Chapter Three #3
He sat across from the priest, not remembering until his reproachful look to sit “properly.”
“Very good,” Yorith said when he was in the torturous position. He gestured to the platter. “Fruits and nuts may be partaken of with bare fingers. Bread and hard cheeses as well.”
Ethyr swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. “I’m not hungry,” he said.
“When food is offered to you,” the priest replied coldly, “you must eat at least a bite to show gratitude.”
Ethyr scrunched his face. After a long, reluctant moment, he reached out and picked a berry to pop into his mouth and get down as quickly as possible.
Yorith lifted a hand and one of the attendants stepped forward to put a stack of square white cloth on the table, placing a stick of metal and a little bottle beside it. Then they lifted the platter and carried it out.
Ethyr stared at the stack, tilting his head as though it would give him a better view. It didn’t look woven, it looked almost felted, but he was certain it was not wool.
“You said you can write. Show me what you know.”
Ethyr frowned at him. “How am I supposed to write with this?”
“What did you write with before?”
“Tablets of clay and sticks of wood.”
The man sniffed in unsurprised disapproval.
He pulled one of the cloths off the stack, then lifted the stick of metal and dipped its pointed end into the bottle.
With a few quick strokes, a line of letters was drawn across the pristine white.
He placed the cloth in front of Ethyr and held out the stick.
Ethyr took it hesitantly, examining it. The pointed end was hollow, and had a little line cut through its tip. He dipped it into the bottle like the priest had, but when he brought it back the movement splattered black paint across the table and cloth.
Yorith sighed in quiet frustration. “You must wipe off excess ink into the bottle,” he told him.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Ethyr accused.
“I mistakenly assumed you had enough intelligence to mimic me.”
Ethyr’s frown turned into a scowl. Refraining himself from bashing the stick violently against the bottle, he tapped it inside the glass with only a little fit of anger. When he brought it to the cloth and started writing, the sharp tip cut straight through the cloth and into the table.
“Stop!” Yorith exclaimed, as though Ethyr hadn’t immediately done so. The priest plucked the metal from his hand for good measure. “You do not need to apply so much pressure,” he scolded.
“How was I supposed to know?” Ethyr snapped back. They’d always had to use force to carve letters into clay.
Yorith pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. After a deep breath, he opened them again. “Watch me carefully,” he admonished. Ethyr crossed his arms, sullenly watching as the old man put on a patronizingly dramatic performance of writing.
They spent far too long on the task. After Ethyr got a handle on the action of writing, his ‘hand was unacceptable,’ according to the priest. There was supposedly a correct way to write each letter that he had to learn and then practice.
He had always just copied the inscription from the study tablet that Lifaya kept for all the village kids, and she had never admonished them for writing wrong, but praised them for getting the letters legible at all.
Ethyr tried his best, but when his legs were stiff as wood and his head wouldn’t stop pounding, he threw the pen down in the middle of a letter and struggled to his feet.
“What are you doing?” Yorith demanded. “Sit down at once.”
“This is pointless,” Ethyr said, hissing in pain as his knees unfolded like rusted-shut hinges. “And if I sit here another minute my legs are going to fall off.”
To his surprise, the priest gave a resigned sigh and wave of his hand. “Very well. Poyut, escort His Divinity for a stroll around the boat.”
“Yes, sir.” Poyut dipped her head, then looked expectantly at Ethyr. He gladly walked out of the oppressive room and into the sunlight.
He inhaled the fresh air, just as hot as inside but somehow lighter, and started down the side of the boat, Poyut dutifully following.
The endless stone of city was gone. The river had widened and the water had slowed, its muddy banks obscured by tall reeds.
Beyond them, stone structures bigger than any house Ethyr had ever seen dotted the landscape.
Between those were squares of tilled earth lined with even, straight rows of greenery.
They looked almost like trees, but the trunks were too perfectly straight to be natural.
“What are those?” Ethyr asked, pointing.
“Those are vineyards, Your Divinity. Where wine is made.”
“I thought wine was made with berries.”
“It is. I imagine you’ve had wine made with wild berries from bushes. These ones grow from vines, and have been bred to be juicier and sweeter.”
Ethyr gripped the railing, pressing his stomach against it to peer down at the ripples of water pushing the boat along. “Is that why the wine last night was so good?”
“I imagine so, Your Divinity.”
“Do you have to call me that?”
“It is your proper title.”
Ethyr groaned and rolled his eyes. What was the obsession with ‘proper’ things? “Can you call me Ethyr? Just Ethyr.”
Poyut didn’t answer right away and he glanced over his shoulder to see her contemplating.
“When not in the presence of the High Priest, I will,” she finally acquiesced.
Ethyr grinned. “Poyut?” She raised her eyebrows at him. “I like you.”
She lowered her face, bringing a hand up to scratch her nose, but he saw the flush of her freckled cheeks. “That is kind of you to say, Your Div—Ethyr.”
He turned around and leaned his back on the railing instead. “Are you a palace guard?”
“No, I am your personal guard.”
Ethyr blinked, taken aback. “Why?”
His question confused her as much as her answer had confused him. “Because… I have been assigned to be, Your Divinity—Ethyr.”
“But why do I need a personal guard?”
“You are the most valuable thing in the kingdom now.” The words brought a strange tingle to the back of his neck. “You must be protected from anyone who wants to steal or harm you.”
“What would they do that for?”
She looked at him strangely. “For whatever reason a person does anything bad. Desperation, power, or twisted pleasure.”
He looked down at his feet, biting his lip.
Of course he knew crime existed, but that too had seemed as distant as the palace.
People in the village sometimes got into tussles, and he knew there had been many a drunken brawl in the market, or the occasional petty theft, but he had never once considered himself in danger from others.
He slowly straightened off the railing. “I think we can go back inside now.”