Vigil for a Dragon, pt 14

Amelia is a very different woman now.

Forced to make her way as a kitchen drudge, Amelia now knows practical skills she was only vaguely aware existed before all this. She can cook and clean and sew. And oh yes, she can wield a sword. Her escape from her captors, almost a year ago itself now, was a simple enough thing – she simply hid herself in a wagon that was leaving the castle – but life since then has been more complicated. But not worse.

On her first night out, she fell in with some brigands, and that would likely have been the end of her if their leader, a good-looking fellow named Lobb, had not been feeling playful. When she challenged him to a duel, he told her that if she drew first blood she could join their band as an equal. So, as he turned to ask one of his followers to loan her a sword, she kicked him in the crotch, then slammed her knee into his face as he doubled over in pain. The resulting nosebleed was agreed by all there to constitute first blood, much to Lobb’s chagrin.

Amelia has never looked back. She worked hard and learned fast, and now she could pitch a tent, start a fire, ride a horse – all those things considered too indelicate for princesses to know. More importantly, she could defend herself with a sword, a knife or just her own two hands, and she was even getting more accurate, slowly, with a bow and arrow. She had an insider’s knowledge of where the rich and noble liked to hide their things, and the kinds of passwords they liked to ensorcel treasures with.

Lobb’s gang had never had it so good. With her advice, they stole more than they ever had before, and as she grew better at strategizing, did so with less effort, too. Within a few months of joining the gang, she had become the co-leader of it with Lobb (now somewhat less handsome, after his broken nose healed awry, but the had become lovers anyway, although that is another story entirely), and full leader in her own right after Lobb’s unfortunate encounter with the hangman.

In her heart, she cherishes a dream of winning back the kingdom to which she is the rightful heir someday. But the only outward sign of it is the veil she wears, that she not be recognized until it pleases her to be so.