"What?" roared the king.

"Father! Please! Listen," said Laura.

King Lionel of Musk was the Eighteenth Monarch in his line. And he wasn't happy. Not happy at all. In fact, he was livid. His only daughter, Princess Laura, was talking gibberish.

"No!" roared Lionel. "That's nonsense! You can't be a knight. You're to marry one! Are you mad?"

Princess Laura hung her head and sighed. This had been going on now for far too long. She had finally gotten her nerve to bring up the matter with her father, and all she'd gotten from him was platitudes and pompous posturing. This was getting old. She thought he hadn't taken her seriously since her mother, Queen Ely, had died. For every fight or disagreement between them, bigger and bigger gulfs widened under their feet. And this was just one more foot of that gulf.

"Father, please," Laura repeated. "Why won't you listen to what I have to say?"

King Lionel stopped his pacing and stared at his daughter. "Listen to you? That's what I've been doing. What I've heard is crazy."

Lionel couldn't quite get his head around what his daughter was saying. As far as he was concerned, it was just gibberish, nonsensical sounds spouting from her mouth. She hadn't been making much sense, since ... since ... well, since his Ely had died. It seemed he was constantly making excuses for her actions, her being young and not knowing what she wanted to do with her life, besides being a princess, of course. She needed direction. She had been like that for some time now. First, it was fashion: what dress was appropriate, what hair style, what jewellery, what shoes; he knew she must have a hundred pairs of shoes, and yet she only wore two. Two. What did anyone need with a hundred? Such things not only reflected on her, but also on him as a king. Then it was her trying to help every homeless person and vagabond in the kingdom, which, thank the gods, her duties as princess interfered with. She had to be reminded the church was there for that very reason. She couldn't do it alone. Laura had a big heart, which he loved about her, but she had to realize how the world worked and how to cope with her responsibilities. But this! This! Lionel had always known she was fascinated by the knights, since she was a little girl, but actually wanting to become one—no! Absolutely not!

Lionel continued, "I forbid it!" It was time she grew up, and for him to stop indulging her every whim. "I forbid it! No princess can be a knight. You are to marry one, not be one!"

"But, Father," Laura cried, "this is what I've always wanted."

"No! No! No! I forbid it!" Lionel roared again. "No daughter of mine, for that matter, no maiden, has ever been, or ever will be, a knight. And you'll not be the first."

With that, the audience was over, with Laura being no closer to her dream of being one of the knights of the king's guard.

* * *

That had been the scene in the throne room not two hours ago, just after Princess Laura's seventeenth birthday. No matter what she said to her father, the answer was 'No! No! No! You cannot be a Knight. You must marry one!' Not likely! But she just couldn't convince him to let her try for the king's guard.

Standing in the middle of her rooms, she fumed and grimaced. She wanted to start throwing things, have a good old-fashioned temper tantrum, maybe fling a piece of crockery, or the ugly handcrafted mug, love struck Jonathan had made for her when she was five.

Laura remembered the first time she'd seen the guard practicing maneuvers in the courtyard. She'd been seven. She remembered it vividly, couldn't get it out of her head. Through all the years, she'd known her father would hit the roof if she mentioned something like this, but she couldn't help it. It was all she thought about. Her forays into fashion or helping the homeless or anything else she'd done, through all of it, this had always come back to haunt her. She'd gone down to the kitchens to beg another small portion of food from the head cook and all around grump, 'Martha', and upon getting nothing but grief instead of food, she'd turned to storm back to her rooms, and a flash of light caught her attention from the gray-streaked window sitting off the pantry. She remembered clutching at the old weathered lintel staring at Sir Hook, Sir GuWayne, Sir Guy, Sir Dwayne, and so many others, marching in step to an unheard rhythm. Their swords flashed in the noontime sun, making sparkling fairies fly over the castle walls. Dust from their feet ballooned up behind them like a dust devil, covering their feet and shins with a light coating of brown. Sweat beaded along her brows as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. It fascinated her. What were they doing out there? Why did they have all their armor on? Wasn't that supposed to be for show? From that day on, she knew only one thing, she had to be a guard in the king's knights, the most respected, renowned, and loved knights of all the five realms. She had to!

That was, until her father squashed her dreams.

