her mind seemingly a million miles away. The bigger girl found the cold of these Spring mornings getting to her in a way it never did to the hardened and stoical Princess - each day more and more a woman of steel. Loyal Martha bore all this meekly and patiently, knowing her company to be of value to the deeply worried girl at her side.

Most days they would ride to the same spot where, years ago, Sara had humbly apologized to her peasant companion for her unforgivably wicked viciousness and cruelty in ordering her to strip in font of the whole Court, including the King. They had been close friends before this seminal event, but after it, their love and mutual respect had deepened so as to assume an almost sacred nature for them both. Sara would gladly die, if it should ever become necessary, to save the precious life of her friend, and Martha felt the same for the Princess with the same supercharged fierceness and utter certainty.

All week the rumours of military incursions from the neighbouring kingdom of Glossburg under their bombastic and ruthles King Adolf the Terrible, had been circulating and causing growing fear. Groups of worried looking citizens could be seen, wherever men assembled and met together, discussing the possibility of war with this ruthless neighbour and the terrible eventuality of possible conquest and subjugation.

Most men still trusted their beloved King to fight for them and lead their army to victory, but those few people with access to the highest in the land knew better than to trust this amiable and selfish weakling and his obese and degenerate son-in-law, who had once seemed such a brave and glorious hero. Distrust and uncertainty were beginning to percolate downwards and sap people's morale. The situation was becoming desperate and the Princess knew this full well. She rued more bitterly than ever that she had not been born a man! She would have sorted this mess out months ago, instead of letting the situation reach this desperate pass!

One morning, with the frost still adorning the grass, the couple were on their way to their beloved usual spot, where they intended to spend the day, relaxing on the sward as the sun rose and warmed their young and lovely nakedness. Suddenly, the Princess pulled up her white horse, the faithful Champion, and dismounted. For some seconds she stood there, her bare feet chilled by the rime on the grass, but seemingly unaffected by this.

After what seemed an aeon to the shivering Martha, anxious to get moving again and restore some circulation to her cold limbs, the pensive Princess took off the leather pouch from around her slim neck and removed the ring, which she placed on her finger. She had done this many times in the last four years, hoping for something, and always the ring, obviously several sizes too large for those delicate and almost transparent fingers, slid off. This time it was different! The simple and plain band of pure gold fitted snugly on her finger and would not suffer itself to be removed, no matter how hard the excited Princess pulled!

"I knew it, my darling friend! My time has come at last! Always remember this - darling, precious Martha! Of all those I know and love in this world, none has ever or will ever stand higher in my affections than you. Remember that always, my dear friend - words alone, in their pitiful and hopeless inadequacy, can never hope to express even the most minuscule part of the immense and profound love I have for you! And now we must go home. I will attend the meeting of the State Council to prevent disastrous decisions being taken by the miserable and despicable cowards who are ruining our land, chief among them, I grieve to say, my husband and father! Come with me, if you will be so kind, my love! I so desperately need the presence of my truest and dearest friend on such a day as this will be!"

With these words, Princess Sara quite literally leapt back onto the back of her adored Champion. She bent her slim and supple back, softly whispering something into his ear, an expression on that heartbreakingly beautiful face of such gentle and loving tenderness to the beloved steed and companion through her journeys, as caused the watching Martha to shed tears at the sight of it, knowing with a fearful cold hand on her heart, that her dear friend might be with her for very little longer.