Like all of the Children of Peace, I am sent home thrice annually, to maintain my bond with my parents. After all, if one is to hold royal children hostage on the premise that the prospect of their deaths will deter their parents from declaring war, it does not do to let parent-child bonds wither away. And they have not withered. My parents, I think, do love me.
I was last home months ago, at the warm end of spring. On the last day of my visit, my mother—the queen my mother—dismissed my maids and brushed my hair herself. Brushed it and brushed it, a thousand strokes. Then she did up the buttons on the back of my gown. There were three dozen of them, tiny things that went into tiny loops. One by one, she did them. One by one, and it took a long time.
Overhead the stars crawled. My pillow itched. Xie did not come back. Still I could not sleep. I counted goats, but they kept getting away from me, becoming those buttons. Becoming my mother, brushing my hair.
When I started to feel the phantom tug at my scalp and a tightness in my throat, I thrust myself upright. If I could not sleep, I chided myself, I would work.
I got up, I got dressed. I yanked my hair into braids so tight that they tugged at my temples and stung tears from the corners of my eyes. Then I went to the misericord.
The word “misericord” means “room of the pitying heart.” When the Precepture hall had been a monastery, centuries ago, the miseri would have been the one room where strictures were relaxed. Now it is lounge and library, a place of quiet and rest. The glass in the skylight is amber, warming the light, dimming the Panopticon’s sharp outline. There are books, collected on tall, columnar shelves, like a grove of old trees. The books were my object, or at least my excuse: I needed the next volume of Epictetus for my paper.
There was light, as always, in the heart room. Little brass lamps, here and there, cast pools of gold. The Abbot is there when he is not required elsewhere, and though I suppose he does not technically need light, it is a comfortable thing to be able to see him.
The Abbot was not behind his desk. “Father?” I meant to be soft, out of respect for the hour, but my voice came out fluttering. The flutter surprised me.
The old AI came forward from the grove of bookshelves. The face monitor canted forward on his mainstem, like the head of a nearsighted old man. “Ah, Greta.” The icons of his eyes moved a fraction farther apart and opened a whisker wider—not a smile, but a listening, welcoming look. “You’re burning the midnight oil, child. Couldn’t sleep?”
“No, good Father. I came for a book.”
“Ah.” He puttered over toward the classical philosophy. “One of the Stoics, isn’t it? Aurelius again?”
“Epictetus, Father.”
“That’s right. I’ve seen your notes, my dear: impressive work, impressive work.” His voice was old and soft as a step that has been worn down in the center. That voice, and the amber light, made the room feel warm. My heart—odd, it had been racing—was slowing down. The Abbot led me deeper into the grove of bookcases. “Have you considered extending it? Perhaps something on the uptake of the Roman branch of Stoicism into early Christianity, or Western culture generally? After all, the very word ‘stoic’ has come to mean calmness in the face of trying circumstance.”
“Oh, yeah,” came a voice from the darkness. “I can’t wait to get started writing papers on that.”
My breath caught, because it was Sidney’s accent, or nearly—Sidney’s accent if the peaches in syrup had been laced with rough stones.
The Abbot sighed. “Greta, may I present Elián Palnik, who comes to us from the Cumberland Alliance?”
It was the boy—the boy with bound hands. He was slumped into the memory cushion at the back of the book grove, a shadow within a shadow.
My eyes went right to his hands, but they were not bound now. Even so it took me a moment to find my voice. “Hello, Elián,” I said. I found, to my horror, that I addressed him as I sometimes addressed our more skittish goats. He was just sitting there, but something about him seemed half-tamed.
“Hey, Greta,” said Elián. And to the Abbot: “Stoicism? I mean, seriously?”
He sat forward then, brushing his hair out of his face—he would need to get that trimmed. The bruising around his wrist had gone old and yellow. He looked at me blankly, and then seemed to recognize me. “Wait, you’re Princess Greta.” And another layer of recognition. “It was you—the girl at the door, that day.”
He had seen me disgrace myself, then. I hoped I wasn’t blushing. “I apologize for reacting.” My voice was steady, at least.
He sketched a little bow, as much as one can while sitting on a cushion. “It’s okay. I mean, where I’m from, it’s traditional to ‘react’ when someone gets dragged in in chains.”
“Elián,” chided the Abbot, his voice like dust. “That’s hardly appropriate.”
“Sorry, Greta,” said Elián. “I’m having trouble telling what’s appropriate.”
He did not sound sorry.
“That’s enough, I think,” said the Abbot. His eye icons had pulled together. “Greta. Don’t forget your book.”
I took my book. I did not flee. But I left, and my heart was no longer beating slowly.
4
GUINEVERE