Chapter 1: Broken

As Garis flung rushes on the throne room floor, his thoughts focused on his plans to retake the kingship. The throne room should be his, as his father was the king of Emmering before the usurper Dale. Now, he was only a servant at the castle, but not for long, he hoped.

He flung more rushes on the throne-room floor. The bare planks shone after their scrubbing, but a faint odor of dirt still rose from them—dirt, dung, sweat, bits of food that humans or dogs had let fall, all the signs that the castle would be the better for a good airing.

But it was the royal castle of the land of Emmering, as Dale’s other castles were not, and the king was more the king in the king’s castle. Servants were not expected to grumble at smells, and if the king could stand it, so could the court. Time enough to descend on another of his houses when Summer came in his strength. The king and court would be off, and the servants not in their train would have a frenzy of full castle-cleaning.

Rushes would hold the odors down well enough in the meantime. It was dull work, and Garis shivered a little in the chill of early spring. It was twenty years since Dale, the lord of Norcote, had usurped the throne of Emmering from Garis the elder. The younger had been a servant in the castle for two years.

He shook his head when he came near the dais. The throne was painted bright scarlet and gilded with lines of gold. The intricate carving of the wood underneath could hardly be seen through the layers of color.

“Gaudy nonsense,” he muttered.

“Yes,” said a voice behind him.

Garis’s head jerked up. He turned slowly and saw a short, stocky man dressed in tunic and stockings of nondescript greyish brown, about the same color as his hair and beard. “Good morning, Juggler. Did you say something?” Garis asked politely.

Juggler grinned at him, looking like a frog, with the wide mouth stretched out on the small face. “Yes, that taste for the barbaric will overthrow my lord Norcote one day or other.”

Garis stared. Juggler had been at the castle longer than Garis, but he spoke with a slight, unfamiliar accent. He was not from Emmering or the other kingdoms that bordered the Longwater, but he had a knack for the sounds of the ways people spoke and could soon speak like someone who had lived among them a long time, although he did not manage to sound like someone born to it. When asked where he came from, he would smile and answer “Far away.” And when asked if he might want to go home someday, he’d think a moment and shake his head, adding, “I lost the way – and I like wandering.”

As a combination of jester, minstrel, and all-purpose drudge, he was a step above Garis, who was an all-purpose drudge. He was pleasant enough to all the servants, but usually he kept his thoughts to himself.

“Shouldn’t say that,” said Garis.

“Gaudy? Barbaric?” said Juggler. “No law says you have to like bright colors, last I heard.” He smoothed down the edge of his tunic with a self-satisfied air, as if drab were a costly dye, brushed back an imaginary feather in an imaginary cap, drew attention to a hole beginning over one elbow as if he had slashed the fabric himself and lined it with silk or cloth-of-gold, and twitched an imaginary cape to flare about him.

Garis chuckled. “That’s as may be, but I don’t think his majesty the king would approve of what you said, in quite the way you said it, if he’d heard you,” Garis said, drawling the syllables of the title.

“Oh, I suppose he might chop off my head, if someone told tales. Yours, too, if he heard that tone of voice. What of it?”

Garis considered his grinning face. “We’re even, then. Let me keep my head, and you can keep yours.” He turned away with another armload of rushes and began dropping them.

Juggler swayed forward. It could almost have been a bow. “Thank you, Sire.”

Garis swung round, dropping the bundle of rushes. “What did you—”

A trumpet blared in the hallway.

Garis grunted in exasperation, kicked the rushes to cover as much of the remaining bare floor as possible, and withdrew to a corner, where he knelt. There was no time to get out of the room. Finishing the floor—and his question to Juggler—would have to wait until after the trial sessions.

King Dale walked briskly into the room, glittering in his green state robe with the golden heads of wheat sewn on it. After him came his son Lyndred, and the newcomer to the court, his niece Dianor, and a train of courtiers, secretaries, plaintiffs, defendants, guardsmen, and captives after them. Most of the time would go to plaintiffs and defendants and their arguments with each other. There were not many captives, and not many charges of treason among them. But there were still a few each.

