The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

There were two ill omens on the coronation day of Princess Gabrielle de Vess.

She saw the first when she rose from her night’s sleep and went to the window. The sky was the color of chain mail, and though it was not raining yet, rain surely would come at some point later that day. They would have to have the ceremony under a tent — the Bishop would demand it, to protect his robes — and most of her subjects would neither see her face nor hear her address. The Seers had confidently predicted clear skies, rubbish as they were, and Gabrielle took a moment to curse them under her breath, with the same colorful language that her mother had always used.

It wasn’t even the issue of the tent, if she was to be honest with herself. It was the bloody superstition of it all. The Vessian kingdom had always been run by the rule that no one could marry into the Crown. Thus, ever since the untimely death of King Gerald had led to the ascension of his only child Sarah, Vessian queens had birthed just one daughter each. Gabrielle was the fifth queen in that succession, and the word curse could now be heard across the kingdom. Gray skies on her coronation day would only intensify that sort of talk.

“M’lady?” A voice cut across her thoughts. Gabrielle turned from the window to see Angela, her Handmaiden. There were many maidens who waited on the Vessian royal family, and many more who had been brought into the castle for this day only; more than two dozen, Gabrielle had been told. But there was only one Handmaiden, dedicated to serving the royal family in their bed and bath. Angela had been chosen by Gabrielle’s mother for her loyalty and honesty, two traits that had been demanded of all Handmaidens since the death of King Anthony the Poisoned.

Gabrielle offered a small smile. “This is the day, isn’t it?” She’d hoped to keep a light tone, but the words didn’t come out that way. She sounded like she was going to the gallows.

Angela bowed her head. “A bittersweet day indeed. I loved the lady Catherine as much as you.”

Gabrielle said, “If my mother could have lived forever, we would have been all the richer for it.”

“She fought hard, Gabby,” Angela said, keeping her head bowed.

“Aye,” Gabrielle said. “The men in this kingdom would be so lucky as to go out with that much st-steel in their sp-sp-spines— “

That was far as she could get. Cry not for me, Catherine had said on her deathbed, for my days were bright and full. Then the advisors had warned Gabrielle not to cry at yesterday’s funeral, saying, The people must see your strength to guide them through their sorrow. The effort of keeping it all in had been so exhausting that she hadn’t the energy to cry herself to sleep last night. Only now, remembering the look of grim determination on her mother’s face throughout her final illness, could she let the emotion out. She buried her face in her hands to muffle the sound, and sobbed fit to rend her heart asunder. Angela went to Gabrielle and hugged her tight. Gabrielle put her face in the coarse cotton of the younger woman’s dress and cried onto her shoulder for a few minutes that felt like a few hours.

At last Gabrielle released her Handmaiden and looked up, wiping the last tears from her eyes. “Can’t put it off any longer,” she said, smiling ruefully. “Let’s do the thing and be done with it. Bring me that accursed torture device that you call a dress.”

“Not so fast,” Angela said. “First, breakfast.”

There were kingdoms who liked to starve their princesses into their coronation gowns. But not so the Vessians, for their princesses’ breakfast was also a symbol of their greatest strength.

A century before, King Frederick de Vess had looked at his tiny kingdom and observed that the rough terrain which protected it from invasion also made it impossible to do enough farming to feed all his subjects. At the time, chicken feed had been cheap in France and Spain, so King Frederick had invested huge amounts of his treasury toward turning his small-scale grain farmers into large-scale chicken farmers. The plan had worked so well that Freddy the Fowl (as he came to be known) had dined on scrambled eggs with the King of England, and why each new Vessian queen met her coronation with Europe’s finest omelette.

As she went down the castle steps with Angela, Gabrielle set her jaw, fortifying herself against more tears. There were a dozen people in the dining hall, cooks and waiters and servant maidens, every eye upon her at once. Gabrielle had wanted to project to them a look of steely determination, similar to what Catherine had shown at the end, but she lacked her mother’s decades of experience honing that look to perfection. Many of the servants said later that their new queen looked pale and drawn, as if she had not slept a wink the night before (even though she had slept rather well). One of the maidens would gossip later that the new queen looked, in her words, “like a woman who died terrified.”

