"Not if I repeal them," he hissed.

"If you repeal them, you leave yourself open to all sorts of problems, father. After all, those same laws protect you. Repeal them, and you lose your own legal protection." She grinned evilly. "Face it, father. The only way you're going to hurt me is if you come down here and do it yourself."

Damon Eram looked past her. "If you will not accept the punishment, then your maid will on your behalf. Only it will be doubled."

"First Volume, year 1737, first decree. The personal servants of the Royal Family will be extended the same protections as the Royal family member whom they serve. Anyone who touches my maid will answer to my bodyguard," she warned in a dangerous voice. "Binter, Azakar, kill anyone who touches my maid," she called loudly in Common, so Azakar could understand the command.

"Now I know you're lying," Damon Eram said triumphantly.

"Then go look it up," Keritanima said flatly. "Would you like the decree quoted to you in its entirety?"

"As a matter of fact, I would," he said with a grin.

Keritanima cleared her voice. "Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Beholden this, a lawful Decree issued forth by Amvar Eram, King of Wikuna, in the year of our Gods 1737. Be it so known that henceforth, the personal servants, grooms, maids, and private attendants of the immediate Royal family shall enjoy the same legal protections as the Royal family member whom they serve, be it matters legal, physical, or tort. The personal servants of said Royal family members shall be protected by the Royal Guard as vigorously as they would defend the Royal family. Hear Ye, Hear Ye, be this decreed as rightful law."

One of the Royal Guard stepped forth boldly. He was a tall panther Wikuni with gray creeping into his black fur, but his green eyes were still sharp and lucid. Keritanima knew him as Shan, the Captain of the Royal Guard, a sober, serious Wikuni devoted to his duty. Keritanima knew that Shan didn't like her father, so it was no surprise that he was speaking up for her now. "Your Majesty, on this matter, I can state confidently that the Princess has correctly cited the law. Personal servants of the Royal family are, by law and duty, protected by the Royal Guard when they stand within the Palace. This is a law I know, so I can support her Highness in its interpretation. Given the circumstances, should anyone attempt to harm the Princess' maid within this hall, the Royal Guard would have to stand forth and defend her from injury."

"Thank you so much for that," Damon Eram said flatly to his Captain, giving Keritanima a slightly wild look. He seemed shocked that she could quote forgotten laws and decrees. "I will definitely have your laws researched, daughter," he said in a savage voice. "Until I remove all the blocks to your flogging, you will return to your apartments. But be ready to receive your punishment. But now it will be on hundred lashes, carried out in the Market Square at high noon. And you will have to march to the square naked, then march back after you have received your punishment."

"I'm so glad you think so, father," she said flippantly, turning her back to him and walking away without curtsying, or waiting to be dismissed.

"You will show me proper respect!" Damon Eram screamed from his throne.

"I'm already going to be whipped," she snorted, glancing at him over her shoulder. "Why should I bother with hollow tokens of respect?"

"How dare you!" he shrieked.

"I dare lots of things, father," she said, stopping and turning around. "I am what you made me. Now you have to face the reality of your molding." She stared at him, raised her hand to the side of her muzzle, pulled down her lower eyelid, and then stuck her tongue out at him. "That's from the Brat," she said with a grin. "She says hello."

That created a bit of laughter among the courtiers, who were now thoroughly enthralled with the drama playing out between father and daughter.

Keritanima collected her maid and her bodyguards, turned and gave her father a toothy grin, then sauntered out of the throne room acting as if she owned it. She left behind a court trying very hard not to laugh in the presence of an infuriated, indignant, thoroughly humiliated King, and his astounded, shocked, and very worried younger daughter.

Word of Keritanima's mastery of her father during their initial encounter raced from the Palace like the wind, and spread throughout the city. Word of it reached every pub and alehouse, scattered through warehouses and aboard docked ships, and floated through the parlors of the rich and the noble. By sunset, everyone in Wikuna was whispering about how Damon Eram's daughter embarassed him in his own throne room.

And more than one nobleman reassessed his opinion of Damon Eram's enigmatic daughter.

GoTo: Title EoF

Chapter 13

"What are you doing?" Azakar asked Keritanima curiously.

It was the day after the Princess dressed down her father in his throne room. There had been no servants or messengers, leaving her in her rooms to supposedly sweat out her impending punishment. A group of guards had, however, come in and removed all her jewelry, all her dresses, and all her money. The rooms were a bit emptier now, especially the closet, but that didn't bother her in the slightest. All she had left were the dresses Miranda made for her on the journey to Wikuna, but they were good enough.

There had been a time when looking good had been almost obsessively important to her. Granted, she did look good in the well-made dresses supplied by Miranda, but they were not the silks and satins, brocade and velvet that had usually graced her form. She realized it after they came and took all her dresses away, that she didn't miss them in the slightest. A house-sized closet full of rows and rows of beautiful gowns, and she had chosen the morning before to wear the simple brown dress that Miranda had made for her. She guessed that her time with her brother and sister had had a much more significant impact on her than she first believed. She did look good in Miranda's dresses, and she discovered that that was good enough for her.

But they were gone now. She didn't miss them, but it did free up a great deal more room in the apartments. They had been very thorough in their search of her rooms for gold and valuables, which meant that they had only found about half of what she really had on hand. The problem they had was that they still remembered Keritanima the Brat. They didn't look any further than her rooms, and they didn't find half of her fortune there. Keritanima had had years to build a complex web of spies, informants, and assassins, and that took vast amounts of gold. Usually, her allowance, and the money she could steal from the treasury with her father's seal and a key to the treasury was enough to cover her expenses. But sometimes, for a rush job or something serious, she needed more than she could easily obtain without having to sell off all the dresses and jewels that the Brat fancied. To cover the cost of those occasional crises, Keritanima had become something of a phantom businesswoman. Under the name Lizelle, Keritanima owned a very large, very profitable trading company. It was chaired by a Wikuni that ran it for her, yet had no idea by whom he was employed. Lizelle Sailmender was an imaginary person, but in Wikuni records, she seemed as real as a real person. She had a large file in the Hall of Records as the owner of substantial property in the capital city. She was a thriving businesswoman with a net worth rivalling some smaller noble houses, and every year she paid large sums in taxes. Lizelle wasn't a noblewoman, so there was no tax breaks for her business. Were she a real person, she'd probably grumble about that endlessly. She even had a couple of minor legal infractions, one for public drunkenness and another for assault on another Wikuni businessman during a meeting, some ten years ago. They were faked, but they gave the imaginary Lizelle more color, more believability.