Chapter 23 #2
“Your mood has much changed since I saw you last,” Flojer said with a teasing laugh.
The king sighed. “What does the sea think of it?”
Flojer laughed again. “He thinks you are a hungry man. He thinks this hunger is beautiful. Useful.”
“And what do you think of my changed mood?”
“I…” The man halted entirely, turning his head slowly to me.
A shock began in my heart and rushed through my blood, leaving my fingers tingling.
If you have not made eye contact with a truly holy person—someone who devotes everything they are to a god or temple or cloud—you cannot understand the feeling.
King Arik’s voice was teasing. “I thought you might like to meet her. It is just as much your doing that she is here as Fell’s.”
His gaze unsettled me—it almost seemed like he was listening to someone I couldn’t hear tell him things about me; things he found amusing. “Tell her it is a pleasure to meet her.”
“You can tell her yourself.”
Flojer’s eyebrows raised. “You speak Norsern?”
I nodded.
“Did you know it before you came here?”
I shook my head.
“So a quick learner then.” Flojer laughed ginnaung and then turned to Jorn. “Her skael screams, no? Have you looked at her palm?”
Jorn nodded, but not with enthusiasm. I was quickly coming to realize that he was the best at hiding his inner world out of everyone at court.
Flojer took a step toward me. He was tall and thin and as warm as a person could be. His face held lines from smiling around the mouth and eyes. “May I see your hand?” he said.
My eyes flicked to King Arik, who nodded. “If you wish.”
I held my hand up, palm toward Flojer and watched his expression—the slow spread of a smile across his face. He looked at Jorn. “You have seen this?”
“I have already said as much,” Jorn said, crossing his arms.
Flojer turned to the king. “Jorn has told you about this?”
King Arik grinned. “He has.”
And then, just as I was about to ask what they were talking about, Flojer turned back to me and smiled softly.
Kindly. “You will always find your way. Do not let any moment in your life lead you to believe otherwise. You always know which way to go next. The way is always changing. Still, you always know it.”
King Arik cleared his throat. “Now Flojer, let us speak of the ship on the mountain, are we at peace with one another?”
Flojer smiled wryly. “Were we ever at war?”
The king’s brows rose.
“Ha. You wish to know how I see this? I see that Hyrold has used us both. He has spied this girl and desired her to be here in this country. He has used me to see it done. He has used you. To what end? Likely we will never know. Do I wish he could have done it more gently?” The man laughed a beautiful, ringing laugh.
“Of course. I have not seen my son in over six moons. I miss his face. But I am sure I will come to see that it was skael. Perhaps my boy needed some time away from me. He is at that age…”
“I trust you will remember how comfortable your stay was when it could have been otherwise.”
“Hyrold adores you,” Flojer said. “Do not forget that, my king. I certainly will not.”
“And you? What do you think of me?”
“I think you are lucky I am such a forgiving man.”
King Arik laughed before growing painfully sincere. “I wish it had not been how it has been these past moons.”
“I do not,” said Flojer. He nodded at me. “It still does not make sense to me, but I see the threads.” The threads is a Norsern concept of the world beneath the world, the material from which the dream of life is made.
“You will still travel with me to Byernen?” King Arik said.
“Of course,” Flojer said. “Hyrold demands it.”
King Arik grinned. “Jorn, please attend Captain Flojer back to his ship. Pay for their docking expenses on my behalf. Read for any who are interested.”
There were polite smiles all around. I remained somewhat stilled by Flojer—the warmth of him but also the…
cutting-ness of him, how he sliced through everything seemingly without trying.
I was impressed by the feeling of being near him and I distinctly remember thinking I would like to be as he was, to walk into a room and create in others the feeling he stoked in me.
He nodded at me just before turning to leave as if we were in on some grand secret together, as if he were saying to me, It is done.
And then he was gone with Jorn, and it was just the king and I in his hearing hall. Without work to fill it, the space suddenly felt enormous.
“You have been a great help to me today,” King Arik said.
“I know you are eager to return home. I am eager to have your desires met, and it will not be too long before the sea warms enough for safe travel. So… now that you have seen my work—the mundane portion of kingship—today, I think, is a good day for you to read for me.”
