Bride of Kalathan

8: Courtyard

"Your book," said the king, holding it out to her. "Can you really read this?"

She was back in the secret courtyard. She had come home from the temple to find, to her amazement, a note on her bed, a note addressed to her in neat, practiced script, inviting her to fetch her book after the midday meal from the place she had left it. She had forced down her food, her anxiety building, wondering what it meant. She doubted that he had written the letter, or that he would be there to meet her. But then again, he might have. He might be there. She did not know what to expect. Perhaps she would arrive to a stern official, with a warning, or even the queen, ready with a lecture.

But it was him, standing there, this time in the court clothes he had worn at the temple. The kulal beneath his eyes was dark today, and in the turban and stiff embroidered jacket he looked formal and imposing.

"Please," he said, as she looked down at the bare stone of the pathway. "Don't be afraid of me. You gave me good advice yesterday."

"I was very impertinent," she said.

"You spoke wisely," he said, shrugging. "It was a little inappropriate, I will give you that. But please, believe me when I tell you that I have thought of little else since."

"Thank you," she said, taking the book. "I would not want to lose this. And yes, I can read it."

"And this, too." He walked over to the bench behind him and picked up her cape. She had forgotten about it.

"Will you sit with me again?" he asked, holding the cape in his hands. "I would just like to talk to you, Nuria. I have decided that your little lecture has cured me, for now, of my former behaviour. I will not touch you. I just ask for a little time to talk to you."

She sat down on the bench beside him, her heart beating fast, taking the cape and holding it on her lap. She was so relieved that she felt almost like laughing. He was not angry or offended. "Thank you for your graciousness to me," she said. "I do not deserve it."

"I think you do," he said, "for your courage, if nothing else. Were you at the Temple this morning?"

"I was," she said. "You read very well."

He gestured towards her book. "I take it that if you were reading that you understood most of the service today."

She nodded. "I was advised not to advertise that fact," she said, smiling. "I was told that men would find it intimidating, if they knew I had learnt it."

"Not if, like me, you have studied it every day of your life," he said. "I doubt there is anyone besides Amrak who knows it better than I do. Sometimes I dream in declensions and irregular plurals."

She smiled again. "I can't pretend I am an expert. But I do enjoy reading it. All the best stories are in the Old Tongue."

He smiled again, and this time she was not afraid to look up.