This chapter and the previous one were so important for Pauliana. The concept of womanhood and how it was explained, even if not extensively, was so great, in my opinion. The differences displayed between the life of a woman who was left with nothing and a woman who has everything, but both have to fight to be recognised, accepted and taken seriously. They both did not have a choice, an option to live the life they might have wanted, because they had to survive first. Pauliana needed the sword, the battlefield, to be surrounded by death and blood to survive, used as a war tool. Whilst the princess and all the other women needed beauty and youthfulness, to be wed and to become mothers, used instead as political and social tools in order to make a life.
Pauliana’s realisation that they are both fighting their battles and that what she is doing is more than all the other women can even begin dreaming about is so important.
Thank you very much for translating the chapter.