Kingdom of Salt and Sirens

by J. A. Armitage

  He and the princess sat close together, leaning their backs against the foot of the princess’s bed. They were hardly writing or signing anything, but smiling and looking far too comfortable. Their faces and mouths much too close together as they formed each new word.

  They seemed to be getting closer and closer until Erys straightened under my hard gaze, but the laughter didn’t leave his voice. “Little sister is watching.”

  Yes, I was watching, and ready to punch Helene’s lights out if she tried to kiss my prince.

  “That’s right,” Helene said. “Come here, little sister. You and Jonas can sit with us.”

  Little sister, this. Little sister, that. I didn’t blame Erys for coining the term—from my time with the nuns, I imagined. In fact, I liked it. But when Helene said it, like I was too young and stupid to be seen as a threat or an equal competitor—well, I would almost rather watch her kiss Erys. Almost.

  He didn’t love Helene. He must be worried about the war again, the treaty their marriage was meant to resolve. I suppose that was a noble, prince-like thing to worry about. He wasn’t just a boy stranded on my island anymore.

  I wasn’t a foundling, either. I was a princess, just as much as Helene. More than Helene, as my mother had the prior claim. Helene’s family only came to power after my mother vanished. I was the most powerful woman in the room and would be his redemption when my mother appeared to take back what was hers. But how could I get everyone here to see that?

  Naman came in to switch places with one of the guards who had come in with the prince. Jonas made two signs, but I didn’t know what they were.

  It seemed I had more learning to do.

  15

  Pot. Stole. Flower. Through the next few days, it seemed we had mastered all the words and seen everything the palace had to offer. “We should get out,” Erys said to me. “I’ll show you the whole city, just like I promised.”

  The whole city? Terror and excitement filled me at the thought. But before I could do anything but blink, Erys turned to Helene, inviting her as well. He even kissed her hand. No matter how much the city streets frightened me, letting Helene go with Erys alone was not an option.

  If nothing else, I took my role as chaperone very seriously.

  I stood at the gates of the palace as we prepared to leave, my fists clenched at my sides. My jaw tightened. Ready to do battle with all the rising voices of the outside world.

  Jonas put his hand in a fist near his chin, the thumb and pinky finger extended, furrowing his brow. A sign for a question. “What’s wrong?”

  Erys answered for me, speaking aloud. “She’s still not used to so many people. But it will be fine, little sister. You can ride on a litter with us.” The litter was a stretched couch with poles sticking out. Erys pointed to the strong men who would carry us, but they looked just as threatening as any man on the street.

  Erys always thought he knew so much, but he knew nothing of my fears. Not really.

  “Yes,” Helene agreed. “It will be just like when you rode in the carriage with me. You liked that, didn’t you?” Now I had the princess smiling much too wide to reassure me.

  She couldn’t be braver than me. I got on the litter.

  Once I settled in with the prince and princess, the strong men lifted us up. Jonas and a few other guards walked alongside. As the sounds of the city rose, I decided that riding on a litter was not at all like riding in a carriage. It jerked like a boat in a storm-tossed sea, and nothing was muffled. I could hear every sound. Smell every smell. I buried myself in Erys’s shoulder.

  Erys laughed. “Now, little sister, how are you going to see the city like that? The artisans are out today, and I know you’ll want to see them.”

  I didn’t know what an artisan was and I didn’t care.

  A light hand brushed across my back. “It really is beautiful, Ari. I always admired the painting and poetry that came from Solis, even as a little girl.” Helene’s words were a reassurance for both me and Erys.

  He wanted us to see the city, and I was disappointing him. Helene was pleasing him.

  Erys wouldn’t want me if I kept acting as a child, the little sister. My real sisters would never have tolerated my weakness. They would throw me to the open ocean and let me sink or swim. That was what I was used to, and that was how I would have to press on.

