There should be great importance given to the way a story starts its beginning.
If it fails to capture the interest of a fickle reader such as I, it is bound to be tossed back in the dusty dark corners of the tall shelves, where it will probably never see the light of day again. There is an easy segregation of books in my library. Military tactics, foreign languages, economics, market strategies and general history chronologically arranged in the starting shelves, where they are most easily accessible to anyone who wanders in. Although I have never seen anyone wander in here with their own conviction in all sixteen years of my life.
“You should be in your bedchambers already.”
The stone cold guard sighs, eyes trained to focus on anything but my face. He stands like a bamboo stick, a considerable distance away from me. Adam’s eyes, nose, lips, all seem to be chiselled out of granite. Even his expression.
“Oh, you're still here,” I mutter, paying him no mind. “You should be on the training grounds already. Sparring, wielding swords, duelling, wearing breeches and leather shoes.”
“It’s eleven at night, Lady. I have his Grace’s strict orders to have you in your bedchambers.”
My fingers pause their little dance. I spin around on the wooden stool and lean on the bookcase, cold leather pressing against the flushed skin of my back. “And what use is that?” I flash him a pretty smile; one that I use when a court minister asks about my impending marriage. My brother’s aide looks away in an instant. The dim lights and his tanned, calloused skin do little to hide his reddening cheeks.
He is a little younger than my brother, and a tad bit shorter. Had he not been a Knight and traded his fair face for military stability as an adolescent, Adam could have easily been the most handsome man in our duchy. Although being the best of all knights has only demoted him to the rank of a baby-sitter.
He never fails to rub that fact in my face every little chance he gets. But that doesn’t mean I will let him off the hook easily.
“But I have no intentions of sleeping just yet,” I clap my hands in faux glee, “perhaps you should be my reading partner. Engaging in a mundane history book works as an excellent sedative.”
Adam sucks in a sharp breath. “Go sleep, my Lady.”
“Or what?” I fist my hands into the shabby fabric of my skirt and twirl it, steps lighthearted and teasing as I walk to the front sections. “Look, it’s something I always wanted to read!”
Adam’s face further falls into a display of abysmal gloom. “History of Ryftan Empire? Are you being serious?” He blinks at me several times, and I watch those full lips pucker into an impressive scowl.
The candle lamps flicker even though all windows are closed at this hour of midnight. Nothing irks the knights more than talking of their enemy in front of them. Brainless oafs, all of them brainwashed to lay down their lives at the mere sound of the conch. They were never recorded in hefty books, lives lost in vain to feed the ego of their fat bellied commanders who stay back in lavish tents and drink mead while the world around them burns.
“Why not?” I trace my finger along the jagged spine of that book. “Who knows? They might be similar to us. Our little duchy comes under the boundaries of their empire. Don’t you think it is fitting for me to learn about them?” Of course, I am not interested in that. My fields of interest lie in meaningless rot literature; noble ladies meeting noble men and escaping in the gardens, falling in a wild, wild love and living happily ever after. Too bad those sorts of books are not available in the Duke’s library. But those fantasies are not that different from the high philosophies of the well educated. Both, in the end, exist only in someone’s fantasy.
“They are savages,” he says with an exasperated grunt. “They have been creating a rift here, just so they can annex this fertile land.”
“Good to know what ideologies they teach you in the military,” I say to the books. “Anyhow, Sir Adam, conversing with you is enough of a sedative. Now, I must take my leave. Ah, one last thing. You need not accompany me to the Cathedral tomorrow.”
Adam’s hand moves to the hilt of his sword in a heartbeat. “What do you mean?”
“You will accompany my brother, will you not?”
“Yes, but why do you need to be there?”
“You do not suppose that I have to report every little detail of my life to you? There is a limit to how much my brother can know. Do not be alarmed,” I watch him gulp, “I shall take Raphael with me. Although I do not think I would be in any danger.
“My Lady, what if someone tries to harm you?” Adam’s brows dip in genuine concern. The prospect of the unmarried daughter of the Duke going out raises a few suspicions but I reckon if anyone out there really knows me as Tara Somerhaden.
"Oh it is?" I grin. "Look at my clothes Sir Adam." I swish my faded mud coloured, cotton dress, "I dress worse than a commoner. If I go out wearing this, a baker might hand me her leftover bread, thinking of me a beggar."
Adam bows his head down, but I see a hint of his chapped lips curling upwards. “Please retire to bed now, my Lady. Even the candles are dying away.”
I grab the book and turn around, enthusiasm in keeping the conversation alive fading. Giving the man a curt bow, I push past him and slip into the stairway outside the doors, steps hushed and gait slow. I hear Adam trailing behind me at a considerable distance. When I reach the corridor that leads to my bedchamber, the walls behind me fall silent.
At this hour, no one stays awake other than the old man in charge of rekindling flames on this floor. I have never seen him. His existence is assumptious to the fact that I see lit candles at every hour of the night. Someone must be doing it. Our lands have no means of producing non-extinguishable candles. They never die out, even when a roaring wind knocks the frames of the windows and flutters the curtains in their own rhythm.
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