by Zoe Marriott
The fine, soft waves of my loose hair she directed over my left shoulder. They fell all the way to my hip; longer, I noted with satisfaction, than Shell’s. The curling ends – never cut, and bleached over the years by Yamarr’s unforgiving sun – were a striking golden bronze shade that made Osia smile admiringly as she worked waxy pomade through them with gentle fingers, to keep them smooth and orderly.
“Why, you could be a bride already,” she said, putting the jar of pomade back on the dressing table. “And I’m sure I’ve never seen one that looked lovelier.”
I got up to examine myself in the mirror. I had not been encouraged to think much about my looks. A Queen of Yamarr must be fierce, skilled in arms and diplomacy, intelligent, well educated and well read, prudent, patient, strong and brave; not pretty. But I was not fighting for the crown of Yamarr now, and it did matter. So.
The effect wasn’t – unbecoming. Once again, I missed the vivid colours that I was used to, the shades that would have really flattered me. I also missed my freckles, faded almost entirely after so many weeks with no sun. But no one would question my rank or laugh at me in this. And at least with my hair down I couldn’t remind myself of my Mother. I nodded. “Thank you.”
“Is there anything else you need, your Highness?”
I hesitated. I already knew the girl was a gossip. But my supply wouldn’t last much longer, and at home the maids were always all too ready to offer a powder, salve or tea for whatever might ail you. If I worded the request carefully...
“Actually, there is something you might be able to help me with. A herbal remedy, a physick from home that I use for my monthly bleeding. I was wondering if you might be able to tell me the name of a local herbalist or apothecary who could make it up for me.”
Osia’s cheeks pinked and she looked away, fixing her gaze on the carpet. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about herbs, Princess, nor any herbalists. Queen Miramand doesn’t hold with such things. She says hedge witches cause more harm than good. I can ask Girda to have one of the Royal Physicians call on you if your time is troubling you?”
Of all the thrice cursed luck –
“No, it’s all right,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too worried. “I’ll talk to the Queen myself. I’m sure she’ll know what to do.”
Osia dipped into a quick curtsey, looking relieved, and went to wait by the door of the receiving room. I took a moment to calm myself. It would be all right. Just because the Queen preferred doctors to apothecaries, that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any at all. I just had to eke out my supply until I had the opportunity to find one. I would manage.
For now, I had a stubborn, impetuous, foolhardy prince to win over, and that was quite enough to worry about.
The knock on the door came promptly at ten. A relief, since unpunctuality annoyed me and would have made it doubly hard to keep all my real feelings safely bundled up under a face of smiling compliance. But as Osia went to answer, I became seized with a sudden, overwhelming premonition of doom. Uldar hadn’t come by himself. He had brought Shell with him, right up to the door of my rooms, and was going to insist that she accompany us –
The door swung open to reveal Crown Prince Uldarana waiting for me on the threshold, alone. He was dressed in his trademark scarlet and gold again. Unlike the last time I had seen him, his face was totally naked of expression. Only the nervous bob of the Hessan’s knot in his throat belied the tension of a young man bracing himself for a well-deserved harangue.
The relief that my worst fears had been unfounded made it easy to draw a warm, welcoming smile across my face. I did it in the same way that I would have scrawled my signature across some new piece of legislation that I had campaigned for – boldly, without hesitation. Throwing dignity and regard for my position to the four winds, I went forward to meet him instead of waiting for him to come to me, offering him both my hands.
He took them smoothly, just as he had the day before. Just as, I suddenly remembered, he had taken Shell’s. Evidence seemed to indicate that he greeted all attractive girls the same way, regardless of whether he knew them or was intending to marry them. Well, didn’t that make me feel special?
“I was so sorry to miss the banquet last night,” I said, shushing my inner cynic. “You’re not cross with me, are you?”
The studied blankness melted from his face faster than honey dissolving in hot tea, and he relaxed into guilty relief. “Of course not! I couldn’t be angry with you.”
Had he already forgotten our confrontation below decks on the rescue ship? “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” I warned, although I kept my tone playful. “I’m sure to cause you to wish to strangle me sooner or later – ” I broke off as he burst into delighted laughter.
“I refuse to believe it! In fact, every time we meet I seem to like you twice as much as before,” he said. I decided to take it at face value and count it a victory. “But are you quite well? When I heard that you weren’t coming last night I was worried – ”
Now it was his turn to cut himself off. It was too late; I knew how the sentence should have ended. I was worried that you were angry with me.
Miramand was right. I kept my expression open and my eyes on his. “I’m afraid that was your Mother’s orders. When she saw me about to faint during the presentation, she became quite concerned. I told her that I was perfectly fine, but she insisted I rest.”
“Faint?” He asked, eyebrows wrinkling. “I didn’t even notice...”
No, you didn’t. That is what happens when you humiliate someone in public and have to avoid looking at them. “It was the heat, I think,” I told him evenly. “Thankfully I felt better as soon as she helped me out into some fresher air. But never mind that now. Aren’t we going on an adventure?”
“Adventure?”
“You’re going to show me your home for the very first time, and tell me all its stories and secrets. Don’t keep me waiting any longer, Uldar. I might die after all – of the suspense.”
