Chapter 103: Surprised

Bianca turned out to be the open-minded sort which was honestly not surprising. She recited the rules the way a person recites a grocery list she has no intention of following, with half a heart and a crooked smile, and every few steps she dropped a small, teasing scrap of gossip about the palace, as if she were feeding two stray cats.

"Rule one," she said, strolling ahead of us with her hands behind her back. "You do not attack the guards. You do not argue with them either. They have bad tempers and good swords. And even if you manage to defeat them somehow, you will be hanged. That is what the chandelier is for actually."

"Noted," Theodore said faintly.

"Rule number two. Whenever King Culex passes, or his chief councilor, you bow. You keep bowing until they are far away. Not until they are out of sight. Until they are far away." She glanced back at us and raised one eyebrow. "People who stand up early tend to be carried out later."

"How far is far?" I asked.

"You will know..."

She said it lightly, but something behind her eyes flickered and settled again, like a candle in a draft. "In short," she continued, "be kind to others, and think of the King and his chief councilor as beings who have transcended humanity."

"Transcended," I repeated, in the voice of a man who did not understand a long word.

"Beyond us. Above us. Holy, if you like."

’Holy,’ I thought. ’A creature that sleeps in the dark and feeds on fear. Yes. Very holy.’

I kept my face blank and let my eyes drift while she talked.

The corridors were wider than I had expected, lit only by those long crimson windows, and people moved through them in ones and twos.

Two men in worn leather argued cheerfully over a dice game, one of them slapping the other’s shoulder every time he lost.

A woman with a basket on her hip hummed a tune as she passed, and a boy no older than seven ran by with a loaf of bread clutched against his chest, laughing, chased by a girl who was laughing harder.

"Ahh, how are kids here?" I asked her.

"Some people reproduce here. Its a normal thing, isn’t it? The castle has been in the hands of King Culex for 20 years already... You can buy condoms but well..." She said, before letting out a chuckle.

Their cheeks were full. Their arms were not thin. Not a single one of them had the hollow, hungry look I had braced myself for.

That surprised me more than I wanted to admit. It was not what I had pictured from the hunters’ trembling voices in the swamp.

So, life here was not that bad. After all.

The thought sat in my chest like a stone I could not quite place. A cage does not have to be ugly to be a cage. Sometimes it is simply well fed.

We climbed a spiral staircase, narrow and steep, the steps worn into shallow bowls by countless feet. It wound upward for a long time, and Theodore began to breathe a little harder behind me, though he pretended otherwise.

At last the stairs opened onto a quiet corridor, and Bianca informed us that we had reached the northernmost part of the palace.

At the end of the corridor stood a large crimson window, wide enough for three men to stand shoulder to shoulder. Through it I could see the whole world beneath the mountain, spread out like a map. The grey swamp. The thin silver threads of black water lakes. The black line of the road we had climbed, and far away, a tiny smudge of smoke that might have been Lee’s fire could be seen if one focused.

I stared at it for a moment longer than I should have.

"It is a good place to live, if you ask me," Bianca chuckled, leaning her shoulder against the frame. "Quiet. Nobody bothers you. And the view is free."

I nodded, and kept my eyes on the distant smoke.

"Your roommates will be Camila, Hazel and Charolette," she said.

"Where are they from?" I asked, curious in the way a harmless boy would be curious. Then the rest of her sentence caught up with me. "Wait. All of them are girls?"

"Yes, all of them." She grinned at the look on my face. "Do not worry, they bite less than the guards. Camila is from Euniscope. Hazel and Charolette are from Valemont, like you. I am from Neusak, though my mother was from Valemont. That is how I know Minkz so well."

"I see," I said.

"Now, listen." She pushed away from the window and held up a finger. "Breakfast, lunch and dinner come after the bells ring. Go to the hall, where you found me, and collect yours. Do not be late. The cooks are not generous with latecomers."

"We will not be late," Theodore said, with the solemn nod of a man who had never been late in his life.

"Good. After some time, lunch will be served. Rest until then."

She waved over her shoulder and walked away, her footsteps fading down the spiral stairs, and then the corridor was silent again.

I looked at Theodore.

He gave me a small, tight nod, and I saw the question in his eyes. Ready?

"Let us go, Rudy," he said.

"Alright, Peter."

Knock! Knock!

I lifted my hand and knocked on the door, twice, politely, the way a polite, harmless person would, and then I pushed it open.

The room was larger than I had expected.

Five beds stood in two neat rows, each with a proper mattress, thick and clean, and each with a pillow resting at its head.

Beside every bed sat a small wooden side table, and on each table lay a pack of candles, bound with twine.

A lone window let in a faded red glow that tinted everything the color of watered wine. The air smelled faintly of soap and dried herbs, which made no sense in a place like this, and which I somehow found more unsettling than blood.

Three of the beds were occupied.

Three women lay on them, resting, and as the door opened, all three lifted their heads at once.

The one nearest me sat up first. Her skin was a rich shade of copper, warm and glowing in the red light, and her hair was a luxuriant mass of tightly coiled, deep brown curls that framed her face like a dark crown. She had tanned skin and a narrow waist.

"Hi!" she said. "I’m Camila."

"Peter and Rudy..." I said, without thinking twice.

The words were already out of my mouth before I realized what had just happened.

My heart began to pound, loud and fast, hammering against my ribs so hard that I was sure she could hear it. A cold wave crashed down my spine and spread through every limb until my fingers went numb.

The reason of it was simple, she had spoken English!