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Humbler Creatures and Grand Ambitions
Zahir sat on a blanket in the palace gardens beneath the blossoming, shading branches of a magnolia tree. He was picnicking with the royal family, or the members of the royal family available to attend such an afternoon entertainment. Prince Roald was training under Lord Imrah in Port Legann. Princess Kalasin studying in King’s Reach under the Countess. Learning to be a lady, Zahir supposed. The younger princes, Liam and Jasson, in the pages’ wing. Toiling at academic lessons Zahir knew from agonizing experience to be excruciatingly dull.
Which left the king and queen with only two of their six children–Princess Lianne and Princess Vania–to accompany them on this picnic. The two princesses were wrestling with their father. Or, more precisely, they were giggling and grinning as they tackled him, and he laughed.
Their behavior was most improper for princesses. That was what Zahir should have thought. Instead, as he watched King Jonathan–he often did so, seeking insights into his new knightmaster’s demeanor; trying to read the tea leaves of how he could expect to be treated, which he figured was only natural as it was June, and he had only been the king’s squire since May–play with his daughters, Zahir felt a strange mixture of emotions well within him.
Envy at the princesses for having a father who laughed and allowed himself to be tackled in a way Zahir’s severe Baba never would have. Affection for this king who had a playful, gentle side. Hope that perhaps his first weeks with King Jonathan weren’t any illusion, and the king truly would prove to be a kind, patient knightmaster to him.
Perhaps Queen Thayet, dress folded around her as she sat beside him on the blanket, sensed some of what was in his mind and heart. For she remarked in an undertone as she selected a purple Tusaine grape from a bowl full of them, “He won’t ever beat you, you know.”
“He who, Your Majesty?” Zahir blinked. Deciding that feigning stupidity was a safer course with this sharp, shrewd queen than admitting that he understood what she was talking about. Then confessing aloud how deftly she had read him. It was embarrassing not to be as haughtily inscrutable with his monarchs as he had been in the pages’ wing.
“My husband.” Queen Thayet paused. Eating another grape. “The king.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Zahir’s cheeks burned bright as a dying desert sunset. He should’ve proudly declared that he could survive it if the king beat him. That he had been surviving thrashings with Baba’s rod ever since he learned to toddle. But somehow he did not want to sound too defiant. An appropriate response to royalty. Among the Tortallans, at any rate. The Bazhir would surely be more scornful of such instinctual deference. Not being a people that bowed easily to any authority.
“He should’ve told you that himself before now.” Queen Thayet flicked a glance of love tempered with exasperation at her husband, who was still being wrestled into the blanket by their exuberant daughters. “But his father never beat him. So he does not truly understand what it is like to have a father who did. To expect that rough treatment again.”
“Is it so obvious my father beat me, Your Majesty?” Desperate for something to occupy his hands, Zahir cut himself a slice of fresh bread flecked with green olives and rosemary. Smeared some smooth cheese from Tusaine over it.
“Only to one whose father had beaten her.” The queen’s hazel eyes were unflinching but not cruel. Sympathetic but not soft. The contradictions that stole men’s breath when they gazed upon her. That rendered her the most beautiful, heartbreaking woman in the world. “All of us children who have been beaten but not broken by our fathers wear the same expression.”
“Your father beat you?” Zahir gaped at her. “But you are so beautiful.”
Realizing that this might be misconstrued as an awkward attempt at flirting with the wife of his king and Voice–something only an idiot would do–he faltered apologetically, “Er, no insult to you or your husband intended, of course, Your Majesty.”
“None taken, Zahir.” Queen Thayet smiled reassuringly at him. Her teeth, white as pearls, sparkled in the summer sunlight. “All children are beautiful in their own ways, and it is wrong for their fathers to beat them.”
A viewpoint Zahir should have deemed disconcertingly progressive. Instead, he found himself shooting the queen a speculative glance. Asking in an almost reverent manner, “You love children then, Your Majesty?”
“I gave birth to six of my own. It would be disturbing indeed if I didn’t love them.” Queen Thayet’s smile held a wry edge for a moment before she added in a more tender, reminiscent fashion. The sort of voice people inevitably assumed when contemplating what ifs. Musings over roads that could have been chosen. Turns and paths that could have been taken at crossroads and were not. “When I first came to Tortall as a refugee, I dreamed of starting my own school. I would’ve been a teacher if I had not become a queen and mother.”
Zahir wondered if she would have been happier if she had never become queen. Mother to six princes and princesses. Husband to a king transparent in his adoration of her.
He did not share such ruminations aloud. Ventured only, “I am glad your father was not able to break you, Your Majesty. So is all of Tortall. All the world.”
The world, he thought, would have been a darker, lesser place if her father’s beatings had broken her.
There was, he knew, a presumption in what he had uttered, but he didn’t believe she would rebuke him for it. She had invited this intimacy between them, after all. Offering first her comfort and then her confidence. Revealing that they shared the same secret and shame of having been beaten by their fathers.
As he had predicted, she did not reprimand him. Merely studied him keenly and murmured, “All of Tortall might one day be happy your father was not able to break you. My husband intends greatness for you, Zahir ibn Alhaz.”
“The king intends greatness for me?” Zahir choked out a feeble echo of his queen’s words. The idea that royalty could wield that much power over him–control his life in such a fashion–strangled him. He wanted to believe that he was master of his own fate. Able to choose his own destiny. That any greatness he achieved would be created by himself. Not dictated by his Voice and king. A proud folly and pitiful delusion, no doubt. The lies the weak spun themselves to avoid admitting they had no control over their existences.
“He does.” Queen Thayet nodded. Briskly confirming this.
“Isn’t that–” Zahir fumbled for phrasing that wouldn’t be too insolent– “rather ambitious of him, Your Majesty?”
“It is.” The queen’s hazel eyes twinkled with humor. “What would we be without our grand ambitions?”
“Much humbler creatures.” Zahir cracked a crooked grin. Confessed without any remorse, “Humility has never been my virtue and strength. Pride ever my vice and weakness.”
“You have grand ambitions for yourself, I know.” Queen Thayet patted his knee. A maternal gesture. Warm as June sunshine. “So does my husband. That is why he asked you to be his squire. To guide you in reaching those grand ambitions you have for yourself.”