Forest Kingdom Trilogy 1 - Blue Moon Rising

herself into a chair and scowled at the world, fed up to her back teeth. There was no one to talk to, nothing to do, and since they'd taken down all the portraits she couldn't even while away the time witha little target practice. Julia sighed disgustedly, folded her arms, and cursed Rupert to hell and back for riding off and leaving her.
    He'd been gone almost three months, and Julia missed him more than she cared to admit. She'd done her best to settle into the Court and its Society, but as so many times before, her best hadn't been nearly good enough. Her willingness to knock brickdust out of anybody dumb enough to insult her twice had earned her a certain grudging respect, but few friends. Those Ladies of Julia's age and station had tried their utmost to make her feel welcome, but they didn't really have much in common with the young Princess. Their main interests were gossip, fashion and the best ways of catching a rich husband, while Julia didn't give a damn about romantic or Court intrigue, threw away her fashionable shoes because they pinched her feet, and threatened to become violent if anyone even mentioned her forthcoming marriage to Prince Harald. She much preferred riding, hunting and sword drill, pastimes which scandalised her peers.
    It's not feminine, they protested faintly. In reply, Julia said something extremely coarse, and all the young Ladies suddenly found compelling reasons why they had to be somewhere else.
    After that, Julia found herself left pretty much alone.
    At first, she spent a lot of time exploring the castle. She quickly discovered that the same door needn't lead to the same room twice; that some doors were entrances, some were exits, but not all were both; and that some corridors actually folded back upon themselves when you weren't looking. Julia found all this intensely interesting, but unfortunately she tended to get lost rather a lot, and after the fourth search party King John made her promise not to stray from the main corridors without a guide. And that, for all practical purposes, was that.
    Like their master the Seneschal, who governed the day-to-day running of the Castle, the guides shared a strange mystical sense that told them where they were in relation to everything else. This meant that not only could they not get lost, but they knew where any given room was at any given time. In a Castle where directions depended on which day of the week it was when you asked, such gifted people were
    invaluable, and therefore rather scarce on the ground when you needed them. Julia reluctantly gave up her explorations, and went back to challenging the guards at sword drill.
    The King then provided her with a chaperone. Julia quickly discovered that the easiest way to deal with that sweet grey-haired old Lady was to run her off her feet. After three days of running round the Castle at full tilt just to keep Julia in sight, this worthy Lady told the King flatly that the young Princess had no need of a chaperone, as there wasn't a man in the Castle fleet enough of foot to catch up with her.
    Which was not to say that nobody tried. The main contender was of course Harald, who seemed to think that their arranged marriage already gave him certain rights to her person, if not her affections. A few jolting left hooks taught him to keep his distance, and sharpened up his reflexes wonderfully, but he seemed to regard it all as part of the game and wouldn't be put off. Julia supposed she was meant to find this flattering, but she didn't. Harald was charming enough when he wanted to be, but when he wasn't flexing his muscles for her to admire, he was dropping heavy hints about his vast personal wealth, and how all the Forest Kingdom would be his one day. In return Julia tried to drop little hints concerning how she felt about him, like hitting him, or trying to push him off the battlements. Unfortunately he still didn't seem to get the message. Julia avoided him as much as possible, and for the most part they settled on an armed truce, with an unspoken agreement never to use the word marriage.
    But she was still bored, and even a little lonely. The Ladies-in-Waiting weren't talking to her, the courtiers had disowned her, and the guards wouldn't duel with her any more because it made them look bad when they lost. So, when King John summoned her to Court, she went. It was something to do.
    Julia glowered at the closed Court doors, and her hand dropped to her side, where her swordhilt used to be.