When you think about it, old Dame Beddi cannot always have been Dame Beddi. At one point she must have been known as little Miss Beddi, graduating to becoming Mistress Beddi before she entered her prime as Madam Beddi. But I know nobody who called her as anything other than Dame Beddi.

In her old age, she had a cottage on the rustic southern outskirts of Saskerdil and it was there where I came across her when I was still a child myself. She had the knack of making the place homely and welcoming, so that even a street child like myself could relax and feel wanted.

But who had she been? What had she done?
There is a great burden laid upon those of us who attempt to chronicle our times. Whenever a Lady is introduced it is assumed that she will, in spite of current appearances, have had a complicated and adventurous career. At the very least she will have been mistress to a senior political figure and a much sought after crime lord, (ideally simultaneously) whilst at the same time running a major financial concern, overthrowing the state with her private army and writing a much acclaimed novel or two.

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