It was not until late evening that So Ga emerged from the Inner Room. By then the sky through the windows’ milky blown glass was dark blue. He found that he’d become very hungry. And so he went to the sitting room that adjoined his bedroom, where he took most of his evening meals.
The maids were setting out his dinner. He noticed that they were speaking to each other in whispers and were moving slowly, taking great care not to rattle dishes. Hin Lan had likely issued an order for quiet when he had seen that his royal charge had closed himself away in the Inner Room. The prince had not intended that at all, but in truth the silence had helped to ease his mind a little.
Hin Lan sat with him for his dinner. One of his tutor’s duties was to keep his little prince company. His was a lonely life and when he had been a young child, Hin Lan and the motherly maids of his Little Palace had done all they could to ease the burden of solitude, though there was nothing any of them could do to replace his royal father.
When he was younger, So Ga had been convinced that Hin Lan’s was a most dull and boring assignment. To be forever locked away in a little stone palace with a boy who may or may not have been the crown prince with the commission to raise him and train him with very little help, that seemed to So Ga to be more of a punishment than a duty. He had said as much to Hin Lan when their life in the Little Palaces had just begun.
Hin Lan had smiled. “It is my honor to train the next king of Láokoth.”
“What if I am not the next king of Láokoth?” So Ga had asked, feeling rather clever. “What then? Your efforts will have been wasted.”
Hin Lan had said then what he often said, “Your Highness, you are all the crown prince.”
Still, So Ga had long wondered what had compelled Hin Lan to join him in his Little Palace. He was sure all the tutors in all the Little Palaces had their sense of duty and their sworn obedience to their Palace House and to the king. But the other tutors were old men and Hin Lan was still young, barely thirty-five. He could have a wife and children by now were it not for his confinement in the Four Little Palaces.
Sometimes he wanted to ask him directly. But he knew that, no matter how direct the question, Hin Lan would never give him a direct answer.
And in truth, he was glad for Hin Lan’s constant company. For one thing, he had never eaten an evening meal alone. Despite everything else, with Hin Lan there So Ga had never really felt alone.
Though Hin Lan sat nearby, he did not eat. None of So Ga’s household ate until after he did. Instead, Hin Lan read. Sometimes he would read aloud to the prince, but this evening he did not. So Ga watched him while he picked little bites off the fish fillet on his plate. He wanted to talk to Hin Lan about the many thoughts that had been swirling around his mind all day, he wanted his tutor’s aid in ordering these thoughts and making sense of them. For months he had been trying to find a way to talk to Hin Lan about his doubts regarding the condemnation of Nŭnon. But he feared the unpredictable consequences of speaking such thoughts aloud.
Hin Lan, of course, could sense the troubled restlessness in the crown prince, but said nothing. He continued to read his book and waited for his royal charge to speak.
At last So Ga said, “Hin Lan?”
The tutor turned a page and then put the book in his lap. “Yes, Your Highness?”
“What do you think my royal father meant when he suggested the page be edited?”
Hin Lan drew his hand, together with the book, into the long heavy sleeve of his green golt while he considered the question.
Finally, he answered, “Was it not merely a matter of His Majesty’s desire to protect his son from a painful memory? And an overly enthusiastic clerk attempting to interpret that desire?”
So Ga who had taken something from inside his own sleeve while his tutor had been talking, now smoothed the two pages of the court records on the table, one unedited, the other ink-stained. He murmured, “Perhaps.”
Hin Lan tilted his head and regarded the crown prince without comment for some time. He was surprised by the sudden reappearance of the pages, and the accompanying realization that the prince had been carrying them with him all afternoon.
So Ga said, “My royal father knows this is the only way I can ever see outside the walls of my Little Palace. Were it not for his decree regarding the Courtyard of the Four Little Palaces I would have had a great deal more experience by now. These records that I am sent every day are more than just diversion or duty.”
Hin Lan nodded once. “Indeed, Your Highness.”
“And my royal father knows that. Why, then, would he even suggest that a passage be removed from my sight?” Before Hin Lan could reply, So Ga went on, “Do you know how often Hin Dan and the Nŭnon House have been mentioned in court?”
Hin Lan was not certain if he was expected to answer.
“Hundreds,” the prince said. “And not one of those pages ever came to me effaced in any way.”
The tutor nodded once, slowly. He studied the prince’s face, but was still uncertain where this was going.
“Did you learn from the clerk exactly what my royal father said?”
“Your Highness, according to the messenger, the clerk who had been transcribing the morning meeting, after all had departed, was gathering his papers and tools when he saw that His Majesty was there. The clerk, startled, fell to his knees and asked if there was anything he could do for His Majesty. The king took up the pages and said, while pointing to a certain section, ‘Would that my son did not have to be reminded of this.’ And then he gave the papers back to the clerk and left.”
“What then?”
“The clerk then took it upon himself to black out the lines that His Majesty had pointed to.”
