So Ga spent the rest of the afternoon breathing the herbal steam they always made for him during one of his spells, his head over a simmering pot of bitterly medicinal fragrance. The entire Little Palace smelled of it and so the walls had all been opened and the servants had set about fanning the place. With the coming move, Hin Lan didn’t want there to be a lingering smell of medicine to alert the next occupants to the goings on of the previous tenants. Bundled in blankets next to the roaring fire in the great ceramic fireplace, So Ga had watched this flurry of activity with less concern than he would have expected. The move no longer unsettled him as much as the thought of the condemned servant locked away somewhere in the Spring Courtyard with a message that So Ga would never hear.
Eventually, when the herbal steams were done and the afternoon was growing darker, he retreated deeper within his private quarters, drawing closed the thin inner wall behind him. He did not know what to do. He could do nothing. Ignorance and powerlessness were fatal flaws for any man, but especially a king. Part of him thought that if he just slept through the servant’s execution, he could wake up without this weight on his chest.
His large wooden bed was enclosed behind the inner wall of his private quarters, as well as a small sitting area in front of a smaller ceramic fireplace. This one was tiled green and decorated with golden relief in a pattern of birds and hemlock. So Ga brought a book to the cushion in front of the fire and made a show of settling in for a quiet afternoon reading in solitude. Though the door did close off this inner space from the rest of the wing, it was not entirely enclosed, as the wall and its door were broken here and there by brightly colored rectangles of stained glass arranged in a pattern of diamonds, green and blue. The space where So Ga sat near his low fireplace was lit dimly by only the fire and a few candles, while the space on the other side of the wall was still filled with the light of many lanterns and candles and the gray light of early evening and so the colored glass glowed.
They brought him dinner at the usual time. But he remained motionless where he sat next to the fire, fixedly staring at his book as if reading while they placed the tray nearby. He could smell steamed white fish from the river, mushrooms, eggs, and something green, perhaps collard. A plain meal, the kind So Ga’s physician always insisted on when he was ill. The servants left with quiet bows.
He ignored the meal and went to bed while the sun was still up. The rest of his household went about their evening tasks in whispers and tiptoes lest they disturb him. As the evening grew darker, the room on the other side of the wooden wall also grew darker and the lights from their lanterns hardly ever shone through the colored glass. Eventually the walls were closed and the Little Palace was shuttered for the night. So effective was their practiced silence that So Ga really did feel, for a time, that the palace was empty. And he did sleep for an hour or two, though not well. And when he woke again to a silent, darkened Little Palace, he felt no less restless and troubled.
While he had slept, the tray near the small ceramic fireplace had been replaced by one bearing a small covered tureen of soup and a little dish of rose cakes shaped like maple leaves. He did feel hungry, but also his ribs ached and his stomach hurt from a day spent coughing. He was too tired to eat. And he was too tired to even sleep. Most of the fitful attention of his troubled mind was stolen by a single thought as he stared through the thin green curtains around his bed and watched the night sky through his window.
In a few hours it would be dawn. And the servant — and his message — would be gone.
Unable to sleep anyway, So Ga climbed out of his enclosed bed to tiptoe into his darkened study. He knew that Hin Lan would have likely left one or two servants on the other side of the study’s outer wall — the one that opened onto the gardens — to listen for coughing fits or to be close enough for So Ga to summon if he needed them.
Moving quietly lest he alert them, So Ga set about preparing a bit of ink and a thin brush. His bed, a great stone box, the traditional bed of northern Láokoth, had been built into the walls of the room. The mattress rested atop a surface of polished dark wood while a wooden framework enclosed the sleeping space. In the summer they hung thin linen curtains from the frame and in the winter these were replaced with thick wool or velvet. So Ga’s bed always used curtains of green.
