Growing, pains and heals 

"When Fionsrah was not in the mood to play with the other children, she often stayed in the writing room and studied one of the many books there. Besides the Bibles, there were books about the history of Arnenland and the surrounding countries, about wars, animals and plants, even books about trade and how to wield a sword, but that was too boring for her. Done with studing she often went back to Johlanda's house to help her mother, or she roamed the Arneravine and watched the people working, running errands.

After a few months, as Fionsrahs pains and losses faded slowly in to her present life, Johlanda and Fionsrah started to get along as friends again and they enjoyed their time at school together.

At the castle, as the years went by, people took less notice of Fionsrah. She also increasingly looked like a herbalist as no one groomed her elaborate clothes that she once wore as a princess. Her father, the king, had remarried a cousin of Thiara, though no family connection could be seen. She was sent to the court of Arnenland by her Aunt, the king of Chatelanovia. She already had a child from her first husband, a wealthy general who had fallen in battle, and she gave birth to Ferohn, a son. Henrietta therefore had to deal with a new prince and princess.

Fionsrah particularly liked to watch Anton Schmid, who was a year older than her and was being trained as a knight. In the late afternoon, he could be found on the street outside the forge where he tirelessly practiced his strikes, thrusts, feints, retreats, and parries with wooden replicas of a sword and shield.

One day, as Fionsrah watched Anton's exercises again, she began to mimic movements with elaborate gestures, out of boredom. After he put up with this for some time, he said, not without ulterior motives, "You could be useful! Take that stick there and attack me if you dare." Fionsrah could not ignore this challenge. Armed with a wooden stick that was actually meant to be firewood, she attacked Anton, but he quickly disarmed her by striking the stick out of her hand, which did not come without pain. She heard her mother's voice say, "When you fall off the horse, you have to get back on right away." But only now did she understand what was meant."

After Anton hit her with two more blows on the arm, she became very angry, but the strong blows that she now brought down on Anton's shield only resulted in her make shift weapon breaking into pieces. Although Anton was hit on the head by one of the pieces, he laughed as he looked behind his shield and saw Fionsrah standing there with only a wooden stub in her hand. He skillfully ducked as she threw that at him too and ran off, insulted. Fionsrah thought she would show him. So in Axtholm's workshop, she stole a long rectangular piece of beech wood, which was a bit cumbersome but wouldn't break. In the chest in the writing room, there was still an old sandal of Bartolomeus, which she tied to her arm and served as a shield. One day when Emil Schmidt looked for his son so he could help him with the blacksmithing, he saw that he was practicing with a girl and promptly put a stop to it by taking the girl's wooden weapon away, saying it was just not suitable for a girl to endeavor. Anton protested: "How am I ever going to be a good swordsman if I don't have an opponent to practice on." "Shouldn't you be practicing with Xavier Kleintal? He's doing the training with you." "Yes, but he always starts crying and besides, he's spoiled and stupid." "Hey, you can't talk about the son of the first knight like that, or at least not out here." They laughed. "Come on, my son, you're supposed to help me. And you, get yourself home." The blacksmith said to Fionsrah. But Fionsrah didn't feel like going home, or at least not until dinner was served in the kitchen. Instead, she went back to the writing room and stuck her nose into the book on sword fighting that she had found, some hints seemed helpful to her, others less so, but it would be interesting to try them out. A few days later, she had a suitable piece of wood again and was a welcome training partner for Anton.

Johlanda no longer spent as much time with Fionsrah, as she considered brawling with wooden sticks in the late afternoon to be unbecoming for a young lady. After a few months, Anton no longer showed Fionsrah what he had learned from Richard Kleintal in class, but instead, she showed him what she had learned from the fencing book. Emil Schmied encountered them in between, but he simply ignored the crazy girl. When Anton had injured himself for the third time on Fionsrah's square training log, Emil even considered it appropriate to buy Anton a reserve wooden practice sword that was completely dulled all around. A year went by and Anton became better and better at sword fighting thanks to Fionsrah, and he even received more praise than Xavier, who was the son of their master. This encouraged Xavier to make an appearance at the blacksmith's shop to see what Anton was up to, as Anton never seemed eager to exercise with him anymore. To his surprise, he discovered that Anton's partner was the princess Fionsrah, who had fallen out of favor at court and made him look bad in the process. But he couldn't help but open his big mouth. "Well, well, what do we have here? Our little banished princess and Anton, our model student, not good enough to measure himself against a real man." He patted his chest. Fionsrah grinned, "I'm still taller than you." With an elegant arm movement, she knocked Anton's wooden sword out of his hand, causing it to lie in front of Xavier's feet. Anton said, "You try if you dare....." "Of course I dare," he picked up the wooden sword and began to attack Fionsrah, just as he had learned. Fionsrah grinned confidently as she always knew a little in advance which attack was coming. After a few strikes, she knocked the sword out of his hand.

This time it landed at Anton's feet, he picked it up and threw it to Xavier, saying "Well, that's probably beginner's luck." After a few more strikes, Fionsrah took advantage of Xavier's carelessness as he swung widely past her and slammed the flat side of her wooden training sword against his cheek, causing a red streak that reached all the way to his ear. Xavier dropped the sword in horror and grabbed his face, tears streaming down as he sobbed, "I'll tell my father." "Oh yeah? You'll tell your father that you were embarrassed by a girl?" Xavier said nothing more and ran towards the castle.

Fionsrah had completed her academic training this year and even as a model student. She didn't like writing but she made up for it with her reading and now knew every book in the small library. In addition to reading and writing, she could also do arithmetic and had some knowledge of geography, history, politics, and the nature of things.

Her teacher, Bartolomeus Zeus, was impressed and she and Johlanda received a small certificate from the Kloster Buchholz monastery, which recognized them as scholars and would grant them access to the large monastery library in Buchholz.

Johlanda's parents were very proud that their daughter had received such an elite education. It was arranged for Johlanda to be accepted as an apprentice by Justus Recht, the chief scribe. From now on, she would work in the writing room at the castle.

Since Fionsrah's father would never sign a journeyman's certificate, Johlanda's mother offered to help her with manual work. But Fionsrah didn't want to do manual work, she would have preferred to be a knight or at least a blacksmith. But Johlanda's parents just laughed, even Johlanda laughed.

"A girl who wants to become a knight, how silly." Said Johlanda's father Friedrich Axtholm. Upon this, Fionrah went home.