"Wrede,.Patricia.C.-.Chronicles.Of.The.Enchanted.Forest.v1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

fashionable.

The climate was unremarkable. The knights kept their armor brightly
polished mainly for show-it had been centuries since a dragon had come
east. There were the usual periodic problems with royal children and
uninvited fairy godmothers, but they were always the sort of thing that
could be cleared up by finding the proper prince or princess to marry
the unfortunate child a few years later. All in all, Linderwall was a
very prosperous and pleasant place.

Cimorene hated it.

Cimorene was the youngest daughter of the King of Linderwall, and her
parents found her rather trying. Their first six daughters were
perfectly normal princesses, with long, golden hair and sweet
dispositions, each more beautiful than the last. Cimorene was lovely
enough, but her hair was jet black, and she wore it in braids instead
of curled and pinned like her sisters.

And she wouldn't stop growing. Her parents were quite sure that no
prince would want to marry a girl who could look him in the eye instead
of gazing up at him becomingly through her lashes. As for the girl's
disposition-well, when people were being polite, they said she was
strong-minded. When they were angry or annoyed with her, they said she
was as stubborn as a pig.

The King and Queen did the best they could. They hired the most
superior tutors and governesses to teach Cimorene all the things a
princess ought to know-dancing, embroidery, drawing, and etiquette.

There was a great deal of etiquette, from the proper way to curtsy
before a visiting prince to how loudly it was permissible to scream
when being carried off by a giant. (L'mderwall still had an occasional
problem with giants.) Cimorene found it all very dull, but she pressed
her lips together and learned it anyway. When she couldn't stand it
any longer, she would go down to the castle armory and bully the
armsmaster into giving her a fencing lesson. As she got older, she
found her regular lessons more and more boring. Consequently, the
fencing lessons became more and more frequent.

When she was twelve, her father found out.

"Fencing is not proper behavior for a princess," he told her in the
gentle-but-firm tone recommended by the court philosopher.

Cimorene tilted her head to one side. "why not?"

"It's . . . well, it's simply not done."

Cimorene considered. "Aren't I a princess?"