ICO: Castle in the Mist (22 page)

The two worked out a plan. On the night of the full moon, when the leaders of the merchants’ guild gathered and had their meeting with the Minister of Coin, there would be many people of no name or stature on the castle grounds, for one only needed to be a member of the guild to sit in on the gathering and listen. Events such as this meant that there would be many commoners of all ages, both men and women, filling the audience chamber in the central left tower.

If Yorda wore common clothes and mingled with the crowd, she would be able to escape without difficulty. The main gates would open once when the leaders of the merchants’ guild arrived and again when they departed. If she left when their meeting began and returned when it ended, no one would be the wiser. As luck would have it, while the guild members were present, things at the castle became too busy, and Master Suhal suspended his lessons. She would not be missed or lectured on the importance of education. And if anyone did happen to visit Yorda’s chambers while she was away, her most trusted handmaiden would be there to make excuses.

Yorda thought the plan was splendid. It was fun for her to wear the colorful town-girl clothes her handmaiden had procured. The elaborate tunics and short vests that the merchant guild elders and their companions wore enchanted her with their floral-patterned cloth and matching shoes and toques. How happy it made her to wear things she had never even been able to see up close, let alone touch.

Until then, all the clothes she had been given were simple things of the purest white that wrapped loosely around her, with no variation from day to day save for the embroideries on her sleeves and her shawl. Yet even when they were embroidered with the most intricate patterns and designs, the thread was white, or at best a faded blue or brown pigment made from grasses. The queen would not allow her to wear bright vermilion, yellow, or green, saying they would detract from Yorda’s natural beauty.

It was strange when she thought about it. Did the queen not keep her inside the castle, saying that her exceptional beauty was dangerous? Why then did she give Yorda only white to wear, saying that it enhanced her beauty?

The queen herself wore only white. The handmaidens around them dressed in undyed tunics with long sleeves, their hems and sashes of a color that reminded Yorda of the sea. The ministers and other officials working within the castle also wore predominantly white, with perhaps a splash of blue or brown. Though the colors might be fitting for a castle made of brick and copper facing the sea, Yorda found it lacking in gaiety.

At last, the day came when the girls put their plan into action and found it almost disappointingly easy. Yorda ran down the stairs, hid among the bushes in the courtyard, and then made her way from the west tower, careful not to let the guards see her. From there she proceeded from the middle courtyard to the front courtyard and into the crowd. Among the throngs of people, in her full, flowered skirt and apron, with a wide-brimmed hat on her head, no one would recognize the princess. She pretended to ask directions from the handmaiden’s lover, who took her to the front gate, and finally she reached the long stone bridge across the water. The handmaiden’s mother waited secretly on the far side, having received a letter that explained the plan.

Yet when she had crossed only halfway over the bridge, Yorda heard a voice in her mind.

Enough of this foolishness. Come back.

Yorda jerked to a stop and looked around. The bridge was full of people rushing to get into the gates to hear the minister’s speech. There were many going in her direction too, attendants who had seen the guild leaders to the front gate and were now returning to take care of the horses. There was no reason why she should have stood out in the crowd. In fact, when she stopped suddenly, it disturbed the flow of foot traffic around her, and she nearly stepped on the feet of a nearby steward.

Come back, Yorda. You must not leave the castle. Have you forgotten my warning?

But it was no trick of the wind or the crying of seabirds. It was the queen’s voice.

I know where you are, my daughter. I know what you plan. All is clear to me. You cannot defy me. Now return.

A hand to her breast, Yorda felt a sudden chill against her cheek.

Please, Mother,
she pleaded in silence,
allow me just this once. I want to see what it’s like outside the castle. I’ll come back as soon as I’ve seen. Please, Mother. Please.

Yorda!

The Queen’s voice was as cold as a winter’s dawn and as unwavering as the rocky crags far below the bridge.