On the other side of the inner wall against which the bed had been built was the large ceramic fireplace in the prince’s study. A flue fed heated air into the stone interior of So Ga’s bed. Most of the old Palace beds had been bare stone. But the Sona House was not northern and had always favored the traditional wooden beds of the south. Therefore So Ga’s grandmother had had all the stone beds of the palace covered in wood panels inlaid with bone. It was a detail that the Grand Steward had not overlooked when she had planned the building of the Four Little Palaces.
With the ink and brush, So Ga crept back to the space enclosing his bed, closing the inner wall behind him. On the back of the bed, the ornate wooden panels could be loosened in sections. So Ga went about carefully removing each section until the back of the bed was entirely bared. He brought the lantern from the stand next to his bed and set it on the floor to illuminate the large section of stone that he had uncovered.
Every four weeks he and the other Little Princes exchanged palaces. Every four weeks they would all crawl behind their beds and remove the same wooden panels. And there, hidden from the rest of their households, the Four Little Princes would exchange messages. If the Grand Steward knew about this there was no telling what she would do. But how would anyone learn of it? This was, after all, the prince’s bed and the prince’s personal quarters.
The messages written there were in ink and impossibly small. Nine years worth of exchanges had covered nearly all the stone under the wood on the back of the princes’ beds. In the course of those nine years So Ga had learned the names of the other little princes — their old names, before they had abandoned them in order to take up positions in their Little Palaces. So Ga had watched as their penmanship had improved over the years, but he could always tell them apart. Their personalities shone through here and here alone, on this secret canvas of stone, carefully covered by beautifully inlaid wood.
He had read his last messages when he had arrived here four weeks ago. He had not been in this palace in over three months, and the three other princes had left their messages before him. The last time he had been here he had remarked on the birnrens and nars in the garden pond. That was also the time he had received medicine that his household had not ordered and so he had also asked after the health of the others.
The protocols treated the Four Little Palaces as one palace repeated four times over. Every request made by one was fulfilled for all four. They had not even allowed the risk that someone might guess which prince was which based on the requests made by his household. The king had preferred to sacrifice efficiency if it meant keeping his son absolutely hidden. So Ga frequently received things that he had not requested. And he knew that all his requests were sent to the other three. He derived a bit of private enjoyment in trying to guess who had requested what over the years. Matters involving medicine, however, caused all the princes anxiety. In the earliest days it was for this reason that these messages had begun. So Ga himself had had to request medicine when a particularly violent spell of his illness had struck shortly after entering the Spring Courtyard. He had, after moving to the next Little Palace, found a little corner of his new bed’s wooden panels lifted. It was then that he had uncovered a message written in the tiny hand of a child, like himself, “Which of you is ill? I am not. I am Ăth Nan1, and not the prince.”
Frightened at first and certain this breach of protocol would be discovered and lead to some kind of catastrophe, So Ga had soon grown intrigued by the thought of little Ăth Nan all alone in his own Little Palace worrying after the others. In time he came to view this simple message as a hand reaching through the thick fog that separated them from one another.
And so, after weeks of hesitation, on the night before his next move, So Ga crawled behind his bed and wrote his response: “It was I. I am well now.”
The messages had quickly evolved to include all four Little Princes and all four Little Palaces. In the course of all their exchanged messages, though So Ga had learned the names and identities of the other three, he had never explicitly confirmed to them that he was the true crown prince. Though they all understood as much.
Every time he uncovered the messages before a move, the canvas of memories provided a kind of familial joy. Over the years he had come to think of the other princes as his brothers. Despite all the events of the last day, he nevertheless found himself feeling a little thrill of excitement at the thought of reading the new messages at the new palace, the only thing that made the frequent moves endurable. Though, of course, first he needed to write his own.
The first note in response to So Ga’s three-month-old message about the pond’s new occupants and the surprising medicine delivery, the one written after So Ga had left this Little Palace the last time, had been from Nolom2. He was the most timid of all four Little Princes and the one who always wrote the least and did so almost apologetically.
“I was not ill,” he wrote. “But I pray that he has recovered. We must cherish our bodies for the safety of the prince.”
