Bitterblue

a pillow, pressing her face into Ashen's embroidery.

After a while, her feelings solidified themselves around an odd little comfort. Mama had to kill a man once too. I've only done what she's done.

Paper crinkled in the pocket of her gown. Dashing tears away, Bitterblue pulled out Teddy's strange words and held them tight in one fist. A small determination flared in her breast. She was a puzzle solver, and a truthseeker too. She didn't know what Teddy had meant by it, but she knew what she meant. Fumbling to light a lamp, finding pen and ink, she turned the paper to its back and wrote.

LIST OF PUZZLE PIECES

Teddy's words. Who are my 'first men'? What did he mean by cutting and stitching? Am I in danger? Whose prey am I?

Danzhol's words. What did he SEE? Was he complicit with Leck in some way? What was he trying to say?

Teddy and Saf's actions. Why did they steal a gargoyle, and other things too? What does it mean to steal what's already been stolen?

Darby's records. Was he lying to me about the gargoyles never having been there?

General mysteries. Who attacked Teddy?

Things I've seen with my own eyes. Why is the east city falling apart but decorated anyway? Why was Leck so peculiar about decorating the castle?

What did Leck DO?

Here, she scribbled a few notes.

Tortured pets. Made people disappear. Cut. Burned printing shops. (Built bridges. Did castle renovations.) Honestly, how can I know how to rule my kingdom when I have no idea what happened in Leck's time? How can I understand what my people need? How can I find out more? In the story rooms? Should I ask my advisers again, even though they won't answer?

She added one more question, slowly and in small letters.

What is Saf's Grace?

Then, returning to her larger list, she wrote:

Why is everybody insane? Danzhol. Holt. Judge Quall. Ivan, the engineer who switched the gravestones and the watermelons. Darby. Rood. Although, she wondered, was it insane to drink too much from time to time, or to be susceptible to nerves? Bitterblue crossed out the word insane and replaced it with strange. Except that that opened the list to everybody. Everybody was strange. In a fit of frustration, she scratched out strange and wrote the word CRACKPOTS in big letters. Then she added Thiel and Runnemood, Saf, Teddy, Bren, Tilda, Death, and Po, just to be thorough.

PART TWO Puzzles and Muddles

(September)

8

SOME WONDERFUL PERSON had gotten every trace of Danzhol's blood out of the stone of her office floor. Even looking for it, Bitterblue couldn't find it.

She read the charter once more, carefully, letting each word sink in, and then she signed it. There was no point not to now.

'What will we do with his body?' she asked Thiel.

'It has been burned, Lady Queen,' said Thiel.

'What? Already! Why was I not informed? I would have liked to go to the ceremony.'

The door to the tower room opened. Death the librarian came in.

'I'm afraid the body couldn't wait for burning, Lady Queen,' said Thiel. 'It's only just September.'

'And it was no different from any other burning ceremony, Lady Queen,' added Runnemood from the window.

'That is not the point!' said Bitterblue. 'I killed the man, for rot's sake. I should have been at the burning.'

'It's not actually Monsean tradition to burn the dead, you know, Lady Queen,' Death put in. 'It never has been.'

'Nonsense,' said Bitterblue, really quite upset. 'We all perform fire ceremonies.'

'I suppose it's not politic to contradict the queen,' Death replied with such undisguised sarcasm that Bitterblue was surprised into looking at him hard. This man, nearing seventy, had the paper-thin skin of a man in his nineties. His mismatched eyes were always dry and blinking, one green like seaweed, the other purplish like his pinched lips. 'Many people in Monsea do burn the dead, Lady Queen,' he went on, 'but it is not the Monsean way, as I'm sure your advisers know. It was King Leck's way. It's his tradition we honor when we burn our dead. Monseans before King Leck wrapped the body in a cloth infused with herbs and buried it in the ground at midnight. They've done so for as long as records have been kept. Those who know as much still do.'

Bitterblue thought, suddenly, of the graveyard she ran through most nights, and of Ivan the engineer, who'd replaced watermelons with gravestones. What was the point of looking at things if she couldn't see them? 'If this is true,' she said, 'then why have we not gone back to the Monsean ways?'

Her question was directed at Thiel, who stood before her looking patient and concerned. 'I suppose we have not wanted to upset people unnecessarily, Lady Queen,' he said.

'But why should it be upsetting?'

Runnemood answered. 'There's no reason to disturb our mourners, Lady Queen. If people like the fire ceremonies, why should we stop them?'

'But, how is that forward-thinking?' said Bitterblue in confusion. 'If we want to move away from Leck, why not teach people that it's the Monsean way to bury their dead?'

'It's a little thing, Lady Queen,' said Runnemood. 'It barely matters. Why remind people of their grief? Why give them reason to feel that perhaps they've been honoring their dead wrongly?'

It is not a little thing, thought Bitterblue. It has to do with tradition and respect, and with recovering what it means to be Monsean. 'Was my mother's body burned or buried?'

The question seemed both to startle Thiel and bewilder him. He sat down hard in one of the chairs before her desk and did not answer.

'King Leck burned Queen Ashen's body,' announced Death the librarian, 'at the top of the high walkways on Monster Bridge at night, Lady Queen. It was how he preferred to perform such ceremonies. I believe he liked the grandness of the setting and the spectacle of the bridges lit up with fire.'

'Was anyone there who actually cared?' she asked.

'Not that I know of, Lady Queen,' said Death. 'I, for one, was not.'

It was time to change the subject, for Thiel was worrying her, sitting there with that empty look in his eyes. Like his soul had gone away. 'Why are you here, Death?' Bitterblue snapped.

'Many people have forgotten the Monsean ways, Lady Queen,' said Death obstinately. 'Especially inhabitants of the castle, where Leck's influence was strongest, and especially the many in both city and castle who cannot read.'