Halifax was so far away.
It is not that I have not been there. Like all the Children of Peace, I go regularly to visit my parents. I have an apartment in the palace. I have a vast bed and a desk, and gowns, and beautiful books. But even so, Halifax does not seem like my home. A refitted monastery and a few acres of permaculture garden, somewhere in Saskatchewan—Precepture Four—that is home. As part of Canada it is technically part of my kingdom, but out here I am the princess of grasshoppers and red tails, duchess of chickens and goats.
Halifax is so different, so alien. Citadel Hill seems to loom. The sea is restless. The sky is too small. In Halifax I am interviewed and bowed to; I go to fetes and balls. In Halifax, my father takes me sailing, out among the little islands of the Nova Scotia archipelago, above the ruins of the sunken cities. In the evenings I go out with him to the campanile to ring the twilight bells, the ones that call the little ships home. In Halifax, my mother pours me cup after cup of tea. In her library she spreads out maps and we speak of history. In Halifax I have to wear shoes indoors, and corsets that press red lines into my skin. In Halifax I am duchess and crown princess. When I come here the prairie sky opens up over me. I fold the crown princess away like linens into lavender, and I am Greta again.
It is hard for the person I am here to write to that strange and distant place called “home.” My mother—what could I say to her? Mother, the Cumberland hostage—I think he knows something.
The last time I was in Halifax, my mother did not mention a war. But she did not invite me to privy council either, as she usually does. And on the last day of my visit she herself brushed the thousand strokes through my hair. She wasn’t crying, but she was. . . .
In my cell, two thousand miles from my mother, the blank paper looked up at me. Surely she would warn me. Surely, she would not let me be surprised.
Mother, Sidney was surprised and it was terrible.
Sidney and I had known that a Swan Rider was, almost surely, coming for us. And yet in the end, Sidney had been surprised. He had stood frozen. He had spoken of his father.
Mother, there is a boy here and he seems so afraid.
Elián. I could imagine us walking to the grey room together, walking to both our deaths. I could imagine him wanting to hold my hand. Or—no, he probably wouldn’t walk. He’d probably fight and have to be dragged, and then all my practiced dignity would be for nothing. There would be a scene.
My mother would not approve if I died with a scene.
The little cell was still hot. The floors were warm. The walls were warm. Even the moonlight spilling through the ceiling seemed warm. Summers were short, there in what used to be Saskatchewan. But that didn’t mean they weren’t hot.
All day long, sweat had gathered at the nape of my neck and run in a little trickle down my spine. My spine itched, my neck itched—even my hair itched.
In Halifax I have two maids to fuss over my hair, and they amuse themselves (if not me) by doing elaborate things with it. Here I merely put it in two thick braids, which I coil around my head, out of the way. Like Guinevere, evidently. Well. She was a busy woman. Probably she wanted her hair out of the way, too.
I pulled the pins out of my hair, and the two braids tumbled free and fell, swinging, down my back.
Our door slid open. Xie. The pitcher swung empty in her hand. “There’s no water,” she said.
For a moment, just a moment, my mind filled with the dry waving grass of the prairie in drought. A Rider moving through that grass would make such a dust plume. . . .
“No water,” I said.
We both knew what it meant. There was water—our well was not dry—but we were being denied access to it. We were being punished.
It was not a surprise. At the Precepture each cohort regulates itself, but if someone in the cohort acts egregiously, publicly, noticeably poorly—well, then, we all pay. It is little things, mostly. Reduced diets. Sealed doors. Hours spent in total darkness. It gives us incentive to keep each other in line.
We had certainly not managed to keep Elián in line.
“Tonight of all nights,” I complained. “It’s hot.”
“I imagine our new friend is more uncomfortable even than that.” Da-Xia tugged at one of my braids. “Guinevere.”
“Yes, well, Americans. They do have an obsession with royalty.” I nudged my letter to one side and Xie set the pitcher down on the table (which was also our washstand) with a depressingly empty clang. “I wish they would just get some of their own.”
“But where will they find a bloodline that’s blessed and anointed by the gods?”