'Tala' nodded. Hardly a question she was unprepared for.
"Well, I had many trainers...seemingly an endless number of them, really. My Father was friends with the best of them-Gunn Gorvasten of the Udanese taught me riding, for example. He was apparently something called a 'Hussar' in his land, which is close to a land pirate from what I recall. He was quite the gentleman though, contrary to rumor.
My early skills with a blade from Lien Su Bu-you might not have heard of him, but he told me he was a master from somewhere in the East. I did know him for very long, though-he and I met on Holiday in the Green Empire-and he passed on the basics, took his pay and I never saw him again-he said I was too aggressive to make a very good duelist, and I admit he had a point... I had other trainers afterwards, but they were hardly as good-merely serving to keep me from regressing, not advancing my skill.
As for tactics, I received rudimentary knowledge of that from my father. He was a good man, you know-it would be easy of me to find comparisons of you to him. He and I often played war games when he wasn't on a campaign...I always lost, but those are far from bitter memories."
The interesting part was, none of this was a lie. Gunn had been her trusted bodyguard one long winter spent hiding out in Uden, and had taught her how to ride like an expert. As far as she knew, the fellow had died a few years ago-boiled alive or something horrible like that, for defying the Udanese Crown.
Lien Su Bu was a wandering swordsman, who roamed the East looking for worthy foes-Tala had fought him, unsurprisingly-and the man had given her valuable instruction. And a promise, to seek her out and slay her for drawing a sword on him, but that was something to worry about another day!
As for her father-the real one had been a captain instead of a general-he had taught her the basics of strategy and gamesmanship when she was a young girl. The sort of man Nikephoros ordered to the death, more often of not...