Chapter 12
Twelve
Death came and offered me its hand. I’m sure many scholarly order members believe it would have been better if I’d taken it, but I didn’t.
I lived.
There was coldness and dreams that I forced myself to forget the moment I awoke.
But then there came the hour my mind grew orderly.
I felt truly hot again and kicked off my blankets with sore legs and pulled the giant knot that was my hair away from my face and neck, but even that wasn’t enough to cool me.
The room was full of braziers—dangerously so.
Especially if anyone thought about how the whole space leaned subtly every so often because the palace—indeed half of the city I was in—was set atop the sea.
And there were more than braziers. The odd king had insisted any painting, tapestry, or carving with flames on it be brought and set in the space with me.
Maybe he’s not even a king, I thought. He’s probably a liar thief. And then I thought again, Thief!
I couldn’t see where my goldkeeper’s gown was and began frantically tearing through the mountain of blankets and furs I’d been sleeping in. “No,” I said under my breath as I searched. “No, no, no.” It wasn’t my gold I’d lost; it was Loric’s. It was my betrothed’s gold.
“It’s beneath the board there. The third one over on the wall. You hid it while in Egil’s clutches.”
I turned to find a young woman at the entrance to the room, her arms full of yet more blankets. I vaguely remembered prying the board away from the wall only after she’d mentioned it.
“You’re from my country,” I said. She had a servant’s way of talking, but her accent was Islish entirely.
“Perhaps it is you who’s from my country,” she said.
Her skin glowed like amber; her hair shone like bronze.
She wore the same loose-fitting garments as the sea dogs, but her hair was oiled smoothly to a twist at the nape of her neck, and her nose was pierced—both were Islish stylings.
“Fuck, it’s hot in here,” she said as she dropped the blankets onto the bed.
I had more questions than I could possibly begin to count or articulate.
“Are you an accidental captive, too?” I said, realizing how foolish the sentence sounded just as it came out of my mouth.
“No,” she said. “Fell bid me come so you could have someone who speaks your language who isn’t The Bard King. I had other things to do, but, alas, he has a way of asking… halt! You don’t like that corner.”
I had been retreating to keep a fair distance between us, my arms crossed over my chest because I felt undressed even though I had a thick linen garment on.
Only after her warning did I remember the bundle of troublesome objects I’d hidden in the small, triangular space provided by a painting leaning against the wall.
Someone had brought me a comb, and I’d figured it might be cursed.
There had been other offerings as well. The idea seemed so foolish to me with my mind returned.
I actually believed very little in sorcery—why had I been so focused on it while ill?
“You must think me mad,” I said.
“Only a little. You seem to be faring better, though?”
I nodded. “I don’t know what to begin asking. Your name and where the woman who cared for me has gone and where I am and how I am to leave and why you call him The Bard King and—”
“Your hair is against prescription,” she said.
I’d never heard someone speak of prescription so lightly, so playfully.
“If you let me fix it, I will answer what I can. Most I only know through hearsay and what Fell told me as we walked to the palace.”
“Fell?” The name scratched at my memory.
“Yes, he’s… well, he lives in the palace sometimes. When he wants to. He was in the raiding party that brought you north. The one with the smile. You know which one.”
I did, but I shook my head, pretending I didn’t.
“He’s the one who made you that.” She pointed to the dried grass bracelet on a ledge I assumed was part of a shut window. I remembered setting it there carefully only after she’d drawn my attention to it.
Pinkbeard. “His name is Fell?”
“Yes… or… Fell Sulertag. Most northerners don’t have two names, but he does. It means Fell Heartsong, but it’s more like—” she raised her hands in a sweeping arch. “With song in heart. Because he’s always singing and humming. Ever since he was a child, I’ve heard.”
I kept my face entirely neutral, my every limb and muscle still.
“Now, you can’t see yourself, but I can. I’m embarrassed for you. Sit, and I’ll fix your hair and answer your questions.”
“Is there not a window that could be opened—” I moved toward the closed shutters above the ledge where Pinkbeard’s bracelet sat.
“Not until The Bard King says so. He wants to see you recovered. Truly, he won’t even be pleased you’ve taken your socks off.”
