第 003 Chapter| Morning at the Princess's Court

The 24th of the Cold Moon, three quarters past dawn, the Seventh Princess's Court.

Lucie finished the last strand of the braid, stepped back, and looked at the length of gray thread in her hand.

"Highness, the gray thread today?"

Selene did not answer at once. She sat at the dressing table, looking at herself in the mirror.

The mirror was silver——a silver mirror very rare in the Ironhold dynasty, given by the 89th king to a certain lady, that lady the great-great-grandmother of Selene's mother's line. The Selene the mirror gave back was twenty-two, a single braid hanging at her right shoulder, the end of the braid not yet bound, the root of the braid two fingers from the ear, just answering to the old rite of the Mute March: "the unwed daughter, the right braid, the gray end."

The court rule was a double braid, the end bound with gold thread, hung down the back.

The year Selene was fifteen she wore a single braid for the first time, and the queen her mother scolded her a whole afternoon and made her copy out the court rites ten times. Selene copied them out, and the next day wore the single braid again. The queen her mother died that winter——died of illness, not by Selene's doing, Selene had not the means for that——and after that no one scolded her for what braid she wore.

In the twenty-two years since her birth, her father had seen her perhaps fewer than twenty times.

Yesterday afternoon, her father died.

Yesterday in the early evening Selene had stood in the Throne Hall, had looked at her father's body, looked at that length of black tooth in the breastbone, heard Ion Greypen say "he died of having a true name spoken over him."

She did not weep. The Seventh Princess of the Ironhold dynasty does not weep.

She went back to the Princess's Court, into the side chamber, told Lucie "from dawn tomorrow, do not knock and come in," then shut the door and sat until three quarters into the late night, not sleeping.

At three quarters into the late night she reached out and opened the second drawer of the dressing case, and from under the bottom of the drawer took out a sheet of paper——that paper left by her mother's grandmother twelve years ago, covered with the bindings of the Mute March single braid. Her grandmother had taught it to her the year she was ten. Now she could not remember her grandmother's face. She remembered this paper.

She spread the paper flat and looked at it for a while.

She could not have said why she took this paper out tonight. The hand moved first, the person came after. In the morning she would wear a single braid——that was already settled.

At midnight she slept. Not deep. She woke once in the night, as if she heard something knocking far off, knocking very slowly, knocking on a wall she could not see. She turned over and slept again.

Three quarters past dawn, she woke.

"The gray thread," she said to Lucie.

Lucie bound on the gray thread.

"Highness, the dress?"

Selene had not yet answered.

Lucie was sixteen, four years with Selene, and knew that no answer meant "let me think." She stood quiet, her hands down, looking at Selene's right braid.

After a while Selene said, "Ironhart true red, the gray Mute March shawl over it, no crown."

Lucie went still a moment. "Highness, no crown?"

"I wear no crown," Selene said.

Lucie did not ask why.

She began to make ready.

---

In the mid-morning, a court dispatch came to the Princess's Court.

An ordinary court dispatch, not the Church's, not the Guard's. The seal was the Ironhart dynasty's royal stamp, red wax, with very fine gold dust in the lac——meaning "a notice to all the royal house, not a private letter."

Lucie handed the dispatch to Selene. Selene did not break it. She turned it over and looked at the back——the back was empty, no mark of any kind.

"Open it," she said to Lucie.

Lucie opened it.

"Highness, tomorrow in the mid-morning, the High Sanctum, an Extraordinary Synod. The Holy Father presiding. The seven princes and princesses to enter the hall at once."

Selene took the dispatch and read it once herself.

"Extraordinary Synod" was a Church term. In the four hundred years of the Ironhold dynasty, the Church had called an Extraordinary Synod seventeen times——fourteen of them on matters of succession, three on shifts of doctrine.

Of the fourteen on succession, the result of nine had been "the Church names the new king directly."

The year Selene was fifteen she had read the records of all seventeen——a reading copy from outside the Undervault, given her to read by her tutor, Lian Silverhall.

"Tomorrow in the mid-morning." Selene handed the dispatch back to Lucie. "Put it away."

"Highness, a reply?"

"No reply. An Extraordinary Synod needs no reply. To attend is the reply."

"Highness, what braid tomorrow?"

Selene stopped a second.

"The same as today," she said.

Lucie nodded, did not ask why.

---

Toward midday, Selene went out of the Seventh Princess's Court, to the back court.

The back court had three old pagoda trees and a well. Under the stone slab by the well was the mouth of a passage slanting down——this passage Selene's mother's line had handed down three generations. The officials did not know of it. The steward of the east wing of the palace did not know of it.

The passage came out at the narrowest lane outside the women's garden.

Selene sat down on the stone slab by the well, drew the cloak tight, and waited.

Lucie kept watch at the edge of the back court.

A double-hour passed——Selene did not know why the time was so long, perhaps the winter snow made it slow——

and there were footsteps under the stone slab by the well.

The footsteps were very slow, very light, as if afraid to tread on something that would sound.

