Chapter 150: — "The Bench"

It had taken her father four minutes and Kael had thought about it for two days.

The hall. After dinner. Everyone else still at the table making noise about something, and Lord Valois had said “a moment” and walked him twelve feet to the foot of the stairs and stopped, and had not offered him a drink or a chair or any of the softening things men use.

“You waited at the gate.”

Kael had not answered.

“The crossing inn talks,” her father said. “It talked for a year. There’s a boy there who brings up the post and he mentioned it to my steward in the spring, and my steward mentioned it to me, and I did nothing about it because there was nothing to do about it.”

Still nothing.

“How long.”

“…Sir.”

“How long did you stand there.”

And Kael, who had spent four years being taught how to hold a face and had never once been taught what to do when somebody simply asked, said:

“A year. Most mornings.”

Her father had looked at the wall for a while.

Then said: “She’ll go again.”

That was the part.

Not the gate. He could have taken the gate. The gate was his and he’d have handed it over.

She’ll go again.

“You know that,” her father said. “You’ve known it longer than I have. She came back with a mark on her face and hands like a labourer’s and she’s been in this house six days and she hasn’t sat down once — she stands in doorways. Have you watched her stand in doorways?”

“Yes.”

“She’s checking she can see out of them.”

“Yes.”

“My daughter cannot sit with her back to a room in her own house,” said Lord Valois, “and she will go again, because whatever they made her into over there is not something you keep in a drawing room, and I have had six days to arrive at that and I would appreciate it if you did not argue with me about it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“No.” A pause. “No, you weren’t.”

Then he asked it.

“When she goes,” her father said, “are you going to stand at the bottom of the road again.”

Kael’s ears went wrong. He was aware of it happening and could do nothing about it and had never in his life resented his own body more.

“Because you can,” her father said. “That’s an honourable thing and I’d think no less of you. Her mother waited for me twice and I’ve never once managed to say thank you for it in a way that was equal to it.”

Silence in the hall.

“But I’d like to know which one you are,” he said. “Before it happens. Not after.”

And Kael said:

“I’m going with her.”

Four words. Flat. No arrangement to them at all.

Her father looked at him for a long moment.

Then put out his hand, and Kael took it, and the old man held on for considerably longer than the transaction required — long enough that Kael understood it was not agreement being communicated but something closer to relief — and then let go and went back in to the table and said nothing further about it that night or since.

She asked him about it twice.

He didn’t tell her.

He would not tell her for a long time, and when he eventually did she would be extremely angry about the delay, and he would consider that a fair price.

On the seventh day she came to find him.

Not at the gate. He wasn’t at the gate any more, which had happened without discussion and which neither of them had marked.

She came to the house, in the morning, and stood in the yard with her hands in her pockets and said:

“Take me to the bench.”

Kael stopped.

“…Which bench.”

“You know which bench.”

“Aina—”

“Rowan wrote to me. Years ago.” She was looking at the wall behind him. “He said Daren has a bench, and that he’d explain it at length if I asked him, and that I should ask him because he’d been waiting for someone to. And I wrote back and said I wanted all of it — every reason it was that bench and not the one four feet along.”

“And?”

“And then I didn’t write again for years,” said Seraphina, “and I never heard the answer, and it has been sitting in my head in a place I don’t like.”

They walked.

She was quiet for most of it, which was so unlike her that Kael found himself checking twice.

“He’s going to make a noise,” she said, at the corner.

“Yes.”

“He’s going to make an enormous noise, Kael, he’s going to—”

“Yes.”

“Is he — ” She stopped walking. “Is he all right? Six years. Is he — did he—”

“He’s exactly the same,” said Kael.

“Nobody’s exactly the same—”

“Daren is exactly the same,” said Kael, “and I want you to understand that I’ve thought about that a great deal, and I’ve decided it’s the most impressive thing about him.”

The bench was across the road from the academy gate.

Third one along. Stone. Facing the tower.

He was on it.

Bread in one hand, elbows on his knees, looking at a building he had looked at every day for years — and Seraphina stopped forty feet away and put a hand over her mouth, and Kael stopped with her and did not say anything.

“He’s smaller,” she said.

“He’s not.”

“He’s — Kael, he’s—”

“He’s the same size. You’ve grown.”

She stood there for a second longer.

Then said “right” to nobody, and walked.

He heard her at about twenty feet and did not look up, because people walked past that bench all day.

At twelve feet he looked up.

The bread hit the ground.

“—AH—”

He got up so fast the bench moved. Actually moved — scraped four inches on the stone, which Kael would mention later and Daren would deny.