In truth, I had not thought about home for at least two full days, maybe longer.
I had been happy to watch and feel and simply be a person with my own schedule and interests.
It almost surprised me, this mention of returning.
Oh, right. The idea of averting my eyes, of shuffling from room to room with slow, weighted steps…
I thought of Fell, and the corners of my mouth dipped without my permission.
It will be like it was with Rowan the blacksmith’s apprentice, I told myself.
I will not think much on him after we have parted, even if he was enjoyable to look at while I was near him.
I felt certain I was lying, that Fell would come into my mind unbidden.
It felt like the stones were giggling in their little pouch.
My eyes flicked up to the king’s. He was waiting patiently for me, watching me the same way he watched everything else: with interest.
Something in my expression as I took out the pouch of stones, feeling the buzz of them through the leather, must have revealed my turmoil because he raised his eyebrows. “We speak our thoughts out loud in the north.”
“I don’t want to disappoint you,” I said.
“That means you are smart. I am a good friend to have.”
“But I also… would not want you to trust my words since I am so new to this, and I am not sure I believe in it.” My heart fluttered not just from the honesty but from the notion that I was saying something the person I was speaking with might not agree with.
“Anyone can make up a story using a few words or ideas.”
“Yes. I would like to hear the story you make up, Gentlewoman.”
I left my chair, kneeling on the dais so I would have more space to lay out the stones.
I reached into the bag, feeling the sensual pleasure of polished stone against my fingertips and the hushed glee of the stones.
She is picking some of us. She is picking!
These weren’t words I was hearing, but they were something I was sensing…
somehow… The intentions of the stones is how I would describe it now.
The spirit of them. You may be wondering why I was so adamant that the stones foretold nothing despite these experiences I keep detailing.
To that, all I can say is that I grew up in a place where we must pretend things aren’t as they are: we do not dream, we do not wish to press our bodies against other bodies, we hear nothing when we walk past the vault openings.
I was practiced at denial. This is a very dangerous skill.
“Now, Gentlewoman, in case you ever wish to make coin from this, you should polish your starting words. Get me excited for what you are to say.”
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. He was always teaching, even when he wasn’t trying to be.
It was perhaps even his true calling. He might have enjoyed being a teacher more than a king, but I think if anyone ever said this to him, he would reply: ‘To be king is to be a teacher. All roles in life involve teaching. With each breath and posture, you are teaching people how to treat you, how to think of you.’
I scattered a few stones onto the dais, the smile fading from my face the moment I looked down.
The song I could hear… I began using Norsern words, which were better for explaining what I saw.
There are layers to the Norsern language that Islish words do not have.
“Someone is to disappoint you,” I began.
“Someone you did not expect to fail you… this will hurt your plans only a little, but your heart a lot.” I had softened the song I was imagining. It was a song about a broken heart.
“This is the way of being king.” He shrugged. “What else?”
“Uhh…” There were several different songs playing at the same time. “You aim high, higher than any before you. So high that most will not be able to see the target and will have to help with faith alone. Not all will be able to do this.”
“This I have also heard before.” He smiled, but I sensed he wasn’t happy. “Do they tell you what I plan to do?”
“Not with words,” I said. “But with the feeling of it. You wish to be larger than other people… than the kings who came before you, maybe?”
I looked up at him, his glowing, wolfish eyes. He was daring me to continue with his expression, offering approval—admiration even—with just a glance. My stomach flipped. “So you will do what no one before you has thought to do.”
“Add one more stone,” he said. “I will not tell you my question, but want to hear your thoughts on it anyway.”
I slid my fingers into the pouch and waited until a stone felt like it wanted to come out. I set it on the dais and frowned. It had a diamond shape on it, with a line cutting through the diamond. “I always have trouble with this one.”
“That is actually enough for me to know, then.”
I furrowed my brow in playful suspicion.
The corners of his mouth lifted. “I assume this one is you. People often have trouble reading themselves, even if they are brilliant at reading others. That is why I seek readers so often. I wish to know what it is I am not seeing about myself and my choices.”
If that is me in the centre…