My hearing was uncommonly sharp, however, and I spun around in a fury, ready to dismiss her myself, though of course I had no power to do so.Īt that moment, we both heard the sound of wheels on hard-packed earth.
“And what king would have such a stubborn, uncultured girl for a wife?” Mistress Tuileach muttered under her breath. To calm myself I took a deep breath of the warm autumn breeze that wafted in the open window, which extended from the floor of the room to its ceiling. I turned my back on my governess and walked to the window of the ladies’ salon, where we stood arguing. Does a queen not need to know rhetoric and logic, and how to manage the household accounts? Should she not be able to ride and shoot with her nobles?” “Even if I am to be a wife and mother, I may also be a queen, married to a king. “To sing? To play the lyre harp and dance the Rinnce Fada?” I stamped my foot again, wincing as the unforgiving marble bruised me through my thin leather slippers. But you will be a wife and mother, and so must learn-” You already write and do sums quite well enough for a princess, and no lady would wield a sword! Your brothers may someday rule the kingdom, so they must know all manner of things.
“Your father will dismiss me if you attempt such deeds. Instead I will take up a golden pen and finest parchment, as my brothers do, and practice writing and mathematics, and I will learn to shoot an arrow and feint with a sword.” “I have already spilled enough of my blood from fingers pricked by needles. “It is what is done,” said Mistress Tuileach helplessly, her high forehead creased in an anxious frown. We simply sit beside a fire looking pretty and embroidering a useless pillow cover or handkerchief. We don’t hem our sheets or darn our stockings. “But why? We do not make our own clothes-we have dressmakers for that. “Your Highness, you must learn to sew a fine stitch,” she pleaded. She held out a needle threaded with gold thread, and I shook my head firmly. My governess, Mistress Tuileach, looked befuddled and weary, as she often did.
I will not do it!” I cried, stamping my foot on the marble floor.
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