The Princess and the . . .

by Marie Brennan

(Originally published in Flash Me Magazine, April 2005)

Sixty years on, I'm amazed at what they've done to the truth. They say I proved myself a princess by the delicacy of my skin -- a ludicrous fable of feather mattresses a hundred high, a tiny pea buried beneath, and me complaining of a lumpy bed, as if my mother never taught me manners. What princess would behave like that?

But I suppose nowadays the truth isn't genteel enough for them. There were no feather mattresses, just a bedroll on the ground (with lumps aplenty beneath it, and I complained not once -- I was glad to be free with my love). The matter in question was not the delicacy of my skin, but the resilience of my chastity. And as for what was pressing against my back and disturbing my sleep . . . .

Larger than a pea -- oh, it most certainly was.

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