The Seasons of Salt

Chapter Sixteen

Jemry was missing. All Mira had heard of him, she had heard by rumours and whispers and stories she was not supposed to hear. They had shaved his head, shaved off all the black-gold locks, so like Mama’s, and had thrown it in the fire. They had taken his tongue from his mouth and plucked out his dark eyes, so they could not stare dark curses any longer. They had bound him in chains and starved him. They had put him under the blade. They had locked him away with the King’s Warblers in the Fluted Tower. The womenfolk who brought their food to them whispered such tales to Mama with gleeful spite and Mama always cried. Nanna Mimi stared at Mama hopelessly and whispered, “Oh, Leera,” but they never spoke of it to Mira. The ladies all wore black and red, Glengower colours Mama called them, betrayal colours, Nanna Mimi said, and Mama always hushed her, said Mira would have to wear them in the end. Mira did not want to wear them. She did not like black. She liked bright colours, like the ribbons the city-folk waved for her, and the pinks of the flowers they gifted her whenever she came by. who 

In truth, Mira did not understand half the stories they told anyway and she was not allowed to ask. All she knew for certain-sure was that she had not been allowed to see Daddy or Jemry since that night when they went through the metal mouth in the dark when the skies were orange and the men were scary. When she woke up, her head had hurt and she was back in her own bed all alone. When she had tried to open the door she had found it locked. A few hours later, after she had cried and screamed herself into exhaustion once more, beating hysterically against the locked and lonely wood, she had fallen asleep once more. She had not seen anyone for a week or more, and then Mama and Nanna Mimi had returned at last on the fete day she was not allowed to attend. She had heard all the crowds cheering outside the windows, heard the music and a great cheer go up amongst the rolling heartbeat of the drums, but she was not allowed to go and play. Mama would not even let her to the window to look. She just held her close and Nanna Mimi stood with her back to the window, blocking it out with her bulk as if she could block out the sounds too. 

But though Mama and Nanna Mimi had returned, Jemry had not. The black and red ladies said that he was with the King's Warblers now, though Jemry had never had much of a voice to sing with. Everyone had always said Mira had the nicer voice than Jemry, high and clear as the mountain air Daddy always said. She did not know why Jemry got to go and be a singer whilst she had to sit in the tower with none of her toys and none of her lessons and none of her maids. She had asked, but Mama just wailed more until Nanna Mimi had told her that Mama was sore sad that they’d made her only boy a No-Man and not to make any more noise. This was not much answer. If he was a No-Man, why was he still there in the boys’ tower with the other choir boys? She had seen them filing past in their red-cloaks, the crested warbler embroidered in golden thread upon their backs, glinting in the sunlight as though they were about to take flight, their tiny, round shaved heads shining as they marched by in neatly uniform rows to sing at the palace for the pleasure of the new king, but she had never seen Jemry amongst them yet because he could not sing even though he was living with the Warblers now, she thought. Daddy had often called on the singers. He loved music. Mira had loved it too, watching the lines of boys singing shrill and haunting melodies, all dyed by the lights of the large window behind them, chequered in blues and reds and yellows. Good music was better than war, Daddy said. Jemry had never seemed over-interested in it, and now he would be lining up with them in their shimmering red cloaks and singing songs for the new king, and Mira, who had not been allowed out of this tower yet would not be able to hear it.

But if he was no man any more then he ought to be there with them, should he not? With Mama and Mimi and Mira, all girls together. Would he wear dresses now too? Mira would not share hers. Besides, she could not because Jemry was much bigger than her and he would not fit into all her pretty dresses. He would break them all at the seams trying to squeeze his big boy body into them, and Mama said they had to take extra special care of their clothes now because they would not get any more. Mira had cried at that, because she liked pretty dresses and she did not see why she should not have more if she had been good. She had always had them before now, but the only special treats they had now were from the pleasure of the king. Still, if she was a good girl, she would get a present from him, he had told her so when he came up to see them all.

Mama had snarled at him, and Mira had cried because Mama was not being good and Mira was always good and it was not fair that Mira was not going to get a new dress because Mama was rude, but the new king had just laughed and said Mamas were entitled to be angry now and again. Mira had liked him a lot. He was tall and jovial and he had a great black bear sewn on his red tunic, and he made it dance for her by shaking the fabric, making her squeal with delight. He’d said he was sorry that it had had to go down the way it did – whatever ‘it’ was – but that he did not want it to get any worse. That if everyone behaved themselves, he did not see why they could not all get on together happily enough. Nobody else needed to get hurt, if everybody was sensible. And he had taken Mira up on his lap as he said it and cuddled her, just like Daddy used to and Mira had been so pleased because she did miss Daddy and he never came to see her anymore and nobody would tell her why, but his eyes had been fixed on Mama’s, and Mama had gone all stiff and tight and said she understood. And she held out her hands to Mira and had been all snappish when Mira did not want to go, and she had grabbed her with her hard and angry hands and her nails had dug into Mira’s skin and Mira had cried again.

