Finally, when the snow started to melt in the fields and the trees to bloom with new flowers, Mother made the announcement. “As it is customary every spring,” she said, “a ball will be held in the palace. This year all the heirs of the Houses of Old will be invited. Over the following days, a contest will take place. The winner, should he win Princess Sabela’s favor, will be proclaimed heir to our kingdom.”
With a rustle of silk, Sabela rose from her chair and moved toward Mother. Ignoring the curtsy protocol demanded, she stared at Mother. “I will not marry any of the Lords of the Houses of Old,Your Majesty,” she said, her voice even.
“In that case, Princess, you will not marry anyone. Your birthright will go to Princess Rosa.”
Sabela’s answer came without hesitation as if she had rehearsed it many times. “So it will,” she said, and after a formal curtsy, she swirled around and left the room.
Rosa, her eyes beaming with delight, rose from her chair. But Mother raised her hand and motioned her to sit back.
After a long strained silence, Mother spoke. “Princess Andrea.”
I jumped forward and, in my excitement, tripped over the long train of my dress and almost fell. Behind me, Rosa giggled. I grabbed my skirts tight in my fists and jerked them from the wool rug, wishing they were Rosa’s arms. I walked up to Mother.
When I looked up from my curtsy, Mother was staring at me, but her pale blue eyes gave away nothing. “Princess Andrea,” she said in an even voice, “you are welcome to attend the ball. But remember that until that day you are under my supervision. Never forget: Your duty as a lady comes first.” I nodded and moved back.
After several weeks of exciting preparations, spoiled only by Rosa’s constant harping, the morning of the ball arrived. As I waited for the couturier to make the last adjustments on my new dress, I could not stop daydreaming. In a few hours, Mother would accept me as a lady in front of the whole court, and somehow I would understand my place in the world.
“As you can clearly see, Princess,” the couturier was saying, “the effect of the lace over the elbow is striking.”
I nodded my agreement absentmindedly. In fact, I was sure she had told me the previous week how the absence of lace in the sleeves added to the simple charm of the dress or something along those lines. I didn’t argue. The dress seemed fine either way.
I closed my eyes, too bored to listen. When I opened them again, my sister Rosa was smiling at me in the mirror. She was wearing a layered dress, each layer a different shade of pink, her favorite color. Suddenly my pale yellow gown seemed subdued. To feel better, I remembered how very becoming the hue was to my dark complexion, as the dressmaker had assured me. Apparently my sister did not find it so. “Asparagus has never looked better, slim sister,” she said sweetly.
I turned, my cheeks burning. “Look who is talking, Miss Plump Strawberry Queen.” The anger at my sister suppressed for so many years blinded me. I pushed her to the floor. Rosa screamed and covered her face with her hands. I jerked at her arms to reach her mouth and stop her cries. But Rosa shook her head and screamed again.
“Princess Andrea!”
I looked up, and my heart stopped. Mother was standing by the doorway, her eyes, two slits of ice.
I stood up and moved back while Mother came over. After helping Rosa up, she turned to face me. “No ball for you, young lady,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “You are dismissed to your quarters.”
With a final look of disapproval, she swirled around and left the room, her ladies-in-waiting silent witnesses to her indignation and my shame in her wake.
I remained still for a moment, stunned by the enormity of her punishment. Blind with anger, I picked up the skirts of my dress and rushed to my room.
Pieces of my frock were flying around me when Ama Bernarda appeared in the doorway that opens into her bedroom. “What is it, Princess?”
“Rosa got me in trouble again, and Mother has forbidden me to go to the ball. I will never be a lady now.”
“But you are a lady,” Ama said, holding me in her arms. “A perfect little lady, you have always been for me.”
I eyed her suspiciously. A perfect lady? That was new. Hadn’t she insisted, only a year past, what a perfect squire I would be? Memories of the Games came to my mind. I remembered Don Gonzalo’s cries of encouragement and the acrid smell of sweat. I remembered the trembling of the string in my hands and the exhilarating feeling of victory when the king had given me the golden arrow. Then I remembered my father’s ultimate decree, and my spirits sank again.
Ama hugged me. “Don’t cry, dear child,” she said. “It is all your father’s fault, if I may say so, that you are so confused. Storming out of the room like that the day you were born, without even looking at you. Just because you were a girl. And such a beautiful girl you were, too. Staring after him with your big blue eyes wide open, as if trying to understand what his anger was about.”
I lost myself in the familiar, probably untruthful story with a guilty pleasure. When I calmed down, Ama helped me to the bed. She left, returning with a bowl of soup she insisted I drink. I knew she would not leave me alone until I did, and I obeyed her. It was only later, as I drifted off to sleep, that I realized Ama’s trick. She had added some of her sleeping herbs to the brew.
A bright light flashing in my eyes woke me up. I sat up in bed. I knew something important was supposed to happen that day, and I also knew something was not right. For one, the sun was in the wrong place. My room faced west, so the sun was not supposed to come in until late afternoon. But the shining rays cutting through an opening in my bed curtains were only too real. I blinked and my memories came back. The morning was over, the ball had probably started already, and I was forbidden to attend.
I moaned and, burying my head into the pillows, let my fingers run freely through my hair, undoing with a wicked pleasure my elaborate hairdo—my mother’s idea of a lady’s look. No more lady this, lady that for me! Tío had told me once that if I was not meant to be a lady, no one could force me. Well, I had tried and failed. It was over.
At least Ama was gone. I knew she would be in the kitchen by now, the best place, she claimed, to hear the gossip from the ball firsthand. I got out of bed, and sitting in front of the oblong face of the mirror, I dressed my hair into a single braid. Once I had finished, I held it with the golden arrow—the arrow I had won the day of the Games, which the smith had turned into a barrette.
“Mother can keep me out of the ballroom,” I said to the angry girl in the mirror. “But she can’t force me to stay in my quarters. I’ll go to the garden and watch the ball from my secret place.”
It was not what I had planned. I had expected my childhood days of spying to end today, but destiny—with a little help from my family—had decided otherwise. I was sure, though, that seeing through the window the incomprehensible display of manners of the grown-up world would be the perfect cure for my silly desire to be there.
I rushed to my trunk. Under the piles of carefully folded dresses, almost invisible against the dark wooden planks, I found my old hunting outfit. Happy to have kept it from Ama Bernarda’s frequent cleaning sprees, I put it on. It was so worn out it fit me like a second skin, my movements its own.
No fancy frills, I thought with relief. My time as a lady is over. Andrea the Princess was gone forever. Good riddance! I was not going to miss her.
I was about to close the chest when I saw my uncle’s dark blue jacket. I grabbed it and threw it over my shoulders.
My leather boots made no sound on the wooden floors as I stole out of my room and through the empty corridors into the garden. Careful to keep off the public paths so I wouldn’t be seen, I ran noiselessly on the soft grass until I reached my old companion, the oak tree. I stopped then, out of breath, and my back against its rugged bark, I let my eyes wander toward the castle. Up on the second floor, behind the windows of the Great Hall, I could see shadows moving. The ball had started. I stretched my arms to the lower branches and pulled myself up.