Illinen was sitting on a cool garden bench, contemplating her father's reaction, when someone plopped down beside her. Illa turned and smiled at her younger sister Izmae. The blonde, freckled girl was wearing a loose shirt and breeches, and positively dripping with sweat.

'I beat Raif with the practise swords again,' she reported gleefully, naming their brother, who was home for the holidays between his second and third years of page training.

'Honestly, I don't know how we're ever going to make a knight out of that boy,' she added in a more matronly tone. Illa smiled again; she knew that Izmae was living for the day when she would be old enough to go to Corus and join the Queen's Riders. For fourteen-year-old Iz, that day was only a little over a year away, and her constant enthusiasm was beginning to make her rather difficult to live with. But she was still her big sister's chief confidante.

'Iz,' Illa ventured, 'What would you say if I told you I wanted to be the next prime minister?'

'I'd say you were out of your mind,' responded Izmae cheerfully, displaying no flicker of surprise at the revelation.

'You know what those government men are like: how'd you like to end up as a stuffy, wrinkled conservative in forty years time?' Illa sniggered – the picture was not a pleasant one – but she pressed on.

'Seriously, do you think it's even worth me trying?' Izmae squeezed her sister's hand.

'I have complete confidence in you, despite the fact that you'd be the first woman even to train in politics at the university of Tortall, let alone hold a position in government. And despite the fact that the conservatives will have nothing to do with you, and no one will want their sons to court you, and you'll make more enemies than friends. And despite the fact that you know people always hate politicians (ever wondered why they wrinkle so fast?), and that you'll have the weight of the nation on your shoulders if you ever actually get there, which mathematically is a small probability. Other than that, yes, I think it's a great idea. Go for it, Illa!'

Sometimes Izmae could be rather too blunt. Illinen shoved her impertinent sibling off the bench, and then sighed.

'That's exactly what father said, and before you ask, I pushed him of his seat too!'

'But aren't you going to do it anyway?' Asked Izmae eagerly, reclaiming her position on the bench with caution.

'I don't see why not,' replied her sister. 'I've done my research, and there's nothing in the laws that says I can't. It's just the unwritten laws I have to content with. The ones which dictate that a girl my age should be at court trying to find a husband, or, more recently training to defend her country.' She laughed a trifle bitterly, but Izmae didn't join in. She was looking unusually thoughtful and solemn.

'Well, I guess I'm taking the second option,' she said, 'and I used to think that fighting for my country was the noblest career there could be. But I've just realised that I'm wrong.'

'Oh?'

'Yes. I'm going to go out and fight in wars, even though on principle I disagree with them. I'm probably going to kill people, and I may end up getting killed myself.' Illa didn't like where this was going, but she held her tongue.

'But you: you have a far nobler ambition than me. You want to stop the wars before they start. To assist the crown in uniting and protecting our country and pacifying our neighbours. If you can achieve that, if you can bring peace to war-torn lands – in other words, if you can make good at this job – no one will care that you're a woman. You'll just be the great leader who saved Tortall.' At this, Illa snorted unattractively.

'I will not. Even if things come to pass as you predict, it will be His Esteemed Majesty who gets the credit, and I don't care – that's as it should be. A Prime Minister is just the chief advisor to the monarch. I've already realised that if I wanted to cover myself in glory I should have become a knight!' Both girls laughed, as they recalled the night when Raif, fresh from his first semester of page training, had come home and given them an incredibly solemn and serious lecture on the topic 'A knights job is not all glory.'

Eventually Izmae took up the thread of conversation again.

'You know, before, when I was going on about the conservatives and all that claptrap? Well, maybe I was being a little over-dramatic.'

'Understatement of the century,' muttered Illa under her breath.

'No, really,' went on Iz, 'Tortall's come a long way in the last fifty years or so, and it's not like you're becoming a knight. You don't have to… you know, give up being a girl, or anything.' She squeezed Illa's hand again.

'All you have to do is show them that you can do it as well as any man, and then you'll most likely change this realm for the better.'

'Have you ever thought about giving up on the Riders and turning motivational speaker?' Asked Illa with a grin.

'Giving up on the Riders?' Iz was scandalized, and immediately thrown out of her philosophical mood. They sat in silence for a few more minutes, until Raif's distant voice was heard calling Izmae's name. She leapt to her feet and picked up a wooden practise sword that Illa had not noticed until now.

'Well, another round beckons,' she said, before extending a hand to her older sister.

'Come and watch me beat the little sissy to a pulp.'

'Poor dear,' said Illa, her lips twitching, as she rose to follow Izmae, 'He must have been traumatized when the training masters told him he had to give up being a girl!'