The Golden City

by Paige Elwood

  “How have you found the lessons, Katherine?” his mother addressed the Princess, who finished eating a mouthful of bread before replying.

  Her dark hair curled softly around her face with tendrils that escaped her intricate hairstyle. She looked like an angel but conversing with her was still like trying to befriend one of the courtyard angel statues.

  “It was interesting, I suppose,” Katherine said with a cool smile.

  “What did you study today?” his mother asked.

  “Speaking,” Katherine said.

  “Speaking?” his father asked. “That’s not what I am paying her for.”

  “Actually, Father, we learned of rhetoric and how it can be used to inspire allies and audiences,” Max clarified quickly, before his father could launch into one of his rants.

  “Hmmph,” his father snorted. “I suppose that’s a little better. What of the history of our great lands? Surely that’s worthy of studying?”

  “We’ve only had one lesson. I’m sure we’ll get to that,” Max said. “Besides, I know a lot about our history already.”

  “I don’t,” Katherine said. “I’d love to learn about it.”

  “I’m sure Sarah will get to that,” Max said. He doubted the Princess was interested at all.

  He glanced at the ring which rested cool and inanimate against his finger. All morning while talking with Sarah the ring had burned and tingled. At times, it had been difficult to follow the conversation as the rings reaction had been quite extreme. Luckily, Sarah’s teaching style had managed to keep him captivated regardless.

  He recalled that it had behaved in a similar manner when he'd spotted her looking at the tapestries the evening before. A sudden fear niggled at him. Having met Sarah in person today, he was fairly confident that she wasn't a spy, but then wouldn't all good spies be convincing?

  Perhaps he should be more cautious. For all he knew, she could be a spy sent from King Benak. She might be here to try to assassinate the Royal family, or provide intelligence to allow an assassin to carry out the task. That would explain why she might have been looking for the secret tunnels. Plus, Max had a feeling she was hiding something.

  Her tale of escaping the bandits troubled him. He’d heard of the atrocities committed by these marauding groups of thieves, and each story was more disturbing and more wicked than the last. She had been lucky indeed to escape at all. If her story were even true.

  Or, he also could just be paranoid. The poor woman may have just been lucky, or resourceful. She was certainly intelligent enough to outwit a band of thieves. Her interest in the tapestries may have been genuine. He wanted to trust her. He thought of her intelligent blue eyes, and her pretty face with its light dusting of freckles. She’d spoken of rhetoric with such passion and seemed delighted when Max had shared her interest in the topic. Surely a woman like that was not an evil spy?

  When everyone had finished eating, Max rushed off, keen to take the time to work on his beloved machines. The Onager had been at a standstill for almost a week and that just wouldn't do. It could end up being the salvation of his entire kingdom. How would he live with himself if he'd let feeble excuses and unimportant ‘duties’ get in the way of building it? What if it wasn't ready by the time it was needed?

  He found Henry in the gardener’s hut, fixing a fence panel, and flashed him their secret hand signal that he would be working in the workshop. Henry nodded to demonstrate that he understood and would join him shortly. Max finally snuck into the secret corridor, the welcome rush of damp, stale air a delight to his soul.

  He could hardly wait to get through the door and put the finishing touches to his machine. He’d been working for an hour when Henry eventually slipped into the room.

  “It’s done,” he said, wheeling the completed Onager out from beside him. “We just need to test it now.”

  “I can arrange a carriage for next week,” Henry said. “A discreet fellow who can take us out to an open field?”

  “Yes, as soon as he can.”

  “I’ll speak to him.”

  “In the meantime, I have another finished prototype,” Max said, picking up his secondary project. He’d been working on it for several weeks and had finally just finished it now that he’d completed the Onager.

  “What’s this one?” Henry’s eyes narrowed.

  “It’s for you to test. It’s an automatic saw!”

  “Automatic?” Henry inspected it carefully, peering at the long blade positioned between two weighted ends.

