Chapter 17
Seventeen
I spent two days entering room upon room in the floating palace, keeping a count of my paces, avoiding the wild games of the sea dogs that seemed to have no restraint or subtlety in them.
The first hour of these days had been filled with my meetings with the king.
Since I had few questions I was bold enough to ask, this time had become language lessons with King Arik—he was to teach me first, but then others would teach me after.
He had said, “Everyone uses their language a little differently, is it not so?” and that I must learn from different speakers or I wouldn’t truly learn at all.
I was taught to say come, stay, yes, guide, song, laugh, read, want, name.
I learned to say: What is this named? for when I wanted to know a specific word.
Sole was the word for song-making. But it was said like, So-laye.
Then I would wander.
I began to understand that the palace was arranged similarly to the king’s keys: the outer rooms tended to have the bronze locks.
These were the bedchambers for visitors, captains, and guards.
Training rooms where sea dogs wrestled with each other amid the shouts of onlookers.
Feasting halls. Gardens. Game rooms. Libraries.
But unlike other libraries, they weren’t only for reading materials.
King Arik had a library of scrolls, tablets, and bound parchment, yes, but he also had a library of maps, a library of masks collected on his travels, a library of star charts, a library of dried sea creatures organized in tidy rows so that each one seemed to be in the process of transforming into the next.
And, most spectacularly, he had a library of instruments.
Among the bronze rooms, there was a room for storing mead, and when I came upon it, my heart nearly stopped, for there was a sea dog man hidden in the bottom tier of a shelf.
I shrieked as I would never have thought in a hundred years to find a man tucked into a shelf for mead.
A melodious laugh from outside the storeroom let me know someone was approaching, and approaching fast. The hidden man wiggled out of his position moments before the laughing person from outside burst into the room—Farwatcher, it turned out.
The hiding man growled at me with his teeth bared, like he was an actual dog, and then Farwatcher chased him in circles around the room, giggling manically. Eventually, the hiding man stopped running and charged into Farwatcher’s chest. The two of them flailed around on the floor, grunting.
I was trapped in the corner of the room for their entire brawl, my eyes wide, my heart thundering in my chest. And then, it seemed all was light and cheery in the end, for they started laughing together.
The hiding man pointed at me and said something gruff, with menace in his tone.
Farwatcher said, “Yes-something-Soten.”
The middle rooms had silver locks: kitchens—where I received many glares from sea dogs thrashing fruited vines, armouries, and additional training rooms where King Arik himself was wrestling when I entered.
I saw a man’s unclothed legs for the first time, hairy and thick with muscle.
I saw his bare feet with toes splayed as he grimaced, his rear in the air as he tried to move the king with his strength alone.
Where was he moving him to? I could not say.
Though both were red in the face from effort and gleaming with sweat.
The rooms unlocked by the keys on the gold ring were at the centre of the palace, and I did not find my first one until the evening of my second day of searching. This was what I had been looking for. I wouldn’t hide Loric’s gold in a room easily accessed by others. I wanted minimal risk.
Though I was pleased to have found the door, I was hungry by that point and had already come to know the sea dogs were more reckless once the sun set, so I made my way back to my chamber.
I checked that Loric’s gold was well, and then hurried to King Arik’s main hall to fetch something to eat before the palace grew wild.
It was here that the evening meal was laid out for all.
Before securing my fare, I found Dania, who it seemed had come to the hall looking for me.
In the short time we’d spent apart, I’d forgotten how forceful she was.
She stood near King Arik, nodding as the man spoke to her.
She looked so comfortably tall next to him; she wasn’t straining her back for perfected posture, but all the same, there was a stalwart quality to her stance.
I couldn’t place what was different in how she stood compared to how I did, but I knew there was a difference.
She saw me and waved with a daring smile, calling me over to them.
“It is good to see you again,” I said, and I meant it. Though she terrified me, she felt like a large piece of wood in a shipwreck: necessary and worthy of all my gratefulness.
“You have been busy since we last spoke!” she said.
