I am Penelope Dowager Queen Consort and ex-Regent to His Royal Majesty Hargenter XII of the house of Fjellrijk, but I used to be Kieran O’Brien from the wrong side of the tracks of the city of Wenwath many years ago. Many would ask how did I, a male from a family of thieves, pimps and murderers become the ranking member, and a female at that, of the most prestigious royal family on the planet. A more pertinent question would be how did Kieran a fearful and self effacing little boy of no status at all become Penelope the most respected, venerated and yes even feared too political power on the planet.

I was born the third of four siblings, all born about a year apart, but I had no memory of my mother. She left us all with my father not long after my younger sister, Patricia, was born. There were Siobhan, Brien, me and Patricia in that order. Dad was Tommy the fixer. I’ve never been sure what it was he fixed, but I do know it had nothing to do with DIY and it was definitely illegal. I got on well with my sisters but Brien was a sycophantic bully and thug, and he treated me no differently from the way he treated other weaker boys, probably worse. I was frightened of Brien and tried to avoid him.

Brien and his friends bullied me into joining them on their ‘jobs’. I was usually the lookout when they were stealing from somewhere. I don’t know why because I never had to warn them someone was coming, and I was never sure how I would have done so without alerting whoever was coming too. To the others it was just a job, but I was permanently a bag of nerves. To start with I was more afraid of the boys than the police, but that changed when they robbed an off licence for the spirits. I either wasn’t needed or wasn’t around. I don’t remember, but I wasn’t involved.

Brien told me they filled the back of a transit van with spirits. Full to the roof with whisky, brandy, gin and vodka he told me. They got caught, the transit was impounded as evidence and they were prosecuted. Three bottles of cheap vodka were presented as evidence and the boys were told to keep their mouths shut for leniency. The rest of the spirits just disappeared. I concluded, the police were no better than my brother and his friends, and certainly couldn’t be trusted.

My brother continued to force me into joining him and his friends, which frightened me but at least it kept Dad off my back. Dad was always going on about how soft I was and how I needed to be more of a man, which is hard when you’re timid and only small for your age. No one made my sisters steal things and tell lies and I was always envious of them. When I was with Brien he’d regularly say, “Get me a pack of tabs,[cigarettes] Kieran.” I know he did it just to upset me because usually he already had some. The first time he told me I replied I hadn’t got any money which his friends thought was hilarious. “Well nick the bloody things,” he said. I’d never liked my brother but I came to hate him.

The job that made the difference to my life was robbing a department store. We broke in at the back and Brien told me to stay with him. We'd been in there maybe ten minute while they tried to break into the cash registers. I doubted there was any money in them but I kept quiet. Then we heard the wail of police sirens and saw blue flashing lights through the windows just before the internal alarms went off. The others made a run for it, but I saw we were in the girls department, so I dumped my clothes and put a dress on. Stupidly I thought maybe I could talk my way out of it if they thought I was a girl. I hid behind a counter and watched a dozen police enter. They heard the others breaking their way out through a window and gave chase, but two officers were left behind near the cash registers where my clothes were.

There was no way I could get my clothes or to the boys department without risking getting caught. So I made my way to the back door where we broke in which was still open. I left completely unchallenged. I walked home getting a few remarks about a girl of my age being out alone at that time of night. I tried to sneak into my room, but I got caught by my sisters who thought I was an intruder. Once I explained what had happened all was ok, and they promised not to tell Dad or Brien.

Brien played merry hell that I’d not been caught, he like the rest had been, but I said nothing. When he asked how I escaped I told him when cops had chased him and the others I waited and walked out the back and came home. He had to accept it

The girls thought dressing me up as one of them was fun, but didn’t realise for me going out with them dressed that way was a way to avoid the boys and criminality. I was baffled by how easy it was for girls to live without falling foul of the law, and I resented the freedom it gave them. Freedom I was denied, so I dressed as a girl to avoid trouble. I studied dressing as a girl and became good at it. I’d even managed to nick a selection of clothes, shoes, make up and wigs. I crossed dressed as often as I could and left the house to wander round the shops. Boys regularly bought me pop or a coffee and I’d even been chatted up by Brien once. It was too good to last, and I was twelve when Brien and Dad found out. The pair of them beat me up and threw me out. I decided to stay crossed dressed no matter what happened to me because life was so much easier.

Life wasn’t easy on the streets as a girl, but at least I wasn’t likely to be put in a young offenders institution. I got caught stealing food and went into the care system as Penelope a trans girl. It seemed the easiest thing to do at the time. I know you hear all sorts of nightmare stories about the care system, but I got lucky with my foster parents. It was the happiest time of my life till then, and my foster parents were supportive about my cross dressing and everything else too. I never told them or any of the doctors why I did it. I thought I was letting them believe I was trans. I went to a supportive school as Penelope where I gradually realised it wasn’t an act. I truly was Penelope and there was no way I was ever going to be Kieran again. I was careful to make sure my dad and brother couldn’t find me, but I kept in contact with my sisters for a while. Eventually Siobhan took up with a piece of scum like Brien and ended up having lots of kids, no money and getting battered regularly and we lost touch. Patricia went the same way and she cut contact with me. In the meantime my doctors had prescribed blockers and hormones, and I left school with decent qualifications as a pretty looking girl. I was still small, even for a young woman, but I had all the attributes a young woman should have.

