“Nothing here.”

The scribe and I had spent all afternoon searching through the royal archives for any sign of the agreement that hamstrung my right to ascend to the throne. We had opened protective cases that had a key that hadn’t been seen for generations and disturbed enough dust to leave the room hazy, but still nothing seemed like it had been touched or added since my father’s death.

“It makes no sense,” the scribe mused, his hand under his chin and his eyes glassy and distant, “the safest place in the castle would be for it to be housed here, but it looks like nothing has been moved or touched since the last time I was here.”

“Shouldn’t it have been in your care from the beginning?” I asked. “It doesn’t feel very on the level if our own royal scribe didn’t have access to the document.”

The scribe gave a wan smile and ran his free hand over his balding head and gave the back of his neck a scratch. “In better days I would have thrown a fit until something so egregious would be rectified, but it was made very clear that the full weight of the Church would be brought down upon me if I questioned and that is not something I could afford to challenge.”

“Why would you care what the Church thinks?” I plopped into the overstuffed, dust filled armchair positioned in front of the desk. I was exhausted from stretching my magic so far, the boost of energy from the sheer joy of my discovery had only carried me so far. “You answer to the royal family, not them.”

“If only it were so simple,” he said with a dry laugh. He leaned back against the dusty bookcase we had just rifled through and gave me an inquisitive look. “I suppose I have never had a chance prior to now to discuss my purpose in this castle. After working with your father for so long I grew accustomed to him being largely uninterested in the details of my duty. He did not seem to care much what I did or why, only that I did what he required of me when necessary, the fine points were unimportant.”

“I am not my father,” I said, careful to keep my voice light and even, I did not want some rumor going around that I despised my father. Servants were inclined to idle gossip and any hint of something like that could be overblown and be the talk of the castle and maybe even the kingdom for months. If my father had been unpopular that could have been a positive way to set myself apart from him and gain trust, but since he was seen as a mostly benevolent, if sometimes volatile king, it would cause a danger to anyone who may still feel an excess of fealty to my late father. “I want to know what all my subjects are tasked to do, besides, I am particularly interested in history and books, both of those I feel we must have in common.”

The older man’s eyes lit up and he nodded with a small grin on his lips. “I assume you have been taught to write?”

“Of course,” I chuckled, “what kind of monarch would I be if I could not?”

His lips tightened sharply into a thin line as he held in a laugh, though the sound did catch in his throat. “Pardon, my lord, it is only mildly amusing to me how much is kept from a future king sometimes, you are to know everything about the kingdom, but it seems like great lengths have been taken to keep you in the dark about many things.”

“Then enlighten me,” I challenged, “that I assume is part of your job.”

“Indeed it is and may I say how refreshing it is.” He turned his head to the side slightly and glanced to the door briefly. “I have caught on that you are at least aware that books, writings, and such related things were not something your father particularly cared about.”

“Of course, we’ve already said as much.”

“Forgive me if I hesitate, this is a secret I have kept since I was but a young man and have kept my lips tightly sealed out of both respect and fear of your father.”

“You have nothing to fear from him now,” I assured, “I only want to know the things that have been kept from me. It is my right to know.”

“Yes, of course,” he agreed with a nod, “it is just that your father did not know how to read or write. He was so indifferent to the whole affair due to his inability to understand any of it.”

I raised my eyebrow and stared at the scribe, my first inclination was to question the validity of what he was telling me, though it would not make sense for him to make a potential enemy out of the person who would one day rule over him. Instead, I kept my initial thoughts to myself and felt pieces of past memories slowly fall into place. All the indifference towards anything being presented to him in the form of written word, the fact he refused to read anything to me that he had not already memorized to heart, the little flashes of anger any time I would bring him something to read to me when I was very young. I had always just assumed he was stuck in his ways and was unwilling to try anything new or different, but it made much more sense that he was instead incapable.

“A king who cannot read or write?” I asked allowed. It felt like a rhetorical question, though I did desire a logical answer.

“I did not quite believe it at first myself,” he answered. “I thought surely it had to be just a misunderstanding on my part, that perhaps I was presenting him with too many or too difficult documents to go over, then it eventually dawned on me that he simply could not. We never spoke of it directly, it just became an expectation of my duties to spend my evenings in his chamber reading out any important news to him and showing him where to sign ahead of any public signatures.”

“He used to read some to me as a young child.”

“Ah, yes I saw him doing that once or twice, took me by surprise until I realized that what he was saying was not how an author would write, he was simply telling you stories and information and turning the pages when he thought it seemed right.”

“I see,” I said, not helping a frown from forming on my face.

