the castle in the maze, part i

continued in part ii & part iii

when the first child she gave him was a daughter, the king brushed away the queen’s apologies: it would be foolish not to be as prepared for a coin to come up heads as tails, and so by the custom of the kingdom (which of course the queen had not been raised under) this eldest girl would faute de mieux be reared to rule, until & unless a son was born to render such a substitute unnecessary. she would be educated deeply in national history, in diplomacy, in law & in judgment, even in military strategy,¹ &, above all, in the twistings and turnings of the maze.

the maze of thorns that surrounded the king’s castle was older than the oldest annals of the kingdom. the defense that it provided was unparalleled. no matter how much of the rest of the kingdom had been taken, no invader had ever breached it, neither by fire, nor by hacking away with their swords, nor even by maps made secretly or threads laid cunningly when the invaders had been invited guests.

and so this first daughter was educated largely as a prince, as the children that her mother bore regularly every two years came out girl after girl, until the fifth child was finally a son. and with the birth of the seventh child, also a boy, the eldest daughter’s role was regularized. don’t think that our girl was too shocked; this possibility had been ever-present before her. besides, her formal education for rulership had never been her whole world. like many older sisters, she was deeply involved with her siblings,² & more so as she moved down the order of succession. her two next sisters were her peers, but the youngest four trailed her like ducklings when they could. her time was otherwise more free but, trained to learn and now able to freely exercise her curiosities, she turned away from practical political arts to read deeply in poetry & strange tales & the abstruse arguments of the scholars.

you might expect that there would be some discord between the princess and the heir. actually he looked up to her almost as a second mother, & as he began his education he saw her as the best of tutors, who by virtue of her own studies could always tell a history memorably or advise him on some complicated point.

but (especially after the seventh child was born) she didn’t spend all of her new free time in the library. she wandered the maze.

her parents had of course forbidden this. following the right path was challenging enough without diversions. but, at loose ends & a willful age, she explored.

it became clear how intruders got sidetracked.

she found an orchard which, when you had taken your fill of its exotic fruits & turned to leave, revealed two identical exits, one true & one false. she found a hot spring where a relaxing soak filled your head with such a daze that you started to slip under. she found a tiny hermitage with one high barred window, where a sweet voice asked you for your heaviest secrets. there were other ambiguous wonders. the maze was not against her, as it would have been against an outsider, and she knew the true path well enough to return.

but her brother didn’t….

part ii

1. although, prudently, in this last respect the king would not expect too much, but (instead of sending her off as a bride to some foreign court) would match her to the boldest and most cunning-in-war of the younger sons of kings who distinguished themselves in tournament & battle when she was at an age to wed. other such queens had made such matches, even matches by capture, by ambitious knights who, understanding the game & what was wanted, proved their capacity to command the kingdom’s army by their ability to evade it. among royal marriages, famously cold, these were some of the happiest: a wife could both give her husband power he wouldn’t have without her & retain real power herself, while happily certain of her man’s natural power. and, of course, these queens didn’t have to leave their homelands.

2. this was perhaps an informal education for rulership in itself, especially with so many to wrangle