Chapter 16
Sixteen
“I heard you and Jorn spent time together during the shy moon?” King Arik was standing at his tall table again, enjoying raw eggs with a cheery smile. He gently cracked each shell against the lip of a copper bowl before breaking the egg open above his mouth.
It was our second day of morning questions together.
“Yes,” I said.
“He said you have similar tastes. He has asked for this for you.” King Arik pointed at a small plate, filled with mud-coloured squares. They were thin and appeared hard. “It comes from far, far away, Gentlewoman—very expensive. Shoka, he calls it.”
I stepped closer to the table to look at the offering, feeling I had to try some since it was requested specifically for me, but also feeling that I wouldn’t like it.
Before reaching for the repast, I noticed the stone game Jorn and I had played the evening before and grew unsettled.
The pieces were laid out just as they’d been laid when Jorn and I were playing in the small courtyard.
He must have taken the game exactly as we’d left it to the king.
I was used to being reported on. This was how my order functioned.
All the same, I was set on edge because of the stones themselves, because of what I’d felt when I saw them last.
“Eat,” the king nodded at the squares.
I took one and bit into the corner, disliking it as I imagined I would for a heartbeat or two, but then, it began to melt and I found it utterly delightful.
“Ha! You are fond of it. I will tell him.”
My eyes drifted back to the stones.
“Yes,” the king said, setting another empty eggshell onto a plate filled with glossy, broken shells. “I would ask you about this. Jorn wanted to be here to have me translate your thoughts to him, but he has a soothing nature. I was curious about your thoughts without his temperance.”
“I don’t know the rules,” I said.
“Rules?”
“It is a game?”
“Ha! I suppose yes, it is. Do you remember the order they were placed in?”
I nodded.
“Tell me what you thought when the first stone was placed.”
“I…” What had I been thinking? “I didn’t have many thoughts. I was calm, but as you say, that might be from Jorn. We had eaten and the—” I almost referred to them as sea dogs, but caught myself. “Everyone was acting strangely like you warned me, so I had been uneasy before.”
“Oh, yes! I would also like to know your feeling about the shy moon.” The yellow streaks in his blue eyes glowed.
“It was… odd.”
“What did the air feel like in the palace? Did you notice any changes?”
Had I? “I was too confused to be thinking of it.”
“Hmm.”
“But it was quieter. I noticed that. I—”
“Close your eyes. It will help you remember. Close them. Yes. Now keep telling me.”
So, standing at the king’s tall table, with my eyes closed, I recited what I could remember of the shy moon and the behaviour of the sea dogs.
As I did, I felt the king grow disappointed with me, so I stretched my memory, giving him useless teeny detail after useless teeny detail, until finally he bid me stop.
“I am not bothered by you, Gentlewoman. I am only… It is rare someone comes to the palace who knows so little about us. It makes for fairer judgement, to have no idea before seeing, yes? The Norsern believe in fr?lker—casting—lending someone your strength or luck or power using… this translates poorly, but inner yearning, you could say. They cast often, but especially on the shy moon. It is thought casting is stronger on feminine nights. The shy moon is the most feminine night, apart from winter solstice. Wombed beings, mothers especially, are thought to be the best casters; this is why feminine nights are favoured for fr?lker. Any Norsern who has a difficult task to undertake does so on the shy moon, knowing their loved ones may be casting for them. Raiders raid on the shy moon. People come for me, thinking to become king themselves on the shy moon.”
It sounded like foolish nonsense to me. You couldn’t give someone else something that was inside you, certainly not by wishing to do so.
And the idea of luck being a thing someone simply had.
.. that too was childish. I am certain my face didn’t reveal my interpretation of what he was saying.
But King Arik was a highly sensitive man.
I expect he felt my disbelief, only didn’t say anything about it.
“You did not feel like there was fr?lker moving through the air? Like where you stood in each room mattered?”
