The Tale of the Ice Princess

The Halcyon Days - Chapter 5

I decided to set out tomorrow , seeing as how the closest major town , that has quality seamstress shops , was 2 hours away by horse , even longer by carriage .

Our barony was on the small end  , with  most of the inhabitants farmers . Thus, the one town in our barony only featured the minimum of what was needed , like a clothe shop , weapon smith , etc, however the quality produced was not one would call good .

Thus , if i ever needed anything , like dresses , etc. , Mother would buy it when she was at the annual trip to the capital , or when she went on her own trips , she would make sure to get it .

The Lesige territory , governed by Count Lesige , was a territory neighboring ours. In comparison , it was almost four times as large as ours . It's largest town , the one that i would be heading to , was in the middle of the territory , it was called Lesige.

It was customary for the largest town of a territory to be named after the lord , as the lord of the territory resided there . However , since our town was hardly what one would call a "town" , it was opted to not name it after the family name .

That night , i was tossing and turning , too excited to even sleep

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I woke up slightly earlier than sunrise, bursting with energy in anticipation of today's agenda .

Like most days , i got ready by myself .

Most nobles had servants to shower and prep then. However , I felt uncomfortable with the maids washing me and preparing me when i could do it myself .

 So , i did .

I mean ,how would anyone feel comfortable with someone seeing you naked and dressing you ? It is so embarrassing.

No one complained because this was the countryside , no one would know .

Actually, it was because it eased the burden on the already small number of maids we had.

On the surface the Heldor Barony was like the other baronies , producing nothing of note with not much income from the taxes collected  . Thus , the number of servants we had was in proportion to our territory size .

The keyword being, on the surface .

In reality , we had income from other ventures .

Each time Mother shared one of her new discoveries with the Magi Ministry , she gets a part of the profit . The , uhhh , profit was quite substantial due to there being multiple of such contracts.

Father also could make a lot . The mana stones he sends back are worth a lot, i was told , considering they are all of high quality . And we had a few boxes of the stones lying around . Or i think,  barrels , the last time i checked . 

There was also the hidden money passed down . Hidden because they were generated in the same ways Mother and Father did .

Also , the main reason that the other ventures were not recorded was because Mother's contracts were all under her alias , while Father travelled anonymously .

The reasoning behind hiring so few maids was that "the fewer maids that know our secret, the better." Mother's words.

Ohh i should also mention , once hired , servants were not allowed to quit . If they did , they would often die under mysterious circumstances. 

Hmmmm, since i am going to be riding a horse today , i should change into riding clothes .

Riding clothes consisted of a blouse worn underneath , with a high button up jacket on top . It also had pants , which were essential when straddling a horse , with a wrap around skirt .