Palace of Stone (12 page)

CLAIM: Farmer accuses Lord Jemel’s guards of stealing his horses.

FINDING: Perhaps the farmer ate his own horses.

RULING: In favor of Lord Jemel.

CLAIM: Miller accuses Lady Katarina of excessive tributes, resulting in the starving death of his son.

FINDING: Millers are often unreliable.

RULING: In favor of Lady Katarina.

CLAIM: Farmer accuses Lord Halffword of ill-using his daughter.

FINDING: The daughter is thirteen and too young to be trusted.

RULING: In favor of Lord Halffword.

Miri paged through the ledger, searching for any instance when the Grievance Official believed the commoner.

“Every claim’s ruling is in favor of the noble,” Timon said, guessing her thoughts. “For twenty years, every single claim. Nobles bribe the officials. Commoners never have a chance.”

Miri might have thrown the book across the room then if Clemen had not taken it first, putting it back in its hiding place.

“They can’t get away with it!” Miri said.

“They already do,” Sisela said. “You see why I scorn my own kind. Nobles are as selfish and untrustworthy as royalty. They know the king overreaches his power—they scorned him with rubbish at the gift giving—and yet they do nothing for the commoners. The changes we dream of will only come if commoners seize their own future.”

Miri nodded, but she shivered as if just realizing how cold the world was. Sisela put a warm arm around her, and Miri was tempted to rest her head on the woman’s shoulder. She missed Marda and Pa. She missed home.

A group in the corner were laughing as they sang. Clemen was again playing “All Hail the King,” but the group had toyed with the lyrics.

He is ever inglorious

His laugh is laborious

His smell is notorious

Impale the herring king!

Pounding knocks at the front door surprised the song from their tongues. Miri had not imagined that Sisela could look afraid.

“It might not be—” Clemen began.

“But it might,” said Sisela. “Go!”

There was a scramble. Timon took Miri’s hand, leading her to the rear door of the Salon. She glanced back. Clemen began a casual tune at the piano, and Sisela plucked the feather from her hair and reclined on her lounge. All the rest were running. The Salon door was opening. Timon yanked her out.

They raced through a maze of rooms, all dark, cold, and empty. Miri kept expecting to trip over a chair or table or anything at all, but their passage was clear. They exited the house in the back, sidled down a crack of an alley into the street, and then stopped. Timon placed Miri’s hand on his arm and began to stroll. She darted one glance back. An official and several soldiers stood outside Sisela’s house. One met Miri’s eyes and frowned. Miri forced herself to look up at Timon and even managed a carefree smile.

“What a droll little play,” he said, loud enough for his voice to carry. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Indeed!” she said. “Wasn’t the jester amusing?”

Miri and Timon laughed until they were around the corner. She let go of his arm.

“What happened?”

Timon frowned. “It’s illegal to meet in groups to discuss politics.”

“It is? But those officials couldn’t know what we talked about. It might have just been a party.”

“They don’t have to prove it. If they find us assembled together and even suspect we were talking about laws and the king, they could take us to the prisons, where people often die of disease and neglect before they reach trial.”

Miri shook her head. “Things were simpler on my mountain.”

“Asland is the better for your presence, Miri. We need you.”

“I wish I was smart enough to help in any way at all,” she said. “I want the world you imagine, Timon. I want it so badly.”

“I knew it!” His step bounced. “I knew we were of the same mind. And heart. Miri, I should confess something. I don’t want to lie to you, not the way the robber princess did. I already completed my open-sky year. I enrolled in Master Filippus’s class just so … so I could meet you.”

They were passing through the light of a lamppost, and Miri was glad to reenter the dark and hide the expression on her face.

“Is that true?” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said. “I heard that a graduate from Mount Eskel’s princess academy was enrolling, so I asked my father to send me back. I was curious to meet you. But … curiosity has long since been replaced by stronger emotions.”

“Oh! Um … I should tell you … maybe I misunderstand … but I just wanted to say … you might want to know about Peder. He’s a boy. From Mount Eskel. And he’s my …”

My what?

“Your betrothed?” Timon said.

Now Miri’s face felt as red as a firebrand and no shadow could hide it.

“No.”

“Aren’t you of age?”

“Yes,” Miri said miserably.

“Then he hasn’t asked … and yet you still feel committed to him? Well, whatever he feels for you can’t be as strong as what I feel. He met you on Mount Eskel, where you were just one of a few girls. I chose you out of the entire kingdom.”

Miri became uncomfortably aware of the pounding in her chest. “Even though it isn’t spoken, Peder and I do have a commitment. I mean, I think we do.”

“I am not giving up so easily,” said Timon. “This boy has not seen fit to speak. But I will speak for you, Miri. You blush because I’m too bold! I’ll be bolder still. Together we will change Asland. And then Danland. For our wedding, my father will give us a ship. We’ll sail to Rilamark and Eris, explore coasts with white sand and crystal waters and trees dripping with fruit. We’ll befriend scholars in faraway universities, and everywhere we go we will change things.”

She could see all he promised, as if actors on a stage portrayed the adventures of Miri and Timon. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “I can’t do all that, Timon. I’m from Mount Eskel.”

“We choose who we are. The name, rank, and affluence of your parents, the feather in your cap—none of that matters. You are your own person. I am
not
my cold, ambitious father. And you, Miri, are not bound by your birth. You can be who you will.”

