doors. Darker places, where Martha was not permitted. The green-steel Guard captain, Noel Purse, had ordered her not, her first day.
'Guests, down there,' he'd said. 'Her Majesty's important guests, resting in chambers beneath. And that will never be your business.'
'Yes, sir,' Martha'd answered as if she were a soldier, since she felt like a soldier, though a girl, and was armed with her spear as a guard herself.
Down there, someone must have heard the captain talking to her, because the faintest howling began, so she supposed one of the guests had brought his dog-pet with him. – But later, when she mentioned the dog-pet to Maid Ulla, Ulla had made a child's warning face and told her it was people, and the Queen would visit them, but never let them out.
So, there was no dog-pet under the tower.
At first – perhaps because she was tired – Martha had thought she might be dreaming of the Queen's chambers, dreaming and drifting through them as she sometimes drifted in dreams. The huge round rooms, their stone walls lime-washed snowy white, were draped in great soft sheets of orange cloth and gray cloth, purple, rose, sky-blue and pinewood green, so there was color everywhere. Some cloths hung against the walls, and others fell across from round alder rafters to divide one place from another – so each great room was like a house with smaller rooms within it.
There were those richly colored cloth curtains, and woven tapestries of war, of hunting, of handsome Extraordinaries playing banjars, flutes, and drums among flowers in glass-ceilinged gardens. Then others of the same people kissing and fucking, and also summer wet-ships and winter ice-ships sailing the river through the three seasons… The tower chambers always bright with many hanging lamps, and sometimes sunlight shining through stone-slit windows sealed with glass very close to clear.
There was also see-through southern gauze – which Martha'd heard of but never seen – that hung here and there like smoke, and stroked her as she walked through it behind Queen Joan. All almost a dream, and seeming more so since the women – Ulla, fat Orrie, and the great ladies who waited on the Queen – stepping quietly on the carpets, appeared as if by magic when a curtain was suddenly pulled aside.
So the Queen's daughter, Princess Rachel, once appeared for breakfast with her mother – a princess seeming to Martha more serious than the story ones. Tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired, face too strong-boned for beauty, she'd stalked through drapery unsmiling. But introduced, had taken both Martha's hands with gentle courtesy, and said, 'Welcome to our household.'
Though later, buttering muffins with her mother at table by the solar's iron stove, she'd glanced at Martha – standing nearby with her spear – raised an eyebrow, and murmured, 'Mother…'
'What?…
The Princess had sighed, and said, 'Never mind.'
Ulla told Martha that Princess Rachel lived in a different tower, came to breakfast rarely, and the black stains on her fingers were writing-ink.
… As the Princess had come to breakfast, so other great ladies came to visit through the days. Some brought their children, others little dog-pets to play with – but none stayed long. The Queen preferred privacy. In these wonderful, cushioned, quiet rooms, only she was harsh and noisy, striding here and there, making rough jokes and criticizing her women's sewing as they sat at the long table in the gauze-curtain room, doing fine stitchery in linen kerchiefs, and on the Empire's white cotton underthings.
Martha had touched and dirtied a kerchief her second afternoon, and been sent down to the laundry for a bath. 'With lye soap!' the Queen had called. – 'I'll have no pig to guard me!' So, in a stone tub, with Mary Po pouring buckets of hot water, and the ironing girl, Walda, scrubbing with a bristle brush, Martha was made clean enough to touch Jordan Jesus' altar cloth. Then she was dressed in heavy sandals and fresh linen, in underclothes and overdress, with long sleeves like almost a lady – though one who would soon wear padded fine-mesh mail under her gown. That had been fitted-for, but not yet finished.
When done, her hair dried at the laundry hearth and pinned up, a finger ringlet before each ear, Martha took her spear, went up the many stone steps – smiled at the six soldiers as they smiled at her – and climbed past them to the Queen.
'Better,' Queen Joan said, looking her up and down. 'You'll never be a pretty girl, but 'handsome' may be. possible in time, though a fairly large 'handsome.' The ringlets, the ringlets have their charm.' And Martha, now so clean, was invited to sit beside the Queen at a mother-of-pearl table, to sort old earrings for keepers and pairs.
'Trumpery crap, most of these.' The Queen's long fingers sorted and shifted, flicking silver and gold, bright stones and stones softly-rich this way and that. 'Those I had from my sweet Newton, I know and keep – what are you doing?'
'Separating the plain hoops.'
'Well… the silver; put those aside.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
The Queen began to hum as she worked, then said, 'What do you think of these?'
'They're very pretty.'
'Yes. I thought so too, many years ago. Now, of course, I know better – and so they are spoiled for me.' She began to hum again, fingers deft among the jewels. 'I do not remember the names of half the men who gave me these… made flowery fucking speeches, bowing, asking Newton's permission to gift me this or that. Once, my sweetheart smiled at Liam Murphy – Lord Murphy's gone, of course. Whole family's gone, and a daughter eaten. Newton smiled at him and said, 'You may give my lady what you please. As it pleases her, it pleases me… though doesn't turn me from my way.' '
The Queen set green studs aside. 'Poor Liam should have listened more closely… Do you think of men, Martha?'
'… No.'
The Queen stopped sorting. 'Martha, you're going to be with me for many years. You've just told me a lie. Never, ever, lie to me again about anything.'
'I'm sorry. I do think of men, sometimes.'
'And in particular? The truth, now.'
'Well, I liked Ralph-sergeant.'
The Queen found a little gold lump, with no pin or clasp. 'Trash… You liked Ralph-sergeant. And who is he?'
'A soldier. He came to get me at my father's house.'
'And why did you like this soldier?'
'He was big – bigger than me. And he was kind.'
'Ah… 'kind.' I have many large sergeants in my armies, East-bank and West, but I hope not too many that are kind… Do you have a match for the turquoise?'
'No, ma'am.'
'Of course not; that would be too fucking lucky. How am I to get a turquoise to match with that Kipchak squatting on Map-Arizona? This is a useless earring.'
'You could give it to Lord Pretty.'
'Yes, Gregory'd wear it. Damn fool…'
Through the following days, Martha had learned the attendant ladies' names and titles, learned the servants' names: Ulla, Francis, Orrie, and Sojink – a tiny Missouri tribeswoman with filed teeth and a bluebird tattoo across her face… Martha'd learned the cloth-draped spaces of Upper Solar and Lower, and where Queen Joan slept by a window in the high chamber, curtained in cloudy gray. She'd learned also to stay very near the Queen, just to her right and a little back, the spear always in her hand.
Still, Martha could go up and down the tower, and visit as she wished – but never for very long. That was decided when the Queen was choosing a robe for Wintering the Gardens, and didn't care for the velvet that fat Orrie showed her. She said, 'Everything from that clothes-press smells of river mold! Orrie, take them all down to the laundry to be cleaned and pressed again. Martha, help her, and stay there to see it properly done.'
'No, ma'am.'
The Queen stood very still, then said, 'What did you say?' Seeming startled, as if there'd been a birdsong she'd
