The Baron of Latiz (1)

 1

Samh 4.03.1328

When Amoranda was six, in her mind, her home was perfect because her family had managed to shield her from everything, including the difficulties her parents had. She was everyone’s little angel especially that of her Uncle, Major Jarlwyn Yeoritt. Her beauty was extremely admired as was her lively wit. 

It was common in Western Guillway for well-off parents to spoil their children while at the same time leaving their nurses to raise them. On the entire planet of Samh, Western Guillway was, perhaps, the most back woods and behind the times. 

At that young age of six, Amoranda was no sooner told that she was pretty than she believed it and listened with pleasure to those who said her eyes were like sapphires, her cheeks roses, her skin alabaster, and her lips coral. All the compliments made an early impression upon the mind of young Amoranda, and it was then she began to think of herself as favorably as others did. 

One day, while she was in the midst of thinking grandly about herself, her friend, came to visit with his family. Although he was three years older than her, he adored her like the rest. He ran up to her and flung his arms about her neck, as he had always done previously when he came to see her. He was unaware that the doting she constantly received had gone to her head.

“Get away from me, Valant,” she said, pushing him. “I don’t want your affections! Get away from me, and do not return.”

Valant was puzzled by this behavior. His mouth dropped open, and he stared at her in surprise. 

“Amora—” he began but was interrupted. 

“You may call me ‘Madam,’” she sniffed like an empress.

This was too much for him, and he burst out laughing to see a six-year old behaving with such pride. 

“Madam,” he said in the most grown-up voice he could muster, “you need not be so proud. I have got a prettier woman that you who will be my wife, and I love her better than you by half. I will never come to you again!” 

With that, he left her side and sat in the parlor with his parents, ignoring Amoranda the rest of his visit. When Amoranda saw him leaving her home later that day and knew he planned to go to another woman, her feminine pride gathered in her soul, and she fell into a violent passion of tears. She was shocked another girl was preferred to her. She found it intolerable to see the boy go off without another word after insulting her. Mortifying resentment flashed in her eyes and her breast heaved with anger as if she were a slighted lover instead of a six-year old playmate. 

Her mother, who had witnessed the event and was hoping to arrange a marriage between the two children, was as full of mirth, “Why, Amoranda, did you send away your spouse if you are now angry that he left?” 

“My spouse!” she said, incensed. “I scorn that little unmannerly brat. He shall never be my spouse. He told me to my face he liked another better than me! I hate him and her both, and so I’ll tell ‘em if either comes here again. I shall never rest until I have revenge!” 

Here was pride, jealousy, and revenge kindled in the breast of a young child. It was from this young age she learned to like being loved and adored but to hate the man bringing that love and adoration. 

Her mother and father were so caught up in their own problems they saw her only as a way out of them by arranging a good marriage for their daughter—and on many occasions she was also a great source of entertainment and distraction for them. They were under the mistaken notion of many parents that everything is adorable and funny when a child does it. She was encouraged to do many things that adults would have been ashamed of—and she herself would also have felt some embarrassment about if reason had been given any time to play its part and help guard her actions. 

Hidden from Amoranda was the fact her own father, the Colonel of Paltzture, had ugly inclinations that led him into a thousand extravagancies. Women and drinking took up a great part of his time, and the rest was spent in gaming which was his darling diversion—even more so than Amoranda. When Amoranda was seventeen, her father died a beggar by his lifestyle, indebted to his brother. 

His wife, whom he had married for her fortune, and Amoranda’s doting uncle were left her guardians, but her mother had a weak constitution from all the years of being poorly used by her father. In less than six months, she was also dead. Amoranda was left almost on her own, an accomplished and beautiful flirt, filled with pride, artifice, and vanity, but lacking in many other important things, like discretion, wisdom, and the ability to set boundaries. She was also never taught military arts, which every other daughter of a colonel knew.