She still had not got her new dress though. She thought mayhap the king had forgotten it because Daddy always said that being king was a thankless task. Too busy and everyone always wanting different things from you at once and sometimes, when he had been tired and snappish in the evening he had said nobody with a drop of sense would ever want to be king. So she was pleased, really. Now that King Dancing Bear wore the crown, Daddy could stop being king. He could come and see them more and spend more time playing with Mira like he used to, prancing and prattling about the solar where they snuggled up in the furs and blankets of an evening, laughing at him as if he were a fool, just for their amusement.

And she could do with amusement because there was nothing to do and no one to see and no one to talk to here now. Only Mama and Nanna Mimi and Mira, all locked up together.

She was sitting by the window-sill now. They were right up high in the tower, so high she could see over the walls of the castle and out to the plains and the fields beyond. It was a cold day out there she thought, because everyone was wearing their cloaks and the women down in the fields beyond the castle wore their hoods up high, but it was sunny too and the sunshine streamed in making everything bright and hot inside the little room, making the thick glass prickle with water droplets, and everything outside was blurry-wet. She dipped a finger in the water droplets and nudged them so they ran down the glass to the rim beneath, pooling in the leading. She raced them down, wondering which one would win, the big, fat one or the little thin one. The big fat one won. It gathered more speed as it fell, pulling all the other droplets into it, and the little one was left alone right at the top, drip-drip-dripping down the pane far too slowly. She prodded it with her finger, hoping to make it move quicker, but it just splodged into nothingness. She wiped the pane clean using the edge of her dress so that she could see to the world beyond more clearly again. The guards were walking the battlements stiffly, and they looked like Jemry’s little wooden soldiers from here. New flags, red and black, hung from the pendant poles and there was some kind of pumpkin up on a stick above the main gate like a scarecrow head. Someone had put a stick-crown on it. Maybe it was supposed to be the new king. Mira wished people would make scarecrows that looked like her. They could dress them up in pretty dresses and make the hair out of straw, though that was the wrong colour, really. Maybe she could make one herself, only princesses were not supposed to make scarecrows really.

She turned to ask Mama if she might be allowed to, once they were allowed out of the tower, just once, if she took extra care not to spoil her dress or get mud under her fingernails because really it would be funny to have a little scarecrow princess when a noise distracted her. A funny quiet tramping noise.

Mama stood sharply and pulled Mira towards her, smoothing out her little dress and her placing her hands protectively on Mira’s shoulders. Nanna Mimi came to stand beside Mira too as the door beyond them unlocked and opened.

The new king strode in with his guards. He seemed extra large in this little room.

“It’s King Dancing Bear!” she called in delight, and Mama went all stiff and angry again. Her nails dug deep into Mira’s shoulders to stop her from running up to see him, but the king just laughed long and loud, throwing his head back to bellow to the ceiling, and a couple of his guards grinned too.

“The tongues of children, eh? They know how to keep us in our place, do they not, Lady Leera?” He came forwards and ruffled Mira’s hair affectionately, which Mira did not quite like, but she did not want to offend him by saying so.

“Curtsy to the king, Mira,” Mama said tightly and Mira bobbed into her best curtsy and the king laughed again.

“Come on, Byram, show Lady Mira she’s not the only one with manners.”

A sullen boy stepped forwards out of the doorway. Mira had not seen him lingering there in the shadow of the king. He had mud-brown eyes and a small scrunched up sneery mouth that scowled at her. He had black-gold hair, just like her brother and he must have been Jemry’s age, it was hard to tell because he was big like the king, whereas Jemry was thin and little, just like Daddy and Mira, but he did not look much like Jemry at all, despite the hair and the age. He was wearing red and black like King Dancing Bear. A lock of his hair fell into his eyes as he bent low towards her. The king clapped a hand upon the lad’s shoulder.

“This is Prince Dancing Bear, Lady Mira. He’s going to be the king one day and you’re going to be his queen,” he added in a loud confidential whisper to Mira, with a little wink. “Give her the present, lad.”

Prince Dancing Bear took a parcel out of the hands of one of the waiting guards and laid it awkwardly into Mira’s. It was heavy, long and thin, all wrapped round in fabric. She knelt to the floor and unwrapped it hastily, her fingers scrabbling through the fabric to hold up:

“A dress! Look, Mama! Look! A new dress!” She stood and held it up against her. It was red and black, just like Mama had said it might be, but it was a nice red, a bright, rosy red, not dull and crimson like King Burlett’s, and it had dagging around the long hems and the sleeves stretched right the way down to the floor like the dress Mama sometimes wore on special occasions when Daddy was king, and it had little black bears dancing all around the dagging sewn in tiny black stitches and black pearls around the collar that shimmered and shone and white roses all between the lots of them, like a garden of a dress made to delight her.

“Oh! Thank you! Thank you! Oh, may I wear it now, Mama? May I, please?”

