‘I don’t like the blue,’ Ardra said. ‘I think the red tastes better.’ He stood up from the stone steps, strode forward, picked up a goblet from the proffered tray, a pitcher from the other, and poured himself a goblet of…blue liquid, set the pitcher back on the tray, went to the steps, and, taking a noisy sip, sat.
‘Ardra…!’ Tritty said.
‘The trouble with stories — ’ Pryn laughed — ‘is that when I write them in my head, they’re fun because I can write them slowly, make changes, correct them if they’re wrong, make sure all the names have the right initial signs. But if I tell them, then they come out any-old-how or however. I don’t think I’ll ever be a tale-teller. I suppose I could tell about my trip from Ellamon to Kolhari, the men who captured me, or the women, or what happened to me later in the city — only…’ She blinked about the room and, in momentary embarrassment, took a long, throat-burning draught. The strange sharpness struck. She coughed. ‘Only…I don’t really understand all that happened, myself. And besides — ’ She coughed again — ‘you’re not very interested in the people I met, which is all I could talk about anyway…’
Pryn thought she saw their hand-waving protests, but heat blurred her eyes and made her unsteady. Somebody put a hand on her shoulder — she fell, or sat (she’d thought she was going to fall…) on the couch behind her.
She still held the goblet.
‘Are they going to bring the baby back down again…? I suppose it’s too late. I could tell about when I came south from Kolhari. This man I came with; and his friend. Smugglers — only I’d be embarrassed to; besides, I’m not interested in those people anymore…though they taught me enough. A story?’ She took another long sip from the metal rim, because the drink’s effect seemed the less the more of it she swallowed — this one didn’t burn so. Was her mouth numbing? ‘A story. Well. There was an ordinary, fifteen-year-old girl who looked like a beautiful young queen…or was there a queen who looked like an ordinary, bushy-headed girl?’
‘This sounds like a real story!’ she heard Inige say.
Pryn smiled.
Her goblet was vast as the torchlit sea, its clear waves sloshing pink and blue slopes.
‘…only I can’t remember what version I’m supposed to…I could tell them…all. Now…after the girl had done all sorts of terrible things and learned all sorts of magical things, in their proper sequence, her maternal father…’ Pryn frowned into the drink, which seemed to have cloudy streaks through it, perhaps from her own spittle. ‘In one version, it’s her dead father, I think. In another it’s her maternal…uncle — he took her up into a stone chamber, on a hill, or in a tower, just like yours I guess, where she saw a…city!’ Pryn looked up and narrowed her eyes in the lamplight’s dazzle. Tears banked her lower lids, obscuring the backlit listeners reclining about the chamber. ‘At a great dinner for her — really, this has been a wonderful dinner! I’ve never eaten food like this before in my life or drunk such…at a great dinner, her absent father, or her maternal uncle did something terrible…’
The silence broke in lingering waves; after lots of it, Ardra said, swinging his fists between his knees: ‘It’s a good story. We all know it. And that’s a good place to pause. But it doesn’t end there. You have to go on.’
Pryn took another drink that was so cold yet made her so warm. She blinked. ‘…He did something terrible. Only I don’t remember…his family name. There’s good reason to remember it, only I don’t know if I ever knew what it was.’ One of them had moved…
Pryn looked up on red. Her eyes moved up over red. It was Tritty’s dress, because Tritty’s face was at the top, smiling down.
Tritty touched her shoulder. ‘That’s a marvelous story — one I’ve loved for years. We all have. Old stories are the best, I think. That’s one of the most beautifully crafted parts of the engine to raise Neveryóna. But you can’t sit here and tell me you’ve forgotten the family name of the queen’s maternal uncle! That’s the whole point — at least it is if you’re telling it to us!’
‘I’m not a good tale-teller,’ Pryn apologized. ‘I’d much rather write it down, where I could think about what I’m supposed to be saying.’ She felt unsteady, unhappy, and out of place. ‘If there weren’t the pressure of having to tell it, I could find out the real story, all of it. I could write why it means something special to me, too, as well as you — ’
‘Jue-Grutn,’ Tritty prompted. ‘Go on, now. We all know it, so it doesn’t matter how well you tell it. Jue-Grutn was the family name of the queen’s maternal uncle. The name of my husband — and his father; and his father’s father. With very old stories, such distinctions cease to matter. But that’s the part we love to hear most — here. Whenever we can, we get a guest to…But it’s part of the engine — my husband said he was explaining it upstairs? We have a vested interest, of course. I’m sure you can understand…’
Pryn’s gaze lost itself in her shimmering drink. ‘The Earl Jue-Grutn gave her…’
Then, at once, what shimmered was terror. Whether it was inside her or outside her, she didn’t know. She didn’t move.
Under flamelight, liquid flashed.
Did she hurl the heavy goblet?
Did she scream?
Did she throw out an arm, upsetting some small table?
Did she overturn her couch as she stood, so that the bolsters flopped on the carpet?
Did she lurch across the floor, shoving aside first Inige and then Lavik, who moved to stop her?
Later she was able to reason that she had done at least three and had definitely not done one. But which three and which one, though she would even list them and list them again on wax, clay, and parchment in every conceivable order, she was never sure. Was it the Wild Ini’s blade she waved above her head? Was it a carving knife snatched from the side-table that made Jenta spread his arms and fall back, while the earl came up behind him, then turn to grab Ardra, who’d rushed forward? She remembered the earl’s cloak, flung up and out, tenacious of its blues in lamplight. Did he try to stop her? Did she run into it? Or through it? Someone yelled, ‘Stop her!’ Certainly it was the earl and not she who bellowed, ‘The astrolabe, no — !’ Certainly someone yelled, ‘No, don’t let her — !’ But she was out one arch or another.
And nothing, really, was certain.
Did she run through myriad halls, searching through corridors and chambers for an exit? Did slaves in white collar-covers run out and, confused at her career, step back? Did she plunge through the low stone passage to burst into the black garden, starred with lamps —
She pushed through hangings, half-opened doors, bushes, branches, into dark. She remembered grasping a branch to come to an unsteady halt — torch-bearing men passed below the rock she swayed on, Inige at their head, iron and white cloth about the other necks, talking: ‘This way…gone in this direction…you said you heard…’ mixed with the barbarian tongue. Later she hesitated on a muddy stretch before a stubbly field, out on which she could see a leafless tree — so there must have been moonlight…? She had no memory of a moon. Were there voices? She dashed across the stubble, hearing her feet slap in the ground below the grass, wetter than she’d thought. She plunged into dappled dark that cut her and tickled her and beat her hips and shoulders, catching in the chain about her neck as if the twigs were trying to snatch away the clinking astrolabe, which she would have gladly torn off her neck and given up. She’d said she didn’t want it…