It is raining again the next morning when I go to the library for my first lesson. I have not told Mariusz what I am up to because I want to surprise him by learning his language, and I have sent Zofia and Henryka away on the excuse of having a headache so that they cannot inform him. This time, I find Prince Konrad sitting and waiting for me at one of the tables. He has several books and a small pile of pencils in front of him.

"Dobro jutro," he says as I enter.

"Good morning."

"And in my language?" His smile cuts the criticism in his words.

I attempt the sound.

"Not bad," he says. "The r is not at the back of the throat. It is against the back of the teeth."

"Dobro jutro?"

"Yes, that is better." He takes out one of the books and opens it. "We will begin with the alphabet. If you can read, you can learn."

It is another dictionary, a smaller one this time, with pictures next to the words. A child's dictionary. Konrad flips to the front pages where a neat table of letters is printed next to a series of simple pictures.

"A as in ananas," Konrad says. "Repeat after me."

I repeat, and repeat endlessly. There are some letters that are almost the same as in Rothalian, but others require me to twist my tongue in ways I have never twisted it before. Nor can my ears quite distinguish all the sounds on first hearing them. It takes many repetitions before I quite grasp the variety of sibilants in the language, and many more before I can begin to repeat them with anything approaching fidelity. At the end of two hours, however, I manage to read haltingly aloud from a book of children's stories. Konrad claps.

"Very good," he says in my language. "You can read and write now."

"But I don't know what I'm saying."

"That will come with time."

"How much time?" I rub my cheeks. My face muscles are weary from the effort of forming these new sounds. "Can I borrow the dictionary? I want to read it."

Konrad shakes his head. "Isolated words won't do you any good. Besides, it is my son's."

Two hours of language practice have dampened my energy for learning. I grasp at the distraction, though I am not really interested.

"What's his name?"

"Florian. He is seven years old." Konrad repeats the phrase in Selician. "He is strong-minded, like his mother." And that one too.

I make a token effort at repeating the phrases. "She was a strong woman then, your first wife?"

"Yes. Very much so. Everything that I am, I owe to her. My parents, bless their souls, left me quite unprepared for the world. My wife saw both my talents and my crudity, and nurtured me."

"She was older than you?"

"By some twelve years. Oh, don't hide your frown. You think it obscene, the difference between me and my wife. Perhaps I could persuade you otherwise, but to be frank, I don't care if you think my marriage was obscene. You join a crowd of thousands in thinking so. The weight of public opinion does not bow my shoulders."

I force myself to smile. "You read too much in my eyes. I was thinking no such thing."

"It was in the curl of your upper lip, actually." Konrad seems more amused than offended. "Perhaps I will repulse you even more. I did not marry my wife for love. I married her for her intellect, which fascinated me. And just a little bit, if I am being very honest, I married her for her wealth."

I don't bother to try to hide my shock this time. By the laughter in Konrad's eyes, my reaction pleases him, and there is something about that which displeases me.

"It is not what you have done that shocks me," I say. "It is the cavalier way in which you describe it. After all, I suppose Mariusz and I married for reasons just as mercenary. I think most royal marriages must be, to a certain degree, practical arrangements."

"They most certainly should be. For all my poetry, I cannot be convinced that love is but one of our baser instincts. It was love that led my father to ruin. Do you know that tale? Or has no one told you yet?"

"I don't speak your language well enough to be privy to idle gossip."

"It is not gossip. It is history." Konrad drums his fingers idly on the table. "My mother was a very beautiful actress and my father was a lover of beauty. He was too weak to stop himself from loving her, and she was too selfish to send him away and too proud to be his mistress. So they married, despite it being completely contrary to public opinion and good sense."

Konrad's symmetrical mouth tightens in one corner and he stares off into a far distance. Then he shakes his head.

"What is lost is lost."

"What is lost?" I ask. "It does not seem terrible, that your father loved your mother and married her, even if she was an actress." In fact, there is something rather enviable about it, and Konrad's ignorance of his good fortune does not endear him to me. "Certainly scandalous, I suppose, but not a tragedy."

"It was much more than scandal. You may have noticed I have no functioning title, no duchy, no county, not even a castlet near the border that I might pretend is a knight's stronghold. No. I have not even a political office, not even a letterhead. It is impotent courtesy alone that affords me the use of the word prince. My father abdicated the throne in order to marry my mother. Her blood — common blood — could not be allowed to contaminate royal succession." All amusement has gone from Konrad's voice and eyes now. "If it weren't for my father's abdication, it would be I, not Mariusz, who is the king now."

"The duke, you mean."

"The duke. Of course." Prince Konrad gives me a conciliatory smile. "I cannot imagine my honourable father would be able to resist political pressure any more than my late uncle could. But still, you see, a great deal was lost in that marriage for love."

"Certainly. Your father would have been much wiser to marry the nearest princess and love her as well as he could. But if he had, you would never have been born. You are your mother's blood as much as your father's. So I think, perhaps, you should be grateful that your father was a fool for love."

"You are right, of course. It is an idle dream of mine to imagine a different history." Konrad sighs poetically. "A chambermaid may as well dream of being a countess." He stands and gathers up his pile of books. "Don't imagine I'm seriously jealous of my cousin. He is very generous to me and my family. I owe him a great deal. Perhaps in teaching you his language, I can pay a little of it back. We will leave it here for today. Tomorrow, the same time?"

"Yes. I want to learn more, and quickly."

"It will come with time." He bows. "Do zautra, your highness."

"Do zautra."

He leaves the library. I wait for a few minutes after he has gone so that we are not seen walking the halls together. There is something rather pathetic about Konrad. A poet who does not value love, wistful for a crown that could never be his, and handsome, but not at all attractive, like a doll come to life. I am relieved that he is not the duke, because if he were, I would have to have married him instead of Mariusz.

--

2024-06-12: I emerge from a K-drama fueled burnout recovery to post what is, perhaps, not a very good chapter. I think I have Konrad wrong here somehow. He's a twerp, but not quite the kind of twerp I describe here. Hm...