The Royal Concubine

The Royal Concubine

by D. G. D. Davidson

I. Courtship

I was always relieved when she was gone the next morning.

I had developed the habit of remaining sound asleep until the edge of the sun had first tipped above the horizon and shone through the window, at which point I snapped fully awake.  This was not some fortunate ability I was born with, but the result of years of self-training, which gave me a certain advantage:  it meant she would always have left before I awoke, because of course she had to get up and begin her work before sunrise.  After all, she made the sunrise.

I, on the other hoof, made nothing, or at least nothing of value.  The sole purpose of my existence was to be a small recompense for her mostly selfless labor, and as I opened my eyes in the midst of my large featherbed, I was all too aware of it.  On any given day, I would spend the morning in exercise and the afternoon in study.  The evening I would spend with her—or, if I were lucky, I would have it to myself.  I faced the same schedule every day.  Sometimes I couldn’t even remember what day it was, or what month.

Ah, but today would be different.  Today, for the first time in a long time, I had plans.  I smiled to myself, and it was perhaps the first genuine smile that had graced my face in a year.

The smile left me quickly:  it displeased me that, to pull myself from the bed, I had to roll across the space she had occupied probably no less than half an hour before, a depression still holding her scent and her warmth.  After I threw the covers off and stood, I was glad to walk into the hall and leave that room behind; the next time I entered, the filly de chambre would have changed the linens, removing all traces of her presence.

I insisted on taking my heaviest exercise before my morning meal, though my trainer had warned me that this could produce an ill humor.  Grimaud, my chief lackey, was a stallion from Prance; he was an iron-sinewed fellow, formerly of the guard, who had been discharged with a torn hamstring, which gave him a permanent limp.  Defective though he was, he was a skilled pugilist, and against him I daily tested my mettle in wrestling and pony-boxing.  When I stepped from my apartment, I found him sipping coffee in the small, enclosed courtyard.  He saw me and wordlessly put his cup aside.  Without so much as exchanging pleasantries or even sniffing noses, we rubbed oil and sand into our coats and tackled each other.

After I had thrown Grimaud twice and he had thrown me three times, I thanked him briefly and made my way from the courtyard back to my suite, where the geldings had already drawn and perfumed my bath.  Settling into the water, I stared at the steam swirling around the colored tiles in the ceiling and ruminated.

Today had begun like any other day, but it would end—ah, it would end with my victory.

I had been born with privilege, the son of the duchess of Faroe, a small but wealthy outer province.  When I was quite young, my dam died of colic and her title fell to my older sister, who took it upon herself to discipline and educate me in the hopes of sending me to the royal guard and, after I had served my time, disposing of me by means of marriage to some monied filly whom she had picked out from among the daughters of the aristocracy.  For the most part, the course of my life matched her expectations.

I achieved high marks in the academy and entered the guard as my sister had hoped, and I was but a fresh cadet when I first saw the mare I had sworn on my life to serve and to protect.  Glowing like the sun, with her waving hair burning like the sky at dawn, she appeared before the latest recruits to give us her encouragement and her blessing:  eyeing us sternly, she walked down the line and tapped each stallion on the shoulders with her horn.  Every pony she touched bent his knees, fell to his hocks, and trembled in reverence.  When she drew near to me, I dipped my head and squeezed my eyes shut.  I felt her cool horn against my coat, and tears squeezed out from between my eyelids; so overwhelmed was I that I sank fully prostrate to the ground, and I did not rise again until the ceremony had ended.

Before that moment, my loyalty to Equestria, to the princess, and to the long-absent Queen and Judge had been a mere matter of course, a set of creeds I had mindlessly mouthed and a ream of papers to which I had put my signature.  But once I had seen the princess, and once she had touched me, I was from that moment forth her stallion.  I had beheld perfection and purity, and I needed nothing more than that glimpse to become her captive.  My heart burned with the greatest of love for Celestia, and that love extended to all the corners of the empire she ruled.  That night, I went to my cot thinking that I would gladly march into the very fires of Tartarus should my princess order it.

Accustomed to luxury and inclined more to sport than to hard labor, I chafed under the rigid rules of the royal guard; nonetheless, I was blessed with firm flesh and a well-knit frame, and though the life of a soldier was not to my taste, I exceeded in those stallionly arts befitting a unicorn of noble breeding.  Besides my competence in pony wrestling, I had adequate skill in magic and was an adept horn fencer, but I most of all loved the joust.  Whenever a palace lackey announced a tournament, I approached my commanding officer and asked for the privilege of bringing honor to the guard by entering the lists.  Since I always placed and often received prizes, I usually obtained this permission.

