Elizabet of Green-Fort

Chapter 1- Bread and Mystery

"Elizabet? be a dear and fetch some bread from the baker, wont you? supper's almost ready!" Mother called from the small kitchen adjacent to our living room, where I was playing. she was busy with making a beef stew that smelled absolutely delicious. I bounced up from my chair, where I was reading a book I had borrowed from the church's small library. I was a simple town girl, with intentions of living the same ordinary type of life my mother and grandmother had lived before me. I skipped down the stairs from the apartment my family lived in above my father's cooper shop. I could hear the hammering of a barrel being put together through the wall, my father not yet finished working. I let the solid wood door slam behind me as I strolled along the evening high street, with the richer folk out for a promenade, looking in all the shop windows.
I reached the bakery almost too quickly for my taste. In general, I love the autumn, but today it was a gorgeous evening, and I dawdled as much as possible. but my feet carried me past the brick shops with the wood clapboard upper floors. I turned into my favorite shop, the bakery. it was divided into two sections, with exquisite pastries on one side, and plainer loaves of everyday breads on the other. The thick wooden panels on the floors were always covered in a thin layer of flour, and the baker would give me little bits of stale cake that was left over. I lingered in there, too, letting the sickly sweet smells of wheat and marzipan wash over me. but then Carrie, the baker's eldest daughter, came out from behind a brick oven to take my order. I skipped down the couple of steps outside the shop (though I am much too old to skip, I'm nearing seventeen), and strolling alongside the street.
My best friend, Alexander Andersson, barreled into the street, almost knocking me down, which wouldn't have been pleasant, judging by the mud that lay coated on the cobblestone road. His father ran the chandlers, so Alex was resolutely waxy all the time, although that might have been his natural complexion. though he is my best friend, and I love him as the brother I never had, he was not the handsomest of young men, and probably never would be. I could easily beat him in any competition, except running, as years of working for his father had not made him strong. Mr. Anders never let his son handle the hot wax, so Alexander spent his days cleaning molds and collecting wax from beehives. though it had made him fast, it also gave him a hate for physical work of any kind. except when I asked him to do it. I could make Alex do anything. we knew this made his parents eye mine, for the thought of a good marital match. but I just couldn't see myself marrying Alexander. he was practically my brother, as I mentioned before. right now, though, his sand-and-swamp eyes (for they were a peculiar mix, one was a light brown, the other strikingly deep green) were flashing with excitement, as he garbled some exiting news at me (Though I seem to be using parentheses a lot, Alex does have a way with words, when he can get them off his tongue) "p-p-princesses! princesses! Lizzy, there m-might be p-princesses in our town!" he choked out. I silenced him hastily.
"What in the name of the Powers are you talking about?" I asked him. "no one in Green-fort has any royal blood, or likely ever will!"
"but that is just it. the King and Queen are receiving entries from each town to become a princess. the one who is the most able will be crowned queen with the prince next year!" he was practically asphyxiating by this point. I turned this over in my mind. it was true that the Queens and the Kings didn't always come from the same circles. sometimes our country had two royal families, though the children of these usually did marry. politics.
see, for ages, we had a normal hierarchy. a royal couple, husband and wife, who passed the throne on to their eldest child. but things started to get really messy. murders, and suspicions, and lots of drama. all the kids were being killed before they turned thirteen (the minimum age they could rule) or else being crowned then all the power being turned over to the evil uncle, or something strange like that. so when King Freidric and Queen Juanita settled for divorce, the question came up about who should rule the country. The Queen had the blood relation to the throne,but the king always rules in a normal situation. but some brilliant personage thought up the idea of them both ruling. who cares if they are married or not?so it has been like that ever since. the king we have now has a son, Markus. he'll inherit the kingship when he turns twenty. he's a several years older than I am, so he'll turn twenty in the next year or two. I'm only 16. The queen, on the other hand, has no daughters, only a son. they need a girl to rule for some reason. I don't really get that bit. How come they need a woman? that poor little boy won't be able to do much.
so now they need a new queen.
They also seem to be having an appeal. they have had them before though not in my lifetime..- every town sends some people, two at least. five to eight is normal. I wondered what it would be like. In my imagination, I thought it would be like one of my favorite stories from when I was little. that one with the pea. there would be a test, and the person who did the best would win. But really, I had no idea what the appeal would be like.