Prince Cassius of Voria has a lot of problems; training to inherit the crown, pleasing his overbearing mother, his father bursting into his room at inopportune times... But worst of all, he can't seem to find a future queen to tickle his fancy. Even...
Conrad had gone off to the tavern for the night, and Alexander home. Jack stayed in the loft as I walked a horse— Merit, Sophia's steed she'd taken a liking too— around in circles in the yard. After I'd found him laying in the stall, biting at his side, all thoughts of Sophia's promise from the day before had left me. The horse was sick, and I wasn't going to make Jack walk for the hours it might have taken to soothe his stomach. The case didn't seem bad, but I wouldn't stop, just to make sure.
Sophia came to me before the sun set, but the sky was already tinted orange. At first, I thought that she would not come at all— perhaps she had been joking, or she would be far too busy to think of coming back— but she came nonetheless. She was dressed down in modest, as if it would fool anyone who looked at her for more than a few seconds. She reminded me of Prince Cassius in that, but it might not have been for the same reasons.
She strode up with a parchment and quill in hand, head held high and mighty. She carried herself with an eerie power, even with just one person in audience. A tiny smile crossed her face as she approached me. "Hello!" A look of realization crossed her face for a moment, then returned to its origin. "Pardon me, but I don't believe I know your name. Ah, none the matter." She waved her hand lightly.
I halted for a second and gave a quick bow, then continued on the path I had been pacing for the past half hour. Her fantasies of teaching me how to write probably wouldn't be coming true today.
Her head cocked slightly as she came up and began to walk beside me. "What are you doing with Merit, if I may ask?" Her eyes glanced over him.
I stopped once again, pulling back on Merit's reins. She deserved to know. My hand ran down his neck, past his shoulder, and onto his abdomen. I pat it gently and closed my fist.
"Oh, I see," she sighed as we continued our walk. "Colic, is it?"
I nodded and pat the horse's neck.
"Is he going to be okay?"
I nodded once more, confidently. I wouldn't make her worry if there was no reason to worry.
"Good! I can't have my horse going down." She then unfurled the parchment she had been holding in her hands. On it sprawled all sorts of (what looked like to me) scribbles, but I knew it was writing. Large letters stood on their own, followed by smaller letters. There were a lot of words etched into the paper, of which none of them I could even begin to make out. When you grew up a peasant, there was no room for education beyond some counting. Everything was artisan work. She smiled as she spoke, much contrary to her entrance. "I apologize for my tardiness as well. Meetings ran over longer than anticipated, but I'm present now. Are you ready to learn to read and write?"
I stared down at the paper, then at her. None of this seemed real. Perhaps I was dreaming, staring into the soul of what I was never able to acquire in my youth, into the lost cause that many people thought I was. I did not need words in the stable. I did not need to write. I did not need to read.
But an opportunity should never be passed. Living every moment was to seize it, and the princess' charity was a moment to be seized.
I nodded, finally smiling to her, my heart beating just a bit faster.
"Ha! So you do smile, stone cold stranger." She then cleared her throat and used the quill to trace out the letters as she walked me through them one by one.
By the time it got so dark that we could no longer see the ink, we had made it through every letter, and Merit was feeling much better. I let him back into his stall to eat as I went over as many letters as I could remember in my mind.
A for apple, b for brown, c for Cassius...
I could remember most of them, but not all. She had given a few examples of each letter, to which I replaced some of the words with my own that would help me remember. She'd used a word that I'd never heard of at a point, which only stood to prove how little I knew.
A chill flew into the stables as Sophia said goodbye. "We shall work on the actual writing part tomorrow, if I am not stowed away in my duties. Then maybe, finally, I will know your name." She wrapped her chin up in her scarf and turned on her heels. "Thank you for taking a good care of Merit. I've taken a liking to him," she admitted, before disappearing into the dark.
I rubbed my hands together and climbed up the loft ladder, then took my usual place behind the hay with Jack. The letters still flew in front of my eyes, the sounds echoing in my ears. Oh the pleasure it must have been to read fluently. The thought of it invigorated me.
Jack sat in his corner of the loft, playing with a pile of sticks. He seemed to be making a structure with them, but as I stepped over a pile, the ground shook and the tower fell. Jack then huffed and rearranged the sticks back into their pile.
I tilted my head apologetically. Then a thought hit me.
Perhaps Sophia could teach Jack as well. He was probably much more teachable than me, and Sophia seemed to like him enough when she first saw him. If I brought him along, would she be willing? It would be ideal. Jack would never get the opportunity of education: not as an orphan boy that worked in the stables. If he was ever going to have a chance, it was this.
A small smile played on my lips as I settled down into my spot, hopeful of the prospect.
Jack stared over at me and rocked in his seat. "Finn, who were you talking to? It didn't sound like Adeline." He looked back at the ground with a sigh. "You seemed to talk forever." There was sleep in his eyes.
I lifted my hand above my head and made a circle with my fingers, then flicks up to signify a crown. It was always a brain teaser for him, trying to guess what I was trying to say; either that or a game. Sometimes he got it right almost immediately, sometimes he was in another land.
This time it was the former. His eyes sparkled, and he crawled closer to me with that dog faced look. "The Princess?!" His voice dripped with amazement.
I nodded, an exhale of a laugh following.
"She's so nice," he marveled. "And so pretty! I hope she stays for a long time. If she marries Prince Cassius, she can stay forever, can't she?"
My stomach jolted at the thought, much to my agitation. After the year she was supposed to spend in Voria, it seemed unlikely that she would ever leave, and if she did leave, it would come to be a great loss. I simply nodded for Jack.
"I hope she comes to ride again tomorrow, and that I can get Merit ready. Oh! Is he okay?"
I nodded again. If she did come to ride again tomorrow, I would let him ready Merit.
"That's good," he sighed, then laid down next to me. While the hay hid us from the breeze, it was still chilly.
We fed on our own food tonight, as I had made Jack run into the market to buy some bread with a little of what we had made. The marketplace was much kinder to him, seeing as he was small and cute enough to be pitied. Pity got him lower prices, which was an advantage I didn't have there.
We slept with our stomachs full for once— a treat we rarely got— and fell asleep to the sound of horses shuffling beneath us.
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