“What have I told you boys?" Sir Roland chided. “Gabriel, go ahead and keep your sacristy duties, as we all know how much you love it. Rolf, you need to take Bryoni to her lessons, and as for you, ‘Raph -”
Gabriel had already taken his leave with peaceful alacrity, and hardly had Sir Roland finished Rolf’s name before the boy had whisked Bryoni away in obvious relief. The remaining three of us watched as the pair went off, Rolf’s arm tenderly around his sister.
“Raphael, your mother needs you,” the knight finished. “I’ll look after Essa for a time.”
Raphael opened his mouth to speak and the struggle between obedience and frustration was painfully evident. He didn’t make a retort, but his eyes briefly flashed.
“Raphael!”
The voice was stern, but softened as Roland added, “Essa needs you to go. You need to help your mother take in the reports from our outposts. Go on, now.”
All the struggle lifted from Raphael’s face and shouldering my burdens again, he left at once, with a last affectionate smile. I watched him go, then looked up at Sir Roland, wondering why he’d actually come to disperse the boys.
He smiled.
“They can become overbearing, can’t they,” Sir Roland said, drawing me down the path. “There’s much on their minds today, so we’ll give them a chance to air it out before looking after you. Now, why don’t we tour the palace, little one? It’s sprawling, and we don’t want you getting lost too easily. There’s many pretty things I think you’ll like.”
I hardly heard him. Not only was I seemingly useless and purposeless, I couldn’t even be neutral in action, much less good. I couldn’t blame myself for the fact that Typhon hunted down intruders, but I could blame myself for wanting to go out on the bay in the first place; and that meant I could blame myself for how much trouble Mirala and Raphael would be taking in order to find my family. Now the three boys were being distracted from their usual routines by me, and disagreeing with each other.
Perhaps the worst was that Rolf seemed angry with me, as though overnight he’d come to realize it was my fault he’d been injured by the suchides. Why I thought that was my fault, I couldn’t explain, but I was sure of it, and no thoughts to the contrary would help.
Rolf was right, at least, I thought he was, for from his attitude I’d gathered that I’d caused so much trouble without trying, that it was better to stay away, and the best thing to do of all would be to stay in my room. Then the only trouble I could cause was if someone wanted me around. That I could take.
“But. . .”
He stopped as I trailed to a halt.
“I’ve caused so much trouble. Please, I can’t cause any more if I stay in my room until my family comes.”
I was trying not to cry now, because my misery over my apparent skills in trouble-making ran very deep.
“Essa. . . no, you haven’t caused trouble. The suchides were to be expected, and as for the boys? You’re already precious to all of us, Essa, and that’s why they feel compelled to each look after you, in his own way.”
“But – Rolf is angry with me.”
At this, Sir Roland half-scowled, glancing up at the trees.
“Rolf has a hard time with some things, Essa. He’ll come around again soon enough, but you must not feel that you’ve caused him any trouble. He’s the one who chose to fight the suchides on his own to better protect you, and his moods swing like one of Typhon’s tempests.”
He kissed my forehead and brushed away the frown on my brow.
“Won’t you feel a little better the fewer questions you have about Edessa? Let me show you the palace, Essa. I know we’ll find something that will help.”
So saying, he took my hand and opened a set of doors I’d not yet been through - tall and grand they were, entirely paned with starry glass held together by birch wood. Behind them lay the library of my dreams, so glorious I couldn’t help gasping and making Sir Roland smile again.
Seven ringing levels carpeted with rich blue were supported by tree-like pillars, their branches hung with lifelike fruits and flowers. Pools, somewhat recklessly placed within such a room, bubbled in the sunlight, rounded by plush sofas, and stairs wound up the walls; sliding ladders, perfect for dramatic booksearching, were mounted to the naturally deep purple wood of the ornate bookcases. The books themselves were all gilded and bound in lovely shades of leather.