So Ga ran his fingers over this bit of ink. Nolom was always like this. Since he had begun his time in the Spring Courtyard nine years ago he had always behaved as if his only worth in these Little Palaces was in service of So Ga. The prince knew that all the boys the Grand Steward had found had been houseless and some had even been homeless beggars living on the streets, but he had always wondered what hidden misery had brought Nolom to believe that he had so little value.
The second message was from Ív Lin3. So Ga knew his handwriting immediately. None of the rest of them wrote with such firm, upright strokes.
“There was no illness in my household. I did not add the nars, though I think the birnrens might eventually adapt to them. I discovered a den of rabbits by the back wall. I have been feeding them. They like spinach more than cabbage.”
In another life Ív Lin would have managed a large farm and been most at peace caring for the animals and the crops. Every one of the Little Palaces had rich gardens that bloomed well into autumn because of Ív Lin who occupied most of his days with this especially.
So Ga had gone looking for the rabbit den when he had arrived this time but by then it was empty.
The last message was written by Ăth Nan. A boy wise beyond his years and more clever than most of the ministers in the king’s court.
“I am sorry to have worried you all. One of my servants was very ill, the medicine was for him. He has recovered. I have been feeding the rabbits. But I think they prefer strawberries. It is good that you planted some, Ív Lin. The babies are all very fat. It was I who requested the nars. My father used to raise them. They are beautiful to look at once they are mature. I hope you all enjoy them.”
Invigorated a little by the cool midnight air, So Ga brought the ink and the little brush to the bared stone and he began to add his message. There was only one matter he deemed important enough to occupy this precious space. He knew there was a chance that the condemned servant’s master would be the one to arrive next in this Little Palace and would then be able to see this message as soon as tomorrow night. But it was even more likely that it would be months before that prince — whichever he was — returned to these walls and saw the message So Ga would write tonight. Just as it would probably be months before So Ga reached that prince’s palace and was able to look there for the message to explain why the servant had been sent to his death. Of course, it was also possible that such a message would not be added to the others. It was possible that it was too dangerous to even put in this most secret of places. In that case, So Ga feared, the message’s sender would wish to try again.
“I did not see him or speak to him. My guards did not allow him over the wall and none are allowed to see or speak to him. You sent him with a message that I did not receive. I’m sorry, I cannot save him. Please do not risk another life, or yours, too, might be in danger.”
After he replaced the wood panel, he cleaned his brush and the dish of ink and hid all signs that they had been used. It was then that he became aware that his household was no longer silent, and that the building wave of noise and activity was altogether different from what it usually was at any hour. Moreover, different sounds began to make their way into So Ga’s quarters. Familiar sounds that froze the blood in his veins.
Drums.
The porcelain dish fell from his hands and shattered on the wooden floor. The sound of it, however, was muted by the din that was building outside the walls of the Little Palace. Lantern light bobbed and brightened through the colored glass. When the inner wall burst open, So Ga jerked back, stepping with his bare feet on the broken pieces of porcelain. He felt the sting as a shard sliced into his left foot.
Sen Rin, captain of his bodyswords, ran to him, three other guards behind him. They were armored, swords drawn. There was blood on all their blades.
“Your Highness,” Sen Rin said with a hasty but proper bow.
“What’s happening?”
“We must leave the Little Palace at once.”
“We cannot. I cannot.”
Sen Rin set his jaw and abandoned the protocols. He reached out with his free hand and gripped So Ga by the forearm. One of the other bodyswords took So Ga’s other arm.
“We must, Your Highness,” Sen Rin said calmly. “The Little Palace is on fire.”
EE-yath-nan
NOH-lohm
Ive-LIN
Omg things are getting real very quickly 🫢🫢
I really love how you are keeping the kids as kids without making them idiots. I really enjoyed the experience of pausing for a moment and wondering how it would feel to want to talk to 3 other people who have to pretend to be you….as children.