I have never in my life known kindness. I have always been alone. I suppose you could say that my experiences taught me to be strong, to never show weakness.
My mother died giving birth to me. So I was raised by my father along with my two brothers. My father was a hard, bitter man and would often beat us. My brothers did not care for me and used to beat me sometimes as well. Once I was old enough I was given the job of taking care of the house and cooking meals, if something was not to my father's liking then he would beat me. Sometimes he would beat me for no reason at all. He was often in the local tavern and would stagger home late at night drunk. I remember cowering under the bed covers, hoping, praying that he wouldn't come into my room. But he always did, he would drag me from my bed and beat me for the simple crime of not being a son.
I was never a pretty girl, but I don't suppose the fact that my skin was always black and blue exactly contributed to my looks. The other children would constantly heckle me on my appearance. But the years of being abused by my father and brothers made me tough, I remember once pushing a girl to the ground and punching her over and over so that her face became a bloody pulp until her brother pulled me from her and proceeded, with his friends, to beat me. But by now I was so used to being hurt at the hands of others that one more beating didn't make much difference.
When I turned fourteen my father sent me to work as a maid at the King's palace. The hours were long and the work was hard but at least there were no more beatings; or so I thought. One day I stood in the kitchen alone mopping the floor when a knight sauntered in. He was tall, thickset and very unattractive. He asked me where a pretty maid called Siobhan was and I told him she had went to the market. Upon hearing this he grew very sullen and stated that although I was ugly I'd have to do. He grabbed me roughly and began to drag me into the corner of the room, I suddenly realized what he was going to do and began to scream and struggle. I suppose I was luckier than other girls in the sense that when my father and brothers touched me it was only to beat me; nothing more. The knight grew impatient and struck me hard across the face with the back of his hand. I fell to the floor dazed with him on top of me. He hitched my dress around my waist and forced my legs apart. The pain was unbearable, like nothing I've ever felt before in my life. At first I cried out and sobbed then I detached myself from reality and lay in silence staring at nothing as he grunted and moved on top of me. Finally he shuddered and lay still for a moment then climbed off me, straightened his robes and walked out of the kitchen. I simply lay there for a while with blood drying on my legs and soaking into my dress finally I got up and continued mopping the floor. When the other maids returned they looked at my bloodstained dress but said nothing. The next day I left the castle and returned home, my father was livid that I had given up such a well paid job (I told him of the reason why I left but he didn't think it was a good enough excuse). Needless to say, he beat me.
A year later my father chose a husband for me. The local blacksmith, a drinking partner of my father's who had a violent reputation. We married and on our wedding night he told me that although I was not a virgin and I was certainly not beautiful I came with a high dowry and that was why he married me. He hurt me, almost as much as the knight did when it was my first. I could have cried myself to sleep as he lay snoring next to me but I didn't. I had taught myself not to cry, not to show my pain and weakness. My new husband reminded me a lot of my father, if something dissatisfied him he would beat me. Then I finally became pregnant and he stopped beating me. When the baby was born and I saw the look on his face and I knew I had failed. I had not delivered the son he longed for, instead I had produced a baby girl. A baby girl whom he tore from my arms and took deep into the woods by our home. I was never to see her again. I begged him to tell me what he had done to her but he would not. I begged him to tell me where her resting place was but he would not. Instead all he would do was beat me. And that was it. When he took my baby he took the last shred of my soul, the last of my emotions. I became a ghost, I felt nothing. Then, a year later I was pregnant again. I felt a mute hope that I might be able to keep this baby and when I saw his dully satisfied face when he inspected it, I knew I had satisfied him.
I took my son and stared down at him in my arms and promised him and partly myself something. I would teach him to be strong. I would give him strength so he would never have to go through pain and suffering to earn it. The strong become the powerful and the powerful become the leaders, and my son would be the greatest of them all…