The king's first wife

The mentality

She was staring at him. Not focusing on her own book but looking at him. Her head was on the table and even if he would love to ignore her stare, her curious blue eyes were piercing through his head and it was really disturbing to him.

" What?" he turned to look at her and she picked her head up while having that hopeful look over her face. She had just this much of an important thing to ask him. 
" Radhika had a baby boy yesterday," she told him and he just immediately turned to look at his book. A kid. Seriously. Is that how he had raised her!!? He couldn't understand. He let her study, something other women were not allowed to do. He let her cut off some slack in the kitchen and just sit with him for hours, without letting her do any of the laborious works and she still talked about having a child. Seriously!? Why was he not able to change that female mentality of hers?!! What would take for her to ever say, thank you for letting me study?? 
" Go in the kitchen," he ordered her and she pouted. Then, she kept her head down on the table once again and just stayed there 
" Ajji won't let me step inside," she answered in bored and he glanced at her once. There was only one reason why his grandmother wouldn't let her inside the kitchen 
" Periods?" he asked casually and she nodded. Then, she sighed ever so deeply and looked back at her 
" Ma said you don't get periods for 9 months when you are pregnant. Sohit," she poked his elbow with a pencil and he turned to glare at her 
" Shut up or I will tell Ajji to get me married to someone else," he threatened and she sat up straight 
" Hey! No! That's not fair! No!" she frowned. If a woman's husband married again, her value in society went down. She had seen what happened to her ma. That woman practically stayed shunned out of most of the talks and all she had to do now was cook. Even the king didn't visit her chambers anymore. The fact was different that he was more with his younger daughter than any of his wives but still. She wasn't fine with sharing her position as the crown princess. No way in hell. She'd lose face in front of so many women! 
" Shut up idiot," he went to hit her but she dodged it by moving away 
" Don't touch me," she squinted her eyes and he looked at her with a shocked face. Was she finally getting how to say no to him? Was he making progress there? 
" You'd have to take a bath otherwise. Ma said that no one is allowed to touch me right now," she explained and he squinted his eyes. For a moment, he just kept glaring at her, and then, he picked up his book and hit her head hard with it 
" No more words. Get me? Or I'm sending you to Raniganj," he turned to look back at his book and she gulped. 

Raniganj, one of those dirty places girls were bred in. Only dirty men ever visited it. There, they would have unprotected sex with any woman they found beautiful and once that woman finally got pregnant, if she had a boy, the kid was given away. If she had a girl though, the girl was kept close to and with her. In that too, there were two classes. The daughters of royal men and the daughters of commoners. The royal women were never allowed to have sex there, they were given the upper treatment. They were handpicked by Ajji and every royal man who didn't have a kid with his specified wife till he was 18, would be married to one of those dirty women. No one cared about the mothers of those kids. Only the fathers mattered... 
Also, women who were banished from their own houses were sent there to learn the art of seduction... She never wanted to go there. The thought itself gave her shivers down to her spine.

" And I don't understand why the hell you even want to go through the entire labor just to have a kid? What will you even get by having a kid?" he turned back and looked at her in anger because he just couldn't keep it in anymore. 
" I..." " Don't know?" he completed for her and she nodded. Now, she knew that she was up for a scolding from him so she just on impulse bowed her head a little low
" Not like you can ask me to teach you more and help you maybe even write your own book. No. You'd rather have me give you a kid. Let me tell you. No one will ask of you after you have a kid. And what if it turns out to be a girl?" he ranted and looked back at his book
" Well. The women will stop taunting me," she mumbled and he just turned around and looked back at her in anger 
" You're more worried about being taunted on rather than worrying about if and whether you have 2 girls in a row?" he asked her in disbelief and anger and she kept her head on the table 
" But won't a daughter like me be better than a son like you? She'll be cuter, kinder, not always angry and her smile would be beautiful too," she started playing with the pencil kept on the table and he kept a hand on his head. There was no way in hell that she would ever change but he wasn't giving up that easily. He had his entire life to bring her off that track... 
" Shut up,"
" But don't you want a cute little baby too?" she moved her hand a little closer to his book and he just stared at her in anger for a moment. He was angry that she disobeyed him but now that she put it that way...
" Just shut up and sit facing the wall. Now,"