The Kingdom of Liticea: The Sorcerer Prince

Chapter Thirty: Of Women and Warriors

Eliza Elenor's belly still ached after a night of uninhibited dining. To the feast Eliza wore a blue dress that split to show her wearing grey pants and black boots. On her arm was a symbol of House Eleanor and on the other was the sign of the School of Chivalry. All graduates wore that wherever they went, wherever party, joust or battle.

Eliza was not the first woman to go to the School, but she was the only one in her class. When the boys were too busy to whistle at the tavern wenches or visit the whores at the Brandyhouse, they would turn to her for enjoyment. It hardly ever went beyond whistles and calls, but several advances ended in bloody noses for both parties. She had the reputation of prude, and a bore. But that was what they said when she would not get into bed with them. There were a select few who she had ever given the pleasure, but she never felt any guilt about it. There was a time in Litici history where women never held swords, and whose maidenhoods were valued more than their lives. Eliza thanks Rannos that she was not born at that time. It was the Time of Crisis, the Litikus Dynasty had been destroyed, the Sparticans were coming down from the north, and the whole country was engulfed in war. Though it was men who fought on the battlefield, but it was the women who carried the future, in their wombs. One was a young lower-level noblewoman, who carried the bastard child of the last of the Litikus Dynasty. This woman would birth a daughter, and Houses great and small fought endlessly for her hand. Thousands of men died, so one could court a young bastard girl.

That story made Eliza laugh. So much death and devastation for a little girl. Reading the accounts at the school library, Cassandra Silver was as fair, kind and innocent as a child could be. One would not think that she would be the one to plunge Liticea in chaos. When she was seventeen, after the same number of years of war, she was finally married to Atorion, the new Lord of House Lanray, the original Dukes of Forthren.

Cassandra grew up under his family's protection, right here in Anton, where it was safe. Back then, the Westland was a neutral sovereign country. All the threats came from north and south, great houses wanting their sons to become King. It was not until the marriage did the fighting stop.

Growing up as the daughter of a Duke, Eliza saw this play out everywhere. Her brother was married now, and her three of her four sisters were betrothed. All to keep Noor bound together by blood. Gold was not the greatest rich in the land, but the prospect of children, born to places higher than their parents. That is the greatest treasure a Baron or Duke could ever hope to dream of. It was worth fighting over.

Did Cassandra know that as she grew up here? Eliza thought to herself. Near the statue of Rannos Litikus, there was a smaller one of a dancing little girl. Cassandra never led any armies, nor conquer any continents. But the value of the blood that flowed her veins made the Lords of Anton deem her worthy to put up next to her distant grandfather.

According to scholars, Cassandra is the one whom all the maids of Liticea should exalt. She united a country after her family was destroyed. Eliza never believed it. Eliza believed she was a scared child used as a means to power. There was one whom Eliza truly admired, but she did not have a place in this courtyard nor anywhere else in Liticea. Diana the Conqueress, who led across land and sea to take so much land, her reach would rival that of the First Empire.

Diana was not Litici, however. She was Spartican, the enemy. She laid the groundwork for what would eventually lead to centuries of conflict between the two countries, decades of brutal occupation, and scores of lives were lost. That is what they taught her in the school. Diana was a tyrant and marauder, that destabilized the north and painted the land red.

But the impression she left on Spartica was nothing to be scoffed at. Since Diana's time, there have female emperors, generals, and politicians. Long before the first woman set foot in the School of Chivalry.