Even Sereh, Ane and Elo might have judged that a little too much wide-eyed enthusiasm, but Uldar seemed to swell up with self-satisfaction. “We can’t have that!” he said, offering me his elbow. I didn’t think I was meant to hear the low mutter that followed: “Mother would probably disown me.”
14
“Oh, I meant to ask,” I began, remembering Miramand’s advice as Uldar led me down the pale silent corridor. “How is Shell? She seemed in better health yesterday.”
Uldar’s arm tensed under my hand. He kept walking but turned a dubious, searching look on me.
Too far, I scolded myself. Uldar wasn’t stupid, even if he could be as thick-headed and incautious as a bull camel. I arched a brow at him, brazening it out.
“She’s – fine,” he said, stiltedly. Then his jaw firmed and a spark of daredevil cockiness lit up in his eyes. It was the same look I had seen right before he declared that Shell was coming to the Palace. “Actually, I left her in the great library. Would you like to go and say hello?”
My internal scolding turned to curses I had learned training with the Segemassa palace guard. Bad enough that Uldar had apparently made time to see Shell this morning before he even called on me. But if I showed displeasure, or tried to get out of going to see her, I would risk undoing all the good I had managed to accomplish with him so far.
Besides...
“I do love libraries,” I told him, with all the sincerity I could muster. “Can Shell read Silingan then? Or is she trying to find books in her language, so she can show us where she’s from?”
The tension eased from Uldar’s frame and his expression went from defensive to intrigued. “Oh, I hadn’t... That is a good idea, isn’t it? I just thought she wanted to look at the pictures, maybe.”
It was an effort to keep my expression bland. Look at the pictures? Still, the fact that he apparently thought of her in such child-like terms was probably a good thing. At least a little.
“Help me to remember this route, then,�
�� I encouraged, taking the opportunity to steer the conversation away from the castaway girl for at least a moment. “I’ll probably want to visit the library quite often myself, and you can’t come with me every time.”
“Definitely not!” he said, a little too emphatically. Clod. “It’s simple enough. Turn right out of your door as we have done, then keep straight along this way until you reach this branch. Once through it – ” he suited actions to words, holding the door for me. “Go straight again until you find a door on the left, and the library entrance is – here? See? You can’t miss it.”
“Oh yes...” I breathed, as the broad entrance, with doors flung welcomingly wide, appeared before us. The ice around it was elegantly and heavily decorated, but I had no time to examine that. My gaze was already straying to the enticing gleam of book spines, just visible beyond.
I let go of Uldar and went forward, skipping happily for a few steps before I remembered myself and looked around self-consciously. But there was no one other than Uldar in any of the three corridors leading away from the library, and, as far as I could see, no librarians, archivists or other readers judging me from within the room.
“Where is the librarian?” I spun around as I passed the threshold of the room, then darted to the nearest shelf to run my fingers over the unfamiliar spines of new books. To my relief they had not been placed in another elaborate construction of enchanted ice – what if there was some failure, and they were ruined by water? – but on tall, narrow shelves of dark, weathered wood that reminded me of the King’s receiving room. In fact, the library itself reminded me of that place, although it was much more comfortable; there were fireplaces around the walls, but only one burned with a moderate sized fire. The walls were painted a dark blue, and decorated with gold. Not random patterns, I saw, but annotated diagrams of the constellations. Some of them were familiar from home, others less well known to me. I had the feeling that this part of the Palace, like the room where the thrones dwelled, was older than the rest.
“There isn’t one,” Uldar said absently.
He was standing at the large, circular bank of desks at the centre of the room with his back half-turned to me. The shelves had been arranged to fan out in a kind of spiral around the desks, giving readers ample room to move between them, and making it easy to see who was in the library from almost any place within it. Plenty of natural light cascaded down from the largest and most elaborate dome I had seen here, directly above the circular desks and chairs. A much more practical arrangement than the crowded and dusty stacks in the scholarly library at home.
“No librarian?” I repeated, disbelieving, finally focusing on his answer.
“There’s no need for one. Not since my grandfather’s day. He was a great reader and thinker, I’m told, and spent many hours here. These days when merchants or traders bring volumes, one of the stewards simply checks their contents and shelves them for us. My Father – is not so interested in books, you see.”
“And you?” I asked hopefully, but Uldar was looking around, his brows drawn together, and did not answer the question, except to mutter:
“I left her right here. You can see she was working on something. Where did she go?”
“Do you mean – Shell?” I asked, only then remembering that the ostensible purpose of our visit had not been for me to enjoy the library, but to meet the other girl again. With some reluctance I placed the volume of war poetry translated from mid-Reform Dingesh into modern Silingan back on the shelf and went to Uldar. He was turning over a small heap of papers that rested on the circular desk, along with writing supplies and a neat stack of ten books.
I took one of the papers, and found it covered in ink blotches and more of that peculiar pictogram writing Shell had produced before. The glyphs were neat, but had a strangely cramped look, as if they ought to be written much bigger, more fluidly.
The books themselves were in ten different languages. The top one was Ulmenni. She had been trying to find a language similar to her own. I turned over more of the books, picking up a slender volume titled Myths and Fairytales of Lost Llemansse. Where had I read that word before...?
