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Lymok smiles darkly. “Has he been calling you that?”

Tobi nods as he remembers it with a shiver. Harok has spat kushessa at him in anger, but he had also called him it sweetly, like an endearment.

“A hess is a dog. A female dog is sometimes called a hessa. And you know what kush means,” Lymok says bluntly.

“Oh,” says Tobi. Oh. “So it means… bitch?”

“Not exactly, more like…” Lymok trails off, like he either doesn’t know the word or doesn’t want to say it.

“Slut?” Tobi says.

“Yes,” Lymok says, more confident now Tobi has said the word. “Or, perhaps, to be literal about it, one who presents their hole for covering like a female dog does.”

“Oh,” says Tobi again. “I see.”

Lymok leans forward over the table. He looks quite delighted by the turn the conversation has taken. Perhaps he enjoys hearing hints about Harok and Tobi’s lovemaking. Perhaps he is intrigued by it. Lymok had claimed he was not sly, but Tobi wonders if that is really true.

He says, “He did also call me elisia. And there is a song, in Ambolk, Dekuna, elisia.”

Lymok smirks. “Elizzia,” he says, pronouncing the word in the way Harok does with a long sibilant hiss that Tobi hasn’t quite mastered, “means, my love or my darling, it’s an endearment. And I think you know what dekuna means.”

“I do,” Tobi nods.

“So dekuna elizzia means, crudely, ‘suck my cock, my darling’.”

Tobi sucks on his bottom lip, remembering the stable with Harok the previous day, but he feels a little warm inside when he thinks of Harok saying, “Suskara eh elizzia.”

“Are there many songs sung in Ambolk in Azuria?” says Lymok, sounding quite intrigued.

Tobi nods. “Usually, minstrels sing in Ambolk to disguise how bawdy a song is. If a song is being sung in Ambolk or Juran everyone knows that means the words would not be allowed in Artemian. There is another popular Ambolk song, Ar-lily kush. Everyone says that means the seamstress’s cunt. It’s about a seamstress who doesn’t finish her work in time so her patron demands sex in return for his wasted journey to collect the mending and the sex is so good that she rips open her stitches each time he comes so they can have sex again.”

“Oh,” Lymok sounds a little surprised. “This is not an Ambolk song I know.”

“Perhaps it's not. Just an Azurian song they sing in Ambolk to hide the bawdiness. And over time, people have started to assume the song itself is from the Amber Forest.”

“Azuria sounds like the strangest place,” says Lymok. “Full of the most mysterious customs and superstitions.”

“I suppose it is,” he says.

But surely the Amber Forest is just as mysterious, if not more so.

For almost half the day, Tobi works with Lymok in the library. Tobi is surprised by how much he enjoys it. It is much more pleasant than Tobi’s memories of the lessons he had as a boy. He had always thought he had no ability when it came to such things. But Lymok teaches Tobi a great deal that morning. He starts with yes and no, which Tobi has already picked up, and then the Ambolk numbers. He teaches Tobi a few simple Ambolk sentences. How to ask for food and drink. How to greet people and ask after their health. By the time they finish, Tobi’s head is spinning, but he feels quite thrilled that he will be able to speak to Harok in his own tongue.

During dinner in the Sacred Hall, Harok is, once again, deep in conversation with Mereli and his council of advisors. Tobi cannot understand anything of the discussion, but he listens patiently, trying to pick out words he knows, but there are few except Exceli, which seems to be a common topic of Harok’s conversations.

But later, in the bed chamber, Harok has Tobi lie beside him and kisses him deeply, making him squirm with pleasure, before saying, “Suskara, Ambolk?”

Tobi smiles and counts from one to ten in Ambolk.

Harok laughs. “Sho, Suskara. Ga.”

“Damalik, Irgorye,” Tobi says, enjoying the fact they are having some kind of first conversation. Then he says, “Priss? Endel priss?” Which he hopes means five kisses.

Harok laughs again. A low soft rumble and drops five pecks on Tobi’s nose.

“Damalik, Ereyek,” Tobi says again.

He knows Harok likes being called Ereyek and isn’t surprised when Harok responds with a growl. He rolls over on top of Tobi, eyes dark with lust. He pins Tobi’s wrists to the bed in one big hand and runs the other down Tobi’s body, down his side and up, under the alit. Tobi spreads his legs as a finger strokes over his hole. Harok mutters some words of Ambolk Tobi does not understand. Is he talking about Tobi’s body? Tobi’s hole? Perhaps he ought to learn more bedchamber words after all.