The hall was empty.
As was the one after that.
Still, I found myself walking quickly, expecting something terrible to be ongoing somewhere.The first sea dogs I encountered in the silence were in the third hallway I entered.One was a man grown, lying face down, whispering into the floor.Another was sitting with his knees pulled in—the way I’d sat as a girl when I’d felt most alone and needed to cry.His face was pressed into his knees, and he kept one hand raised in the air above him.His other hand slowly rubbed the back of his neck.A woman I didn’t notice right away was standing in the distance, her back pressed into a pillar, her eyes closed, her lips moving as if she were speaking but no sound was coming out.
I was afraid to pass them, thinking it might be some kind of trap or trick, or that disturbing them might anger them somehow, as whatever they were doing seemed specific and intentional.I exited that hall through a door that didn’t require I approach them, hoping to continue in my original direction, just one room over.I intended to make my way back to Loric’s gold in case the sudden quiet meant something as troublesome as I expected.Thieves were known to be quiet, after all.
My hopes were quickly dashed, for that room was occupied as well.The sea dogs were sitting, lying, lounging—all with eyes closed or hidden—some moving to a personal rhythm, their shoulders swaying or else their heads twisting toward one ear and then the other.Some sea dogs rocked back and forth, some kept their hands away from their bodies, weaving nothingness in the air.Some remained as still as statues.
I hurried back the way I’d come, thinking to go in the opposite direction, hoping to find a way to loop around—even if I had to go outside into the late autumn cold and enter in through another door.A single woman was in the next hall I encountered.She held a thick branch so that one end touched the floor and the other pointed to the ceiling, and she kept her forehead pressed against the top of the stick, meaning she was bent at a strange angle.She walked her legs around the stick so her body moved in a circle as the stick spun in place, whispering a song to herself the whole time.
I froze, unable to deal with any more unusual sights.Whatever part of me felt surprise was exhausted.It could be surprised no more, or so I thought.
“Psst,” came a voice from down the hall behind me.I turned in a hurry, confused by my body for a moment, as I usually couldn’t physically respond so quickly due to the weight of the gown I typically wore.
Jorn the Calm was leaning out a partially open door down the hall.He waved me toward him, and I gripped the keys in my hand tighter, taking a step back, before halting and deciding—in an animalistic way, with the feeling of my stomach only—to go toward him.King Arik has given him many palace keys, I told myself once I was walking.He was a friend of the king.His good opinion could only help me in my aims.And he cried when he heard my song, I reasoned.A man who understood music was less terrifying to me than one who didn’t.He was also the only person I’d seen not in a strange position since the silence had spread through the palace.
As I got closer, my woollen socks silent on the blood-red rug, he held open the door for me to enter beneath his arm.I did, feeling a wash of shame for coming so close to him.
He’s the only person moving like normal, I told the shame.It was not settled.I have no sense of how other people’s shame works, but mine has never responded to reason.
I moved a comfortable distance away from him, noticing a scar that cut through his eyebrow which I hadn’t noticed in our previous meeting.His face was just as empathetic and soothing as it had been the evening before.I was struck instantly by cold as the room was open to the sky above with dark brown—almost black—vines along the walls scrambling atop each other to reach for the sunlight.Dried yellow leaves were scattered across the floor, presumably having fallen off the vine.A simple worktable stood in the centre of the small courtyard, several bronze ringed contraptions set atop it.
“I speak small Islish,” Jorn the Calm said, his voice thick and rich.Warm with near-laughter.“Moon quiet creates Norsern quiet.”He held up his thumb and pointing finger, keeping them close together as if there were a coin or something else little between them.“Small scary.”
I nodded and nearly laughed.“Yes.”The sea dogswerescarier when they were silent.
