Lou's Life Chap 10 "Education"

I love to read! Every since I first learned that there was such a thing as an alphabet, and that the letters could be made into words, and the words had meaning, I have loved to read. Books, and the wonderful stories contained within those books, have always been very special to me. I have always had a vivid imagination and had the ability to tell myself stories. I only remember bits and pieces of my life at the convent, I do not remember much at all about my life there. As I said before, I remember we were told stories at bedtime by the nuns. My favorite of all the Sister's was Sister Fincana's, and my favorite time with her was when she was telling us bedtime stories. Sister Fincana had come to the convent from Scotland. She was named for a very famous Sister Fincana who was one of the Nine Maidens. Evidently the Nine Maidens were the famous virgin daughters of King Donald of Scotland, the other Fincana was the second daughter and lived in the eighth century. All the Nine Maidens became servants of the church, and eventually became Saints. One my favorite stories my Sister Fincana used to tell was "The Fairy and the Miller's Wife." I loved that story because it was about the Queen of the Fairies, and I was always enthralled by the Sister's description what the Queen looked like. She always said she was a lady of elegant and courtly demeanor, and her dress was of the richest green, embroidered round with spangles of gold, and on her head was a small coronet of pearls. I always had a picture in my head of the most beautiful, elegant woman appearing in my family's cottage. I always imagined the miller's wife as my mother, and myself as the child that touches the Queen's dress. Beautiful things were so rare in my world unless you counted the beauty of a sunrise. I knew who the king was and knew what court was, and I knew that there were Lord's and Ladies that resided there. I knew that they were supposedly always dressed in fine dresses, and tailored suits and were covered in gold and jewels. But I had never seen a Lord or a Lady, I had never even seen gold or jewels before. I knew nothing of fashion or etiquette or nobility, the only person I had ever seen in my life that dressed like a noble was Quinn.

By the time I entered the chamber, Quinn was sitting at the desk. I was very unsure what to do, If I should say something about the kiss or if I should just follow Quinn's lead. Wait and see how he reacted. Without speaking, I went to the bed and threw my dirty dress on the floor beside the trunk. As I sat down and started brushing out my still damp hair, Quinn got up and started pulling books out of his bookshelf. He took his time, thoughtfully making his selections. I wondered what he was doing, but made no comment. He compiled a stack of about ten books on the corner of his desk. That done he came around, leaned on the front of the desk, crossed his arms across his chest and watched me brush my hair for a few moments. "You are going to learn to read." he announced suddenly. I stopped mid-brushstroke and looked at him, not bothering to hide the surprise in my voice. "What do you mean? How do you propose I do that? Why would you want to teach me anything? I am a woman, I am not allowed an education, according to the physicians, learning can give a woman brain fever. I remember once, a visiting priest, Father Michael, observed the nuns leading classes for us children so that we might learn the alphabet. He gave a document to our Abbess that had been sent to him from a Cardinal in Italy, Father Silvio Antoniano. It was called "Tre libri dell' educazione cristiana de' figliuoli" or "Three books on Christian education of children" The Abbess asked the Father to read it aloud to us at evening vespers. The main part of it I remember said a girl should not learn ‘pleading and writing poetry’; the vain sex must not reach too high…A girl should attend to sewing, cooking, and other female activities, leaving to men what was theirs" We never had another class, they stopped teaching us after that.

Quinn laughed. "That's utter rubbish! There is no reason why you cannot know how to read. I will admit that not everyone feels this way, that there may be certain times when you may need to hide the fact that you have such skill, such as when we are at court. But other than that, when I said I want you for a companion I also meant that I want you to know what I know. I want to share ALL things with you. When I want to discuss a book I am reading and hear someone's opinion other than my own, you will have to have read the book, would you not? Otherwise, how would you be able to give me you true thoughts? When I speak about something I want you to know what I am talking about. When we are at court, and I want privately to ask you a question, I want to ask you in Gaelic and you answer me in Gaelic and those English speaking fools will have no idea what we are talking about. There is no reason you cannot learn English and maybe even Romanian, which is what I was speaking to the Grandmother out there. If you have not concluded this for yourself already, with the Gift comes extra talents and abilities. Most women are not the equal of men, so for a human woman to try to learn this much would be near impossible. But you are not the equal of men, you are superior to humans, male or female. You are reborn. Your mind can comprehend anything you would like to set your mind to learn. And I have so very much to teach you."

