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Tom
Browne. And I depose you in the name of the people.”
    “Wouldst
have our crown?” gasped the King, as he leaned on his Steward’s arm.
    “Nay.
Keep your crown, but henceforth, it is a worthless thing. There shall be no
more of kings and crowns in Glerny. I shall be Chief Counselor for a fortnight,
and then we shall take a poll and the populace shall appoint new governors.”
    “Hast
thou ought of noble blood?”
    “Nay.”
    “But
those who wait in our courtyard...there are some, mayhap, who are noble.
Vardis’s knights, methinks, are highborn men.”
    “Nay.
There are no knights without. Some hours past, we waylaid his lordship’s men
and robbed them of their plated mail, which we then put upon ourselves that we
might more easily approach and pass through your defenses. But be not dismayed.
No blood shall be shed here.”
    “We do not say you
are i’ the wrong,” murmured King Valentine. “’Their wives and babes,’ I heard
him say.”
    ~~~~
    Tom
Browne served as Governor for two years, and then was replaced by Dame
Cardonell, who served four. Despite much opposition from the nobility, and some
setbacks, the land of Glerny endured, and its people prospered.
    ‘Twas
pleasant for Hadley at Basingham Manor, though the household was much reduced
from what it had been at Court. Most of the servants, and nearly all of the
courtiers, departed when they discovered how straitened the royal family’s
means had become. The Queen and her daughters were forced to perform household
tasks themselves. Ingrid found this irksome, but Joan and Hadley did not mind.
Hadley oft worked in the large kitchen garden, and Robin worked with her, when
not called upon to serve her father.
    King
Valentine was ever full of humors, but his choler bred no terror now. He had
grown old and weak beyond his years, and rarely stepped outside his bedchamber.
Some said his days were numbered, and they spoke true, for he did not long
survive his dethronement.
    Queen
Maud, at last, was sovereign of her house, and her daughters were given leave
to plan their futures. Joan did not wed James, who had returned from exile, but
instead journeyed to Wilgefortis, where she took up orders and in time became
an abbess. Ingrid surprised everyone by wedding the noble Prince Tristram of
Verimot, who was so besotted with her lively charms that he overlooked her lack
of title…and her wayward nature.
    And
Hadley, of course, married her father’s Steward. After the King’s death, Robin
purchased a small plot of land in a nearby village, which he and his wife and
her mule worked together, until ‘twas a prosperous farm. They begat nine
children, who became fine men and women, and the name of “Cope” grew much
respected in the village. Robin never resumed his original surname, which was
“Bullock.” “Though I am a great hulking creature,” he told his wife, “I’d
sooner not be called an ox.”
    Lord
Vardis ne’er would take a wife, but was kept in captivity always, for he had
been tried and convicted of murder and many other heinous crimes. His chamber
was near the top of Glerny Tower, that he might ope the casement and look out
far and wide upon the world he had lost…and that he might be near the great
bell now hanging within the tower belfry. Its peal was mighty, and he would
hear it ring out, once at dawn and once at dusk, every day for the rest of his
life.
    **************************
     
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    “The
Princess Who Rode on a Mule” is the ninth story in “Nine Princesses: Tales of
Love and Romance,” available for $3.99 on Amazon.com. Have you read the others?
An excerpt from the first story, “The Melancholy Princess,” is below.

The Melancholy Princess
    Princess
Anne would gladly have traded places with any other person in the land of Glerny.
She