The Redwood Palace

by M K Hutchins

  No one came to interrogate me the next morning. Unable to sit still, I paced my lovely room. It would take longer than I had to live to wear holes in this rug.

  Mid-afternoon, the door slid open. My shoulders tensed and I tried to make my face unreadable. Somehow, I had to work these interrogations to my advantage. How, I didn’t know. I wished I could ask Moss for advice.

  Sorrel stepped inside. He stared at me with bloodshot eyes, his hair and clothes disheveled, reeking of cheap mead.

  I ought to be cooking for him, apologizing, something. He’d gone through so much in so short a time. But there wasn’t a kitchen here.

  He jabbed my shoulder with a finger. I stumbled back a half-step, more startled than anything.

  “You’re a monster,” he snarled.

  “Sorrel...”

  He pushed me with one hand. “Don’t try to defend yourself.”

  “I’m not—”

  He shoved me hard—both hands. I stumbled on the rug, barely keeping my feet. I’d seen him angry before, when he shouted about the broken engagement, when he kicked me out of the kitchens after I professed my feelings. But something grimmer, colder, had taken hold of his expression.

  “I never wanted to hurt you,” I whispered.

  He swung his fist. Pain flared in my jaw and I sprawled to the floor, hip smacking onto hard wood.

  “You killed her,” he hissed over me.

  I prodded my tender face. Sorrel had actually hit me. “I didn’t mean for... for that...”

  His foot cracked into my ribs. I shrieked and rolled, then pulled myself to my feet. But the guards didn’t come. Weren’t they supposed to protect me? Or had they been told not to intervene?

  “Didn’t mean!” Sorrel screamed. “She’s dead!”

  The words cut through me like freshly flintknapped spears. “Why did you come here, if you hate me?”

  “You’re going to die soon, too. And I wanted you to know that I’ll be cheering when your neck snaps in the noose. Murderer. Liar.”

  “I didn’t lie.” Not about Violet.

  He stepped forward to strike me, but I dodged. He tried again, but I ducked. Intoxication dulled his aim.

  “I hope you wander the world as a Hungry Ghost for a thousand years. I hope you smell as rotten as your soul is, so everyone knows what you are.”

  He strung some choice obscenities after that. When all his punches failed, he threw a chair at me. I tried to dodge, but it hit my leg and I fell. Pain shot through my thigh and on my elbow where I’d caught myself.

  I made it halfway to my feet before Sorrel kicked me in the gut. My eyes blurred as I lay crumpled on the floor, trying to catch my breath. I didn’t see the next kick—just felt it crash into my side.

  Sorrel spat on my face. “Stay on the floor, traitor. Poisoner.”

  He stumbled out of the room, leaving me alone in silence, on the floor next to the maltreated chair.

  I fingered my side where he’d kicked me. Nothing broken. But I’d be bruised. Probably on my face as well.

  Sorrel still didn’t know my name. How for a day, we’d been destined for each other. I’d already grieved losing him on his wedding night.

  So why did this feel like a betrayal?

  My mouth tasted of blood and acid. I couldn’t stop thinking that he’d petitioned King Alder to see me, solely for the chance to beat me before I died.

  I traced my cheek again, feeling the welling bruise. He acted out of rage for his deceased wife. Part of me understood that and pitied him.

  But there are no words to take back a bruise. He couldn’t take away the throb in my ribs by calling it a misunderstanding or by saying he didn’t know who I was. Worse still, he was a chef, tasked with caring for the health of all around him.

  Even if everything he said were true, he had no right to hit me.

  I flinched the next time the door opened. Then I saw who it was.

  “Osem!”

  She crossed the room and hugged me. “Dami, Dami. How do you get yourself in these messes?”

  “It’s a gift.”

  She stepped back and peered at my cheek. “King Alder said the soldiers would leave you alone.”

  “Soldiers didn’t do this.”

  Osem raised an eyebrow in question. I sighed. If a guard was eavesdropping, he’d already heard Sorrel’s visit. I briefly explained.

  “That’s horrid!”

  Her indignation was oddly comforting. “Thanks.”