Is that true?
she thought.
I am not simply Laren’s daughter or Marda’s sister or the girl my mother held for a week before she died. I am not formed from the mountain alone. I am the girl who left the mountain. I am the face in the mirror, the thoughts in my head. I am not made of them. I am me.

“You can be who you will,” he repeated. His voice softened. “And if you will have me, I will be the one beside you.”

He did not ask for an answer to his proposal, and she did not feel ready to give one. But he leaned down and kissed her lips. She forgot to startle away, she forgot to blush, she forgot to do anything but hold her breath and feel cold and hot like lightning shoot through her. The kiss lasted just one beat of her heart, though it felt as long as a night.

She could not dismiss that kiss as an innocent lowlander custom. She knew exactly what it meant.

He put her hand back on his arm, and in silence they walked their usual path to the palace.

She was accustomed to the city now: the hiss of the kerosene lanterns on the posts, the grumble of cart wheels on cobblestone, the chill in the breeze when it lifted off the river, the salt tang when it stretched from the sea. The buildings and thoroughfares did not panic her. The endless books of the Queen’s Castle library thrilled her, as did one word: revolution.

But this was not home. Was it?

She repeated to herself her plans for the future: speak for Marda so she might wed, help Pa learn to read, teach in the village school, and one day marry Peder.

Why did those ties to home feel thinner now? Maybe Marda did not want to wed. Almost certainly Pa did not care about reading. Esa and some of the other girls enjoyed teaching in the school too. And Miri was no longer certain of Peder. In the vast history of Danland—in the frighteningly enormous history of all the world—would it really matter if Miri of Mount Eskel ever returned home?

Winter Week Five

Dear Marda,

Do you know the feeling you get when you are awakened in the middle of a dream? The dream story is still real and full of color, but the waking world is rushing back into your mind. And for a moment both worlds are true, and you cannot quite tell them apart.

I feel that way. There is Mount Eskel. And there is Asland. The two bleed into each other, and I am not sure which is my home and which is the dream.

Everything was simpler when the world was smaller. Everything was simpler when I knew no more than twenty boys, and Peder was the only one I noticed. But never mind. I am not sure I am ready to know what I think about that, so I dare not write it out.

I like how Timon cannot help pacing and gesturing when he is talking about something important. And how the things important to him are important to me too. I always know exactly what Timon is feeling and thinking. He never leaves me guessing. I am so tired of guessing.

I miss you. I miss Pa. I miss my mountain. But I am not sure if missing a place and loving a place are enough to call me back.

I know I will not send you this letter come spring. I just need to write down these thoughts, Marda. I need to tell someone that I am not sure about anything anymore.

But I do know I am still your sister,

Miri

Chapter Eleven

A need, a need, a need have I

A wish, a wish, a wish, I sigh

It was a quiet rest-day morning in the girls’ chamber. Winter rain deluged the city, and the patter on the window glass made a drowsy song. Miri lay on the sofa, reading a book for her studies. Tucked inside an essay on Law she came across a dangerous but beautifully logical idea:
A king is a servant to his people. He rules by their consent. If the king fails his people, it is their right to rebel.

Miri could almost hear Clemen’s spirited music accompanying the words. She had spent every evening that week at Lady Sisela’s. Later, if the weather cleared, she would either join Timon at Sisela’s or go visit Peder. The thought of Timon made her blood feel hot and fast, while the thought of Peder made her smile.

Then suddenly she was thinking about Esa without knowing why.

“Where’s Esa?” Gerti asked.

“I was just going to ask the same thing,” said Miri.

“So was I,” said Frid.

Miri was about to remark on the coincidence when her mind leaped to a memory of Esa at the princess academy, reading aloud beneath the bookshelf. Esa’s ma, Doter, always said
Listen to your second thought, or the third might be too late.

“Frid, come with me to look for her?” asked Miri.

“Maybe we’re thinking about her because she’s quarry-speaking,” Frid said as they checked in Britta’s empty chamber.

“We’re not on linder,” said Miri. “Then again, we’re near a whole lot of it.”

The closer they got to the king’s wing, the more panicked Miri felt, until finally she broke into a run. They passed over the linder threshold and into a quarry-shout so intense Frid lifted her arms as if to shield herself. Images pounded in Miri’s head: the time the shelf at the princess academy had broken, dropping the precious books onto the floor; the night Miri had used quarry-speech to shout all the way from the academy to home, a plea for help. The memories came one on top of another, askew and throbbing.

Miri tried to walk forward into the linder wing and the shout, but guards blocked the way, spears tipped forward.

Where?
Miri quarry-shouted back, using a memory of playing hide-and-find-me.

No response but the same images slamming into her head: Esa at the academy, a fallen shelf, Miri calling for help.

“Please let us through,” Miri said to the frontmost guard. “We’re trying to find our friend. She’s in trouble.”

“Not without the password,” he said. “Tell me where she is and I can dispatch a man to her.”

“In one of the linder rooms. A shelf may have fallen on her.”

The guard narrowed his eyes. “Why would you think that if you don’t know where she is?”

Miri made an impatient gesture, and the guard shrugged and nodded to another, who began peering into rooms. One by one. Frid paced, as patient as a rolling boulder.