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"Including kidnapping helpless girls?"
Vexor made an indignant noise. "Spoiled princesses whose families grow fat off the backbreaking toil of
their peasants "
"I AM NOT FAT."
"Not yet," he said, eyeing me coldly.
"No wonder everyone hates you," I muttered. "I've heard peasant mothers keep their children in line by
threatening them that if they misbehave, Vexor will get them."
This appeared, inexplicably, to enrage him. "What?" he sputtered. "Why, that's that's outrageous!"
I blinked at him. "It is?"
With a grunt, he stalked away from me, over to the door. Which by the way, is double-planked oak
with iron fittings. I kicked it a whole bunch of times the first day I was here and I didn't even make a
dent. "I bid you good day, Princess."
"Well, all right, but I don't see what you're upset about, I really don't."
He paused for a moment, staring at the door. "No," he said finally. "You wouldn't."
* * *
Have discovered that if I wedge myself right into the window frame I can see down into the courtyard
where the minions are having their practice maneuvers. Is just like watching the soldiers practice at home,
except that here they keep their helmets on all the time, probably because of being so evil and unsightly
and all that. I do enjoy watching the practice though. I used to watch the soldiers all the time at home until
Father said it wasn't proper for a princess to hang about where men were getting all sweaty, especially
not when they should be attending to theirowntraining.
* * *
I have started to be able to tell the minions apart by number of stripes on their helmets. There's a little
one I'm quite fond of; the other ones are always beating him in single combat during the practice sessions
but he always gets up gamely and carries on. I've started calling him Tiny, because he's the smallest and
hasn't got any stripes at all. Today he had to fight an absolutely monstrous brute in a helmet with horns on
it.
I got so carried away watching that I started shouting encouragement down to him: "Right, parryright!
Can't you see he knows you always attack from the left?" They all jumped about six feet in the air and
stared up, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. A couple of them pushed their helmets
back. Very disappointing, really, everyone always said that Vexor's army was made up of red-eyed
demon fiends, but they looked ordinary enough to me. I ducked right down out of the window before
they saw me.
* * *
Damn and blast. Vexor came stomping by in a complete strop. "I'll thank you not to shout at my
soldiers!" he ranted, clomping up and down in my cell in his great big iron-studded boots. "Boris almost
got his ear taken off thanks to you!"
I wondered if Boris was Tiny, or the one in the spiky headgear. "They were doing it all wrong," I said
sulkily.
Today his hood had slipped back. I could see his eyes. They were dark and flashing with rage. "And
how would you know?" he demanded. "What training haveyougot? Attack needlepoint? Assault with a
deadly spool? Killer embroidery?"
"It is apparent to me," I said coolly, "that you have some very outmoded views of what it means to be a
princess!"
Vexor cut me off with a wave of his hand. "And I suppose that's why you're still here, waiting to be
rescued?" he sneered.
"Well, it would be rude to Father if I just left," I said reasonably, "after all that trouble finding a
champion."
"You are deluded," he said, quite peevishly.
"At least I know what proper weapons training looks like," I said. "If you don't arrange your troops with
some gaps in the front lines, there's no way the secondary forces can move up while the first line of
defense retreats."
Vexor stared at me and for a brief moment I thought he was going to ask me something else. But instead
he just grunted. "Don't talk of matters of which you know nothing," he snarled, and clanked away.
* * *
Rained all the past three days and so there was no practice. Finally the sun came out a bit this afternoon,
and when I climbed up on the windowsill I nearly got the shock of my life. Vexor was out there on the
greensward, looking all dark and spindly in the sunlight, and there were the troops marching withgaps in
their formations.I couldn't believe it! He'd completely nicked my idea,aftertelling me I didn't know what I
was talking about!
I almost yelled "Oi!" down at him when I realized, with a sobering sort of heavy feeling in my stomach,
that I'd just given perfectly good battle advice to the sworn enemy of the High King, the most evil wizard
in the entire kingdom. Father was right, I need to think before I talk. I crawled down from the windowsill
feeling chastened indeed.
* * *
Am refusing to watch the practices. Too hard not to shout advice down. I tried ducking out of sight
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