The Twelve Naughty Princesses (Naughty Fairy Tales) Read online

  Evernight Publishing

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2012 Adonis Devereux

  ISBN: 978-1-77130-020-9

  Cover Artist: Jinger Heaston

  Editor: Marie Medina

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To JMJ

  THE TWELVE NAUGHTY PRINCESSES

  Naughty Fairy Tales

  Adonis Devereux

  Copyright © 2012

  Chapter One

  The roar of the crowd caused Max to look up from his dicing. It was a fine day for an execution, the bright sun smiling down on the condemned. Max squinted through the morning light glaring off soldiers’ steel helmets. The men-at-arms pushed the rowdy throng back with their polearms, trying to create a thoroughfare. Max chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?” The man across the table from him picked at his yellow teeth. He was losing, and he knew it. “You gonna throw them dice, or what?”

  Max picked up the wooden cup and ran his thumb across the carved relief of a pouncing cat on it. Luck had been his friend all these years; he doubted it would fail him now. He tossed the dice into the cup and gave it a few swirls before turning it over in one quick move, slamming it down onto the cracked, weather-beaten wood of the table. The man across from him stared at the cup.

  Max needed Bones and Swords to win, to take everything his opponent had. He glanced over at the pile of silver at his elbow. Everything he had, too.

  Bones and Swords came up, and Max clapped his rough hands together once in joy. “Ha!”

  His opponent glared at the dice and then knocked them away in clear disgust. The look in his eyes told Max that he was contemplating snatching the coins and running. Max, however, had no stomach for a fight this morning, so he slowly produced his shortblade and laid it flat on the table, hoping the yellow-toothed man would get the hint. His opponent swallowed hard. Apparently he did.

  The crowd roared again, and they both turned to look.

  “So, who’s getting the axe today?” Max asked.

  “Prince Erik, they say.”

  Max half-stood to get a better view through the crowd. He was sitting just outside the inn where he was staying, off the main road but close enough to the city square to be caught in the middle of all the excitement. “The prince of Tiranto?” Max had campaigned in his father’s lands a few years back.

  His dicing companion nodded but did not explain the obvious.

  So Max had to ask. “Why would the king execute a prince of a rival kingdom and risk war?”

  Yellow-tooth, as Max now thought of him, turned back, surprise in his eyes. “Where’ve you been that you ain’t heard of what’s been going on?”

  Max rolled up the sleeve of his tunic to reveal his legion’s tattoo. “Been off at war.”

  “A veteran, eh?” Yellow-tooth nodded in approval. “Spent a couple years in the army myself.”

  Max rolled his eyes. And probably got kicked out for being a disorderly drunk, too, he imagined. He could smell the beer on Yellow-tooth. “So, you gonna tell me what’s going on, or do I have to guess? I’m gonna be suiting up for war again?”

  Yellow-tooth just smiled, and Max cringed. “See, the king’s got himself a bit of a problem. Seems he can’t figure out what’s wrong with his daughters.”

  Max wanted to throttle him. He hated men who drew stories out, savoring every moment of suspense. He just wanted it straight. “What’s wrong with his daughters?”

  “They’re bewitched, all twelve of them, or so everyone says. They dance all night under some sort of spell, and ain’t no one can break it, see.”

  Max failed to see the problem. “What?”

  “Yep.” Yellow-tooth turned back to look at the crowd. “Every morning, their dancing shoes are danced to pieces, and the king can’t figure out why.”

  Max shrugged. “Just set a watch over the girls.”

  “He’s tried that, but the guards always fall asleep.”

  Royal guards do not fall asleep. Yellow-tooth had been listening to too many wild rumors.

  “Heads have been rolling daily,” Yellow-tooth said, fixing Max with a stare that was supposed to frighten him. It did not.

  “So,” Max measured his words, “what’s Prince Erik got to do with it?”

  Yellow-tooth took his time before responding, before revealing to his listener the meat of the tale. He licked his lips and eyed the pile of silver. “All this talking, see, has parched my mouth.” He let the implication hang in the air.

  “Wench!” Max roared through the open door. “Give us another beer.”

  “Much obliged,” Yellow-tooth said, but he did not continue until the mug of beer was sitting in front of him. “Anyway, where was I?”

  “The Prince!” It would have been easier to run his shortblade through the man’s skull and find someone else to talk to.

  “Ah, yes.” Yellow-tooth took a long pull off his beer, foam hanging from his dirty mustache. “The King was at his wits’ end, so he sent out a general appeal, saying that if any man can solve the riddle of the twelve dancing princesses, he’ll give that man his choice of daughters to marry. Seeing that the king ain’t got no male heir, you can imagine how many have lined up for the chance.”

  “Not a bad deal,” Max said.

  “Not as good as you think neither.” Yellow-tooth winked. “By sunrise, any man who’s failed to discover the curse is put to death.”

  “And Prince Erik failed?”