  “Yes, you just put the wood on the workbench, create a groove to rest the saw in and then pull one end to set it off. The momentum will keep it sawing through.”

  “How do I stop it?” Henry asked, inspecting the weighted ends closely.

  “Just hold one end to stop it moving,” Max said. “It still needs you to start it off, but I thought it might help save your wrists a little…”

  “Thank you,” beamed Henry. “My old bones give me terrible trouble some days, so this will be perfect.”

  “Let me know how it works for you. I tested it a little, but it’s not tackled anything big yet.”

  “I certainly will do.”

  Max turned and studied the Onager’s schematic, making sure he hadn’t missed anything obvious. If this prototype worked, he could build an armory of efficient weapons for his father. Pride swelled in his chest as he thought of how his father might receive the news that Max had built such a weapon. It could be the moment that he finally accepted Max’s ‘hobbies’ as more than an undesirable pastime for the young Prince.

  Henry tested the lever that Max had finished building. “Seems like a smooth enough mechanism,” he said, appraisingly.

  “It should be easy enough for anyone to work,” Max said. “It would mean we could train additional forces quickly to work these and keep skilled soldiers for the front-line.” He paused. “I just wish I could test it properly now.”

  “What will it throw?” Henry asked.

  “This one? Rocks,” Max said. “If it works, we could adapt it to throw anything. I’m working on a self-igniting fireball, but I need to be sure the trajectory of the catapult is accurate enough. We don’t want to set our own lands alight.”

  Henry frowned. “Indeed not. I will arrange for a carriage as soon as possible.”

  “Thank you, Henry. In the meantime, I’ll work on the fireball and just hope the prototype works.” Henry left, carrying his new automatic saw.

  Max wanted to use the last few hours of the afternoon wisely. He rifled through the papers on the desk and extracted his notes on the fireball. It was still just an idea, and he wasn’t certain on how to ignite it. Ideally it would ignite only on its downward trajectory. He would normally discuss this with Henry, but he couldn’t help wondering what Sarah’s view on it might be. She seemed to share the same passion for logical thinking and problem-solving that Max had. He could imagine that her input would be valuable. Yet that niggling feeling that she was hiding something made him cast the idea aside for now.

  He became so engrossed in his work that by the time he slipped out of the passageway, the silver moon was high in the sky, illuminating the city below the castle. Despite his fatigue and the knowledge that his father would question why he’d missed dinner, he was in a wonderful mood. He’d finished two prototypes, and tomorrow he would have the opportunity to discuss ideas in the Arts with his captivating new tutor.

  Chapter 16

  Sarah woke in the middle of the night, her hair stuck to her face where her salty tears had saturated it. Her eyes felt swollen and sore, and her head throbbed. She put a hand to her hot forehead and gazed out through the window at the silvery crescent moon, winking at her from high in the sky.

  She stood, needing to stretch her aching muscles, and watched out of the window as a figure crept out from behind a hedgerow. The tall, gangly frame and messy hair apparent in the silhouette were familiar. What was Max doing creeping around the castle courtyard in the middle of the ni
ght? She watched as he crossed the courtyard, keeping close to the shadows and watching for any other late ight walkers.

  Perhaps he’d snuck to see the Princess, but that part of the castle was in a different direction. Why had he been behind the hedgerows in the first place? Her lethargic, tear-drowned brain whirred to life. The passageways! He must have used the passageways. Which meant one of the exits was behind that hedgerow!

  Her earlier melancholy forgotten for a moment, she straightened her skirts, preparing to sneak outside. A voice from under her window startled her.

  “Yeah, another tutor she tried to say. As if two women could be tutors! The scrawny one the Queen stopped me from interrogating yesterday is the only one I’ve ever seen,” a deep, masculine voice sneered.

  “When have you ever seen a tutor, Cedric,” another deep voice teased. A yelp drifted up through the night air.

  “Think you’re funny?” The rasp of metal. A sword being unsheathed, Sarah guessed.

  “No… sorry…” the voice came, high and reedy now.

