Here are the opening pargaraphs of my draft for Tuerqui:
My name is Tuerqui, formerly Princess Margaret of the Blood Victoria. But, to start at the beginning…
A zephyr rustled in the leaves on overhanging branches – the air filled with the songs of birds, the names of which I didn’t yet know. Having recently tripped over what was probably a tree root, my skinned knees still stung. My mother’s musky perfume mingled with the lavender Nanny Spencer always wore. The clear water of a brook teemed with tiny fishes – I poked a stick at them, and instantly they were gone.
Glancing up, I saw a creature in the shadow of the trees – man-like, but exceptionally hairy and uglier than any person or slave has a right to be. My brother started to scream. The beast thing, to which I couldn’t yet put a name, tumbled – falling face-down on the grass. Steeling myself to approach, I saw that the shaggy thing had an arrow in its side, bright red blood spread over the green surface on which it lay.
That is, I think, my earliest coherent memory. It must have been summer, but whether of my first, second or third birthday, I cannot say. The place must have been the forest that covers much of southern Essex – for I was raised there, in the Belle House, my mother’s ancestral home. Possibly I had been born in Lundin, a city my father ruled – claiming the title of Chieftain of the Blood Victoria. But there remain with me no early recollections of the town.
Here's a point at which formerly coarse elided dialogue has been changed:
“Surrey bitch!” one man snarled.
“Ah,” said his companion. “I think she’ll pay for the trouble she’s given us. His Majesty’s going to have her packed off to either Roach Keep or the Grim Tower, you’ll see.”
Three or four handlers minded leashed hounds – presumably employed to track my cousin in the forest. Whether by accident or design, one of the dog-men permitted his charge to mount the leg of a young officer cadet. As the creature started to hump, the young man squealed and shook his leg furiously – a comic dance at which his companions roared with laughter. Winning free after a struggle, the cadet kicked the dog viciously.
“Hoi!” bawled a sergeant. “Cadet Grace – leave that hound alone!”
“Sorry, serge.”
“You don’t sound very sorry lad – but, if you don’t watch it you will be – on the painful end of a whip. That there hound’s valuable. If you need to kick anything make it the prisoner. Another booting for her will make no odds to anyone.”
) It was a thread that the browsing (or should I say surfing -- or in the case of spiders slurping??) public at large couldn't view. 
