Palace of Stone

by Shannon Hale

  “Um, we’ll be helpful if Britta needs a stocking darned,” said Miri.

  “Or a block of stone quarried for her wedding,” added Esa. “But lacework …”

  The seamstress clicked her tongue.

  “Then we won’t take up any more of your time,” said the official. She ushered the girls out. Miri caught Britta’s forlorn expression just before the door shut.

  “What is lacework?” said Frid.

  They’d started back to the girls’ chamber when Katar pulled Miri aside.

  “Learn anything?”

  “Not yet,” said Miri, “but I met someone who might help me.”

  “Hurry. If enough commoners are serious about making change, who do you think they’ll come for after the king? The delegates, that’s who. And then the rest of the nobles. If the commoners will succeed, Mount Eskel needs to side with them right away, or we’ll be taken for royalists and tossed onto the fire with the rest.”

  “And I’m somehow supposed to find out on my own?” said Miri.

  “I told you, I’m a delegate,” Katar said, annoyance in her voice answering Miri’s grumpy tone. “And do you really trust the other girls to keep—”

  Katar straightened. Gummonth was strolling down the corridor, shoulders back and chin up, sure of his importance. No, Miri decided, he was definitely not handsome.

  “So many Eskelites,” he said. “It does make one ponder. I don’t think the king has ever received a tribute from your people.”

  Miri froze, still as a mouse under a hawk’s shadow. She heard Katar hiss under her breath.

  “I must check the books. Surely Mount Eskel has a hefty debt to pay. Delegate Katar,” he said, nodding as he walked past.

  “Lord Gummonth,” Katar said, as if his name tasted like moldy cheese. As soon as he was gone, she cursed.

  “How much tribute could the king take?” Miri whispered.

  Katar slumped against the wall. “As much as he wants. A common tribute is a gold coin per person.”

  Miri thought of the two gold coins her family kept wrapped in her mother’s old shawl. At least once each day, she and Marda would unwrap the red shawl and marvel at the coins, beautiful as tiny suns. They’d never had money before this year. Coins meant hope, coins meant safety.

  The threat of the tribute made the palace feel like a cage, and her longing to be with Peder sharpened into a keen ache. Miri told Inga she was going for a walk and ran outside.

  Her fear of what Gummonth might do displaced her fear of the city. Britta had described the way to Gus’s workshop. Hoping she remembered, and with a deep breath before the plunge, Miri entered the streets of Asland.

  When she was not killed instantly, her mind returned to churning over tributes. What if two gold coins were not enough? Would the officials demand a goat as well, or even all five? No more milk and cheese. No more meat during a hard winter. Even with goat milk, some families nearly starved before spring.

  “Watch it!” yelled a man, reining in his mount just a handsbreadth from trampling Miri.

  Miri bolted to the nearest building and hugged its wall. Her legs wobbled as if afraid the ground beneath her would give way.

  She took a shaky breath and continued on, determined to keep focused. There were a few more near misses with carriages, but she was mostly unscathed when she found the entrance to Gus’s workshop, a narrow alley between a grocer’s shop and a potter’s. Down the passage she discovered a small courtyard hedged by other buildings. Cluttered with stone blocks, heaps of rock chippings, an open shed, and a small square house, the workshop was like a slice of home hidden in the middle of the city. Despite the fear that tributes and thoroughfares had rattled in her, she could almost relax.

  Gus was a stout man, his forearms thick with muscle and his belly thick with fat. Miri tried very hard not to stare. She had never seen that much fat on a person.

  “Umph,” he said when she introduced herself, and he nodded in the direction of Peder on the other side of the shed.

  Peder was leaning over a table, examining an intricately carved block of gray stone. Miri stood behind him.

  “Whoa, did you do that?” she asked.

  Peder spun around.

  “Miri! Cough or something before sneaking up. You’re like a she-wolf in winter.” He straightened his filthy apron. “It’s Gus’s work. He’s very good.”

  “He’s not the only one. The king installed your mantelpiece in the royal breakfast chamber!”

