The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War #2)(75)
We walk across the plaza beneath the watchful gaze of sentries on the walls of the Marsail keep. Guards look down from the turrets of Milano House too, the stone pavilion where the heir sits among his luxuries, waiting for Grandmother to die. Uncle Hertet rarely leaves Milano House, and when he does the sun paints him as old as the Red Queen, and less hale.
Heat suffuses the boy and I bathe in it, remembering what it’s like to be truly warm. My hand grows sweaty within Mother’s grasp, but neither the boy nor I wish to let go. She’s new to me again, this lost mother of mine with her skin the colour of tea and her talent for hearing silent voices. I may be older, changed by the years into something very different from the boy trailing in her wake—but I have no intention of letting go.
Jally’s thinking of the blind-eye woman and that touch of hers which stole his senses and left him dark for so long. The fear she puts in him is like pollution in a clear spring. It’s wrong and it makes me angry, an unconflicted rage of a kind I’ve not felt in a long time—perhaps since I last knew my mother’s hand was there for the taking. The shadow of the Inner Palace falls across us and I realize that I’ve lost all recollection of this visit that now unfolds before me. The story I’ve told myself so often is that after presentation to the Red Queen at the age of five it wasn’t until the age of thirteen that I came before her again, a formal introduction at the Saturnalia feast with my brothers and cousins whispering at the margins of the great hall, Martus seeking takers for his bet that I would faint again.
We pass the looming facade of the Inner Palace and keep going.
“Grandmother lives in there . . .” Jally points back to the golden portals of the Red Queen’s palace.
“We’re seeing her in the Julian Palace.”
The building in question rises before us across the broad square dedicated to our nation’s many victories. The Poor Palace everyone calls it. A foolish number of years ago it was the seat of kings, then some name I’ve forgotten decided it wasn’t good enough for him and built a better roof over his throne. So now it houses impoverished aristocrats who’ve thrown themselves upon the Red Queen’s mercy. Lords who’ve fallen on hard times and are too old or too inbred to mend their fortunes, generals who’ve grown ancient while putting young men in the ground, even a duke ruined by gambling debts—a cautionary tale to be sure.
We climb the steps to the great doors, Mother waiting patiently as Jally labours up them, his legs—my legs—a touch too short to take them in his stride, though mostly it’s reluctance that holds him back. The doors themselves tower into the shadowed heights beneath the portico, huge slabs of rosewood depicting, in inlaid brass, the long march of our people from the east to claim the promised lands as the shadows of a thousand suns retreated. The red march that gave our kingdom its name.
Two guards, half-plate gleaming, elaborate poleaxes held to the side, blades skyward, affect not to notice us, though Mother has married a son of the queen. They’re Grandmother’s personal guard, loath to show deference to anyone but her. They’re also a sign that she might truly be waiting for us in the Poor Palace.
The left door opens on noiseless hinges as we approach, just wide enough for us to slip within, a grudging acknowledgment of our right to enter. Inside we pause, sun-blind in the comparative gloom of the reception hall. As my vision clears I see at the far end of the foyer an old man, bent by age but very tall. He shambles toward us from the bank of votive candles by the opposite wall. His tunic is mis-tied and grey from too many washes, the stubble of his beard white against dark red skin. He seems uncertain.
“Come away, Ullamere.” A young woman, a nurse maybe, comes from the far doorway and steers the ancient out of sight. As he turns a pale scar is revealed, so broad I can see it even at this distance, running from the bridge of his nose past the corner of his mouth.
Mother turns from the aisle of marble columns, from the mosaiced splendour of the floor, and takes a small, unguarded arch leading onto a tight spiral of steps. Winding our way up the stairs makes me dizzy. Jally counts them to keep his fear at bay, but the Silent Sister’s colourless face keeps surfacing between the numbers. I hate her on his account with an intensity I’ve never quite managed on my own.
“A hundred and seven!” And we’re there, a small landing, a heavy oak door, a narrow window showing only sky. I know it for the tower room atop the western spire, one of two rising spear-like above the entrance to the Poor Palace. This is deduction rather than experience for I’ve never climbed these steps—or at least I had thought that I hadn’t until this moment of recollection.
“Wait here, Jalan.” Mother directs me to one of the two high-backed chairs to the side of the entrance. I clamber into the seat, too nervous to complain, and the door opens. Just like the grand portals this door opens narrowly—few doors it seems are flung wide in royal circles—this one reveals the angular features of Nanna Willow. Mother slips through and the old woman closes the door behind her, shooting me a hard look through the thinning gap. Clunk—and I’m alone on the landing.
I say the boy and I share nothing save a name . . . but he’s off that chair and crouched with his ear to the door fast enough. I would perhaps have been slower, more scared of being caught, but I’d have listened even so!
“—why make me bring Jalan? You know how badly he reacted when—”