“Good morning to Her Majesty,” the head cook said, before the silence could become too brittle. “And may God bless the day of her coronation!”

“Good morning,” Gabrielle said. The gossips would later say that her voice, strained as it was from the sobbing in the bedchamber moments before, sounded just like she looked.

“Will you not favor us with a smile this morning, m’lady?” the cook said. His own smile was comically large, a rictus that looked more like a parody of joy than the real thing. “’Tis no day for Gabby the Gray!”

And just like that, the second ill omen was born: the nickname. The damned nickname. The cook would later say that he had only meant a reference to the famous eyes of the de Vess line, so pale that they appeared silver. But no one who had seen the new queen’s colorless face believed him.

In truth, she didn’t much mind being called Gabby, and never had. But Catherine had understood why she ought to mind, saying, The nickname suggests weakness. They’ll call you whatever they want behind your back, and you should let them, but never allow the nickname to your face.

Gabrielle turned to him, put her shoulders back, and stared. “Queen Gabrielle,” she said, putting deliberate emphasis on the honorific, “will smile as she sees fit.”

The cook turned crimson and looked at the floor. “Of course, m’lady, my apologies,” he said. But the damage was done.

The breakfast omelettes had apple in them, Gabrielle’s favorite since childhood. The dress went on quickly and easily, compared to how much Gabrielle hated the bloody thing. Not a drop of rain fell during the coronation, which was almost a miracle considering how ugly the sky looked. And yet somehow, for Gabrielle the day felt like a failure.

She first felt it when they were preparing her skin for the ceremony: they put on so much powder and rouge that she began to get an idea of how bad she had looked that morning. She felt it during the wave of applause after she accepted the crown, which carried none of the spontaneous cheers that had greeted her mother every time they’d left the castle, cries like “All Hail Queen Catherine!” or “Vessia Forever!” or “Long Live the Lady of the Fire!” (This last being a reference to Catherine’s flaming red hair.) Her apprehension was worst at the end, when the Captain of the Guard had called for three cheers, because the cheers came out solidly but without emotion, in the same way that one might wish a happy birthday to a spoiled child.

Her address — “all the strength I use to bear this kingdom aloft, I would have not without you”, et cetera — rang flat in her ears. She had never spoken in public before, and as she looked out at the assembled faces she imagined them saying, Here comes Gabby the Gray, nineteen years old and more pale than her mother’s ghost. The Cringing Queen.

The rains came almost as soon as she left the stage, and continued to pour down well into the wee hours. Parties in the streets to celebrate the new era, parties which had continued until the following dawn for her mother’s ascension, were moved indoors or canceled altogether.

Gabrielle laid in her bed, listening to the rain and the silence of the streets below. The occasional rumble of thunder was the sound of dirt being thrown on her own grave.

There was a guest at breakfast the next morning. Gabrielle sat down to have scrambled eggs with Percy Runier, the kingdom’s treasurer.

Once the chicken-and-egg industry had well and truly taken off, both the Vessian treasury and the Vessian chicken farmers began to have more gold and silver in their pockets than they knew what to do with. This was where the Runier family, who had raised some of Europe’s brightest lights in the burgeoning field of mathematics, had stepped in. For decades they had run the treasury shrewdly and efficiently, until the Vessians had become as well known for moneylending as for hens and roosters. Gabrielle had understood for years that Percy was the second-most-powerful man in the kingdom, behind only her own mother.

Now, second only to me, she had to remind herself.

They exchanged pleasantries during the meal, as protocol demanded, but once Gabrielle’s plate was clean she did not wait for Percy to finish his own meal before her first question. “To what do I owe this pleasure, Lord Runier?”

“My Queen,” he said, here pausing to swallow a mouthful of eggs, “I’m told your first meeting with the Council is today.”

“I should hope you were told this,” Gabrielle said dryly, “since you are on the Council. Its most vocal member, or so I’ve heard.”

