CHRISTINA'S CHOICE

The Clever Princess and Christina Vasa. Christina Vasa as the Clever Princess (not Barbara Gordon, Anna Milton, Mary Winchester, Sue Storm-Richards...) So I thought. Take forth your handkerchiefs and prepare for a good story I wrote a couple of years ago (historical fiction based on real events, fairytale retelling focused on secondary characters, my own Swedish background and family history included). This story was originally in Spanish, so I have translated it into English.

1)
Once upon a time, there was a long and great war. And there were two people whose lives were branded by the conflict.
"Christina..."
The young girl wiped her brow clean with her right hand, for she had been riding all morning long. Casting off her cavalier hat, she untied her strawberry blond ponytail in her bedchamber. She had come of age indeed, but not all maidens in the world had inherited a kingdom and a war (though the front was leagues away, south of the royal court). A kingdom to rule and a war to stop.
Sitting before a modest firwood table, Christina started to read the electors' letters, as she sucked her feather quill. Some of the handwritings were hard to understand, yet she could figure out, grosso modo, the most relevant facts. For it was a matter of life or death: the sooner they came to terms with each other down in Westphalia, the better.
But there were no letters from Charles. Had he fallen? Perchance not. If that were the case, she would already had received the condolences. Like the day of her sixth birthday.
It was a cozy winter evening. Christina was in the same place, the great hall at Stegeborg, opening her gifts with the Wittelsbachs, the ones who raised her (for both her birth parents had left for the war front shortly after she had come to the world). One book in particular was dedicated to her: The Daring Feats of the Great Gustavus Adolphus, whose daughter he was. She couldn't have been happier or more innocent. And right then, suddenly, Aunt Catherine had her turn over to the last pages: the battle of Lützen, the dearly bought victory, the military funeral.
Christina's steel-blue eyes let go of a few tears. So early in her life did she cease to be a child. Then, a stern and aged stranger in black made an entrance. Chancellor Oxenstierna began to discuss the most relevant matters with John and Catherine: the education of the new girl queen, his own duties as regent, and the way the child should be prepared for her reign. Then came foreign tutors, ponies, fencing lessons, physical exercises, deer hunts, foreign languages, literary classics (the Aeneid, the Metamorphoses, the Gallic Wars...). She would be reared both as a warrior and a scholar, as if she had been a boy, together with Charles of Wittelsbach. The bonds between them hadn't tightened that early: being an only child, Christina always saw Charles and his sisters as good friends. But she usually told him, to tease him, that they were betrothed to each other.
Betrothed? And he still believed so! And no letters written by Charles had arrived from the German Empire... Could he have committed suicide?
Thrice were they parted by others. The first time, he went forth to study a certain degree at Uppsala University, when he was thirteen or fourteen summers old. The second time, Herr Oxenstierna had encouraged him to take the Grand Tour across Flanders and France: Charles spent three years away from home, and, upon going forth, he hadn't grown that dark stubble on his upper lip yet. The third time, he had already returned to Stegeborg from the Grand Tour with those little strands of raven hair for a moustache. The war kept raging on.
Christina herself, like Charles, had been born in the heat of the armed conflict that changed their lives forever.

Like he always had done at that time of year, Herr Oxenstierna had dropped by his homelands before returning to the war front, and he discussed the neverending war with the young girl. The silver streaks that once stood out had spread throughout his goatee, his eyebrows, and the rest of his hair. After all, a decade had passed since that evening's condolences.
The chancellor wanted to discuss matters of vital importance: the Austrian headquarters had received Swedish military and state secrets, and his suspicions were set on John of Wittelsbach, a foreigner and a Calvinist. The Count of Pfalz, married to Gustavus Adolphus's sister, had fled with her to Sweden after losing his lands and privileges at the start of the war. Charles had been born at Stegeborg, four years before Christina, but he had never felt like a foreigner or like an outsider. His father charged with treason? That was a name to be cleared, and he was ready to wash the Wittelsbach family name clean with blood if necessary.
And thus, he left for the third time, perchance never to return. The dark youth had received, from Christina, a fair lock from her ponytail and the command of the whole Swedish Army (it shouldn't be less, for perhaps, as a strategist, he could be the successor of the Great Gustavus Adolphus).
And years went by. The young princess who soon would be queen became aware of the fact that peace had to be signed as early as possible. If not, perhaps the young general wouldn't return alive. Actually, she didn't feel attracted to him, or to any other person, after her sexual awakening: after all, she was an intellectual, and a tomboy as well, and little did she care for her appearance or for fashion. Yet she liked him after all: only in conversation, riding together, drawing steel against each other. No sexual attraction or interest in wealth, just an intellectual relationship. Hence the importance of all that peace making.
"You should marry", they had told her at the table for the umpteenth time. She had been adressed by more than one of the noblemen seated beside her. Christina replied with a glare of her blue eyes, cold as ice and hard as steel, that said many things without a single word. She blushed and stood up, violently hitting the table with both her hands.

2)
They had summoned her to Tre Kronor. Though she preferred Stegeborg, she had to present herself at court to carry on some procedures. And also to visit the Chancellor, whose post she had decided to fill after the last farewell to Oxenstierna with a dashing gallant of Wallonian descent, Magnus de la Gardie.
She still felt restless at the deathbed of a gentleman in his seventies, who already saw before him the end of a lifetime and that of a regency. He had always been by Christina's side, from the very day he had arranged her parents' marriage. The Chancellor was strangely pale, and he could hardly breathe.
"Marry, Christina. Choose your husband..."
Then, he closed his eyes and became forever silent.
Once more, she burst into tears, which she quite rarely did.

