Rogue Princess (aka Saxon Pretender)
L. Sprague de Camp
Science Fiction Quarterly – February 1952
It's a mad, merry mixup when Claude Godwin, star of 21st Century costume pictures, finds himself involved with a princess of Greenland, kidnapped, and told that he is the rightful heir to the throne of England. Not that Godwin enjoys being the Saxon Pretender, but the alternatives are even less to his liking!
Monarchy has a tendency to persist as a half-serious game, long alter all the meaning of "kings" and "queens", etc., has departed from a nation's life. In its proper place, this can be a rather charming anachronism, but there's always the possibility that someone, or some group, may try to "restore" the throne in earnest This aside, we can look upon such problems as "legitimacy"—no joke in past centuries, when prolonged and devastating wars often accompanied a change of sovereigns—with amusement, as Mr. de Camp does here. A delightful dissertation on one of the reasons why the head who wears the crown rests uneasily.
Chapter 1
CLAUDE GODWIN became involved with the princess as follows:
In driving north from Santa Barbara, most people follow Route US 101, which cuts inland across the base of Point Conception. Some, however, take the secondary road that runs along the seashore around the Point—via Jalama and Surf—leaving 101 at Gaviota and rejoining it at Arroyo Grande. It is a winding road, much of it blasted out of cliff sides where the Santa Ynez Mountains come right down to the Pacific. The road runs along a rugged and almost unpeopled stretch of coast, forming a great contrast with the shores southeastward, which—ever since California became the most populous state about the year 1990—have been almost solidly built up from Santa Barbara to San Diego.
On an October afternoon Claude Godwin was driving his fellow-actor, Westbrook Wolff, along this scenic stretch and explaining why he intended retiring at the early age of thirty-one:
"... so I can make thirty grand a week; what good does it do me? Coming on top of the income from my securities, Uncle gets ninety-four dollars out of every additional century, leaving me a lousy six bucks, which will buy one Sunday newspaper."
Wolff sighed. "Wish I knew how you did it. I've known a lot of actors, and never yet knew one who could save up enough to live on in ten years. By the time Uncle, and your agent, and your ex-wives have all had a crack at your stipend—"
"Not to mention the parties; the ponies; the contractor who puts in your swimming-pool; the tailor who makes you a suit a week out of imported Tibetan yak-wool, and so on. I avoid the alimony problem by staying single; I live in a small house without a swimming-pool and stay away from parties and ponies.
"That's why they call me MacGodwin," he concluded. He was a dark young man, handsome in a histrionic way, and rather on the small side. For hero roles the studio put lifts in his shoes.
"But then you're not a typical actor," said Wolff; "in Hollywood you stand out like a sunflower in a coalscuttle."
"I am an individualist; you are eccentric; he's nuts. I never did like the damned show-business anyway. What I always wanted was to be a scientist. You know, like that Doctor Rotheiss I played in Crimson Dawn"
"Why don't you?"
Godwin sighed in his turn. "You just don't walk into a casting-office in some scientific institute and get taken on as an electrogeologist. I did go see old Dr. Goff—you know, the president of Cal Tech. I told him I knew I wouldn't stay young and handsome forever. Hell, I'm no great actor; I'm just a guy who can jump around in front of a camera with a wig and a sword and leer at the dames. Well, I told the old geezer about my secret craving. Says I: 'Dr. Goff, I think I could be a real honest-to-Goldwyn scientist if I had a chance, but how do I go about it? I can't see enrolling here as a frosh with the sobsisters from all the papers and picture-mags breathing down my neck. So what?'
"He squints at me and sprinkles some cigar-ashes down his shirt-front, and says, 'Take this,' and hands me a book off his desk. 'Go through it and do all the problems; then come back. If you still wish to become a scientist we shall go on from there.' "
"Did you?" said Wolff.
"That's the sad part; even sadder'n when I got bumped off in Fatal Decision. It was a math book: plane, solid, and analytical geometry. I struggled through about half and gave up."
"Doesn't sound like you, Claude."
"No, does it? But I got to where the funny little diagrams and equations and things just went round and round when I looked at them. I couldn't make sense of them even by sitting up all night over a bucket of coffee. Maybe if I'd had a normal education, instead of being in show-business from the age of six weeks, it might have been different. But it's too late to go back again and begin over, like I did in Three Wishes.'"
Wolff yawned and stretched. "Oh, well, maybe there's some other science that doesn't require so much math. Say, haven't we seen enough of this Godforsaken scenery? How about a stretch on the beach?"
THEY HAD just come around Point Arguello and the road was undulating along a stretch of sand-dunes between the Coast Range and the sea. Godwin looked for a place to park and presently found a turnout; he stopped the Studebaker and got out, not bothering to raise the top because at that time of year the climatic engineers allowed rain only on Wednesdays.
They climbed down the sandy, grassy slope to the beach. A few yards away, a heavy surf boomed against the hard-packed sand. The beach was a small crescent, with its concave side facing seaward—perhaps a hundred yards long—and terminated at each end by a rocky promontory. The landscape seemed devoid of human life. Shoreward the olive-brown hills bore a scattering of oaks among the scrub.
Godwin took a sharp look to make sure that he could see his car from where they were, and started north. At the promontory, he and Wolff had to scramble over the rocks and found themselves at the beginning of another little crescent of sand. They plodded north to the next promontory and were climbing over these rocks when Wolff (who being the taller was in the lead) drew in his breath sharply and held out a hand in warning.
Godwin halted, thinking that perhaps his friend had surprised a family of sea-lions or some such denizens of the wild. Wolff silently beckoned. Godwin moved up beside the other actor.
Just beyond the rocks, at the beginning of the next beach, a girl was lying nude on her back upon the sand, asleep in the sun. She was a girl of pretty good size— "brawny" was the word that occurred to Claude Godwin. She was moderately pretty in a flat-faced, Oriental way, as if she were part Asiatic, but there was nothing Mongoloid about the carroty-red hair stirring in the breeze. Dark glasses protected her eyes from the sun, and her head lay on a handkerchief spread out upon the sand. Beside her a neat pile of clothing was held down by a small camera.
Wolff whispered: "Boy, ain't that something? What'll we do?"
Godwin murmured: "She's liable to get a bad burn sleeping in the sun that way, even this late in the year."
"She probably didn't mean to go to sleep; but we can't exactly wake her up to tell her so."
"N-no. On the other hand we can't just walk off as if nothing had happened ..."
"Say!" hissed Wolff. "I got an idea!" He outlined a plan.
"Swell," said Godwin. "But which of us does what with what?"
"Oh, I take it and you're in it."