Braveheart Read Online Free PDF

flagship! It is the largest and finest in the world!’ What do you say?”
    “I ask him who built it.”
    Madame Bouchard blinked for a moment, sucked her lips between her teeth, and said, “That could work, that might be a good opening. And how would you continue the conversation?”
    “I would ask who his sailing master would be and if the master and the builder knew each other.”
    Madame Bouchard frowned. “No, you see, my darling, the point is not to make your husband talk or to cause him to answer questions unless they are to lead up to the main embrace of this verbal dance, which is to tell your husband that he has accomplished something wonderful. Something spectacular. Something that a lesser man would never have received, much less attempted.”
    “To polish his pride,” Isabella said, nodding thoughtfully.
    “Yes!”
    “To nurture confident feelings about himself.”
    “Exactly!” Madame Bouchard said, new hope in her voice.
    “Then I would also be sure to ask him if the sailing master and the builder not only knew each other, but had spent time together sailing vessels of the builder’s making.”
    “No, no, no, child, why would a queen possibly wish to engage the king in a conversation about details in which even a man could not find the slightest interest?”
    Now it was Isabella’s turn to look baffled. “Because you said it was about his pride. About his confidence.”
    “And so it is! But—“
    “So what if he brought this ship out before his people, even before another king, and his great ship should sink?”
    “That could never happen! What are you—“?
    “Oh, but it did happen! I heard my father and his friends discussing it, though it was some years ago. The king of some seafaring nation wanted a grand warship to display his power by sailing up and down the coast of his country. He had a favorite builder and ordered the largest vessel the builder had ever made. He had a favorite captain and the put him in command. They launched the ship, it looked glorious, and the king ordered many of his subjects out to the shore to watch the great ship as it passed.”
    “My darling, I don’t see how any of this could be of interest to your future husband unless you wish to put him to sleep.”
    But Isabella could not be reined in once she had the bit in her teeth. “Since the builder had been ordered to make the ship as grand as possible, he had added extensive carvings above the waterline; he had given a wide flat bottom to make it ride high in calm seas. He had given it tall masts. But the sailing master was unfamiliar with such a design. He packed on sails to make the ship look more impressive. And there, just off the coast, on a fine sunny day, in front of several thousands of the king’s subjects, the ship hit a light cross wind, flipped over, and sank without a trace.”
    Madame Bouchard sat motionless, like one of the mummified saints at the cathedral. Isabella was afraid her teacher still didn’t understand the point she was trying to make.
    “His pride, you see? Wouldn’t it be better to ask him those questions that guaranteed he would not make such a mistake?”
    Madame Bouchard was blinking, coming back to life.
    “Of course, it would never be necessary for me to tell my husband such things after he had had a ship built.”
    “Precisely,” Madame Bouchard said.
    “I would have informed him of the importance of good planning when he first mentioned the idea of building a ship, and then he could be very proud of himself.”
    Madame Bouchard was speechless again.
    “And confident,” Isabella added, hoping to please her.
    But Madame Bouchard, quivering from the tip of her nose like Isabella’s uncle Pierre, who died of palsy, stood without another word and left the room.
    Lying in her bed now, on her wedding day, Isabella wondered what had ever happened to Madame Bouchard. She hoped her old teacher was still alive. She hadn’t looked healthy at all that last time they saw