My brow tightened slightly. “No, but… I did want to walk on the edges of the rooms, only I think that was from being nervous to get too close to the people who were casting. I didn’t want to anger them. They seemed focused.”
“Hmm.”
I had grown accustomed to his presence a little, but I forgot all familiarity for a moment, watching him study me.
He was always thinking, and his expression made it clear that he was thinking more than I was, better than I was even.
It was unnerving, but also, I suppose, jealousy-inducing.
He flicked his bright eyes back to the stones on the table.
“What were you thinking when the second stone was laid?”
I tried to remember. I’d been sleepy. “I thought of my brother, of a game he’s fond of. It also has stone pieces. It’s called Legua.”
“I know of it,” King Arik said. “Do you play? We could play together; I have a board.”
I shook my head. I’d never seen a woman play it. “I don’t know the rules.”
“I could teach you. And then, when you go home, you could surprise your brother by playing.”
Dayne loved the game. I immediately liked the idea.
King Arik’s eyes settled back on the stone pieces.
“I will tell you what I thought when looking at the stones here. Jorn thought something similar. I saw your time here from your perspective. I saw this as a period of great learning for you. I have decided you will study our language while you are here. This way, you may write me letters when you are home again.”
I was assured by his repeated reference of my going home. I’m certain that was his intention. He was always playing several games at once, moving in many directions with a single step. And I was tragically easy to appease.
“I have a music teacher coming for you as well. The man has magic ears, you will see. He can hear the most subtle things in a song. Perhaps you can teach me some things in return? I am interested in Islish dance.”
I knew a great deal of Islish dancing, though I’d never participated publicly beyond the age of eight or nine. A goldkeeper’s gown prevented the light-footed leaping necessary. Though I still knew the steps. I would perform them alone in my bedchamber sometimes, when I was in my nightdress.
“I am also fond of architecture. You can probably sense this from the palace. My palace is a highly unusual feat—as is the floating portion of Aalt. I am wondering, Gentlewoman—” He pulled out a sheet of parchment and set it before me, along with a piece of thin charcoal.
“I am especially interested in your kepens. I am wondering if you could draw a map for me of the one you grew up in.”
My heart missed a beat. “What?”
“Of course, you may leave out the vault. I understand enough of your order that I would not ask you for any details regarding that. It is more how the rooms are arranged that interests me. How space is used to maximum benefit. Kepens look so compact from the outside, you see? Yet a great many people live within them. I am thinking to build something similar myself.”
“You would like a map of my home?”
“Yes. The grounds as well.”
His eyes were shining as he waited patiently for me to pick up the charcoal. There was a sense of daring in his expression.
My cheeks blazed hot. I didn’t want to do it, but I did want to remain in his good graces, to be granted passage home swiftly. To refuse… it didn’t feel like a true option.
The lines I drew weren’t straight—my hand was too twitchy. Still, I made a rectangle for the great hall and began drawing rooms along the sides of it. As the charcoal slid across the page, I wondered how I could include falsities.
He will not know if I move rooms around, if I add things or take them away.
But each time I thought of a lie to add to the drawing, my bravery left me, and I drew it as I remembered it which wasn’t easy since kepens had so many rooms. I had to pause many times and strain my mind.
I drew no details for the vault, deciding that if I were asked, I would refer to its location as the gallery.
It was fine for the gallery to be a bit bigger in the map.
When I was done, I gently pushed the parchment closer to the king. He studied it with care, sometimes asking me what one room or another was used for. He pulled another page from a stack of parchment and seemed to be comparing the two.
“You have pleased me,” he said finally, pushing both pages back across the table so I could see them.
The second map—the one he’d taken from his own stack was the Kepen at the Arched Cliffs. It was labelled in my own language. He hadn’t needed my drawing at all.
“Why would you ask me to make another of something you already had?”
The king shrugged. “I wished to know how good your memory was. It is fine, though not so fine as you might think.” He leaned over the table, the eye-totem on his necklace hanging above my drawing.
