The Mountain of Kept Memory

by Rachel Neumeier

“Someone has to!” Oressa pointed out. “If you can’t get out, I can, and someone has to go to Prince Gajdosik’s people, and this is all my fault anyway—”

  “Oressa! Nothing is your fault!”

  Oressa wasn’t going to argue. She took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and walked firmly back into her private room. She began undoing the buttons on her dress—whyever did seamstresses have to put thousands of tiny little buttons on everything right where they were hardest to reach? She wished again for Nesia, but she got the last of the buttons at last and stripped off the tight, confining bodice and heavy skirts. Her shift left her arms bare and swirled lightly around her knees. Much better. She twisted her hair up and fixed it in place with an embroidery needle. Then she took a breath, raised her chin, and went back into the sitting room as she was, barefoot and in only her shift.

  Gulien blinked. Gajdosik stared at her, went red, and whipped his gaze away.

  “Sorry,” Oressa said, trying not to laugh. “Well, no, actually, that was a lie.” At Gulien’s exclamation, she said virtuously, “What? I swore I’d tell him if I lied to him, you know!” But then she added to Gajdosik, much more sincerely, “You can look—a shift is almost as long as a servant girl’s light dress, you know. I haven’t given up on your manacle; just give me—”

  There wasn’t time. The booted footsteps sounded again, and this time the man stopped outside their door and the doorknob rattled.

  Oressa darted to the window.

  “You’re not! It’s six stories up!” Gajdosik exclaimed in an urgent whisper.

  “It doesn’t matter how high you are if you don’t fall! And I never fall, not even when someone blows up the palace around me.” Oressa put a foot on the windowsill, turned, bent her knees, pushed herself lightly backward, and dropped neatly off the windowsill. She felt madly alive and perfectly free. She knew she wouldn’t fall.

  She slapped the sill with both palms as she dropped, tucked herself inward, found the carved head of a falcon-headed goddess under her bare feet, turned, and stepped across empty air to the head of a snarling animal, something with sharp teeth and round eyes and swirls of carved hair. There was more carving on the palace walls the higher you went, gods and goddesses and monsters and all kinds of curlicues; builders always seemed to want to put all the big impressive pieces up high along the tops of walls, which was actually very helpful. It was just a matter of moving fast and never pausing, because there were plenty of hand- and footholds just as long as you didn’t think about them. It was important to see without looking, to feel without thinking, to know just when a hard gust of wind would carry you that extra fraction of an inch.

  Tower wall to lower tower roofs, then across to the sprawling eastern wing of the palace. None of that was difficult, but it took Oressa longer than it should have to work her way that far because she had to go around damaged parts of the palace. All the way, she could hear ordinary folk in the palace below, servants mostly, and court functionaries; guardsmen and Tamaristan soldiers—that was less welcome but not surprising. She heard masons and carpenters over on the damaged side of the palace. The courtyards and gardens were busy with ordinary comings and goings, plus the builders and the Tamaristan soldiers, but Oressa was confident no one would look up, and no one did.

  She made her way toward her own rooms. Nobody should be there, except possibly Nasia, and she was sure her maid wouldn’t give her away. Oressa knew exactly what she wanted: the kind of dress she could wear out in the city and not have people turn and stare—the kind she could climb in if she needed to. And she didn’t have any money, but she could use some of her jewels to buy things—she tried to decide if beaten disks of gold would be better than pearls or the other way around.

  But there were voices in her rooms. Men’s voices. She paused, clinging to a not-very-comfortable perch above the window.

  “. . . come here anyway,” complained one voice.

  “I’ll be sure and tell His Majesty you said so, shall I?” asked a second, nearer. Then the speaker put his head out the window and looked out.

  Oressa froze, feeling her fingers cramp. . . . Her toes suddenly felt wrong on the stone, or maybe the stone itself suddenly felt as though it might crumble out from under her. She pressed her cheek against the wall and held her breath, staring downward until she suddenly thought that the pressure of her gaze might pull the man’s attention upward—she just knew he was going to lift his head suddenly and meet her eyes.