Dale was not popular, but he had held the throne a long time and felt secure enough to dismiss some charges. He put the remaining offenders up for auction as forced labor to nobles who needed field workers.

Overall, Dale was as merciful a judge as he thought he could safely be, and he was considered a fair one, besides. He made a good income out of the civil cases. Most of his measures to get money were disliked, but people tangled in a dispute willingly paid to have Dale judge between them, rather than go to a local squire, who might find both sides in the wrong and settle the case more to his own advantage than to either of theirs.

Courtiers did not have to attend Dale’s courts of law, in theory, but most of them thought it a good idea to be seen there, anyway. Some of them were students of law, hoping for appointments as Dale’s representatives, and a smattering of law was useful no matter what kind of employment a courtier was hoping to be graced by. And the ones who were at court as hostages for their families’ good behavior could not stay away too often without looking suspicious.

The trials dragged on. Dale had the patience to listen to other people’s quarrels without growing noticeably bored, but yawns and smothered coughing showed that not all the court took as much interest as the king.

All at once, the trials took their attention again. Prince Lyndred stepped down from his seat on the dais and stood before the throne. “I am Lyndred, son of Dale. King, I want justice.”

The idle shuffling stopped abruptly as eyes went wide, and daydreamers lost track of their dreams.

“Who has harmed you?”

“He is called Juggler. He lives in the castle.”

“Let him be sent for,” said Dale, but he saw Juggler in the room and waved to the crier to remain silent. He beckoned Juggler forward, omitting the ritual of searching him out.

“I’m Juggler,” said Juggler. He did not look surprised at being called.

“Go on, Lyndred,” said the king.

“He tried to kill me!”

The king, with a startled look at Juggler, said, “That’s a serious charge.”

“Lute lessons,” said Lyndred bitterly. “He hit me over the head with it—just ask him.”

The courtiers were mostly shocked, or managed to look as if they were but the king coughed and put his hand over his mouth and was silent for a moment. Some of the captives giggled, but the king looked at them, and they stopped.

“Well, Juggler,” said the king, “Lyndred charges murder. What is your answer?”

Juggler spread his hands wide. “Your majesty, Prince Lyndred has not mentioned that he played a certain number of wrong notes in his lesson. It is the custom among many teachers to chastise students to help them remember. Perhaps it is not a wise custom. I fear that I misjudged the force of—” He hesitated, and stopped for a moment. Pomposity amused Dale sometimes, but it also alerted him to the likelihood that someone was trying to bamboozle him. A muscle twitched at the corner of the king’s mouth, but it looked more like annoyance than laughter. Juggler started again. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

Dale considered that a moment and looked questioningly at the prince.

“Oh, he meant it,” said Lyndred. “You don’t stun with a blow without meaning it. It’s no thanks to you I’m awake and seeing straight. And the lute’s broken—cracked right up the curve.”

“I can mend it. And you’re awake and seeing straight. Prince, I lost my temper. I’m sorry.”

“And you meant no harm?” said the king, skeptically.

“No, that is—well—” He trailed off and gave up.

“And you think he meant murder, Lyndred?” said the king.

Lyndred scowled. “No,” he said at last.

“Take off your shirt,” the king told Juggler, and turned to his son. “Hit him five times with the flat of the sword, and let that be an end of it.”

Two guards took hold of Juggler’s arms.

The prince carried out the sentence with precision. The edge of the sword did not even scratch the skin, but the crisscrossed outlines of five blades stood out in raised red patches on Juggler’s back. He gave a yell at each blow, and when the guards let him go, he sagged to his knees.

The king said, “Juggler, I don’t want you to misjudge your force again—or judge it, either. Put yourself among the teachers who do not chastise their students. You may continue the lessons.”

“But the lute—” said the prince.

“When will it be mended?” The king waited patiently while Juggler wiped his eyes, struggled to his feet again, and eased his shirt on gingerly.

“I’m not sure how long it will take, your majesty.” Teacher and student looked hopefully at the king.

“See to it that it’s not too long.” The king rose, annoyed with both of them. “Take the condemned to the dungeons. The king will judge no more today.”

“Way for the king!” said the crier.

King and court went out with trumpets.