  Osem sighed. “I wish I could take you with me when we leave. Did the King Former—”

  I cut her off with a sharp gesture, then tugged my ear and gestured to the room instead.

  Osem nodded, then gestured at the door and pantomimed holding a spear. One of the door guards was perceptive-of-ear, then. She already knew.

  “The King Former?” I prompted, making a crown-like gesture around my head to establish a symbol for him. Finally, I had a chance to tell someone what I’d learned.

  “Did he arrange for this room? It’s lovely.”

  “Yes.” I paused, thinking of the words I needed. “He is very kind.”

  On is, I made my hand into a fist.

  “This is much better than our small room,” Osem prattled. She didn’t sound much like herself, making small talk for the benefit of the guard.

  I made the crown gesture, clenched my fist, then pantomimed a huge belly and plugged my nose.

  Osem frowned. “I bet you’re never hungry in here?”

  On hungry she made the huge-belly gesture. I nodded, confirming: Fulsaan is the Hungry Ghost.

  Her eyes widened. Coming here hadn’t been a selfish waste—Osem knew. Relief ran through me, undoing all my tensed muscles. I felt weary enough for a ten-year nap.

  True, I couldn’t pantomime the whole story about Red Lord Ospren’s unjust exile, and I had no idea how to relate Lieutenant-General Behon’s suspicious messenger birds, but Osem could relay this one important fact to Lady Sulat. Once Lady Sulat recovered, she’d make good use of the information.

  “How is...” I trailed off. If I said Lady Sulat, the King would know where Osem’s loyalties lay. But he probably already knew.

  “Bane?” Osem grinned mischievously. “He applied to see you, too, but was rejected. I doubt the Palace Guard would let a military man through, anyway.”

  While she spoke, she pantomimed sipping soup and sleeping, then smiled. Lady Sulat was recovering, then. Good.

  I hugged Osem again. “Thank you for coming. You should probably go, though.”

  Before I messed up and said something that got Osem in trouble with the guards.

  “I know.” She frowned, sad, solemn. “Dami, if I had a way to help you...”

  “You’d do it.”

  She didn’t nag me about how she’d been right or bemoan that I hadn’t married Bane when I had the chance. Osem squeezed my shoulder. “I keep losing people in this war. I hope you make it somehow, Dami, but if you don’t... will you send my love to my family? My husband’s name is Cress of Fawn Hill. He can point you to my parents.”

  “Of course.”

  That evening, I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling.

  Didn’t I have much to be grateful for? I’d sent a message with Osem—a true friend. If I hanged tomorrow, I’d die knowing that I could do Osem one last favor in bringing a message to her family. In the short time I’d served in the Redwood Palace, I’d saved Lady Sulat and protected Dami. My parents would still owe horrible back-taxes, but perhaps Lady Sulat would help them with those—it seemed like the kind of thing she’d do.

  I should have felt bitter or scared, but calmness filled me, vast and still as a mountain lake before dawn. Soon, I’d be living with Nana again. I’d had seventeen years filled with plum blossoms and simmering crocks and Nana’s honey-scented hugs. Seventeen good years. Plenty of young soldiers suffering gruesome deaths left this world with less.

  In the morning, guards escorted me out of the Royal Bear House and toward my trial. The
sky shone that clear spring blue. Soon, soon, I wouldn’t live in this world. I’d done all I could. I felt detached, apart.

  What else could this world do to hurt me, after all?

  If my chamber was intended to unnerve me, the Hall of Moral Law was designed to paralyzed me. Wolves—a symbol of justice—decorated the high lattice windows. The whole-log pillars of the circular room shone white, but the floor glinted blood-red, as if stained with thousands of innocent lives. Whorls of red crawled up the white pillars, like the voices of victims crying for vengeance.

  Between each of the ten pillars sat the members of the Purple-Blue Council. Palace guards flanked nine of these seats for security, but a pair of soldiers in black watched over the seat for the Minister of Military Affairs. Lieutenant-General Behon sat there.

  So Lady Sulat still slept. Lieutenant-General Behon stared openly at me, one corner of his mouth curled in disgust, his eyes narrow. How could he look at me like that, when he was responsible for Violet’s death? She should have had a trial, too.

