Chapter 41
“Legs straight.”
Rosetta hurriedly tightened her legs. But she didn’t like it, and Rashid’s face grew even sterner. Rosetta flinched and moved her leg, and this time he slapped her ankle with his hand.
“Hold it here, no pressure!”
“Y- yes!”
Rosetta responded by forcing her neck up, but her shoulders slumped of their own accord, and a hint of disapproval flashed in his eyes again. Rosetta forced herself to straighten her shoulders again.
Oh, God, what am I supposed to do?!
“Your shoulders, pelvis, and heels must be vertical. Don’t put any pressure on your knees and thighs. Don’t support your center of gravity with reins or stirrups.”
He was telling me to get on the horse and do nothing. I should keep my posture straight, but I shouldn’t put any pressure anywhere.
How does that even make sense?
“Don’t stretch your legs out in front. That’s why you keep arching your back.”
Rosetta quickly moved her legs back and straightened her back. Then came his disapproval again.
“That doesn’t mean you should be hunched over your horse.
Drop your heels. No, that’s not what I want you to do, I want you to relax your legs. Why are you raising your heels when I’m telling you to lower them……”
Rosetta’s patience finally ran out. Instead of floundering at his every word, she pursed her lips and glared at him.
Rashid saw that she had stopped moving and stared at her, a puzzled expression on his face.
Rosetta gritted her teeth. “You’ve often been told that you have a bad temper, haven’t you?”
When they first emerged from the stable, the mood was not so bad. Rashid led Rosetta and her horse to a large, grassy field. There was a fence around the perimeter and a few horses grazing on the grass.
It was a beautiful day. The green grass glistened in the bright morning sun. Rosetta’s heart skipped a beat at the thought of riding a horse in this environment.
When they reached the right spot, Rashid stopped and showed Rosetta how to get on the horse’s back first. His instructions were very simple: put one foot in the stirrup first, then pull yourself up, then lightly cross your other leg over the horse so that you’re hugging him with both legs, then put your other foot in the stirrup as well.
But Rosetta had trouble with the first step.
“……you want me to spread my legs?”
The Kingdom of Lysa was not without women who rode horses. Some of the noblewomen even enjoyed sports like horseback riding and hunting. However, due to the nature of dress in Lysa, it was impossible for a woman to sit with her legs apart.
Women in Lysa wore long, full skirts. Lower-class women wore wider skirts to allow for more movement, but the dresses worn by women of higher status were only wide enough to allow for walking, so they couldn’t ride horses with their legs apart like men, and had to ride sideways.
The women here, on the other hand, wore flowing skirts, so it seemed possible to ride with their legs apart without wearing pants. Rosie had ridden horses before, too, in skirts and performing acrobatic tricks.
“How else are you supposed to ride a horse?” Rashid asked, wondering why it was a problem.
Rosetta couldn’t bring herself to say that it was a little embarrassing to ride with her legs open. After all, she’s here, so she might as well ride the horse the way they do here.
She easily succeeded in placing one foot in the stirrup as he told her. But then came the problem. No matter how hard she tried to pull herself up, she couldn’t get up at all. It was as if someone was pressing her down from above.
“Ow!”
With a shriek, Rosetta clung to her horse with only one foot in the stirrup, unable to get on or off again on her own, and a moment later he sighed beside her.
“I wonder if you even know how to do anything at all……”
Rosetta whipped her head around and stared at him in genuine disbelief. She couldn’t believe it, even with her own ears. For God’s sake, saying it to her face was unthinkable if it was in Lysa.
If someone in the palace had said something like that, that person would have been shunned by everyone the very next day and would never set foot in the palace again.
“What did you just say……”
He slipped his hands under both of Rosetta’s armpits and jerked them upward. By the time Rosetta squealed in surprise, he was already on the horse’s back.
“Ah, you scared me……”
Rosetta put her hand to her chest to calm her racing heart, but then she realized that what he had just done was just as rude as what he had said.
