Sleeping Beauty woke fifty years after the spell was cast, binding the stones, mortar and people of her castle in the relentless grip of eternally blooming climbing roses. Technically, instead of sweet sixteen, she was sixty-six.

Of course, no sign showed on her perfect pale flawless face. Her knee-length corn-coloured hair had no trace of grey or white, and it still curled in the approved manner. Rosebud lips remained unbracketed by wrinkles. Bright blue eyes were as clear, innocent and naive as they were fifty years before, and her soft laugh and sweet voice as charming.

However, Sleeping Beauty –or Annabel Aurora Grace Claudia Joy Briar-Rose, as we should call her- had been a privileged only child, and one very well educated. Along with beauty, grace and charm, she had been granted wit and intelligence.

Intelligence led her to wish for an education beyond reading, writing and the basics of arithmetics and needlework. Charm led her to wheedle it out of her father, who doted on her anyway and probably would have given her the education if she hadn’t asked for it. But Annabel Aurora Grace Claudia Joy Briar-Rose liked to make sure of things.

She received the education, and it made her clever and well-read, unlike the positive child who had rescued her, who appeared to have no scholastic inclinations whatsoever.

Oh, he was seventeen; not quite a child. A young man, then. A particularly stupid one.

Handsome, certainly. Oh yes, very handsome. With his wavy brown hair and vivid green eyes, they were a magnificent couple. But brains? Thoughtfulness? Common sense? Sadly lacking, in his wife’s humble opinion.

Of course, it was a marriage of convenience. What else? Briar-Rose had woken after a dreamless sleep to see a handsome, youthful face, and within an hour of their acquaintance had agreed to marry the boy.

Her husband often wished for a more indulgent wife who would go along with everything he said and worship him. He had married her for her beauty, for her standing and the pretty fairy-story it made. She had married him for her advancement in this new world that she had not seen the making of. They asked for nothing more, and nothing more was received.

A marriage of convenience? Naturally.

Fifty years, give or take a year, separated husband and wife. Those fifty years also dislocated Briar-Rose from her new home.

She was a pretty bauble. A picturesque but otherwise useless decoration. Her opinions were no longer valued, the court gave her only the barest minimum of respect and sometimes not even that, she had no hand in the government of what, after all, was her country, and spent her days doing needlework.

Her mother had taught Briar-Rose to count her blessings in times of trouble, and Briar-Rose considered this a time of trouble. Always the favoured little princess, her parents’ delight, she had never had cause to count them before.

Now she did, and realised something: that being overlooked meant she had room to plot. Also, the populace liked her; she was their beautiful, tragic princess, the wife of their Crown Prince, and she had taken care to be charitable to them when the occasion arose. Charm, bribes and, if need be, her beauty could persuade with ease the people necessary to fulfil her plans to abandon their allegiance to the royal family. Best of all, after the recent unduly heavy ship tax to rebuild the country’s navy, the people were unhappy with their monarchy.

It would be an intellectual challenge, Briar-Rose thought to herself, and if the plans were laid well enough, and she was ruthless enough, and careful enough, it might well succeed. Her husband had provided her with a rude awakening in the form of her marriage and his subsequent loss of interest in her.

Some day very soon, she thought quietly to herself, this country would call her queen, and not one who answered to anyone, husband, advisors or parents. The country was her birthright, and revolution would make it hers alone.