bones. Ice had then formed around the body and frozen solid, anchoring it into place. All of this had occurred at a bend in the river where water pooled, slowing nearly to a stop. It was a deep spot the townspeople tended to avoid, for the very reason that dead things accumulated there, fish and plants washing up to the banks, lingering until they rotted away. It was a putrid place.
The bones were human.
'But how old are they?' Bitterblue asked, not understanding. 'Are they the bodies Leck burned on Monster Bridge?'
'The healer didn't think so, Lady Queen, for he could find no signs of burning, but he admitted to having little experience with reading bones. He wasn't comfortable speculating about their age. But it's possible they've been collecting there for some time. If people hadn't had to row in among them to free Runnemood's corpse, they wouldn't have been discovered. No one makes a point of going to this stretch of river, Lady Queen, and no one steps into the pool, for the footing there is dangerous.'
And now Bitterblue was thinking about something else entirely: Po and his hallucinations.
'I understand that there are underwater caverns in this place, Lady Queen, with quite deep water. It may be difficult.'
A memory opened to Bitterblue like a crack of light. 'Diving for treasure,' she muttered.
'Lady Queen?'
'According to something Saf said to me once, he knows a bit about recovering things from the ocean floor. I expect he could extrapolate to a river floor. Can one do such a thing in cold weather? He is discreet,' she added grudgingly, 'with information, anyway. Not so much with his behavior.'
'At any rate, I'm not sure discretion is an issue here, Lady Queen,' said Giddon. 'The whole town knows about the bones. They were discovered just before I arrived, and I'd heard them talked about several times before I even reached my contact. If we have a bone retrieval operation going on in the river half a day's ride from the city, I don't see it staying quiet.'
'Especially if we decide to search other parts of the river as well,' Bitterblue said.
'Should we be doing that?'
'I think they're the bones of Leck's victims, Giddon,' she said. 'And I think there must be some in the river here, near the castle. Po couldn't sense them when he looked for them specifically, but when he was sick and hallucinating, his Grace swelling and distorting, some part of him knew. He told me the river was swimming with the dead.'
'I see. If Leck dumped bones into the river, I suppose we could find them practically to the harbor. How well do bones float?'
'I have no idea,' Bitterblue said. 'Perhaps Madlen knows. Perhaps I should make a team of Madlen and Sapphire and send them out to Silverhart. Oh, my shoulder aches and my head is splitting,' she said, stopping in the great courtyard, rubbing at her scalp under its too-tight braids. 'Giddon, how I wish a few days would go by without any upsetting news.'
'You've too much to worry about, Lady Queen,' Giddon said quietly.
'Giddon,' she said, caught by his tone, and ashamed of herself for complaining. Looking into his face and seeing a kind of desolation in his eyes that he was managing to keep out of his voice. 'Perhaps this is a useless, unhelpful thing to say,' she said. 'I hope it will not be insulting. But I want you to know that you're always welcome in Monsea and you're always welcome at my court. And if any of your people have no employment, or wish, for whatever reason, to be elsewhere, they're all welcome here. Monsea is not a perfect place,' she said, taking a breath, clenching her fist to ward off all the feelings that rose with that statement. 'But there are good people here, and I wanted you to know.'
Giddon took her small, clenched fist in his hand, raised it to his mouth, and kissed it. And Bitterblue was lit up inside, just a little bit, with the magic of knowing she'd done a small thing right. Oh, to feel that way more often.
BACK IN HER office, Darby told her that Rood was in bed, being looked after by his wife and, supposedly, bounced on by grandchildren, though Bitterblue couldn't imagine Rood being bounced on by anything without breaking. Darby did not react well to the news of the bones. He blundered away and, as the hours went on, became a bit erratic in his gait and his speech. She wondered if he was drinking at his desk.
It had never occurred to Bitterblue to inquire before this exactly where Thiel kept his rooms. She only knew they were on the fourth level, northish, though obviously not within Leck's maze. That evening, she asked Darby for more specific directions.
In the correct hallway, she consulted a footman, who stared at her with fish eyes and pointed wordlessly at a door.
Somewhat unsettled, Bitterblue knocked. There was a pause.
Then the door swung inward and Thiel stood before her, staring down at her. His shirt was open at the throat and untucked. 'Lady Queen,' he said, startled.
'Thiel. Did I bring you out of bed?'
'No, Lady Queen.'
'Thiel!' she said, noticing a small patch of red above one of his cuffs. 'You're bleeding! Are you all right? What happened?'
'Oh,' he said, looking down, searching his chest and arms for the offending spot, covering it with his hand. 'It's nothing, Lady Queen, nothing except my own clumsiness. I'll see to it immediately. Would you—would you care to come in?'
He pulled the door fully open and stood aside awkwardly while she passed through. It was a single room, small, with a bed, a washstand, two wooden chairs, no fireplace, and a desk that seemed far too small for such a large man, as if he must knock his knees against the wall when he used it. The air was too cold and the light too dim. There were no windows.
When he offered her the better of the straight-backed chairs, Bitterblue sat, uncomfortable, embarrassed, and unaccountably confused. Thiel went to the washstand, turned his injured side away from her, rolled up his sleeve, and did something or other with pats of water and bandages. A stringed instrument stood in an open case against the wall. A harp. Bitterblue wondered if, when Thiel played it, its sound reached all the way to Leck's maze.
She also saw a bit of broken mirror on the washstand.
'Has this always been your room, Thiel?' she asked.
'Yes, Lady Queen,' he said. 'I'm sorry it's not more welcoming.'
'Was it—assigned to you,' Bitterblue asked carefully, 'or did you choose it?'
'I chose it, Lady Queen.'
'Do you never wish for a larger space?' she asked. 'Something more like mine?'
'No, Lady Queen,' he said, coming to sit across from her. 'This suits me.'
It did not suit him. This bare, comfortless square of a room, the gray blanket on the bed, the dreary-looking furniture did not in any way match his dignity, his intelligence, or his importance to her or to the kingdom.
'Have you been making Darby and Rood go to work every day?' she asked him. 'I've never known either of them to go so long without a breakdown.'
He studied his own hands, then cleared his throat delicately. 'I have, Lady Queen. Though of course I could not insist it of Rood today. I confess that whenever they've asked for my guidance, I have given it. I hope you don't feel that I've been imposing myself.'
'Have you been very bored?' she asked him.
'Oh, Lady Queen,' he said fervently, as if the question itself were relief from boredom. 'I've been sitting in this room with nothing to do but think. It is paralyzing, Lady Queen, to have nothing to do but think.'
'And what have you been thinking, Thiel?'
'That if you would let me come back to your tower, Lady Queen, I would endeavor to serve you better.'
'Thiel,' she said quietly, 'you helped us escape, didn't you? You gave my mother a knife. We wouldn't have gotten away if you hadn't; she needed that knife. And you distracted Leck while we ran.'
Thiel sat huddled within himself, not speaking. 'Yes,' he finally whispered.