3)
In a kingdom in the North there once lived a young princess so clever that she read all the newspapers and every book in the known world: partly due to her fondness of strange nations, partly because she had to stop a war that had already claimed enough lives. Her late regent and her other loved ones had sung to her always the same old song: "Why shouldn't you marry?"
Thus, shortly after she had ascended the throne, she received letters from southern lands, messages that peace was soon to be signed. If she wished for a bridegroom, he should not only be dashing (for that would be so tiresome!), but able to understand her as well. And thus, she assembled all of her court ladies together, and they were astonished upon that decision.
When the treaty was signed, she had proclamations printed and exported, and sent to the ends of the Habsburg Empire, stating that every well-favoured youth was free to visit Her Majesty (either at the royal court, at Tre Kronor, or at Stegeborg, her childhood estate) and speak with her, and those who displayed their wit were to make themselves feel quite at home, but the one who spoke best would be chosen as confident for Her Majesty ("perhaps as husband for her", countless suitors thought).
Thus, gallants came in crowds, from as far south as Prague and Constance, but none of was able to meet the requirement on the first or on the second day of the peace celebrations. They all could speak very well in a lecture hall, or on the street, or even by a campfire... but when they entered the royal residences, surrounded by gilded plasterwork, and rose-­red tapestries, and great, silver mirrors that glowed with the light of a thousand candles, and saw the counts and barons in all their finery, and the guards in blue and silver uniforms, they grew nervous, and they were stunned.
And, once before the throne, they could do nothing but repeat, like Echo, the last thing the young queen had said. And thus she grew bored with each man, and sent them all away, one by one.
On the third day, a dashing person came to Stegeborg on foot, without horse or carriage, with long raven hair and a lieutenant's or ensign's uniform (a rather worn and torn one, but nevertheless colourful and beautiful). When he passed through the palace gates, he saw the guards in their silver and blue uniforms, and the nobles in all their splendour, but was not the least embarrassed, though his own clothes were faded and worn. The halls were dazzling with light. State councillors and ambassadors walked around barefooted, wearing satin slippers. It was enough to distract the most brilliant orator. But the officer, though his worn boots creaked, didn't even flinch.
He went boldly up to the princess herself, who was seated on her throne, and all the ladies of the court were present with their maids, and all the counts and barons and knights with their servants; and every one of them was dressed so finely that they shone as brightly as the mirrors. They were placed around the throne according to their station: the nearer they were to the door, the lower was their rank and the prouder their look. Even the servants wore cloth of gold, and they were all so proud that they would not even look at him, because he had come to the palace with ink on his fingers. He was quite solemn and not at all afraid, free, lively and agreeable... and said he had not come to woo the princess, but to hear her wisdom; and he was as pleased with her as she was with him.
They looked at each other for a while, his eyes of black fixed on her eyes of blue. They recognized each other. And they embraced.
"Charles! You're alive!"
"Christina! How come you're wearing a gown?"
"You see...", she stroked her yellow satin skirt. "Today is not a usual day."
Both told each other everything they couldn't have told each other. He had been to Prague and seen there halls more elegant than those of his childhood, and thus, he had got used to the decadent elegance of the Baroque. She had stayed in Sweden due to affairs of state. The war that branded their lives had lasted for thirty years.

4)
The first ray of sunlight in one of those long summer days filtered itself through the curtains that covered her white lily-bed. A blond young girl with rather tangled hair, dressed still in her nightgown, stood up to take up a book from a nearby table and start reading it by daybreak light. Le discours de la méthode. The author would soon arrive in response to her invitation. They dressed her in breeches once more: wearing corsets and petticoats was meant only for special occasions.
Looking at herself in the mirror, she thought of Charles and of marriage. For a while, she felt light-headed and nearly fainted upon remembering that night's dream: one of her childhood memories. She was in a far darker room, that could be even considered eerie. In her dream, she was a child of seven, reading a history book beside a beautiful lady in mourning black, with platinum blond hair and bleak countenance, who never ceased to weep. Before both of them, within a crystal glass case, lay the lifeless form of a rather dashing gentleman, doubtlessly a warrior, a military man from what his attire could tell, with the same sharp goatee and the same impressive physique as the Great Gustavus Adolphus in the illustrations. He was strawberry blond with a high forehead, just like little Christina. As she read the account of the battle of Lützen, she couldn't avoid hearing all that weeping and those sighs of despair: "Why you, and not rather me? I can't even live without you!"

5)
They returned to the stables, that afternoon, from a ride that reminded more of a race. Charles was lagging behind Christina, like he had always done. Once more, they cast off their cavalier hats and their spurs.
"Christina... Shouldn't we..."
She blushed once more: her cheeks looked like strawberries. Locking eyes with Charles, she held a few tears in check.
"You shall be my successor, not my better half. Since we were raised together, I'm sure you'll even be a better ruler than I".
They exchanged glances once more, and they understood each other once again. The succession issue was no more a problem. And freedom lay just a few weeks ahead.