Palace of Stone

by Shannon Hale

  Miri remembered something she had not thought of in weeks. The night soldiers had come, Miri and Timon fled through the house, dark room after dark room, each empty of furniture. Why would Sisela’s house be mostly vacant?

  The lady reclined on her lounge in her house robe, the slab of sunlight illuminating her from knees to brow. She looked bloodless.

  “I would offer you refreshment, but as I said, the servants …” She shrugged prettily.

  “I read a lot about the king recently,” said Miri. “I can’t help thinking differently of him, knowing that he was once a little boy tormented by his big brother.”

  “Sweyn tormented Bjorn? Yes, I can believe it. He still is just a poor little boy, isn’t he? I used to be a courtier, you know—a noble who lives at court—until I couldn’t bear to witness Bjorn, his queen, and their useless little lives any longer. I wonder if Bjorn realizes how close he is to losing his crown ….” Her voice quieted. “I wonder if he thinks about how different his life would be if he’d chosen me.”

  There was an impatient knock at the front door. Miri sprang to her feet, remembering the officials and soldiers, but Timon entered.

  “Sisi—”

  “Timon, dear!” Sisela said. “First Miri calls unexpectedly, and now my lamb Timon. I am popular today.”

  He squinted into the room. “Miri, are you all right? I heard that guns were fired at the royal carriages.”

  “A bullet went right over my head.”

  “No!” said Timon. “Miri, you have to stay away from the princess. She’s marked for death.”

  “What do you mean—”

  “He means the people are angry at her,” Sisela interrupted.

  “Yes, they made that pretty clear,” said Miri. “They were shouting that they will kill Britta before allowing her to marry the prince. You didn’t know that stupid leaflet would cause all this. Did you?”

  Timon hesitated, putting his hands in his pockets, taking them out again.

  “Miri, I know you understand that the greater good outweighs the cares of one person,” said Sisela. “We must make sacrifices in order to realize our goals.”

  Miri’s legs felt cold. “What exactly are those goals?”

  “Ultimately, to rid this kingdom of the infestation of royalty and nobility.”

  “I thought we were fighting for change, for a country where everyone has fair treatment and the hope of prosperity.”

  “Well, yes, of course,” said Sisela. “And that will be possible once the royals and nobles are gone.”

  “Gone where?” Miri asked.

  Timon paced to the window. Sisela smiled at Miri and patted the lounge beside her. Miri stayed standing. Sisela pressed her lips together.

  “I have studied the history of many kingdoms. Whenever a people overthrow a king but allow him or his family to live, those royals eventually return, usually with foreign support, and reclaim the throne through war. Miri, my precious one, we must not make the mistakes of the past. Peace will set us back. I know it sounds harsh, but sometimes we must kill to prevent more killing.”

  Sisela paused, and Miri felt disconcerted by the silence. On Salon nights, Clemen played stirring marches behind Sisela’s words, the notes rousing people into an ovation. Now, only the soft creak of the empty house punctuated her speech.

  Music creates mood, directs feeling, Master Filippus had taught. Miri now wondered how much of what she had felt in the Salon had been created by Clemen’s music.

  In the hush, Miri remembered one of the rules of Diplomacy she had learned at the academy: The best solutions don’t come through force. Was that always true? Or could Sisela be right? Miri hoped not, but she was not certain.

  The room felt airless. She wanted to feel stone under her feet and see sky above her, the same sky that covered Pa and Marda.

  “I should go,” said Miri.

  Timon stepped forward and watched her as if waiting for an invitation to follow. She shut the door behind her.

  The day was bright, the streets strangely calm after the terror at the chapel. Miri believed Britta ought to leave Asland. She could return home to Lonway or even Mount Eskel. It would not be so bad if Britta were not the princess. She seemed so lonely at the palace. Perhaps she would be happier if she could give it up. That was the simplest solution, and Miri hoped for it in a giddy, foolish way. Couldn’t she have a fair world and her friend?

  She pictured the way Britta’s eyes widened whenever she spoke of Steffan, and despair sank back into her chest.

  Miri found Master Filippus alone in their classroom, reading an unfurled scroll. He smiled when he saw her.

  “Not many seek the enlightenment of books and old men when offered a free day and sunshine.”

  “You’re here too,” she said.

  He moaned and patted his cheek. “I have fair skin. I burn easily.” He set down the parchment. “You have questions. You may ask.”

  “Some of my friends seek change in Danland.”

  He nodded. “Examine not only an idea but the people behind it. What do they have to gain?”

  “Timon Skarpson—”

  “Son of wealthy merchants. His parents have donated gold to the crown in hopes of claiming a noble title.”

  “Lady Sisela—”

  “—is a lady no longer. Years ago she published leaflets condemning the king. When they were traced back to her, her husband claimed them to save her life. He was declared a traitor and stripped of his title before execution.”

  Miri blew air out through her lips.

  “Did you guess I was such a gossip?” Master Filippus said slyly.

  “They’re willing to risk everything for the cause. I believe they really do care about the shoeless.”

  “Perhaps,” he said.

  How could Miri know what was the truth? She shook her head.

