Once there lived a young lady rogue.  She had a modest amount of success in her life of thievery, but desired more.  Living in the shadows, constantly fearing the guardians of law was no life for her.

  So it was that she hatched a plan to steal what she considered the greatest treasure of all... the very keys to the kingdom.  The king was seeking a wife for his son the prince so that he could leave his lands to his son and retire to more luxurious life.  But a common rogue would not meet with the king's approval.

  The rogue had her plans, though.  Bolts of the finest cloth, stolen from hapless caravans, woven and stitched into high formal attire by skilled seamstresses at the pointy end of her soori, stolen coin hiring fake pages to fill some of that attire...  The peices of her plan fell into place very neatly.

  When the young lady rogue was announced before the king in his court, the king was very impressed.  The prince was staring with jaw agape.  The rogue fluttered her eyelashes and before long was walking down the aisle to be wed to the prince.  The wedding was done in haste, the king congratulated his son and new bride, wished them all the joy in the world, and headed off for his apparently eagerly awaited retirement.

  The rouge smiled as she saw the king depart the lands, soon to be her lands, for only the fool of a prince stood between her and absolute power now.  Indeed, on their very honeymoon night, the guard responded to a horrific scream from the royal bedchambers.  The prince lay on the bed, foaming from the mouth and very deceased.

  The rogue bride cried and cried, telling the guards that she had no idea what had happened.  Her acting was extremely convincing.  Nobody doubted her word at all.  The prince's body was carried off for ceremonial burial.  The now Queen Rogue was coronated the next day.

  The Rogue sat in her throne, grinning from ear to ear.  She had succeeded!  The greatest theft of all, an entire kingdom was now hers!  As she sat reveling in her victory, the captain of the guard came rushing into the throne room.

  Badly wounded, the captain barely managed to kneel before his new liege.  He explained that the border defenses had finally fallen under the siege of the warlord in the next kingdom, the troops were being massacred, what were they to do...?

  The rogue Queen's smile quickly faded from her face as the enemy catapults began to pound at the castle walls.  Perhaps if she managed to survive the enemy assault she would learn a valuable lesson from her little theft:

  Things are not always as valuable as they seem.