Chapter 10 -Rectify

When morning came, Gregor needed to hide the book, but instead he held it in his hands for a solid minute while he fought himself. He was torn: he itched to continue reading, only the next page, but he knew if he picked it up again, he would not put it down until lunch, maybe not even until dinner. To make matters worse, he had lessons to attend to. And on top of that, he was obliged to attend lunch with family. To be fair, it was going to be outside, and they would likely play draughts afterwards. He grit his teeth. Just one page -he would not sit down, and he would read standing! That was the solution, he thought, that is how I will prevent myself from reading too much! It was foolproof. He opened the cover, flipping the pages to where he had left off, and his eyes caught the last few lines on the yellowing pages.

For two and a third weeks, I acted like the older brother I should have been. I did not leave her alone once. Not a single time was she alone in that room! Not Once!!

I only hope that it made a difference to her in her last days.

May she find comfort in the Baths of Evelilas.

Gregor paused, remembering that for all its intrigue, the journal was not one of joy. He reluctantly closed the cover and hid it away.

The time until lunch passed quickly, much to Gregor’s surprise. He had expected it would feel drawn out, but his mathematics lesson lasted no longer than the blink of an eye, as had his fencing with Jerand. He wanted to ask the fencing master about Tell, but despite the close relationship they had, he bit his tongue. It was clear to Gregor that effort had been put in to masking aspects of Gelas’ life and the history of the Queendom of Tell, but how much, and why?

Jerand paused mid thrust and still, Gregor was lethargic in his parry. “What’s on your mind?” Instead of answering with the truth, Gregor found a plausible lie slipping though his teeth before he stopped to think of one. “Well, after this I am going to be having lunch with my family, followed by a game of draughts with my mother. I had no idea she had played so well, and now I find myself wondering how I will win when I play against her.”

The lithe man nodded in understanding but forced them to take a break regardless. He reasoned that taking a moment to wipe the sweat away and have a sip of water would be good for them. Gregor agreed. The two leaned against opposing pillars in the arches of the small courtyard that was their fencing arena. Servants had a table to the side, underneath the shade of the corridor that skirted the open courtyard. Gregor wiped the sweat away and saw Jerand using his own towel. The man’s back was void of any scars, but his chest and shoulder bore their own nicks and scratches in the white of scar tissue. The marks were few and far in between. Six in total. For the level of swordsman Jerand was, and the battles he had fought in, it was an impressive achievement. His face was unmarred, and framed by long straight blond hair, so light it almost seemed white, while his eyes were a bright piercing blue. Gregor was shorter and stockier compared to Jerand who had longer, thinner limbs that flowed with flawless ease. They were opposites, but Jerand had been the one that was closest to him while they had toured the empire. Other tutors had kept their distance and remained professional in their discussions with the emperor’s son but Jerand had been his mentor and companion.

So why was it so damn easy for Gregor to lie to the man? He bit his thumb and vowed to ask Jerand about the siege of Letalona next time. To not lie to one of the few people he could call a friend.

They picked up their rapiers and squared off against each other, poised to leap at any second. This time, Gregor took the initiative and lunged forwards. Jerand deflected the thrust and retaliated with his own, bringing down his rapier from above. Gregor swayed, and the dull blade barely missed his shoulder. The emperor’s son jumped backwards and extended his sword, gauging the distance between him and his mentor.

If Gregor recalled correctly, the man had fought during the siege. Talking to him would be more enlightening than his classes. He wanted to know more than what the strategy teacher, Astada had taught him. Gregor was bored to death in the man’s stuffy classes. He could hear the monotonous voice droning on and on, “A perfect example of the individuality of the soldiers, especially under a command that is too merciless and demanding. And particularly when taken so far from home. Dissent is to be expected, but the Tyrant was mad -in all senses of the word. Had an alternative not been offered, the siege may have continued, but Emperor Sienel and Garshik were clever.”

Now Gregor had read the man’s journal, he saw that the tyrant was intelligent, and he doubted that Gelas would have made such a mistake even if he was, as Astada had said, “mad.”

Gregor paid for his inattentiveness and earned five painful bruises as a result.