Garis waited for the door to close after them before he moved. Juggler was beginning to sway on his feet. Garis took his arm, steadying him gently. “I see why you took a dislike to our royal family so suddenly.” He helped him sit down on the step of the dais.

Juggler, instead of answering Garis directly, looked at the door. “Your majesty,” he said to the door, “Would you like a better defense? I couldn’t have hurt him. His head’s made of wood—good, solid oak. I was only punishing the lute for leading his fingers to the wrong notes. Now if we could get the lute bespelled to play only the right notes—”

Garis laughed. “I don’t think even the most skilled of wizards would undertake to work out an enchantment that complicated.”

“Well,” said Juggler, “I thought I’d do better to suppose there was a chance I would still be alive after. But I’d almost rather I’d said what I thought if it meant I wouldn’t have to go on teaching a lout of a pupil born of a hide-changing pig-fish from the mud of the low-tide flats.” He might have gone on cursing his patron and his patron’s family, but Garis interrupted.

“Yes, I can see why you thought it might not matter what you said. Not to you. But it could have mattered to me. Guard your tongue, Juggler.”

“Even with only you to hear?” said Juggler, looking at him steadily.

Garis returned the look. “Calling a servant ‘sire’ is—foolish.”

“Is that what it is?” Juggler said. Garis was still too young to have a full beard, and he went shaven rather than grow a patchy one. His face was round and wide, with brown eyes set a little too close together. His eyebrows were almost the same color as his eyes, a little darker than the hair on his head. His beard, if he had grown it, would have been streaked with light and darker browns, Juggler felt sure. “There’s more than one kind of folly, boy. I know old Garis’s infant son was supposed to have died of the plague, but I can’t be the only one who’s noticed that you look like paintings of the old king.”

“That’s not so uncommon. The family’s been in the kingdom a long time.”

“Yes?” said Juggler. “I haven’t noticed any of the like with a name the like of yours. What possessed you to come here under your own name?”

“I answer to it quickly. And anyway, the name’s common enough.”

“Oh! Well—yes, I suppose so. But why come at all? Castle-cleaning may bring you near the throne, but it doesn’t give you the power to sit on it.”

Garis sat down beside him on the step and propped his head on his hands, then twisted it sideways for another look at Juggler. “Can I trust you?”

“If you have to ask—no, certainly not.”

“Sorry.” Garis thought some more.

The loss of temper that had led Juggler to trial made his feelings clear enough, and now the process of being tried, even though the king had treated him leniently, had made him all the angrier. And Dale would not be likely to forget the incident.

“I could use a minstrel. Will you enter my service?”

“What’s the pay?”

“Dreams and a promise.”

Juggler smiled. “Long time since I worked for that. Doesn’t go far on an empty stomach, but my stomach’s full at the moment. What will you have, a song on the line of Norcote? It’s an epic theme—and I know just the epic.” The epic in question was, evidently, not one of the most dignified. Juggler glanced at the gilding on the throne, and at the pile of old rushes. “Already I feel the breath of Song—”

“You’d better not feel it here,” said Garis. “Meet me at the dungeon stairs at midnight. You could have your song ready for us then, if you like.”

“Us? You mean you have a working conspiracy, youngster? You may sit on that throne yet.”

“Yes.” Garis picked up his load of dirty rushes. “Till midnight.”

Juggler started to answer, but the great door opened. Half expecting an armed guard to enter, it took him a moment to focus down on the girl who stood hesitating at the threshold. “Why, Bramble, you startled me. Did you come about your stilt? Yes, I finished mending it. I have it ready for you, if you can wait a moment while I go and get it.”

“Oh, thanks, Juggler!” said the girl. She was the head cook’s daughter, and regularly broke into hives when made to help in the kitchen, which was, said her parents, an affliction and a trial. She served instead as a message and errand runner, and delighted in any excuse—even hives—to run, jump, or climb. “Yes, please—I mean—no,” she said, brushing the tangle of straight reddish hair out of her eyes. “I was sent to tell you the king wants you to attend him in his chambers.”