I went to college where I acquired decent qualifications too. After that SRS and university. I read psychology and to graduate I had to write a dissertation on anything of my choice. I chose to answer questions that had puzzled me all my life. Why are boys so much more badly behaved than girls at school? Why is it that girls can avoid offending behaviour and boys can’t? I thought I had some answers, simplistic answers, but answers none the less. Girls have something to lose, boys don’t. That’s it, that’s the answer.

Let me explain. Girls from my background start having sex young, often from primary school age, many before the age of ten. By fourteen they are young women and thinking about their future lives. A girl with a baby or two can get a free apartment flat and financial support, and of course women form a support group. She will have her baby to love and her mum, granny, aunties, and sisters to help. She has a bit of money and a life of sorts.

Boys on the other hand only represent the tiny amount of sperm needed to keep the girls in babies. They have nothing to lose by behaving badly. The only way they can get money is by stealing, and the only way they can put a roof over their head is by moving in with a girl with a flat. When they run out of money they take hers often hurting her in the process. The court tells them to stay away from her and her children. So she gets a new boyfriend and her ex moves in with another girl. Eventually they get sent to gaol and they discover it’s warm and they get fed. Why should they behave?

I took an upper second class honours degree before a job as an air hostess with KLM which is how I met Hargenter. I was twenty-four and Hargenter was thirty-two when we met. I’d no idea who Hargenter was. Even less did I know he was a widowered Prince with four children and the heir apparent to the kingdom of Aramontia. We’d been intimate for maybe a month when he asked me to marry him which was a shock. I felt obliged to admit I hadn’t always been a girl and couldn’t give him any children. He said he a confession to make too which was an even bigger shock.

Six months later I was preparing for a state wedding which was nowhere near as hard on my nerves as trying to live up to the expectations of my newly acquired children, the eldest of who had decided I was now Mamma. Irenna and Gunilla were five and a half, Margareta just turned three and baby Hargenter was about to celebrate his second birthday. Their mother, Agnetha, had died eighteen months before in a train derailment that I had not only read about, but was aware that she, the wife of the heir apparent to Aramontia, had died in. My life as a private individual ceased the moment our engagement had been announced. I’d told Hargenter all about my background when I’d been trying to persuade him marriage between us was not a viable proposition due to our different backgrounds.

Hargenter didn’t care. He told me he loved me and he had to marry someone because at his age and in his position he would be seen to be less than complete with out a life partner, and he’d rather by far it were me than having to go looking for a loveless situation which any number in his position had had to settle for. Hargenter was only concerned about how I felt about my past, and asked how much of it I was happy to be public knowledge. I thought about it and said I wasn’t prepared to hide that I was trans, but I wasn’t happy with the idea of any of my family at court, for they’d cast me out and it was best it remained that way. He said they’d not be allowed into the country never mind to appear at court.

I acquired a staff headed by Count Julius von Linsdorf, a lovely man who had been in the same class at school as Hargenter. Hargenter described him as the most intelligent, best connected thorough going scoundrel he knew and said he was giving me the best.

Hargenter’s mother was a lovely lady who welcomed me with open arms. She was the one who told me her husband, the King, had not been well for several years and it was really her son who fulfilled all her husband’s duties. She too had been a commoner, but not quite as common as I. She had become beloved of the ordinary folk and brought the country out of the dark ages with rights for all to a fair trial. Before her time, the country had operated a land management system based on serfdom, which she had revolutionised into a modern system of land tenure. She told me that men of the royal line could not achieve such things for it would be seen as weakness which the country could not afford, and she hoped I would continue her work.

The wedding passed. Ceremonies on that scale are meant to take a long time, they are public entertainment and if the truth be told the longer and more tedious they are for the participants the more they fill the coffers of the exchequer. It wasn’t long before I realised just how many hours and how hard my husband worked. I asked him if he couldn’t delegate some of it because the children missed him. That was what he was working on. He wanted a Council that could still function well enough to run the country even if several members were not available. He said it was overwork that had broken his father.

Julius wasn’t a scoundrel, he was positively Machiavellian. When there was some scurrilous reporting of my previous life, he had one of my ladies in waiting who had recently resigned to have a baby come in to see me with her infant. He had photos taken of me holding the baby as any woman would to her bosom. The photographs were ‘leaked’ to the press, and although there was as little truth in the stories generated by the photos as there was in the previous ones at least they were pro rather than anti me. His most devious trick was to have my adoption of the children made public by incorporating it into the wedding ceremony. Hargenter explained it would make the children happy, but I was certain there were other reasons too.