“Oh, I want to live here,” I breathed, unable to help the wish. “I want to read all of these!”
“That can easily be arranged,” Sir Roland murmured, almost to himself.
He let me run up the stairs and inspect all the genre sections, and to my joy there was an entire level dedicated to novelsand fairytales and legends, and half a level to historical Silvarian fashion and jewelry. I quickly became overwhelmed by all the books I would have liked to read in better times. I wouldn’t have taken one with me if Sir Roland hadn’t sent me back up to select one, which I chose for flipping through the pictures rather than the possibility of reading.
Not far from the library was a conservatory, through which flowers danced and wove patterns across white trellises, and marble benches of white and rose were set beneath draping wisteria and ivy. It was ringed around by an herb and vegetable garden, where peppers and tomatoes flourished even out of season.
I began to feel we’d never see the whole palace in a day, much less in the several hours Sir Roland intended to look after me. We hadn’t even left the western wing of the palace within the hour, so we bypassed many rooms in the first floor.
All of these were beautiful, and this was the sort of palace I had dreamed of visiting. Yet, Sir Roland did not seem intent on the rooms themselves, for he was guiding me on a strange path, passing many other rooms and leaving them a blank mystery. Every other window was pale celestial blue, with mappings of constellations; we passed the Pleiades and Cygnus several times.
“Now that we’ve answered a trifle of your questions on the palace, Essa, let me tell you a little about our princess,” Sir Roland changed the subject, drawing my arm through his as we changed course towards the east.
We were coming to a grand and open cloistered hallway, raised high above the gardens, with the perfume of flowers blowing freely through.
“But you don’t have a princess.”
He paused.
“That could be debated.”
I thought of his wife and couldn’t help smiling.
“It must be nice to be married,” I said respectfully.
Now he smiled at my assumption.
“It is nice to have someone to protect my heart, Essa. But you have the best protector of your heart.”
He directed my eyes to the great stained-glass wall we were coming to at the end of the hallway, where a staircase curved down into the roses. The window depicted the Star of the Sea, sheltering within her mantle a maiden crowned, but above them the King of Hearts held them both, and His side bled like the Swan’s.
The only One who knew my heart and all that was going on within, and who knew what was happening with my family – the only One who could take care of the three of us. I closed my eyes in the stained-glass glow.
“Why isn’t there a princess?” I wanted to know, opening my eyes again.
“It’s God’s timing,” the Knight said thoughtfully. “You see, Essa, our princesses weren’t hereditary. Our Lady chooses them, as she is our Queen; and thus follows the hereditary line, daughter to daughter, unless the line ends. Then another would be chosen. She could be from the peasantry, or a foreigner. . . in truth, Silvaria’s first princess was both an outsider and poor.”
He showed me the murals on the cloister walls. Each image was a portrait of a princess bearing a starry name, and a plaque told not of her life, but of her heart: how she helped her people and how she served the King and Queen.
I was moved by this method that was better, even, than most tellings of the lives of the saints, and as the wind whipped through the open arches I contemplated how vastly different they were from me: a grain of sand to a mountain, just as I seemed to be compared to my namesake.
Sir Roland read my eyes.
“Yes, Essa. The beautiful thing about our princess is that she always put herself out in the field, out of her way, to serve her people and act for peace. God and the Silvarian people were always first, and herself last.”
He turned me down the stairs to an ivied corner of the garden, where the roses grew rampant, leaving all in their shade.
Framed with a joyful abandon of blossoms all in fire and strawberry hue curling over her hair and shoulders, stood the marble effigy of a young woman, shrouded by the leaves as if by time, yet not forgotten.
The rose-leaves had gently been culled away from the marker at her feet, bearing the name of Ayeldra and nothing more - save one enigmatic line.
“She who sings has no need of stars. Who is she?”
“This is our first princess, Essa - the foreign and the poor. To know her is to learn Silvaria’s past, which you ought to hear.”
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