He pointed to the passage between the kitchens and the great hall with a smirk.
I had placed it on the southern side of the hall, but on the other map, it was to the north.
As soon as I saw it, I remembered the correct layout and felt foolish. How had I forgotten so quickly?
“Why would you want to know about my memory?”
He shrugged again. “I like knowing things… I would know everything if I could. Learning is one of life’s great joys, do you not think?”
He collected the parchment, placing a sheet between them to prevent the charcoal from smudging and then added them to one of his many stacks.
“You have given attention to my necklace twice now. You have thoughts about it?”
“It has to do with the god of truth,” I said, recalling my conversation with Loric’s attendant, the broken-nosed man.
The king’s eyes narrowed impishly. “And what does a young goldkeeper know about the god of truth?”
“Not much. I know truth worshippers fought a great battle in the sand once with the sun worshippers. Far away from here.”
“Do you know who won that battle?”
I was deft enough to assume King Arik worshipped the god of truth, or at least cared for the heretical god enough to wear its emblem, but I also felt certain the king would know if I lied, if I simply said that his preference had won.
I repeated the broken-nosed man’s words.
“Some say the god of truth won, as his soldiers were left standing at the end of the fray. But others say it was the sun, since the survivors all went mad from the heat before they returned home.”
The king had gone still as stone, his eyes dancing like a little fire was lit in his mind. “Ha!” he exclaimed finally. “Ha! You are delightfully full of surprises, Gentlewoman.”
I’d had so few conversations outside of prescription prior to knowing King Arik that I found myself in a heightened, frenetic state. There was something a little frightening, but also fun, about speaking and not knowing where the talk would lead.
The thrill ended abruptly with his next words. He frowned suddenly. “Gentlewoman, are you bleeding?”
I was, but it wasn’t a thing I had ever spoken to a man about. Indeed, after the first time, I’d spoken to no one about it at all. My face grew hot so fast I felt nauseous. How had he known? My best guess was the scent of blood.
“I will have someone take you to the bleeding house, if you wish,” he said. “Bleeding is hard work, is it not?”
I couldn’t think of a response. My mouth was dead to me. My mind scalding hot.
“Ah, I have turned you to sea foam. That was not my intention, Gentlewoman. I only wish you to be comfortable during your stay.”
The idea that bleeding was difficult, that it was something that earned rest, was entirely foreign to me. It was something to be hidden and ignored.
“Sea foam?”
“Never mind, Gentlewoman. Take the shoka. Here, I will bring you to a place of rest.”
The bleeding house was nothing like what you might imagine, having heard its name.
It was also not a place, as I’d first assumed, for women only.
There were two sea dogs there when I arrived.
One was a woman; I expected she was bleeding in the same way I was, as I could see no obvious wound.
But the other was a man with a bloody cloth pressed to his nose.
He kept his head tilted forward so the blood would move out his nostrils rather than back through his throat.
The space was dark, filled with flickering candles.
It was soft and warm—nest-like and cave-like, littered with black furs.
All healers in Aalt visited with a bleeding house once every seven or eight days, offering what they could.
Those who paid healers paid a small additional portion—one tenth or so—specifically to provide for those in the bleeding house.
There was always broth and tea waiting for any who entered.
There were clean rags and linen bandages, and priests who would come and collect the blood and deliver it to the forest so that the trees might love humans more.
I sat in the space, left entirely alone by the others present and argued with the king in my mind. I am entirely well. I can do all things as normal. I ignored the part of me that felt some relief. I had no need to pretend I wasn’t feeling the movement of blood. Performing is tiring, you see?
Now, why do I tell you this? It is such a small detail and so private as well.
To me, it is representative of the true difference between the Norsern and the Islish.
But, I suppose, there is also a part of me trying to explain how defenceless I was.
For you to understand many of the things that came next, you need only understand that I wasn’t someone used to being treated with care.
I had no armour against gentleness.