Knowing Gudge will kill her horribly for this supposed adultery, Artemisia has Ludmilla, her elderly handmaid, take one boy and the girl off to Prince Mimulus, Artemisia's younger brother, who's gone into the forest leading a band of rebels. However, Ludmilla confuses them, leaving her with the girl. Artemisia, having already declared she bore a son, must raise the girl as a boy.
Meanwhile, the journey which Ludmilla takes soon goes awry, with the boys ending up raised by a shepherd, who then sells one to a wizard since he can't handle both. The triplets are raised in very different ways, and only years later does fate bring them together again... to amusing results.
Examples:
- Age-Gap Romance: Ludmilla is around a decade older than Odo, and they had an on/off affair for many years.
- Always Identical Twins: All of the triplets are identical to each other (at least over the waist, as one is female while the others are male), so much that each is even mistaken for the others repeatedly.
- The Apprentice: Clootie trains Wulfrith as his apprentice in high wizardry.
- Arrowgram: Artemisia sends all her messages to Prince Mimulus, her brother (aka the Black Weasel) on foot. His responses always come in this fashion, shot into the palace via arrow.
- Bad Boss: King Gudge “solves” any issue he has with a person by beheading them (naturally this includes his underlings).
- Ban on Magic: The Gorgarians have banned men's magic and high wizardry, which Hydrangeans practice, after the Hydrangean wizards tried to stop their conquest. Clootie is the only one who escaped the purge and fled into the countryside, training Wulfrith later.
- Barbarian Tribe: The Gorgarians began as a hard-living steppe tribe who trekked along whatever terrain stood in their way to invade and then conquer Hydrangea, a civilized kingdom. Afterward, their people settled down to rule it. They are mentioned to have various customs Hydrangeans scorn though still, but they can't say anything.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: It's strongly implied that Odo has had sex with his sheep. Gorgarians are also implied to have sex with their mares at times.
- Black Comedy: The book often uses this, with a number of jokes about such topics as death, rape and bestiality, among others.
- Blindfolded Trip: Discussed when the Black Weasel's Bold Bush-dwellers fail to blindfold the messenger Artemisia sends to check on the boys a few weeks after sending them away while taking him to their hideout. This results in the messenger getting Press-Ganged into joining them, while the answer is sent by Arrowgram.
- Burn the Witch!: Clootie gets misblamed as the culprit behind Arbol's supposed transformation to a girl (she was actually always female), with being burned alive one punishment suggested. Before, they'd threatened Lady Ubri with it (since she first was blamed) and any Gorgorian woman around as well. He's saved though.
- Child by Rape: Artemisia was forced to marry Gudge, making their triplets all this.
- Child Mage: Wulfrith began to learn magic at age two. He was impressing his master Clootie with the spells he could already do by age three.
- Child of Two Worlds: Arbol, child of the Gorgarian king who conquered Hydragea and the Old Hydrangean king's daughter, grows up with a foot in both worlds. She brings them together at the end, as the new queen which both have accepted.
- Child Soldiers: The Black Weasel's Bold Bush-dwellers all start as teenage boys, since adult men are busy working. Mostly though they don't much fight, but just act as forest bandits killing and raiding passing merchants on the road.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Gorgarians are fond of torturing people by having wolverines maul them, either for fun or as a prelude to death.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Gorgarians have people mauled to death by wolverines when they want to really make them suffer to the end.
- Elemental Embodiment: Wulfrith controls one with magic to do the dishes.
- Evil Uncle: Prince Mimulus, alias the Black Weasel, is already plotting when the story ends to assassinate his niece, newly crowned Queen Arbol. Given that she's popular and well defended, he sees this as a nice challenge.
- Fantasy Contraception: Artemisia drinks a contraceptive tea after she has triplets to insure that Gudge doesn't get her pregnant again. Mungli uses it too, as she frequently has sex with Artemisia's messengers.
- Fantasy Pantheon: There are at least 172 Gorgarian and Hydrangean gods, though only a few get mentioned specifically.
- Forced Transformation: Clootie and Wulfrith learn how to turn different animals into each other, with the former also planning on using this against the Gorgarians. Later Clootie ends up transforming multiple people while fending them off. However, he can't predict what anything will turn into and can't reverse it either.