  “I should think not.” Sarah heard the rasping sound again, presumably as Cedric sheathed his sword.

  If it was Cedric’s evening to patrol, perhaps it wasn’t the safest time to be exploring. She stripped out of her dress, crumpled now from her earlier slumber and hardly smelling fresh. She wrinkled her nose and forced it into the bowl of water that served as a wash basin. Soaking it would help a little. She’d have to ask Agata how they washed clothes properly. At least she had the purple dress as a back-up.

  She fished the ring out from her cleavage — she’d almost forgotten it was there and the fact she’d not lost it was a huge relief. She needed to find somewhere else to keep it, but for now she placed it on the windowsill.

  She was wide awake now, unable to sleep and trapped inside to avoid bumping into the guard. She sighed and lit the candle by her bed, opening up the copy of Gorgias that she’d snuck up from the library. She might as well plan tomorrow’s lesson.

  She cracked open the book, and on finding a passage that she thought Max would find fascinating, realized she had no pen or paper to take notes. Nor did she have a bookmark of any kind. She considered folding the page corner, but that temporary insanity passed quickly before she could commit the cardinal sin.

  Inspiration struck, and she found a small hole in the side of her mattress and plucked out a handful of straw. Perfect! She slipped a piece of straw between the pages of interest and moved on.

  She awoke hours later, the copy of Gorgias on the bed beside her, looking like it had been out for a ride on a hay cart. She rubbed her eyes. So much for not being able to sleep — the pale sun was already long risen. The rubies in her ring glinted in the light, and she scooped it up, hiding it in a hole in the mattress. It was a much better hiding place than yesterday.

  She hastily dressed, pulling on the exquisite purple gown, and rushed down the stairs in the vague hope that she wasn’t too late for breakfast.

  As it turned out, she was a little late, but the kitchen hand took pity on her and thrust a hunk of bread into her hands. She ate it hungrily on her way to the library, popping the final piece into her mouth as she entered the enormous room, eager to continue the discussions from yesterday.

  The Prince and Princess were both already seated, waiting for her. Princess Katherine wore her usual bored expression, but Prince Max was alert, his head turning as she entered the room. He flashed her a dazzling smile, and her breath hitched in her throat. It was rare a man had this kind of effect on her, so it was particularly disappointing that this one was betrothed, and so far out of her reach he might as well have been the North Star.

  She placed her book down on the desk, and Max raised an eyebrow at the sight of the straws of hay protruding haphazardly from it. Sarah blushed. “I had to improvise,” she said, flipping the book open at the first straw-marked page.

  Sarah cleared her throat. “The rhetorical ‘art’ deals with opinion rather than knowledge; its intention is to persuade rather than to instruct, and rhetoric deals with language without regard to content. Do you agree with that point of view?” she asked them both. Katherine didn’t make eye contact.

  “No.” said Max. “Do you?”

  “I do.” Sarah said. “Why don’t you?”

  “I think that good rhetoric takes content into consideration and applies rhetorical devices to strong arguments based on fact. Why do you agree?”

  “Where I’m from, politicians use rhetorical devices regularly without factual content, and sometimes it’s not what I would consider for the best interests of the people they are supposed to serve. Which leads us on nicely to my next point!” Sarah waved a finger in the air. “All rulers, even those who rule by tyranny are acting in what they believe are their subject’s best interests.”

  “No,” Max said, shaking his head.

  “Why?” Sarah challenged.

  “Because some act only to amass more power for themselves.”

  “But larger, more powerful kings mean larger more powerful kingdoms, wider resources, etc. And Plato says here that all wrongdoing is done in ignorance, for everyone desires only what is good.”

  “I don’t agree.” Max said, arms folded across his chest.

  “Me either, but it’s an interesting point.”

  “Interesting, maybe, but not true in my opinion.” He leaned forward on the desk, head tilted slightly to one side. “What’s the most interesting philosophical idea you’ve heard?”

