Chapter Fifteen - Stories

(Part I)

‘Ha, got you!’

Glada slid her counter across the board, proudly shunting one of Sara’s off its edge with a little clatter. Sara frowned, staring at her measly collection of remaining pieces, and tried to ignore the other girl’s smirk. They were in the room of doors, and the chequerboard was sat at one edge of the great nightwood table, surrounded by a little cluster of chairs. Beyond the open shutters to the balcony, a few thin wreaths of grey cloud tugged themselves like stray string about the lonely dark stone of an old stormtower. The day was nearing its end, and the muted sunlight had a faint, amber hue to it. Sara looked back at the board, and frowned again.

‘Squares takes a very sharp mind.’ her opponent said smugly, hair tumbled in mock-untidiness over her dimpled cheeks. ‘It’s not for everyone.’

Sara shot her a dark look. Glada had the marks of the Northern coast on her; lightly bronzed skin and hair fair as twice-faded leather, carelessly pretty in the way her folk often were. She’d been in the Queen’s service almost two years, though she was no older than Sara herself.

‘Think, Sara.’ Dana told her, leant forward in the chair beside her.

‘Arana’s tits.’ Glada cursed. ‘You move slower than the Matron.’

‘I’m thinking.’ Sara protested, hesitating. She put a finger on one of her counters, ready to slide it across the chequered surface.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that.’ Glada murmured.

Sara scowled at her, and moved the piece anyway, pushing one of her opponent’s off onto the tabletop with a triumphant little snort.

‘Now you’ve done it.’ Glada told her sadly.

‘Stop playing with the poor girl, Glada.’ Velis said over her shoulder from the balcony. Velis was taller than the others, with slender hips and a narrow breast, though she was almost twenty, and her narrow frame fitted nicely with the swarm of distant towers atop the Heartspire beyond the windows. Her auburn hair was plaited at her temples and bound behind her head in a twisting bun. Her people were from a minor noble house in the south, near the border of the Dread Stones and the High Places beyond. She’d been in the Queen’s service longer than any of them. Close to four years, now; quite the coup for her house.

‘It’s a game of tactics, Velis.’ Glada replied, rolling her eyes. ‘The girl’s too emotional. That’s why she’s losing.’

‘I am not!’ Sara told her indignantly. She looked at Dana for reassurance, but her sister only raised an eyebrow dryly in response.

‘Aren’t you?’ Glada asked, smiling again.

Sara scowled, glaring at the board again.

‘Behave, Glada.’ Velis said seriously from the balcony. Beyond her, the narrow spires and shining towers of the Heartspire soon gave way to air, dropping away into the concentric white rings of the city proper below, and a great swathe of emerald grass raced away towards the gleaming sweep of the river Arq in the distance. ‘It’s dangerous enough for handmaidens in this keep without you trying to stab her full of holes with your tongue.’

Sara frowned, then remembered the game, and frowned even harder. Glada laughed.

‘Oh, you’re such a bore.’ she snorted at Velis, placing another counter down nonchalantly. She wiped a finger along the dark surface of the nightwood table, drawing away a narrow line of dust.

‘Arana’s tits, I cleaned this yesterday! Where does it all come from?’

‘It’s everywhere in this city.’ Dana told her absently, brushing at her dark dress. ‘Stones are older than the Matron.’

‘Not likely.’ Velis said from the balcony. ‘She was born old.’

Sara looked up towards the vaulted ceiling, watching motes of dust trickling through the scattered sunbeams like wine on water, rippled and twisting.

‘I think it looks pretty.’ she murmured quietly.

’She’s touched, your sister.’ Glada told Dana, rolling her eyes. ‘Show her a rotten apple and she’ll see Temur’s balls.’

‘Something on your mind, Glada?’ Velis asked, turning back to the room. ‘You’re working through the Makers’ anatomy faster than usual.’

‘Feasts aren’t that frightening, are they?’ Dana added, arching an eyebrow.

‘Not for you, maybe.’ Glada scowled. ‘Not all of us are trying to scare all the young noblemen away.’

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

‘Maybe last year, Glada. But you’re forgetting our new arrival.’ Velis stepped in from the balcony, dark eyes watching Sara. She had a measured tone to her voice that added another handful of years to her age, and Sara felt suddenly very self-conscious. Dana was frowning.

‘I almost forgot.’ Glada replied, holding up a counter peering at it with sudden interest. ‘I hear our little rose here has already attracted some attention.’

Sara looked back at her, opening her mouth to protest, but Glada held up a hand.

‘Oh, don’t worry, your secret’s safe with us. I must admit… didn’t think the old Fox had it in him.’ she grinned, pinning her already narrow shoulders tighter to her chest and adopting a small, smooth-lipped smile. ‘M’Lady Westmere, I am pleased to make your most lovely acquaintance.’

She took hold of one of Sara’s hands, pressing it gently to her lips. Sara snatched it away, scowling, and Glada fell back laughing.

‘Enough, Glada.’ Velis interrupted her. ‘Nothing wrong with it. After all. He’s past forty, unmarried… Lord of the Rift, too. No matter that he’s… Well. Even peasants need heirs, but Lords can’t do without.’

‘Stop!’ Sara interrupted, blushing furiously, and Glada laughed again. She caught herself, lowering her voice. ‘I mean… It was not like that. That is… I don’t think he was interested in me. He was just…’

‘Just what?’ Glada prompted.