Jorn the Calm pulled out a chair for me with an exaggerated sweeping of his arms.There was an ease in accepting the seat.Dayne often pulled out my chair back home as my arms usually ached by dinner from the weight of my gown.I sat, dipping my head in polite thanks, just as I would to a gentlesir back home.But maybe the ease also came because he had implied he wasn’t a sea dog—and by looking at him—the darkness of his hair, the golden tan of his skin, his black eyes—this appeared to be true.We were thesotern.The two who were not sea dogs, and even though we weren’t from the same country, our differences set us together somewhat.
He presented me with a thick wool blanket which I quickly wrapped around myself.He then rested an embroidered napkin on the table just to the right of me, and pushed a small plate toward my place at the table.I could tell by looking at the baked fare that it would be sweet—it had the glaze that came with honey.Sweet foods were against prescription, only to be indulged in on days after fasts or before repetitions.
There were serious prescriptions and ones that some people on the Isle disregarded.The prescriptions on sweet foods were often ignored.And no one was there to see other than a heathen, so I abided not.I deserved a treat after all the chaos, did I not?
Jorn smiled; it wasn’t entirely a happy smile, but it wasn’t entirely sad either.He walked to the other side of the little table and sat in his own chair, his gloved fingers finding work with his bronze contraptions: plates of varying sizes that were pinned together so each could turn without causing the others to spin.He moved one layer at a time with meticulous care, holding it against the sky above him and staring at it, sometimes for so long he seemed frozen.Then he would set the bronze contraptions back on the table and make further adjustments.
It was a pleasant way to spend a few hours—eating honeyed bread which Jorn replenished the moment the plate was nearing empty, along with a second plate of apple slices and a goblet of water.And when those had been devoured, a plate of soft cheese, cranberry bread, and a cup of nettle tea.I ate, and he fiddled with his metal objects as the sea dogs in the palace around us kept their eyes covered and mumbled their chants in response to the moon.
I was lulled into a sleepy comfort, my stomach finally full, my throat refreshed from the tea, my stress eased by the repetition of Jorn’s work, by the calmness of him.I was so very tired that I might have fallen asleep, only Jorn finished with his bronze plates and stacked them carefully beneath the smallest awning I’d ever seen.He then pulled out the velvet pouch I’d noticed the first evening I’d met him, and I grew alert.
The bag is giggling, I thought to myself.Just like the sea dogs.
The bag itself wasn’t giggling out loud, but it had thefeelingof giggling.Like something inside was eager to come out.That was the hum-feeling, that’s what seemed so similar to the vault back home…
Jorn pulled at the drawstrings to open the pouch and tilted it toward me.He lifted the bag, once, twice, three times before I understood the gesture meant he wanted me to reach within.I did so, remembering the polish of the stones, certain they would feel as smooth to the touch as they looked.
Eeeeeeeek.It wasn’t my thought.It was the stone’s.
I jumped, dropping the pebble onto the table.It shimmied the faintest bit, causing my eyes to strain.I rubbed my brows, and when I took my hand away, the stone was still and quiet, as I had been finding stones were all my life.Maybe I’m just remembering how they appeared when I was still recovering from my fever, I thought.
Atop the stone was an engraved and painted mark, a diamond shape with a line cutting through it.I assumed it was a sea dog letter, and in a sense, it was, but it was also many other things.
Jorn was smiling when I looked up at him.He shook the pouch and reached into it himself, pulling out a pebble and placing it on the table next to the one I had drawn.This one had a single black dot on it.His brow furrowed gently as he stared at the pair.
He shook the pouch for me again, and I drew another stone.There was nothing that indicated it was anything other than a stone in my hand.I set the cool, smooth round on the table next to Jorn’s placement.
I searched his face, filled with yearning.It was approval I was after, which you may think me foolish or weak for.I do not view it this way.Approval was my method of survival for a great many years.And more than that, it is a gentle approach to get what one wants.There are far courser ways and, as you know, I have had my turn with them as well.
We alternated setting stones on the table, me thinking that we were playing some sort of game, likeLegua.My father and brother had played it often, setting stones on a map, trying to hold a central hill on the board without leaving pieces isolated enough to be taken.