Juggler scratched his beard and touched the bare skin at the throat beneath it. “Thank you, Bramble. I’ll get your stilt to you after supper, then.” He looked sideways at Garis. “I hope,” he said, and hurried from the room.

Behind him, Garis followed, rush-laden, and Bramble trotted along beside him to hold the doors on the way to the midden.

Juggler found the king, and the prince as well, glaring at one another.

The king had put off his formal robe and looked colorless in the plain undergown of undyed white wool, but he sat as erect on the edge of his bed as if it had been the throne of judgment. The prince still wore his particolor tunic of white and blue. The little motions of hands and arms, or legs when he shifted his weight, were exaggerated by the contrast of the colors, and he looked like the river-waves his garb meant.

“Your majesty?” Juggler bowed courteously, and waited.

“Have you finished the song Prince Lyndred is writing to the lady Dianor?” The king did not bother to look at Juggler, but went on considering Lyndred thoughtfully.

Lyndred straightened proudly under the inspection.

“Yes, your—” Juggler started.

“Why do I have to bother with that nonsense?” said Lyndred.

“You want to be king after me, don’t you?”

“Who wouldn’t?” said the prince lightly, but his father did not smile.

“That, my boy, is precisely the point.” Dale wrapped the woolen undergown more closely around himself. “Your cousin is descended from the kings. Her grandmother was Berlik’s daughter. That’s long ago now, but there it is. Any man who married her would have a claim to the throne, and a better claim than I have.”

The prince laughed. “You have the throne.” He gathered several stray cushions together into a heap, and after glancing at his father for permission, dropped down onto it. He tucked his legs in close and wrapped his arms around his knees.

The king said quietly, “Yes, I have the throne. I could have a civil war, too—or you could—if someone else marries Lady Dianor.”

“Yes, but she knows that. We were friends when we were youngsters, so far as I remember. Tell her to marry me! She’d be willing enough—she wouldn’t want a war.”

The king shook his head. “Don’t give orders when you can persuade. Especially don’t give orders to a noble with powerful friends. They might think a war would be worth it. They have power, and they wouldn’t mind more.”

“Let them try—I’d like to see them,” said Lyndred defiantly.

“I wouldn’t.” The king tugged at his beard for a moment. “And I don’t think it will take an unreasonable amount of what you call nonsense to woo her. You’re likeable enough, when you put your mind to it. Juggler, let’s have the song.”

Juggler looked out the window into the strip of blue beyond the wall and above the forest, and sang.

You are the daystar, my delight.

You are the dawning of my sight.

What did I ever see before I knew

The day you brought with you?

I walk the dark and search for day,

Lost in the shadows—out of my way.

When the daystar brings the light

The sky is bright.

“It’ll do,” said the king grudgingly. He looked at his son. “Do you know the tune?”

“Yes, it’s the one I was playing.”

Juggler tensed, expecting a glare, but the prince was suddenly more cheerful.

“And I can’t sing it without the lute—I don’t stay on key by myself.” He scrambled to his feet. “Have I your leave, Father?”

“No.”

The prince raised his eyebrows, but sat down again. There was no use protesting that tone of voice. He hugged his knees, settling comfortably back into the pillows.

The king turned his attention back to Juggler. “Can the lute be fixed by tonight?”

Juggler shook his head.

The king mused a little while, and then said, “After supper, Lyndred, ask Lady Dianor to come to see the new hall.”

Dale had redecorated and enlarged the hall where entertainments in the castle were held, planning to win admiration with handsome images of the spirits of the seasons and handsome welcome for any who cared to come join them in the holidays of the season changes. The extra money required had not been popular, but the results were expected to be attractive enough to counteract any grumbling. “If she waits till the spring dances begin, she’ll only see it covered with people, after all. And as for what the new tiles cost to show the gods of the seasons in their splendor, I’d be glad to have someone who’ll like them to admire them now. Juggler, you will happen to be at the organ when they arrive, and able to play a tune, if the prince should happen to ask for one.”

Juggler opened his mouth but turned the sound that came out into a cough and said nothing.

The king looked at him quizzically.

“It won’t sound the way it should on the organ,” said Juggler slowly. “It ought to have a lighter tone.”

