Despite having Amelia prepare for a six day stay, we arrived at the convent deep in the night of the first day. After the first stop, I passed out. The constant jarring just overwhelmed my system, and like any child on a car ride, I slept.

  I was groggy when Amelia stopped again. I heard a loud bell, but I stayed hidden.

  “Tretya’s tits. Do you know what time it is?” The voice was gruff, but female.

  “I am an imperial messenger carrying a package for this convent. On direct orders.”

  “Well, hold your horse. I see your colors, and at least they sent a girl this time. I’ll get the gate open.”

  A horrendous sound of wood over stone grated the air, then the horse took a few steps. I felt the basket shift as Sir Amelia got off.

  “Hey. I didn’t…”

  The noise came again.

  “Say you could close the door.”

  “I am here to pledge a few years as an instructor. Under orders from the imperial family.” The basket opened and Amelia lifted me out.

  “Oh.” The voice got softer. “We haven’t had any news…?”

  “No news, just separating this one from politics. She is not an imperial princess.”

  I held the letter out in both hands.

  The woman mumbled as she read. “Handmaiden, Viktal, hereditary lady, political stirrings, precautionary measures. Well. At least they paid this time. Last war they hid three girls here without even a knicked copper. So. Let’s get you both set up in the rectory for the night and we can take care of everything in the morning. Oh, take down her hair. It’s a dead giveaway.”

  We followed the … nun? Priestess? Into the house beside the gate and into a small room with two beds.

  “There’s water for washing anon the stand and the chamber pots just take a little mana to clean.” She left us there.

  Sir Amelia took down and brushed out my hair. Her hands were surprisingly gentle.

  “I wonder how they wear their hair here.” I mused as I yawned.

  “You’ll see in the morning. Are you alright? I know leaving home can be tough.”

  I blinked at her. “You are one of my primary caregivers. I’m home.”

  She looked touched, but still worried. “I don’t think I will be able to interact with you much.”

  “Just nod when you see me.” I said, “Or if that’s too obvious, lift a finger.” I demonstrated.

  “Sleep.”

  I woke to a hushed argument in the next room. Sir Amelia was still snoring quietly.

  “-Not a princess.” The gruff voice from last night was saying.

  “Hah. Thats what they always claim. How old did she look?” That voice sounded, if anything, older and gruffer.

  “Four or five. About right for the last princess.”

  “Something tells me she won’t be the last one we house.” Another, lighter, almost melodic voice opined. “Do we have a bed in the lowest class?”

  “Several.” the older voice barked. “Maybe not enough of them if…”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  They didn’t want to even say ‘if the emperor dies.’

  “They’ll probably leave her here until she’s grown. Does she have any tattoos or identifying marks?”

  “I did not strip her to look.” The gate watcher said tartly. “But they all do, don’t they?”

  A sudden rap at the door took Amelia from sound asleep to standing with a dagger brandished. She looked around, looked at me. She sheathed the dagger.

  “We are awake and well enough dressed.” My bodyguard said.

  The door opened.

  “It’s a little before dawn, but the day starts at dawn here.” The older woman looked as old as her voice, stooped and leaning on a cane, no, a shillelagh. “I’ll take you to the quartermaster for your uniform, then to breakfast. Book learning happens the hour after each meal. We are a militant order, and you will be expected to join us in physical training after breakfast and lunch. Showers before dinner, we have quite a nice bathhouse. Then bedtime directly after the third book lesson. Do you know your age, child?”

  “I will be four on the third of next month.”

  The woman glanced over her shoulder and shrugged.

  “I’m not a princess, but I know two princesses.” I said. “But I’m not going to mention them again. I am going to be Mira Lacer and I am going to do well here.”

  “You are younger than our youngest students. If you are behind, you can repeat the first year. So. Clothing and supplies. This way.”

  “Sir Knight.” The young woman in the best, most costly garments stopped Amelia from following me.

  I did exceptionally well at the convent. When the teachers- they were all priestesses and all called Sister something- realized how advanced I was in reading and math, they sent me to a room by myself to ‘play’ for morning and afternoon classes. They considered putting me with the older girls, but besides being demoralizing for the others, I passed the tests for all five years they taught.

  Evening classes were still mandatory.

  Evening classes were history, philosophy and theology. This was a religious order, after all.

  I spoke to the quartermaster and obtained a quantity of wool and a drop spindle. I spent class time making yarn and knitting it into uniform sweaters.

  There was a reason I was focusing on fiber arts. Besides yarn being a hyperfixation from my first youth.

  Clothes were expensive. Even an imperial princess worked her own loom.

  Fibers- hair, fur, feathers, cotton like fluffs and more- were some of the most valuable spoils of adventure. They were clean and easy to store. Sometimes you didn’t need to kill anything to get them.

  Then, such fibers were more expensive if crafted into something beautiful.

  I also had no experience spinning, but it was an acceptable way to spend my free hours, under the watchful eye of the quartermaster, Sister Eliza.

  Yard exercise was an entirely different matter. I was placed in the back row, among the other ungainly little girls, mostly already five years old, and expected to work myself into exhaustion.

  Unfortunately for the instructors, I had been at this exercise thing with my first thoughts in this world.

  Still, I had a little bit of trouble keeping up right at first. It was a lot of muscle memory building nothing. The same punch a hundred times in a row. That sort of thing.

  Afternoons were more fun. Indoor training was a mix of obstacle courses, gymnastics style equipment and, strangely, thieving exercises. The classic belled dummy for example.

  They didn’t go deep into pick pocketing. It was just a ‘game’ we would play while other cohorts were on the equipment.

  The girls were all organized into cohorts rather than classes. They were partly age based, partly ability based. I decided to go with the flow and not fight to be the little genius in this tiny pond.

  That decision to stick with my cohort came three weeks into my stay, after my academic supremacy.

  That was when the news broke that the Emperor had died. Hard on the heels of that messenger, six knights with double baskets arrived at the convent. The girls were all decoys. I had never even met any of them.

  They seemed happy enough to join the school. They also seemed to treat me in a slightly fawning fashion, which was disconcerting.

  The day they arrived, I was assigned to their new cohort, informed I would have to go to class after all, and Sir Amelia was assigned as our cohort leader.

  Her orders were clear, but her gaze lay on me for too long.

  “You are all decoys for the sixth Princess. Eventually soldiers will come looking for her. When they do you are to cower in a huddle and try to imagine that you are her. Be scared. Cling to one another. If they single one of you out and have her physically in their hands, protest that you are the real princess all at once. Mob them if necessary to protect any one of you. If I say run, you do your best to get away, but if they catch you, go limp. If they ask you who your best friend ever was, you say Miranda d’Isla. In the meantime, take this opportunity to educate yourself, and to learn the basics of natural body tempering. Now go to bed.”

  It was a peaceful three years, but only inside the walls of our sanctuary. Outside our walls great battles devastated the landscape.

  A messenger or merchant with a broadsheet to read came through about once a month.

  We were very well fed, our clothes were clean, our bodies were washed, we kept busy at all times.

  The palace was a distant dream of surrealism.