I was out reaping the field with my father on our estate. The sickle had rubbed my calluses to bleeding and the wood pressed further into my hand, constantly opening the fresh cuts on my hands. I had taken over most of the work on the estate along with father and his workers since my twin brother died and Papa had even agreed to let me train to be a guardian if that was what I wanted. I would be leaving as soon as harvest was over to begin training for I had gotten permission from the king for a later date.
My mother wasn't happy with my decision, but my father knew it was where I belonged. I was too strong willed and stubborn to make a decent, normal lord's daughter and at least at the capital my stubbornness and strong will were vital tools and wouldn't have to be suppressed as my mother wanted. I stopped, wiping my brow and my father came over, handing me his flask, and noticed my hands.
"Go see Matilda to have those bandaged and cleaned," he said gently, taking my sickle from my hand.
I sighed. Why did I still have my mother's soft skin even after working beside Papa for so many years? My skin should be rougher now, but it never hardened up like the leather of my Papa's skin.
"Go," he said. "Once they're bandaged, I don't mind if you keep working with us."
I nodded and ran off to see our head maid. Matilda had tended to me for as long as I could remember and was like an aunt to me. She was a short, thin girl with copper hair and lively green eyes with crow's feet in the corners. She always wore plain dresses that were either green or blue with her hair in a bun. I ran through our house trying to find her, but instead found my mother sewing in the corner. She shot me a look and I slunk forward into the room.
"What are you doing?"
I looked down at my clothes and slightly blushed. My mother found it unnatural for me to be running around in men's clothing that Matilda had tailored to fit me better. Papa understood I needed the freedom of men's clothing to be performing the work I was.
"I... my hands," I mumbled. "Where is Matilda?"
My mother pointed to the stool by the fire and I let out a soft sigh and went and moved it over to her side as she put her sewing down and got up. I wished I would have found Matilda before my mother who always tried to talk me out of my ambitions.
My mother came back with clean bandages, and water and lye soap and sat to work cleaning my hands. There were no words between us for a few minutes.
"You would have made such a beautiful bride to Duke Oliver's son," she mumbled. "Yet you went and scared him off with your talk of being a Guardian."
I sighed. "Mama, it is what I was destined to do. I can't just be some pretty girl sitting around tending to babes and a house."
"If Vincent..." She choked.
Her expression turned bleak and her eyes welled with tears. Vincent had been my twin. He had died from a chill in his lungs, which he caught on a hunting trip with my father some years back. I missed him horribly, but his name was rarely spoken and the one painting we had of him my mother had burned in her agony over his loss.
"We both had Father's stubbornness," I said.
"Yes, but your father wouldn't have helped fuel it more with making you do men's work instead of learning women's work and her place. Now you think you are just as good as them."
I rolled my eyes. There was no winning with my mother.
"One day, Eveline, you will want a man and babes and a house of your own, but by then you will be too scarred and old to find a suitor."
With that she finished my bandages.
"I don't want a man or any of this. I want to help the kingdom. I want to give you and father a name instead of spending it idly."
With that, I got up and went back to the fields where my father was and took back up my sickle and worked until even the moon didn't provide light to see what we were reaping before taking a bath and retiring to my room in the loft of the house and falling into a deep sleep.