Branded

by Clare London

  He tilted his head. “I don’t know what you mean. That’s all the Queen requests, all I’ve been charged to do. It will soon be finished too.” He started to rattle out the list of his achievements within the new volume, his voice a little too loud for our hiding place, as if he sought to forestall any response I might make. “I’ve included her impeccable lineage from the previous three Queens of the city, the history of her rise to greatness, and the successful battle for Queenship, the good works she’s done for the citizens and the Remainders, the strong political presence she’s shown, especially in the context of the forthcoming Convocation—”

  “I don’t mean in the future,” I interrupted harshly. “Not even in the present. You followed her back to her mother and the previous Queens for several generations—but surely you went back further than that.”

  Even in the dim light of the storeroom, I could see him go pale. “No. That’s all I needed. You’ve seen the strict catalog I’ve made of my research.”

  “I’ve heard you talk about your enthusiasm for this work. I saw the excitement in your eyes when you saw Eila’s brand and knew it had scope for redirecting your research. And I’ve seen the books you’ve disturbed and read.” I continued relentlessly. “They span far more generations than your formalized list. You’ve trailed the history of this royal family—and therefore the whole city—back even further than anyone’s living memory. You’ve been investigating the family back to colonization itself, I suspect, to those records you protested were so difficult to find and so awkward to read. If anyone would have the tenacity and skill to do that, it would be you.”

  “I don’t know where you’ve got that idea. It’s not feasible. The records are virtually nonexistent from those early days.” His voice was weak but brave. “There’s nothing to find. We have our own modern Histories that refer back, and we know the glories of those past days from tales and myths. There’s no need for anything more.” His eyes widened. “No one reads them, Maen! No one cares. They have all they need to know already.”

  “But not you,” I said sternly. “Your curiosity and determination stretch further than that, Kiel. I don’t believe that if you opened a tale at its first page, you wouldn’t follow it through to its conclusion. Even if that were in the opposite direction, on a journey back in time.” I placed my hand carefully on the open page on my lap. “You made a connection between the modern royal brand and Eila’s naive attempts at art. You spoke of returning to the Library, to investigate that particular design further.”

  “No. It was Mistress Eila’s own plaything, not a formal brand.” He paused and peered at me. “Maen, what are you saying? What do you know?”

  I drew a deep, heavy breath. “My suspicion is that Eila originally saw the design in an old History, at some time in her youth, spent in this very Household. Maybe it was a child’s mischief, a trip to the Royal Library without anyone’s permission, or a book left open carelessly while she played. But the memory stayed with her subconsciously. When she came to create something of her own, the pattern was still in her mind, though she didn’t recognize it as such. She thought it was a design inspired by her own recent royal brand. But I believe it was more than that. It was an original design or diagram, used accidentally by two branches of the royal family: one that’s remained in situ since olden times, and one that fled—eventually—into exile.”

  “I was stupid.” Kiel’s voice was barely a whisper. “I didn’t think anyone listened to my ‘nonsense,’ as you yourself called it. I meant something different. I lied. I haven’t had any time. I’ve been consumed by the official History and the Queen’s demands.”

  “You don’t lie,” I said more kindly. “And I hope, if you ever do, you don’t lie to me.” I reached out a hand and took his arm. “Kiel, trust me. I don’t mean to betray or threaten you.”

  “It’s not allowed,” he whispered. “The books have been hidden. No one reads them, no one examines them, no one questions them.”

  “Except you.”

  He sighed. He looked very troubled. “This isn’t something light, this investigation of mine… and now yours as well. I don’t know what—” He sighed and stopped.

  “I know. Or at least let me guess so you don’t have to admit it aloud. You’ve gone back in time through the books, following the current royal brand, but came to a halt when it started to regress into an earlier, simpler form. The living example of Eila’s brand started up your research afresh with a new representation to follow. But….”

  He stared at me. “But?”

  “In addition to that, and on the way,” I said, watching his reactions closely, “I think you’ve found new stories and new reports. You’ve found things that are inconsistent—that are troubling. It’s not the reading of the books that you feel threatened by, for they’re here for anyone to see if they took the trouble.”

  “They ignore them,” Kiel broke in, his voice a mixture of sadness and outrage. “The archives have been pushed away and ignored for so long. Isn’t that scandalous?”

  “You’re scared by what you’ve read.” I pushed for his response, gently but firmly. The scandal was not the arrogant carelessness of our royal family toward its literary heritage, but something far greater. “Aren’t you? Things that contradict the stories you’ve grown up with. Things that relate to the colonization and glorious development of our city and its citizens.”

  Kiel’s eyes were wide. “Are you some kind of magician?”

  I smiled. “No. But I’ve been aware of the continuing link between the Exiles and the royal family for longer than you have, and not just through their brands. I’ve also been surprised at the neglect the Royal Household shows its heritage, and the casual and hurried way the Queen seeks to rewrite herself to order. I think the old Histories have been ignored for deliberate reasons, for fear of stirring up a past that may not agree with the present. And I’ve read the books today—though not as many as you—and I can see things in your face that show me I’m on the right track, but I don’t have time to finish examining it for myself. I need to know what you’ve found.”