“Exactly those lines?”
“Yes, Your Highness, as I understand the events.”
The prince was silent for a time, staring at the pages, one of which had a spot of wax that had discolored the ink.
“Hin Lan?”
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“Do you think— I mean do you suppose it could be possible…?”
“Could what be possible, Your Highness?”
“Do you think my royal father might have been trying to tell me something?”
At that moment a maid emerged through the side doorway with a small bowl on a tray. Hin Lan looked at her. She stopped, as if afraid she had entered at the wrong moment. Then she tiptoed toward the table and placed the bowl in front of the prince. Hin Lan murmured something to her and then she bowed to the prince and motioned to the other two maids who were standing in the corners of the room. They followed her into the corridor and closed the thin wooden door behind them.
The bowl, a precious palace item carved from a large piece of white gíth1 tinted a little pink along the rim, was filled with a cool sweet soup made of milk, a favorite of the prince that Hin Lan had requested on his behalf believing it might help to lift his melancholy mood as it had when he’d been a child.
“Your Highness,” Hin Lan said, gently. “What is it you think His Majesty was trying to tell you?”
“You think so too, don’t you?” the prince’s eyes were wide and shining. “That’s why you sent them away and had her close the door.”
“I had her close the door because there is a draft and Your Highness is shivering.”
So Ga seemed not to have noticed. He stirred his soup with a slender wooden spoon.
“Your Highness?” Hin Lan said, trying to return the prince to the previous question.
“I don’t know. But I think…”
Silence fell and Hin Lan watched him for a moment, his hands tucked in his sleeves. “Your Highness,” he said at last, “if your royal father had wanted to tell you something, why would he choose this way to do it?”
So Ga put down the spoon and stared at him, astonished. Such a simple question, yet it hadn’t even occurred to him. Had his father wanted to give him some kind of message he could have closed it away in a sealed envelope. Or he could have even arranged an audience. That was not against protocol, even though the king had never done it.
Perhaps it was simply that the king had not wanted this message to be seen by any but his true son. So Ga nearly said so aloud, but then remembered the protocols, and kept silent.
But what had his father wanted him to see? And how could he be so sure that only his son would understand, and not the other Little Princes?
Pushing the white gíth bowl aside, So Ga put the two pages side by side — the new one next to the one covered in blocks of black ink. They were identical, it seemed, the few words visible on the edited page corresponded exactly in placement and size with the unedited page. The only words on the ink-stained page that had not been blacked out had been “Ban Lo of Sonen House,” the name of one the courtiers who had been speaking, the Minister of Defense’s second clerk. It was the word that had been mottled a bit by the spilled wax. So Ga had assumed that the historian had simply not bothered to efface it. No other words had been left free of ink. If there was a message in it, So Go couldn’t begin to understand it.
Gradually, So Ga’s mind returned to the thoughts that had distracted him earlier this afternoon, those now frequent coils and loops of doubt and confusion regarding the condemnation of the Nŭnon House. Which House, he realized suddenly, Second Clerk Ban Lo Sonen had spoken of so gravely.
“Hin Lan,” So Ga said, his voice very quiet. “Who is the Sonen House?”
Hin Lan did not answer for a long time. He met the crown prince’s gaze, his hands tucked into his sleeves. For several silent minutes he studied So Ga’s face.
Just as he opened his mouth to speak, the corridor outside the thin wooden door was filled with the heavy footsteps and metallic noise of an armored man. A bodysword from the Front Hall, not a messenger but a sword himself.
Hin Lan’s mouth snapped shut and he stood to open the door. So Ga listened to their whispered exchange, unable to make out any words. Finally, the guard bowed and took his leave, clanging down the corridor. Hin Lan turned, his face pale, his eyes shining. He did not close the door.
“What is it?” So Ga asked.
The tutor returned to his chair and sat stiffly. He spoke with his head bowed. “A servant from one of the other Little Palaces has fled his walls.”
“He left his palace?” So Ga exclaimed.
Hin Lan’s bow deepened. “Yes, Your Highness.”
“Did he make it to the Palace Walls? Is he in the city?
“They have captured him, Your Highness. He did not even make it out of the Spring Courtyard.” Hin Lan set his jaw and lifted himself from his bow to look at his young charge for moment. So Ga waited, brow furrowed. “Your Highness, he was not trying to reach the Palace walls.”
“Then where was he going?”
“Here, Your Highness. He had been climbing the maple tree against our wall.”
Rhymes with “lithe”; a semi-precious stone, usually white, often veined with red or pink. The most prized semi-precious stone in Láokoth
Oo things are starting to get interesting 🤭
Well, this was a nice turn, at the right moment, too… I was fully engaged in the prince’s plight… though I have to admit my mind turned it into a k-drama. I really love discovering the court intrigue through the eyes of this child who is being forced to think in a grown up way, for survival.