  “Oh no,” Peder groaned.

  That was not the reaction Miri had been expecting.

  “I’m so embarrassed, Miri. I had no sense of proportion, no understanding of scene movement, no depth.”

  “Oh,” said Miri, not sure what that all meant. But he seemed so disheartened, she did not want to burden him with worries about lost savings and goats. Besides, the king could not really be so cruel as to rob and starve an entire province, could he?

  Peder rubbed the stone with a cloth. “I need to work harder.”

  He evidently meant to work harder right then, because he got to it, sweeping up rock chips and hauling a stone slab onto the worktable. Miri could not help but notice how Peder’s muscles flexed as he lifted the stone. She felt her own arm, sure her muscles lacked the same definition. The hair on his arms was paler than his sun-soaked skin. The hair on his head was so curly, when he slid a piece of chalk above his ear, it stayed.

  Twice she tried to renew the conversation, but he answered her questions briefly or drifted off mid-sentence, distracted by his work. After a time she wandered into the shed. She found a sock stuck with a needle, a hole half darned. She lay back on a pile of straw, finished the job, and started on another sock, idly singing a quarry song. Peder picked it up, and they sang together while she sewed, he carved, and the dim Aslandian stars began to throb in the sky.

  Autumn Week Ten

  Dear Marda,

  I never imagined how many people there must be in the world. Every day hundreds of people with no names cross my path. Well, I suppose they have names, I just do not know them. Then again, perhaps nameless lowlanders spend all day walking in circles just to make the city look busy and confuse poor little mountain girls.

  I hope you laugh at that. I miss making you laugh.

  I have made friends with a lowlander, and he has a name: Timon. He has read hundreds of books and sailed to three other countries. Each morning for the past few weeks, he has waited for me under a tree near the palace, and we walk together to the Queen’s Castle. Yes, I finally learned to navigate Asland’s streets! I suppose the walk is fairly long, but it seems short because our conversation is always longer.

  When I asked our chaperone, Inga, if I could walk to the Queen’s Castle instead of ride in a carriage, she shrugged. She does not seem to care much where we go or what we do. I thought I would enjoy such freedom, but it makes me feel lonely.

  Timon has invited me to a Salon night. “Salon” is a fancy word for “room,” though I do not know why lowlanders need fancy words for things. We should call our cottage “Laren’s Palace” and the goats “mighty horned ones.”

  Timon told me that on Salon nights nobles invite scholars and artists into their fancy rooms to talk. I think I know what we might talk about, and so I am nervous. Some things, I am learning, are dangerous even to say.

  Should I go, Marda?

  I want to invite Peder, but he is always so busy. I will anyway. All I can do is keep going to see him until he asks me to stop pestering him for good. Right?

  This is from your very fancy sister, who does have a name,

  Miri

  Chapter Seven

  No small thing, a bee’s sting

  When it enters the heart

  Not so benign, the growing vine

  When it tears stone apart

  Miri sauntered into the thoroughfare. She’d made her way through the labyrinthine streets many times over the past few weeks, and that gave her a little bit of swagger. She stopped fo
r an oncoming carriage just in time. A loose cabbage caught beneath its wheel and shredded.

  At least it wasn’t my head, she thought.

  In Gus’s stone yard, Peder was marking a slab with a piece of chalk. She cleared her throat.

  “She-wolf creeping in,” she whispered.

  “Hello, Miri,” he said without looking up.

  “Hello.” She waited. She was wearing a yellow silk dress, a lace shawl, and a fur-lined cloak, her hair painstakingly curled beneath a feathered cap. Lately she was often surprised at how good wearing clean and pretty clothes made her feel.

  “I didn’t expect you tonight,” he said, squinting at his drawing and then rubbing out half with his thumb.

  “I came with an invitation.”

  She waited again. She was wearing a silk dress. Her hair was curled.

  “Right now? I—” He looked up. “Oh. You look … fancy.”

  She smiled.

  He smiled.

  She smiled even broader.

  “How do girls do that …” He twirled a finger beside his head. “The curly thing with the hair.”