  “I cannot tell this to anyone else. They’ll execute me for treason.” He trembled as he spoke. “On the spot.”

  “I’ve been there,” I said bitterly. “If you’ve faced that, nothing seems as bad again. Kiel, you’ve found a link between the stories we’re told about the city nowadays, and what is maybe the true tale. All because of your bright mind and your sharp eyes. You must be allowed to share that knowledge in safety. I will protect you, I’ve promised you that. Tell me what you know. Tell me.”

  Kiel swallowed hard, obviously still trying to hide his fear. “You’re right. Since we came back from the Exile camp, I’ve been through the Histories again, looking at them in a very different way. It was such a strange world there, Maen, so different from our life here. It made me question things. It reminded me of manuscripts I’d read but had only skimmed across before, that I’d examined out of context. Is curiosity such a bad thing?”

  He looked angry as well as nervous. I smiled at him, reassuring him that, no, it wasn’t, though our Queen might have it so.

  “I’d been back to the Fifth and Sixth Generation Histories before then,” he said, warming to his topic. “But now I’ve followed the mark of the royal brand, from the current version that my Mistress showed me, to the old style I saw on Eila’s arm. Just as you said. The older pattern takes me much further back, to around the time of the colonization. I haven’t been through all the records yet—there’s so little time in the day!—but I found tales of the very first group to arrive here.”

  “Original records?”

  He nodded. “Many of them, though their condition is very poor. And some of the writing is shockingly dull! But the tales are very different, Maen, from the ones that we’ve all learned at the Central School. The characters in the accounts written of that time were very primitive. Their living conditions were like those in the Exile camp. All people lived together in a s
ingle settlement, with no mention of cities or walls. And there are pages and pages of reports on the weather, as if it were the matter of science that was important, rather than the history of a people.

  “The climate seemed to be more changeable than they expected, and the settlers suffered and died in large numbers, both from disease and from sudden, fierce earth movements. There were reports of the need to stabilize people’s health, worry about the viability of life here on this planet. Can you believe that?” He looked terrified but excited too. I realized what conflict and fear he’d held inside himself during this work, unable to share it with anyone. “It took many years for them to master the climate in some way or learn to live with it, and then the cities were built and colonized with the citizens we’re familiar with today.”

  “The world was like the one that the Exiles know, back in the beginning,” I mused aloud. “We were all like them once.”

  Kiel’s eyes widened. “Maen, that’s not exactly what I said!”

  “And all of us the same.”

  “Don’t,” he said abruptly, and his gaze dropped away.

  “There were no Remainders then either, were there? Only the one nation.”

  He was silent for a moment, and I knew my assumption was right.

  “Yes, it seems so,” he whispered. “Our schooling nowadays teaches us that the Queens have always sought to make us a better race—to build a good world on this planet for all people. That this planet was colonized in the very beginning as a fine start to life, creating us a new world after the corruption and destruction of an old one. Creating benevolent rulers, as well. But that’s not entirely true. Things have… changed over the years. Society has distorted the original mission. The good life has become exclusive, just for the few. The group of original citizens whom we now call Remainders….”

  I looked him in the eye. “They’ve been subjugated and neglected. Don’t deny it, Kiel, for you’ve always been truthful as well as trustworthy. And you’re one of them! Your people have been channeled into a secondary role, an inferior life as servants of the city. And our Queens have made this world what it is today. Over the generations they’ve chosen its path and manipulated its people, all for their own benefit.”

  He flushed. “No, you’re wrong, that’s a shocking thing to say! Maybe sometimes they’ve been ill advised, or misguided. I grant that the life of the Remainders isn’t as good as it should be, but they’ve always cared for us, Maen, there’s always been a Queen to guide and guard us as people. That’s what the Histories say, that’s what we’re taught in school. They would never have allowed a division of the people to happen deliberately, it must be the natural way of things, it must have been determined somewhere at colonization, even though the Histories don’t show it.” His voice was speeding up with his distress. “It’s a dangerous mistake to think there was ever any other way! Maybe the stories themselves are warped.”

  I shrugged, for I could see he was becoming disturbed by our discussion. I said, “The old Histories should never have been ignored like this. We need to know the whole, true story. Our rulers need to know the same, in order to balance our modern life more equally, in order to remember the original aims of colonization. We must develop as a city in the way that’s best for everyone. That’s what the records should show.”

  Kiel was staring at me with tears in his eyes. I sighed. My treason was my own, and I should know better than to inflict it on a young citizen like him. But when he spoke again, I realized that it wasn’t fear of my insubordination that affected him so deeply.

  “I’ve been following the old Histories far beyond my orders, Maen. You were right. And you were also right about my own curiosity, maybe my own arrogance. These matters should be saved for posterity. I haven’t included anything of this in the Queen’s History, but….”

  I felt a shiver of shock. “You’re writing your own work?”

