Let Me Be a Tyrant Princess
I shall turn rotten!
Yes — there was a saying like that, once.
In the twenty-first century, if you asked the citizens of any constitutional monarchy that still kept a royal family, Why should the dynasty be allowed to survive at all? you would inevitably hear this answer.
The royal family's love affairs and scandals are more entertaining than any trashy soap opera — why get rid of them?
It was a joke credible enough to appear even in the British chapter of the old "neighbor-next-door" gossip compendiums — which meant, in effect, that I now had no choice but to agree with it wholeheartedly, now that I had learned my own secret of birth.
"Your Highness, you really must get up today…."
"…Mmmnn, Rose…. As of this moment, I am a dead woman."
And so, having taken to my bed, I refused absolutely to rise. Save for the occasional trip to the privy, I did not leave that bed.
Mmm. From now on, I am going to live as the worst kind of tyrant-in-training. I will squander the country into bankruptcy, and I will absolutely, under no circumstances, attend a single lesson in statecraft.
Then they would simply pick some other, more grown-up member of the royal family and plop the crown on their head instead of me. With that comforting thought, I buried myself in the blankets up to my ears.
Beside me, Rose wailed that this would never do, and Florence sighed — but honestly…
What exactly do you two intend to do about it?
I am royalty! Second in the line of succession, too — for now… for the moment, anyway.
I did plan to give that up soon enough, but as of today, second in line to the throne I remained…!
And it was in clinging to that fact that I made a discovery: so long as I stayed inside my own chambers, no man — no man possessing, ahem, certain appendages — dared set foot inside. Not the ancient grey-bearded stewards, not even the guardsmen in their bearskin caps sweltering through the height of summer. Not one of them!
Did they truly imagine a handful of maids could haul me out of here? Let Rose and Florence be women who may enter my room — my body was, in effect, a royal vessel. Which meant that if harm came to my person, harm would come to their necks in turn.
Not that I had any actual intention of going that far….
"Tell them the Princess is unwell and cannot come out today, either."
"Your Highness… if you keep this up, Her Majesty is certain to hear of it…."
"Yes — and I would be ever so grateful if she did."
What was that supposed to be, medicine for sale? I had been on an unauthorized strike for four days now. There was no conceivable way my protest hadn't been reported.
My great-grandmother knew perfectly well what I was doing. If she didn't, that would be far stranger.
Everything in Windsor Castle was, presumably, the Queen's eyes and ears — and I was staging my own silent demonstration right in the middle of it. Consider the timing: I had begun living like this immediately after learning the secret of my birth.
If a woman who had presided over the affairs of state for decades couldn't decode a message that simple, she would be incompetent beyond belief!
Here is what I want: strip me of my claim to the throne, and grant me a lifetime pension of several tens of millions of pounds!
That is why I must turn rotten. Rotten enough that they would have no choice but to hand the succession to someone else.
It wasn't as though I fit the bill of that old chestnut, the "modern-genius" theory — the idea that anyone from the future must be brilliant.
I was just a working adult who'd scraped out a living writing romance-fantasy serials, and they wanted a girl like that to ascend the throne of an empire a hundred times the size of South Korea?
Well — if this were a twenty-first-century constitutional monarchy, I could have openly neglected my duties and gone to watch the Premier League in person. But the great-grandmother I had actually seen was a different beast entirely.
The Cabinet and the government belong in London, so why does she insist on dragging everyone out to Windsor Castle…?
Granted, London's smog rolled all the way out here and turned the sky a murky grey — but seriously, what business does smog have flying out to Windsor?
"Princess…."
"Ugh, I don't know, I don't know! I'm going to sleep, so don't wake—"
"How comfortably you live."
"…Huh?"
I had buried every inch of myself beneath the blankets, minimizing all contact with the outside world — and through that thin barrier drifted a voice I knew all too well.
"…If this humble one has misheard, I beg you, tell me I have misheard…."
"The Princess heard you perfectly. Now raise your head."