  Yellow-tooth nodded so fast that Max thought his filthy little head might fall off. Max’s eyes searched the crowd as he silently cursed the prince as a fool. Here was a man who had everything, was set to inherit a kingdom, had his choice of any woman he wanted, and what did he do? He gambled his life away. Max scooped up the dice and dropped them in the cup. What kind of idiot gambles everything on the chance that he might lose it all? Inbred fools, he concluded, the lot of them. The kingdoms of the world were ruled by half-wits.

  As Max considered the possibilities of this situation, the crowd suddenly quieted. The only sound was the low rumbling of wooden wheels popping across cobblestones. Prince Erik, divested of his regalia, his fine clothes, and his shining sword, stood in the middle of a flat, horse-drawn cart. He was lashed to a pole, and in his white, knee-length tunic that resembled night-wear, he did not look like royalty at all. His eyes were red from crying, his hair disheveled. He was a wreck of a man, and his bare, skinny legs gave him the look of a frightened scarecrow. How many men had Max seen stripped of their dignity on the battlefield? How many leaders of men had he seen crying out for their mothers? Once unhorsed, once stripped of his fancy armor, a mighty general might blubber like a boy.

  This was a standard execution, so Max expected certain behavior from the crowd. He expected, after the moment of silence, for one person to spit in the prince’s face. That would open the floodgates to a torrent of insults, jibes, thrown rotten vegetables, and every other demeaning, degrading gesture one could think of. But none of that happened. The crowd remained silent. If anything, they seemed frozen in dread. Some made the sign against evil, crossing their hands over their chests and squeezing their eyes shut. Max collected h
is things and stood. Something was wrong here, and he had to find out what it was.

  “Where you going?” Yellow-tooth asked.

  Without looking back, Max flipped him a silver coin. “Been nice knowing you.” He turned his shoulders and slipped through the crowd, mirroring the movements of the soldiers who escorted the prisoner. Max had always been light on his feet, and this skill now served him well in amongst the sea of bodies. Now he understood why the soldiers had been pushing everyone back. It was not because they were overexcited and eager to see a public execution. It was because they were angry and threatening to riot.

  Max got to the front of the crowd and stood right before the scaffold. Beside him an old woman with a scarf tied around her hair, hunched over, her eyes tracking the movements of the procession.

  “Why so quiet, grandmother?” Max asked. “Surely you remember the evils Tiranto has done against us.”

  The old woman’s head snapped around on its frail neck as she regarded Max. “Soldier, eh?” She pointed to the mark of his legion on his tunic. “I lost two sons in the war, but this ain’t about Prince Erik or what his father did. This has got to stop.”

  “What?”

  The old woman raised her hand and pointed her gnarled, bony finger at the prince who was being unchained from his perch. “This. He’s the thirteenth man to be executed, and they was all princes.”

  “All of them? Thirteen? The king has killed so many?”

  The old woman’s watery eyes searched Max’s face. “There’s some evil at the castle. The princesses, the king – all of them. Something dark’s at work, mark my words, and all these young men is paying the price.”

  Max watched as Prince Erik was led up the stairs to his doom. “The king risks war.”

  The old woman shook her head. “No, they all knew the risks. It’s the king everyone’s worried about. He risks his soul in his fanatic quest to discover the secret of the twelve dancing princesses.”

  “Do you know what it’s all about?”

  The old woman shrugged. “How should I know? I’ve never been in the castle.”

  Of course not. Stupid question.

  Prince Erik stood rigid as a corpse, his shoulders high and tense, his lips drawn together in a thin, blue line of fear. A gust of cold wind blew across the city square, raising dust into the air and raising the prince’s tunic. He yanked his garment back down, but not before the whole crowd had seen his flaccid cock hanging there. Max looked away for a moment in embarrassment but then looked back. Death was never dignified, no matter how one went.

  A large, broad-shouldered, heavyset man whose head was covered by a black hood stepped forward. “Kneel.” He pointed to the chopping block, a piece of smooth wood stained dark with blood. Another servant of the court stepped forward and placed a basket in front of the block.

  Erik’s eyes filled with tears, and Max noticed how piss trickled down his right leg, pooling up around his soft, leather shoes. Never dignified. Max resolved at that moment that when it was time for him to go, he would do it himself. He would never piss himself in fear.

  “Kneel,” the headsman repeated, and though the prince’s eyes searched the crowd for salvation, none came. He began to bawl, and two servants had to step forward and bring him to his knees.

  Prince Erik was not prepared for this kind of death. Max doubted that as a prince Erik had ever contemplated his death before. Not only was he young, he was royalty, so the only time he had thought of death was when he was dealing it out. He hunted, he gamed, he jousted, but surely he had never considered his own demise. And certainly not on the chopping block of a foreign king.

  “Hold your arms out before you,” one of the servants whispered to the prince, and though he was not close, Max heard these instructions. He had a keen ear, and he knew the servant was only trying to ease Erik’s suffering. Holding his arms out would give the headsman a clean cut, so that the death would be painless. But Erik just shook his head and grasped the block like it was his only hope.

