Nobody asked him to leave. No one expected him to leave. Scandal for a noble-person in Lovinale wasn’t as big a deal as it was in the rest of the empire. In Lovinale, it was considered quite a novelty to have some sort of mischief attached to your name. In fact Lord Mereko was pleased that his entertainer was now the breaker of hearts. He had plans to use it to curry favour with those higher placed than he.
But Mereko never got the chance because Arthur Chubs did what he did best. He packed and ran. Without the burden of his ever-present wagon of books and the need to hide who he was, he travelled rather swiftly. He did have a few knickknacks he carried with him in his beautifully but subtly designed satchel but other than that he was handsfree.
He took up with wagons, caravans, troupes, merchants, travellers on foot, travellers in a group, a guard company of a nobody lord or some such and on occasion he travelled alone as well.
He didn’t realize where he was headed until he had reached there. His feet had carried him to Rousmart, a village that had grown into a haphazard town because it had been the birthplace of one Arthur Uriel Banes. He was fortunate because one there were enough Arthurs in this town for him to blend in and two, the hostility that had arisen around anyone named Arthur had reduced over the years. He was thus in no danger because of his name.
By the time he had hired a room in the back of an apothecary run by a lovely couple by the name of Arnold and Louise, he was running a mild fever. He had no idea what ailed him, maybe it was just his lifestyle and age catching up. Maybe he felt guiltier for how he had left Nairobi behind than he was ready to accept.
Arthur had always believed himself to be a principled human being. Even when he was on the run, or as a courtier or advisor to Reifire – that had been the one thing he had had to fall back on. His sense of integrity was sharp and true. Where it had vanished, he did not know.
He had become an uncouth and uncivilized man who left women that did nothing but welcome him in their lives and made space for him because they cared for him. No wonder he had no friends, no one person who was completely aware of his history, all the good and the ugly he had done.
Arnold and Louise saw all the refined clothes he had in his bags and the coin he had already given them and knew they had provided refuge to a runaway. After heated discussions on whether or not they should notify the local constabulary, they decided to hold off till Arthur had recovered from his ailment.
When Arthur’s fever did not break after three days of poultices and potions that had worked even on horses, the local physician was called for an examination. He declared that Arthur had contracted the sweating sickness and it was only a matter of time before he would succumb to his death. The owners were not happy with this news, unsure if this man’s death would lead a nest of vultures to ascend on them. But since they were both healers at heart, they couldn’t turn away a sick man and so decided to let him stay.
Arthur took the news of his imminent death like anyone his age would. He stopped thinking about the future and started to find a way to carve a mark in the sands of time that would prove that he had been, and he had lived. He used some of his coin to buy some paper, inks and pencils. He was careful of how much he spent. He knew he didn’t have an endless supply and he had no idea how long he’d be alive to need it. If he died before spending it all, he hoped Arnold and Louise would find worth in them.
Once he had acquired his supplies, he sat down, without ceremony, quite equably, to write down his own history.
*
Reifire and I were friends even before he became king. I remember the first time we met. He had come to Rousmart with his father because the village had turned up a valuable resource for ferin which was then thought to be the best material to make armour. I was thirteen then, just on the cusp of manhood, feeling like I could conquer the world, if only I had the chance. Reifire had been seven but seeing his eyes, you could tell he was a king, born to a line of kings. There was nothing childish or naïve about him. At seven, I thought of him as a little man. Little only because of his small figure. Even he couldn’t fight the course of nature.
At the time of their arrival, I wasn’t doing any kind of work. I was constantly underfoot at home, having decided at three that I had no intention of following my parents into the business of scrap dealing. The fact that it was them who unearthed the ferin was moot. I was still not interested. Even at three, I knew I was meant for bigger things.
Since it was my parents, I was able to not only meet Reifire, I was also charged with looking after him, showing him around, and keeping him busy while his father did the negotiations.
Both of us were men before our time and we formed an unlikely friendship. Unlikely because I was so below his status, it was laughable. But we took a shine to one another. I think we were lonely in our respective pedestals, he trying to reach down to connect to his people and me trying to reach up to lift myself out of my non-existence. I honestly think had we not met at that time, in that way, we would have passed each other by unacknowledged. As it was, we became inseparable and when his party left Rousmart, having favourably concluded all negotiations, I went with them.
That’s how our end began.
This is Chapter 16 of 26 of The Travelling Librarian series. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z.
Psst: I also have 2 ebooks on Kindle – and if you’re on Kindle Unlimited, they’re free!
- Read The Gunslinger here.
- Read 23 Letters of Love here.
tales of Suchita 
Leave a comment