  King Alder sat in the middle of the pillars on a throne carved with amber-eyed bears; advisors and officials stood outside the pillars, behind the Purple-Blue Council. Lady Egal was among them, sneering elegantly, ready to make good on her promise to testify against me. No Fir, though. I recognized a few of Lady Egal’s friends from Sorrel’s wedding, with likewise unkind expressions.

  I was escorted into the empty space before the king. A court official followed, standing several paces away from me. “Yellow-ranked Dami of Clamsriver, servant of the Royal House,” he said. “You have been brought to trial this day on charges of lying to the sovereign of Rowak, Purple King Alder. You are accused of hiding your double-gifted state, being both strong-of-arm and perceptive-of-taste-and-smell. Do you confess to these charges?”

  “I do not.” I held myself tall and straight as a redwood. “I am not double-gifted.”

  The King’s finger twitched with annoyance. “I don’t have time for a dawdling trial.”

  Oddly, he wore traveling boots, not the soft, embroidered slippers he’d worn in Fulsaan’s quarters.

  The official bowed. “All pardons to your grandmother’s health, King Alder, but we must listen to Dami’s witnesses.”

  Had the king’s grandmother died, or was Alder rushing to see her before she passed? In any case, I’d never intended to draw out the trial. “I didn’t bring any witnesses.”

  The official blinked, startled. “You had sufficient time. Were they delayed?”

  “My parents do important work in Clamsriver. I saw no reason to inconvenience them or the good people of that town for my own behalf.”

  The king glared. “A yellow-ranked girl seeks to exonerate herself based solely on her own word? You’re guilty, and you’re wasting precious time.”

  “I didn’t claim innocence.”

  All heads snapped toward me. I let the silence hang for a moment and stared at the king. He glared, ready to combat anything I might say about his father. I am harmless, I tried to say in that look. Let me live.

  “It is true that I am perceptive-of-taste-and-smell. I used this ability to save the king’s sister twice. The second time allowed me to identify the poisoner, Green-ranked Violet of Napil. But I am not double-gifted. I am not strong-of-arm.”

  Murmurs rippled through the hall. Lieutenant-General Behon’s agile face became carefully neutral. Confusion sprawled over the king’s features—and everyone else’s.

  I knelt, then bowed myself flat before the king. “I admit my guilt in lying. I plead for mercy.”

  I sat up, waiting on my knees for an answer. But I only needed one glance at King Alder to know that my hopes were as feeble as I’d feared. He would not so much as ask why I lied. He simply wanted me dead.

  The official asked for all the advisors to witness they’d heard my confession. Each chimed, one after another, like a flute pinging a vast range of notes. None made any protests or comments on my behalf.

  “As she has admitted guilt, there is no need to lengthen this trial with witnesses. The Purple-Blue Council will now vote.”

  The official brought a tray around, onto which each councilor laid a red or white stick. Justice or mercy. Death and life. When the last piece of wood clinked to the tray, I dared to look.

  Red. All red. Even Lieutenant-General Behon voted against me.

  “It seems that Council is unanimous.” King Alder allowed himself a dry smile. “Death by hanging. At sunrise tomorrow. As custom dictates, the Master Chef will deliver her last meal tonight.”

  Before I could rise, he swept past me, intent on his journey.

  The guards returned me to that beautiful room. Mid-morning sun shone through the lattice of hawks and salmon. Three-quarters of a day left.

  I decided to spend it gazing out the window at the king’s private pond and the bleeding hearts and foxgloves encircling it. Lovely.

  But I didn’t have long to admire the floral-scented wind or the rippling water. Three Palace Guards pulled an elegant passenger cart through the gate to the front of the Royal Bear House. Its purple window drapes brought out the deep scarlet of the varnish. Neatly-packed traveling supplies filled the chest-like endboard.

  Another pair of Palace Guards held open the cart door. King Alder strode inside and seated himself on the cushioned bench, followed by Purple Lord Valerian.

  A pair of guards dragged Fulsaan after. The old man struggled half-heartedly as the guards tossed him inside. I clenched my hands against the window sill. Something was wrong.