My goose wasn't just cooked. It was thoroughly, irretrievably cooked. I had heard my great-grandmother's voice, loud and clear.
But really — who expects her to storm the room in person? Was failing to anticipate even this my own fault…?
I poked just my eyes out over the top of the blankets. And there sat Her Majesty the Queen, my great-grandmother, in a chair pulled up right beside my bed.
"…Uuuummm…. Grandma, have mercy…."
"You flatter yourself. Enough lounging — get ready, and quickly."
"…I beg your pardon?"
Even my spirit-devouring, all-out aegoe assault had no effect whatsoever.
I looked at my great-grandmother. Truly, for a woman of seventy-six, she looked remarkably hale and vigorous.
Especially when one considered that this was the late nineteenth century — the year 1895 — and that I had personally endured the despairing state of medicine in this era… she seemed to suffer not at all from holding the title of longest-reigning monarch before Elizabeth II.
"Where… where exactly are we going…?"
"I intend to hear for myself why you have carried on in this fashion — and to see whether you truly lack the mettle of a sovereign."
"…I'm sorry — what…?"
Having said her piece, my great-grandmother ignored my stare entirely and sipped her tea at my bedside. Then, to the maids — who had somehow managed to surround my bed without my noticing — she said:
"Execute."
"Wha—!? Grandma!? Your Majesty!! Waaah!! Rose—!!"
At that single word, the maids — who until this moment had not dared lay a finger on my bed — stripped away the blanket I'd been sheltering under and dragged me bodily out of it.
…So the thing stronger than being second in line to the throne was the reigning monarch. Apparently I had forgotten that most obvious of facts.
And that is how I was subjected to an utterly merciless bathing ceremony, surrounded on all sides by a crowd of women….
…Is this, perhaps, a reward?
"…Your Majesty, this is a bit much for a four-year-old, don't you think?"
"Children your age are meant to cry. Observe you instead — you do not weep, you argue with Us."
Hmm.
I would need to revise my strategy.
New plan: slur my words, say nothing at all, and play the aphasia victim. Though if I'm being honest, with my mind hurtling toward thirty, pretending to be a toddler wasn't exactly sustainable….
I'm going to lose my mind….
Even amid that despair, I found myself freshly dressed in the blink of an eye, holding Rose's hand and trailing behind the Queen. Where on earth could she possibly be taking me?
After all, I had never set foot in any part of Windsor Castle beyond my own quarters.
Don't tell me — am I finally getting to leave the castle? I dared not hope. This was the great-grandmother who, in the name of shielding me, had kept me from even meeting my grandfather and grandmother, and who blocked all contact with children my own age at the door.
Still — if I could just meet my great-aunts, that would be some—
"Long live the Queen! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah, thrice over!"
"Long live the Queen! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah, thrice over!"
"Gentlemen, be seated."
Someone led the cry, and the three cheers rolled through the hall as countless voices took it up. Unable to process the sudden change in my circumstances, I stumbled backward — only for my hand to close on empty air.
Somehow, at some point, I was standing entirely alone.
Without my realizing it, I had been ushered into an enormous chamber like a great council hall, and Rose — the hand that had been holding mine — was now beyond a set of closing doors, pumping her fist at me through the shrinking gap. Be strong, Princess!
My hand hung empty. Honestly — if you're going to cheer that loudly, at least haul me back out with you.
It was my great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, who took the hand Rose had abandoned.
Only then could I take in the scene properly. At the head of the room sat what was unmistakably a throne — a massive chair of state — and around a table vast as a parliament chamber, a great many people were seated.
And beside that throne stood a very small chair.
I looked up at my great-grandmother with mounting dread.
Her Majesty — my namesake — gave a single, serene nod.
…The worst-case scenario had come to pass.
So I sat down beside the throne. From the seat of a four-year-old, looking down upon a room full of middle-aged and elderly men… the sensation was profoundly strange.
Should I simply start crying? Would that be the better option?
"Let the Privy Council convene."
"We are honored beyond measure by Your Majesty's grace."
