Chapter Fourteen #2
He did his best to be obedient and docile, but as the days crept by and the only reprieve from his room was going to the washroom and back, he couldn’t keep his spirits up. Poyut said ‘one day at a time’, but one day had become over a dozen.
One morning he found he couldn’t get himself out of bed to dress and face the day. He woke to sunlight through the balcony entrance and birds chirping in the gardens, and he lay there for a long time staring at the corner of sky he could see.
The door opening made him want to drag the blanket over his head, but he couldn’t stomach the immaturity of such an action. Instead he closed his eyes and turned his face into the pillow.
“Your Divinity!” Gionan rushed over. “What are you doing still in bed? It is mid-morning now.”
“Who cares?” Ethyr mumbled.
A chilly hand on his forehead made him recoil on reflex.
“Are you ill, Your Divinity?”
“I don’t know,” Ethyr sighed. He just wanted to be left alone. “Maybe.”
Gionan’s footsteps retreated and the door closed.
He sighed in relief and let his weight sink into the mattress.
But a few minutes later the door opened again and the bustle of several people entering grated on his nerves.
He refused to look up, but soon his shoulder was pulled and he was given no choice but to roll to his back.
Lamora—the palace physician—was standing at his bedside with Gionan and Poyut.
He tried to sit up but Lamora held him down.
“Do not exert yourself, Your Divinity,” she said gently.
He stared up at her, discomfort twisting his insides.
It felt like he was on his deathbed, lying there with everyone peering over him.
“Do you feel sick?” She rested a hand on his forehead, then without waiting for his answer, pried his mouth open. He pulled his head back.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking at your tongue.” She moved her fingers to the top of his neck, beneath his chin. “You don’t appear to have inflammation. Does anything in particular hurt?”
“No! I’m… just…” His cheeks warmed with the three pairs of eyes on him. He couldn’t say he just hadn’t wanted to get out of bed; not now, after all the fuss. “I’m tired,” he lied flatly.
The physician hummed, looking him over. “You do appear sallow.” She turned and said something quietly to Gionan. He dipped his head and hurried out. “Are you too tired to stand, Your Divinity?”
Ethyr rolled his head, exasperated. After a second he pushed the covers off and got out of bed.
“Very good. Your guard will take you for a stroll around the gardens, provided you feel strong enough for it.”
“Yes,” Ethyr said quickly, the idea of escaping his prison of walls dashing any reluctance. “I am strong enough.” Poyut went to the chest by the wall to take out a tunic. Ethyr eagerly dressed. By the time he had laced his sandals, Yorith entered, Gionan trailing behind him.
“What is this about, then?” the High Priest demanded as soon as he’d stepped foot in the room. Lamora regarded him calmly.
“It is adverse to a young man’s health to keep him cooped up for days on end. He needs sunshine and exercise, which I am prescribing. Some socialization couldn’t hurt, either. Isolation never does anyone good.”
Yorith eyed Ethyr, who stood looking as meek and innocent as he could make himself.
“Rovus, Jamyr,” he beckoned the two guards stationed to either side of the door. “Accompany His Divinity. Don’t let him out of your sight.”
“Yes, sir,” they said with a bow. They gestured for Ethyr to go ahead.
He looked around at the people in his room, then started out, Poyut by his side and the other two guards following close behind.
As they left, Yorith turned sharp words to Lamora, but his reprimand faded to silence as Ethyr put distance between himself and the room.
Even with chaperones, his chest and feet were lighter than they’d been in weeks as he practically fled the palace for the surrounding gardens. He was sick of the gardens, too, but only because they were a poor substitute for real nature. It was still better than being stuck inside the palace walls.
He’d walked these paths many times with Poyut by then.
Her company was patient, unassuming. The other two guards were a bristling presence, pushing against his back, but Ethyr refused to allow it to ruin his small reprieve of freedom and make him hurry.
His fingers trailed over the smooth leaves of the same verdant bush for a fourth time as he circled the little curated paths.
Really, he would have loved to explore the gardens in the city, but he doubted Yorith would ever allow that.
“Poyut?”
“Yes, Your Divinity?”
He paused on one of the smooth stones that filled the path. “What do you do when you’re not guarding me?”
“Train, of course.”
“Do you like training?”
“I think so, yes.”
“It’s probably more interesting than guarding.”
“What makes you say that?”
“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.
“I’m back,” he said, in case the man had not heard him enter.
“How fortunate for us you deign to return,” Yorith replied dryly. He faced him, and illuminated from behind he morphed from regal to supernatural. “We will have a feast in a few days, at the temple. It is time, I suppose, you became acquainted with the priests.”
“The priests?” Ethyr asked anxiously. The priests who hated his guts?
“Yes.” Yorith brushed past him on his way out. “You can thank Lamora. I expect you to be on your best behavior.” He closed the door behind him.