  Max walked away. He could not watch so ignominious a death. He knew how it would end. The prince would cuss and scream, and the servants would be forced to hold his arms out while the headsman took several strokes to finish him off. Disgraceful. Max had seen his fair share of dishonor. He scratched at his newly-grown beard, his fingers pausing at his chin as a revelation struck him. He knew what he had to do.

  ****

  Max smoothed down his new tunic of dark blue. It had embroidered silver edges. The leggings itched his legs, and the codpiece cupped his balls most uncomfortably. He had had to coil his cock around to make it fit in such a small space. How small noblemen’s pricks must have been! As a common man, Max had never before worn such ridiculous clothing, and as he looked down at his fancy boots, self-conscious embarrassment overcame him. He was on the verge of turning around and walking out when a liveried guard of the castle approached.

  “His Excellency will see you now.”

  This was it, then. Max had used all his winnings at gambling to buy this outrageous costume; he might as well see this thing through. He followed the guard down the wide hall, past many oaken doors, and into a chamber that had two exits other than the one he came through. His soldier mind always took a tactical appraisal of every situation. The king’s councilor who had agreed to see him sat on the edge of his four-poster bed. He was half-naked, and beside him under the covers lay a painted woman.

  The councilor slapped her on her bare thigh. Snapping his fingers, he pointed to the door, but not the main door Max had come through. The prostitute understood, though she left with an ill grace. She gathered up her clothes, bundled them into her arms, and escaped naked through the side passage. She glared back at Max as she went.

  “So, what’s this all about?”

  “My name, sir, is Maximilian Wargrave, late of the Phoenix Legion.” Max stood at attention.

  The councilor blew through puffed out lips, rose, and poured himself a glass of wine from a crystal decanter. “And that means what to me?”

  “I’ve come about their Highnesses, the princesses.”

  The councilor choked on his first mouthful of wine. “Who are you again?”

  “Maximilian Wargrave—”

  The councilor raised his hand. “You are no prince?”

  Max shook his head.

  “You are of no noble house?”

  Max shook his head.

  The councilor’s eyebrows rose. “And you have the sack to show up here and offer your services? How, pray tell, do you expect to succeed where your betters have failed?”

  Betters, indeed! Last time he checked, Max still had his head attached. “I did valiant service for the Crown in the Tiranto Wars, and I’ve been involved in three other campaigns besides. I’ve seen my share of combat, sir, and I’ve come out relatively unscathed.”

  “This is not a battlefield, soldier,” the councilor said, snapping his words in anger.

  “I understand that, sir. I just thought I’d give it a try, seeing that there haven’t been any volunteers for weeks now.”

  The councilor hummed in thought as he eyed Max sharply. He did not speak for a long while, and Max kept his patience. At last, he spoke. “I don’t see the harm in letting you throw your life away.”

  That was almost the way Max saw it, as well. He had volunteered for this because he had nothing to lose, unlike all those who had gone before him. He risked nothing but stood to gain everything. If he succeeded, he would get to marry one of the princesses, and then one day, he would be king. Max was a commoner, had never been an officer in the army, and had no savings, and now that he was retired from service, though he was still young, he had only dirty taverns, gambling, and drinking to look forward to until the day he died. But Max was a man of action. He was a soldier, and he would not die in obscurity beneath some dicing table. Better this than the alternative.

  “I’ll solve the riddle.” Max had no other choice. It was do or die. “I’ll break the spell.”
>
  The councilor laughed and drained his cup. “You have leave to try.” He waved his hand before him, shooing Max away. “See that he has what he needs.”

  “Yes, Excellency,” a nearby servant said and bowed.

  Max was directed to another chamber, one lavishly decorated with silk divans, cherry-wood tables, gilded mirrors, and a mural of a sunrise on the east wall.

  “This is where you will stay,” the servant said. He pointed to a set of large, white double doors with handles of brass. “Within are the princesses’ bed-chambers. You shall not enter therein. Any entertainment of the princesses—” He dropped his voice. “Any surveillance must be done from here. You shall not violate the sanctity of the bedroom.”

  Max nodded. “Of course not.” His eyes scanned the large drawing room. Everything seemed normal.

  Stiff-backed and head held high in haughtiness, the servant strode across the room and knocked on the white double doors. A blonde-haired young woman stuck her head out. Her eyes danced merrily, and Max detected a certain mischievousness in her looks. He knew at once that something was amiss.

  “What do you want?” Her demanding tone was nothing less than what Max expected from a spoiled princess.

  “Princess Lavinia,” the servant said and bowed, “this is Maximilian Wargrave.” He spoke Max’s name with disdain, borrowing arrogance like all servants did. “He is here to solve the mystery of your curse and lift it.”

  Lavinia swept past the servant and came to stand in the middle of the room, her gaze inspecting every inch of the soldier. Max chided himself silently as he grew uncomfortable under her stare. He had never been in the presence of royalty before, and though he was not necessarily intimidated, the way the princess looked at him made him uncomfortable. There was mischief in this one.

  Lavinia called out to her sisters without taking her eyes from Max. “There’s another man come to help us, sisters. Come quick, and see!”