“As they say, my Queen. Now — and I must beg Her Majesty’s pardon to say so — Her Majesty is far younger than the Lady Catherine was, when she took the throne. I wanted to offer my assistance in preparing you for the meeting, should it be needed.”

Gabrielle smiled politely, but inside she was calculating. Everyone wants to be the power behind the Crown, Catherine had once warned her. They don’t want to be Queen, you understand, because then they have to take the blame when things go wrong.

But Runier was already in that position, and everyone knew it. He was perhaps the only man in the kingdom who had no need of the crown whatsoever. What more could he gain by advising her? Did he want a place in her bed? Perhaps he was plotting against the Crown while it was still without heirs? This deserves much deeper consideration, Gabrielle thought.

She said, “I appreciate the offer, good sir. But I wish to enter these meetings as my mother did: with my mind a clean slate, ready to be taught by the finest lords in our kingdom.”

“As you wish, my Queen,” Runier said. He plate was clean and it was clear he wanted a final word. “If I may offer a piece of advice without speaking out of turn: the advisors will not be looking to teach. They will be looking for leadership, for their Queen to take the reins as though she has been riding her entire life.”

“Your advice has been heard, sir,” Gabrielle said, as she rose from the table. “Fortunately, my mother always believed a queen can learn and lead at the same time.”

As Runier excused himself and left the hall, Gabrielle went to Angela. “The clothes we discussed,” she said quietly. “You have them?”

“By mid-day,” Angela said. “Jessica, the barber’s girl, is bringing them. She thinks they’re for me.”

“Good. Wait in the bedchamber for me. I’ll be back after I meet the Council.”

A funny thing, Gabrielle thought, to actually sit on the throne.

The throne itself was made of oakwood, heavy and stiff and uncomfortable to sit on for more than a minute or two. Gabrielle soon began to believe that was the point, because the Council was not looking at her in a way that suggested its members wanted her to feel at ease.

A long table was brought in by servants, its breadth facing the throne, and the Council sat there, a horizontal line of serious faces with business for their queen. The throne was not on raised steps, as some king had decreed years and years ago that the Vessian crown would not look down upon its subjects. But the throne was taller than most chairs, and Gabrielle was taller than most nineteen-year-old women, so she did look down on them, if only from a slight angle.

“Thank you all for coming,” she said. As she turned her head to meet each set of eyes in turn, she felt the weight of the crown itself for the first time, thin gold strips woven together to suggest braids, or an olive branch. She asked them in the old style: “What business has the Crown this day?”

The Captain of the Guard, a burly man with a bushy gray beard who had served her mother and grandmother, spoke first. Gabrielle had been seeing him about the castle for as long as she could remember, but only now realized that she did not know his name. Everyone had simply called him Captain. “Scouts report movement from the border with Germania, my Queen,” he said. “Maybe looking to harass our farms out that way, see how quick Her Majesty is with the blade.” His tone was impertinent, but he asked no pardon and was not expected to. It was his way. Gabrielle had learned most of the curse words she knew just by passing within twenty feet of him in the courtyard at age twelve.

“How great do you judge the danger to be, Captain?”

“I don’t judge, my queen. Either we’re at war, or not.”

It was an odd thing to say, and everyone at the table seemed to sense the oddity. The silence stretched out, and Gabrielle realized she would get no more from any of them. The decision was hers.

“Dispatch troops to the border,” she said. “Show them that the new queen shall not tolerate new assaults.”

“How many troops, my Queen?” The Captain said.

It dawned on Gabrielle how little understanding she had, regarding matters of war. She knew of the word battalion, but had no understanding of whether that was too many troops for the threat, or too few. This was men’s lives at stake, men who were being called away from their families. She froze. The silence became painful.

It was Runier who stepped in to throw her a line. “There is enough in the treasury to comfortably send one battalion, my Queen,” he said.

Gabrielle found her tongue. “Then one battalion it shall be,” she said. “Thank you, Captain.”

