Chapter 202: Knowledge Not Meant for People of Her Standing
Chapter 201: Knowledge Not Meant for People of Her Standing
Lyria’s POV
The Queen continued speaking as though she were discussing the arrangement of a dinner table rather than the structure of another person’s existence.
"Since you shall be spending time with individuals above your standing," she said smoothly, "certain limitations will naturally be necessary."
"You will be permitted five minutes with each candidate."
"No more than that," she continued. "And once those five minutes conclude, you shall excuse yourself politely and return directly to your chambers."
She said it pleasantly.
"You are not Jacinta," she added. "And I am quite certain that the majority of the candidates will find themselves far more desirous of spending their time with her than with you. It is, after all, a widely known fact that Jacinta is the Moon of this kingdom."
I nearly asked why an excuse would be necessary then.
If the candidates would so naturally prefer Jacinta’s company, then why was an excuse required at all? Why not simply allow the five minutes to conclude and let the candidates make their own preferences known without my needing to manufacture a reason to leave?
But like always, I said nothing and instead bowed my head.
"Yes, Your Majesty," I said.
The room was quiet for a moment.
Then the King spoke.
I had not expected him to speak again.
He had been quiet for long enough that I had begun to treat him as furniture — present, but not requiring active attention.
"Who taught you to read?"
I looked at him.
My face gave him nothing.
"N-no one taught me to read, Your M-majesty," I said.
The King stared at me.
Then he laughed once beneath his breath, though there was no humour within it.
"I know very well," he said, "that you cannot read."
His voice was even.
"You are nothing less than a commoner," he said. "Whatever clothes we have placed on you, whatever name we have attached to your station for the purposes of this competition, that is what you are."
He paused as his gaze moved over me.
Slowly. Without hurry. In the particular way someone looked at something they considered theirs to examine. He licked his lips as he stared at me and there was this disgusting light in his eyes.
Something cold moved through me.
I imagined, very briefly and with considerable vividness, reaching across the space between us and reminding him firmly and directly that he was my father. That whatever he thought he was looking at, he had contributed to its existence, and perhaps that was something worth considering before he allowed his gaze to move like that.
But again, I did not do any of that.
I kept my face exactly where it was and I breathed and I looked at a point just past his left ear and I waited for him to finish.
The Queen, if she noticed the direction of his gaze, said nothing about it.
She simply watched me with the same measured expression she had worn since I entered the room, and when the King had finished speaking she inclined her head slightly and turned the conversation back to herself.
"It is," she said, "quite curious."
"You stumbled considerably when reading the Marquess’s poem," she said. "That much was evident to anyone watching."
I kept my expression still.
"And yet," she continued, "you managed many other poems with considerably more ease."
She looked at me steadily.
"Which suggests," she said, "that you can read some things. Simply not others."
I said nothing.
"How," she said, "does a girl in your position come to read at all?"
She tilted her head slightly.
"No one taught you, you say."
"That is c-correct, Your Majesty," I said.
"And yet you can."
"I k-know some words, Your Majesty," I said carefully. "N-not many."
"Some," she repeated.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
She regarded me for a moment longer.
"That," she said, "is quite curious indeed."
"Are you aware," she said, after a pause, "that seeking knowledge not permitted to those of your kind carries consequences?"
My hands, folded in my lap, remained entirely still.
"Your kind," she continued, and there was something deliberate in the repetition of the phrase, "are not to read. It is not something made available to you. Reading, writing, the education that comes with it — these things belong to nobles."
She looked at me directly.
"You are not a noble," she said. "You may claim a blood relation to the King. You may sit in a chair opposite Jacinta in a hall full of court nobles. But that does not make you one."
She paused and then added,
"And seeking knowledge above your station," she said, "is punishable."
The word sat in the room between us.
She let it sit there for a moment, the way she let most things sit, long enough for the full weight of it to become apparent, not so long that it became dramatic.
"I trust," she said, "that you understand what I am telling you."
I bowed my head.
"Yes, Y-your Majesty," I said.
The Queen studied me for a moment longer.
Then she said, "How is it that you know to read at all? And it will be better if you speak nothing but the truth when you reply to my question."
"I-I am not entirely certain, Your Majesty," I said. "I have s-simply picked up words here and there o-over the years. Some from Princess J-jacinta when she s-spelt out the words."
"Is that so?" she asked me.
I bowed. "Yes, Your M-majesty."
While I wasn’t being fully honest, I had also not told a lie. There were times when Jacinta would make jest of the fact that she could read and I could not. And during those times, she would spell words out and then pronounce them all while laughing that I would never be able to understand what the words meant.
Most of those words were insults and she wasn’t the main reason I knew how to read, but I could use her as a cover. And when the Queen would ask Jacinta, Jacinta wouldn’t be able to deny it because it did happen.