  “We heat an iron rod in the hearth and then wrap a lock of hair around it. It takes forever, but some of us aren’t as lucky as you.” She ran her fingertips through his curly hair. She could feel the heat of his scalp and pulled back, tucking her hands against her sides.

  “Timon, another scholar from the Queen’s Castle, invited me to meet some people at a noble lady’s house. Will you come?”

  “Maybe. I …” Peder looked at the dirt on his hands, wiped them on his apron, and then yawned against the back of his hand. “I’m so tired, Miri.”

  She felt her shoulders slump.

  “It turns out that being an apprentice means carrying water and stone and wood, and sweeping and cooking and doing everything except carving. After Gus finishes his work for the day, he lets me practice on his spare stone, so I stay up carving till after midnight and I feel like I barely sleep at all before I’m up for more fetching and carrying ….” He yawned again. “Sorry.”

  “All right. I’ll see you at week’s end?”

  He nodded and stooped back over his stone. As she walked away he called out, “You do look pretty, Miri.”

  And with that, her step had more spring than swagger.

  Miri found the red-painted house Timon had said was Lady Sisela’s, though it seemed impossibly large. She tapped on the door, ready to flee, but a man in servant’s black opened it and seemed to expect her. His hair was a dusty gray, and he leaned on a cane.

  “They are in the Salon. Right this way.”

  The entry floor was tiled in linder—brilliant white with pale veins of green. Miri dragged her toe along it in a kind of greeting.

  She tensed her stomach before the Salon door and tried to prepare her face, lest she gape. The preparation was in vain.

  The walls were papered in exotic patterns, the floor inlaid with polished tiles of blue, reddish orange, and cream. Deep-green plants grew in pots (inside the house!), and there were so many sofas and chairs Miri did not dare count. How could a regular, non-king person live in all that richness?

  Someone was playing a cart-size musical instrument Miri learned later was a piano. The song was just ending as she entered. The couple dozen listeners applauded, so Miri did the same, hoping that was right. She could not see Timon.

  Miri wished for Marda or Peder beside her and leaned against the papered wall as if to blend in. But a woman seated near the piano was looking at Miri, her dark eyes lightly outlined in black paint. Her back was perfectly straight and a large white feather shone startlingly bright against her black hair.

  “Good evening,” said the woman.

  Was Miri supposed to introduce herself? “Um … I’m Miri Larendaughter.” She paused, trying to keep her voice from squeaking. “Of Mount Eskel.”

  Everyone was quiet, the thick kind of quiet that seemed to buzz. And then those nearest Miri arose and bowed or curtsied.

  It was clearly a mockery, Miri knew. No one curtsied to a Mount Eskel girl. Their princess academy tutor had been clear—Aslandians would consider Eskelites lower than servants. Miri almost preferred the prattling insults she got from Gummonth and others at the palace. Anger and shame surged inside her, and she wanted to shout that she was just as good as any of them, but all she could do was run.

  She ran past Timon, who had entered behind her. She ran past the startled servant. She was almost out the front gate when Timon caught up.

  “Are you unwell?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, don’t worry.” She forced herself to slow to a walk as she stalked out the gate. She was already despising herself for leaving so easily. What a pathetic spy, she thought. How quickly she had failed Katar, and Mount Eskel too.

  “You seem upset.”

  You seem pushy, she thought, but only said, “I get tired of being put in my place again and again. You were kind to invite me, but I understand. I’m an ignorant mountain girl who’s trying to be a princess’s lady.”

  He kept beside her as she hurried down the walkway. “But you don’t understand, Miri …. The way they stared, and those who bowed, you thought—”

  “They’re making fun of me.”

  “No, Miri, they’re not. Truly. We know what you face in this confused and lopsided kingdom. But in the house of Lady Sisela, you will always receive the respect you deserve. Miri of Mount Eskel. Lady of the academy. You are honored here.”

  Miri stopped. Timon’s smile was slight and tinged with a frown, afraid she would not believe. She wished she could, but she shook her head.