  But the man wasn’t looking for her at all. He stared out and down, gazing after a column of departing men. Oressa, following his gaze, blinked: That was a lot of men. Her father had said he was leaving Caras, and yes, she could see the bronze and blue of the Madalin falcon at the head of the column. But he hadn’t said he was taking with him all the able-bodied men left in the whole Caras militia. Maybe he needed them in case of trouble with Bherijda’s men, because there were a lot of men marching under the scorpion banner, too, including at least half a dozen black-robed magisters.

  She was sure her father had not only invited Bherijda to march east to challenge the Kieba, but also got him to take along lots of his men. That would get the scorpion soldiers out of Caras, which was good right there. The only question was, what clever thing did her father actually mean to do once he got to the Kieba’s mountain? Oressa could imagine him setting up a battle between Bherijda and the Kieba and then staying out if it himself. Whoever won, he would be rid of at least one of his enemies, and he could claim that all the time he’d really been supporting whoever won. Actually, that sounded exactly like something her father would do.

  On the other hand, he might truly believe he and Bherijda together might defeat the Kieba. Might claim her power and assume her role. He’d said that, or something very like it. Yes, he’d said, We may claim the Kieba’s power and assume her role, and the world will not end.

  She felt sinkingly certain that if her father truly believed he could destroy the Kieba, he must have very sound reasons for that belief. But she wasn’t nearly so certain that the world wouldn’t end if he achieved his ambition. If her father used Bherijda to destroy the Kieba . . . that would be a lot more dangerous than using the Kieba to rid himself of Bherijda.

  That possibility lent a new urgency to her plan to seek out Gajdosik’s men in the north. Though she knew her brother would need those men here, too. Except that if Gulien used Tamaristan soldiers to reestablish his authority in Caras and claim the throne, then people would say forever that he had used foreign soldiers to depose his own father, and Gulien would hate that.

  It was all so complicated. Everything was so big and important. The only thing she knew for sure was that she needed to get out of the palace and out of Caras and away north and find Gajdosik’s men. Then she would at least have the ability to do something. If she could decide what to do.

  The watching man made a disgusted sound—at what, Oressa had no idea—and pulled his head back into the room. He said, “But you’re right. She won’t come here, not if she’s trying to stay out of sight. She’ll have more sense.” He added, his tone admiring, “You heard she bit a chunk out of one bastard Tamaristan who laid hands on her? Blood all over the atrium, I heard. Too bad it wasn’t His dead-gods-damned Tamaristan Highness himself.”

  “Maybe next time,” said the first voice. “If there’s a next time: I think King Osir plans to come back alone.”

  The man snorted and pulled his head back in the window. “I won’t give you odds on that. But if Prince Bherijda does come back with him, two gets you three our little princess’ll get ahold of a knife and cut His Highness’s throat for him. And I’ll drink a toast to her when she does it.” His steps moved away from the window, his words growing muffled.

  Oressa blinked hard and then turned her head and rubbed her eyes on her shoulder. She wasn’t crying, and she wasn’t shaking either, and she felt perfectly fine. She climbed, as silently as she could, into her room and tiptoed to her jewelry cabinet. She caught up a hasty handful
of necklaces: one of thin hammered gold disks, one of silvery pearls, and one of garnets and black pearls strung on a gold chain. Then she found a clean dress, one without lace or fancy needlework, the kind she might have worn to go riding, with a hidden pocket in the bodice for her to hide the necklaces. And she needed slippers. . . . Surely she had a plain pair of slippers somewhere. Well, these with just a little fancy stitching on the toes would have to do.

  It all made an unwieldy bundle. That was all right. She could fasten it around her waist with a narrow belt. She was afraid every moment the men would come back, but they didn’t. Even so, she didn’t dare linger in her room a second longer than necessary.

  The aviary was an easy climb, one she’d done dozens of times. Her hands were shaking, though, and she stopped for a minute, clinging to a carved flourish, her feet resting on a ripple of brick and stone. Her fingertips hurt. She climbed carefully sideways and up, one familiar hand- and foothold after another, almost not paying attention because she was afraid of missing her grip if she thought too hard about what she was doing. The aviary was right above her, and she got a hand on the sill, ducked her head, and rolled in, not very gracefully.