And with that, Quinn began my education. For the next few months, Quinn and I spent every moment together. It seemed we were always bent over some text of his, with him making me read aloud. He was teaching me to read, and write, and basic etiquette and manners. Our lives fell into something of a routine. I still had no idea if it was day or night, because I refused to go in Quinn's pit and look up ar the hole. But I know we would rotate the lessons He started with books, and since I already partly knew the alphabet, it was not much of a stretch for me to learn to read. It was just a matter of putting the letters together into words, the words into sentences, and then understanding what I was reading. I was capable of understanding simple books, and my understanding was growing the more I practiced. Then we moved on to etiquette To my surprise and great delight, the trunk from the peddler was full of beautiful ladies things, not only a dozen lovely dress of fine craftsmanship, but undergarments, a corset, perfume and ribbons for my hair. He moved the smaller desk out of his room and set it up for me. Every day I practiced how to dress myself, how to do my hair, how to speak eloquently, even how to enter a room and sit in a chair properly. I was coming along fairly well, learning everything Quinn taught me as quickly as I could. Writing was another story. I had caught on to the languages rather well, I was not fluent in anything but French, but I knew enough to be able to converse in English, Gaelic, Spanish and Italian. But when I would try to write, for some reason I could not seem to grasp making the letter with my hands that I saw with my eyes when I read. It was practically illegible, my a's looked like o's. I practiced every day for hours and hours and could not seem to grasp it. Quinn was supportive and caring, he told me not to get discouraged, that it would come in time. He said it took him several years before he mastered any language other than Gaelic.

The more I learned, the closer I got to Quinn. I had conflicted feelings about Quinn. How could I be getting close to someone I once hated and despised so much? Part of me still hated him for what he had done to Marcus, but part of me understood it. He was not here to make friends with humans, they were food to him, nothing more nothing less. He did not kill Marcus to hurt me, he did it to teach me. To teach me to view the humans as he did, not as friends. But there was still something about it. I still could not get over the look in Marcus's eyes, just couldn't put it out of my head. That was until the day the Quinn was sitting beside me helping me with my handwriting. I had long since learned to write my name and Quinn's name, and now was working on trying to create letters of identification. Quinn informed me there was a Religious war going on all around France, soldiers were everywhere and that to cross the border from France to England they required identification papers and if not produced, you could be arrested for treason, as a spy. One evening, we were sitting side by side at the desk, with him overlooking everything I was doing. Suddenly he stopped speaking, looked at me and brushed aside a strand of my hair that had come loose from my wimple. I froze at his touch. Since that day in the creek, neither one of us had spoken of our physical contact.

I turned and looked at him, waiting to see what he would do. His fingertips kept slowly tucking my loose hair behind my ear, one strand at a time, like he could not bring himself to do it any faster. I simply sat and waited. His fingers went from stroking my hair to caressing the side of my neck. He was tracing a line with his finger along my jawline. He gripped the back of my neck gently and pulled me towards him. It was so right, felt so natural that I just leaned in and kissed him back. Next thing I knew he was cradling my face between his hands, passionate soft lips moving over mine. His lips still felt like warm, wet silk, but now it was like there was an electrical charge running through them. It stung me clear down to my toes. He moved his lips down my jawline and stopped at the spot on my neck where he had bitten me. "Let me teach you" Quinn whispered. "Mi'lord you know I cannot" I replied.

"Oh, but you can, if you are just willing. Let me show you how wonderful it can be. There are so many things that you have never experienced that could enhance your life tremendously." Quinn stood and pulled me up with him. I looked up into his eyes and it was there, the tenderness I saw before. I was unsure what to do, afraid if I did the wrong thing he would run away and hide behind his wall of blue ice again, and the spell would be broken. A part of me was hesitant, all the hours I had spent in the church. Lying with a man who is not your husband is wrong, it is sinful. But when I thought about it, I was already damned, I was a vampire. Was I really going to let a vow of chastity stop me? Those rules did not apply to me anymore. I looked up into Quinn's pleading eyes, "Yes" was all I said. Quinn bent down, scooped me up into his arms and carried me back to his Chamber.