“AINA— no— SERAPH— ARE YOU—”

“Daren—”

“ARE YOU—”

“Daren, I’m—”

“YOU’VE GOT A FACE,” Daren shouted, at a volume that caused two students inside the academy gate to stop walking. “YOU’VE GOT A — YOUR HAIR—”

“I know—”

“WHERE’S YOUR HAIR, AINA—”

“I CUT IT—”

“WITH WHAT—”

“WITH A KNIFE—”

“WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT—”

He hugged her.

Which was, Kael reflected from four feet away, the only thing anybody in this story had done in six years without first constructing an argument for it.

Daren simply crossed the distance and put both arms round her and lifted her about two inches off the ground and set her down again, and said “you’re here” into the top of her head roughly eleven times, and then let go and sat down on the bench very suddenly because his legs had held a vote.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, I’ve gone—”

“Daren—”

“I’ve gone all — give me a — ” He waved a hand. “Give me a moment, I’ve got a thing happening—”

“Take your time.”

“I’ve imagined this,” said Daren, to his own knees. “I’ve imagined this specifically. I’ve had six years and I did it every — and I always thought I’d say something good, Aina, I had things prepared, and I said where’s your hair—”

“It was a strong opening.”

“It was a terrible opening—”

“It was the best opening I’ve had all week,” said Seraphina, “and I’ve had four.”

She sat down next to him.

Kael stayed standing, four feet off, which nobody remarked on and everybody noticed.

Daren wiped his face with the back of his wrist and looked at her sideways.

“You’re brown,” he said. “You’ve gone brown. Is it sunny there?”

“It’s freezing there.”

“Then why are you—”

“It’s freezing and bright,” said Seraphina. “There’s no trees. There’s nothing to stand behind. You get four hours of white sky bouncing off a mountain into your face every day for six years and this is what happens.”

“Huh,” said Daren, deeply interested.

Then: “What’s it like.”

“Cold.”

“Not the cold—”

“Daren.”

“What’s it like,” said Daren. “Six years. You’ve been gone six years and everyone’s going to ask you the polite version of that question and I’d like to be the one who asks the actual one, and I’d like you to know that I’ll sit here for as long as it takes.”

Seraphina looked at the tower.

“…Later,” she said.

“Fine.”

“I mean it. Later. Not never.”

“I said fine,” said Daren. “Six years, Aina. I can do later. I’ve got extremely good at later.”

She let that sit for a bit.

Then she said: “Tell me about the bench.”

Daren went still.

“…Rowan told you.”

“Rowan told me years ago. He said you’d explain at length.”

“He said that.”

“He said, and I’m quoting, ask him, because he’s been waiting for someone to.”

Daren looked at his hands.

“He shouldn’t have said that.”

“Daren.”

“It’s stupid—”

“Daren.”

“It’s a bench, Aina—”

“Then it’ll be a short explanation,” said Seraphina, “and I’ve got all day, and I’ve been thinking about this bench for four years in a country made of rock, so I’d like the long version, and I’d like it now.”

Daren was quiet for a while.

Then he pointed — not at the tower. Down the road, to the left, at nothing.

“That’s the road out,” he said.

“…Yes.”

“You went that way. Five in the morning. I sat here with bread I didn’t want and I watched you go down that road until the dark took you, and then I sat here a bit longer.”

“I know—”

“You don’t know,” said Daren, “because you weren’t here for the part after.”

He shifted on the stone.

“There’s a bench four feet that way,” he said, “and there’s one round the corner that’s better, it’s got a wall behind it, it’s out of the wind. I’ve sat on it. It’s a superior bench in every respect.”

“Then why—”

“Because from this one,” said Daren, “you can see the gate and the road.”

Seraphina didn’t say anything.

“That’s it,” said Daren. “That’s the whole of it. That’s the long version. From this one I can see the gate she went out of and the road she’d come back up, and I have sat on it every day for six years, and I have never once explained that to anybody because it sounds deranged when you say it out loud, and Rowan worked it out in about four days and never mentioned it, which is why he’s Rowan.”

He picked the bread up off the ground and looked at it and put it down again.

“So there you are,” he said. “Now you know. It’s not four feet along because four feet along you can’t see the road.”

Seraphina sat on a bench outside an academy she had left at sixteen, at twenty-two, with her hands in her lap.

“Daren.”

“Mm.”

“I wrote to you every week for two years and then I stopped.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to explain that. Properly. When I can do it without—”

“Aina.”

“—without making it smaller than it—”

“Aina,” said Daren. “I don’t care.”

And she made a sound, and he handed her the bread off the ground without looking at her, and she took it and ate it, which was appalling, and neither of them mentioned that either.

Behind them, four feet away, Kael stood watching the road out of habit and did not say a single word.