  The aviary, at least, was deserted by all but birds. Pigeons cooed and shuffled in the dimness, calming quickly from their momentary alarm at her clumsy entrance. There was a strong musky scent of guano and sawdust, but the pigeon keepers cleaned the aviary every day, for which Oressa was grateful. And, almost as welcome as solitude, there was a barrel of clean water in the corner.

  The pigeons murmured and shifted and fluttered their wings, a peaceful sound that made Oressa feel safe. She pried the lid off the barrel and drank handfuls of the water. It was flat and stale, but she was very glad someone had gone to the effort of lugging it up the stairs. There were smocks hanging on hooks; she dabbed one in the water and cleaned herself up as best she could. Soap would have been nice, but one couldn’t have everything. There were bins of cracked grain and unmilled amaranth but no loaves of old bread, which was even more of a shame than the lack of soap. Even so, Oressa didn’t mean to leave the aviary for anything, not until it got dark. Now that she was safe—safer—she was desperately tired. Surely dusk could not be so very far away. She could nap right here in the aviary for an hour, even two, and then at night, in her clean dress, she could surely slip out into the city with no one the wiser

  She longed for fresh air and open space and freedom, but she wasn’t winged like the pigeons and she couldn’t climb in the dark. She would go the other way, out the door and down the stairs, like a normal person. Soon. But not quite yet.

  But when she woke, in the close dark with the pigeons shuffling gently around her and her face aching, she realized she had another problem. She put a hand to her cheek.

  She had almost forgotten about the mark Bherijda’s riding crop had left on her face. She remembered it now. The few hours of rest had helped. It must have helped, though she felt like she could crawl into a real bed and sleep for days. She was still tired, still aching from . . . everything. But her face hurt worst of all. She traced the line of the welt in the dark: swollen and tender. Bherijda’s men might recognize her by it even if they didn’t know her by sight. Could she avoid them as well as her father’s men?

  Oressa suddenly found herself too paralyzed with fear and uncertainty to move. She wanted to tuck herself down again among the pigeons and hide and wait for someone else to do something and solve everything. She wished Gulien were here. Her brother was too calm sometimes, but now there was hardly anyone she wanted more. Or she wished Gajdosik were here. He would have some ideas about what to do.

  But hiding in the aviary among the pigeons for the rest of her life didn’t seem like a very good plan.

  In the end she took her hair down and arranged it as well as she could to fall across her cheek. If she kept her face down, she thought maybe the welt wouldn’t be instantly obvious. There was no mirror, of course, so she couldn’t be sure. But surely it was late enough that even the servants would mostly have gone to bed?

  It was long past dusk, she found, when she finally left the aviary. Most of the lamps had been put out even in the servants’ narrow hallways, which meant she had been right and all the late work was done. She wondered whether she might risk ducking into the kitchens just for a moment, but the kitchen staff would start the bread long before dawn and might already be mixing the dough, and anyway she thought maybe some of the potboys and scullions might actually sleep in the kitchens, under the tables or somewhere. She went the other way, keeping carefully to the servants’ halls and stairs. After all her worry about her face, she met no one. She heard people several times, the booted tread of guardsmen or soldiers, but each time she was able to keep out of their way. Once she heard the murmur of voices, but though she paused to listen, she couldn’t make out the words.

  She slipped at last out of the palace into the starlit dark of the east courtyard. She thought there had to be guardsmen posted somewhere, but she didn’t see them; she thought there might be Tamaristan soldiers, but she didn’t see them, either. Creeping around drew attention, so she took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and walked straight across the courtyard to the gates. Nobody seemed to be watching. Maybe all of her father’s and Bherijda’s men were busy spying on one another and couldn’t spare the time to actually guard the palace. She passed through the gates and darted through the shadows, away from the palace she knew so well and into the city she didn’t know at all.