“M’lady,” he said. Gabrielle hoped that the awkwardness of that conversation was as bad as this meeting would get.

It wasn’t.

When the door to the bedchamber flew open and the new queen stalked in with thunderclouds on her face, Angela made an instinctual decision: Let her rant.

“I didn’t know how big the army is, I didn’t know how much a loaf of bread costs, I didn’t know anything about how our moneylenders work, and the Bishop thinks I committed blasphemy. Other than that, it was a complete fucking disaster!” Gabrielle shouted. “God, they must think me to be incompetent!“

Angela said nothing. Let her rant.

“I did not say one correct thing to any one of them!” She took off her crown, taking care to rest it on the statue that was meant to wear it when she did not, then resumed her rage as she pulled off her dress in short, violent jerking motions.

“You must be patient,” Angela offered. “The council will be patient with you. They understand that you’re still grieving for Lady Catherine.”

“Patience, understanding, grief,” Gabrielle said scornfully, indicating her contempt with a wave of her hand. “Men are allowed such things. I will get no such allowances.”

To this, Angela did not disagree. Indeed, that statement was well-trodden ground for both of them, long before Gabrielle’s mother ever became ill. No one would be whispering about a curse in the streets if there had been five kings in a row, instead of five queens.

With her dress finally off, Gabrielle flopped down on the bed in her undergarments, staring up at the ceiling. “What would my mother do?” she said.

At this, Angela smiled.

Gabrielle’s face lit up. “You got it?”

“I did indeed,” Angela said, pulling a tailor’s bag from underneath the bed.

Gabrielle sprung off the bed with a newfound energy that only a nineteen-year-old could muster. “Well, let’s have it!”

Angela tossed the bag on the bed, and Gabrielle dove into it. After a moment or two of breathless rummaging, she pulled a scullery maid’s dress, fraying and stained at the hem, with a neckline that left far less to the imagination than her regal garments.

“It’s beautiful,” Gabrielle said.

“Looks like it’s been worn every day for a year,” Angela said, awestruck.

“Help me put it on,” Gabrielle said.

Angela turned to her, surprised. “Wait. Now?”

“Why not?” Gabrielle said, as she began to strip off her undergarments. “Why did I get the dress, if not to put it to use?”

The lady Catherine had claimed that each of the last four queens had put on servant’s clothing and walked among her subjects; she also claimed to have heard rumor that the tradition went back much further. But even if there had been no tradition whatsoever, Gabrielle’s fascination with traveling amongst the people came down to one incontrovertible fact: the castle could drive a person mad. She wanted to live as her subjects lived, if only for a little while.

The dress had been her major worry. As a member of the royal family, she could have any dress she wanted, but even the cheapest materials would become dresses that were freshly tailored, fit for a queen. Gabrielle knew that in order to blend in, she had to find a dress that was fit for a peasant. She had been searching for years, and only now had Angela been able to find something that was the right size, showed the right amount of wear, and could be obtained with no questions asked.

It turned out that she needed no help from Angela putting the dress on, as she had no idea the level of simplicity involved with peasants’ clothes. It was no more than five minutes and she was turning in place, admiring herself and asking for Angela’s opinions. “What do you think? Will it work?”

“I have something that will help,” Angela said, producing a green shawl from the royal wardrobe.

“Isn’t that yours?” Gabrielle said. “I’m taller than you...”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Angela said. “It just has to cover your shoulders and head, and I think it will.”

Gabrielle had not been worried about the hair, as she had a darker blonde color that did not stand out in a crowd nearly as much as her mother’s fiery tresses had. But she agreed with Angela that it was better to be safe than sorry. The shawl was made from a gentle cotton that caressed her skin even more gently than the royal bedsheets. It was more than perfect; it felt like it was meant to be.

And perhaps, she would think later, it had been.

Angela could not travel with her; she was needed to make sure the kitchen was clear enough for Gabrielle to sneak out, and she would also need to be there to sneak the queen back in. If Gabrielle was to be honest with herself, she was happy that her Handmaiden wasn’t with her. Angela was her best friend, but she also represented the system that had made Gabrielle feel like a prisoner for her entire childhood. If ever she was to feel truly free, she needed time alone.