It was on occasion of such a tourney that I saw Her Majesty a second time.  It was in Canterlot itself, on the royal grounds, that the joust was held:  stands had been erected around the field, and they sagged almost to breaking with the weight of bright-eyed unicorns eager to watch the nobles of the realm drive upon one another.  Pegasi lounged on clouds overhead and stuffed themselves with sweetmeats.  Even a few earth ponies, covered in dust, took time off from their labors and drank sarsaparilla in the shade of the trees or the tents.

All fell hushed when horns blared and four barded white unicorns entered carrying a great palanquin, which they brought to a divan of fine cedar covered in purple cushions and overhung with a crimson pavilion embroidered in gold.  When the stallions laid the palanquin down, a footpony opened its door, and out stepped Princess Celestia herself.  She gazed around the grounds, smiled sweetly at her subjects, and then stretched her lithe body across the divan and raised a pair of opera glasses to her muzzle.  Two white pegasi, their golden barding glistening in the morning sun and their faces set with solemn frowns, took up their positions on either side of her.

Shortly thereafter, another stepped out of the palanquin as well—a purple unicorn filly, no older than twelve, who sat herself at the princess’s hind feet.

Feeling the eyes of the princess upon me, I was all a-tremble when it came my turn to break a lance.  When I stepped forward, the master of ceremonies whispered into my ear, asking if I wished to request a token from any mare watching the match.

“Has anypony caught your fancy, Sir Knight?” he murmured.

I swallowed, raised my head, set my jaw, and said, “One has indeed.”

“Then by all means, request a kerchief or a ribbon.  It is your right before the joust.”

I unstrapped my champron and pulled it from my head, letting my long mane, which I had pulled up into the champron’s ridge to form a crest, fall about my face and neck.  I walked as close to the pavilion as I dared and knelt.  “Your Royal Majesty,” I said, “I dedicate my lance to you.”

An angry murmur ran through the stands.

Princess Celestia lowered the opera glasses from her face.  “What do you desire?” she asked me.

“A token only.”

A small smile graced her fine mouth.  She gazed at me a moment, but then lifted one gilt hoof to her necklace and popped a diamond from its setting.  She passed it to the filly at her hooves and said, “Give this to that worthy knight.”

The filly did as she was told.  Silently, but with a mien of displeasure, she walked to me and dropped the stone into my outstretched hoof.  I loosened my peytral and placed the diamond in my breast.  Then, after I had bowed low, I returned my champron to my head and let my page strap me with a lance.

My heart was afire, and I ran upon my opponents like a pony gone mad.  My first match was against the viscount of Vlaamperd.  I shattered my first spear against his breast and knocked him from his hooves.  Second, I took on the duke of Oldenburg and broke three spears upon him—the last on his champron, a blow that left him senseless so that his pages carried him from the field.  After him, I battled the count of Pantainero.  We each broke three lances, but my last felled him to the earth, and I thereby took the match.

After every gallop and every shattered spear, I cantered back to my place and, out of the side of my eyepiece, glanced at the pavilion.  Princess Celestia had her chin raised and a smile on her lips.  Her long, flowing mane covered her right eye, but her left eye was fixed upon me, and a faint blush sat on her cheek like pink in the petal of a white rose.

I won the tournament, took the prize, and retired to my tent.  My page removed my barding and oiled my limbs.  My captain entered, nodded to me, and gave me terse congratulations.  I thanked him gravely and waited until he had turned his back before I smiled:  by besting all the titled dandies who had entered the joust, I had brought honor to the guard.

My page was packing my gear and I was preparing for the evening feast when the tent flap flew open and in walked that same twelve-year-old filly I had earlier seen with the princess.  She glared up at me from under a forelock cropped severely straight.  She snorted and said in a pouty voice, “I’m supposed to tell you—”

“Hold it,” I said.  “You walk into my tent unannounced, and you do not even do me the courtesy of sniffing my nose?  Surely Princess Celestia has taught you better manners than that.”

She paused, and the childish frown on her face grew deeper, but she nonetheless stuck out her muzzle toward me.

I bent my face to hers and breathed:  she smelled young, and she wore a simple perfume of lilac.  Of me she took only a few quick sniffs, making it plain that she had no desire to learn my scent.

Merely to irritate her, I lingered for a moment, but then I raised my head and asked, “Now, may I help you?  You want my autograph, perhaps?  Or have I displeased your mistress, who demands her token back?”

