• Chapter One


    Lia surveyed the area before her with her hands propped on her hips. "And what do you think you're doing?"
    The three boys, friends who never quite forgot her higher status, looked up in fright. They would get in big trouble if Lia took offence and told her Ma.
    The girl picked up one of the sticks which they had been using to spar with.
    "You hold it like this." She demonstrated. "Don't bother with the fancy stuff, just go straight in, and..." The girl lunged, stick a blur, at one of the boys. Before he knew what was happening he was disarmed and had a stick at his throat.
    "I yield!" He said hurriedly.
    Lia smiled and stepped back, once more becoming a gentle young lady who looked as delicate as a butterfly wing. "You shouldn't try the fancy stuff yet. Not when you don't know the basics properly."
    "Can you teach us, Lia?" Another one piped up eagerly.
    But she shook her head. "I shouldn't even have done that. If Ma saw me doing anything unladylike..." She shuddered. "I don't even want to think of it."
    All three faces fell; they knew that they would never get taught now. If the Lady was against something, that was it.
    "Well, are you gonna stay?" The third asked hopefully.
    She shook her head again. "Sorry. I'll have time tomorrow, though, I promise!"
    They all traded glances. She had promised that before.
    Lia saw the looks and felt annoyed. "No, this time I will!"
    "Sure. See ya, Lee."
    "Bye." Lia wished she could stay and practise fighting with them. She wished she wasn't noble.
    She wished her mother wasn't so uptight.
    That very morning, the Lady had said, "Lia, dearest, I do wish you would stop wasting your time with those peasants. They are below your standing."
    "Mother, if someone had decided differently all those years ago," Lia explained patiently, "We would be peasants now. People are people."
    Her mother, horrified, had nearly had a heart attack. She made the girl swear to never, never say such a filthy, untrue thing again.
    Lia sometimes hated her mother.

    "Good afternoon, Papa," Lia said as she walked through the kitchen. "Good to see that you are back from your trip.
    "Oh, hello, Lia." Her father smiled. He was by far more easygoing than her mother. "Your mother mentioned that you said something nasty at breakfast. Something along the lines of saying we were peasants?" He raised an eyebrow.
    Lia sighed. "Papa, you know how she gets. I only said that people are people, because she was insulting my friends."
    "I see." He gazed at her steadily. "You must surely know by now that not everyone is as just as you are, Lia? Most folk believe that the only real people are nobles."
    "Well, that's just awful." Lia snapped. "I know peasants and I know nobles, and let me tell you, peasants are far easier to talk to than an empty-headed noble!"
    Fighting laughter at his daughters outburst, he simply replied, "I know that, my dear, but no one else does. Do you intend to single out every member of the nobility, ending with the King himself, and educate them?"
    "If I have to, I will." The girl sniffed, putting her dainty nose in the air. Her father, losing the battle, began to laugh.
    "What?" Lia demanded, annoyed.
    "It's nothing." He answered. "It's just funny because I know you're telling the truth."