Chapter 012| The Dusk Guard

The 27th of the Cold Moon, three quarters past the hour of the rabbit, the Seventh Princess's Court.

Lucie came into the side chamber and did not salute — four years with Selene had taught her not to salute when urgent word came in.

"Your Highness, I found him."

Selene set down the teacup in her hand.

"Speak."

"The Dusk guard — surname Dusk, given name Vesper, eighty years old, retired ten years, living now in a side chamber of the Old Guards' Hall on the west side of the palace, the third court, the second room."

"He's still alive?"

"Alive, but he sees no one. In ten years, no one in the palace has set eyes on him. Every morning a grey-cloth old maidservant from the Old Guards' Hall brings him water and food, goes in, comes out, and says nothing."

"How did you find this out?"

"I asked the steward of the palace's west side," Lucie said. "The steward wouldn't tell me. So I went to the west-side steward's deputy — the deputy is my age, we herded sheep together back home as children — and the deputy told me."

"The deputy didn't ask why?"

"He asked. I said, 'Her Highness is looking for an old acquaintance.' He didn't ask again."

Selene nodded. "Does he know who?"

"No."

"Good." Selene rose. "I'll go this afternoon."

"Your Highness, shall Lucie come with you?"

"No," Selene said. "See me to the gate of the Old Guards' Hall, then go back to the Princess's residence and wait. I'll go in alone."

"Your Highness, the Old Guards' Hall —"

"I know. It's full of men. It isn't proper for me to go there. But I'm going all the same."

Lucie pressed it no further.

---

Three quarters past noon, Selene walked out of the Princess's residence — no carriage, on foot, along the gallery.

She had not braided her hair today — she had bound it in an older style, one her maternal grandmother had taught her, in the manner of the March hierophants — only gathered her hair into a knot and pinned it with a single silver pin. The pin's head bore no flower; it was flat, like a tiny circle.

She wore March grey. The Ironhart red stayed in the wardrobe; the church white she never touched. Her cloak was black, the collar bare, where a house crest should have hung.

Walking through the palace, no one would have taken her for the Seventh Princess. The robe was washed pale, she kept to the shadow of the columns, her head low. She looked like the daughter of some small March house sent to the palace on an errand, who would finish it and go, and whom no one would remember.

The people of the court did not know her.

She passed the south side of the palace and turned into the west. The west was older than the east, the stone wall chipped at the corners, the floor stones cracked in places, so that they shifted underfoot. The people who lived here had retired long ago — guards, palace women, cooks — who had done a lifetime's work and been moved to a corner to wait for death. Some in the palace called this the place where the forgotten people lived.

The gate of the Old Guards' Hall stood at the far end of the west side.

Lucie walked to the gate and stopped.

"Your Highness, I'll wait here," Lucie said.

"I may be a long while."

"I'll wait."

Selene pushed open the gate of the Old Guards' Hall and walked in.

---

It was quiet inside the Old Guards' Hall.

Within were five courts, four rooms to each court, twenty rooms in all. The third court, second room, was Vesper Dusk's.

There was no one in the corridor.

Selene walked to the third court, the second room, stopped, and looked at the door.

It was an ordinary wooden door, old, the paint worn off. There was no plaque on the lintel, no name — by ancient law, those of the Old Guards' Hall hung no nameplate after they retired.

Selene raised her hand and knocked lightly.

"Come in."

The voice was a man's — low, slow, unsurprised.

Selene pushed the door and walked in.

There was only one person inside.

An old man of eighty, seated on a low chair by the window. He wore the grey everyday cloth of the Old Guards' Hall, his hair all white and cut short, his left hand resting on his knee, his right hanging — by habit the left hand to the knee, the same habit as Selene's father, the 105th King.

The old man did not rise.

He gave Selene a glance.

"Your Highness," he said.

Selene was startled for a moment.

"You know me?" she asked.

"You had only just walked in, and I looked once at your brow," the old man said. "Half like your father, half like your mother. I know you."

"You are Vesper Dusk?"

"I am."

"May I sit?"

"Please."

Selene sat on the other low chair, across from the old man.

The low chair was wooden, low; Selene's knees rose higher than the seat.

As she sat, her cloak fell open, and beneath the March grey the silver pin showed. Vesper Dusk's eyes rested for an instant on that flat circle of a pin-head, then moved back to her face.

And in the instant he raised his eyes, Selene saw the thing beneath the outer corner of his left eye. A very faint line, running down along the cheekbone, not deep, like a cut made many years ago that had since healed flat.

The pair of eyes Lian Silverhall had drawn for her yesterday had this same line beneath the outer corner.

"Your Highness, what is it you've come to me for?" Vesper Dusk asked.

Selene paused a beat, thought a moment, and decided not to circle it.

"Guard Dusk, you are the Third House," she said.

Vesper Dusk did not react at once. A second passed, and the line beneath the outer corner of his left eye trembled faintly, once — as though a hand had lightly touched an old wound that had never healed.