“Patience, little one. You can wear it soon enough,” laughed King Dancing Bear. “In fact, you can wear it to the special feast we’re throwing for you at the end of the week.”

“A feast! For me?”

“Aye, little maid, just for you. There will be dancers and jugglers and singers-”

“Will Jemry be there?” Mira interrupted. “He’s not much of a singer, I know, but I do miss him.”

The king hesitated. His eyes looked to Mama’s.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Lord Jemry will be there. But…he has been…poorly. Sometimes that happens when boys take the blade. Whilst he was weakened, a fever took him.”

“Blood-fever?” Mama asked sharply.

“No, no. Fluxfever.”

“No!”

“I fear so. But he is on the mend now, and many a man has learnt to live blind, Lady Leera.”

“You did this on purpose! It was not enough to steal his manhood, now you have stolen his sight too!”

“Jemry’s blind?” Mira asked, confused. “He was never blind before.”

“No, little maid. He was ill, as I said. It was fated. It cannot be helped.”

“He will not be able to see the music,” Mira said.

“He is not a musician, Mira!” Mama snapped through her tears. Mira dropped the dress she was holding against her, feeling her lip wobbling. Mama was always shouting at her now and it just was not fair.

“No, he’s not a musician. He’s still a lord and he will still be treated as one. Once your betrothal has been finalised at the feast, your brother will be returning to the Levistal estate with your Uncle Finch and a few special guests of my own to ensure his good behaviour and continued safety.”

“Really?” Mama asked, her breath sharp and gasping.

“Really. If Levistal can promise peace and if he knows the price to be paid for even the hint of insurrection. I do not wish to be unkind, Lady Leera. He is to be swapped for Levistal’s own little lad. Rhyce?”

“Rhyd,” Mama corrected distantly.

“Ah, yes, Rhyd. Rhyd will serve here as a squire and Jemry will learn to do whatever it is that blind and landless lords do with the freedom of their uncle’s house. He will never be a father, true, or a warrior either, but I am sure he can find happiness still. That is more than you could have been expecting.”

“It is. Thank you, your majesty. I am…grateful,” Mama said stiltedly.

“Who knows, mayhap after Mira and Byram are wed and their first child is on the way, you too can return to your brother’s house.”

“Thank you, Sire.”

“Who’s Byram?” Mira asked curiously.

King Dancing Bear just laughed again and clapped his hand upon his son’s shoulder.

“I can see you’ve made an impression, lad. Go and take your betrothed over to the fireside and get to know her for a while, eh? The adults have some talking still to do.”

The boy scowled deeper, but took Mira’s hand and led her over to the fireside. The grown-ups watched them go. He let go as soon as they got there and they sat down by the grate quietly. Mira rubbed a finger in the soot idly and drew a flower on the floor.

“Thank you for my dress,” she said politely when the boy did not say anything. “I do like it.”

“I did not choose it.”

“Oh.” She added a zig-zag of smudgy grass beneath the flower to help it grow. And then a bird above it, when he still did not say anything, and a big round sun above that with bright rays sticking out of it hodge-podge.

“Do you like my picture?”

“’s fine.”

“I used to do drawing a lot when Daddy was king,” she told him cheerfully. “He would let me use all the petitions papers. Mama said it was a waste of good paper, but Daddy said it was not any more a waste than the petitions were and at least he liked looking at my pictures.” She would show him this picture when he came to see them. He would like it. He always liked Mira’s pictures.

The boy did not say anything.

“Mayhap Daddy will bring me more papers when he comes to visit,” she said. She would like that. Soot pictures always got washed away in the end. Paper pictures stayed up on the mantelpiece over the fire where Daddy could see them, the greatest treasures in the whole of the kingdom, he called them.

The boy stared at her.

“Your Daddy’s not coming to visit,” he said. Mira scrunched up her face in indignation.

“What do you know about it? You’re just a silly little boy!”

“I’m not!”

“You are, and you do not know my Daddy.”

“I know that he was a traitor to the counties. I know that he sold the lives of his people to the dragons and the witches.”

“He did not!”

“That’s why they call him Hagwhore!” he hissed, his face red and angry. Mira felt her own face growing hot. Her mouth scrunched up even tighter.

“That’s a naughty word! I’m going to tell him when he comes back! I am!”

“He’s not coming back. He’s dead!”

Mira stared at him.

“No, he’s not. Of course he’s not!”

“He is! I saw them take his head down in front of all the citadel, and everyone cheered and then they stuck it up on a pike and put it over the wall. Look!” He pointed out the window and Mira saw in the distance the small round pumpkin high on a stick out on the battlements. Wearing the twig-crown.

She stared at it silently for a moment, waves of frozen ice crashing over her, and then she screamed. Screamed and screamed even as the adults came rushing over and Mama cradled her in her arms, hushing and shushing her, and King Dancing Bear clipped his son angrily over the back of the head and marched him out of the room with all those guards, and they were left alone in the little tower room with that dress and that sooty picture Daddy would never see.