This is a part of a larger story I wrote some time ago that didn’t get published. Edited for brevity.
In a kingdom there lived a young woman named Eleanor. She was the youngest of three children in a noble family, but as a female she only was permitted to hunt while her two brothers were taught swordsmanship and battle tactics. As the lone girl, she was tasked with learning to run the castle and to understand it’s day to day operation.
She was bored most of the time, though she excelled at understanding how the castle ran. She watched as lovers snuck out to the surrounding forest, she watched how the smugglers brought in their wares. Any absences were easily explained to her widowed father about some female issue or the other, which of course he didn’t want to hear about.
When news of an impending war reached their lands, Eleanor’s family prepared to leave. Her father and two brothers donned their armor, ready to defend their kingdom. Eleanor pleaded with her father to go with them, but her father insisted that someone needed to stay behind to manage the castle. The war would be far away, he said, and the castle had practical things to deal with. Reluctantly, she agreed, feeling a mix of frustration and disappointment.
Days turned into weeks, and Eleanor ran the castle with efficiency. The ravens were silent and brought no word, so she only found things out from traders. Without her father and brothers around, she spent her evenings practicing with a sword in secret, driven by the feel of her body as it danced. She wasn’t very good since she had no one to train with, but it helped her focus and gave her some breaks from boredom. She was very talented with the bow, and often found spots where she could hunt for the kitchen. Every time she dropped meat off at the kitchen, she quietly held a finger to her lips, and the cooks nodded and quietly smiled.
Things were running smoothly at the castle with her father and brothers gone, with their odd demands no longer pressing on the men and women of the castle. People were becoming used to the way things were, and since things were running so smoothly she was able to practice more, to observe more, and to quietly adjust things as needed without causing too much of an issue with anyone.
Months passed, and there was no word on the war. A lookout spotted an enemy army advancing towards the castle. The kingdom’s main forces were away, engaged in a distant battle, leaving the castle vulnerable. There was some panic, but Eleanor remained calm and confidently pulled in hunters to man the walls. She called in the smugglers one by one, making them aware she knew what they had been doing and enlisting them in the effort. A few were more difficult than others, but the fact that she had let them do their trade without interfering swayed them.
The smugglers had stockpiles of oil and weapons. As a child she had observed a barrel of oil explode and recalled her father telling her brothers that in war those barrels could be set with bits of metal around them so that when they exploded, shrapnel would not just hurt the enemy, but could also destroy their morale.
They would be planning a siege, she knew, so she sent barrels of oil dipped in wax, with nails embedded in the wax, in a clearing where the soldiers would likely camp. It was convenient. Her father had maintained it as a place to hold tournaments and festivals, but he had also heard him say that it was a good spot for an enemy to camp because of it. He’d made sure there was chopped wood nearby to encourage that because if you have an enemy camped outside your castle, as he told his sons, it’s best to have them where you want them.
And so she had barrels strategically hidden up in the trees. She had spare hooded candles near the fuses, and when they were just close enough, she had the candles lit. It would be about 3 hours before they went off, and she made a big show of running around on the parapets looking frantic. She wore no armor, carried no sword, but her bow was never far away.
The enemy showed up, flying their banners, and seeing the castle doors closed, they settled in for the night, exactly where her father had kept clear. A few hours later, there were explosions and screams of wounded men. Upset horses could be heard galloping off into the night.
As dawn broke, the remains of the enemy stood just out of bow shot along the walls. They looked tired, some were bandaged, and by the initial tally they were missing one third of their original numbers. It had not been enough to stop them, but it had been enough to thin their numbers. They only outnumbered those in the castle that could hold bows by two to one. They didn’t stand much of a chance if they attacked, but they could maintain a siege by cutting off supplies.
The smugglers, though, had been convinced with the smile of a princess and a bit of coin to open their stores to the castle. Winter was here, spring months away. They could hold out longer than the enemy thought. They were trained for war, not running a castle. That was the job of the female nobility and they didn’t think to bring any women with them.
Eleanor would outlast them, harrying them at night when they got comfortable by raining arrows on their tents and destroying their food stores. Every day, she smiled from the parapet, waving at the enemy.
They left eventually, with no supplies. They would tell exaggerated stories of the nights her people harried them, because what army would want to be bested by a princess? She was clearly a witch, her father and brothers long gone in a war that no one remembers.
Stories of her spread, the Smiling Witch-Queen Eleanor, and no one bothered her castle in her lifetime.
