Free Ruins of Camelot by G. Norman Lippert

tired from the fields met their wives and children in the square, establishing little family camps along the walls and in hay-filled corners.  Street vendors had set up their carts to feed and profit from the crowd.  Those who could not afford their wares satisfied themselves with baskets of home-made bread and cheese.  Children danced and chased each other through the jovial throng.  Musicians fluted and drummed noisily, competing with each other from opposite corners of the courtyard.
    Gabriella observed this with bemusement from her balcony.  She knew that most of the people below had gathered as much for the festival atmosphere as to celebrate her marriage to Darrick, but this did not bother her in the least.
    "It is very nearly time," Sigrid announced, stopping in the open balcony doors.  "We should make our way down to the ballroom.  You're as ready as you will ever be, methinks."
    Gabriella nodded but did not move.  "They look so happy," she said, smiling wistfully.
    "Of course they do," Sigrid answered.  "It's not every day that a princess marries a commoner."
    Gabriella looked down at the noisome throng in the twilight.  "Darrick isn't common," she said with quiet confidence.
    Sigrid waited impatiently for a moment and then sighed and moved to join her charge at the balcony railing.  "Do you wish to learn a truth on this day, dear one?" she asked, peering down into the square.
    "You've taught me nearly every day of my life whether I liked it or not," Gabriella replied.  "Why should today be any different?"
    Sigrid shrugged.  "Today that will end.  I am no longer your nurse, but your lady-in-waiting.  From now on, if you wish me to advise you, you will ask me for it."
    "I will always ask you for it," Gabriella said, suddenly feeling very sad.  Tears came to her eyes, surprising her, and she swiped at them with annoyance.
    "This is how it always is," Sigrid nodded, softening her expression.  "Every great beginning means something else must end.  It is the way of all good things.  Sadness and joy are the twins of every momentous event."
    "I don't think that's the lesson you meant to teach me," Gabriella chided, swallowing thickly and producing a handkerchief.  "Don't remind me of what is ending.  Teach me a happy truth for once, woman."
    Sigrid nodded agreeably and crossed her large forearms on the balcony railing.  "You say that your Darrick is not common, and you are right," she said, peering down into the torchlight of the courtyard.  "Today's happy truth, Princess, is that neither are any of them."
    Gabriella followed the older woman's gaze, allowing it to drift over the faces of those gathered below.  Some were smiling, laughing, singing.  Others looked on with stern solemnity or argued amiably amongst themselves.  Mothers watched their children, fathers cuffed them lightly as they ran past or held them on their shoulders, pointing up at the castle, perhaps even at Gabriella herself where she watched from high above.
    "What does it mean to be a princess?" Gabriella wondered aloud, repeating her old question.
    Sigrid turned and regarded her for a long moment.  "From now on, whatever you do, that's what it means.  For good or for ill, you are the Princess.  What that means to me and Darrick and all of those below is up to you."
    Gabriella accepted this with a deep sigh.  She felt a strange reluctance to leave the balcony railing even though her moment was soon coming, the moment she had been waiting for much of her life.  She was going to be married.  In every way that mattered, she was no longer a child.  She had yearned ardently for this day, had rushed impatiently through her schooling, anxious to throw off the rules and boundaries of childhood.  Only now, looking over the precipice of adulthood, did she realise how secretly reassuring those boundaries had been.
    Sigrid seemed to understand these things without Gabriella explaining them.  They waited together under the darkening