Brigid usually gets up around dawn every morning, except sometimes when she had been out most or all of the night. Before anything else she has recently begun remembering and practicing some of the tai chi forms she had been taught by the various martial arts masters she has studied with. She likes the slow, graceful motion and finds it helps clear her mind.
Breakfast is usually her biggest meal. For someone as slender as she is, she certainly has the appetite of a true Amberite. She usually finishes off several courses of eggs, bacon, pastries, miso soup and rice, bagels with cream cheese and lox, all washed down with several glasses of two or three different fruit juices. Brigid does not do coffee.
In the morning after breakfast are courses in subjects like court customs and etiquette, diplomacy, Amber history and law, and the history and relationships of the countries of the Golden Circle, taught by Dame Margot and her staff, and sometimes by one of the Elders, most usually Princess Florimel.
After that she checks in with the Diamond ambassadorial office. She is accumulating a competent staff and they only need her presence for important decisions. When such occur, Brigid is likely to spend the rest of the day occupied in affairs of state to the exclusion of everything else.
After lunch at noon she practices with the palace guards. She has been working on maintaining and improving her fighting skills and learning to use various new weapons, particularly the sword. She will carry the katana and wakizashi when expecting to fight, but she also practices with a long, slender blade. She was not naturally ambidextrous but has painfully developed the talent over with years of practice.
After practice she cares for and grooms her horse Shadowfax, which she was given by Prince Ombra, and sometimes goes riding with Sombra. She will then shower and go to Princess Fiona for instruction in the Pattern and sorcery, and to check in on her god-child Victoria.
If there is enough time after Fiona’s classes before dinner she will go shopping in the town or wandering the surrounding areas of the castle. Other times she will disguise herself as another castle servant and go down into the town in the company of her maid Francesca.
Brigid always takes dinner in the main hall. After dinner in the evening Brigid usually can be found reading in the Castle library, prowling around sections of the castle itself, or practicing music, magick, or martial arts in her quarters. Except for Wednesdays, when she holds an all-night informal music session in one of the sitting rooms on her floor of the castle. Music selection is by bardic circle, or ‘pick, pass, or play’: each person in turn may ask for a song, pass their turn to the next person, or play something themselves. Any type of music is permitted, and any one can attend. (Although she still has not entirely forgiven Martin for Trumping in an entire mariachi band to accompany him once.)
At least once a week, usually late on a Friday or Saturday night, she will shift herself and go down to the rougher bars on the waterfront and play her harp. Brigid has developed the persona of Riff, a wandering woman musician, who can appear and disappear for weeks at a time. She is picking up a fair number of sea chanteys and longer songs, besides the ones she already knew that had some association with Faerie or other magical creatures. Brigid likes the rough but care-free atmosphere of these places for some reason; when she was introduced to them by Lord Rein she took an immediate liking to them.
At least once a month, usually on the night of the full moon, she will go up the mountain to the stairs of Tir-na Nog’th. She will take Corwin’s guitar and her own, and spend the night singing and playing with Corwin’s ghost from that ghostly realm. This she has not exactly kept a secret, but has been very private and circumspect about it, and the only person who really knows what she does is Fiona: this is a personal thing, one she does not wish to have any unwanted intrusions upon.
Also, precisely at dinnertime on the third Monday of the month, she will visit the court of the King of Cats, to pick up any gossip from the Feline Kingdom. She has been known to bring a gift or two for the King and his Court.
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