“Today, I’m going to begin teaching you how to read.”

Crow sat at the table in his room, staring at the pile of books and scrolls in front of him with wide eyes. He had shown up to his lesson on time for once and had just finished reviewing his etiquette under Udolf’s instruction. The tutor had been satisfied with his performance and announced that they would be moving forward with his lessons, onto other skills that he would find useful as the king’s ambassador. Apparently, today that meant he would be teaching him to be literate.

Though he was eager to learn this skill, Crow couldn’t help but find all the books a bit intimidating. There were so many of them, filled with pages that were covered from top to bottom in strange characters that he didn’t understand. It was overwhelming just to think about them, and part of him wondered how he would ever learn to understand them all.

[i]It not so different than the languages I’ve already mastered,[/i] he thought, trying to reassure himself. [i]I’ve even got a head start, since I know what words the characters spell.[/i] Feeling more confident in his ability, he turned to look up at Udolf, “Alright, so where do we start?”

The old man smiled. “It’s good to see you finally taking your lessons seriously,” he said with a hint of amusement. The tutor reached for an old, worn out scroll that was sitting at the top of the pile on the table and unraveled it. “This,” he explained. “Is the parchment I have used to teach children for years before you.” He laid the open scroll in front of the viceroy for him to see.

Crow rolled his eyes, unappreciative of being compared with a child. However, he said nothing. There was nothing he could do to change the fact that it had taken him so long to be educated, and it made sense that the tutor would have only needed to teach children in the past, since all nobles learned young. The most he could do now was prove that he was more competent than those children by learning to read and write quickly.

Turning his attention to the parchment, Crow was mildly surprised to see that it was decorated with the same letters Penelope had shown him before. The characters were laid out in one long row with the addition of a second, shorter row of symbols he had never seen before. Curious, he pointed out the second row to Udolf, “What are these?”

“Those are numbers,” the old man explained patiently. “I’m going to be teaching you math later, so you will need to learn to recognize them. For now though, just focus on the top.” He gestured to the letters and then handed the viceroy a feathered quill. “To start, you must memorize all of these characters. Practice copying them individually until you can recognize each one by its shape. As you do, try to remember what sounds they represent. I will tell you what they are as we go.”

“Okay,” Crow nodded, accepting the quill from him. He looked over the paper again. In the empty space around the two rows, there were other letters and numbers haphazardly scrawled by what he guessed had been past students. They were messy and hard to read. Privately, he determined that he wanted to write his characters more neatly. After all, he was going to prove to Udolf that he was more capable than the children he had taught before.

So, with renewed resolve, he dipped the quill in the ink and found a clear spot to practice, following the tutor’s instructions as he worked.

--

The lesson took most of the day, with a few breaks in between in which Udolf had Crow recite some of the etiquette he’d been taught. However, it didn’t feel nearly as long this time. Since he was learning something that was more interesting to him, Crow found that he enjoyed this lesson more than the last. He was determined to master reading and writing quickly, both because he considered it a skill that was actually useful and because he knew that once he was able to write, he could begin sending letters back and forth to Hazel to keep up with the rest of his companions. The thought of being able to reach out to them without traveling three days to their camp was exciting.

By the time the lesson was over, Crow was in a better mood than he usually was for supper. He was still tired from the effort of memorizing so many different letters, but he also felt accomplished. He had learned each and every character on the parchment and could copy them well now. All that was left was to learn how to use them to form words and sentences, and he felt confident that he could do so quickly. After all, he already had a large oral vocabulary. How hard could it be to learn how to read and write a language he already knew?

“Good work today,” Udolf said as he gathered his supplies. “If you keep up with this pace, you might actually have some potential as the king’s viceroy.”

“I’ve always had potential,” Crow snorted. “You just didn’t want to see it until now because I was a peasant.”

“Perhaps,” the tutor shouldered his bag. “But you are, in fact, the first peasant I’ve come across with an aptitude for any sort of meaningful skill.”

Crow scoffed at that. He knew plenty of peasants with a variety of useful talents. Hazel and Evelyn were even literate—self-taught, too. Of course, he also knew there was no changing the stubborn old man’s mind once he had made it up, so he didn’t bother trying to defend his people. [i]He[/i] knew the value of the people of the outer villages, and that was enough for now.

“I’m going to have my supper now,” he announced instead, gesturing for Preston to follow him as he turned to the door.

“Of course,” Udolf walked after him. “We will continue tomorrow.”

Crow nodded without response and exited the bed chamber with Preston close at his heel. After working so hard on his lesson that day, all he wanted to think about was filling his empty stomach. So, he headed down the corridor with the attendant, leaving his tutor behind on his way to the Great Hall.