“Is she hiding?” Uldar wondered aloud, then bellowed: “Shell! Shell – come out if you’re here!”
I clutched the book to my chest in instinctive horror. But no furious readers emerged from the shelves to hush us. Nor did the castaway girl.
“Maybe she got bored and gave up?” I suggested. “Don’t worry so much. I’m sure we’ll soon find her people and get her home. Uldar, what is this word? Llemansse? Or should I pronounce it Llemansser?” I flicked through the pages, finding delicately coloured illuminations of Silinga’s icy mountains and forests, of bears that transformed into men as they fled into the shadowy trees, of a great bird whose white wings showered the land with snow, of leaping whales that turned into beautiful girls amid the foam.
To my surprise, Uldar turned pink. “You shouldn’t say that word.”
I blinked at him, then remembered, suddenly: the sailor had used that word to describe me. I had been right. It was an insult. But in that case... “What is this book about then?”
He looked at the illustrations, then laughed, his blush fading. “Oh, I see! These are fairytales, superstitions – old wives’ tales. The original Silingans had a nasty time of it when they first washed up here, what with the savages and the animals, and the weather. They made up a lot of stories to explain why things were so ghastly. Luckily they stuck at it, and here we are.” He gestured expansively, as if to indicate the whole palace.
“What is – ?” I began eagerly, pointing at one of the pages. But I saw that Uldar’s attention had already strayed. He was fidgeting and staring rather longingly at the door, like a large, reddish puppy that yearned to play. The moment I let my question trail off he jumped in: “I’m sure it’s all very interesting, but since Shell isn’t here, shall we move on?”
But – the books...?
“Of course, if you wish,” I forced myself to reply, though it cost me a sharp pang to place the book down on the pile, unread. My question was answered then. Uldar was not a great reader.
“Is it true, what you said before?” Uldar asked, visibly trying to lighten his mood as we left the room. “Do you really read – what did you say? Four languages?”
“I’m interested in languages,” I said cautiously, reading something – a lack of enthusiasm at the least – in his tone. “It was expected that I learn all the languages of Yamarr and the surrounding nations. That way you have no need for translators, and there is less likelihood of misunderstandings with visiting diplomats or dignitaries.”
“Yes, that makes sense. I mean, we’re talking right now, aren’t we? If it had been up to me we’d be walking in silence. I have no facility for that sort of thing at all.” There was a kind of bravado to the admission, as if he were half proud, half ashamed of his lack of scholarly prowess.
“That’s not true,” I protested. “You greeted me in Yamarri beautifully when we first met.”
“I practised that for a week,” he said, ruefully. “And just that. Over and over. To my tutor, to the mirror, to the footmen. I still nearly stumbled over it when I actually saw you.”
The image closed a warm hand around my heart. “Thank you for trying. It was kind.”
The corner of his mouth tugged up – a shyer smile than his usual one. He looked away, as if afraid to reveal too much, and I pressed my lips together to restrain my own smile.
“I think you should visit the ballroom next,” he announced.
That vast, black space at the bottom of the spiralling staircases? “Queen Miramand said it wasn’t lit during the day.”
“It’s not, but don’t worry,” he said, full of mischief. “I won’t need to call down a troop of servants with barrels of candles and oil-lamps.”
He broke into an eager lope as we came within sight of a set of stairs. I allowed him to take my elbow and tug me into a trot, ignoring the carefully blank faces
of the two liveried footmen who stood at the top of the staircase, and hoping that Miramand would forgive me the hoydenish behaviour if reports reached her. It was for a good cause.
Uldar switched his grip to my hand and launched himself fearlessly down the steps. They were uncarpeted: thin, rough slabs the same shining white as unmilled rock salt or unpolished quartz, made opaque by internal fissures and cracks. Beautiful, but hardly stable looking, any more than the thin, spiralling handrail held up by fine, clear spikes – icicles. It looked like a spun sugar decoration from the top of a cake.
Real alarm tightened my grip on Uldar’s hand, and on the handrail; I imagined myself cracking right through or sliding off as I skittered hastily after him.
“Slow down!” My voice hit an uncomfortably shrill register.
“No!” he cried, gleeful, as he glanced back at me. His face was aglow, as if my nerves delighted him. “We’re perfectly safe – you just have to trust me! I’m not going to let you fall.”
“Don’t laugh at me,” I said, attempting to sound amused, but losing it on a wobble. “At home we make our stairs from wood and stone like reasonable people.”
“I’m not laughing at you,” he said, and immediately snorted with laughter. “Your face! You look terrified! I’ve never seen you look frightened before.”
I nearly stumbled. “We were shipwrecked together, Uldar. You’ve seen me frightened.”
“Well, you didn’t look it,” he said, sounding faintly resentful. He leapt down two steps at once, giggling at my squawk as his action jerked me forward. “I shall make a note: fires and shipwrecks barely discompose the lady. Stairs are her undoing.”
“You’re horrible,” I accused him, but by now I was laughing a little too. He was so silly. I didn’t even mind stairs, normally. I just preferred them not to be translucent.