  “Master Filippus, what happened in Rilamark after they killed their queen?”

  “The rebels … mmm … executed her family. And her friends. And her supporters. That wasn’t enough, so they executed as many nobles as they could get their hands on. The ax fell daily for weeks. And now the rebels look about themselves and wonder what to do next. Those who were fond of the old way fight the new leaders, and the killing continues. Few of their trade ships sail, and when trade stops, people starve.”

  “The very people that the rebels were trying to help,” she said.

  Master Filippus shrugged in agreement.

  “You are a master scholar, so you know the harder subjects, like Ethics.”

  “That is true.”

  “Tell me what to do. I need to know what’s right and what’s wrong.”

  “A question every scholar wrestles with. Let us use the question of the painting and the prisoner as an example. What do you think of the painting?”

  “It is not good or evil. It is only what a person sees in it.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “It has no capacity for evil. It is safe. A man who has killed might kill again. He is not safe.”

  “But what if the murderer was sorry?” she asked.

  And what if he had kind eyes? What if he made a joke at his own expense that made Miri laugh? What if he’d been many years in the dungeon with no window and all he longed for was to gaze into a pure blue sky? The painting was beautiful. But the painting could not sit under the sky, look up, and smile. The painting could not admire the waning moon and think how much it looked like a face half turned away from the light. The painting had lasted many years longer than any person might, but it did not care. It did not fear the fire.

  “So you would choose the murderer,” said Master Filippus.

  “But I love the painting. I don’t want to have to choose.”

  “And so you choose nothing. You let both the painting and the murderer burn. Which is worse—acting in the wrong or not acting at all? Let us look at another example—”

  “No more examples. I have a real question. There are changes brewing. And there is a gir
l. The change is about what’s best for people like my own family, which apparently includes preventing the girl from marrying the boy she loves, and possibly even killing her. But the girl is my friend.”

  “An interesting dilemma. As you study History, you discover a pattern of revolutionary thought that invariably fails to meet its goals.”

  Miri was pacing now. “Everyone keeps saying history has proven this or that. But it seems like people look only at the parts of history that agree with them and ignore all the rest.”

  “A valid point. Perhaps if you study the philosophies of Mikkel—”

  “Just tell me what to do!”

  “I can’t,” he said. “That is the sad truth you seek, Lady Miri. I don’t know everything. No one does.”

  “Then what good is all this?” She slapped at the table, knocking a parchment onto the floor.

  Master Filippus sat back, groaning like a tree branch pushed about by wind. His slow gaze took in the spilled parchment and then returned to her face. She had never realized before that he was quite old.

  His voice creaked. “We study, Miss Miri, we read and ponder and examine every side, so when it comes time to make a choice, we have hope of a good one. But I don’t know which choice is good for you. Ethics happens here”—he pointed to his chest—“as much as here.” He pointed to his head.

  “I wish everything was easier,” she whispered.

  “So do I,” he said.

  She exhaled heavily and felt a tightness in her throat that meant she could cry if she wanted. She carefully rolled the fallen parchment and placed it on the table. Master Filippus rested his head on his hand, his cheek wrinkling, and looked out the window. He could not have been more opposite the young girl in the painting, and yet, Miri noticed, their expressions were identical. But the master was as real as his wrinkles, while the girl was nothing more than color on canvas. Miri hoped that if a building caught fire, she herself would be worth coming back for. Just then, she was not sure that was true.

  We are what we do, Timon had said.

  Miri sat beside Master Filippus. “Will you show me the philosophies of Mikkel?”

  He nodded, and his wrinkles turned up slightly to admit a smile.

  Miri arrived at Gus’s very late. She had sat with Master Filippus all day, debating many ideas and finding no easy answers. Gus’s gate was locked. She felt too tired to knock and leaned against it, nearly asleep upright.

  Peder came from the direction of the street. “Miri! I was looking for you. Britta sent me a note about what happened.”

  He unlocked the gate to let them in, and they settled on the pile of straw. Miri felt like a fire burned down, embers barely pulsing orange. But she talked, Peder listened, and a kind of quiet heat flickered in her that promised not to burn out yet. She told him about “The Mountain Girl’s Lament” and Timon, Gummonth and the tributes, Sisela’s empty house, the gunshot in the carriage, the painting in the classroom.

  “I don’t know,” said Peder. “Why do you have to choose between the painting and the prisoner?”

  “Because there isn’t time and the fire is raging.”

  Peder rubbed his eyes and lay his head on his arm. “But there isn’t actually a fire, right?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Then isn’t it kind of a stupid question?”

  “But if there were a real fire—”

  “I’m too tired to think about pretend fires,” he said.

  “I know. Me too. I just wish … I want ethics to tell me what to do.”

  “I’m going to sleep here. You take my bed. There are some oats in the bucket …. The horse is so pretty ….”

  Miri squinted at him. “What are you talking about—horses and oats?”

  Peder snorted and opened his eyes. “What?”

  “You were falling asleep.”

  “No, I wasn’t. Maybe for just a second.”

  Miri laughed. “I’m in crisis about Britta and musket shots and tributes, and you’re falling asleep and dreaming about pretty horses!”