If you do not return this instant, I will destroy the very bridge upon which you walk. I need only lift a finger. You will have no choice but to return. And who knows how many of our people will fall with the crumbling bridge into the waves below. Is that what you want?

Men and women walked past Yorda, chatting busily, smiles on their faces. The stone bridge across the inlet was a part of the scenery, as though it had been there since the beginning of the world. As solid as the ground, a road across the water.

Yet it had been made by human hands. Or perhaps the queen herself had built it with magic. Either way, it could be shattered, and if it was, the life it held would be swallowed by the sea. Even the calm sea on a sunny day was stronger than a mere person, and the sea was very wide and very deep.

Staggering, Yorda turned, heading back toward the main gate. Soon she was running. She thought that if she hesitated even just a moment, her mother would take that as a sign of protest and destroy the bridge.

When she reached the entrance to the west tower to return to her room, the guard in the doorway stepped into her path. Yorda reached up and removed her hat. The guard’s eyes open so wide it seemed they might fall out of his head.

“Princess Yorda?”

“My mother has summoned me,” Yorda explained in a tiny voice. She ducked past the guard, frozen in place, running toward her own chambers where her handmaiden greeted her in surprise, embracing her as she ran in the door. But before Yorda could explain what had happened, two guards appeared at the entrance to her chambers.

They had come for the handmaiden. At the request of the queen, she was to appear in the audience chamber at once. Their faces were the blank masks of men who carried out orders without question or sympathy.

Yorda stood helpless, watching them lead her handmaiden away. She was sure that the girl’s lover was being similarly apprehended at that very moment.

What have I done?
Yorda threw herself on her bed, weeping. A short while later, another handmaiden arrived to help Yorda change her clothes. The handmaiden’s eyes were clouded, and her lips trembled.

Midday came and went, but by the time the sun had begun to set, Yorda still had not been summoned by the queen. The members of the merchants’ guild had left some time ago, and the front gates were closed. Two guards stood by the entrance to her chamber.

Yorda had tried asking them several times already to let her see her mother, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. By orders of the queen, they told her in voices devoid of warmth, the princess was to remain in her chambers.

When Yorda looked in their eyes, she could tell that the guards were frightened.

Dusk fell as Yorda ate her supper alone in her room. This was normal. Of the three rooms that made up her chambers, she had chosen the smallest with the least adornment, the powder room, in which to dine. The room originally appointed for meals was far too large and always felt cold with its thick stone walls and high ceiling.

No matter how warm her food, it chilled the moment it was brought into the chamber. And the table, as large as her canopied bed, could hold any number of dishes and still look empty. She never liked it.

When her father, the king, had been well, the three of them would take their meals in the royal dining hall. The dining hall was vast, with adornments of cold silver and gold on the ceiling and walls, but her father’s smile would banish the chill in a moment. Her mother in those days had been far kinder.

Yorda's father had passed away when she was only six—already ten years past. Though the memories were still clear in her mind, they became more distant with each passing day.

Her father’s passing had changed her mother. As it changed the castle.

Wracked by sadness and trembling with unease, Yorda found she could not eat. She only nibbled at the food on the trays and platters her handmaidens brought her one after another, then she bade them depart, and sat in a chair next to the window in her powder room, lighting a single candle and looking out to face the deepening night.

From this height, even with the front gate closed, she could see a part of the stone bridge the queen had threatened to destroy under the light of the full moon. The bridge looked pale over the dark sea below, as though it was not truly a bridge, but a phantom created by a trick of the moonlight, and if she blinked, it might disappear altogether.

Yorda strained her eyes, looking for the white spray of the waves where they collided with the columns of the bridge, sighing with relief when she spotted it. It was no phantom. The bridge remained. No one had plummeted into the sea. Yorda had obeyed the queen’s wishes, returning to the castle, her tail tucked in behind her.

What would have happened, she wondered, if she had not heeded the queen? What if she had talked back to her?

You can’t destroy a bridge that size with just a finger. You lie. You’re lying, trying to threaten me! If you can do such a thing, I’d like to see you try!

