Reifire ascended the throne when he was twenty, not because that was the right age for him to become king but because that’s when his father, King Tebough II died. In the intervening thirteen years, I was always by his side. Even when our closeness exposed me to threats – both serious and hilarious [one time a nobleman sent me a quintal of cashew nuts because he thought I liked them; it took me a month to get rid of them, much to Reifire’s amusement] – or when his father expressed his displeasure at the honour he had bestowed upon me for being nothing more than a dogsbody.
Or when there were rumours that I warmed his bed. He wasn’t known for his discretion so that wasn’t surprising but what was surprising was his refusal to deny those rumours. I still don’t know how to interpret that refusal. But I do remember what he had said to me. He had said, “Arthur it doesn’t matter. We know the truth and that’s enough.”
He was like that. Making decisions. Handing out orders disguised as requests. But then he was king and I was besotted with him. I was there when he started to whittle away at his father’s power little by little, gathering it around himself like an armour at the age of fourteen. When I asked him who had taught him such things, if there was a special king school he had been to, he told me quite calmly, “I learnt it from the best. From the king himself.”
I won’t lie. It was mesmerizing seeing him come into his power. It was humbling to be his dogsbody even though he always called me his paramour because his first love was his empire and I, the second.
After all these years…and everything that happened…that distinction still fills my heart with a fierce joy.
*
Arthur Chubs decided to stop the accounting there. True he hadn’t thought about Reifire and all that they had been to each other in many years but it had never been too far away from his mind. It was like the door to those memories always stood ajar and he only had to look at the door for them to come pouring out.
It had been ten days since his diagnosis and he was feeling neither good nor bad. And yet he had filled pages documenting his first meeting with the then future king. He snorted, seeing his spidery handwriting spelling out his own doom. Who would want to read this, he wondered. This was all ancient history and the empire was in a better position because Janah had been raised not by his father but by his mother and her courtiers.
Janah was in no way soft, oh no, he had too much of his father in him to be soft, but he wasn’t as hard or as manic as his father had been. Sometimes Arthur blamed the whole paramour situation for how Reifire’s reign deteriorated. Tebough apparently had warned his son repeatedly that Arthur would be his downfall. Reifire had never listened to his father.
Arthur wondered if that was good or bad, especially when it concerned his own fate.
*
A month into his diagnosis, Arthur had a seizure. Arnold and Louise found him on time and were able to call the physician who administered the right medicine at the right time. When he had come to after being asleep for three whole days, he had groaned and cursed his luck.
Why couldn’t the Fates just be over and done with him? Why did they want him to go on? What did they think he had left to achieve?
Louise had noticed his bleak mood and had taken it upon herself to get him out of it. So she started to elicit his help with transcribing – he had excellent penmanship she exclaimed though he did not agree. But since they had been so kind to him, he couldn’t possibly say no. He helped her in the apothecary and after another month, could even make simple mixtures and tinctures and potions without supervision.
It took the three of them another month to realize Arthur had completely recovered from his ailment. He had no fever; his strength had returned and the depression had lifted. How or why it happened, even the physician hadn’t been able to tell. He had chalked it up to a misdiagnosis, made the sign of drawing a plus on his forehead to ward off evil, and marched away.
Arnold and Louise had seen it for what it was and asked him, politely, to leave, as soon as he was able.
Arnold even told him, “We have no problem with you, dear friend. But this is our home and we want no trouble. We have nowhere to go if things go bad.”
He had understood only too well. He had taken his time, spending it on making a leather folder to contain the pages he had written on Reifire. Once he had dawdled as long as he could on his saviours’ goodwill, he packed and left.
He knew he was being a sentimental fool but the pages in his satchel and the flood of memories made him turn towards home, finally, after twelve years.
This is Chapter 17 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 
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