3 Chapter 3

"Maybe it's something really horrible, something really gross, or maybe you don't have one. Maybe you're a fraud without an enchantment, and you will never be married, never." Anaeth smiled sweetly, "Well, we're waiting." Alexandra felt the silence grow cold and hard. She could feel the stares boring into her soul, her unenchanted soul, and she burst into tears.

Later she would write home and get back a distant letter from her mother saying it was nothing to worry about, and anyhow she and the King were working on a solution. Alexandra wept again when she got the letter from her mother, then she very carefully burned the letter and dried her eyes. If she was never to be married she would need to rule the kingdom herself. The little girl determined to be the best ruler in the world. She never again wept in front of the other children, no matter how Princess Anaeth taunted her. But she did make a calendar and start counting the 2554 days until the very beautiful and very cruel Princess Anaeth would prick herself on a golden spindle and fall into an enchanted sleep and out of Alexandra's life.

* * * * *

Alexandra looked at the two families before her again, carefully keeping her face empty of feeling. They, in turn, looked at her with almost equal parts of hope and despair, and at each other with loathing. The princess had to make judgment on their case since it was her week to be "Duke" of these people's province of the School kingdom. The case was hopelessly complicated. Both families had been squabbling over the same tiny piece of land for generations. It was high in the hills above their village, and was useless for farming, yet it had a spring which not only gave the best water in the area, but on certain nights of a full moon had magical properties of healing. This magic spring had made first one and then the other of the families before her rich. One family or the other had brought the case to Student Court for a ruling, but no ruling had satisfied either the plaintive or the markers. Just last week, in fact, the Princess Anaeth had ruled that both the families should be exiled and the plot of land be turned over to the Duchy for exploitation. The markers had overruled the judgment, but Alexandra could understand both the hope and despair in the petitioners' faces. The whole process was an exercise to teach the students effective governance, yet the student courts were notoriously ineffective. Judgments were overturned as often as they were upheld, and too often, even when the student's judgments were upheld, they were overly simple or hideously complex. As the people before her explained yet again why the land should be the exclusive property of their family, she went over in her mind what other students had ruled on the case. Some had tried splitting the income from the spring, some had awarded it to one family or another, some had tried like Princess Anaeth to take possession of the spring for the government; others had even tried to have the spring blocked up. Alexandra was disgusted with the whole thing. The arguments died out as the petitioners saw the look on her face. Hope was replaced by despair and fear.

"You people disgust me. For how many years have you been coming before this court asking us to decide whose greed should prevail? For decades, this spring and its magic has split your town. Your feud has poisoned the whole province. Why should you continue to profit from some chance of fate?" She could hear the pens of the markers scratching and the restlessness of the crowd. Students were supposed to make rulings, not commentary. She was going to lose marks, and that was the problem: every student had ruled on the basis of marks rather than the needs of the committee. "Hear my ruling." She waited until the rustling of the crowd stopped. "Hear my ruling. It is my opinion that both your families have profited long enough from the healing magic of the spring. From this day, it is not lawful in this kingdom to charge for magic which is the result of chance ownership of land or water, or any magic which does not arise from a person's own strength or knowledge. The costs of bringing this case are to be split equally between both parties. In addition, both families will bear the cost equally of making the spring available to those who need its healing. You will not charge for access or accommodation during the period in which the spring is a healing spring. This is my judgment." Alexandra stood up signaling the session was ended, yet both families pushed forward to try to argue further. The markers were scratching away, and the crowd buzzed. No student had ever ruled so generally from a specific case; especially not on such an important issue. The school soldiers cleared the people from the square and Alexandra sat down again and waited for the comments from the markers. They didn't take long.

"An unusual ruling, Princess. What do you think the implications of your ruling will be?"