And what a time it was! Never before had she seen so many kinds of animals, heard so many people shouting, been immersed in crowds so large. On the few occasions that she had traveled into the city as a princess, ringed by royal guards, the crowd had been loud, calling out cheers for her mother, but never so physically boisterous. It took Gabrielle the better part of an hour just to learn how to move amongst them without being jostled too hard.

She declined offers to buy exotic birds, offers to gamble with small-time card players, offers to play chess with hustlers. She suspected that at least one of the persons who jostled her had attempted to pick her pocket, but one of the advantages of being royalty was that she carried no purse. She was offered absurd prices on cheap imitations of the dress she had worn for her own coronation. She saw young girls begging their mothers to buy wooden replicas of the crown which sat on its statue in her bedchamber.

And finally, she walked into the South Square, where a band of traveling players had set up a show. There was a group of acrobats tumbling through the air and dirt, an expert knife thrower, a juggler, and a trio of women who sang the old standards with wonderfully true voices. Through it all, a pair of jesters cavorted in the background, hiding their eyes at each knife throw and pretending to cry at the trio’s saddest song.

Gabrielle worked her way through the ring of people watching the show, until she stood only a foot or two from the front. She was happy to let another person stand in front of her, even a taller person, as long as she could peek over or around their shoulders to see the performance. From this vantage point she laughed at the jesters, ooh’d and aah’d at the juggler. During the trio’s songs she turned her head to the clear blue sky, to feel the warmth of the sun on her face.

After the singers were done, the master of the ceremony stepped forward to announce, “We now present to you one of the greatest mysteries of Europe, fascinating castles from the East to the English Isles. To be under her spell is not for the weak of mind or the faint of heart. Welcome ... Morphelia, Mistress of Slumber!”

“Ah, horse dung,” Gabrielle heard the man in front of her mutter, and he moved past her as he left the show. Suddenly she had become the front row of the crowd, looking directly at the new performer: a raven-haired woman with pale skin and striking blue eyes, framed by high cheekbones in such a way that few men in the crowd would not take notice. Her black dress was cut just low enough for the mothers of young children to have perturbed looks on their faces, but not so low that they would leave in a huff.

“Thank you, Vessia,” the woman calling herself Morphelia said. She had a well-trained performer’s voice, projecting a velvet sound to the back of the crowd without appearing to strain or shout. “I am Morphelia. In England, they called me the Queen of Slumber, but only because they lacked understanding.

“Morpehus, the King of Slumber, might have made me his bride.” She smiled, a mysterious grin that Gabrielle could not interpret. “But my will was too strong for him. I was but his mistress, exploring the dark, drowsy chambers of the heart where sleep lies in the next room and waking thoughts are far, far away.”

Her eyes fell directly on Gabrielle. “Who would join me in those dark places?”

What is this? Gabrielle thought. She talks like some kind of sorcerer. But if she were a witch, they would have burned her in any one of a hundred castles all over Europe.

“There will be no magic done here,” Morphelia said, as if speaking directly into Gabrielle’s thoughts. “Nothing will happen to you that you did not wish to happen. I can only help you explore yourself. You can always control what is there to be found.”

Explore myself, Gabrielle thought. Have I ever done that? What would I find if I raised my hand right now? Her stomach fluttered a little at the thought.

Seeing no raised hands from Gabrielle or anyone near her, Morphelia moved elsewhere into the crowd. She returned with three volunteers: a stocky lumberjack-looking fellow with an impressive beard; an older woman who might have had land and title, judging from the way she was dressed; and a scullery maid whose clothes were not all that different from what Gabrielle herself wore.

“Let us celebrate these volunteers,” the raven-haired woman said. “’Tis a brave thing to plumb the depths of your own mind. Without that bravery, I can make no performance.”

As the crowd applauded politely, Gabrielle wondered if any among the “volunteers” might have been planted ahead of time by the troupe. I was born at night, but not last night, as her mother had liked to say.

