Isabeau was born at the moment her mother died and her wicked step-mother moved instantly to comfort the king. Her ministrations soothed his troubled brow and he came to rely upon her. But she was devious, and poisoned the king's mind against Isabeau. She taught him to associate the poor girl with her mother's death, and soon she had Isabeau relegated to the kitchens. The castle was a rambling wreck and the kitchen staff had never so much as seen the old queen, let alone known more than that she had died in childbirth. They assumed Isabeau was a foundling, and as a kinless young girl she was given the hardest work.
The king soon forgot he had a daughter, even as his second wife proved unable to provide him with an heir. However, she was wise in counsel, and if truth be known the kingdom prospered and waxed strong at her prompting. She invested in smithies and the smiths soon produced prodigious quantities of armour, and horseshoes and arrowheads, and all the multifarious needs of war. She identified the nobles best fitted to lead the king's army and soon the kingdom's neighbours trembled at the sight of the king's knights and archers bearing down on them.
All this while Isabeau grew, and even as she slaved in the scullery it could be seen that she was a woman of some distinction, wise and witty though she usually covered this with a compliant nature in which sweetness and goodness vied for prominence. Her colleagues and superiors in the kitchen soon learned to entrust difficult tasks to her, not in punishment, but in gratitude that she would do them best of all.
One day the nobles assembled before the king and begged him to consider the succession.
"Oh Great King," they pleaded, "your armies have given you dominion unsurpassed since the days of the great Charles, and the world trembles before you. Everything you touch succeeds except for one thing. Though great you are mortal, and we fear for your conquests should it pass that, as we now believe, you leave no issue. Wherefore we beg you, our liege lord, take measures to choose a successor and set our minds at rest."
"And what do you suggest, my faithful barons?" he answered, graciously.
"Our neighbours have many younger sons," quoth they, "and of those there are worthy men. Have them come here and test them, then choose the best of them to be your son."
"It shall be so," sayeth the king, though his wife fidgeted in her throne, and her expression spoke of the need to manipulate the choice, ensuring a compliant young man of little intelligence and less initiative.
And so the word went out to the four corners of the known world, and made younger sons endure terrible hardships as they travelled to the castle. Many were the dragons, and gryphons, and wyrms, and strange-half men, and evil barons slain by these paragons. Bards waxed fat on tales of their journeys, before, on the appointed day, they assembled in the courtyard of the castle and the king welcomed them.
All the women from the kitchen had found places of advantage from where to view such a legendary assemblage of chivalry. All save Isabeau, whose comments about 'mutton-headed lard-buckets masquerading as heroes' made the more experienced girls roll their eyes in amusement. And so Isabeau remained in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches to the 1/20th scale cake in the shape of the castle she had made that was to be the centrepiece of that night's banquet.
She was just putting another miniscule roof tile on the great hall when there was a puff of smoke by the Cook's empty chair and a rather plump, sweet-faced old woman appeared.
Isabeau was a little taken aback, but the old woman bustled over to her with a cheery smile.
"Now, now. Never fear, for I am your fairy godmother and today is your eighteenth birthday."
"Errr..." fair Isabeau replied.
"And I have three gifts to grant you. Interested?"
"Too bloody right! Go ahead, even though I think you probably mean I've lost my wits."
"Very well," and the old woman raised a gnarled little wand and circled it over Isabeau's head.
"I give you sweetness, and goodness, and great efficiency in the kitchen. That should get you your fair prince."
Suddenly there was another puff of smoke, and an altogether more cynical old woman was sitting in the Cook's chair and smoking her pipe.
"Bertha, you old lack-brain!" exclaimed the second old woman, "can you not see that she already has those things?" And she turned to Isabeau, who was now goggling at these apparitions, "shut your mouth, girl, before a fly drops in. Now, I'm going to give you what you might actually enjoy. Come here and get your three gifts; my knee's playing up so you'll have to kneel down. I can't be having with all that wand waving malarkey so don't be surprised if I just bonk you on the head."
Isabeau obediently knelt in front of her second godmother (whilst Bertha looked on and tapped her foot in irritation). The cynical godmother looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully then smiled.
"First, I give you breasts which are comfortably bigger than a handful, but not awkward, with pert nipples that won't start to travel south until you're forty."
And Isabeau's breasts swelled pleasantly under her bodice.