- Foreign Ruling Class: The Gorgarians, a foreign Barbarian Tribe, conquered Hydrangea, with their king Gudge killing Hydrangea's king before forcibly marrying and impregnating his daughter to secure his rule. Ever since, he and his people rule, though Hydrangean nobles are allowed to advise him (but Gudge kills anyone who gives advice he'd rather not hear).
- Genuine Imposter: Wulfrith is hired as a retainer for a prince who is actually his Raised as the Opposite Gender and Separated at Birth sister. The two of them being Half-Identical Twins and their mother convincing Wulfrith that he's being kept around as a very secret Body Double results in him accidentally taking the prince's place for most of the pre-coronation rituals. Being unaware that he's equally entitled to the crown results in Wulfrith being horrified that he's taking the rightful prince's place for such a big occasion.
- Half-Identical Twins: Artemisia's triplets look completely identical-two are boys, one a girl raised as a boy.
- Hand Signals: One spell Wulfrith learns uses sign language to command a fire elemental.
- Hidden Backup Prince: Gorgarians believe that twins are a sign of infidelity, so when Queen Artemisia gives birth to triplets, she gives two of them to her handmaid who gives them to two other families to raise as commoners. The rest of the book is a hilarious deconstruction of Prince and Pauper tropes.
- I Call It "Vera": Gudge named his sword “Obliterator”, fittingly.
- I Know Your True Name: Clootie mentions this isn't his true name, since that has power people can use against you.
- Internal Reveal: Everyone witnessing Arbol's royal bath before coronation is incredibly shocked to realize she's a girl (aside from her mother or the reader that is). Arbol herself is outraged, punching people who say this, not having known before.
- Last of His Kind: Clootie is the last Hydrangean wizard until he trains Wulfrith.
- Lemony Narrator: The book's narrator provides amusing, sarcastic commentary on the story's proceedings throughout.
- Logical Weakness: Clootie tries to fend off an angry mob by turning many into animals. They observe he needs to make gestures though, grabbing his hands and tying them so he can't cast the spell. Additionally they gag him, so he can't speak incantations.
- Magical Gesture: Hydrangean spells are mentioned to use gestures sometimes.
- Magical Incantation: Hydrangean magic involves lengthy, complex incantations.
- Magic Is Feminine: Among the Gorgarians women do magic, and men fight. Thus they consider men doing magic bad, saying it makes them a “sissy”. Hydrangean magic on the other hand is done by only men, and they are contemptuous toward women's magic.
- Magic Wand: Hydrangean wizards use wands sometimes at least to do magic.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Wulfrith and Lady Ubri have sex all over the library.
- Missed Him by That Much: How Dunwin and Wulfrith managed to not run into each other, or at least get mistaken for one another by someone else, for more than a decade after being separated despite both their households being reliant on the same small village for supplies is anybody's guess. Clootie asks himself the question after remembering Dunwin exists and puts it down to how few and far between the supply runs were because of their fugitive life.
- Mistaken for Gay: Prince Arbol spending so much time with Wulfrith is mistaken for them being lovers, which worries one councilor, inspiring his father Gudge to behead the fellow for suggesting the idea. Gudge is later simply overjoyed to see Wulfrith (Arbol's twin, though he's unaware of this) having sex with Lady Ubri while in the library.
- Mundane Utility: Wulfrith uses magic to do his chores, such as animating the broom and having it sweep by itself. A common practical spell the wizards know (even when they had become a highly impractical group) is for curing hangovers too.
- No Bisexuals: Gudge acts like Arbol (supposedly) having sex with Lady Ubri shows he's straight, not gay as he'd feared, while of course the bisexual option is also there (assuming this was true).
- Off with His Head!: Gorgarians tend to use beheading as their go-to killing method.
- Out with a Bang: Ludmilla, who was in her seventies or so, died while having sex with Odo when she climaxed.
- Patricide: After King Gudge falls off his horse and dies, the guards think Wulfrith (who they believe is Arbol) did it (not that they mind). It's stated the common way the sons of Gorgarian kings succeed their fathers means simply assassinating them, so they're fine with him (apparently) following the old tradition.
