Page 63 of The Concubine King
“Most of the time you just stand in one place, for hours on end.I couldn’t do it.”
Poyut bit back a smile.“Then it is a good thing you are not a guard, Your Divinity.”
“Do you think Yorith will let me out more often now?”
“I could not say.”
Ethyr sighed and stepped up to the scraggly tree arching over the pathway, resting his hand on the bark.It was smooth and peeling, not like the rough, thick bark of the trees at home.He turned to the two behind them.
“What did other kings do during the day?”
They hadn’t expected to be addressed.They glanced at each other.
“Verusias enjoyed playing instruments,” one of them answered blandly.“And reading.”
“Reading?Reading what?”
“I do not know, Your Divinity.Whatever was in the library.”
“What’s a library?”
Another glance.Ethyr was well used to his ignorance causing bewilderment, so he turned to Poyut for an answer.
“It is a room full of books and scrolls,” Poyut told him.“They hold information on all kinds of subjects.History, nature, medicine, and the like.”
“That exists?”Poyut nodded.Ethyr wondered what all that information looked like, all in one place.“Where is it?”
“In the palace.There is also one in the temple.”
Ethyr glanced at the building like it might spill its secrets right then and there.“What else did he do?”
“Sunbathed, had massages, had bards and actors entertain him,” Jamyr listed off.
He looked back at her.“What?How?”
She blinked disinterestedly at him.“How?”
“How was he able to see such entertainment?Did he go into the city?”
“No, he was the king.He just ordered it brought to him.”
“Did Yorith like him?”The woman looked like Ethyr had asked her to provide the exact number of flowers in the garden.“Was he allowed to go where he wanted?”he rephrased.
“I suppose.He never cared to leave the palace.He was perfectly happy here.”
Ethyr heard the bitter, unspoken ‘as you should be’ in the woman’s words, but he didn’t remark on it.There was no point.Poyut, however, did.
“Watch your tone, soldier,” she said firmly.She stood tall and certain beside Ethyr, not at all the demure, deferential person she was in front of Yorith and other officials.Jamyr flushed, and despite keeping her chin and gaze level with Poyut, it was obvious she felt the reprimand.Even Rovus, who was not under reproach, stiffened and held himself with a reluctant obedience.
Ethyr looked in awe at Poyut.He wanted to ask what kind of authority she held, because he had always assumed she, like him, was on a lower rung that had simply been gilded and propped up as important.But her words seemingly unleashed a weight that his didn’t.He couldn’t ask in front of these two.
“Let’s keep walking,” he said quietly.
She dipped her head to him.“As you wish, Your Divinity.”
A servant came after some time to fetch them back to the palace.Ethyr dragged his feet, fearful he’d never be let outside again.
Yorith was the only one in his room when he returned.Standing inside the doorframe to the balcony, hands behind his back and staring out at the waterfall, he almost looked regal framed by the light of day.Ethyr stopped in the middle of the room.
