Commanding the Princess
By
Korey Mae Johnson
Prologue
Some royals got to enjoy dances, great feasts, and lighted halls filled with merriment. Cruelly, in Hohenzollern, all Susanna seemed to get for entertainment was watching her uncle fight her battles for her with emissaries armed only with threats and warnings.
The man before her now was aggressively holding his stance. He was by far the angriest person she’d ever had in her presence. “Princess, many emissaries have come before me, and each has been sent away either with nothing or with empty promises. We can no longer allow your knights to maraud through our lands unchecked. If you are unable to control them, then you must cede the rule of these lands to someone who can!”
Her uncle stepping forward surely announced that she had already ceded control in all but name. He glanced her way as he was speaking, as if he were addressing her. “I hardly think, my lady, that you should allow this man to speak to you in this way!” snapped Lord Eberhard, his seething bark cutting off the emissary before he could continue. Eberhard turned to the man, not even giving his princess the opportunity to reply. “Go and tell your masters that Princess Susanna of Hohenzollern will not be ordered about by the rabble of the Free Cities.”
Susanna closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she once again silently cursed the fever which had taken her mother, the plague which had taken her brother, and the bowman whose arrow had taken her father on the battlefield six years past.
When she opened her eyes again, the emissary was still there. He seemed to hesitate before speaking his next words, and she could tell that he was struggling to control his anger. At last, he turned his shoulder to Eberhard and deliberately caught the eyes of Susanna. “Princess, if I have been informed correctly, you are the ruler here and this man,” he said, gesturing disgustedly toward Lord Eberhard, “is but an advisor. Those who sent me here bade me return with the answer of Princess Susanna of Hohenzollern, not the words of one of her lackeys.”
The words of her uncle, unfortunately, were the only words she could give this man—and everyone else that had come before her throne, for that matter. Susanna knew she could barely decide what to have for breakfast without her uncle overriding her. To be fair, though, her father had always been kept on his toes by his brother as well.
Her problem was simple enough; her own army was more loyal to her uncle than they were to her. Her words were only air, while his words carried weight.
The emissary’s threat seemed to carry weight as well, but even as he ranted on, Susanna’s attention was drawn not to him, but to the powerfully-built man standing a few feet behind him. His appearance puzzled Susanna. Though he wore the armor of a knight, his bearing was that of a great lord. At last, he stepped forward and covered the emissary’s shoulder with his large hand as if to calm him. The emissary was clearly prepared to let him speak the final word.
And speak it he did, even while holding her gaze. “Princess Susanna,” the big man began in a voice at once controlled yet still gruff like one who had spent most of his life shouting orders and expecting them obeyed. His measured tone evoked clouds holding a bolt of lightning. “When your father ruled these lands, there was peace between Hohenzollern and the Free Imperial Cities. Do not lightly throw that peace away. I assure you, princess, that if I am forced to return, it will be at the head of an army not even these mighty walls can withstand.”
Emissaries had arrived with threats before, but this threat made her stomach clench. She believed this man. There was nothing about him that said that he was a man who bluffed. She turned her head and stared at Eberhard, hoping that he was at least considering this, but the man stubbornly raised his chin.
She had no illusions about Eberhard’s loyalty—or lack of it—and if she defied him, he would have her own knights rising against her long before these men were able to journey home, let alone return with an army.
Eberhard, before she could open her lips, grated out a response, but she could barely hear it. Her uncle’s blustery words could not pull her attention from the big man’s eyes, which were fixed upon her. What she saw in them shocked her, because they held neither anger nor contempt. Instead, they were filled with pity.
Then his eyes left hers and caught those of her uncle. What Eberhard saw in the man’s eyes she would never know, but her advisor suddenly saw fit to bring his tirade to an instant end. As the warrior and the emissary turned to leave the audience hall, Susanna slumped in her gilded chair, wishing not for the first time that she had been born the daughter of a peasant.
Chapter One
Eight Months Later
Silence is meant to be broken. Unfortunately, it had taken far too long for Susanna to realize that, but when she did, she made up for it. At the top of her lungs, she cried, “Where in God’s name is Lord Eberhard!” Ladies, her mother once said, speak at volumes not far above a whisper. Today, however, she wasn’t a lady. She was a monarch who was completely unable to mask her fury. This was a time she actually needed her uncle’s advice, but he was nowhere to be found.
He had left her to her own devices only now when the castle was under siege. She was angry at her own surprise. She should have expected this.
“Princess…” began Ulrich, the captain of the guard, a title whose meaning was somewhat lessened by the fact that Ulrich had held the position for less than an hour. The previous captain of the guard—who himself had served in the role for all of two days—had fallen defending the breach in the south-east wall, and unless Susanna missed her guess, Ulrich was barely more than twenty years of age. Ulrich visibly gathered himself—he wasn’t experienced enough to know how to hide his nervousness—then continued, “Lord Eberhard was last seen half an hour ago, heading into the cellars.”
He meant to hide, Susanna knew, or perhaps flee through the underground passages that served as the castle’s escape route of last resort. He would leave her to face the end alone. “We can spare no men to search for him, but if he is seen,” she commanded with cold contempt in her voice, “he is to be executed immediately and his head put on a spike on the walls.” She meant it. It wasn’t a punishment her uncle had spared his enemies in the past, and she would not spare her own enemy, either.
She paused for a moment to gather herself, then asked the question whose answer she most feared. “Can our defenses hold, Ulrich?” When Ulrich shifted his weight from foot to foot, she realized he was trying to decide on his answer—whether or not to let her in on the reality of the situation. “Donot seek to spare me the truth.”
Ulrich’s ashen face provided all the answer she needed, but dread filled her nonetheless when he spoke. “In truth, my lady, they cannot hold but a few more hours, even if the men fight to their last breath… and I fear there aren’t many who will do so. We must seek to get you out, princess. If we sortie from the west gate with all the men we have left, we might break through their lines long enough to get you to the forest beyond. Or we could take you through the passages in the cellars. Those passages end in the forest, and once you are out, I could send a few men with you while I stay behind with the rest to throw off any pursuit.”
His loyalty only deepened the pain which tore at her heart. She could not be blamed for what Eberhard had done as regent before she came of age, perhaps, but she had ruled this castle, at least in name, for two years now. Every life lost defending those walls and gates had been lost because of her failure to stand up to Eberhard in all that time.
If she was to do anything at all as their ruler, now was her last chance. She had family here, and she still had lives to protect. Knowing this, she pulled her shoulders back, took a deep breath for courage, and spoke with soft resignation. “No more men will die in my name, Ulrich. Raise a white flag over the keep and order the archers on the walls to hold their arrows. Leave the gates closed for the moment, and let us hope that whoever leads the enemy will see fit to treat with me.”
Ulrich looked stunned, and he did not move for a moment. “But princess, if you surrender, I do not know what their leader will have done with you. He is rumored to be a fearsome man.”
“Too long have I lived in fear and let others speak in my name. Today, I will speak for myself, come what may. Now obey this, my final command, and pray that the Lord will grant that mercy be shown to us this day.”
After only a moment more of hesitation, Ulrich bowed and left hastily.