I wanted to say, those aren’t my socks, but I didn’t want someone telling the king I was disagreeable. “The Bard King?”
“Sit,” she said firmly.
I sat on the edge of the bed, overcome again by the sweltering heat, and she came to sit by my side but a little behind me, pulling a wooden comb from her pocket. “I am Dania,” she said. “Your name?”
I thought for a moment about lying, but there seemed no point, and perhaps the king already knew my name. “Mira.”
She began with the very end of my tangled hair, the comb moving slowly and gently. “You were a gentlewoman back home? A goldkeeper?”
My back straightened. “I still am a gentlewoman.”
“Maybe to me, Gentlewoman—” I didn’t miss the mock in her tone. “But the Norsern have no such thing in their country. They won’t understand it if you explain it to them. High births, low births—nothing like this. They have only auspicious births and unlucky births. To them, you will be soten.”
“Yes,” I said, turning to her. “What’s soten?”
“It’s…” she smirked. “You won’t like it. It’s a foreigner, but more than that… a claimed or no, vouched for? Owned person maybe is the way to say it? Owned woman from the south?”
“A slave?” I choked.
“Calm yourself! No. It’s complicated… in the Land of the Northernmost Star, where you are right now—” She pointed to the floor.
“Norsenlaed, it’s called—the rules are hard for foreigners to understand.
Disagreements are solved however is fair—an argument, a slap, a broken wrist—there are rules about what is fair, but foreigners make too many mistakes when they first arrive.
If they were left on their own, they would be beaten blue daily.
And when you first come, many Norsern tricks and jokes seem cruel, so you can feel attacked which also makes it hard.
Being soten means you have a guardian. When you annoy people, they punch the guardian instead of you.
This is a very good thing. Especially for someone…
” She paused, moving her lips around with an air of superiority.
“Who has grown up in a gilded kepen, who’s never had to work or earn her way—”
“I’ve worked,” I said.
She giggled. “We shan’t meddle with that idea today.
Your guardian will have reign over you until the day you’re deemed—by this same guardian—capable of managing yourself.
Sometimes it’s two years, sometimes twelve…
depends on many factors. But you must listen to your guardian.
That is important, delicate Gentlewoman, because your guardian is allowed to hit you. In truth, they’re allowed to kill you—”
My mouth hung open. I was too distraught to latch onto her use of delicate.
“There is a hearing before The Bard King this evening. Many have wagered he will take the role of guardian himself, but he will hear other suggestions based on the stars and—”
“It must be you,” I said, quite pathetically, grabbing onto her arm.
She laughed in my face and pried my fingers off her. “No, no, no. I have two boys of my own and a man who’s beautiful but mostly useless. I don’t need another person to care for—”
“Please, Dania. I’m alone in a strange place. If it’s you, you can simply not stop me from leaving; I must go home. I have a wedding—or maybe I’ve missed it already. Dania, why are you looking at me like that?”
Her eyes glowed with somewhat unkind pleasure. “Like what?”
“Like you’re enjoying my suffering and confusion.”
“I am a little.”
I stared at her, hot tears pooling in my eyes.
Her entire face softened. “Oh, goodness. Don’t take me so seriously.
Please, Gentlewoman. I’m a miller’s daughter.
I just happen to be here in the palace, eating the meals you have refused, because my man rowed with Fell back when Fell was still rowing, and that’s how he knows me.
He knew I spoke your language, so fetched me for your sake. ”
“I have done nothing wrong,” I said, tears threatening to come out once again.
Her lips fought against the very visible urge to curl into a smile.
“We shall leave aside the plight of the Islish people and accept that as truth for today, Gentlewoman.” She sighed.
“Make your supplications to The Bard King when you see him next. I cannot speak to his mind, only that people say he is very clever. He has demanded you recover. Healers have been called from all over the country. The entire city has been tasked with burning herbs and chanting.”
Perhaps he knows I must be returned, I thought. I couldn’t imagine what the order would do if not just gold were missing, but an entire goldkeeper.
“Now, turn your head. Let me finish, please. If you could see your own appearance, you would be crying for a wholly different reason. I was supposed to call The Bard King the moment you were speaking sense, but I will keep quiet long enough for you to become presentable.”