Read Online The Eyes of a King by Catherine Banner - Free Book Online

her look plain in comparison like they would have another girl.
    There was something about her mouth that made me want to look at it. It was perfect. Her lips were parted slightly, self-consciously, as if she knew it made her look prettier but the action did not come naturally. I noticed I was staring at them, and looked away quickly. She was smiling. I tried to smile back.
    “Do you live here?” the girl asked. I opened my mouth. Hell, she was pretty! She was like an ornament that should be kept locked up, for fear of ruining it. I shut my mouth again.
    “Yes, we do,” Stirling was saying.
    “So do I,” said the girl. “Since today. We just moved into the top apartment.”
    “I’m pleased to meet you,” said Stirling. “I’m Stirling, and this is my brother, Leo. He’s ill. He was training and he passed out, but he’s all right now.” I tried again to smile, without success.
    “I’m Maria,” she said. “This is Anselm.” I realized that she was pointing to the bundle, and that it was a baby.
    “Anselm?” asked Stirling.
    “Yes, it’s after a saint. A legendary English saint.” She was standing next to us now. Stirling leaned over to look.
    “He’s sweet,” said Stirling. “He looks like you. Is he your brother?”
    “No, he’s mine.”
    “Your what?” I tried to jog Stirling’s arm.
    “Mine,” she said again, and she did not seem to mind. “My own baby.”
    “Oh,” said Stirling. Then he asked, “Are you married?” I clutched my hand to my head before I could stop myself. The girl looked at me. “Do you have a headache? How thoughtless—I’m keeping you standing here in the cold when you are sick. I am sorry.”
    “Do not trouble yourself,” I tried to say, without much success.
    “Can you tell me where the bathroom is?” the girl asked.
    “Out here,” said Stirling, pointing out the door. “Across the yard.”
    “Thank you.”
    We followed her through the door, Stirling still supporting me. She stood still and looked round the yard, frowning at the grimy walls and the tall houses that blocked the sunlight. “I’m afraid it’s not very nice,” said Stirling, as if it was his own living room.
    “Some plants would improve it no end, I daresay.”
    Then she realized we must be heading for the bathroom too. “You should go first,” she told me.
    “No …,” I said feebly, and wished we weren’t having this conversation.
    “Yes,” she said. “The quicker you get back to bed, the better.” I did not have the energy to insist. Stirling helped me across the yard to the bathroom door, and I went in alone. I could hear them still talking outside, and listened hard, in case they thought I could not hear.
    “Your brother would not let you go into the bathroom with him.” She was bold, for sure. “What if he was to faint again?”
    “Even if he was dying, I don’t think he would want to be helped more than he had to be.”
    “He is proud, then?” I could not hear Stirling’s answer. “But pride is not necessarily bad. It is a virtue in some ways.”
    “That was what I meant,” Stirling said. There was a short pause. The baby gurgled. Then Stirling’s voice again: “Are you married?”
    “No. Are you?” He laughed. The baby started to cry shrilly, and the girl said, “Shh.”
    “So is it just you and Anselm here?” Stirling asked when the baby quieted.
    “My mother also.”
    “Where’s your father?”
    “Fighting at the Alcyrian border. Where your brother will be before long, I suppose. I see by his clothes that he is a soldier.” I glanced down at what I was wearing, and remembered that my bootlaces were undone, and half my bare chest was showing, and there was mud in my hair. A fine soldier indeed I looked.
    “He’s in military school,” said Stirling. “Then he’ll have two and a half more years of training in the army.”
    “I thought by his looks that he was older.”
    “No, fifteen.”
    “Me also.”
    “I’m eight,” said Stirling.