Yorda planted both elbows on the elegantly carved table, wrapped her hands around her face, and closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids she could see the stone bridge crumbling and hear the screams of the people as they dropped into the waves.

If she had resisted, she knew her mother would have destroyed the bridge without hesitation. It was within her power.

The queen possessed a power that surpassed human comprehension. Yorda had yet to see it with her own eyes, but it was well known. Even Master Suhal attested to it. She had heard the Minister of Coin and the Minister of Rites—even the captain of the knights charged with protecting the queen—say that Her Majesty possessed a power greater than all the knightly order taken together. If any greedy neighboring country thought to take part of their rich land, if they tried to invade, before the knights could even ride, Her Majesty would vanquish the invading force with a single breath.

If one heard only the words, it came across as simple flattery and nothing more. Yet when he spoke of these things, Yorda had seen a chilling fear in the knight captain’s eyes. Master Suhal had told her to study that fear and remember it well.

Princess,
he told her, lowering his head,
your mother is truly powerful.

Yorda wondered how old she had been. She had a feeling it was after her father’s passing, when unease had begun to spread through the castle. Master Suhal had tried to calm her fears, but Yorda watched the scholar’s eyes too, and she saw that they were dark and shadowed.

As the memories stirred Yorda’s heart, the candle flame flickered.

She wondered if she would sleep that night having not been scolded by her mother. That wouldn’t do. She needed to get down on her knees and plead for forgiveness for the kind handmaiden and her lover. She had to beg for them.
It was I who wanted to go outside. They were just following my orders.

Then came a gentle knocking at the door.

Yorda looked around and saw the thick, ebony wood door of her powder room open. The chief handmaiden stepped soundlessly inside. Her face and her hair were the same shade of gray. It was not merely from age, but from something that seemed to have drained the life from her and the color with it. Yorda did not dislike this emaciated old handmaiden so much as she feared her. It was not that the woman herself was frightening; she was loyalty personified, always obsequious and reverent in her service, and seemed, more than anyone else in the castle, to deeply fear Yorda’s mother. That was what frightened Yorda.

Do you know something that I do not?
Yorda thought the question every time she looked at the chief handmaiden’s face.

“Princess Yorda,” the woman said in a whisper. The spring of her voice had dried up long before, when the handmaiden had decided, of her own will, to speak only when absolutely necessary. “Her Majesty requests your presence.”

Even though she had been waiting for just those words, Yorda felt her heart seize with fright.

“Very well. I’ll go at once.”

Yorda stood up from the table. Her hands and her knees were trembling. Not wishing the chief handmaiden to see, she turned her back.

“You should wear a robe,” the handmaiden said. “It is very chilly out at night.”

Yorda turned. “We’re going outside?”

“By Her Majesty’s request,” the chief handmaiden said, bowing her head.

Yorda removed a long hooded robe from her wardrobe and put it on. The stars outside her window winked in the sky, watching as she followed the handmaiden, her hooded head hanging low.

[4]

THE CHIEF HANDMAIDEN
led her not to the queen’s quarters but directly to the courtyard in front of the castle. The guards on night watch stood as still as statues watching them pass soundlessly down the corridor.

Out in the courtyard, their way was lit by torches burning atop pedestals as tall as a building. One here, two there; few were needed in the light of the full moon. When the sun was at its zenith, it seemed as though the torches supported the very vault of heaven, but at night they burned low beneath the dark sky. The darkness surrounding the castle was deep and silent.

Occasionally, she would spot the flame of a torch crossing the courtyard. Patrolmen on their rounds held them aloft. The chief handmaiden led her across the square, taking the stone staircase that led to the central west building and following the long curving arc of the walkway there. Yorda was afraid. The rooms and facilities along this walkway were not familiar to members of the royal house. Even though this castle was Yorda’s entire world, she had only infrequently been to the east tower. She possessed only cursory knowledge of its rooms and layout.