Story for the Day: A Woman's Independence

Parenting and the ills of childbirth, while noble professions, are imprisoning in themselves. It is one thing to want a house brimming with many children, and it is another thing entirely to find a means of caring for them. Even the greatest mothers and fathers are set beyond their strength when they must be up at all hours to read stories and woo to sleep, to tend the general caresses of cuts and scrapes, to dry the tears and discipline the overly avid. Two children is enough for the King of Frewyn, as anymore would force the Queen out of her independence and into the strain of motherhood:

The kettle began to whistle, and Pastaddams removed it from the heat and went to fetch his teapot.

                “Honestly, after everything I have been through in the past year,” Alasdair continued, “between my illness and everything in the courts, I am rather exhausted for birthdays. I will gladly do anything Carrigh wants for her birthday, but this year for King’s Day, I really want to do nothing, other than have some quiet family time at home.”

                Boudicca gasped and clapped a hand over her breast. “Can it be? Has the King of Frewyn caught the MacDaede disease of never wanting to do anything for their birthday?”

                “Oh, phenomenal. Here it is…” Alasdair grumbled, rolling his eyes.

                “Dobhin, call the guard, call the generals, call His Highness!” Boudicca proclaimed. “The king doesn’t want to celebrate his birthday! Horror and calamity upon us!”

                Alasdair glunched and gave her a flat look. “That will do, thank you. And please don’t bring Bryeison or my father into it. They will think I’m ill again. I’ve already discussed this year’s birthdays with Carrigh, and given the unexpected excitement of the last few months, we would both like to sit at home, public speech in the capital notwithstanding, of course.”

                “But surely, Brennin, you will go out to see your subjects,” Dobhin urged him. “They will be celebrating without you if not.”

                Dobhin was just expatiating this point when Pastaddams returned. He stood at the counter slowly filling the teapot, pretending not to hear the conversation at the table, listening with ears perked and conscience attentive.

                “Yes, we will still go around the capital and thank everyone for their well-wishes,” he heard Alasdair say, “but we will not spend the whole day out.”

                A notion prevailed, and Boudicca exchanged glances with Dobhin, her smile tinged with suspicion. “Odd that Carrigh should be so willing to stay home on the one say she usually likes to venture out. And her mother is not scheduled to come for the week either. You should have said Carrigh was expecting. I would then have understood you perfectly.”

                Alasdair almost dropped his scone. “No, she is not expecting!” said he, in a dreadful hush, and then, speaking to Dobhin, in a low and threatening voice, “And don’t you dare spread that rumour in the royal parlour or I will begin the same rumour about you. She is not expecting anything or anybody, nor am I. We have two children and do not want or need another one.”

                “So you have said before,” said Boudicca, smiling sagaciously, “but accidents will happen.”

                Alasdair murmured something about no accidents being allowed to happen when Bilar has closed all avenues leading to further propagation.  

                “You make it far too easy to tease you with all the nonsense we women get from our peers. The questions of ‘when are you having another? Don’t you want a girl or don’t you want a boy? Don’t you want to have another one so your child will have something to fight with? Don’t you want a third one to care for you in your old age?’ sound in our ears all day long once every woman over the age of forty discovers that young girls have reproductive abilities.”

                “I know, and being someone who hears the same from all the nobles who actually like me—Breandan excluded—I pity you and all women. I would outlaw questions on childbearing if I could, but it’s impossible to police the way other people think. I can allow for parental solicitudes from those who are much older than us, I know they mean well and just want to see the kingdom thrive, but I have a whole kingdom to look after. That’s enough children for one lifetime, I think. Six million plus two of my own is more than any father could give attention to.”

                “Never say that in front of Farhayden, Brennin,” said Dobhin, in high glee. “He would quarrel with you for besmirching his family, his father being the captain of a prodigious family ship. He knew his father to be the greatest creature breathing during his time, devoting himself to a wife and thirteen children unfailingly, their thousands of sheep besides.”

                “I will be honest and say I don’t know how his father did it,” said Alasdair, ruminating over his dressed scone. “Two is all Carrigh and I have time for. If we should have more, I don’t know that I would be able to give attention to them individually, and I don’t think that would be fair to them considering how much attention I was paid growing up. I had an excellent upbringing, with my grandfather and Brigdan and Vyrdin, and everyone here in the keep, and I want our children to have the same. I want them to feel as though they have our full support and attention, and if we had any more, I wouldn’t be able to give up time in the courts to look after them, meaning Carrigh would have to give up her time in the tailory to devote herself to rearing a royal brood, and I don’t want that for her, nor does she want that for herself. She likes her independence and she should keep it.”

                Boudicca and Martje, who could not but hear from her place in the larder, gave each other a knowing look, and Dobhin smiled at his round cakes and said nothing.

                “Talk about me being suspicious, Dobhin, you’re being suspicious  by not pestering me about it,” Alasdair observed.

                “About what, Brennin?” Dobhin replied. “About having another child or not having a birthday?”

                “I am not having another child.”

                “You are also having a birthday, though you mean not to acknowledge it. The celebration aside, you will be one year older whether you like to be or no.”

                “Well, at least that’s all you’re going to say about the subject.”

                “And I mean to say no more, Brennin, though I am sure no one will accuse me of having excellent judgment in leaving off my duties of harassment. In truth, I have grown too old for birthdays. Middle age has ruined me for the pomp and merriment of a royal affair. I have grown accustomed to being retired and out of the way, and having reached the ripened age of forty, I am beginning to feel my pains.”

                Pastaddams, who was filtering out the tea leaves and was well over forty, shared a grimace with Martje, and quietly rolled his eyes, keeping his remonstrances on ages and the aches that belong to himself.