The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye Read Free Book Online Page A

Amber.
     
     
     
    She was soon to find out that a great deal of work was expected in return for two pfennigs a week and her keep.
    From early dawn until late at night she was busy scampering up and down the huge castle kitchens, washing dishes, peeling potatoes, fetching and carrying for the royal cooks, filling pails of water, and a hundred other things.

    At night she slept in a narrow rickety bed in a very small attic room at the tip-top of the castle. The bed was very hard and the mattress full of lumps, but she was always so tired that she did not care.
    Whenever she could snatch a moment from her work, she would run up the twelve long flights of stairs that led to her attic, to take a handful of crumbs and scraps to Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious.
    Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious spent most of their time sunning themselves on the castle roofs or making trips down to the gardens. But wherever they were, the minute they heard the Ordinary Princess’s soft whistle they would hurry back to the attic windowsill.
    Every second week the Ordinary Princess was allowed Thursday afternoon off, and then all three of them would spend a glorious time together in the forest. And every Saturday night the Ordinary Princess would put two pfennigs into a cardboard box with a hole in the lid that she kept under her bed.
    “When the box is full,” she told Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious, “I shall take it down to the town and buy myself a new frock, and then we can all go back to the forest and live there for always. Or at least,” she added, “until I need a new one.”
    Peter Aurelious put his head on one side and said, “Qwa!” and Mr. Pemberthy fluffed up his tail and made a little chattering noise, quite as though they both understood what it was all about. Which perhaps they did.
    On the whole, the Ordinary Princess—who was now an ordinary kitchen maid—enjoyed life as much as ever. For when you have spent most of your life surrounded by ladies-in-waiting and polite courtiers who all expect you to do nothing but play the harp nicely and do a little elegant embroidery, even peeling potatoes has its charms. And there is nothing that gives you a feeling of such proud satisfaction as drawing a weekly wage that you have earned all by yourself. Even if it is only two pfennigs!
    Every now and again the Ordinary Princess would send a letter to her parents, to tell them that she was quite safe and well and happy, so that they would not worry about her too much. But she was very careful to give no address, and as no one used postmarks in those days, she was never discovered.
     
     
    The Ordinary Princess had been an ordinary kitchen maid for several weeks before she caught so much as a glimpse of the castle’s owner, King Algernon of Ambergeldar. But though she had not seen him, she had heard a great deal about him from the other seventeen assistant kitchen maids.
    It seemed that he was young and gallant and handsome and that his mother had died when he was only a baby, and his father had been killed out hunting when he was ten years old, so he had been a king since that early age.
    The kitchen maids, the scullery maids, and the housemaids, the scullions, pages, cooks, and serving maids were never tired of talking about him, and to hear them one would suppose him to be the most marvelous person in the world.
    “But they can’t fool me,” said the Ordinary Princess to Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious. “I know all about kings and princes. They may seem very wonderful to kitchen maids, but believe me, when you get to know them, you’d be surprised how stiff and stodgy and tiresome they are.”
    She spoke so snappishly that Mr. Pemberthy looked quite startled and dropped an acorn.
    “Algernon, indeed!” said the Ordinary Princess in tones of immense scorn.
    “Qwa!” agreed Peter Aurelious.
    The cardboard box with the hole in the lid contained the sum of twelve pfennigs when the whole castle was thrown into a bustle