The Queen's Wife (girlxgirl)

17. Not worth hearing

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"Can she do anything properly?"

Maud tries to stay quiet. Around her, birds chirp loudly, somewhat distracting her from the unnecessary and rude sounds she keeps hearing from outside her white royal tent. It rained the night and day before, and wet clothes hang around everywhere to dry. On trees, on rocks and against anything inside the tent. Now the air is warm and the sky is clear of clouds, as acres of yellow fields open up around them. They are quite close to her old home, Maud recognised the yellow wheat and wrinkly old houses from miles away. But the soldiers seem unbothered by anything that she feels or thinks, so none of it matters. It's early morning and they'll soon be on their way, excitement is in the air, but Maud is still in a bad mood.

Slowly her hands go up and down, as she works diligently on her embroidery. It's going to be a pink flower. She has never seen a truly pink flower, only yellow and blue ones that exist in the Blue Knight kingdom. But soon she'll see many tropical pink and red flowers, plants in all kinds of colors, and that's why she would like to embroider them first. To see if her imagination is as true as reality. To embroider she drags a string through the tightened white fabric in her lap, again and again, until it forms a pattern. It distracts her from her bad mood, especially when she makes a mistake and has to undo parts of the embroidery. Her maid is sitting opposite of her, separating thinner strings from the thicker yarn to make it easier for her to work.

"She's a woman. All they are good for is sewing and looking pretty"

Maud pricks her finger, once again losing focus. She curses silently under her breath, making her maid glance up at her nervously. The princess keeps trying to embroider, knowing that she is much worse at this than other princesses, having only a few weeks of practice. The pink flower seems to be coming along well, she can already see three petals in their vibrant color, and a green stem. She'll need a yellowish orange center and three more petals, as well as two green leaves growing from the stem to complete her work. That's before she'll even begin to think about the background. To be a good princess, she'll have to learn how to do ig wall embroideries that'll take years. This small flower on useless scrap fabric is nothing compared to that.

To be a woman, she'll have to know how to sew and be pretty. That's what they are saying, isn't it? They assume that's all that she's good at, but in reality that's one of the only things she's extremely bad at. Thankfully it's only her maid here to see her fail at embroidery, all the soldiers are outside of her tent. It's not proper for women to be among men like that, and now that she's a married princess she'll probably be kept extra hidden when not with her husband. Maud sits on a chair in her tent, a gentle white veil over her head, in a blue traveling dress while her maid is in a lighter black dress with a similar white veil. The two of them are the only women on this trip, so they are kept separate in a tent during rest, and hidden in a carriage during travel. Maud honestly doesn't care. In fact, she is thankful. It saves her from their judging eyes, and their mean words, which she can sadly still hear from beyond the thin tent wall.

"I don't expect her to be that good at that either, she's a northern woman. She even lacks in beauty"

Maud can't embroider anymore. Her hands practically freeze up. She lays the unfinished work on her lap as she stares towards the wall, where the sounds of the two soldiers talking are coming from. She hates this. Hates that as a woman she has no right to stop them from talking ill about her. Even as a princess she is slandered and treated like a lesser person. There is no escape from the eyes of men, there is no escape from their words and actions. Not even as a wife of the great crown prince Adelio. Her maid watches her intensely, waiting for her to make a move. But Maud stays still on her chair. She can't move, she can't say a thing. This marriage is still too unstable for her to act recklessly. The princess knows that she can't afford to act recklessly, not now and not ever.