After their sparring session, he hopped into the prepared bath and allowed the servants to wash him down. Faster, he ordered. Water splashed everywhere, bars of soap flew, and he hopped back out before the suds were rinsed off him. Dressing as quickly as possible, he sprinted out to the garden where he saw a table already prepared. Damn it! And I was still late to lunch. Much to his dismay, his family had waited. Apologizing with a bowed head, he sat down. They reassured him it had not been more than two minutes. With that, they began to eat. The meal was simple, as per Garshik’s request. A mildly spicy soup with a touch of ginger, followed by roasted duck and white rice with vermicelli. A salad of rich greens and bright radishes was on the side. Finally, there was a series of doughy, sugary sweets covered in molasses on smaller plates dotted around the table. The meal was simple by imperial standards as there was only one form of meat, but Garshik claimed that mixing meats was a sure way to a stomachache, and the family followed in suit. Not that it made any difference when each recipe was so darn tasty. Gregor salivated as he looked at all the food.

Famished, he tucked into the dishes, almost throwing etiquette to the wind but remembering that his mother and father were watching. He still tried getting away with as much impropriety as he could, like lifting the bowl and drinking straight from it instead of using a spoon to consume the soup. After the soup he began to slow down, still eating wolfishly, but controlled and using utensils instead of his fingers. Well, mostly. His fingers he used for grabbing the bite-sized syrupy sweets and popping them into his mouth between mouthfuls of rice. By the time he got to his salad, he had eaten more than what everyone at the table ate put together -not that his sister did more than peck at her food.

“Father, what happened to the Queendom of Tell?”

Garshik paused, mid-bite. Next to Gregor, the empress tensed up while Zana carefully looked at her food.

Lania and Gregor continued to eat, but both looked at their father with ears perked up, ready for an answer.

“Did they not mention it in your lessons?” he asked in return.

“They did, but I wanted to hear with more detail. I had known that we came from Tell originally, but I recently realized I know very little about it.”

“Very well then. What about the Queendom of Tell do you want to know?”

Gregor had not thought he would get this far, he had thought he would chicken out, but now he had to throw together a question. His sister got there first, asking, “Daddy, what’s a Queendom?” Just as Gregor meandered through his own query, “Just about, what happened to it? Why is it not around today, why had it attacked Felia?”

The emperor looked at Lania, then Gregor, then back to Lania.

“A Queendom is a nation run by a Queen- ”

“So they didn’t have kings or emperors?”

“No they did not have kings or em-”

“But why not?”

“Because of their religion. They believed in an All-mother and her husband. Because their primary god was a woman, they believed that it was the proper hierarchy in rule, thus having a Queen. That is the last of your questions I will answer. Ah! No buts. Finish your food now.”

He took another bite of his food, swallowed, then addressed Gregor.

“As for what happened to the Queendom…well, I assume you know that Felia marched upon it in retaliation after it savagely attacked our citizens.”

“Yes, however, I do not mean just the military, but politically. What events lead to the Queen attacking? I know that she claimed that her emissary was-” Gregor paused and noticed that his sister’s ears were still perked up “-assaulted. But why wage war for a single emissary? Under what ideology could that have been considered a worthy reason for invading a peaceful neighboring nation? As in, even if her reason were only a façade for her greed, wouldn’t such an excuse be transparent at best? And why would greed provoke a leader to march across an empire bigger than her own queendom?”

“Hmm, those are several excellent questions, which will require a lengthier answer that I will provide tomorrow… no, the day after, when we next have lunch again.”

Garshik looked to his wife, then his mother, “Any more questions? only simple ones though.” he asked with a wry grin.

No one had any, except for Lania, but she just poked at her food, discouraged by her previous ban on asking any more questions.

They finished their food, and Garshik left before the rest of them got into playing draughts. Gregor had questions for his grandmother but did not want to ask with his mother and sister nearby. He could ask her later, or tomorrow he might join her in the garden before lunch. For now though, he wanted to spent time with Lania. But what was he going to do with her? He knew none of her interests or things that she enjoyed. Gregor was struggling to think of a topic that might server as a bridge over the distance between them. While it was difficult, he was determined not to repeat the mistakes of Gelas. He would not stand there in regret later, so he decided to struggle now -even if it was uncomfortable sitting around, wanting to say something, but unable to say anything. Damn. Why is this so difficult… I have seen her in the garden with grandmother before, maybe she likes flowers?

After Gregor lost two quick games of King’s Draughts against his mother, he turned to his sister and asked, “Lania, would you like to walk around the garden with me?”

She glanced uncertainly at her mother, should she go with her older brother or not? Heilara stood up, “I think walking around is a terrific idea, we just ate a rather heavy meal, so some exercise would not be amiss.”

