Lady Lionor’s eyes flicker with concern. “You mount your horse astride?” she asks me.
“I’ve ridden that way since I was a little girl.”
“Oh dear,” Lady Violante says, looking down nervously. “Your maidenhead is a shield to prove you are a virgin.”
“I am a virgin.” I never knew I had some kind of shield between my legs, and I shift my weight to see if there is something hard and uncomfortable inside me I had failed to notice.
“Yes,” Lionor says, “but being jostled by a horse with your legs parted can break you open in a way that is not desirable.”
Break me open?
Lionor touches the bridge of her nose. “Imagine your maidenhead as something hard, but not solid like bone. It must be broken for your husband to enter you, and that must happen for your marriage to be consummated.”
Tears spring to my eyes as I massage my nose, imagining what it would feel like to have something forced up it so hard it broke the top. “It’s not that bad, dear,” Violante says. We all lived.” She smiles. “Although you will bleed.”
“Bleed?” I whisper. “How much?” I am shuddering, and Lionor puts an arm around my shoulder. “What men do, women must endure. You’ll find after the first few times it doesn’t hurt any more.”
“When I was married,” Susana adds, “the priest told me that if I found it unpleasant I should concentrate on becoming with child from it.”
“Now, it is true that some women find the encounter pleasant,” Violante says, ignoring her, “but I would suggest that if you are one of those, you don’t appear to enjoy it too much. Diogo might think you will look elsewhere for more, and since he will be away so often, perhaps it’s best to fight off any--excitement--you may feel.”
“Oh my goodness,” Lionor, says, looking out the window. “We’re almost in Lisbon!” My heart sinks even further. Much as I want to get out of the coach, away from the torment of this conversation, I know that when the coach stops, the inevitable will be one step closer.