Articles
4th Day of Opening
There were lights again at dawn, high up, above the towers that face south. I saw them as I did yesterday, from the window as I rose with candle to set her highness’s materials for study and to make sure that the fire had been set in the grates. In truth, I had no reason to go out onto the balcony. The season has lent the breeze of the first hours an edge of ice that would have kept most inside. I took one of her highness’s gowns – the fur-edged blue that her aunt wishes her to grow into but which she is years off using as anything but a tent – and slipped through the doors. The dark struck me before the light. The sky was clear and bright above, though the sun had yet to break the horizon. There was no light beneath the sky though, just a bruised shadow of night clinging to the ground. The higher towers were still not tall enough to catch the dawn, but there were lights there, just above their summits. They glimmered, and their colours changed between each wink.
I felt something hit my leg hard. I looked down and saw that I had walked into the stone balustrade that runs around the edge of the balcony. My feet had moved and I had not been aware of it. The lights were not there when I looked up again. I felt relief and then anger – sudden and sharp as a hook – that they were not there for me to see. I rubbed my leg and withdrew back inside so that I could attend to her highness’s needs once she woke.
Night of the 5th Day of Opening.
I find myself going to the window of my room and looking up to where the towers are. There is no way that I can see them, hidden as they are by the bulk of the palace. But I look all the same. I have tried to sleep, but the writing of these words is the consequence of my failure. I feel a tug to return again to the window, and look up towards the towers and see lights burn above them like candles. I will resist. I will try to sleep again.
6th Day of Opening
There has been some disturbance in the lower part of the palace. I try to talk as little as I must with those of the lower tiers, but some occasions demand it. The water for her highness’s bathing was late, and so I was present when the water bearer arrived. They were not the usual factotum, but older and without the correct signifiers. I queried this. They looked at me with what I would swear was a note of derision. They said that they were a corridor ward, but had taken on the duty after the previous bearers had left.
Left, I queried?
Yes, they replied. After the dispute, they left. I had not been down to the lower levels for a long time, and I had no interest in the petty politics and arguments amongst the various orders that served there. I said as much.
The water bearer laughed, and there was unkindness in the sound, perhaps even scorn. This was nothing petty, they said, unless I counted petty a third of the serving staff refusing to remain in the palace and leaving in the space of two days. I said that this surely could not have been allowed.
The warders had tried to stop it, they said. Someone had died. That had not stemmed the tide, apparently. In fact, those wanting to leave had felt emboldened and forced their way free. I knew that I should not be having such a conversation, let alone asking for more details, but I confess to these pages that I wondered aloud what reason could so many have to show such disregard to duty, and loyalty to the thrones?
The water bearer gave me a long look, and then said that it was the dreams, of course, the dreams of stars and crows.
I had no notion of what they spoke of, and said so. They did not answer except with another look, and then turned and left. I stood and stared for what might have been minutes. Not because of the affront of their lack of manners, but because of the look in their eyes before they turned their back. Contempt echoed in that look, contempt and disbelief that any one in this palace can sleep at night and not dream of crows and stars. They knew that I had lied.
7th Day of Opening
I have woken earlier than my duties required. There were no candles lit in the senior attendants’ quarters, and all my contemporaries still slumber. Those on night attendance will not be descending to sleep until the dawn call. The day demands much, and I should place my head down again and close my eyes even if sleep does not come. Yet, I find myself thinking that it is only a short walk to the stairs, and from the top of the stairs to the balconies that give a view of the high towers. I wonder if lights burn above them now. I should sleep, but I very much want to go and see.
There was no one in the under-levels when I went down to fetch the milk for the mistress’s sunlight repast. The storekeepers were not there, and it seemed that there had been commotion, because some of those stores were spilled on the floor: dried fruits scattered like coins beside tumbled jars, a wheel of cheese set on its edge, flour blowing in the draft from an unlocked door. I found the milk in a cold store. It was from two days past but still fresh. I will find one of the senior superintendents when I return to the upper reaches and tell them.
Night of the 6th Day of Opening
I reported what I found to one of the superintendents. They listened to my report and reassured me that the matter would be resolved, and said that I was not to trouble myself further. They seemed sincere, but I was not wholly reassured. The pupils in their eyes were too wide, and in the time we talked they did not blink.
7th Day of Opening
It is the small hours. I write this by candle though I should have struck no light in my chambers and would be censured for doing so. I have not slept. I do not wish to close my eyes, even though fatigue drags at me. Stars shine behind my eyelids when they close, hanging in the dark as though their light reaches me through stone and flesh. They are gone when I open my eyes. If I were to go outside to one of the balconies, what would I see? Are the stars burning above the tower tops? Or are they here, waiting in the dark before sleep? I do not wish to sleep, but sleep has its hand on me and pulls me to it.
Note:
The journal that contained these entries was in the possession of a trader who had bartered and brought them from the south. Mixed in with them were skeins of cloth, bowls, trinkets, and other worthless spoil that the trader clearly felt held the true value. The pages were damaged and most of the rest of the journal was absent. Likely the missing pages were lost in the looting of the palace’s lower levels and their journey in less than caring hands. The identity of the writer remains unknown, as does the mistress she served. Though, of all things, the mention of the fur edge cloak of blue indicates that she might be the principal attendant to the Eighth in line. If that is the case, then the existence of these pages might indicate that their writer survived, and her royal charge with her.
K.V.
Edited by Greg Smith
Written without AI
