Palace of Stone (28 page)

The queen’s hand rose to her mouth, her eyes wet. She looked back up at the wall.

Miri was close enough now to glimpse what the queen was seeing. It was a portrait of Queen Gertrud.

Chapter Twenty-four

Mud in the stream

And earth in the air

Clay in my ears

And stone in my stare

I’m on the mountain

But the mount’s in me

I can’t shake the dust

I won’t wash it free

The charter, it seemed, was the only possible topic of conversation in Asland, and most especially in the Queen’s Castle. Some seemed terrified of the changes, some confused, but most could not stop exclaiming with wonder and delight.

The latest news caused a stir in Master Filippus’s class: Britta’s family’s lands, seized by the crown when they lost their noble titles, were being put to immediate use. Queen Sabet had ordered the property sold and the proceeds used to build schools in Asland. Children who attended would be fed two meals during the school day, to encourage their parents to send them to studies instead of work.

But the change that most often brought an unbidden smile to Miri’s lips was the release from current tributes. Each province would elect a commoner to the delegation, and Miri felt hopeful that whatever tributes the new delegation approved would be fair.

Her eyes lifted to the painting on the classroom wall. Since their course on Art, Miri understood how remarkable it was that the painter had chosen a commoner girl as a worthy subject for a masterwork. Why had Miri ever assumed the girl felt trapped? She seemed content now, pouring milk in her little house. Couldn’t a girl just admire a moon from time to time?

Master Filippus was saying again how the Danlandian charter was unprecedented, that there was no correlation in history. That they were
making
history.

Miri wished he would ask that ethics question again.
Which would you save, the murderer or the painting?
She knew her answer now: both. She would find a way.
Which do you choose, the princess or the revolution?
Both. Who says it has to be one or the other?

Where will you live, Asland or home?

Miri took the long way through the palace grounds to stop by the forge.

“Frid!” she called. The noise was as deafening as in a quarry. She tried quarry-speech, doubting it would carry with no linder underfoot. But whether she heard or not, Frid stopped pounding on a red-hot metal bar and looked up.

“Hello, Miri.” She stuck the bar in a bucket of water with a fizzle and a puff of steam, and then held it up. “Like my sword?”

One of the men working near her laughed.

“If that’s a sword, mountain sister, then you’re the princess,” he said.

A strapping boy dropped his tongs and stalked over to the man, his chest puffed up. “Frid’s work is better than your sloppy denting.”

“That’s right,” said another boy. “She’s … she’s perfect!” And he blushed.

“Ease up, you bunch of lumps,” Frid said sweetly.

She took off her leather apron and walked with Miri to get away from the noise. Miri glanced back and noticed several of the forge boys still watching Frid.

“A nice group?” Miri asked.

“Nice as they come. A couple keep giving me flowers.” Frid laughed as if it were an excellent joke.

“I just heard the trader wagons are leaving in the morning,” said Miri. “Bena has decided to go back with them. I think she’s annoyed that Liana is getting married but no one has asked for her hand. Get Bena any letters before she goes.”

Miri had a stack of letters for Marda written over the past months, but still not one she felt good about sending. How could she explain all that had happened? How could she comfort them that she would be home soon when she was not certain herself?

“I can’t believe the year’s half over already,” Frid said, wiping her sweaty face with a handkerchief gray with use. “Remember how we sat up in our room at first, afraid to go outside and get run over by a carriage? Asland’s a lot tamer than a mountain, if you ask me. No wolves, no she-cats, no bandits, no rocks falling on your head—unless you’re an assassin.”

“Naturally. Asland is downright dangerous if you’re an assassin.” Miri’s smile broke. “Frid, will you stay here?”

“Tonight? Don’t be silly. I like the forge well enough but I’m not going to sleep in it. I’ll be back before bedtime.”

“No, I meant in the fall when we … when the rest of the girls return to Mount Eskel. Will you stay in Asland?”

The original invitation had been for only the one year, but Miri knew Britta would welcome her friends to stay indefinitely.

Frid’s wide-open eyes opened a little wider. “Why would I do that?”

“Well, you seem so happy working in the forge. With your new friends.”

“Sure, I like the boys well enough. We have some laughs. But Mount Eskel is home.”

Miri nodded.

“And just think, if I set up a forge on the mountain,” said Frid, “we could make and fix our own tools!”

Her mouth opened with the happy thought, and she forgot to say good-bye before returning to her anvil.

When Miri arrived at the girls’ chamber, Esa and Gerti were gathering letters and gifts for their families and pressing Bena with instructions to deliver love and hugs and kisses.

“I’ll take your letters,” said Bena, “but I’m
not
kissing anyone.” She paused. “Except Frid’s brothers. The younger ones. And only if they beg. If you’re all so homesick, why not just come with me?”

“I’m not quite ready yet,” Gerti said, plucking a lute string.

Esa put her hand on her hip. “You realize lowlanders have known for
centuries
how to care for the sick? Centuries! You think I’m going to leave before I learn as much as I can? When I think of it, my blood just
boils ….
”

“Great, there she goes again,” Bena whispered.

“
You
set her off,” Gerti whispered back.

Miri sat down for the fifth time that week to write another letter home, but her thoughts were a snarl too thick to unpick. She was not ready yet either—to go home or not to go home. She needed to find her words.

It was late when she entered Gus’s courtyard. Peder was leaning against a stone as white as the moon. It could only be linder. He was reading a sheet of paper, his brow furrowed. She did not want to startle away the line between his eyes, the way his lips slowly moved as if sounding out the words of his thoughts. So she stood and watched him for a few moments.