I shook my head slightly, not wanting to disagree, but not able to agree with her either. I felt things were moving quite slowly.
“You have had your stones cast by Jorn the Calm—at least partially. You have learned many words it seems. And you have made three enemies.”
“Ha!” King Arik slapped his thigh. “That we know of.”
My eyes felt wide. “Enemies?”
King Arik smiled kindly. “’Tis a good sign, Gentlewoman. It means you are living.”
“I haven’t…” I shook my head. “I’ve done nothing to anyone—”
“Hmm, perhaps this is part of the problem?” Dania lifted her eyebrows teasingly.
“And I haven’t learned many words, only a few…”
“The Bard King has given me a list,” Dania said. “I will try to use Norsern instead of Islish whenever you know the translation. To help you remember.”
I was still bothered by the idea of enemies, and so, for a moment, I was bothered by everything, even though it was a fair idea. “And what do you mean I’ve had my stones cast?”
“Jorn has asked them of your life to come, and they have started speaking to him. This is one of his great skills. He’s known throughout all The Land of the Northernmost Star for it.
People travel from afar to have him draw stones for them and read.
This, The Bard King has told me, is how you’ve made two of your enemies.
They are waiting their turn, you see? But Jorn isn’t done with your reading, so he has bid them wait until you’re finished.
He would not move your stones until the story is complete. ”
“I...” I wanted to refuse the remainder of the reading entirely as it was finally becoming clear to me what Jorn and I had been doing on the shy moon.
But I also worried the words would seem rude to the king.
The king had, after all, specified that Jorn was given more keys than most other people.
To me, that meant King Arik respected or cared for the man.
But to make things more dire, Dania had mentioned the stones speaking to Jorn.
That felt like sacrilege to me. I had assumed, because the voice was similarly quiet and secret, that the whispers of the stones weren’t to be spoken of, just like the whispers of the vaults.
I turned to the king, feeling betrayed. “You said it was a game.”
“Ha! It is, Gentlewoman. Life is a game, is it not?”
“I…”
“And,” Dania shot a firm look at me. “He’s told me you have keys to the entire palace. You have The Bard King’s keys.”
I looked at her, exasperated.
She was glowing. Beaming. “We shall eat and then explore, yes?”
“I…”
“Yes,” Dania said again, looking like she hadn’t sensed any of my abhorrence to anything that had just been said.
“And every time you look miserable about it, you must drink another big gulp of mead. These are the rules for this evening. If you cheat, I will have to throw pebbles at Fell whenever he returns.”
I turned to King Arik, my mouth hanging open a little as I coped with the multiple injustices I had encountered in quick succession.
He laughed, hearty and loud. “This is the perfect person for you to spend time with, Gentlewoman. You seem as though you have not had fun ever. She will be the medicine for this.”
“I’ve had fun,” I said. My voice was petulant even to my own ears, and they both looked at me as if I’d said a most tragic thing.
“Come now,” Dania said, patting my shoulder. “Never mind that. Let us feast.”
After we’d eaten our share of flat barley bread dipped in garlic butter, a flagon of honeyed milk between the two of us, herring crusted with dill, and some sort of elderberry sauce, Dania pulled me by my arm out of the hall. Her other hand held a mead skin.
“Now! Which way shall we go first? I’ve heard there’s a room filled entirely with naked sculptures of warriors.”
“The most private rooms are in the centre of the palace,” I said.
I had determined that I would take advantage of Dania’s presence.
I was less worried about encountering strange sea dogs with her by my side, and there were a great many rooms to search, judging by the number of keys I had.
I would not waste the opportunity that had presented itself.
Every moment that Loric’s gold wasn’t well hidden was a risk.
“Very well!” She giggled, running down a hall, pulling me along. “Let us see who can find the prettiest thing this evening. We shall decide on a prize.”
We flitted from room to room, Dania refusing more than a single glance at any space she deemed “boring,” but spending ample time in anything containing art or comfortable-looking sofas. “I shall lie on twenty different pillows before the night is through!” she exclaimed in one room.