After a while the slab was pushed up a little from below.

"Highness."

It was a man's voice.

Selene knew the voice.

"Ravenfeather courier," she said. "Come up."

The slab was pushed open. From the passage a man climbed up, past forty, in the plain dress of a Mute March courier to Ironhold (not the regular uniform, the open plain dress meant to be seen), the inner side of his left sleeve embroidered with a very small House Ravenfeather mark——you could only make it out close up.

He knelt on one knee by the well.

"Highness."

"Sit, please." Selene pointed to another slab by the well.

Both sat.

The Ravenfeather courier did not speak at once. From his breast he took a small cloth roll, the roll wrapped outside in three layers of oilcloth, and inside the oilcloth a very thin sheet of paper——House Ravenfeather's secret-letter paper of the Mute March, thin, half translucent, which fades of itself when wet after the writing.

He handed the paper to Selene.

There were four lines on the paper.

Selene read.

Night of the 23rd of the Cold Moon, Watchtower No. 47 of the Mute Wall, the first wave of the Hounds of the Gods arrived. Seven or eight. Five dead, three pulled back.

Watchtower No. 47 has dead and wounded: Lan (nineteen, second-watch patrolman, Tower No. 51) / Kun (forty-two, first-watch adjutant, Tower No. 38). Tower No. 49 has dead and wounded: surname unknown, fell a quarter before dawn.

Gorm Ravenfeather, sergeant of the third watch at Tower No. 47, asks that the Princess's Court secretly support the supply of the Mute March Wallwardens. The first wave of hounds is only the beginning. A second wave will come.

Word from Sergeant Gorm: Highness, if the braid you wore this morning is the Mute March single braid, then there are those in the Princess's Court whom you may trust. Know this, Highness——whether we hold out to the next winter, we do not yet have the answer.

Selene read it three times.

"Ravenfeather courier," she said.

"Here."

"Sergeant Gorm sent you. Not a dispatch. A personal request."

"Yes."

"Why a personal request?"

The Ravenfeather courier did not answer at once.

After a second he said, "Highness, the formal dispatch of the Mute March Wallwardens must go to the Wallwardens' central command, the central command sends it down to the capital, the capital guard relays it to the Church, the Church relays it on to the Ironhold dynasty's center. Five tiers in between. Every tier presses out half of any 'cracked glyph of the Mute Wall.'"

"How long does it press?"

"The last time was seven years ago. A complete report of an 'anomaly on the face of the Mute Wall' took eight months going from Tower No. 47 to the palace. By the time the report arrived, that stretch of cracked glyph had healed of itself——so the palace judged it 'nothing.'"

Selene folded the paper.

"Sergeant Gorm does not want to wait eight months," she said.

"He cannot wait."

Selene pushed the paper into the inner side of her left sleeve.

"I will see to it," she said. "There will be no formal dispatch before tonight, but a shipment of oil drums will go by the Sangold caravan route, along the west side of the Mute March, not through Ironhold's inspection, and reach Tower No. 47 in five days."

The Ravenfeather courier looked up at her.

"Highness, the Sangold caravan?"

"The Sangold League has its own caravan network," Selene said. "I have another line to them."

"Thank you, Highness." The Ravenfeather courier asked no more.

"One thing more." Selene paused a second. "Is there a sixteen-year-old recruit at Tower No. 47? Surname Kael?"

The Ravenfeather courier went still a moment.

"There is."

"How is he?"

"His first battle last night. Seven stitches in his left calf. Alive."

Selene closed her eyes a moment.

"Tell Sergeant Gorm to keep Kael safe," she said. "Do not say it came from me."

The Ravenfeather courier did not ask why. "Yes."

"Can you get back?"

"I can."

"Next time you come, do not take the well. Use the one on the east side."

"Yes."

The Ravenfeather courier rose, knelt on one knee once more, then climbed back down under the slab, and the mouth of the passage was closed from below.

Selene sat on the slab by the well and looked at her open palm. There was nothing in it. Inside the left sleeve the paper pressed, and through the cloth she could feel a little of its hard edge. The line on the paper——"whether we hold out to the next winter, we do not yet have the answer"——she had it by heart already.

She did not go back to the side chamber at once. She sat a while, looking at the snow falling among the branches of the pagoda trees. The snow was not heavy, fell slowly, settling on the bare twigs a thin white. She looked at it a while, then rose and walked back to the side chamber.

---

At midday, Lian Silverhall came.

Lian was seventy-one, Selene's tutor from her childhood, retired twelve years, not at court, not in the Church, not in the Guard, with her own side chamber in the Princess's Court. Every morning she read with Selene for a double-hour, then did not speak until before noon.

Today she did not read with Selene. Today she was in her own side chamber, and through the morning had not stirred.

At full midday, Selene went into Lian's side chamber.

Lian sat on a low stool, an open book in her hands, the book an old edition of the Crimson Flame dynasty's Bone Records of the Ancestral Dragon——Lian read it once a year, always in winter.

