The Palace in the Evening

Beginning at the end...

The Palace, Ŏno Soth

¹

The young king crossed the broad, stone avenue at a slow pace. His old ailments had begun to bother him again, but not enough to stop his weekly journey from one side of the Palace grounds to the other. Clutching his black velvet cloak around his shoulders, he braced against the last of winter’s cold.

Behind him trailed a thin company of servants and swords, more than he’d like, and fewer than the prime minister would have preferred. A compromise that displeased them both.

He was thin and small, too small to be king, they had once said many years ago, though he had not heard anyone say it in a long time. His slender face was colorless, and his long hair bound in a simple knot at the back of his head. In the pale afternoon daylight, his white skin seemed almost gray. The Palace physicians believed that the young king would not survive the year. How he wished he could prove them wrong. After everything he had sacrificed to stand in this place and wear the black of the royal House, after everything he had lost.

“You have nothing left to prove,” the prime minister had said when the physicians had gone and they were alone. “To anyone. Even Bá Hoth respects your power over the peninsula, more so than any Láokoth king in history. There has been peace for as long as you have been on the throne.”

“There is much I meant to do and have not done,” the king had answered. “And soon I will die.”

“The physicians may be wrong.”

And despite the kindness he had intended with his words, they had both known it was not true. The Palace employed the best physicians on the peninsula; they were not wrong. More than that, the king knew it, as he knew his own body. The pain in his chest grew day by day, each breath a labor greater than the last. He knew he would not survive the year, and he was beginning to fear that he would not survive long enough to see the spring.

All along the journey, guards bowed and greeted him, gates opened as if by magic or the soundless motions of the servants, the Palace spread and quieted for him, as if he was a gentle breeze moving through a field of grass.

The king did not see the way they stole glances at him as he passed, their eyes wide with wonder, as if they believed they were looking upon a figure of legend. Many whispered that he was. There was a popular belief that had spread recently through the Palace House that the young king was Netholom returned. The greatest king in the history of Láokoth had been reborn in the body of this small, frail figure who moved soundless as a shadow through the halls and courtyards of the Palace.

He crossed the broad central avenue and turned left, beginning down the narrow road that led to the Spring Courtyard. Behind him, the young king was aware of the presence of the prime minister, his Oak Hand. He walked a little ahead of the other servants, his hands behind his back, his blue golt gleaming dully in the white sun. The king could feel his disapproval; he had been guarding the king’s health vigilantly ever since the physicians had departed, and had not been pleased when the king had announced that he was walking across the grounds this evening. But he had said nothing. Perhaps he understood. Sometimes the young king wished he could talk to him as he used to, as before. But he had sacrificed much to wear the white crown of Láokoth.

The long narrow avenue down which they processed was often called the Green Way, as it led to the Spring Courtyard. Either side of the cobbled road was pillared with maple trees, tended carefully by the Palace groundskeepers. They would begin to bloom soon, but now they were motionless gray skeletons grasping stiffly at the sky.

At the end of the Green Way stood the wall that had once divided and protected the Spring Courtyard. It was no longer guarded, as there was no need. The Spring Courtyard had been empty of life for many years; there was nothing left to guard. Still, the young king allowed no one to walk here, not even the swords. Only he could set foot in the Spring Courtyard.

He left them at the wall; he could see the crowd of servants and swords on the other side of the gaping opening where the gate had been before it burned in the fire all those years ago. The prime minister stood in front. He lifted his head when the king glanced back. It seemed, in that moment, that the stone-faced man might even understand what the king was doing here.

This place had once been home and refuge to four little princes in four Little Palaces. After the fire they had stood as little more than ruined, charred husks. The scorched black stone, blood-stained wood, the ruins strewn like detritus in the valley, all of it had been left to be retaken by the creeping wild. Grass grew knee-high in the courtyards at the center of half-collapsed stone frames, trees had overtaken what was left of the walls.

The young king had spent many long days studying what was left, as if he could recreate it in his mind as it used to be from the ashes and dust that remained.