  I finally turned my head. At first, all I saw was a blur of movement, but past the moving swarm of hands and feet, I found a man carving a statue. His powerful arms chipped the stone into the soft curves of a woman. His strength begated something so beautiful that I looked and kept looking and even resented that the litter continued forward and that I had to move my eyes to the next sight.

  I scooted to the edge of the couch, and Erys laughed. “You see? I knew you would like it.”

  I wasn’t listening. Another man was painting. Another weaving. How could I see it all at once? And why must the litter move so fast?

  It really was silly. I had my own two feet and never needed a herd of men to carry me around before. I leapt to the ground to get a closer look. It was time to sink or swim.

  “Ari?” the prince called after me. I didn’t care. “Look out!” he cried at the same time a goat herder almost struck me.

  Jonas stood before the man like a sudden wall. The goat herder backed off, and Jonas waved to the prince to show that he had me, that I was safe. Erys instantly relaxed, and I found myself doing the same. I hadn’t drowned. I had conquered this street, perhaps this whole city. I stayed in Jonas’s shadow and felt free to explore the statues and paintings and tapestries as I wished. I even smiled at the creators—the artisans and the blind poet telling a story to a crowd.

  I loved the stories that seemed to match the ones in my secret book of pictures I left on my island. Mother had said my father was a poet. I hadn’t thought much of it then, but now I kind of liked that idea. Those men weren’t so large and didn’t seem scary at all.

  Eventually, Erys and even Helene joined me down on the street, but when the artisan stalls gave way to great columns of the temple district we had to stop. “Mostly, we worship the One God here, but we still pay respect to some of the older ones as saints,” Erys explained. “It appeases the older, more superstitious among our subjects.”

  Like the sailors who believed in sirens? I didn’t try to sign those words but let Erys read the irony of my raised eyebrow. He must have learned by now that there was more reason to respect the old gods than to appease the superstitious.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what I believe anymore. Either way, I think it would be best if you stayed here with Jonas or went back to the palace. Father wanted to speak with us in Juno’s shrine. She must bless our union, but only admits those of royal blood.”

  Juno or Hera was the Queen Goddess of Birth and Marriage. The legends were also full of her husband’s infidelities, so it made sense that she might be more particular about handing out her blessings to those with the proper birthright. I was a princess. I had royal blood, but as I watched the prince and princess test their blood on the knife of the priestess in front of one of the ordainment temples, I thought of Valadern’s blood oaths. I hated being left behind, but if there were more bloody rituals and bloody old gods involved, I certainly didn’t want to be part of it.

  I still pouted about it until I realized that Jonas was stuck with me.

  He shifted a foot, awkward under my somber gaze. “Do you want to go back to the palace with the other girls?” he asked with his hands. “The men will take you on the litter if you want.”

  I answered with the signs he was teaching me, shaking one fist. “No.” I stepped away from the litter and let Jonas send them away, leaving only himself to walk with me.

  “The other girls are not nice to you.” It was harder to tell with signs instead of speech, but it seemed that it wasn’t a question and that he already expected that might be the case. “The other guards are like that too. They don’t like having a new, crippled guard pu
t above them. Still lots of superstitions and people who will throw out cripple babies for the priests and nuns of the One God to find.”

  Perhaps that was why Sister Leah told the travelers passing through the monastery that I had taken an oath. She had been trying to protect me.

  If the guards were cruel to Jonas, that might even be my fault. I was the reason he had been dragged from whatever home or position he had to work at the palace instead. “Sorry you have to teach me.”

  “Sorry?” He made the sign again like he was confused. “Prince pays me. Lots. I teach hand-speak; he teaches me to write, and I practice the spear with other guards.” He swung his hands to mime the movement of a spear and looked so absurd I wanted to laugh.

  I actually really loved hand-speaking. The words were more direct and simple, but Jonas was always making over-the-top faces so his meaning couldn’t be missed. It was like a dance or a play I got to watch or perform all the time. More effort, but more fun.

