Ch 7. Milikree and Idalia of House Midas (II)

Cassandra was quiet for a moment. She wanted to tell Idalia more but seeing her bad condition, she knew she couldn't tell her many things all at once so she decided to just tell her the basic information her friend needed to remember.

"You're the only child of House Midas, you're really skilled in playing many instruments, you wanted to join the group traveling performers to escape a marriage proposal that had been brought up by Sir Caesar but that didn't happen," when Cassandra said that Idalia wondered if that's what might have caused the former Idalia to have run away and go to where she had woken at. Her friend continued, "You don't have many friends, you're quiet and elegant, most of the time you're obedient unless marriage is brought up where you try to fight back, and your dream is to create a name for yourself in Milikree's history with your music."

Wow, Idalia exclaimed in her mind. That was a very great and admirable dream.

Based on what she had grasped, this Idalia wasn't that much different from her. They both were musicians and were quiet people. She wasn't scared now that she could make a mistake in her acting "normal" when all she had to do was be quiet most of the time and play some music. On the topic of music, she was curious to learn about this kingdom's music and instruments.

"What kind of instruments do I play? I don't remember," Idalia asked.

"Do you want me to call for the lyre?"

"Yes."

Cassandra stepped out of the room to see if a servant was outside. Besides the guard who was standing outside Idalia's room, an older woman in servant's clothing was placing a plant pot down after cleaning the area. When Cassandra saw her, she ordered her to bring Young Lady Idalia's lyre to her and after giving a bow, the servant went to bring it.

"It should come in a moment," Cassandra announced after stepping back into Idalia's room.

Like five minutes later, the servant came back and in her arms, she carried securely an instrument that Idalia had studied about many times when it came to the Greek god, Apollo. The lyre.

This lyre that the servant had brought had eight strings and had two curved arm like pieces connected to a tortoise's shell and at the top, there was another piece that was straight and connected to the ends of the other curved pieces. On this top piece, there were also somethings that Idalia assumed were keys. At one of the sides of the lyre, there was a string tied in a manner of a loop which Idalia faintly recalled that it was the hand strap.

"Wow," Cassandra exclaimed softly. With wide eyes and a delightful shine in her eyes, she turned to Idalia, "So this is the newest version of the lyre. I never knew you could add more strings to it."

"Huh?" Idalia was very confused and asked, "Were they not supposed to have eight strings?"

"All the lyres in our kingdom only have three or four string ones. But with Pasfot's new lyres that will probably change now."

"Who's Pasfot?"

"Ah," Cassandra, who was basically drooling while looking at Idalia's instrument that was still in the servant's hands, turned back to Idalia and remembered, "I'm sorry! I forgot that you had lost your memories."

She then explained shortly, "Pasfot is one of the kingdoms that King Andreios had conquered almost two decades ago. It's the kingdom where Queen Minerva hails from."

"Oh," Idalia nodded. Realizing that her current situation involved a kingdom where there was a king and a queen, Idalia asked another question, "Does the king have any concubines?"

"Yes, there's one more. Consort Daphne. She's the mother of the eldest prince, Prince Timaeus," Cassandra replied and continued while still admiring the lyre as if she were seeing stacks of millions of dollars (of course, this Cassandra wouldn't know what dollars were), "She's the only other woman King Andreios has by his side and apparently," her voice dropped to a whisper, "she's the only one the king loves." She then changed back to exclaiming admiringly over the lyre as if she weren't just gossiping about the imperial family.

Hearing that, Idalia's eyebrows raised before quickly returning to having a calm look on her face. To be honest, she was quite interested to know about palace drama but she was a bit too tired to enjoy it so she left the subject drop.

Glancing back at the lyre that was still being held by the servant, who had remained expressionless and quiet the whole time, Idalia brought her right hand up and asked, "Can you bring it over, please?"

To this the servant showed a very incredulous look on her face and so did Cassandra but Idalia didn't notice their expressions. The servant looked down to hide her look while she walked forward to her young lady and extended her arms to hand the lyre over. Grasping it with her right hand, Idalia turned it around to examine and admire it. It was simple yet stunning, befitting for the other Idalia as she had noticed how most of the things in her room, even the robes she was wearing, were simple but still elegant and softly pleasing to the eye.

After looking closely at the lyre, Idalia tried to move and adjust herself to try to mimic the stance she had seen those playing the instrument in her history textbooks. She sat up straight before kind of hugging the lyre in her left arm and then stroking one of the strings with her right hand. The whole posture was wrong, she knew since it felt wrong and because of the odd stares she was receiving from Cassandra although she could also sense the servant taking some quick peeks.

Despite the awkward and wrong stance she had taken, Idalia decided to just pluck gently some strings to figure out the instrument. With her index finger hovering over the string closest to her, she lowered it down and gently glided her finger across that one string.