Her face colored.  “No.  Princess Celestia wants you at her table at the feast tonight.”

My heart beat a tattoo against my ribs, but I strove to keep my face impassive.  Bowing my head, I nickered, “I would be honored.”

“Okay then,” she said.  She turned around and headed out.

“Little filly!” I called.

She paused, her body halfway through the flap of the tent.  She turned around slowly and said, “I’m not a little filly.”

“You’re an ill-mannered thing, whatever you are, and if you don’t show some respect, I won’t send you back to your mistress without a thrashing.  Now, I do not wish you to go to her empty-hoofed.  Here.”  I reached for a bouquet sitting on a portable table and plucked from it a single rose.  “Take this to your mistress for me.”

She took the flower in her pastern, looked at it for a moment, and then looked at me.  Finally, she opened her mouth wide, bit off the flower, and cast the stem away.  She stuck out her tongue at me and scampered out through the flap.  I laughed uproariously.

That night, I sat at Princess Celestia’s side while all the combatants of the tourney and the princess’s honored guests made merry.  Sarsaparilla flowed freely, and the cider wenches never allowed me to empty my cup before they had filled it to the brim again.  Servants brought in dish after dish piled high with greens so fresh that the dew was still upon them.  Just as I imagined the guests could eat no more, a collective sigh of delight passed through the room as the head chef herself brought in a great platter heaped high with baked apples.  Even this was not enough, for after the apples had disappeared, three servants carried in an enormous pudding cunningly shaped to resemble a fully barded knight, his armor coated in lustre dust and bejeweled with candied fruits.

I was ravenously hungry, yet I only picked at my food, though I confess I drank overmuch.  I had smelled many mares in my lifetime, but the scent of the princess was almost enough to drive me into a frenzy.  For perfume, she wore only a light hint of sunflower that did nothing to mask her overwhelming femininity.  So close was I to her that her floating mane occasionally brushed against my shoulder, and, when it touched me, a shock ran throughout my frame.

I feared she might detect my trembling.  In her presence, and not only because of her great size, I felt like nothing more than a little foal.

The young filly with the violet coat sat on the princess’s other side.  Every once in a while, she leaned behind Celestia’s back and stuck out her tongue at me.  I merely grinned and winked in reply.

Midway through the feast, after the second course had been served, the princess leaned toward me and whispered, “Good Sir Knight, are you not eating, even after having so exerted yourself today?  Does the food displease you?”

I took a moment to find my voice and said, “The food pleases me very much, Your Majesty—”

“Is it the company, then?”

I bowed my head low.  “The company could not possibly please me more.”

“You are not ill, are you?”

“Let Your Majesty not be troubled on my account.  I am merely a soldier in Your Majesty’s service, a stallion of a rustic estate from an outer province, possessed of a sensitive digestion unused to the delicacies of Canterlot’s court.”

“To what is your digestion accustomed, Knight?”

“Plain grass, coarse bread, and hard cheese.”

She raised a hoof to signal a servant.  “You shall have them, and if they can produce such admirable displays of strength as you have shown today, I must make them the ration of all the royal guard.”

At her request, a servant brought me the simple repast I had described, and though the tumult of feelings I experienced in close proximity to Celestia had killed my appetite, courtesy obliged me to choke the food down.

The feast stretched long into the night.  After the meal was finished, when the guests were groaning and patting their bellies with their hooves, servants pushed the tables against the walls and cleared the floor for dancing.  The princess remained in her seat at the high table, and I would have gladly stayed by her side, but she turned to me with an amused smile and said, “Throughout our dinner, I could not help but notice that my protégé several times made eyes at you behind my back.”  She gestured to the young filly, who blushed.

Celestia’s amusement suggested that she knew what sort of faces the filly had really been making, but I took the cue that I was to play along.

“I am sure it is a passing fancy,” I said.  “Fillies her age are easily smitten with warriors who show their strength in the lists.”

“I understand that such sentiments can afflict even mares of greater age and sense,” Celestia replied.

“Of that I would not know, Your Majesty.”

“Do me a favor, Knight, and let the girl have one dance.  That will work it out of her system, I am sure, and guarantee that she behaves herself at table in the future.”

“I would be honored, Your Majesty.”

The filly’s face grew several shades redder.  She looked up at Celestia and opened her mouth, but, after a pause, snapped it shut again.

“Dance with the gentlecolt, won’t you, Twilight Sparkle?” Celestia said.

I rose from my seat, bowed to the princess, and held a hoof to the filly.  “Miss Sparkle?”

