Page 3 of The King's Menagerie

"Three—" Nadir was going to pass out. "I have too much to do to sit around for three days."

"You won't be doing any of it if you work yourself to death while recovering from a head wound," Omid said sharply. "Three days, full rest. No exceptions—no studying, no cleaning, no running errands, no babysitting, none of it.Rest. That is an order. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Nadir replied, fighting back tears. His parents would kill him. Really and truly kill him this time. There was no way they'd just let him lie around the suite doing nothing.

"Good. I'm assigning you a recovery room in the southwest wing. You're to go there promptly. Belongings and such will be collected by a servant, and I'll send a note with them as well for your family."

"Surely I can rest in my own room."

"No," Omid said firmly. "Stop by the apothecary on your way out. I want you to take a couple of tonics while you're on bedrest. Come to me at the end of the three days to be re-evaluated. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Nadir replied, taking the small stack of half-sized sheets of paper Omid held out to him and slipping meekly from the room.

The apothecary was near the front of the wing, close to the check-in desk, and it took only minutes for the chemist on duty to make his tonics and hand them over, along with strict instructions on their usage.

Nadir headed off, sick to his stomach at the thought of how his parents would react when they found out.

The southeast wing of the palace was dedicated to single rooms, some used by residents, most used by guests, and a few reserved for those who needed to recover from wounds or illness in solitude. It was a strange place to send someone who simply needed to laze around for three days, but Nadir was too exhausted to press the matter. His parents wouldn't be around to read the note Omid had sent them for a few hours yet. Since there was little else he could do at the moment, Nadir fully intended to use the time to get what sleep he could. Gods knew once they woke him up, his parents wouldn't be letting him sleep again anytime soon.

*~*~*

When he woke, however, it was only to find a meal had been left for him, and all his belongings had arrived. There was also a note from Omid, giving more details about how he was to spend the next three days. He could use the private gardens reserved for convalescents and the chronically ill, but he was to avoid public gardens—all public spaces—unless it was clearedwith Omid. The only exception, of course, being should he have an audience with the steward or king.

Nadir laughed. Why in the world would he have an audience with either? His Majesty would be sent a note that Nadir was fine, and that would be that.

At least he would not be stuck in his room for the whole three days. That would not be relaxing at all.

Picking up the tray of food, he ventured out of the small room and went in search of the gardens. Thankfully, they were easy to find, and chairs aplenty were arranged around a cooling water fountain. Flowers and trees were in abundance, offering further relief from the last remnants of heat before cool evening swept in.

He settled into one of the chairs and set his tray on the table beside it. Simple food, the sort that could sit for a few hours without going bad or turning otherwise unpleasant. He tore a piece of bread in two and spread one half with goat cheese. The bread was still ever so slightly warm, further softening the cheese, which just made it even better.

There was also wine, a light, delicate one, the palest gold-pink in color, called Desert Lily. It did not pack nearly the punch of the sorts of wines used for meals, or the even harder ones intended for evening pursuits of all sorts.

He could not remember the last time he'd simply sat and enjoyed a meal. Normally he ate his food as quickly as possible, often while still working, unless the food was too cumbersome or messy for multitasking. Nor did he get to enjoy an actual meal, usually surviving on leftovers and snacks wherever he found the time to eat.

Guilt and anxiety clawed at him, urging him to stop sitting about wasting time, be productive, be useful. Be worth something.

Because no matter how hard he tried, it always felt like his parents never looked at him and saw someone worth all the time and money and effort they'd put into him. There was no obvious reason for him to think such a thing, but it was there all the same. In their closed off faces. The way they worked him so hard, but doted on his little sisters and loved them so openly.

What did they do right that he'd done wrong? So wrong that there seemed no coming back from it. They'd carved his path and set him on it, and he walked as bid, but the journey was lonely, and felt like there would be nothing for him at the end, not even his parents' pride and affection.

Or maybe it was all fevered imaginings of his overworked mind, and after three days of rest he would be able to finally see that. See that his parents did love him just as much as his sisters, and truly did only want the best for him.

The reassurances fell flat, as they always did, and Nadir chased his gloomy thoughts away with more wine and food.

As the pleasant warmth of the wine spread through him, the familiar, but so often buried urge to write rose up. He tried to resist it, but in the end couldn't help returning to his room for writing supplies.

Back in the garden, servants were lighting lanterns, so that a warm glow fell over the place, casting the flowers in shadows, dancing across the rippling fountain. The air was sweetly perfumed from the blossoms and fresh water, and off in the distance he could hear the softest strains of music, probably from the nightly banquet.

At its conclusion, many would break into smaller groups, retire to parlors and gardens and courtyards to spend their evening in leisure. Nadir had always wanted to join one of the groups that gathered for poetry: reading from the newest books, reading their own to solicit thoughts, or sometimes picking a theme and seeing who could come up with the wittiest, or mostbeautiful, etc. right there on the spot. Improv poetry had a very strict form, called a cube: four lines, four syllables, and it must be composed in four minutes or less. Not to be confused with a four by four, which was four verses, four lines each, and each line a trochaic tetrameter.

Nadir had pages and pages of cubes in his notebooks and on scraps of paper carefully tucked between the pages. It was lonely, playing by himself, but also fun to see how many poems he could come up with in a set time period. They were all terrible, but what did it matter? Nobody but him would ever see them.

Plenty of government officials, people of all professions, really, dabbled in poetry. That was why the nightly gatherings were so fun. Yet somehow his parents would permit him to have no part of such 'frivolity,' as though poetry was something dirty that would ruin their good name. He'd never understood it, but as in all things, his was to dutifully obey.

One day, though, he would be on his own, no longer accountable to them for every minute of his days. He would establish his dreary career, and then he would finally have time to make friends and take up pursuits like poetry.

He hummed along with the faint music while he worked, shifting away from his warmups with the improv poems to a sonnet, an imported format that was gaining popularity but was clearly built around a very different language. That just made it more challenging, and therefore more fun.

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