Gregor nodded to his mother, grateful that she was helping out despite him not asking her. They left the table behind them as they walked over the marble pathways from one section of the garden to the next. The garden had been a project of Emperor Sienel’s predecessor, Venail the Collector. Under his orders, plants, stones, flowers, and even trees from all over the empire had been gathered and neatly organized within the garden. It was laid out in the relation to the geography and scale of each of the kingdoms that had bowed to Venail. Since his time, the empire had changed and there were no longer as many kingdoms, some had largely independent governments, others merged into larger provinces, while several split, bickering about cultural differences among themselves. It had been a miracle the empire had not fallen apart during Sienel’s rein. But regardless of how the empire changed, its layout under Venail was preserved in his garden. From above it was a vibrant map, borders between the kingdoms were split by marble pathways wide enough for three large people to walk side by side. There were smaller cobbled pathways within the borders that served as shortcuts, which Gregor was rather fond of. One of the sections towards the south east even had sand from where the Wuraq desert spilled into Felia. It was a nightmare to maintain when the rains came, and cats frequented the sand too often for Gregor to want to walk through it, but it was nice addition in his opinion. But that is where the Garden of Kingdoms ended. It had not been expanded since the conquering of Tell, but it never made sense to. Doing that would have meant updating the entire layout. Instead, they kept it as a historical map. One which was always interesting to walk through -for Gregor at least.

As they strolled around the garden, Zana picked fruits from the trees and peeled the green skin away, offering sour slices to their party of four. Lania pulled at Gregor’s sleeve, showing him -to his surprise- not the flowers or fruits, but the worms that burrowed at their base. Although she had started the walk clutching at her mothers dress and peeking at her older brother, too shy to walk around with him at first, she now dragged him from one place to the next, chirping like an excited sparrow.

Heilara and Zana walked behind the two. She was still not at quite at rest around Zana, but after so many years and the older woman’s change following the death of her husband, it was easier to walk next to her mother-in-law. They watched as Lania led Gregor from one bug-infested patch of dirt to the next, showing him the countless critters that crawled through the garden.

“It must be nice seeing them get along.” Zana offered, attempting to start conversation.

“It is. I used to have a few cousins, but no siblings of my own. For a time, Gregor was so distant, I thought I did not miss out on anything, but now I see that I had… And I find it comforting.” Heilara replied with soft eyes and a smile pulling at her lips.

“I can relate. I had one older sister, but she married a handsome Suruud metalsmith when I was young. I did not see much of her after that.”

Zana peeked at Heilara from the corner of her eye as she said that, expecting a grimace, but the younger woman already had fifteen years to come to terms with the common background of her husband. Zana remembered when Heilara would grimace after any mention of it, to the extent that the dainty princess avoided her own family. But it was refreshing to see that time wore away at her prejudice.

The older woman continued speaking then, “I suppose a part of it was my fault, I had thrown myself into the queen’s court, trying to prove that I was worthy of one day being an arbiter in her name. She, along with her council chose six individuals of merit, that would be able to serve by ruling over -essentially being governor of- six different states… Having to wake up every morning and fight my hardest against other bloodthirsty merchants as I vied for a place in her court to begin with, making sure I got to know the right people before others did, unlike Garent I had come from a moderately wealthy merchant family, but even that… It was a very different life from the one they lead…”

“So, your loneliness was a result of your ambition…” Heilara commented, “I still find the system that Tell had implement to be quite strange, but I have seen some of the effectiveness of voting in the provinces where Garshik has had it brought into play, as well as this ability to.. rise from one class to the next. It provides incentive. I will admit, as a young girl I found the Queendom to be fascinating. I think most girls did. Especially with Queen Lidja. Driving back pirates, fighting for her people with the swiftness and ferocity of a tiger. It was the essence of a legendary story… until…” she trailed off and gazed at her children.

The two walked in silence for a while longer before Heilara spoke up again, “I suppose I should be grateful. Berlas brought Garshik and I together. Although he has been unconventional, he has been good for the empire. It was going to collapse, but now look at it. The strongest it has ever been. Not to mention there were much less favorable potential spouses lined up. To top it off, I have two beautiful children. The gods truly do work in mysterious ways…”

As she finished, Gregor walked up, only to bid them farewell and hurry back into the palace. How the boy managed to keep himself so busy and not tire of all those books, Heilara never knew.

--

“Why did I ask…” Gregor mumbled to himself. Across from him, Thery looked up. “Your highness?”