Then she lay her hand on the linder and quarry-spoke the memory of the first time she had come to see him.
I am here.

He looked up. As much as she’d enjoyed his thoughtful expression, it got even better when he saw her. His eyes took up his smile.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello. How are you feeling?”

“What, this old thing?” he said, lifting his shirt part-way to reveal the pink scar on his middle. “I only got it to look manly. We warriors call them ‘manly marks.’”

“You let a lead ball go through your belly so you could look tough, did you?”

“But of course. Why else would I leap in front of a shooting musket?”

Miri hoped she knew why, but the words were too precious to speak aloud.

“What were you reading?” she asked instead.

“A letter to home. I’ve rewritten it a dozen times already. It’s a tricky thing to express nearly six months in one letter. It’s hard to know what to say—”

“And what not to say.”

“Exactly.”

They sat on the linder block and stared at the moon. She knew from her Astronomy studies that the moon was a huge ball of rock that reflected the sun’s light. Marda would see that exact moon tonight. Miri knew she would not think about rock and reflected light but about a little sister who was far away and yet under the same moon.

“Timon told me how sailors navigate by the stars,” Miri said. “I’m glad to know it, though I’d rather not be reminded of him every time I look at the night sky.”

“Did you like him?”

Miri was surprised by the question, but she tried to answer honestly. “There were moments when I thought about it.”

Timon’s touch, his kiss, had felt good, and that goodness made her believe her feelings had been true.

“But when he wasn’t around, I didn’t talk to him in my head, like I do with you. For a few weeks, I wasn’t sure what I felt. But now everything seems so clear, I can’t believe I was ever unsure.”

Peder did not say anything. Miri hesitated, then chose her words carefully.

“I’m sure about you,” Miri said. “But I’m not sure … not sure if
you’re
sure about me.”

Peder tilted his head to the side. “Of course I am.”

“You are? But … so often here you’ve been distant with me.”

He twisted a rag in his hands. “I have been anxious about using my time well. You’re the only person who cares if I become a sculptor, and I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“I’m sorry, Peder,” she said, a sting of loneliness in her chest. “I didn’t want to burden you with expectation. I know how that feels.”

“I do want to be good at carving, Miri,” he said. “For you, but for me too. When I’m carving, I feel more like myself than ever, more like I matter. When I’m carving
and
when I’m with you. I assumed you knew that.”

Miri laughed, mostly from nerves. “Boys need to talk more. Boys need to say things and not assume things. You and my pa and Steffan and everyone, you’re going to make us girls insane!”

“No more insane than you already make us,” he said.

“Fair enough.” She looked down, running her finger over a silver vein in the linder. “I am of age for betrothal, you know.”

“Oh?” he said, polishing the stone with a cloth.

She sighed in exasperation. “I’m of age, and you haven’t asked me to be your betrothed.”

He looked up, his eyes wide. “You want to get married right now? In Asland?”

“No! No, but you know that when a girl and boy are fond enough of each other that they might want to wed one day, they make promises. Then they have to wait at least a year to test those promises and make certain they mean them before they marry—at least a year, though they can wait as long as they like—but the promises are customary, and … you’re looking at me as if I’m speaking in ancient Rilamarkian. You can’t possibly not know this.”

“Maybe I did. I never really thought about it.”

He was the oldest child in his family, and no one close to him had ever wed. Perhaps he had never cared enough about weddings and betrothals to pay any attention.

She sighed again, this time with slightly less exasperation. “Peder, I like you better than anyone I’ve ever known. Someday I want to have a house with you. I want to teach in the village school and gather the stories of Mount Eskel and then come home to you in the evening and see what you’ve carved and talk about the day. In other words, I want to marry you, Peder. Eventually. In the meantime, I promise to be faithful, to always tell you the truth, and to share my heart with you alone. Will you accept my betrothal?”

Peder was on his feet. “Whoa! Did we just get betrothed?”

“No. For one thing, you haven’t accepted.”

Peder forced himself to sit back down. Miri felt sick, but she waited, counting the loud beats of her heart. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. How much silence would she have to bear? When could she run away?

Peder looked at his shaking hands and laughed, holding them out for Miri to see. “When we go back home, don’t tell Jans and Almond that I got so nervous. They’ll make fun of me till I’m gray haired, I know they will.”

He looked at her, shook his head incredulously, and started polishing the stone again.

Miri was pretty well done with silence.

“Peder, you have to answer me before my heart dies in my chest and plops onto the ground!”

“Answer you? About … Oh, I have to say yes? Well, yes, of course. And I promise the same things back to you.” He smiled in his way, one side of his mouth pulling higher. “That wasn’t so bad. I think my hands have stopped shaking.”

He lifted them again. She took hold.

“Isn’t someone supposed to witness the vows or something?” he asked.

“Our fathers. The head of the village council can stand in for a father, and so can a priest or …” She’d looked up this detail in the Queen’s Castle library, though she decided to omit that confession. “Or the king.”

“We could ask the king,” said Peder. “He sort of owes you his life.”

“Perhaps ….” Now that she knew Peder’s thoughts, the rush fell away. “But it might be nice to wait.”

“Let our fathers do it at home,” he said.

“Exactly.”

“All right, we’ll make it official in the fall.” Peder grinned. “It feels like a big deal, doesn’t it?”