Chapter One

A Very Unusual Kingdom

Being spoiled rotten is kind of central to the job description of princesses, at least according to our protagonist at the outset of our tale. That would be the lovely blonde Princess Natalie. She had always been the apple of her doting mother and father’s eyes, having been born late in their lives after they had given up all hope of offspring to inherit their small kingdom. That blessed land was safely tucked into impregnable mountains surrounding a large lush valley that provided ample sustenance for its stable healthy population. These unusually attractive and vibrant folks enjoyed healthy happy lives completely sheltered for many generations from the wars that decimated their less geographically protected neighbors. For well over a thousand years, no invader had succeeded in conquering Absynthia, whose high passes were guarded by massive fortresses. The only other avenue for invaders was the cliff-bound mighty river Mindolluin, which was secured by a massive chain that could block all water-borne interlopers.

As a result of these accidents of history and geography, the fortunes that Absynthia’s neighbors spent on their constant wars could be diverted towards more productive uses in the secure and isolated mountain kingdom. The mountains were riddled with highly productive mines that yielded a bounty of gold, silver, platinum, and gems, along with high quality iron ore that produced the best steel in the world. As well, their shoulders supported large herds of sheep, goats, and cattle, such that the kingdom exported both meat and fiber on great barges down the river. The farms in the central valley yielded bumper crops of all manner of fruits and vegetables and grains. Anything that the kingdom didn’t produce it could readily trade for with its surpluses of precious metals or its highest quality manufactured goods. It had the best roads, the grandest and most amply endowed schools and universities, the most thriving marketplaces, and the most beautiful, cheerful people. Crime was vanishingly rare, perhaps due at least in part to the very well-established culture of on-the-spot no nonsense corporal punishment for any and all misbehavior.

Throughout the picturesque kingdom, no one would be in the slightest surprised to see a misbehaving citizen (almost always female) taken over a husband’s or other legitimate authority’s knee even in the most public of settings if discipline was warranted. And it was routine for approving crowds to pause in the street as skirts were raised and smallclothes lowered. The entire culture believed it was salutary to bare the part of any miscreant’s anatomy that all agreed was created by the Holy God for just the purpose to which it was perfectly designed to be put: the reception of a good sound spanking.

The approving crowd would cheerfully comment and applaud, or offer advice if a miscreant was less than cooperative with his or her discipline, as a firm authoritarian hand was applied vigorously to squirming buttocks. The recipients of such attentions responded differently to their plight depending on gender, according to the cultural requirements enforced in the minds of all men and women since time immemorial. Males were trained to endure their punishments stoically, and whining or complaining, let alone unseemly struggling, were uniformly rewarded with additional hind end pain (and its accompanying public embarrassment). It was commonly accepted wisdom that th