  Kiel’s face was a strange mixture of fearful paleness and an embarrassed flush. “Yes. At first it was just for my own amusement, to keep notes, to make observations across the generations. That wasn’t so bad, was it? I thought I might find some new branches to the Queen’s family, not previously recorded, that might please her, that might bring more splendor to her reputation. Also, maybe, to make my name as a scribe. I’ve lived a short enough time among the blind scribes of this city, but long enough to know I don’t want to be one of them.” He blushed even deeper. “The books and documents are in a very poor state, even only as far back as the Fourth Generation. I enjoyed pulling them together and creating a better, consolidated account. Then—” He swallowed hard again. “—that’s when I began to discover anomalies, and I was unable to track the Queen’s line clearly to that of past rulers. The sense of rightful succession was… ambiguous. Not certain.”

  “Not certain?”

  He stared at me. “Don’t make me say it, Maen. I already know too much, have seen too much.”

  “What have you seen about the Queen?” I gripped more fiercely at his arm.

  “In the name of the Devotions!” Kiel gasped weakly. My grip must have been painful, but he didn’t try to pull away from me. “Can’t you guess it already, like so many other things I’ve done?”

  I frowned angrily, for I couldn’t allow him any coyness now. Reality was no longer the solid ground beneath my feet; my perception of the world I’d lived in all my life was shifting, the bedrock slipping through my fingers like dry sand. I didn’t know if I felt fear or triumph or just plain confusion. But I had to know.

  “It’s time we need—time that makes things so much clearer,” Kiel whispered. “No one has bothered to make that time. No one’s cared for so long. Those pages I told you about, the dry reports of the planet at colonization, of the group that first came here? They were obviously written by a person in charge, maybe one of the leaders of the original colonization. It’s a really exciting find! Even though the accounts are so poor and torn, even though they’ve barely survived beyond a few disconnected, scribbled pages here and there, you’d be amazed at the way he speaks about the other people, the way he describes the harmful effects of the planet on the new inhabitants. It was a harsh time, trying to survive in this terrain, the isolation of them all, their need for supplies and to create a community that could support itself—”

  “He?” My hand opened involuntarily, releasing Kiel.

  He nodded. The silence hung around us like the dust on the books.

  “A man,” I whispered finally, “in charge.”

  Kiel nodded. He was dreadfully white now. “There’s no mistake. The original colonization group was balanced in number between men and women. The women worked mainly in the medical facility and were to bear children—to populate the planet.” He gave a soft moan. “But a man was in charge.”

  “And the brand?”

  He shook his head. “I can find no mention of it in the first days. It was pure luck I found this record at all. There are notes referring to the worries about physical health, and the loss of some children before birth. The records are very patchy, and I haven’t found any more evidence from that time. What there is, I copied into my work. But I… I daren’t continue it, Maen. I’ve stopped working on it.” He looked up at me, his expression stark. “You understand, don’t you?”

  I nodded slowly. “What will you do with it now?”

  He shivered. “I don’t know. It can’t be seen outside of this Library. I meant it only as homage to my Queen, but then I continued it from stupid, personal pride, I should be ashamed of myself. The tales it tells are too unruly, too confused, too contrary to our beliefs.”

  “Too subversive,” I said. “You’ve done good work.”

  He peered at me. “Maen, what’s happened to you? Do you want to bring trouble to our Queen?”

  “You must treasure your work, Kiel. Your pride isn’t stupid at all. If it’s the truth, it can never be wrong.”

  “Just treasonous?” he snapped back. “I’m not so naive. I’m very
proud of it, but if Mistress Nerisa found out I was pursuing my own project and it cast doubt on many of the things we hold so secure, including the right of succession from the original Queen of colonization who apparently never existed, or if she did, was instead a mere man… well, I must burn it!”

  I grasped his arm again. “Not yet. Let me see it.”

  And then we heard the sound of a man’s footsteps below in the main room, walking boldly through as if looking for attention.

  Kiel glanced at me. “Zander,” he mouthed.

  I knew that, of course, knowing the Gold Warrior’s stride and pace. It was just intriguing to me that Kiel recognized it too.

  “I’ll go down to him, see what he wants this time,” he whispered.

  “He’s been before?” My eyebrows rose.

  Kiel flushed and didn’t answer that directly. “Will you stay here?”

  I nodded. I watched him wriggle over and drop down onto the lower floor. I should have pushed the hatch back over his departure, but I didn’t. Instead, I moved as quietly as possible to sit near the hatchway and to look down into the room below. I heard Kiel greet the soldier respectfully over by the door, and their conversation mumbled on quietly for a while.

  I moved my legs to get more comfortable, and I caught sight of another pile of books I hadn’t looked through yet. There was a slim volume tucked in beside them, and when I carefully eased it out, I recognized the writing at once—it was Kiel’s. I’d seen enough of his work on the official History to know his elegant script and mischievous use of colored inks. This must be his personal book, his own History he’d been telling me about. It lay among some of the oldest and least cared for of the history books. I could see pages torn out from them, yellowed with age, and with spillages on the covers and over the text. The writings were ill formed, the lettering difficult to make out in many places. In contrast, Kiel’s book looked clean and beautiful, very carefully written. I understood what Kiel meant, in explaining how he was working to bring the records together into a complete, legible document. He must have taken great pride in it, even as he started to realize what he was working on.