Free Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta Page B

protocol. But in ten years, no one had ever asked what he was thinking. And he knew that the novice Evanjalin was asking for more than just his thoughts. She wanted the part of him he fought to keep hidden. The part that held his foolish hopes and aching memories.
    "I miss hearing our mother tongue," he found himself saying. "Speaking it. Sir Topher has always been strict about using only the language of the country we are in, but when I dream, it's in Lumateran. Don't you love it? The way it comes from the throat, guttural and forced. Speaks to me of hard work. So different from the romance of the Belegonian and Osterian tongues."
    There was a soft smile on her face and for a moment he forgot they were on this cliff, staring across at the stone and rubble of Sorel. "I miss the music of the voices in the crowded marketplace in my Rock Village, or in the king's court, where everyone talked over the top of one another. I can't tell you how many times I heard the king bellow, 'Quiet! Too much talking!' And that was just at the dinner table with his wife and children."
    She laughed, and the sound soothed him.
    "I swear it's true. The queen, she was the loudest. 'Is it my curse to have the worst behaved children in the land? Vestie, you are to apologize to Nurse, or I will have you cleaning the privy for the rest of the week! Balthazar, you are not the ruler of this
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    kingdom yet, and even when you are, you will eat at the table like a human being.'"
    Evanjalin's laughter was infectious, and he continued with the mimicry. He had loved his life in the Rock Village, but not as much as life in the king's court. In the palace, there were Balthazar and the beautiful spirited princesses, and most of all Trevanion. His heart would burst with pride whenever he witnessed his father's importance. Sometimes, deep in the night when on watch, Trevanion would take him from his bed and they would sit on the keep and stare out at the world below. Often Lady Beatriss would join them, shivering in the night air, and Trevanion would gather them both in his embrace to keep them warm.
    He could feel Evanjalin's eyes on him as the sun before them disappeared at a speed beyond reckoning. "Then I will demand that you speak Lumateran when we are alone," Evanjalin said, interrupting his thoughts.
    "Will you?" he mocked. "And why is that?"
    "Because without our language, we have lost ourselves. Who are we without our words?"
    "Scum of the earth," he said bitterly. "In some kingdoms, they have removed all traces of Lumatere from the exiles. We are in their land now and will speak their tongue or none at all. Our punishment for the pathetic course of our lives."
    "So men cease to speak," she said softly.
    Men who in Lumatere had voices loud and passionate, who provided for their families and were respected in their villages. Now they sat in silence and relied on their children to translate for them as if they were helpless babes. Finnikin wondered what it did to a man who once stood proud. How could he pass on his stories without a language?
    "And how Lumaterans loved to speak," Finnikin said. "Shout
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    from hilltops, bellow in the marketplace, sing from the barges on the river. I had a favorite place, the rock of three wonders at the crest of my village. I would climb it with Balthazar and Lucian of the Monts. You would have known him, of course, being a Mont."
    She nodded. "Son of Saro."
    "We had a healthy dislike for each other. He would call me 'trog boy' Repeatedly."
    "And how would you respond?" she asked with a laugh.
    "By calling him 'son of an inbred.' Repeatedly. Balthazar would judge who could come up with the worst insult. I would win, of course. Monts are such easy targets."
    "They are my people you're speaking of," she said, trying to sound cross.
    "How was it that your family became separated from them?" Finnikin asked. "You are the first Mont we have ever met on our travels."
    Evanjalin was silent for a moment, and he wondered if she knew