"Highness," she said, not looking up.

"Lian." Selene sat on the low stool across from her.

"You saw someone this morning," Lian said.

"How do you know?"

"You wore the Mute March single braid," Lian said, and looked up at last. Her eyes were very old, but very clear. "The Seventh Princess of the Ironhold dynasty, in the court rule, wears the single braid only when she sees one who is not of the court."

Selene was not surprised. Every year Lian would say a sentence or two like this, to remind Selene that "there are signals hidden in the rule."

"Then what did you see?" Selene asked.

"I saw that you have decided something," Lian said.

"What thing?"

Lian closed the Bone Records of the Ancestral Dragon and set it by the low stool.

"House Silverhall, four hundred years ago, was one of the three houses of the Tomb Hierophants of the Ironhart dynasty," Lian said. "Silverhall, Greypen, and one more——the one whose surname was changed forty years ago."

Selene knew Silverhall, knew Greypen. She did not know the third house.

"Who is the third house?" she asked.

Lian shook her head. "I will not say."

"Why?"

"Because if I say it, I will die," Lian said.

Selene did not answer.

After a while Lian said, "My House Silverhall has a maxim."

"You have said it."

"I have said half of it," Lian said. "The whole of it is——'Some kings sit the Throne, and the Throne does not know them. Some men are not in the Royal Tomb, and the Royal Tomb knows them.'"

Selene laid the saying away.

"Your father was one the Throne did not know," Lian said. "You do not know this. But I know it. My father wrote this saying, and three months after he wrote it, he fell ill. My mother forbade me to recite the saying, and if I recited it she beat me. I was twelve, beaten once, and after that I did not recite it again, until today."

Something in Selene's chest bent.

"Why today?" she asked.

Lian looked at her.

"Because yesterday afternoon, your father died," Lian said. "When a king 'the Throne does not know' dies, it draws out the one 'the Royal Tomb knows.' That one may already be on the road."

"On the road?"

"On the road to Ironhold," Lian said. "Or on the road away from Ironhold."

Selene did not answer.

Lian opened the Bone Records of the Ancestral Dragon again.

"Highness, tomorrow in the mid-morning, the Extraordinary Synod at the High Sanctum," she said. "The Holy Father will read out the succession. The Holy Father will speak the Seven-Day Coronation Decree."

"How do you know?"

"In four hundred years, seventeen Extraordinary Synods, nine of them opened with the Seven-Day Coronation Decree," Lian said. "The Church of the Ironhold dynasty uses the same set every time."

Selene laid this away too.

"Highness," Lian said. "At tomorrow's morning court, do not contend. You are not on the succession list. If you contend, the Church will take the chance to press you down as well. You only go to look."

"Look at whom?"

"Look at who will oppose."

"Will the Church let anyone oppose?"

"There will be one," Lian said. "In four hundred years, there is one every time. That one usually does not win. But you can remember who he is."

Selene nodded.

Lian bent her head and went on reading the Bone Records of the Ancestral Dragon.

Selene rose, walked out of Lian's side chamber, and closed the door.

---

In the early afternoon, Selene returned to her own side chamber.

She took the paper from inside her left sleeve, spread it on the writing table, and weighted it with a paperweight.

The writing on the paper, half translucent, was very faint in the afternoon light.

She looked at it a while, then took from the drawer a very fine goose-quill——not the kind of House Greypen, the kind a cadet branch of House Ravenfeather of the Mute March used, made from the feather of a snow bird, nothing to do with House Greypen——dipped it in very faint ink, and set the point to the back of the paper.

What the point traced was not a word. She drew a circle, then through the circle a slanting line down. This mark she and her grandmother had agreed on twelve years ago——it meant "I have decided."

The year her grandmother taught her this mark, her grandmother was ninety and Selene was ten. Her grandmother said, "Highness, some things cannot be written as words. Write them as words and they are seen. Write them as a mark, and only the one meant to see it sees it." The year she was ten she set the words down and did not take them to heart. As she dipped the ink and drew this circle, she understood all at once what her grandmother had been guarding against.

She folded the paper and pushed it under the bottom of the second drawer of the dressing case, together with her grandmother's paper of the single-braid bindings.

She sat by the window, looking at the snow. The snow was a little heavier than before noon.

Somewhere in the east wing of the palace someone was reciting something. The voice was pressed low, did not carry far, but Selene heard it. She could not tell what tongue it was. Ironhold script she had spoken since childhood——not that; the tongue of the Crimson Flame dynasty she had heard at envoys' banquets——not that either; the Church's ancient script she had read a few scrolls of——that cadence was not it.

When the voice reached its last word, as that word fell into her ear, something in her chest pulled tight. Yesterday in the Throne Hall she had seen the word grown out on the tongue of her father's body. It was the same one. She did not understand why it pulled at her so; she only felt that the word knew her.

【Ch. 003 End · The Seventh Princess's Court · The 24th of the Cold Moon】