‘Curious.’ Sara finished, lowering her eyes self-consciously.

‘A man’s curiosity hangs between his legs, in my experience.’

‘And what experience would that be, Glada?’ Dana shot back, glaring at her.

‘More than yours.’ Glada replied, unfazed, looking at Sara again. ‘Be beautiful. Be desired. The trick is letting them think they’re in control. That you’re just a pretty face. You’d be surprised what they choose not to see.’

‘I pity the poor fools you get your claws into.’ Dana rolled her eyes.

‘Just playing my hand, dear Dana.’ Glada told her, picking up another counter and passing it between her fingers. ‘And anyway, marriage isn’t always so quick to produce a son.’

She trailed off suggestively at the end of her sentence, and the room fell quiet.

‘The Queen wouldn’t be pleased to hear you speaking of such things.’ Velis said quietly after a few moments, and Dana stared silently at the table.

Glada lowered her eyes for a moment, still fingering the counter.

‘Maybe not, but the Queen isn’t here.’ She set the counter on the board, sliding it slowly across the chequered surface. ‘Besides, everyone talks about it.’

‘Everyone?’ Dana rolled her eyes.

‘Everyone in court.’ Glada told her indignantly. ‘Didn’t even have a name, before she took his. Eliana-’

‘Queen Eliana.’ Velis corrected.

‘-Queen Eliana is closer to forty than thirty.’ Glada went on, still apparently focused on her counter. ‘Fifteen years of marriage and not a child to speak of, even with all those… friends of hers. The King doesn’t even visit her, anymore. My cousin says there’s more than a couple of bastards with his eyes.’

Sara frowned. ‘Frien-’

‘That is quite enough.’ Velis said, giving Glada a withering look. ‘Some day you’ll learn to keep such thoughts to yourself.’

‘Not likely.’ Glada shot back, smirking.

They fell to silence again, and dust drifted down around them in little faded clouds. Sara frowned. She thought of the Queen, tall and proud and pale as the moon. She’d seen her precious little, since she’d been taken into her service some weeks before. She changed the sheets, brought fresh water, emptied chamberpots. Refilled the jug of wine that emptied itself at the Queen’s bedside, in the sunroom, in the room of doors, on the balcony. The Matron, all grey and withered like an old twig, gave the girls their tasks, and the others had helped Sara at first, as she learned her way. But the Queen had struck a distant figure, and Sara was forced to satisfy herself with glimpses. Mostly, when Eliana went out into the great ancient halls beyond her apartments, she left her handmaidens behind, chaperoned by several of her Black Guard in their polished armour instead. Once, Sara had come across her standing on the balcony at dusk, looking out over the city below, unmoving as a statue, but she had dared not intrude. The memory of the day she arrived in the room of doors filled her with a kind of cold sharpness, thinking of the Queen’s eyes on her skin.

You look like her, you know.

Twice, and only twice, Sara and the other handmaidens had escorted her to the King’s Hall when he held audiences, and stood beside the throne whilst he heard the grievances of noble folk dwarfed between the vast pillars below. Sara had revelled in the feeling of it, elevated above the floor of the hall, the supplicant faces of Valia’s nobles looking up towards them. She fancied some of them looked at her, as she stood in the shadow of the shimmering Night Throne, and she had blushed at the thought of it. The sounds of the hall had faded around her, and she had floated for a time in the heady thrill of her own imaginings, flowing into the black shapes of the shifting nightglass ceiling. Even when they had returned to the Queen’s apartments, that had sustained her for a time. She even found that she took a certain pleasure from the regularity of her tasks, such as they were. She was where she had wanted to be, she told herself, safe and needed and admired. For now.

‘What’s behind the other doors, anyway?’ she said suddenly, staring at the silver markings. Velis said nothing, and Dana frowned, but Glada perked up again.

‘Moon door for sleeping. Sun door for drinking.’ she said lowly, smiling. ‘As for the others…’

‘No one knows. No one sees.’ Velis interjected, fixing her with a stern eye. ‘No one save the Matron.’

Sara opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, staring at the unknown door. A cradle, scratched silvery into the dark wood. Another moment of quiet, heavy as stone. Then Glada set down another counter, and the game continued. Not for long, though; Sara was quickly out of pieces, dodging Glada’s smug smirks. The other girls lingered for a while, then drifted idly back to their chambers to prepare themselves for the evening’s feast, but Sara stayed a while longer. Alone, she went out through the open pillars onto the balcony, and stood for a time looking out over the balustrade. The sky was imperfectly clear, with the soft glow of dusk glimmering in the west, and the moon was already visible overhead, a pale crescent of silver in a twinkling ink pot of growing starlight. The dark face of the empty stormtowers dotting the Heartspire drank up its light greedily, and the tallest of all, Temur’s Tower, filled the air with its shadow. Below, the city stirred and rumbled, smoked and steamed, full of faraway music and weeping and laughter. She was just then, she felt, acclimatised to the thinness of the air atop the Heartspire, and her breath was not hurried or harsh. For Sara, it was a moment of quiet, the sudden stillness between the tugs of a lute string, pregnant and weary, but trusting. She liked it here, on the edge of everything, drawn to it, like a moth to a flame, and she lingered as long as she dared. Even if the Queen was nowhere to be seen. Even if there were some doors she could not open.

Then something stirred in the rooms behind her, and she hurried off to find the others, her moment of solitude spent.