I, Alexandrina Read online

  The king and queen of Athena have a problem. They desperately need a son to marry off to Princess Vexa. She is the unsightly daughter of their neighbor, King Magnatus of Qax. If no prince is born, Magnatus will take over the peaceful Athena and what the heck, kill all the people of the kingdom.

  When Athena’s rulers finally produce an offspring, the queen dies in childbirth. The king finds himself faced with the greatest challenge of all—a girl! Boys are scarce, and no one is willing to give up their son to replace the infant girl.

  The ruse is on. The sweet baby girl is named Alexandre and is raised to take on the manly duties of being a prince. Eighteen years later, it’s wedding time. Can the deception continue?

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Beginning

  Want a fairy tale that tops everything you’ve heard? I thought so. Pull up a seat. This will be a good one, I promise. I do not boast, mind you. What makes this tale THE BEST is that it’s true. Yep, true, I do declare. I know this for a fact because it’s the story of my great-great-great-great grandparents. What a tale it is! It’s a magical brew of big ol’ juicy problems, generous dollops of secrets, castles, kings and queens, princesses and villains.

  Oh! You little ones, sorry, but you gotta leave. This tale is R-rated and includes sex and all that yummy stuff (and some not-so-yummy stuff). Come back when you’re eighteen!

  Once upon a time, a king and queen with hair of spun gold and eyes of the clear blue sky ruled the land of Athena. They governed with benevolence and good grace. Their subjects loved them. However, as they neared the end of their childbearing years, they had yet to produce a child. They tried and tried, several times a day in fact, with nothing to show for it.

  The kingdom desperately needed a prince, and stress made itself evident. King Attus’s once-thick mane of blond hair receded at an alarming rate, and a new wrinkle appeared on his handsome face every day. Sadness settled in Queen Elizaveta’s eyes, and she took to sitting at windows and sighing wistfully. She stared at nothing in particular.

  If Elizaveta did not bear a son, Athena would fall under the control of King Magnatus of Qax. Rule under him promised to be barbaric; many people claimed Magnatus was as evil as his head was bald. Nearly all people agreed that he was a rather odd-looking little fellow. His hair was concentrated in a bushy black mustache he was quite proud of, and he had little, almost womanly, shoulders. Matchsticks made up his legs, and his only child, a horrid, spoiled and piggish twelve-year-old daughter, was betrothed to Elizaveta’s first son.

  Now, listen carefully to this part. It’s important, quite important. Come on, lean in. This is a part that must be whispered. Magnatus’s wife, Queen Deidre, did not die in childbirth as history claims. There was a reason Magnatus’s shoulders were almost womanly. He was, in fact, a woman!

  He was born a girl named Deidre and married his cousin, the original King Magnatus. After they wed, Deidre developed an easy rapport with a chambermaid who became her trusted confidant. Magnatus and Deidre did not develop a similar rapport, and the maid, Clara, overheard that the king was plotting to banish his wife to the dungeon after their child was born. Clara warned the queen, and Deidre one-upped her husband. She played some favors with the guards, most of them sexual, and gained their loyalty. Magnatus was the person who died in the dungeon.

  In these days, a ruling queen, much less a queen ruling alone, was unheard of. Even in Athena, King Attus was his wife’s superior. The fact that Elizaveta possessed the royal blood mattered not. Deidre, to avoid execution for murder and battles for the crown, chopped off Magnatus’s mustache, shaved her head bald, and became her lookalike cousin. She had studied Magnatus enough to have his mannerisms and speech down cold. She’d also spent enough time in the palace to copy how the ruthless Magnatus operated. Blood marked these days. Deidre ordered the slaughter of Magnatus’s allies and other untrustworthy people who might identify her as Deidre.

  You might think that after these dreadful events, Deidre would want nothing more than peace. Wrong. She had learned the hard way that no one could be trusted, not even her husband. Clara was the person Deidre let closest to her. Even then, she kept the woman at a bit of a distance. They agreed that to avoid suspicion, Deidre should continue as best as possible the policies the original Magnatus had set. Thus, harsh punishments such as immediate execution for anyone who stole Magnatus’s property.

  Now, let’s get back to Magnatus’s daughter.

  Princess Vexa was the apple of her father’s eye, although Magnatus, a.k.a. Deidre, was keenly aware his daughter did not meet standards of beauty. People jested behind the king’s back that Vexa was often mistaken for one of his prized pigs. Furthermore, a never-ending rumor claimed that Queen Deidre died not in childbirth but soon after, when she gazed for the first time upon her child. The countenance of the baby princess was so ghastly, the rumor went, that Deidre’s heart froze and never resumed beating.

  Magnatus made no attempt to quash these rumors. The more fibs that floated out there, the less likely anyone would be to stumble upon the truth.

  He spoiled Vexa rotten. Part of it was because Vexa was not pretty. The other reason: Magnatus misguidedly believed that spoiling Vexa would help make up for her lack of a mother. Before long, rumors of Vexa’s temper tantrums matched, and in some cases, exceeded the rumors of her awful looks.

  So, Magnatus had known that finding a respectable and willing princely suitor for his daughter was next to impossible. Spoiled could be overlooked as long as the girl retained lovely features, and, alas, Vexa did not.

  When Vexa was four years old, Magnatus acted before anyone had the chance to decline her hand in marriage. Athena, the kingdom bordering Qax, was a natural choice, and Magnatus invaded. The takeover proved simple; Athena’s armies were laughable, the king and queen wickedly easy to control. They agreed to produce a son forthwith, and he would marry Vexa. In exchange, Magnatus vowed no harm would come to Athena. He departed the kingdom with a sneer reflecting the bitter taste in his mouth. He did not like King Attus and Queen Elizaveta. They were too nice and bland. The least they could have done was present a modicum of fire, a smidgen of challenge.

  It was at this very moment that fear mixed with wonder struck his heart. He was truly Magnatus now! Deidre had been a good woman, and this person complaining about a king and queen being too nice was, well, not a nice person. Not at all.

  In any case, that was eight years ago. As Princess Vexa neared her thirteenth birthday, Magnatus too was losing hope that Athena’s queen would bear a child.

  One night, Magnatus sat at his massive oak desk. He reviewed maps of faraway kingdoms and concentrated on the layout of a kingdom called Harrah. Harrah’s crown prince, or so Magnatus had heard, was a strapping lad of fifteen years old, with hair the color of strawberry. Problems existed: this prince was betrothed to someone else, and Harrah’s armies easily were four times the size of Magnatus’s forces. The army, the distance and the former Deidre’s inexperience in battle were the main reasons Magnatus had taken his chances with Athena. That gamble, alas, had failed. Apparently, no Athenian child was in the offing.

  Magnatus knew what he had to do, because his reputation as a man, as a king, as a father, bubbled in jeopardy. With a sigh, he smoothed out the wide parchment map of Harrah. He was about to call in his top army commander to strategize an invasion when his squire barreled inside without knocking. The slight, buck-toothed lad with orange hair huffed and puffed, exertion shading his face red.

  “What now?” Irritation sliced Magnatus’s voice.

  The squire beamed, exposing yellow teeth. “Athena’s queen, Your Majesty! She is with child.”

  Speech escaped Magnatus for a moment. Then he leapt from his chair, toppling it to the floor. He threw his arms around the squire. “By Jove! A happy ending after all!”

 

 

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