Two years ago he had ordered them to rebuild one of the little palaces, but not atop the ruins, which they were to leave untouched. Instead he had them place it in the center of the valley. The old plans were used to make it identical to the destroyed palaces, but it was not the same. For one thing, it was empty. Emptier, perhaps, than the ruins, as it had never held life within its walls. Nor would it. There were no more little princes to occupy the Spring Courtyard. Not even when the king stood inside its cold, white walls did the little palace contain life.

He moved through the gatehouse of the little palace until he came to the door that divided it from the other wings of the residence. Years ago, the gatehouse would have been filled with the little prince’s retinue of bodyswords. But now it was utterly silent.

Pausing now and then to catch his breath, he made his way to the back wing, the one that had once been the primary residence. He had navigated the walkways that crisscrossed the courtyard at the center of the residence so many times that by now he could probably find his way with his eyes closed.

Leaving his shoes upon the wooden porch, he pushed open a section of the wing’s wall, which swung on its frame providing a narrow opening. Of course, this wall could be opened entirely, but this place wasn’t for living, and so the king never bothered.

Despite the cold, he left the little section of wall open and moved through the many small chambers of the residence, but quietly, as if afraid to disturb the silence. As if the emptiness had been so densely occupied by memories that his footsteps could scatter them like fog.

On the other side of one of the inner walls, the king found himself in a bedchamber. A cold porcelain stove hunched near the windowless wall. The room was cold and dark and smelled of dusty stone.

With a sigh, he chastised himself for forgetting a lantern. Though even that wouldn’t have done much to cut the chill. He coughed into his sleeve. The cough became a violent fit and he leaned against the frame of the bed, struggling for breath. When he brought his sleeve away, it was dotted with blood. In that moment, the king felt himself weighted greatly with fatigue.

Moving slowly, he went to the back of the large wooden bed, which was in the shape of a box. The screens were closed and the bed had not even a mattress, as there was no need. It was merely — like the rest of the little palace — an empty memory.

Just as he had done a hundred times before, he carefully pried the wooden panels off the back of the bed’s heavy wooden frame. A heated stone box was hidden beneath the wood, quite cold now, of course. But here on the back of the bed the wood panels could be easily removed. The stone beneath was pale and smooth, and, in the last several months, had been gradually covered by messages.

Each had been written by the king.

Every week he would come to this little palace and sit on the wooden floor in this room and write a message in black ink under the wooden panels. And then he would come back the next week and hope to see a reply. But there never was. And so it was again today. His message was there in stark black strokes, and beneath it only silence.

Pushing back his black velvet cloak, he reached inside his golt and brought out a small bottle of ink and a thin brush.

It was at that moment that he heard the sound of footsteps on the other side of the bedchamber’s thin wall.

“Who’s there?” he called, a little irritated. The entire Palace knew that he was never to be disturbed when he visited the Spring Courtyard.

The footsteps approached slowly. Then the sliding door in the thin wall inched open and a child appeared.

He stood cautiously, his hands clasped before him, fingers fidgeting.

The boy wore the black of the royal House, and a thick coat of padded wool, embroidered in gold. His head was crowned by a shock of wavy brown hair, a gift from his fair mother. Unlike his father, the boy’s pale skin had the rosy glow of health.

The king sighed, his breath a white fog that faded before his lips. He lifted his arm and gestured for the boy to come to where he sat upon the wooden floor.

With a toothy smile, he ran over. The king opened his arms and the child climbed into his lap and leaned his tiny head against his father’s chest. His brown hair was only as long as his shoulders and difficult for his maids to manage. The boy smelled of the lavender they had used to spray his tiny silk golt, and also, faintly, of the Palace hunting dogs with whom he often frolicked in the little forest near the king’s residence.

“What are you doing, father?” he asked, tilting his head up to look into the king’s face.

“I am leaving a message for a friend.”

“A friend?”

“Yes.”