“And now, I would call for quiet,” the Mistress of Slumber said. “Let everyone fall silent and focus on the sound of my voice. Just let yourself be still, listen to the sound of my voice, and soon you’ll discover that your mind has such power that you never could have dreamed.”

“Now take a deep breath in,” Morphelia said. She began to walk back and forth in front of the “volunteers,” moving in slow, purposeful strides. When she reached the right-most part of her path, she was standing directly in front of Gabrielle, about ten feet away, and then she pivoted smoothly on the balls of her feet to walk back in the other direction. “Fill yourself with air, and know that you are taking in life and health. Now let the breath out, and feel all of your daily tensions melt away.”

Gabrielle exhaled slowly, not even aware that she had breathed in at the same time as the volunteers. Neither did she notice that the word volunteers had ceased to have sarcastic status in her mind.

“Take another deep breath in, and consider how good it makes you feel. Now let it out, and let even more tension melt away as you focus on the sound of my voice.”

As she breathed, Gabrielle noticed how cool and clean the air was. She had been lucky indeed to sneak out on the most beautiful day of autumn. All of her concerns slowly dissipated, leaving behind only the blissful appreciation of a beautiful day.

“...leaving behind only the blissful appreciation of a beautiful day,” the raven-haired performer was saying. Gabrielle blinked, momentarily confused as to why she was thinking the same thing she was hearing another person say. But it wasn’t important, because it really was a beautiful day and her heart really was filling with bliss.

“And now I’d like you to concentrate on your feet and your toes,” Morphelia went on. Her voice was a church hymn, slow and methodical, but with a certain melody that could move the spirit under proper conditions. “As you take your next breath, let your feet and your toes relax completely. You’re doing so very well. Now focus on your calves...”

As she droned on about relaxing body parts, Gabrielle allowed the performer’s voice to drift into the background. She could ignore all of this, and wait until the real show started later. Instead, she did the same thing that she had done during the singing performance, tilting her head back and feeling the warmth of the sun on her face. The Vessian queen closed her eyes and thought not one bit about how relaxed the muscles in her legs were becoming.

In time Gabrielle became aware that Morphelia’s voice had grown louder, and somehow more present. Easier to focus on. “The spell of the King of Sleep is so strong,” the voice was saying. “Sometimes people slip into the dark places without any effort from me.”

Behind her closed eyes, Gabrielle paid little attention. The cool breeze and warm sun caressed her face.

“Speaking now, only to the woman I am touching on the shoulder,” the voice said. “Only to the woman I am touching on the shoulder. How do you feel, miss?”

“Wonderful,” Gabrielle heard someone say. It sounded like her own voice, but that didn’t matter, nor did the hand resting on her shoulder.

“Wonderful,” the other voice echoed. “You’re doing so well. Now I’d like to to take the deepest breath you can, all the way in.”

Gabrielle felt pressure on her chest as she luxuriated in the warm darkness. She felt the pressure begin to ease, and—

“SLEEP!”

Morphelia pulled the queen forward by her shoulder. The breath she had taken went out of her in a heavy sigh as her knees buckled. Morphelia caught her mid-collapse, her hands under the younger woman’s armpits. Gabrielle’s head lolled until her nose and chin were buried in Morphelia’s cleavage.

The crowd laughed, but there was an element of nervousness to the good cheer. Some of them might have thought that the volunteers were actors, but the limp woman in Morphelia’s arms told a different tale. It looked like, had Morphelia not caught her, the maiden in the green shawl would have dived face-first into the hard-packed dirt that made up the city’s streets. Actors didn’t do that.

“Deep sleep,” Morphelia said softly, he lips just a few inches from the young woman’s ear. “Deeper and deeper asleep. What’s your name, miss?”

Morphelia had noticed that the crowd always moved away when a subject in the audience went under. They seemed to react as though trance was a disease, and it could be catching. So she was fairly certain that no one in a six-foot circle around her had heard when the sleeping girl muttered into her breasts, “Gabrielle de Vess.”