  He straightened his back to salute. “Prince calls me ‘royal guard.’ High honor. I dug ditches before. It’s harder to find good work when you can’t talk. But I teach hand-speaking to other guards now too. Silent, secret.” He ducked his head like he was hiding himself. “Good for war.”

  “How did he find you?” I signed back.

  “Look lots?” Jonas shrugged. “He came late at night to talk to my family. Asked strange questions.”

  “Strange questions?”

  He frowned, and I knew he was slowing his movements and picking easier symbols so I would understand. “He wanted to know if I was nice to sisters, animals. Not want bad fighter. Not want bad temper. He said he would take me after Mother and sisters said I was nice. Said he would pay lots.”

  “And did he?”

  He smiled. “They bought a new house.”

  Jonas gave it all to them? He was nice. Far nicer than I thought a boy could be before meeting Erys. And it had only taken Erys a single night to find him. Was it really so easy, dozens of kind men less than a stone’s throw away?

  It seemed a larger wonder than anything else in this city, and that was saying something. We had left the temples and artisans, but there was still so much to see, even in the poorer districts. I paused at the next vendor who had plucked chickens hanging from the stall roof and live fish swimming in a barrel. The things they thought of here!

  While I watched the fish swim, a voice rose up from the human swarm behind us.

  “Jonas! There you are.” The woman shifted her food basket to sign the words. Her hands had the same fluid movement that Jonas’s did, but so bright and lively it seemed another language all its own. She moved her hips and put her whole body into it. If she wasn’t also speaking aloud, I might have missed the words.

  “Sister.” Jonas signed the word to me before turning, but I almost didn’t need it. Their hair and eyes were the exact same shade of brown. “What’s wrong, Julia?”

  “Don’t you look all innocent with me.” Julia pulled a young boy from behind her skirt that had to be her son, Jonas’s nephew. The boy smiled wide enough to show he was missing a tooth but said nothing to greet us. “Seth hasn’t spoken a word since you left,” she said “What did you do?”

  Jonas’s eyebrows rose then he forced a somber expression. He poked the boy in the arm and in the belly, squinting and walking around Seth like the boy was a riddle to be solved. Then Jonas held up a finger to show he had an idea. He flared his fingers like spider legs and tickled the boy until Seth laughed—a high-pitched squeal that Jonas could never produce.

  Seth clapped his hand over his mouth in horror. “No. No. I want to be like you.”

  Jonas laughed then too, letting out a hoarse, raspy sound and scrunching his face. He continued to tickle and wrestle the young boy.

  The woman covered her smile, trying for the mocking frown she had before. “You see? I knew it was your fault. They’re all running around using sticks as spears, thinking they have a chance at the royal army, and . . . who is this?” Her eyes found me behind her brother at last.

  Jonas, with Seth still hanging around his shoulders, spelled out my name. “Ari.”

  She sized me up with her eyes. “You’re Ari. The one the prince wanted Jonas to sign for?”

  “Yes, I’m learning.” My signs were clumsy and slow, but I felt a strange desire to impress this woman, to prove the lessons had not been in vain. “Sorry to take Jonas, but he’s been very helpful. This is my first time seeing a city this large.” Any city of any size really.

  Julia laughed. “And he is showing you fish?” She reached for my arm, her excitement boiling over. “Come. If you want to see the city, you should see the gardens. The baths.”

  Baths? I couldn’t even try to sign the word with my hand seized in the other woman’s grasp, and I looked back at Jonas warily, but his sister still answered.

  “Must seem strange to a foreigner, but it really is the best place to be. We’ll go to the women’s side, and Jonas can watch Seth.”

  Jonas shrugged and she pulled me deeper into the crowds without another word.

  16

  Julia was right. The bath house was a luxurious house of steam where everyone in the city seemed to come to relax and socialize. I sank my full body into the water and didn’t try to sign a thing. Julia had no trouble filling the silence. She spoke of her husband and their sons and even threw in a few stories about Jonas when he was small and chasing the goats on their old farm.

  Those stories were my favorite.