Giving me another glare, she placed her hoof in mine and stood.  I led her to the dance floor, where she proved to be a klutz:  I did my best to lead her in a waltz, but she tripped over her own hooves several times, and I was obliged to hold her upright.

“So you’re Her Majesty’s protégé, are you?” I asked.

“I hate you,” she answered.

I laughed.  “I take it that whatever lessons the princess is giving do not include etiquette.”

Twilight raised her chin, closed her eyes, and shook her head back and forth in that manner little girls have when bragging.  “She’s teaching me magic.  She says there’s not another unicorn in all of Equestria with my talent.”

“Mm hm.  And what do you do when you’re not studying magic?”

She opened her mouth, frowned, and paused.  “I . . . I read—”

I laughed again.  “Well, that explains it.  You clearly don’t dance.”

She clenched her teeth and made an exasperated growl.

The song ended and, holding her hoof, I led her back toward her seat.  “Had you been slightly more charming,” I said, “I might have stolen a kiss.”

“Then I’ll always be as uncharming around you as I can be.”

“And you’ll be so much the more amusing for it.”

She swiftly snatched her hoof from mine.

I spent the rest of that rapturous night at Her Majesty’s side, though I admit it would have been more gracious of me to have danced with some of the other ladies present.  The fȇte at last ended when Celestia rose from her seat; immediately, the musicians stayed their instruments and the dancers stopped.  Celestia bowed her head to all the guests and said, “My little ponies, it has been a fine day and a most wonderful night, but the time is coming soon when I must lower the moon and raise the sun, so I must now retire.  Please excuse me.”

The ponies bowed toward the high table.  The princess turned to me and offered me her hoof to kiss, and I know I trembled as I took it.  Then, with another nod to the guests, she left, flanked by her guards and with her young protégé trailing behind.

Not long after, I received the rank of lieutenant.  I continued to distinguish myself in the guard; the station did not please me much, but it at least delayed my placement in the country estate my sister had chosen for me, where I would live the life of the idle class.

It was around the time of my promotion that the chief gelding of the palace announced that Princess Celestia’s latest husband had died.  Such announcements, though they fortunately came only every several decades, caused no small embarrassment among the general population:  most, myself included, preferred to forget that Celestia reserved a stallion for herself somewhere in the labyrinthine interior of the royal palace.  We wanted to believe that she was unchanging, that she floated above the affairs of common life, and, most especially, that she was immune to the everyday desires and weaknesses of the flesh.  She never aged, and when she appeared before us, she appeared alone or flanked by soldiers; the thought that she craved companionship like any other pony was somehow repugnant.

Had she been an ordinary mare, of course, her weddings would have been no scandal:  there was no shame in a widow taking a new stallion, yet Celestia had been widowed times beyond counting, and none but an historian could list the number of husbands she had had.  She stood by all of them until the end, it was true, even after they had grown feeble, yet they were never long dead before she married again.  For one who had all the time in the world, Celestia did not take much time to mourn.

It was no more than three months after the announcement of the death that I received a call to the palace.  At first, I thought I was simply going on a tour of duty, as all the royal guards had to patrol the palace grounds at some point.  But when I arrived at what I believed to be my post, the captain there told me to make myself as neat as I could, for I had an audience with Her Majesty.

I combed out my mane, and then I removed my steel barding and replaced it with golden dress armor.  Trotting through the high gate, I presented myself to the chief gelding, a withered green pony with a monocle, who announced my presence to the princess.

I had never before seen Celestia’s audience chamber.  Lining the vast room were high stained-glass windows depicting the princess’s martial triumphs—the defeat of the draconequus figured prominently, as did the conquest of the North and the subduing of the griffons.  The princess herself sat on a high throne of gold, from the base of which flowed a fountain of water.  Light from the windows dappled her white coat.

“Approach,” she said to me.  Then, glancing at the two guards who stiffly flanked her throne, she added, “Leave us.”  They bowed their heads and quietly stepped behind tapestries, where they no doubt exited the chamber through hidden doors.

I dropped to my hocks and touched my horn to the ground.  “You called me, Your Majesty?”

“Look at me,” she said.

My throat felt tight, and I took a moment to compose my face before raising my head and forcing myself to meet her eyes.

Her expression was grave, and her eyebrows arched.  “Have you the diamond I gave you nine months since?”

“I have it here, Your Majesty.”  I reached to my neck and pulled from my peytral the cheap gold chain to which I had attached a setting that now held the princess’s gift.