“Nothing Thery, I was only thinking to myself. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder why I do the things I do, or anyone else for that matter. You see, some philosophers argue that everything a person does is predestined -that through the gods or a person’s upbringing, everything they do has already been determined. But others argue for the existence of free will -that individuals can do whatever they would like to. I wonder where things like courage and it’s sporadic appearance come into play…”

Gregor had, unknowingly, adopted a scholarly tone while he was saying this. But between an emperor’s son and his steward who was slightly older, the scholarly tone was embarrassingly condescending. Gregor would have cringed if he heard himself, but Thery only sighed, maybe one day the boy would grow into that role of the wise mentor. For now though, Thery had to be patient with it. The two sat in the stacks, the palace’s personal library. Gregor wanted to continue reading from the tyrant’s journal, but he first he needed to remind himself what other histories and autobiographies were like. Were the histories one-sided, or were they truly as diverse as his grandmother had made it out to be? As for the autobiographies, who generally wrote their own, and when contrasted with other accounts, how much hyperbole did the autobiographies include?

Thery quietly watched the young man, just as he had for much of his life. Just as his child would likely care for Gregor’s child. It was fulfilling, if boring at times. Too much waiting and thinking for Thery’s taste. Often, he found himself wanting Gregor to make more requests, or for Gregor to go on a tour, or do something, anything! That way he would have something to do as well.

But only so long as it was not more sitting and reading or just spending time in the palace. It was frustrating how independent the boy could be at times. He really should stop thinking of Gregor as ‘boy’ especially when they were so close in age, and the ‘boy’ was a capable, well-built young man that would be the next emperor. However, habit was hard to break. Thery was there when Gregor used to run away from his lessons and try to spy on some of the servant girls in the baths. Thankfully that boy had not done anything else and had morphed into a chubby bright red tomato when he was caught, ashamed enough not to do it again.

Now instead of running away from his lessons, he ran from one to the next. Thery could already hear the names people would have for him. Emperor Gregor the Scholar or perhaps Gregor the Wise. Some would complain that he spent too much time in his books and not enough running his empire. But these past few days were abnormal, Gregor was more distracted than he usually would by. There was no instructor with him, and Thery saw the young man lost in thought as he quickly walked from here to there. He had even slipped up when fencing. Normally Gregor would have at most one or two bruises after practice. But five? The young prince was up to something, he had a project. What was it?

--

Night covered the palace, yet Gregor still sat in the library, keeping his lantern far from any papers, squinting to make out the letters on the page. It was no good. He had to be too careful in the stacks. He did not want to bring any source of heat closer to the pages, especially not in what he considered the most valuable room in the palace. But that meant there was no chance to properly read once the sun set and light from the few high-up windows was gone. He could continue to try, but it would only give him a headache. Sadly, he knew from experience. He had Thery carry the lantern for him while he put each of the books back from where he had taken them out. Truly the stacks could use a better form of organization. He would have to figure something out before he has an academy built, otherwise the library that he wishes to be the most expansive source of information would be the most expansive mess. But how? According to subject? Off the top of his head he began to list several; theology, jurisprudence, history, philosophy, medicine, mathematics, humanities… But then where would autobiographies be classified? Humanities. What if it was the biography of prominent mathematician? Moreover, how would that fit into the architecture of the structure. For that matter, where would architecture and the arts fall into? It was a pain to think about, especially when Gregor had so much else on his mind.

He walked out of the library lost in thought, not paying attention to where he was going. The emperor’s son followed the shape of his steward until he was outside his door. He thanked Thery out of habit and wandered inside, letting the door drift closed behind him. Standing in his room he raised his head, and blinked twice. When had he? He sighed and rubbed his cheeks. He really needed to be more present sometimes. Turning in haste, he whipped open the door and stepped out, calling to Thery who was already halfway down the hall.

“Thery, tomorrow have breakfast brought to my room, and let my tutors know that I will not be attending any discussions tomorrow. I wish to have a day to myself.”

Thery bowed his head, to which Gregor nodded then closed the door to his room.

Two lanterns were already lit in the spacious bedchamber. He tiredly changed in the flickering light, stretching out his sides as he did so. Once he was changed, he gingerly pulled out the book from where he had hidden it. Grabbing one of the laterns in his other hand, he walked to his table and sat down. Staring at the cover, he tempted it, Come now book of demonic sorrows, what more do you have to offer?

Bracing himself, he opened the pages and let them speak.