It was the portly Prime Minister, a face I half recognized, who spoke. …I could only gape at the early education of the British royal household, which saw fit to drag a four-year-old into the chamber where the empire's hundred-year plans were decided.
"Today's session proceeds with a very special guest in attendance."
"…Would that be the Princess Victoria of Clarence and Avondale?"
"You observe correctly."
A faint stir ran through the room at that. Frankly, I understood — I'd have reacted the same way.
Thanks to my great-grandmother's smothering protection, I had not once set foot outside Windsor Castle in four whole years. This was the first time any of these people had laid eyes on me in the flesh.
"…His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales began his studies in statecraft at the age of seven. But the Princess has yet to reach even—"
"That is a matter for Us to judge, gentlemen — not for you."
Fine words, but what's this about you getting to judge it? For that matter — Grandfather supposedly began studying kingship at seven too, so why am I starting at four…?
This is flat-out discrimination. Is it because I'm a girl, the same as her, that she means to forge me harder?
I don't know. I could not, for the life of me, read the mind of that old queen….
"If Your Majesty so wills it…. Then, the first item of business concerns the matter between the Transvaal Republic and the Cape Colony."
The Transvaal what? And the Cape which?
You call it education in statecraft, you let me read nothing but Machiavelli's The Prince — and then you toss me into this?
So what does this have to do with my silent protest? All I did was hole up in my room because I didn't want to take royal studies lessons — why are you doing this to me…?
Don't tell me the logic is: you're going to inherit the throne anyway and be summoned to sessions like this forever, so if you haven't studied, you'll humiliate yourself…? What is this, Yeongjo and the Crown Prince Sado all over again?
Thy servant humbly requests… crab marinated in soy….
With filicide-inducing thoughts bubbling up unbidden, my great and gracious sovereign great-grandmother, the portly Prime Minister, and the assorted gentlemen around the table droned on and on.
"President Krüger has set the franchise requirement for the uitlanders who migrated to work the gold mines at fourteen years of residence. This is, unmistakably, a maneuver to obstruct the Empire's advance into South Africa!"
"…And so the Colonial Secretary proposes we go to war yet again?"
"Entrust the matter to Cecil Rhodes, Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, and Governor Alfred Milner — by force if need be, we must annex the Transvaal and the Orange to seize command of South Africa and monopolize the goldfields!"
Wasn't there a saying about smoke rising from a chimney with no fire? Yes — you lot have earned the title of hateful nation many times over.
My eyelids were drooping, and still my great-grandmother kept prodding me awake, forcing me to listen. But the justification for this war they were proposing was…
We wanted the gold, so we sent British citizens and British companies into South Africa — and now the native government there, a Boer government friendly with Germany no less, dares to check our subjects and our firms, so let's just declare war and swallow the mines and the whole of South Africa in one bite — that's the argument?
And this is the land of gentlemen…?
"I do not oppose the war itself — but the War Office is not yet ready."
"Nor has the Treasury budgeted a single pound for it. Even if war comes, the date must be pushed to the year after next."
"The Kaiser will take a rather dim view. The Foreign Office will do what it can to manage him."
"…If the Prime Minister may add a word — a second collision with the Boers in South Africa risks our diplomatic isolation. With time on our side, it would be no loss to open hostilities only after securing guarantees over South Africa through diplomacy with the powers of the Continent."
Not a single soul opposed the war. Everyone simply accepted it as self-evident common sense that a war must be fought — and was now chiming in about which gaps needed filling first.
Yes. This empire deserves to fall.
Just as I was driving my opinion of this hateful nation down through the floor and into the bedrock below—
"And what does the Princess make of it?"
"…I beg your pardon?"
My great-grandmother had asked me. And every gaze in the room swung my way.
You are not seriously asking a four-year-old… about war…?
"…M-me…?"
"Indeed."
Confronted with this unbelievable situation, I could do nothing but squeeze my eyes shut.
Somebody, please — bring me the soy-marinated crab….