But Laura wasn't so easily dissuaded. If she couldn't do it with his permission, she'd do it without his permission. Laura figured what her father didn't know wouldn't hurt him. All of her life, she'd been pampered and spoiled, doing anything she wanted, going where she wanted, and getting anything she wanted. Anything, of course, within reason, or what the queen mother thought was in reason. She'd everything a girl, being a princess, could possibly want: money, clothes, and fineries of every shape, color, and description. She went to all the right balls to meet all the right nobles, to have all the right connections, to make the perfect marriage. She even had her own carriage with foot soldiers to do her every bidding, but with all that, still Laura was unhappy. With all she had, she didn't have what she really wanted: a direction in life. But she did now. Laura wanted to be a knight, not just any knight, but a knight of the king's guard, the elite of all knight's of the kingdom. That was her dream.

The king, however, had other plans: wanting Laura to marry a knight, love having nothing to do with it. Yeah, right! She'd been forbidden! Forbidden! To follow what in her heart she knew to be true. She'd show him exactly what she thought of his plans; she'd show him she wasn't a little girl any more.

She was disappointed and miffed; her father wasn't listening or even considering what she wanted. Weren't kings supposed to be understanding? Weren't they supposed to help their people if they could? Encourage them? Support what they wanted? Weren't fathers supposed to encourage their children to do better things in their lives, to make something of themselves?

Turning towards the doors to her rooms, she could barely make out the peek of a shadow of the guards outside. She didn't have handmaidens like other princesses; she had footmen and guards. She'd often wondered if there had been a rule somewhere about royalty saying she should have maidens in her rooms instead of footmen. Thinking of that just made things worse. She stamped her foot, fists clinched tightly by her sides, getting no satisfaction out of it. If there was a rule somewhere, couldn't there be a rule, or maybe an unknown, unused law to force her father to at least rethink his stand?

Wait! He was the law. He was the king. He could make any law he wanted! She shook her head almost immediately after thinking such a thing. No, he was too stubborn, or pig-headed. He wouldn't listen.

Laura flung herself on her four-poster bed, burying her head in the pillows, sobbing. How on earth was she going to convince her father she was a grown woman who could make her own decisions? Well, close, she could make her own decisions about what to wear to a court hearing, or a court function; she just couldn't make the decision about becoming a king's knight. She knew what was best. Mother taught her to be independent.

'Oh Mother! Oh gods, mother,' the thought brought even more tears. Seeing her mother die in front of her eyes wasn't easy. Queen Ely had been sick for months, no one knowing why. Every healer in the five realms was called to help, but it was no use. In the end—at the end—it was horrible to watch. Queen Ely slowly deteriorated, wasting away: withered skin, stretched to breaking point over her cheeks and neck, red blotches showing on her hands, feet, and under the arms, which reeked so bad she couldn't stand it herself. She had to stay in bed for weeks at a time because she couldn't stand up for more than a few moments, the strain from trying causing her searing pain running down her thin, spindly legs. Blessedly though, when the end came, it was over in moments. Ely breathed in one final breath, and then it was over. That was the day Laura realized she was truly on her own. Father had nannies do everything he should have done himself. Laura realized she didn't need anyone for anything. Her mother taught her everything in her ten short years of life she needed to know.

For one: she wouldn't ever need healers. At one time, Laura thought healers knew how to do anything, cure any disease, what to say to make people feel and look better, anything; but after mother died, she'd realized she'd been but a child to think such thoughts. She wouldn't make such a mistake again. Father, by the gods, never understood. Her father never understood Mother. Her father never understood why Laura and her mother would take long walks in the garden, when the queen could do such things, or why at the end, Laura had taken it upon herself to feed the queen instead of letting a nursemaid do it. Father never understood anything. He didn't understand now.

That's why father couldn't understand why she needed this, why deep in her heart she had to be a king's knight. Mother could, but mother wasn't here to tell her she could do anything she wanted. She had to make that decision on her own.

Laura sat up, wiping tears from her cheeks, and nodded to herself, coming to a decision: she'd do it on her own. She'd be a King's Knight whether her father wanted her to or not.

* * *

As the palace guards were changing nightly shifts, Princess Laura snuck out of the castle. It was a pretty simple thing for her to do. All of her life, she'd been playing in the giant halls and rooms of the castle, roaming through every nook and cranny, and she knew all of the guards' routines: side step behind Sir Frederick's armor, a guard passes by without seeing her; step through the door to the library, around this corner, take two long breaths, watch a guard walk so near she could hear his breathing; go down the Hall of Tapestries, pull this handle to open a secret staircase, pass through to the castle gate unnoticed; watch guard change places with his replacement for the night, pass through the portcullis unseen while their backs were turned; there, she did it, outside.

Simple.

It took Laura three years to find all the nooks and crannies to hide in, and a lot of failures trying, but she was persistent. Until that night, however, it had only been a game. Now she used what she knew to get out of the castle for a purpose.