She stood from her throne, descended, and took my necklace in a gilded hoof.  “The work is poor,” she said.

“I have only a poor soldier’s pay.”

“What?  Are you not gentle?”

“I am, but I’ll not receive my estate until I have finished my service to Your Majesty.”

“And when exactly will you finish serving me?”

“I shall always serve you if you allow it, but my time in your royal guard is to last four years.”

“I gave you this; would you give it back again?”

“If Your Majesty requires it.”

“Really?”  She dropped the necklace and turned her back on me.  “It is a trinket of no matter to you, then?”

“I would slay instantly the stallion who tried to seize it, but to you I would surrender it without a murmur.”

“Carelessness mixed with brashness, a bad concoction.  Nonetheless, your flattery pleases.  I propose placing this jewel in a finer setting so you don’t lose it.  A ring, perhaps?”

“A ring?”

“Yes.  A fine gold ring to adorn your horn.”

I opened my mouth, but could not find words to answer her.

She ascended to her throne, took her seat, and leaned her cheek on one hoof.  “Perhaps I could make a similar ring for my own horn.  What do you think?”

After a full minute, I bowed my head to the floor again.  “I think Your Majesty jests with me.”

“I jest about many things.  Not this.  Give me your honest answer, and know that there is no threat of punishment, no matter what you say.”

“I am always at your service.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Whatever my princess commands, I do.”

“Even worse!  Your princess commands you to speak your mind and hold back nothing.”

My head was light and my mouth dry.  I could feel myself swaying back and forth, and I wondered for a moment if I was about to faint.  I worked my tongue around my mouth, and my voice cracked when I finally said, “I believe a ring would be . . . most appropriate for that jewel.  A gold ring for a horn.  And I would be most honored if you wore one like it.”

She nodded.  “Continue in my guard, then.  Four years.”

“Four years,” I answered, bowing again.

When I returned to my quarters, I found on my bed a small box tied with a bow.  Inside was a crystal jar of perfume.  I sniffed it and found it to be the scent of the sunflower blended with musk:  I immediately anointed my mane with it, for it would say to anypony who took my scent that I belonged to the princess of the sun.

Those four years passed like a dream.

Princess Celestia often presided over lavish weddings, but, because she was sensitive of scandalizing the ponies, her own weddings were small, private affairs.  Banns were published as discreetly as possible, the chief gelding officiated, and a few palace servants acted as witnesses.

We had no reception, but instead retired to a private dinner after the ceremony.  When we had sat down together and gazed across the candlelit table into each other’s eyes, she removed her tiara from her head and her golden bell boots from her feet, and she began to talk.

To my disconcertment, her conversation held none of the dignity, majesty, nor mystery it had had on our earlier encounters.  She spoke candidly of the troubles of her office, of negotiations between bickering nobles, of political finagling with various vassal states and competing empires, of bothersome intrigues in her court, and—most surprisingly—of the exhaustion she experienced from raising and lowering the sun and moon day after day.  She was immortal, and her beauty surpassed that of any other pony, yet in private, she spoke just like a typical mare.

After we had supped, we walked together down the long, narrow hallway that connected the main part of the palace to the stallions’ quarters.  There, we made our way to the bower that was to be my new home for the rest of my life.  My heart pounded hard in my chest, and I again had that uncomfortable feeling that I was but a foal beside her:  indeed, when we stood together on our nuptial mat, I fumbled like a schoolcolt as, wondering at her great size, I attempted to caress her.

No doubt sensing my unease, she gestured wordlessly toward the corner, where stood a stool her husbands apparently used.  I retrieved it, though I could not help but feel that there was something awkward and undignified in the proceeding.

After I had performed my marital duty, Celestia pulled me into the large featherbed, where she soon fell into a deep slumber.  She lay on her belly with her legs folded beneath and her chin resting on a pillow.  In her sleep, her misty hair solidified, and its bright colors faded to a soft pink like the color of the clouds before dawn.  Her wings hung loosely; one of them she had draped across my barrel, and it trembled as she breathed, its feathers rustling softly against my fur.

This night had brought to fruition all my hopes and dreams:  I had married an immortal who moved the heavens, and I would be hers until death—mine—did us part.  This was everything I had thought I wanted, yet already on my wedding night, I had discovered that the ethereal princess whom I had loved was in reality just a simple pony with simple wants and needs.  The aura of mystery that had once surrounded her had already dissipated, and I found lying beside me nothing but an ordinary mare who happened to be ridiculously powerful and large.

I did not realize it until later, but I believe it was at that moment that I began to despise her.