"Your Highness, how do you know?" Vesper Dusk asked.

"Lian Silverhall drew me a pair of eyes yesterday," Selene said. "The eyes were the same as yours."

"House Silverhall has not drawn the Third House in four hundred years," Vesper Dusk said. "Why would Lian Silverhall draw it?"

"Because Lian Silverhall felt her heart was about to fall half a beat behind," Selene said.

Vesper Dusk looked at Selene, looked for a long time.

"Your Highness," he said. "Your father — did he know?"

"What does my father know?"

"Your father knows of the Third House," Vesper Dusk said. "He is not the Third House. But he and the Third House have shared blood."

"I know," Selene said. "Lian Silverhall said as much."

"Your Highness, which matter is it you have come to ask?"

Selene thought a second.

"Guard Dusk, what is your true surname?" she asked.

"Bind," Vesper Dusk said.

What he spoke was a surname. The Third House's true surname was Bind.

Selene set this word in place in her heart and set two others beside it — the 空 on her dead father's tongue, the one Ion had pressed back for her to see. Three words in a row. She still could not read what they spelled together, but they were the opening of a sentence; that much she knew.

"Why was the surname changed?" Selene asked.

"Because four hundred years ago, the head of House Bind was called by a name from the Throne," Vesper Dusk said. "After being called by name, House Bind could no longer use the Bind surname — ancient law. House Bind changed its own surname to Dusk. They cut the old name in half and kept the fragment that remained — Dusk."

Selene's chest bent, once.

"How many of House Bind are left now?"

"Me," Vesper Dusk said.

"Only you?"

"Only me. I never married, had no children. The year I retired, House Bind was down to me alone. After I die, House Bind is gone."

Selene did not react at once.

A long time passed. She said, "Guard Dusk, why are you still alive?"

Vesper Dusk looked at her, looked for a second.

"Your Highness, what you are asking is why the Throne never called me by name."

"Yes."

Vesper Dusk raised his left hand, slowly, and laid it over his own heart.

"Your Highness, the Throne called me once," Vesper Dusk said. "The year I was sixteen, the Throne called my name, called three times. The first two times, my grandfather answered for me — 'He is not here.' The third time, my grandfather did not answer, and I answered for myself — 'I am here.'"

"And then?"

"And then the Throne fell silent," Vesper Dusk said. "It did not take me. But the Throne took my grandfather. My grandfather died that day. The manner of his death: on the inner side of the breastbone, a length of black, tooth-shaped, had grown."

Selene closed her eyes for a moment.

Her father's manner of death was the same as Vesper Dusk's grandfather's.

Her father and the Third House had shared blood. She had taken that to mean that her father, in some generation, had stood where Vesper Dusk's grandfather had stood — the one who answers for the young of the house, the one who dies in the young one's place.

She pressed that thought down in her heart. Her father had lived to be the 105th King, had lived to die of old age, and only then had that word grown on the tongue of his corpse. A man who dies in another's place does not live so long. Her father was not the one who died for someone else. Her father was the one who had been died for, all the way up to the Throne. At that thought, her fingers tightened once on her knee.

Selene raised her eyes to Vesper Dusk.

"Guard Dusk —" she began, and did not finish.

A sound drifted in through the window, very faint, from the direction of the Seventh Princess's Court. A single horn-call. Three long, two short.

She knew the call. Three long, two short — someone had died. But this horn-call did not follow the Mute Wall's system of signals; the pitch was set lower, heavier — it was the palace's own call. She had lived her whole life and only ever read of how this call sounded, in a book; this was the first time she had heard it. In four hundred years it had sounded eleven times in all, and every time someone of the royal house had died.

Selene rose.

"Guard Dusk —" she said.

"Your Highness, go back," Vesper Dusk said. "I go nowhere. Come again later — I'll be here."

Selene nodded and dipped a curtsy. She set it very low, lower than a princess owed a retired guard. She gave it as one gives a bow to an elder. Then she withdrew from the second room and walked out of the Old Guards' Hall.

Lucie waited outside the gate. As Selene came out she glanced at her — Lucie's face had gone two shades paler than before she'd gone in, and her lips had little colour left in them.

"Your Highness, just now —"

"I heard it," Selene said. "From which direction was the horn-call?"

"The church," Lucie said. "The High Sanctum."

Selene's chest bent a third time. Someone had died in the High Sanctum, and she had spent the whole morning on the west side, not present. Who had died there, she would not learn until she was back among people.

She drew the collar of her black cloak tight and walked toward the church. The snow underfoot was a layer thicker than before she'd entered the Old Guards' Hall; the new snow had covered the footprints she'd made coming in.

【Ch. 012 End · the Seventh Princess's Court → the Old Guards' Hall on the palace's west side → toward the church · the 27th of the Cold Moon, hour of the rabbit → hour of the monkey】