Princess Delia’s 18th birthday was not celebrated the way her 17th birthday had. Or her 16th, or 15th, all the way back to when she was old enough to remember celebrating birthdays. On those occasions, the gates of her father’s castle had been thrown open, to admit guests from far and wide. There would be a long festival day of song and dance, displays of skill and grace, and then grand feast in the evening followed by a long ball lasting well into the night.
Today, though, the castle gates were shut fast. No guests were allowed in. There would be no festival, no ball and probably only a very meager feast. Guards prowled the walls, tensely. In the throne room, the King and Queen paced anxiously, while the court wizards and magicians they had hired huddled together, murmuring spells. And Princess Delia was practically a prisoner, all alone, in her chambers.
The reason for this was the threat of the evil Witch: Grimalda the black. In revenge for Delia’s father imprisoning her long ago, the witch had sworn to return, to steal his firstborn daughter, on the day of her 18th birthday and carry her off to serve the witch as her slave the rest of her days. Until this promised day was passed, and the witch’s threat proved baseless, no one in the castle would celebrate anything.
“It’s so unfair!” Delia muttered, throwing herself onto the bed. She groaned as she sank into the soft silken pillows. “Just because father threw a stupid old woman in jail all those years ago...does it mean they had to ruin my birthday?”
After a few moments lying on the comfortable bed and wallowing her self pity, the Princess got back up to resume her pacing of the bedchamber. She was all by herself, in her well furnished room. No one was allowed into the Princess’ rooms, of course. Everyone knew witches could assume all sorts of shapes and forms.
“Well, at least I still got presents.” She said, walking over to the ornately carved hardwood table. The top was piled high with gaily colored boxes and packages sent by admirers and well wishers from across the kingdom and beyond, and there were more beyond, she knew. The fine cheeses, smoked hams and other simple offerings sent by the peasants in honor of their beloved princess were already in the larder, likely to be part of the feast, to be held once the threat of the evil witch was judged passed. The unicorn sent by the Fey Court was already in the stables. The sixteen slave girls sent by the Sultan of Shem’s eldest son had been added to the household staff and were even now busy about their duties.
Idly, Princess Delia grabbed one of the boxes from the top of the pile. It was a quaint little thing, a small wooden box, tied with a silk ribbon in a bow. “Probably jewelry.” Delia thought, “From one of the petty Princes.” There were plenty of those, sons of lesser kings, dukes and earls who might aspire to win the hand of the fair Princess, but lacked the funds to properly woo her with gifts.
“What’s this?” She says with a start, after undoing the ribbon and opening the box. Sure enough, inside was a something metal one wore, but it was certainly not like any jewelry she’d ever been given. Inside the box was a slave collar, made of brightly polished steel and decorated, here and there, with bits of gold and silver, including a strange insignia at the front, where the two halves joined with a large, round locking mechanism. Aside from the odd design, which seemed to incorporate a crescent and several odd runes, it was almost identical to the same collars her father’s slaves wore around the castle.
“Who would send this to a Princess for her birthday?” Delia wondered. She looked at the now empty box and the ribbon but there was no name or making. “How odd?” She said, idly playing with the collar, sliding the two sides back and forth on the smoothly oiled hinge. All of a sudden she was seized with an uncontrollable urge to see how it felt on her and in one movement raised the collar to her neck. The two halves slid easily around her pale, slender throat and met.
“click!”
“oh dear!” Delia said. She’d merely intended to loosely hold the two sides of the collar in place, to get an idea of what it would feel like to wear such a collar, but as she did, the two halves had slid together so easily, before she knew it, one had slid into the other, activating the locking mechanism.
For a moment, Delia was near a panic, wondering how she would get out of this. It would certainly be embarrassing enough to be found wearing such a collar. “Surely there must be a key!” She thought, turning back to the box, but it remained empty as before.
“Maybe another box?” She returned her gaze to the table. Sure enough, on the table were several more presents like the first, plain boxes tied with ribbons. No name or marks showing who they’d come from. The second one she opened proved to contain a set of handcuffs and a matching set of leg irons. Also, to her relief, several metal keys on a small ring.
For a moment, Delia was about to grab the key ring and remove the collar at once, but once she knew that it was possible to take the collar off, her earlier curiosity returned, inflamed by the sets of shackles now before her. Again, she just had to know how it would feel to have the heavy weight of the steel weighing her movement’s down, the chains limiting her range of motion. Before she knew it, she’d snapped both sets onto her hands and feet.
“I wonder how I look?” She wondered and started to cross the room to the full length mirror she had over there. Almost immediately, she almost stumbled, unused to the short steps the ankle fetters limited her to. She had to practically shuffle slowly across the floor, but eventually she made it. “Ah! The picture of a meek and humble slave girl.” She thought, admiring her figure in the mirror, wearing the collar and shackles.
Only, on second thought, it really did look odd, wearing those restraints while in the fine, frilled gown she’d been given by her parents for her birthday. At this, she had another mischievous idea. After all, no one was allowed to come in, right? She shuffled back across the room to the table of presents and found the ring of keys. It took some time to find the right two keys, but eventually she got the shackles off.
Emboldened by the proof that she could get free whenever she wanted, Delia quickly took off her princess gown, stripping naked. Before putting the shackles on, she opened the next of the odd presents and was no longer quite so surprised to find it had a dress as well, though this one was of plain, coarse brown sack cloth and, when she’d put it on, barely came down below her waist, nor, once she’d tied the crude rope belt around her waist, did it do much good covering her perfect round breasts.
