#21 – Prince Aidric

| November 23, 2011 | 0 Comments

 

Adric is the prince of Hannerfief – a small island kingdom off the coast of Norway.  He is handsome, charming, and everything a woman could want – on the surface at least.  But he suffers from the worst of 16th century world views.  To him women are inferior and unintelligent, only meant to bear and raise children and smile pretty for handsome men.  They are easily courted with flattery and easily won with expensive gifts.  He also has disdain for everyone beneath his station – which is most people, and does not care what happens to ordinary people.  He was spoiled as the only son and heir and grew up to believe whatever his father told him because after all he was the king.

He doesn’t love Catherine or care how she feels because it’s an arranged, political marriage for both of them.  He just assumes that Catherine knows that and won’t try to interfere with his private life, letting him bed whoever he wants and do as he pleases.  Women are easy to control, right?  When he meets Princess Catherine – who is actually Kathrina – he slowly discovers that the marriage he expected won’t be the one he gets. He tries to dominate her intellectually, but he doesn’t stand a chance since he never expected her to be smart and she is.

Her initial flirtations and indications of falling in love with him suddenly turn to disdain when he tells her what to expect from the marriage.  They are forced to be together since the marriage is still going ahead – neither one has the power to stop it.  The more time he spends with her the more he starts to respect her and actually starts to enjoy having an intelligent woman beside him.  She’s not bitchy or mean, but she does stand up to his insults and helps him see that a lot of the ideas he’s been raised with aren’t the only ideas out there.  He starts to fall in love with her.

But all hell breaks loose when he discovers the switched princesses.  In the end he and the real Catherine discover they have a lot more in common than they ever expected and both decide to face the challenges of saving the kingdom together without getting married, but of course they eventually do.

Category: Fantasy

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Once upon a time a sci-fi author married a costumer and had four children. I am the youngest of those children. Enough said

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