“You are of Mount Eskel,” the king said slowly, “and I have reason to favor your province of late. So I will ask you politely. Who sponsors this charter?”
Katar looked into the Court Gallery. There was no movement.
The king swung around. “Who dared this yearling to present such a betrayal? Who challenges the power of the crown? Who?”
The members of court all seemed to have loose threads on their cuffs or pieces of fluff on their skirts that required immediate examining.
The queen stood. She was up behind the king, and with the members of court occupied with threads and fluff, no one saw her.
Speak, Miri quarry-spoke. The word traveled through the stone, slick as a fish in water, and though Miri knew the queen would not understand, perhaps she could feel the rumblings of support through the linder at her feet.
Speak, said Esa, with an image of the time Miri spoke up to the village council.
Speak, said Frid, and Gerti and Katar too.
Speak, came the soundless voices of the academy girls. It was a word of encouragement—a mother bird chirping to her young to flap their wings; a child impatient at a window, wishing for spring.
Miri saw Britta silently mouth the word. Speak.
The queen took one step forward.
“I do,” she said, as quiet as a feather lands.
“What?” The king whirled in his chair to face her. “Did you say something in my Delegate House?”
His wife flinched. She glanced up at something on the wall that Miri could not see, but it appeared to give her courage. Her shoulders straightened, and she nodded.
“I sponsor this charter.”
The king looked about as if for something to hit. Queen Sabet descended the steps and grabbed his hand, holding it between both of hers. Miri noticed for the first time just how beautiful the queen was. She wore a deep purple dress, embroidered along the hems and sleeves with white flowers. Her black hair was up, also stuck with white flowers and a graceful plume. Gems sparkled at her ears and throat. Even in that crowded room, she stood out. And Miri realized that she must have chosen her attire with that intention. She had not come to the Delegate House to be forgotten in the corner. She had come to speak.
“It’s for you,” the queen said in a whisper, perhaps believing no one else could hear. But the rotunda picked up the sound and trilled the echo to the entire chamber. “Because I love Danland, and you are Danland. Because I love you, Bjorn.”
The king stared at her. The room was silent.
“Do you wish to voice displeasure?” the chief delegate asked the king.
Katar had said that if the king voiced displeasure for any motion and the delegation’s vote was not unanimous, the king had the right to remove the motion entirely.
“No,” he said, and leaned back heavily in his chair.
He knows, Miri thought. In order to preserve the monarchy, he must bend.
So the delegation debate began. It was not slow and accommodating as before. It was choppy and violent as a river thrashing white against rocks. Miri could barely follow the debate. It became noise to her, just cries in the air. The strain of waiting almost hurt, and she wished they would just vote.
Every person in the Commoner Gallery was standing up, many on tiptoe. The copies of the charter were passed from one to the next with a hungry urgency. The crowd seethed with energy and anticipation, their power like that of an ax raised up, poised to fall.
What would happen if the vote failed? Miri moved again toward the royal guards by the door. If she warned them, perhaps they could defend the Delegate House from an outside attack.
Messengers were sprinting now between the Commoner Gallery and outside. The leaders of the blue-banded would wait till the vote, Miri hoped. Moments after the charter failed, the thousands of commoners outside would know, and the delegates might as well throw a firebrand onto a heap of straw.
This is the spark, Miri thought. She had created the spark for the revolution after all—the commoners would be enraged at the nobles for voting down the charter and so decidedly denying them rights. War would begin. And it would begin with killing, just as Sisela had predicted.
Miri reached the nearest guard.
“Sir,” she whispered, “I’m worried the crowds will turn violent.”
He tilted his head, meaning he could not hear her.
“Sir,” she said more loudly.
He shook his head and put a finger to his lips, and his attention returned to the delegates. She realized the guard must be a commoner and as eager to follow the debate as any.
“Please,” she said. “It will be a massacre. They’ll kill the king and the delegates and—”
“A vote!” the chief delegate cried. “A vote. Lords and ladies, rise if you support this charter.”
Not yet! Miri was not ready. Nothing was ready. She saw Katar stand and raise her hand to vote. Another female delegate followed, and a man with white at his temples. Three. Three of sixteen. That was nowhere near a majority! Miri stumbled forward, hoping to reach Britta and warn her to get Steffan away. Walking through the chamber was like trying to run underwater. The press of bodies was hot and tight, and she could no longer see the delegation table or the Court Gallery. Suddenly the noise level rose with shouts of surprise and alarm.
“Britta!” she cried, but the clamor doused any sound from her mouth.
The doors from outside flung open, and more blue-banded commoners pressed into the chamber. Miri choked back a scream. She pushed harder through the people and the noise that echoed off the rotunda in an ear-shattering shriek. The bedlam made her feel tipsy, as if she were on a ship. The shouts were high and tense, like the call of gulls. The shoves tore at her like wind.
She squeezed between two large men who were yelling with fists pumping the air, and suddenly the delegation table was before her. None of the delegates had been killed yet. She counted—sixteen, all standing there.
Sixteen. Standing.
Miri looked again. Yes, they were standing, each with the right hand raised in unanimous vote. Many of them were smiling. The shouts from the Commoner Gallery wound up the walls like smoke, and she recognized now the tones not of terror but of jubilation. They deepened, heightened, cheers rolling over cheers.
The chief delegate was speaking to the king, who nodded solemnly. The nobility in the Court Gallery looked stunned, even angry. But the delegates—nobles themselves—seemed relieved. Miri wondered if they had considered such a charter in the past, but had not dared.
Katar broke from the table and ran straight to Miri.
“It passed?” Miri asked, yearning for it to be true but too afraid to believe.
Katar nodded, her smile huge and dimpled. She clenched Miri in an embrace so tight Miri coughed for lack of breath. She just needs practice, Miri thought. Miri squeezed her back.
As if by some signal, the cheering slowed and then silenced. The building was full to bursting, hundreds of blue-banded commoners filling the floor and entrance. A commoner near the king bowed. Then he turned to face the queen and lowered one knee to the floor. In silence, hundreds of commoners did likewise—a bow to the king, a knee to the queen.
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.”
Pede
r 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?”