Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock Read Free Book Online

pass to Market Town and the countryside beyond, for the guards kept me under close watch and I had not skill to bribe or bully my way past them. Chateau de Montagne held me as tightly as an acorn holds its nut.
    Of all these dreadful lessons, comportment may have been the worst. This vague title included not only the most graceful ways to curtsy and walk (versus my routine stumbling, particularly on stairs) but also table manners. A Montagne breakfast consists of a simple soft roll with hot chocolate, or hot cider for adults. Yet I ripped my roll like a savage, slurped my drink, dribbled jam, shed crumbs ... No matter how sincere my efforts, the litany droned on without respite. Eventually I surrendered all effort and returned to my baser instincts.
    Unless the queen was occupied with state business, she demanded I accompany her to dinner, ostensibly to honor my position but in reality to watch my every gesture and
mention its fault. Lady Beatrix, though we outranked her, often joined us so that the two women could demonstrate with each other the most fitting conversation and eating habits.
    I resented every moment of these meals. What was the point of dainty bites, feigning lack of hunger when actually famished, or delight in food that lacked all seasoning? And, worst of all, why was I never permitted to eat my fill? I spent the evenings in a misery of starvation, my stomach stating what my mouth could not, and watching longingly as footmen removed Beatrix's half-touched meal.
    "A queen does not concern herself with the trivialities of nourishment," Sophia would state, hearing my belly's growl. "Her attention need be focused elsewhere. My dear Lady Beatrix, does your plate suit you?"
    "By all means, Your Majesty," Beatrix groveled. "And may I praise this most excellent menu. The items so complement each other."
    I stared miserably down at my dish, watching the beets mingle with an unidentifiable green sauce that covered the small, overcooked lamb chop. Ghastly it looked, and ghastly it tasted as well, but such was my hunger that I consumed every morsel.
    "Indeed they do, Lady Beatrix, and we commend your keen eye. We have always enjoyed the gracious balance of color on a plate."
    Never once, in all the years I knew her, did the queen employ the first-person singular. Oh, how I raged at her pompous assumption that she could speak for the entire kingdom, in particular for
me
.She had no idea what passed through my head; the fact that it remains attached to my neck proves this. Every time she opened her mouth, I would reflexively stiffen in anticipation of her next pompous assertion.
    ***
    My frustration with my situation deepened as the summer progressed. In the tumult following the Badger Tragedy, the queen often mentioned my father, and took pains to emphasize that as regent she held the throne solely in expectation of his return. But as no word or sign of him came, her shrewdly worded declarations grew more infrequent, her silence quieting the entire court, until it was as if he had never existed. The throne of the king of Montagne she ordered fitted with a black tasseled shroud, and this embellishment declared as effectively as a proclamation that she expected no
man ever to replace or even to join her. Though I ached to see my father alive, as the cycle of planting and harvest passed outside the castle walls, I would have been grateful even for word of tragedy, so long as some word arrived. But none did.
    In those first miserable months, my sole source of joy came from a hamper of food I would find hidden beneath my bed. Nestled inside would be raisin buns wrapped in warm napkins, a fruit tart, a steaming pitcher of chocolate. Who delivered it, I never learned, but I cannot begin to describe the comfort it provided, the knowledge that someone in that stony edifice took the time and risk to provide me this glorious consolation.
    I wept as I huddled in my nightdress, gulping down these treats. The food brought back almost