  “Allow me to show you?” he said.

  He held out his hand, and she took it before realizing that she had never held any boy’s hand besides Peder’s. On Mount Eskel, girls often held hands while walking together, but when a boy and girl held hands, it was a sign of attachment.

  Perhaps in the lowlands it’s just casual courtesy, Miri thought, letting Timon lead her back inside. His hand was warm, his grip firm.

  The others smiled as she entered, as if nothing had happened. The pianist was playing again, the music erasing any tension. The dark-haired woman gestured for Miri to sit and introduced herself as Lady Sisela, the mistress of the Salon.

  “I’m sorry I was rude,” Miri said. “I didn’t think I belonged here. For one thing, I’m …” She looked around. Only Timon and Hanna from the Queen’s Castle seemed near her age. “I’m small.”

  “‘No small thing, a bee’s sting,’” Sisela quoted.

  Miri marveled that Sisela would cite a poem as if she assumed Miri were well-read enough to know it. And in fact, she did! She’d spoken that very line to Marda, though her sister had not understood.

  Miri added, “Not so polite, an Eskelite, when she runs from your Salon.”

  Several in the room laughed. She blushed again, though this time the burn felt welcome.

  “The linder in your entry is beautiful,” Miri said quickly, talking over her embarrassment. “It’s very old, the oldest kind quarried on Mount Eskel.”

  Lady Sisela nodded. “This house was built before the kings kept all linder for themselves, even while paying those who quarried the stone the barest fraction of its worth. That is, until recently—when you yourself, I believe, learned its true value from books at the princess academy and bartered for better prices.”

  “You know about that?” Miri asked.

  “The happenings of Mount Eskel may not reach many ears, but we in this room have been very interested. You started a … well, a revolution, and your village changed for the better.”

  “We could use a little revolution here,” Hanna said.

  Someone shushed her, and Hanna bowed her head, mortified. Miri realized they must be afraid to speak freely in front of her, a stranger and a palace resident.

  “We were elated last year when the priests designated Mount Eskel as the home of the next princess,” said Lady Sisela. “Surely we would have the first commo
ner princess in the history of Danland! But instead the prince chose the only noble girl at the academy. How did a noble come to be on Mount Eskel?”

  Hesitant to talk about Britta, Miri said, “She lived there … before the academy.”

  “I see. Miri, I, too, am a graduate of a princess academy.”

  “Really?”

  Lady Sisela nodded. “I danced with King Bjorn when he was a prince, and waited to hear if he would choose me. He did not. At the time I was heartbroken.”

  The lady put a hand to her heart and swooned tragically. Miri smiled.

  “He was charmed by Lady Sabet—beautiful but quiet and a little dull witted, I’m afraid.”

  “Clearly you’re not quiet or dull witted enough for him,” said Miri.

  Lady Sisela laughed. “Bless you, you wise thing! But years go by, as they tend to do, and now that I see what Bjorn has become, I’m entirely grateful for my narrow escape. Bjorn is … Well, surely you’ve met him by now. What is your opinion of our king?”

  The room was quiet, everyone watching Miri. Her mouth felt dry. If she was to learn more for Katar, she had to convince them she was on their side.

  “He eats large breakfasts and falls asleep during plays,” Miri said.

  There was a hushed sound of relief as many in the room exhaled. Timon stood beside Miri, a hand on her shoulder, as if claiming her as one of their own. The touch was gratifying. She continued.

  “I expected the king to be like the head of our village council—the biggest, the strongest, the first and last at work each day. But King Bjorn—does he do anything?”

  “Besides grow fat off the labor of the shoeless?” said Timon.

  “It is a shame. What marvels a ruler could accomplish.” Lady Sisela’s smile hinted at secrets and possibilities. “If Bjorn had married someone like me or you, Miri, instead of his pretty, dull-witted doll, Danland’s changes might come from within the palace itself. We could enter a golden age! Ah well. In the end, I married a fine man, even if he was a noble.” She smiled to show she was teasing, but then her smile faltered. “He opposed the king’s tributes and was executed.”