The cake was motivation, of course, but mostly, Bitterblue wanted to know what sorts of things Bann said when he was complaining about Raffin. 'I'm not getting anywhere with this,' she admitted blearily.
'Well, and we need you,' Giddon said.
Half stumbling in her slippers, Bitterblue joined them. Together, they walked down the corridor.
'Specifically, we need you to lie supine on the sofa,' Bann said as they entered the sitting room.
This struck Bitterblue as suspicious, but she complied, and was deeply gratified when Helda loomed out of nowhere and slapped a plate of cake on her stomach.
'We're having some luck with military defectors in south Estill,' began Giddon.
'This raspberry filling is amazing,' said Bitterblue fervently, then fell asleep, with cake in her mouth and her fork in her hand.
34
MADLEN AND SAF were away for nearly two weeks. When they returned, they made a path through November snow with upward of five thousand bones, and few answers.
'I have managed to reassemble three or four nearly complete skeletons, Lady Queen,' said Madlen. 'But mostly I've got fragments, and not enough time or space to work out which goes with which. I've found no evidence of burning, but some of sawing. I believe we're looking at hundreds of people, but I can't be any more specific. What would you say to having that cast off tomorrow?'
'I would say it's the first good news I've had in—' Bitterblue tried to calculate back, then eventually gave up. 'Forever,' she said grumpily.
Leaving the infirmary, stepping into the great courtyard, she came face-to-face with Saf. 'Oh!' she said. 'Hello.'
'Hello,' he said, also taken by surprise.
He was, apparently, about to climb onto the window-caulking platform and haul it, with Fox, to whatever obscene height today's work called for. He looked well—the water didn't seem to have hurt him—and there was something quiet in the way he stood there before her, looking at her. Less antagonism?
'I've something to show you, and a request,' Bitterblue said. 'Will you come to the library sometime in the next hour?'
Saf gave a small nod. Behind him, Fox tied a rope to her belt, not seeming to notice them.
DEATH STORED ALL the journals Bitterblue wasn't working on in a low cabinet in his desk. When Bitterblue asked to borrow one, he unlocked the cabinet and handed it to her impatiently.
When, shortly thereafter, Saf walked into her library nook with high eyebrows, she passed it to him. Flipping pages, he said, 'What is this?'
'A cipher we can't break,' she said, 'written in Leck's hand. We've found thirty-five volumes.'
'One for each year of his reign,' Saf said.
'Yes,' Bitterblue said, trying to look as if she'd already noticed that. As if, in fact, he hadn't just given her a tool to take back to the deciphering team. If each book represented a year, could they isolate similarities between corresponding parts of different journals? Would each book's opening language, for example, relate to winter?
'I want you to take it,' Bitterblue said, 'but you must keep it close, Saf. Show no one outside Teddy, Tilda, and Bren,
'No,' Saf said, shaking his head, holding it out to give back to her. 'I'm not taking it, not with the way things have been. Someone'll find out. I'll be attacked, they'll get it from me, and your secret will be ruined.'
Bitterblue sighed shortly. 'I suppose I can't argue. Well then, will you look through it now and tell the others about it, and let me know what they say?'
'Yes, all right,' he said, 'if you think it'll help.'
He'd gotten his hair cut. It was darker now, and bits of it stuck up endearingly, in new directions. Confused by his willingness to be helpful and conscious that she was staring, she walked to the hanging while he flipped through the book again. The sad, green eyes of the woman in white calmed her.
'What's the request?' he said.
'What?' she said, spinning around.
'You said you had something to show me,' Saf said, gesturing with the book, 'and a request. I'll do it, whatever it is.'
'You—you will?' she said. 'You're not going to fight me?'
He rested his eyes on her face with a frankness she hadn't seen there since the night he'd kissed her, then found her crying in the graveyard and blamed himself for it. He looked a bit embarrassed. 'Maybe the cold water unblocked my head,' he said. 'What's the request?'
She swallowed. 'My friends have found you a hiding place. If a crisis arises with the crown and you need to hide, will you go to the drawbridge tower on Winged Bridge?'
'Yes.'
'That was it,' she said.
'I'll go back to my work, then?'
'Saf,' she said, 'I don't understand. What does this mean? Are we friends?'
The question seemed to confuse him. He placed the journal back on the table carefully. 'Maybe we're something else,' he said, 'that hasn't figured itself out yet.'
'I don't understand what that means.'
'I think that's the point,' he said, pushing his hand through his hair a bit hopelessly. 'I see I acted like a child. And I see you clearly again. But it's not like anything can ever be how it was. I'll go now, Lady Queen,' he said, 'if that's all right.'
When she didn't respond, he turned and left her. After a while, she went to her table and tried to push herself through a bit more of the book about monarchy and tyranny. She read something about oligarchies and something about diarchies, but none of it sank in.
She wasn't sure that she had any idea who Saf was now, and his use of her title had devastated her.
THE NEXT MORNING, Bitterblue opened her bedroom door to the prospect of Madlen brandishing a saw.
'This is not a reassuring sight, Madlen,' said Bitterblue.
'All we need is a flat surface, Lady Queen,' said Madlen, 'and everything will go swimmingly.'
'Madlen?'
'Yes?'
'What happened to Saf in Silverhart?'
'What do you mean, what happened?'
'Yesterday, when he talked to me, he seemed changed.'
'Ah,' said Madlen thoughtfully. 'I couldn't say, Lady Queen. He was quiet, and I did think that the bones sobered him. Perhaps they encouraged him to consider who you are, Lady Queen, and what you're dealing with.'
'Yes, perhaps,' said Bitterblue, sighing. 'Shall we go into the bathing room?'
One of Leck's journals lay open at the foot of the bed, where Bitterblue had been puzzling it over. Walking past the pages, Madlen paused, struck by it.
'Are you any good at ciphers, Madlen?' Bitterblue asked.
'Ciphers?' Madlen said in apparent bewilderment.
'You mustn't tell a soul about it—not a soul, do you understand? It's a cipher written by Leck, and we're having a terrible time cracking it.'
'Indeed,' Madlen said. 'It's a cipher.'
'Yes,' said Bitterblue patiently. 'So far, we haven't managed to identify the meaning of even a single symbol.'