- Prince and Pauper: A large part of the plot is a parody. Three triplets (all identical, except for the fact one is born female, and two male) get inadvertently switched. First when the boys are being sent into hiding, as their sister was supposed to be sent out with them. Their mother is forced to raise her as a son. Once they finally reunite, with none knowing they're siblings, it happens again when Wulfright (one of the sons) becomes foodtaster at the palace for his sister Prince Arbol, with their mother planning to swap them when the succession has taken place because Arbol's secret (along with hers) might come out otherwise. Then they get switched again... and it gets crazier from there.
- The Purge: The Hydrangean wizards were all purged by the Gorgarians, aside from Clootie, when they tried to use magic (ineffectively) against them.
- Raised as the Opposite Gender: Artemisia's daughter is raised as a boy as she mixed up her three children, sending both sons off with her handmaid Ludmilla for safekeeping with their uncle. She has to use elaborate lies for insuring Arbol is never seen naked by other people, and also keeps her ignorant somehow of sexual anatomy.
- La Résistance: The Black Weasel's Bold Bush-dwellers are meant to be this, but become simply bandits preying on Gorgarian merchants, lacking any possible means to end their occupation.
- Rebel Leader: Prince Mimulus styles himself as this under the name the Black Weasel, but in reality he's just the leader of a few forest bandits.
- Ritual Magic: Hydrangean magic involves long complicated incantations and gestures, which by the time of the book has made it largely useless. Clootie however learns how to make effective spells along with Wulfrith for use against the Gorgarians.
- Road Trip Across the Street: After getting mistaken for Arbol losing his virginity when Gudge walks in on him having sex, Wulfrith ends up following Gudge on a celebratory tour of the capital's taverns. Wulfrith's internal narration describes Gudge going through a cycle of drinking at a given tavern until he feels like urinating, leaving the tavern to urinate against its wall and hopping on his horse to ride it to the next tavern. It's pointed out that taverns are sometimes right next to each other.
- Robe and Wizard Hat: Odo is skeptical that Clootie's a wizard since he isn't wearing this, among other things stereotypical to them. Clootie naturally does not as the Gorgarians purged all Hydrangean wizards, so it would be a dead giveaway, as he explains.
- Shout-Out:
- The main plot parodies The Prince and the Pauper using three (mostly) identical triplets who get switched and mixed up.
- Remulo and Rommis, two boys raised by a wolf in a story from Odo. They're based on Romulus and Remus, legendary founders of Rome pretty clearly.
- Squishy Wizard: Hydrangea's wizards were quickly dispatched by the Gorgarians as their magic required long, complicated incantations and gestures, while they were just weak old men.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- At the beginning of the story, the Black Weasel's Bold Bush-dwellers are mostly Child Soldiers because all able-bodied men of proper age already have families and full-time jobs, while the few who don't often have personality flaws that one doesn't want in La Résistance either. Giving everyone codenames involving colors and animals has also caused them to quickly run out of both good animal names and colors the recruits recognize.
- Sending an Arrowgram to someone currently caring for a newborn is a great way to wake up the baby.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Ubri, a Gorgarian woman, dressed up as a man to seduce Arbol... unaware that the latter is herself (unknowingly) a disguised girl.
- Tomboy Princess: Arbol, due to being raised as a boy, is very tomboyish and flatly rejects being more feminine after learning her gender. She continues to be a very skilled sword fighter, while unsubtly threatening people who object to her stance and removing a dress that her mother had her wear at the earliest opportunity.
- Tongue Trauma: Mungli lost most of her tongue to her lover's senior wife, who cast a spell on her after she'd insulted her.
- Twin Switch: Arbol and Wulfrith are switched multiple times once they meet, usually without them meaning to (they're half identical).
- Unequal Rites: Gorgorian sorcery is only practiced by women, with them deeming men doing magic “sissies”. Meanwhile, Hydrangean high wizardy is exclusively done by men, and they express contempt for Gorgarian sorcery.
- Virgin Sacrifice: When the dragon Bernice is bearing down on the capitol, Ubri convinces the people to offer up a royal virgin (Prince Arbol) as the sacrifice so she won't kill them all. She doesn't end up dying.
