The memory came back to her every now and then. She had overheard other conversations later, more important ones, more enlightening ones, but that was the memory that had given her the strange feeling inside her chest as though her heart had forgotten how to beat. That was the memory that kept coming back, even though she had tried different remedies, oak gall and sage smoke and oil of lavender. She remembered every word, just the way she had heard it: the footsteps echoing through the timbers, the cries of the gulls on the fjord—Falyrion, her father, said the gulls came all the way up from the ocean because it was shallower here and the salmon fish were closer to the surface of the water. She remembered the smell of the oil the guardsmen used on their boots. She remembered that Hulix would inherit if he was Falyrion’s son, and she remembered exactly what she had thought at the time. Who else could be his father? He was her brother, and if he wasn’t Falyrion’s son it would mean she wasn’t Falyrion’s daughter and she knew she was! He was her father! Who else could her father be? Usually, when Alicia didn’t understand something, she asked her mother about it. Mirami knew everything, though some things Alicia overheard made her angry. That time, though Alicia couldn’t explain why, she had thought it might be better not to ask her mother.
Xulai wakened early, well before the maids appeared with warm water and long before the hour when Precious Wind usually swept in, comb and brush in one hand, pail of warm water in the other. Precious Wind had begun neatening Xulai when Oldwife couldn’t manage the stairs anymore. Xulai missed Oldwife, though Precious Wind got the neatening done much more quickly than Oldwife ever had. For a moment, Xulai wondered if she’d dreamt last night’s happenings, but when she fished the box from its hiding place behind the tapestry, it confirmed what had happened. She had found something. She had swallowed it. Would it be digested? Would it come out whole, as some things did when swallowed? The hostler’s boy had swallowed a ring once, and it had come out whole, though filthy. His mother had been very angry.
“It simply needed a warm resting place of some kind,” the chipmunk said from beside her ear on the pillow. “If it needs to get out, it will probably slip out of your ear while you’re asleep. And you needn’t wait for hot water and Precious Wind. Though you’ve been trained to be timid—overtrained perhaps—don’t you think you’re old enough to get yourself dressed?”
Not waiting for Precious Wind was a completely new idea. She wondered why she had never thought of it herself. When she dipped into the icy water from the ewer she decided that was the answer. Though it was only early autumn, the nights were already cold. Shivering, she pulled on her chemise, drawers, undershift, stockings, and shoes. When she thrust her head through the neck of the undershift, bits of briar and leaf scraped out of her hair to litter the floor, something the chipmunk had no doubt noticed since he or she had shared the pillow last night. So chipmunk knew Xulai’s hair would require some explanation! He could have told her! Though, perhaps, he had told her, in a way, by suggesting she not wait for Precious Wind. Thinking led to all kinds of ideas like that.
She leaned over, letting her hair hang straight down, a black curtain that reached to her toes, as she combed through it again and again until it crackled and sparked.
She checked in the little mirror Precious Wind had given her. The long sweep of blue-black hair was free of trash, but her dark eyes had sleep caked around them and there was a definite smutch of something icky on her forehead. The icy washcloth got rid of both, though it set her shivering again. She would not wash her ears. If she tried, they would freeze and fall off! Some people might look better if their ears did fall off, but Xulai’s ears weren’t bad. Not too big and ugly like some people had. It was nice not to be ugly, though some ugly people were very interesting. She rather liked the color of her skin. It wasn’t as dark as Precious Wind’s, but it wasn’t as pale as that of most of the people in the castle. Some of these Norlanders were frog-belly-colored.
Carrying her warm woolen skirt and her cloak (thinking, meanwhile, that perhaps she should think of the cloak as the chipmunk’s cloak, since chipmunk seemed determined to live in it), she went down the hall to the necessary office that protruded from the side of the curtain wall over the moat. The moat was fed by the river, which carried all the waste away, and in winter the wind came up from the surface of the water to freeze her bottom. Even this early in the fall, the wind was chill. Finally, skirt securely belted and cloak around her shoulders, she went down the two flights to the kitchen, where a fire-warmed seat in the inglenook waited for her. Every morning she sat there to eat oat cakes with jam, or porridge with honey and cream, or new-laid eggs and buttered toast.
This morning, however, she was stopped at the door by the sight of Cook leaning over the table in the center of the room, tears dripping from her eyes into a puddle on the scrubbed wooden surface. Xulai had never seen Cook weep over anything, and she hovered in the doorway, uncertain whether to go in or go back.
Cook looked up, wiped her eyes, shook her head slowly, side