  “Don’t laugh,” he whined, “or you’ll make me laugh and I’m too tired.”

  He covered his face with his arm and snored once.

  Miri sat on his low bed beside Gus’s fire. She stared at the wall, her gaze sleepy, her thoughts chasing one another like a dog after its own tail. She wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. It smelled like Peder.

  He was sound asleep on the straw and did not twitch when she lay the blanket over him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Bury the embers, extinguish the spark

  We plunge ourselves in the well of the dark

  Far from voices that trouble and chatter

  Down, deep down where worries don’t matter

  Our minds all teem with the unseen thing

  But night is a blink, and sleep but a dream

  Wake, wake, see things as they seem

  In the morning, Miri drew a bucket of water from the well to wash up and drink. Her stomach gurgled, protesting against nothing but water for breakfast. She tried to be quiet as she left, but the gate squeaked.

  Peder ran out, his hair full of straw and sticking straight up on one side.

  “Are you going to the Queen’s Castle?” he asked, his voice dry from sleep.

  “We’re on break. But I have to go out there and try to do something, you know?”

  “Wait a moment.”

  He returned quickly, wearing his jacket, his hair wet, his face red from washing with cold water.

  “I asked Gus for leave. I want to go with you.” He locked the gate behind them and paused. “It feels as if today is important.”

  She was about to protest—this was her mess, and cleaning it up might prove dangerous. But he took her hand and smiled that confident smile of his that lifted higher on one side. She smiled back and believed perhaps for the first time since coming to Asland that somehow everything might work out.

  They passed through the alley and into a snowfall.

  Clumps of snowflakes hovered and bumped along the breeze like fat bumblebees. Miri held out her hand, a place for snow to land. A flake settled onto her palm, its presence just a prick of coldness, a melting. It felt like a gift. She breathed in through her nose and shut her eyes.

  “Smells like home,” said Peder.

  The snow was too light to stay, the ground too warm to keep it. And the strange spring snow fell only in that golden moment of dawn, the turning of the page between night and day. Miri caught one of the last flakes on a fingertip and let it disappear on her tongue.

  The streets were quiet, just slow-moving delivery wagons and servants walking to work. Peder and Miri made their way to the palace, taking the route past the great wooden chapel.

  Without speaking of it, they both climbed the chapel steps and stood before the doors, so huge Miri wondered if they had been built by giants. The same scene of the creator god first speaking to humans graced Mount Eskel’s own humble chapel doors. Miri’s neck hurt, leaning back to look up so high.

  “They’re big,” Peder said.

  “Big,” Miri agreed.

  “They look a lot like ours, but bigger.”

  “Big, big, big.”

  “Massive.” Peder scrunched his nose. “It seems kind of unnecessary, doors that big.”

  “Maybe Aslandians used to be four times as tall.”

  “That would make sense. Only it doesn’t.”

  “Exactly.” She touched the wood. It was not as polished and well oiled as the Mount Eskel chapel doors. And perhaps not as well loved. With so many things to look at in Asland, who cared enough to love these doors?

  “Britta and Steffan were supposed to exchange vows here yesterday. And after, they would have climbed the bridal edifice in the Green and been presented to the people as husband and wife.” She turned, scanning the grassy park across the main avenue from the palace. “I watched them build the bridal edifice from a palace window. It’s a huge wooden platform, topped with ba
nners and … That’s funny, we should be able to see …”

  There was no edifice on the Green, but there were piles of lumber and colorful banners torn apart and scattered across the grass.

  “They destroyed it,” Miri whispered. Her stomach felt sick.

  A small boy affixed a paper to the chapel wall. He lowered his cap over his eyes when he noticed them and hurried away.

  “I’ve never seen so many leaflets,” Peder said.

  There were always some leaflets in the city. Timon said that since it was illegal for anyone but the king’s officials to print news journals, leaflets were the people’s way to speak out. The abundance of leaflets that morning felt like a shout.

  Miri scanned the one the boy had just tacked to the chapel.

  This titled girl named Britta is not content to merely live in luxury while the shoeless labor for her silks, but she must steal a crown from them as well. She will lie, she will cheat, she will rob to wed the prince. But we the people will not allow a thief in the palace. We will cut off her hair and sell it for thread. We will strip her skin for ribbons.

  Miri read no further, crumpling it up and tossing it as far as she could. She scanned another leaflet and another, dozens of different authors saying about the same thing. One sounded a good deal like Sisela.

  Peace will set us back. If you are hungry, if you labor without rest, look no further for blame than this robber princess. The first to cut out her heart will be the hero of Danland.

  Miri fled down the chapel stairs toward the palace. “It’s my fault this is happening.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Peder said, racing down the street beside her.

  “I was careless and boastful when I wrote that Rhetoric paper. My words helped start it, and I have to undo it.”

  “My ma says You can’t unspill a stew.”

  “She also says Undoing a wrong is greater than doing a right.”

  “You know, Ma is very good at saying two things at once.”

  They neared the tree where Miri met Timon on the way to the Queen’s Castle in the mornings. She stopped running when she saw his figure pace around the corner. His pale hair was stressed and lying every which way.