  King Alder jumped out the other side of the cart, scowling and shouting. He slapped a guard across the face. Of course he didn’t want Fulsaan to come along; at sunset, Fulsaan would turn into a ghost and be ripped back to the room where he died.

  The slapped guard jammed his spear butt into King Alder’s gut.

  I gasped. I had no love for that man, but one doesn’t strike the King.

  Guards gagged King Alder and shoved him unceremoniously into the cart with Fulsaan. The doors shut. Guards pulled the cart forward.

  This couldn’t be good for Rowak—not in the middle of a war.

  “Stop! Help! They’re kidnapping the k—”

  A rough hand clamped around my throat. A guard from outside. “Calm down.”

  My blood turned to ice. These guards were in on the plot. I should have stayed silent. I should have thought before I shouted.

  “They’re going to visit the king’s grandmother.” He spoke to me as one would a frightened animal. “His Majesty got word this morning from Hawak that she won’t recover, so they must go now if they want to see her.”

  Had Hawak sent it, or had... this plot... arranged for it?

  “The King’s not here to complain if we slit her throat,” the second guard muttered.

  “I’m not killing anyone without Captain Gano’s permission. And someone’s coming.”

  The guards swiftly resumed their posts, locking the door behind them and leaving me with my breathe lodged in my throat.

  Captain Gano had removed everyone of purple rank. But I doubted he knew about the Hungry Ghost. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he keep Old King Fulsaan here, in the open, to display at dusk?

  But the Purple-Blue Council might appoint him as a regent if Lady Sulat had died and the three royals disappeared. From regent, he could angle for king. But Lady Sulat wasn’t dead. She’d be awake in a few days.

  My swallowed. I couldn’t reason out Captain Gano’s plans, but kidnapping a king meant one thing. A coup. A coup in the middle of a war—did Gano not care about his country? His people? This could give the Shoreed an opening to destroy us.

  Sorrel strode into the room, his face hollow, but sober. “I’m here for your request for your last meal, murderer.”

  “Sorrel, listen,” I began, then paused. If I told Sorrel, the guards would lock him up. How to sneak a message out? “Umm. Can you bring it right away? I’m hungry.”

  “You’ll eat your last meal at nightfall
and not a moment sooner.”

  Better to send a delayed message than none at all. “Noodles. Lots of noodles, please.”

  I could arrange those into characters to tell him what I’d learned. No one would suspect anything for days otherwise. I hoped my plan proved as clever as whatever Lady Sulat would do in my place.

  “I’ll make them on the sweet side, with some beet stems. Maybe a bit of endurance-of-neck will let you suffer in the noose.”

  I gritted my teeth. Our nation was in danger. He could mock me when I was dead. “Just bring the noodles.”

  “Noodles. You deserve poison.”

  “That was Violet’s specialty, not mine!”

  He punched me across the jaw. Completely sober. The inside of my cheek slashed open against my teeth. I coughed, dribbling viscous blood and saliva down my chin. I raised a hand to my mouth and gaped at him.

  Why was I shocked? Sober or drunk, it didn’t matter—he’d sought solace by beating his pain into another’s flesh. How had I thought I could love him? Whatever his cooking tasted like, Sorrel was a poor excuse for a chef.

  “You have no right to say her name,” Sorrel spat. “Come tomorrow, you won’t be able to.”

  Violet didn’t deserve to die in that prison. She should have stood trial. And I should have realized that turning her in would, eventually, lead to her end. Every time pity or guilt rose in me, I remembered Lady Sulat’s tiny, mewling baby. Of the child she tried to murder, of the child who might still die young from complications of his early birth. No, turning her into the military... I’d acted correctly. What they did afterwards made me sick. But I wasn’t responsible for that, was I?

  I exhaled. I didn’t want to hang tomorrow with regrets.

  I’d rather not hang at all.

  All the calm I’d pooled inside ran out, like water in a cracked crock. My knees turned into wobbly custard. Tomorrow.

  I knelt on my bed in the alcove and pulled the curtain tight.

  Ancestors, I thought I was ready for this, but I’m not. I want to live. And I need to tell someone about the king.