A Dove's Tale

Chapter 161

"So, this is the adverb form of...this...adjective?" I asked, pointing at a word on the left page and finding its close relative on the right page.

"Yes. The conjugation requires removing these two letters," Chevalier explained.

We'd finished eating lunch an hour ago, and now we were sitting on the sofa, reading my father's journal. Well, I was reading it, and Chevalier was answering my questions and correcting my pronunciation. The dry, dusty Garnetian legal documents I'd been studying between my formal lessons and social engagements contained difficult political terminology with very little descriptive detail, and on the other end of the spectrum, I had a few high-level works of Garnetian literature on hand, full of metaphor and imagery, with very little reading material to bridge the gap. It had been important for me to learn as much as I could by myself, though, and after months of hard work, I was proud to say I was moderately proficient at this point. Chevalier's presence was an insurance to prevent any misunderstanding in the text and a support for when I inevitably became emotional. Even if the journal's contents were mostly benign day-to-day happenings in the life of a king, that king had been my father.

My father. Arvon Romanov.

He was so real now.

I had his journal; I had his portrait; and now, I could read his words, know his very thoughts. He talked about the food the chef prepared, meetings with foreign diplomats, road conditions after a heavy rain. All mundane details I suddenly found intensely interesting.

Especially when Mother appeared amidst those mundane details.

Saw a pair of swans on a lake today. The locals tell me swans mate for life, and the old male was alone for many years before he found a female. They have a clutch of eggs now. Will have to tell Evelyn of this. She will laugh and ask if I expect her to lay a clutch of eggs.

Sometimes, it was nothing more than a single line in his daily entry, but there was obvious affection in that unassuming sentence. How much he appreciated her waiting up for him when he worked late, just so she could kiss him goodnight before they fell asleep. How cute he found that funny face she made when her horse relieved itself at that inopportune moment. How much he liked to pick up little trinkets on his travels as gifts for her when he came home, and how much she liked to receive those little gifts.

She sounded the same. I could picture that face, and I could hear that laugh, because I'd seen and heard them before. She was the same person I always knew, regardless of status or wealth. The way she used to worry when I took longer than expected getting home from a job was the same way she had worried about my father working late into the night. The way she always found humor in an awkward situation, bringing it to everybody's attention with her quick wit and bright smile. And she always loved giving and receiving gifts, too.

A queen or a beggar, she had always been the same.

Except for the wistfulness I glimpsed in her eyes when she saw a couple walking hand-in-hand.

I'd asked her once about my father. Just once. I was too young to remember the circumstances that led to my question, but I remembered vividly the sudden, crushing sadness that weighed her shoulders down, her green eyes widening and filling with tears, her bottom lip trembling when she looked quickly away. I never asked her again. Not until right before she died.

She'd said he was a good man. Kind and tender, like Chevalier. Shortsighted, stubborn, and an eternal optimist, no matter how dire the circumstances.

And he was. It was all here. His devotion to her, his almost naïve hope as Obsidian closed in on Garnet, the increasing tension in the pages alongside statements of certainty that the invasion wouldn't come, that by some miracle, things would turn around. What he wrote alone would have been enough for almost anybody to see how truly dire conditions were well before the worry and fear crept into his words, even knowing nothing else about the situation.