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The king had three children, and when his eldest son and heir fell from a horse and the doctors said the bones in the leg and back would never heal right, he grieved, for to his mind, the king’s men should be able to believe that their monarch would ride out with them to battle. Unwisely, the king looked to his second-born son, and took him with him when he visited the king’s men, kept him by his side while he talked to his advisers, until they began to forget he was not the heir and assumed he would wear the crown next. The youngest child was but a girl, as pretty as the mother who had borne her had been, quiet, well-behaved and sure to marry well. She did not give up on her big brother, even when he was brusque, for she saw that his face was lined with pain, and she knew that she was a poor substitute for their father’s love.
But the eldest son turned pain into iron, in bitterness, so that when the king fell, and his brother reached for the crown, he challenged him with a ringing voice. The two brothers took up swords and the younger was surprised to find that the brother who had so long been dismissed as a cripple was not easy to defeat. He tired first, and the able-bodied prince delivered a killing blow, but as he did so, he realised that his brother had delivered his own. Their duel ended, as did their lives, and the court was silent in disbelief, until the king's daughter stepped forward, no longer a child, no longer a girl, dressed in pure, unbloodied white. "There shall be peace under my reign," she declared, her face beautiful and awesome in its determination, and all kneeled as she took the crown.