Still, once she’d slipped the shackles back on and hobbled once more across the room to the mirror, she was delighted by the look. “Imagine if one were to see me around the castle, scrubbing floors or emptying chamber pots?” She thought posing for herself in the mirror. “You’d never suspect I was secretly the Princess?” She held the fantasy for a moment longer, before she had to admit it wouldn’t work. Everyone in the castle, everyone in the nearby village, knew the face of the Princess. A sack dress and some chains wouldn’t be enough to hide that.
She was about to unlock the shackles and collar and get back into her party dress and forget the whole thing, when she saw there was one package left. Hurriedly she opened it and to her delight, inside was a leather hood, of the sort her father often used to punish slave girls who talked back. “No one would recognize me wearing this for sure!” She thought. Taking the hood out, she slipped it on. She was a bit surprised, and not so pleasantly, to find the inside of the hood incorporated a stiff leather plug which, once the hood was on straight, slid inside her mouth, pressing down on her tongue and silencing her quite effectively. She hadn’t known that from seeing some of the slaves at work around the castle, though the odd noises they made while working now made a lot more sense…
“I’ll just slip out of the castle and go for a little walk around the grounds...” She thought, putting the chains back on. She dropped the keys down her dress, where she’d be able to get them. “Or maybe down to the village?” The peasants would still be celebrating the Princess’ birthday, after all. No witch was going to deprive them of an excuse to forgo work and make merry.
The thought of the witch and her threat gave the Princess a pause, but she quickly pushed it down again. After all, even if that wicked old crone was skulking about, she’d never be able to recognize her intended victim like that! Delia started to the door, then had a thought and grabbed her chamber pot from under her bed, so she’d have an excuse. She got the door open and slipped out, shuffling down the halls.
Quickly, she found walking about as a slave girl was far different from being a Princess. She was used to everyone she met showing deference to her station and her beauty. Here, the first person she ran into, one of the stewards, sharply growled at her to show some respect to her betters. “No wonder the King has you in that hood. That’ll teach you manners!” Even after she figured how to bow to each person as she passed, Delia was surprised at the way the men of the castle eyes her shapley figure in the revealing slave’s dress. A few even went much further then that, little suspecting if the King ever found out, they’d be in for a long stay in the oubliette. But for the moment all of it was quite the novelty to the sheltered Princess and she was enjoying it, especially the attentions she’d never gotten as a Princess…
Delia made her way out of the keep, where the royal family had their quarters, into the rest of the castle. The main gate was closed, the draw bridge raised and the portcullis lowered, but there was a small side gate still open. Threat or no threat, provisions needed to be brought into the castle and garbage taken out. There was a line of servants and slaves coming and going through the door. Delia slid in place between two other slave girls. They eyed her suspiciously; unlike everyone else, who merely saw a girl in a collar and chains, they could see she wasn’t really a cowed, humbled slave, but luckily they said nothing, at least partially because one girl was hooded like Delia while the other had a wooden bit fastened between her teeth.
Outside the gate, Delia slipped away from the rest of the servants, trying to figure her move from there. There was a small side bridge across the moat to serve the gate. She crossed over, ditching the chamber pot along the way.
“I’ll just slip into the woods, out of sight...” She thought to herself, full of confidence. “Take out the keys, remove the shackles and hood and head down to the village to join the celebration.” She fondly imagined the welcome she was sure the peasants would give their beloved Princess when she deigned to visit their humble merriment.
The first part of her plan was easy enough and soon she had a screen of trees between her and the castle and any watching eyes. Fishing the keys out of her dress was somewhat more awkward and left the skimpy dress in even more disarray then before, but it too was accomplished. As for the third step, of removing the shackles, she’d just succeeded in fitting the correct key to her right wrist cuff and opened it, when all of a sudden, a figure leapt out from hiding in the underbrush.
Delia’s eyes went wide. The figure was a woman, tall and fair with long black hair. She had on a long black dress and a pointed hat on her head. Most alarm though, her skin was a terrible shade of dark green. The witch Grimalda!
Terrified, Delia was petrified in place. Before she could recover from her shock enough to resist, the witch had grabbed the open cuff, dangling from the Princess’ left hand. In one swift motion, the witch grabbed her right hand, turning Delia around and yanking both of the younger girl’s arms behind her back. The witch slapped the cuff to Delia’s right wrist, closing the shackle tight.
While Delia struggled, frantically against the unyielding steel bands locking her wrists behind her back, the witch stooped and grabbed the ring of keys where they had fallen. “I see you enjoyed the presents I sent you, my pretty!” She cackled gleefully. “Of course, I knew you would. I put my best charm spells on them so you wouldn’t be able to resist trying them on.”
From her long black dress, the witch pulled out a length of cord. Delia sobbed as it was tied off to the front of her collar. Playing slave girl was no longer so fun, not when she couldn’t stop whenever she wanted to. Not when she wasn’t playing anymore, but was going to be a slave for real.
“I promised them I would have you, my pretty! And I always keep my promises. Now come along! I’ve a warm welcome prepared for you back at my home, and your home now to!” The witch turned, giving the rope lead a harsh tug. Fight as she may, Delia had no choice but to follow after her new Mistress...