  Sarah’s eyes darted to the window and back to Max as she considered that for a moment. “That learning to love is a step toward discovering higher beauty and truth, just like the higher beauty and truth offered by philosophy.”

  “Do you think love is learned?” he asked, his eyes still focused on only her.

  She felt like they were a vortex, sucking her into their depths. She rocked on her feet, thinking hard.

  “No, but I do believe it can bring people towards a higher truth. I think some people are supposed to meet, that they are destined to show each other a higher beauty than they could achieve with anyone else.”

  For the briefest moment, his eyes widened, and he rubbed at the ring he wore. The ring she recognized from her time. “You sound like someone I knew when I was young."

  “I sound a little like my own gramma,” Sarah said. “She always thought some people had a special destiny to be together.”

  “Sounds like a crazy old woman to me,” Katherine muttered, eyes focused on the desk in front of her, where she worried at a tiny scratch in the wood with her fingernail.

  “Did you have something to share?” Sarah asked.

  “Not really. I just don’t see the purpose of this ‘lesson’.” She waved a hand dismissively. “But no matter, it is time to finish now, anyway.”

  “We could carry on,” Sarah said, to Max, but he shook his head resignedly.

  “We have a royal appointment,” Katherine informed her, with a curl of her lip. She held out her arm to Max. “Come, your father will be waiting.”

  Max shot Sarah an apologetic look over his shoulder as Katherine swept him out of the room. Sarah gave him an encouraging smile. She wished she were attending a royal event. The most exciting thing that would happen for her today would be if there was stew for dinner.

  When she arrived at the kitchens, they were maniacally busy, and the food was bread and cheese. Again. She spotted Agata, already seated. The exuberant maid waved her over.

  “Come sit,” she said, patting the empty chair beside her. "What are you going to do with your first wages?”

  Sarah looked blank. “I’ve not had them."

  “But it is wages day!” Agata said, spraying crumbs of bread as she spoke. “You haven’t collected them?”

  “No," Sarah said, irritation knotting her eyebrows together. “Where do I get them from?"

  “From Mary.”

  “Who’s Mary?” This was fast becoming a very annoying conversation.

  “Yo
u don't know who Mary is?” Agata eyed her incredulously.

  “Obviously not,” Sarah sighed, her fingers tapping against the well-worn wood of the table. “Care to enlighten me?”

  “She’s the housekeeper.”

  “Oh, I see. I’m not a maid, so why would I know her?” Sarah said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

  “Everyone knows Mary. No matter. Come with me.”

  She stood, brushing crumbs of bread from her skirts. They tumbled to the floor, where a large collection had already amassed. Clean-up in this kitchen must be a nightmare, Sarah thought absently.

  Sarah grabbed a couple of pieces of bread from the table to eat on the go. Agata led Sarah way further down the corridor than she’d been before, past the kitchen and beyond the storage rooms filled with grain and supplies. They came to a room filled with rags and buckets and what passed for medieval cleaning supplies, Sarah presumed.

  A tall brunette with a wide face and flattened features handed out tiny pouches to a long line of women. The pouches clinked as she pulled them out of a small brown sack and dropped them into the open palms of the queuing women, one by one. Agata and Sarah joined the back of the line and patiently awaited their turn.

  “Mary, this is Sarah,” Agata said as they reached the stern-eyed woman.

  “The tutor?” Mary said, giving Sarah an appraising look, her lips knotted.

  Sarah nodded, and Mary rummaged around in the small sack she held, pulling out a green fabric pouch that was twice the size of the brown ones that she'd been handing to the other girls. The girls still queuing eyed the size of the pouch she placed in Sarah’s hand enviously.

  “Thank you,” Sarah said, trying to close her hand around the pouch and failing. She wished again that she had pockets.

  “Maybe I should have learned to read,” Agata grinned when they had left the room and were alone again in the corridor, nodding to the fat fabric pouch in Sarah’s hand. She lifted her own, small brown one. It looked comically small next to Sarah’s.