  CHAPTER 22

  Gulien, unable to even think of following his sister out the window, sent one swift, speaking look at Prince Gajdosik. Then, since he had no choice, he turned to face the door. He put his father’s anger and disgust out of his mind, or he tried to. Surely this could not actually be his father returning. He’d said he was leaving Caras, leaving Bherijda’s men in occupation. Of the palace, of Caras. But Bherijda himself was leaving as well; they might already be gone.

  All this went through Gulien’s mind in a single heartbeat. Straightening his shoulders, he folded his arms and fixed his thoughts firmly on the surety of his own rank and authority.

  The door swung open.

  Kedmes stepped in. But behind him, confounding all of Gulien’s half-formed expectations, stood Lord Paulin Tegeres, and behind Paulin, some number of men all wearing, so far as Gulien could see, the fox badge of the Tegeres house.

  Osir Madalin’s burly servant could hardly be browbeaten or overawed or least of all suborned. Kedmes took his orders and his tone only from the king and regarded the king’s son, as nearly as Gulien could tell, as a boy of little account. When Gulien had usurped, or attempted to usurp, his father’s authority, surely no man in Caras had resented it more than Kedmes.

  On the other hand, Gulien was clearly not chained up like a dog. And so far as Kedmes knew, only the king himself could have locked or unlocked the chain. Gulien saw the man’s eyes go from Gulien to the chain and back again, his brows drawing together in bafflement.

  “Well, well,” Lord Paulin said, puffing slightly with a hasty climb up all the stairs. He also glanced at the chain and then at Gulien standing plainly unbound in the center of the room. “It seems our understanding of, ah, recent events, might have been less than entirely clear. We’re relieved to see you, ah, in good health, aren’t we, men?” He glanced over his shoulder at his men, who obediently murmured agreement.

  “Of course. Thank you, my lord,” Gulien said, and asked immediately before Kedmes could interrupt, “Has my father yet departed?”

  “Ah yes, well, I believe His Majesty’s company has probably just departed the forecourt.”

  Ah. And Paulin had clearly rushed up the tower stairs the moment they had gone, Gulien realized and reassessed the older man.

  Paulin, still puffing, pressed a hand to his heart. But he said almost smoothly, “So I imagine they will be out of the city in mere moments. Though a swift-footed young person, unlike myself, might be able to bear a message to His Majesty fo
r you, if that is what you wish.” His tone on this was bland, but his gaze was shrewd.

  “No, no, that should not be necessary,” Gulien said, then added, with an eye to Kedmes, “I believe my father and I have a clear understanding of our necessary course of action.” He wondered, rather desperately, what “course of action” this might plausibly be.

  Kedmes began, “I will go—”

  “I wouldn’t put you to the trouble,” Gulien assured him.

  “Ah yes,” agreed Lord Paulin. “That is, no, of course not. Rias.” He addressed one of his own men. “I’m sure none of His Majesty’s servants need trouble themselves to run messages; if anyone must, I’m sure you can find a fast young man among our own people. Good, good, yes, I was certain of it.” His tone hearty, he turned back to Gulien. “Well, Your Highness, and what course of action might you—and your father, of course—have in mind, in this exigency? The palace is still occupied by upward of forty Tamaristan soldiers, I believe—and if there are less than two thousand out there in the city, there surely aren’t less than a thousand, and even that’s too many for us to easily be rid of them.”

  “Yes,” Gulien said, and looked at Prince Gajdosik.

  Gajdosik straightened and set his elbow on the arm of his chair, the iron chain clattering with the movement. He no longer appeared in the least weary or disheartened but filled with confidence and purpose.

  This was an impression Gulien much admired and wished he knew how to emulate. He said, as decisively as he could, “Your Highness, if you have a suggestion, then by all means.”

  Gajdosik gave a grim nod. “Your Highness, as you have done me the honor to ask for my advice, I must agree that the first order of business, as your father has now succeeded in removing Bherijda from Caras, is to clear the city of my brother’s remaining men. Though the soldiers are important, I must reiterate that Bherijda’s magisters should be your primary concern.”