Chapter 156: Telling the Truth
Simon expected that his little liaison with Elthena would have been a one-time thing, even though he hoped it might become at least a sometimes thing, but the Queen made no effort to hide their relationship. Soon, he became known as Her Highness’s consort on an official level.
That felt strange to Simon. It was a fact that was both widely known and also rarely mentioned by anyone to him directly, though some of his friends would tell him about the rumors sometimes.
“Have you heard the latest,” Aikolas asked him one day when they were strolling through the city together. “They say that the queen was forced to offer her hand to a monster to save the city?”
Simon laughed at that. “So I’m a monster now?”
“In the eyes of some, all foreigners are,” Aikolas answered, making Simon laugh all the harder.
He’d been expecting to be told how his scars made him unacceptable to royalty, but the truth was, he could be the prettiest guy in the world, but since he wasn’t Ionian, some of the locals would still turn their noses up at him past a certain point. Not all of them were like that, but the residents could be very clannish.
They weren’t rude about it, mostly. They were happy to sell him things or buy his medicines when he’d been a doctor and herbalist. Some of the poorer families would have even let him marry their daughters on the account of his success before all this happened, but even if he’d been proclaimed a hero in public, he doubted the nobility of the city would have ever come to see him as one of their own. In truth, he’d probably never entirely understand the customs of Ionar as a foreigner.
That was fine; Simon could stay here for a dozen more lifetimes, and he doubted he’d ever think of it as home either. Right now his only true home was the road, and the only reason he stayed here was because of what a delightful woman Elthena was, with or without clothes.
He often sat in on her court sessions now, not in any official capacity, of course. He just watched as she handed out justice and took petitions from clients, aristocrats, and sometimes the governors of other cities. It was deadly dull most days, but sometimes it could get interesting. Once, after she’d turned down the request of a powerful trader prince for more favorable tariffs and a monopoly related to certain imported goods, he’d been forced to stop an assassination attempt.