Jasper Fforde - The Great Troll War

‘That was never broadcast.’

‘No,’ said the Princess, ‘and neither was the round where Princess Stellerini threw a massive 3.2 Richter Scale tantrum when she was told to reduce her entourage to only six servants and wear the same dress twice. None of you even got to the round where you had to do ironing or sew a button on a shirt.’

‘Who won?’ I asked out of curiosity. The show had been a big ratings winner, more popular than ‘No Money but an Impressive Title , in which five princes of impecunious means but an impressive bloodline had to battle it out to win the hand of a Grade VII princess, the sort whose Kingdom is barely larger than a couple of football fields. 11 11 Not the smallest Kingdom recorded. The Duchy of Bryn Mawr was only the size of a double garage with seventeen inches of coastline. It gave them the legal right to a navy, though not a very big one.

‘Princess Organza of Midlandia,’ said the Princess, and they then set about talking about how awful she was, how she would soon lose her looks, how she had ‘certainly let herself go since the wedding’ and was also – shock horror – far too nice to her servants, something that ‘would only lead to ruin’.

‘I was there when Princess Shazine was bodyswapped by her mother the Queen and entrusted to me,’ I said, before the princessy trash-talk got them all too distracted, ‘and as Royal Mystician to the Court of the Kingdom of Snodd, I can vouch for her.’

‘Not conclusive,’ said Princess Jocaminca. ‘Besides, your “princess” currently has her finger up her nose.’

I looked at the Princess, who did indeed have her finger up her nose.

‘I think I’ve found an impressively large booga,’ said the Princess. ‘It’s been bothering me all morning.’

‘It was the bodyswapping,’ I explained hastily. ‘Some of Laura Scrubb’s personal habits came across with it. If she ever asks you to pull her finger, please don’t.’

‘Eugh,’ said Jocaminca.

It was time to play my trump card. I had wanted to keep it for the coronation, but the time was now. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small leather pouch that contained a gold signet ring with the seal of Snodd cut into turquoise, surrounded by oak leaves, a Dragon and a very small advert for Fizzi-Pop. 12 12 It isn’t unusual for royalty to have sponsorship deals. Running castles can be expensive.

‘Queen Mimosa gave me this in secret,’ I said, ‘for a moment such at this.’

I took the Princess’s hand and slid the heavy gold ring on her third finger. She stared at it for a moment, and tears welled up in her eyes. She looked at me and I nodded. Her mother had been an ex-sorceress herself, and likely had a premonition something bad was going to happen, and that bodyswapping her with a lowly maidservant was the only way by which the spirit of the royal bloodline could be preserved. I think Princess Jocaminca realised it too.

‘Your Royal Highness Crown Princess Shazine Blossom Hadridd Snodd,’ she said politely. ‘I humble myself in your presence and await your bidding.’

And she curtsied. As it turned out, the princesses who had signed up for the conference were all Grade II princesses of middling-sized Kingdoms, and none of them had the clout the Princess had – and they knew it. Say what you like about princesses, they know their place within the nation’s royalty.

‘I may have the body of a handmaiden,’ said the Princess, ‘with bandy legs, lank hair and several unsightly skin infections which will be dealt with as soon as the tests come back from the labs, but I have the mind and heart of an uncrowned queen, and I will not rest until the scourge of the Troll is vanquished from this land.’

And without waiting for a reply, she turned and set off for where the Sorcerer’s Conclave was being held: the ballroom of the hotel. I turned and followed her.

‘Did that sound queenly?’ she asked as we walked along the corridor to the ballroom.

‘Very,’ I replied. ‘I’d better start calling you “ma’am”.’

‘Only in public. When we’re alone I want you to call me “Shazza”, and look, for what you’ve done so far and will do in the future, I hereby make you a Knight of the Realm of Snodd.’

‘I’m honoured, of course, I think,’ I said, ‘but can girls actually be knights?’

‘They can if I say they can,’ she replied with a smile. ‘No point being the queen if you can’t make your own rules. Save me a place at the Conclave, would you? I’m bursting for a wee.’

And she hurried off towards the toilets.

‘Well,’ said Tiger once she had gone, ‘Sir Jennifer Strange, eh?’

‘I’m not sure it’s official without the sword stuff,’ I said, ‘but on reflection, I think I’d wear the label “orphan” with greater pride.’

‘Yeah,’ said Tiger, ‘me too.’

‘Quark,’ said the Quarkbeast.

We paused in the elevator lobby outside the ballroom, where Prince Omar Ben Nasil was working on his flying carpet, 13 13 Technically it’s actually a rug, but that and other details were covered in The Song of the Quarkbeast. a threadbare specimen that smelled of unwashed spaniels and would have been rejected outright by almost any charity shop you could mention. The carpet was hovering about two feet off the ground, and Nasil was dressed in overalls and lying on a wheeled skate, the way a mechanic might do working under a car. He seemed to be delicately patching the centuries-old carpet, and the inspection light underneath shone through to reveal quite plainly its age and woefully threadbare condition.

‘How’s it going?’ I asked.

‘Not good, Jenny,’ he said, wheeling himself out from under the carpet to talk to us, ‘the Angel’s Feathers entwined in the warp gives it the ability to float, but it’s magic that controls it, so with the HENRY still operative, we’re not going anywhere.’

‘Well, do your best,’ I said, and he nodded, grinned, then wheeled himself back under the carpet and carried on whistling to himself. We were about to walk into the ballroom when I heard someone call my name.

‘Oh, Miss Strange?’

It was Tabathini, the really tall princess, who was so ridiculously thin that if she were painted pink and taught to walk backwards, she would be indistinguishable from a flamingo.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s about Her Royal Highness the Crown Princess Shazine Blossom Hadridd Snodd.’

‘Yes?’

‘She’s not the Crown Princess.’

‘I thought we’d established that’s exactly who she was.’

‘No – no, I mean she’s not just the Crown Princess. She’s technically … the queen of all the UnUnited Kingdoms. Or, as we should say now: the United Kingdoms.’

‘What?’ I said, as the whole point of the Kingdoms was that they had never been united, not once, not ever, not even the tiniest bit.

‘It’s Rule 35b,’ she said, showing me an underlined section in her pocket edition of The Rulebook of Rules about Ruling for Rulers. The awkwardly titled tome was the technical manual that covered all aspects of ruling in the UnUnited Kingdoms, whether they be an insane tyrannical despot or a touchy-feely communal-led socialist collective. I peered closer.

‘Chapter 9, Paragraph 7, Subsection D, Rule 35b,’ said Princess Tabathini, running her finger along the line of fine text. ‘If the Albion Archipelago is invaded by a hostile force, the most senior monarch/ruler still at liberty is to assume command of all the Kingdoms until such time as that ruler relinquishes leadership and/or invading forces are defeated.’

Tiger and I looked at one another.

‘Wow,’ said Tiger, ‘she’s now the supreme leader of all the Kingdoms. That’s a lot of people to be responsible for.’