“I sincerely tried to help him learn, my lord. He simply… could not. It’s a hard thing to understand, he just lacked some aspect that allows people to read and it was just ink smudges on parchment to him. He tried for a while early on, before he had even taken your mother as a bride and it always ended up with him tipping over the ink bottle and storming off to the training grounds to hit things very angrily with swords. Eventually we worked out that it was just better if I took care of those aspects of kingship for him and filled him in on the minutia later.”

“In some ways you ran the kingdom.”

He let out a lilting laugh and shrugged. “I suppose that’s true, though I never really thought of it like that, that’s a dangerous thing to think around a king with a temper. I merely saw it as I was a special liaison who liked to keep their head attached to their shoulders so I was trustworthy. It was likely easier for him to trust me having the Church vouching for my training and credibility, they had me on a very short leash, still do.”

I frowned at the mention of the Church again, it seemed that they had much more of a grip on the people of my kingdom without my knowledge. That even included myself.

“Ah yes, let me explain that,” he said, noting my expression. “I was but a very young lad, probably no more than eight years when my father died, leaving myself, my mother, and my two younger sisters. We were not a noble family by any means, but we were better off than many, my father had inherited very rich, fertile farmland just on the edges of the kingdom in one of the most productive regions for wheat. Rich was not a word we would use, but we always had food on the table and mother had enough household money to make new clothes for us every year. It was actually a small event in the local village when it was time to trade out our clothing, my mother would go around handing out our old pieces for other women who were not to lucky in being able to clothe their children.” He went quiet, a soft smile forming on his lips and his eyes glistening like tears were threatening to grow. “When my father died we had assumed that the farm could go on much like it always had, perhaps we would need to hire a bit of help until I came of age, but the land had been in the family for generations so it should have just gone to my mother, then to me without issue, but my father had secrets.”

“Much like mine,” I muttered softly.

He gave me a sympathetic looked and gently placed a hand on my shoulder for a moment, before removing it and continuing his story. “My father had always been one to visit the local tavern fairly often, not unusual for working men who make enough to have coin to throw around some here and there. Unfortunately he had found that gambling and bets were a bit of fun for him and at some point he must have sat in on one too many games of chance, because it turned out he owed a few other farmers and even a noble a bit of coin that he had promised to pay off with the next harvest. I don’t know how much it was, my mother tried to shield me from the worst of it, but I know it was enough that it was infeasible to hire the help to tend the field to make then money, then pay them and the debts, we were in a lose-lose situation and it was pretty assured that we were going to have to give up the farm and become destitute. I’m not sure how exactly the Church caught wind of the situation, but a few nights before we would have to pack our things and leave for an uncertain future, a priest knocked on the door and presented a solution. They were willing to pay off the debt as long as they were signed over the deed to the farm and my mother and sisters could live on and work the land like they always hand and I would be sent to them to be trained as they saw fit.”

“So you were exchanged to keep your family’s farm?”

“That’s the gist of it, I gladly accepted knowing that my mother and sisters would have a much better life that way and I was right, my mother was able to live out a long and happy life with my sisters and their eventual spouses in the house they grew up in. The younger of my sisters still lives in the house with her husband and numerous children, the Church makes sure I get her letters regularly still.”

“And they trained you to be a scribe.”

“They taught me absolutely everything I know and it led me to a sort of dream position with much stability and power, I would have never been able to have this fine of a life back on the farm. However, though they have never been outright in telling me, I knew that if I ever upset them or did something counter to what they have taught me that they are able to claim and deed and throw my family off of the land at a moment’s notice. I don’t like the idea of my young sister being tossed with all her children into the street, so I’m inclined to not fight the flow of the river, even if I don’t like where it’s going.”

I felt like I was really beginning to understand how the Church worked, it seemed like it operated on the appearance of doing good deeds, but those deeds came with complications and contingencies that were not always agreeable. My mind wandered back to the words of my late religious tutor, that bad people hide in the disguising cloak of good.

“I hope that with that brief explanation you can find it in your heart to forgive me for not standing up and fighting when perhaps others would.”

“Yes, I understand,” I said with a nod, “I am well aware of what she was capable of anyway. I would not have necessarily condemned you based on just how foreboding she is to deal with.”

The scribe’s shoulders relaxed a bit and he let out a long breath. “Well, I suppose that the next step then is to perhaps search the room where she was staying.”

“I already had some servants do that,” I said.

“I’m sure you have, but I’m not sure if most of the servants in this castle can even spell their own names. I’d be shocked if any of them would recognize the document for what it is apart from any other letters or correspondence she might have kept. I think it’s smart if we go have a look ourselves, plus I know a few inside tricks of the Church that might be of use. There is, well…” Again he glanced to the door. “There is a lot of secrets floating around those involved in the Church and if you have any ability to rise in hierarchy you learn how to hide things to keep them safe. I’m almost certain that something much be hidden in that room, even if it’s not exactly what we’re looking for, it may be helpful.”