When Hargenter’s father died his mother withdrew from public duties and other than family and staff she saw hardly anyone. She insisted I visit her every day when I was given an intensive course on being queen consort. The coronation was far more tedious than our wedding, and generated more income too, but it changed little. Hargenter was already working as hard as he could. I spent a lot of time with the children to the ire of some of the court, but Julius handled them for me with ease. I was referred to as your majesty rather than your highness, but if you are the kind of person that would make a difference to you need to get out more.

My Hargenter died from an assassin’s bullet when we’d not been married ten years. I couldn’t function and stayed in my rooms. It was my mother in law who pulled me out of it, and Liv my chief lady in waiting who made sure I stayed pulled out of it. “Penelope, the children need you and the country needs you,” my mother in law told me. “Your husband has made changes, but till all is finalised the different court factions are at war for power. They will tear the nation apart if they are not brought under control. You have to bring them under control, you are the only one who can do it. There are dozens of them outside demanding to see you. They want you to sign power over to them from your son. You must put them in their place. I do know how you feel, I was there too, but the kingdom is at stake and that was a burden I did not have to shoulder. Come, Daughter, together we can master events.”

“How? What do you wish me to do?”

“Julius is outside too. He dismissed the palace guards. The guards outside are his personal troops and only take orders from him, they won’t let any in without his order, so you have some time. He won’t intrude on your grief without your direct order. Order him and only him to see you and then listen to him.”

“Will you tell him, Mother?”

“Certainly. Liv, a glass of schnapps for her majesty to settle her nerves, and some for the count too, if you would?”

“Yes. Your majesty.”

The first thing Julius said was, “You have my sincerest condolences, Madam.”

“Thank you, Julius. I know you must be feeling it too, for you were friends your entire lives. I think in here it should be Penelope, please?”

“Certainly if you so wish, Penelope. Yes it hurts. We gave each other our first black eyes you know.” Julius sounded wistful.

“What is it you wish me to hear, Julius. Madam Mother asked me to listen to you. Please speak your mind, for I am aware a little of what is going on.”

“If we are not careful we shall have civil war. The key to all is your son. He is now the king, with or with out coronation. The law states as your husband drew his last breath as king your son drew his first as king. He can not be king unregented at his age, so the power resides in the regent. The Laksvalks and the Von Derlitchs are the most powerful families in contention for the regency, there are no others, not even as compromise candidates. However, should either of them be appointed regent that will trigger civil war. We must avoid that at all costs.”

“How?”

“You are the de facto regent, but you must be officially appointed regent, with Her Majesty the Dowager Queen as your official advisor. The Laksvalks and the Von Derlitchs can not contend that the children are orphans who should be under the authority of the court because legally their adoption means you are their mother as though you had given birth to them yourself. It would be better if you had another advisor too, preferably someone with military capability to enforce your orders, but I can not recommend any of the court to that rôle.”

“Well that explains the mystery of the adoption being in the wedding ceremony. Whose idea was that? Yours or Hargenter's."

"Hargenter wanted the adoption just in case anything happened to him, but I suggested it be part of the ceremony so the entire nation not just the court would know about it and it could never be argued about."

"I see, very clever. I understand what you are saying, but how do we make my regency acceptable to the court?”

“We don’t. It will be done by public acclamation. The people love you and her majesty too. I have taken the liberty of informing the press that you are the regent with her majesty as your personal advisor, which at the moment is technically true. By the time the papers have been printed it will be too late for the court to do anything about it, and they will have to confirm it officially, or face riots.”

“It’s too late to undo, and I think you are gambling with public safety, Julius, but I suspect you've been doing that for years. As of now you stand in Hargenter's shoes as the commander in chief of all state military matters. I'll sign the order tranfering power from my son to you in a minute. Take over all palace guard duties please and start recruiting into your personal troops. I suggest you incorporate some of our frontier troops into yours, for none will have had any dealings with the Laksvalks' and the Von Derlitchs' troops. Tell the press that you are my other advisor. I'll appoint you an Arch duke with more land and revenue to be able to pay the extra troops, so there can be no accusations that you are using troops paid for by the nation in your personal militia. I suggest we arrange a marriage between one of your family and mine. A public holiday to celebrate their engagement should settle the populace. What do you think?"

"The honour will mean little to me, but it will be seen to be the right thing to do by the people. The engagement and celebration is a fine idea. Gustave my nephew and Margareta have been seen kissing by Liv, so giving them sanction to continue will doubtless please them. I suspect you have been taking lessons in manipulative statecraft, but from where I wonder did you learn about the politics of supporting and paying for troops? and how did I overlook it?"

"Just from yourself and the Queen! However, your troops seem to be doing an excellent job, and doubtless will continue to do so. What of the assassin?”

“He was shot dead at the time by a private, one of mine.”

“What comes to the private, Julius?”

“He’s actually a sergeant now and awaiting the next intake for officer training.”

“I see.”

That’s it really. Eventually my son no longer needed a regent, and didn’t have to work as long nor as hard as his fore bearers. He and his sisters all married for love and I became a grandmother, and am now a great grandmother. I, the Queen from the wrong side of the tracks.