* * *

Squatting just outside the stables, in the corrals, Pip, the stable boy, watched as Princess Laura slipped out of the castle. He was impressed by the way she'd done it. He'd tried for the better part of a year to figure out a way to do the same thing. Mulch, his guardian, had told him no one had been able to slip in or out of the palace grounds in more than a decade, due of course to the training of the guards. They were always on the highest of alerts and always ready for any kind of trouble. Ha! I guess he doesn't know everything after all. He'd have heart palpitations if he knew that a slip of a girl had bested his beloved guards. Ha!

Pip hated his life. Well, not exactly hated it, but it certainly wasn't the one he'd chosen for himself. He was grateful to Mulch for finding him and getting him off the streets, but the work Mulch had him do to earn his way in the castle wasn't easy. Mulch, being the head stableman for the kingdom, had taught Pip everything he knew about running a stable and taking care of animals, most of which consisted of shoveling shit, feeding, watering, and rubbing down horses used by the knights. If it hadn't been for Mulch taking pity on a lost orphan wandering the streets, he'd probably have turned out to be a thief and scrounger his whole life. So, for most of his short stay in the stables, he'd done a lot of wandering at night, trying to find the best way out, this of course being only one of them. Not to run away exactly, but find something better—the grass is always greener as they say—but on this night, he'd seen something move in the shadow of the wall, long before he could begin his own journey.

Pip realized at once whom the shadow belonged to: Princess Laura. He knew who she was from the many posters around the town square announcing her seventeenth birthday just the week before. It was very unusual for anyone to see her outside the palace, and it was definitely unusual for anyone to see her like this. Princess Laura was supposed to be one of the most important people in the kingdom, and although he admired her bravery, and her quick thinking in figuring out how to do something he'd failed to do, he really didn't think she should be out without an escort of some kind. He thought about going and asking her, but no, that would look strange, a mere stable boy asking questions of the princess. He'd probably end up in a dungeon for his trouble. No ... the more he thought about the princess outside the walls, the more he thought he knew what she was trying to do, the exact thing he'd been doing, trying to find a better life.

Pip nodded to himself. Good luck, Princess. I hope you have better luck than I do.

* * *

Laura looked about her trying to get her bearings: to the left and right the castle walls, running north to south—she looked above her and saw only faint glimpses of stars, wispy clouds blocking the rest from full view. I hope it doesn't rain. That wouldn't do a thing for my disposition. From memory and a lifetime of being inside the city and the castle, she remembered the walls continuing slightly east of west, completing an oval, rather than a complete circle, the whole structure spanning nearly seven leagues around a central town, which housed the castle in the center. The walls were four feet thick, made of native rock and sandstone, rising thirty feet above her head, taking nearly fifty years hard labor from the kingdom's best masons to complete. It was intimidating at first sight, which was the point. It didn't have a moat, which now she was grateful for, but it did have a stream running from the eastern ramparts through most of the town which supplied everyone with year-round water. The only problem with it was during spring thaw: mountain snow-melt usually causing flooding in the western part of Musk. Most inhabitants of the region could only put up with it, chalking it up to a trade off being safe inside the walls. Levies didn't stop the flooding, and dams were out of the question. A holding pond could've been built, but then where would excess run-off go when the next thaw came?

Although she'd been on the outside of the castle many times in her seventeen years, she'd never been out without her footmen or castle guards. She'd been told over and over it was dangerous to be out at night without protection; thieves and cutpurses abounded when the sun went down: this was only one of the many reasons the King's Knights were needed and wanted by the people.

The princess took a second to orient herself to her surroundings and then began tentatively to move towards the trees just thirty yards from the castle walls. She crossed the main road, running east from the giant portcullis. When she reached the trees, she took one last look back, took a deep breath, and then went in among the trees.

In an almost childish way, she figured she could find someone to teach her to be a knight. She didn't know who, or where, but there had to be someone who could teach her what she needed to know. Maybe she could get to one of the other four kingdoms and find a teacher, one that would be willing to teach a girl. She knew from past experiences traveling, as a Princess of Musk, which didn't happen as often as she wished, the nearest kingdom was Pate. And they always greeted her entourage with great fanfare, a great show of horsemanship, and a sparring from their own knights.

She took with her on this excursion only the basic necessities: a bedroll, some extra clothes, a cloak in case it got cold, and some food. She was scared, which she attributed to nerves, heart sick from her father's uncompromising morals, and determination to make her dreams a reality.