“Will he see it here?”

“Yes.”

The prince considered this with a thoughtful expression, his small, fair face crinkled into deep concentration. The king waited patiently. “Father?”

“Yes?”

“May I write something?”

“Have you been practicing your writing?”

The boy nodded vehemently, his brown hair tousled into a cloud around his brow. The king smiled as he smoothed it with the palm of his hand. “Very well, then.”

Kneeling next to his son, the young king held the uncorked bottle of ink while the prince grasped the slender brush. He stood inside the little crevice between the back of the bed and the inner wall, the brush poised near the blank spot of stone beneath the king’s last message.

Turning to his father, he said, “What should I write?”

“What would you like to say?”

The prince thought for a moment. “This friend,” he said. “Who is he?”

“He is someone with whom I shared many adventures. He protected me when I had no one else. He is more like a brother than a friend.”

The prince’s eyes sparkled. This seemed to have been enough information, for he immediately dipped the brush into the ink and set about forming large letters on the pale stone.

“Thank you,” his note read, “for protecting my royal father. I love him very much!”

Having finished, he turned and looked at the king, surprised to find tears upon his father’s face.

“Have I done it wrong, father?” he asked.

“No, my son. It is perfect.”

“Why are you sad?”

The king took the brush and set it aside with the bottle of ink. Then he sat again and put his son upon his knee. The prince watched his face very closely, as if studying him. Then he reached up with one little hand and wiped away his father’s tears.

The king smiled and took the prince’s hand. He said, “Sometimes, when I remember my adventures —”

“The ones with your brother?”

“Yes, my son, the ones with my brother. Sometimes when I think of them I am both happy and sad at the same time.”

“Happy? Weren’t you afraid?”

“I was. But I was often with friends and the memory of those friends and the time I spent with them is something I cherish.”

“Then, are you sad because you miss your friends?”

“Yes.”

“And your brother?”

“And my brother most of all.”

“Why can you only leave him messages? Why can he not visit you?”

“He cannot walk in the Palace as we can.”

“Why not? I should like to meet him.”

“You will one day. But he has his own path, as we all do.”

The king turned his face away from the prince and coughed into his silk sleeve. His son watched with deep concern.

“It is very cold here on the floor, father,” he said gravely. “Uncle will scold you if you fall ill again.”

“You mustn’t call him ‘uncle’, but ‘prime minister’.”

The prince nodded, “Yes, father.”

“Come, my son. Let us find your mother before she starts to worry about us.”

Father and son emerged from the little palace hand in hand. The boy walked staring up at the young king with a look of plain devotion. The setting sun had haloed his royal father in brilliant red. He looked like one of the paintings of the Ădol his mother had had done in the residence, but the boy couldn’t say for sure which one. So he just grasped his father’s hand and walked with him to the gate of the Spring Courtyard, gazing at him as long as he could, as if he understood in his childish way that his time with him was limited.

The prince’s maids came and wrapped a cloak around the boy just as the sun dipped behind the Palace wall and cast the grounds in chilly darkness. Lanterns were lit and the company prepared to return to the residence.

The prime minister bowed as the king approached. “Your Majesty,” he said with a small smile. As usual, the king could not read him.

“I am tired,” he said. “Let’s go back.”

The head of his servants heard this and bowed before going to give orders to the others. The group parted so the king could move to their head. The prime minister followed, his hands clasped behind his back.

Once they had begun to move, the king turned to him, motioning for him to approach, which he did, walking almost alongside him.

“Yes, Your Majesty?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“When I am gone,” he said, “do not wait. That very day, burn that place.”

“The Spring Courtyard?”

“Yes?”

“Why, Your Majesty?”

“Let it be what it once was. As long as my line sits upon the Láokoth throne, let there never again be a prince in the Spring Courtyard. Only then—” he paused and glanced back, but the evening had dropped a shadow over the entire Palace. Turning, he said, “Only when I am gone can he finally rest.”

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1. This chapter is intended as a prologue.