  The younger novices at the monastery and handmaidens at the palace told the same kind of stories, giggling over the men of their past, sharing every touch and movement. The tales seemed as foreign as the stories in my secret book before, but now I believed every word.

  Jonas would have been the sweetest, silliest goatherder there ever was and his family would be filled with laughter, hugs, and soft kisses. Not the hungry sort of kiss I received from the awful fisherman, but the feather-breath, warming touch I felt when Erys kissed my head and hand.

  The kind of touch I now longed to feel again.

  When the sun was setting and we came out of the baths, Julia pulled Seth from Jonas’s ankles and I went back to Jonas. Julia still spoke for several more minutes, telling Jonas he had to visit again soon. And to bring me. And to eat more. And on and on until Jonas started walking into the crowd, putting his hand to his ear to play deaf as well as dumb.

  “Oh, you,” she said, retreating with her son with peals of laughter.

  Jonas turned back and tried to stop his smile. “Sorry about her,” he signed.

  “Sorry?” I signed back in the same way he had before. “I loved her. And Seth. Is your whole family like that?” A part of me was even jealous, though I had a whole heard of older sisters myself.

  “Pretty much. My sisters are older. They all think they’re my mother since . . .” His hand brushed his neck before he seemed to change his mind. “Well, I imagine most older sisters are like that.”

  I reached out, touching the line on his neck before making a proper sign. “How?”

  He laughed in the same way I did—raising his chest without a sound. “No one asks that. They all want to know, but they never ask.”

  Oh. Was it wrong to ask? But I still wanted to know.

  He paused for a moment, as if unsure of what to sign. “Our farm was out of town. Alone. Men came at night. They wanted my mother and sisters. They killed my father. They thought they killed me too.” He touched his own neck. “They tied up the girls. They didn’t tie me; I played dead. They drank, slept. I got my mother and sisters. We ran to the city. Safe, but no farm. I started digging ditches instead.”

  They tried to kill him as a boy, his gender less desirable.

  Horrible, but my mother and sisters would have done the same in a raid. Leave the girls, kill the men. But Jonas was those girls’ protector. I didn’t doubt they loved him.

  When Mother came to Solis, I would save Jonas. Erys liked him, so it
would help to prove my love for the prince, but I also didn’t want to see Jonas hurt again.

  Jonas blinked as if calling himself back from a vision. “Then Prince come at night. Say ‘teach sister. Guard sister. Be nice.’ Then Prince . . .”

  “What?” I made the gesture wide, hanging on his every movement.

  “He got hard—scary. Said he would hang me from the wall or throw me to the lions if I hurt you. Only time I see him so harsh and serious.”

  I had only seen it once as well. I pictured the hard eyes Erys had when he stabbed the sea monster.

  “Are you really his sister?” Jonas asked.

  “No.” But Erys loved me.

  “I didn’t think so, but it doesn’t matter. It’s easy to be nice to you. My mother and sisters are safe in their big house; I’m learning to fight like a guard to stop other bad men. No more ditches. Not sorry. Happy.” He smiled. A pure, simple joy that put me at ease faster than I had ever been with a man.

  “Me too.” I made the sign for “happy” he just had—a hand in the air like a seal slapping the water. Perfect.

  “See? You’re an easy job. I’ll do whatever you and Prince want.” He hit his chest, like swearing an oath. His face hardened a bit then, just like Erys and the sea monster.

  A shudder shot through me like a reflex, but now with a sense of awe and longing.

  Jonas wasn’t like Erys. He seemed . . . simpler. Easier to read. It seemed I could see his every thought on his face or his hands and never worry about what might be going on under the surface. His arms were wide, his step steady and sure. When I read the shape of his hands, I imagined a voice lower and darker than Naman’s. I had gotten used to Erys’s way of weaving and rushing about, even shifting a few of my storybook ideals to fit my flesh and blood prince, but Jonas had seemed perfectly safe from the beginning. He was steady and solid, comforting and kind. Everything I had seen and wanted while reading of princes in my storybook.