In Lysa, if a man wanted to take her hand, he would first sit down on one knee, then pour out words of praise and adoration for her, albeit unspoken, and only after that was done would he ask permission by asking, “Would you do me the honor of holding your hand?”
I’m not asking for that here, but the least you could do is tell me in advance that you’re going to lift me up.
Rosetta frowned at the thought and was about to give her leg a quick kick when Rashid suddenly gave a warning.
“Don’t recklessly kick the belly. The horse will take that as a signal to go forward.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!”
Rosetta apologized, not sure why she felt the need to apologize, but somehow the mood called for it.
“Now take the reins, no, not that tight, just enough to keep the horse under control.”
And that was when Rashid’s harsh lessons began.
“……what?”
Rashid looked genuinely bewildered at being called a bad-tempered person.
Rosetta snorted in response, “I guess no one has ever told you this before, that’s to be expected. Who would dare to say such a thing to the great Riga?”
Pointing a finger at him, Rosetta shouted, “But I, at least, should speak up. Are you forgetting that I am learning to ride for the first time today? I’ve ridden in a lot of carriages, but this is my first time on a horse, so shouldn’t you be teaching me in a more beginner’s way? Why are you putting on a look of disapproval and making it clear that you don’t want to do it? When did I ask you to teach me? You said you’d teach me first!”
“……”
“And who in the world is good at riding horses from the beginning? Were you born to ride horses from the day you were born? How self-centered and arrogant of you to disrespect a beginner like this just because you are good at it. There’s an old saying that when you teach others, be understanding and keep your arrogance at bay, but you seem to be doing the opposite, running out of patience and your arrogance on full display. Of course, it’s easy to give orders with words, but if you can understand everything in the world through explanation, why would you need a teacher when you can read a book and understand everything? What you need a teacher for is to make you understand things that are difficult to understand through explanation. Don’t you know that?”
Rosetta blurted out everything she wanted to say to him, and then waited with a sullen expression for his response.
As he listened, Rashid suddenly covered his face with his hands and bowed his head. His expression was completely hidden from Rosetta’s view, who was seated atop her horse and thus higher than Rashid.
When he didn’t look up after a while, Rosetta became a little nervous.
I wonder if he’s hurt by what I just said. Did I say it too harshly? Come to think of it, all he did was teach me how to ride a horse, so did I have the right to say this?
As Rosetta watched anxiously, his shoulders shook slightly. She soon realized he was laughing under his breath.
“Are you laughing? Do you think what I just said is funny?”
He was laughing out loud now. That made Rosetta even more pissed off.
“Did you even hear what I just said?”
“I heard you, and I’m reflecting.”
“And this is the attitude of a person who is reflecting? To laugh at me?”
“Because I’ve realized that you can’t do it with just words.”
“Are you saying I can’t understand you with just words?”
Rosetta’s grip on the reins loosened as her temper flared. Masha was now walking as she pleased, without Rosetta’s control. Rashid continued to chuckle lowly as he walked alongside Masha.
From her perch on the high horse, Rosetta could only see the green grass all around her and Rashid’s dark hair, which she could see very clearly, along with the top of his head, which she couldn’t normally see.
If he had a double hair whorl, I would have used that as an excuse to tease him.
“Don’t laugh. It’s rude to laugh when the other person is still angry,” she said.
Still, he didn’t stop laughing. Rashid took a few steps back as Rosetta glared at him with rising irritation.
“What are you trying to do?” she asked.
He suddenly broke into a fast run. He planted one foot on the ground and leaped high, landing lightly behind her.
“Y- you startled me, what if you hurt yourself!”
“If I fell and hurt myself while teaching you to ride, I’d be the laughing stock of the whole world.”
Rashid scoffed softly, then grabbed the slipped reins and placed them in Rosetta’s hands.
“As long as you’re on the horse, don’t let go of the reins, no matter what. Otherwise, you’ll fall off the horse.”
Then Rashid wrapped his arms around her back. His large hands lay over Roseta’s that held the reins.