The king looked out the window. “I know. But some music my son must have, and floor tiles can’t sing. If you can’t fix the lute—then it’s the organ.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Make sure Lyndred has a copy of the words to memorize.” He glanced at his son. “And memorize them.”

“Yes, Father.” Lyndred said, accepting the necessity – and the piece of paper Jugger slid out of his pocket and offered him.

The king turned back from the window and leaned over to pat Lyndred’s shoulder. “Now you have leave,” he said.

Lyndred climbed to his feet, stretched thoroughly, and made his bow.

As the permission to go away obviously included them both, Juggler opened the door for the prince, made his own bow to the king, and followed Lyndred out.

At sunset Juggler ate his supper hurriedly and slipped out of the servants’ hall through the kitchen. There he caught Bramble, returning with empty bottles, and asked the girl to work the bellows for him. He waited while Bramble went out again with beer for the pages to serve the court. Juggler peeped into the long room where tables were set. The prince and Dianor were still in place. She was dressed simply, in a red gown and lighter red undergown, with none of the embroidery of cloud and acorn that belonged to her father’s family, or the wheat of the kings. Sweets were going round. The meal was almost over.

Juggler hurried away with Bramble to the ritual-hall. They lit the tapers by the door and the organ. The statues of the gods in the corners were just visible in the shadows: the green Spring maid with her bowl of water, the red Field king with his torch, the gold Harvest mother, her feet covered with earth, and a loaf of bread in her hands, and the Winter father with his silver cape blown back in the wind.

The tiles at their bases repeated their images, as if they stood over mirrors, or beside still lakes.

Bramble went behind him to the bellows, and Juggler plopped himself down on the stool in front of the organ. He played a few of the rolling chords from a harvest song and worried over it. The organ could drown out a sweet nothing with a single note. Touching the keys as lightly as he could, he played his daystar song on the topmost octaves of the keyboard. Even the higher tones were too massive for the lilting tune, but it would have to do. He waited patiently, thinking of songs, and it was not long before he heard laughter in the corridor outside, like an echo to the music.

Dianor came through the arch, and the prince after her, saying, “What’s the joke?”

“Nothing,” said Dianor, and laughed again.

Lyndred gave her a questioning look.

She waved her hands in a gesture of apology. “I just remembered how you used to hate dancing and ceremonies when we were little. And to think of your offering to walk in here when you didn’t have to!”

The prince was disconcerted. He tried to think of an appropriate reply, but could not find one. Instead, he jumped to his rehearsed comment. “I had a song to welcome you home, Cousin. Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes,” said Dianor, looking startled. She turned away from the statue of the Winter father, which she had been comparing to the tiled Winter stretching out from the statue’s base. “Thank you.”

He swallowed, made a bow for luck to the Spring maid, then took a deep breath and nodded to Juggler, who began to play.

Lyndred sang the song creditably, after all, even if he squeaked on the high notes from trying not to shout them. He had a clear, pleasant voice, in spite of his hatred of lessons for it.

Dianor was duly impressed with the compliment. “Oh, Lyndred, I like that,” she said. “And you wrote it?”

“No,” he said, truthfully, and decided that wasn’t courteous. “The minstrel helped,” he added. He held out a hand to Juggler in token of the contribution.

“Thank you,” she said, hesitating, because she did not know what to call him.

“I’m Juggler,” he said.

She looked him over, working diligently at the task of learning to match people to labels. It did not seem to occur to her to care that his rank was such that she did not have to bother.

Lyndred cleared his throat, impatient with her attention to the player. “I spend most of my time on patrol with the guard, you know,” he put in, by way of elaboration. “Especially since the raids back and forth with King Wyrond in Melibos began.”

Dianor nodded gravely. “Pity he’s so greedy. If he hadn’t raided us when—”

“Well, we went in first,” said Lyndred.

“What? But—why?”

“He would’ve been first if we hadn’t.”

Dianor looked doubtful.

“You don’t understand, Cousin,” said Lyndred earnestly. “Think of all the kingdoms here in the north. How many can you name that are at peace with all their neighbors?”

“Several.” She bent her head, concentrating on the pattern of green and gold, red and silver in the floor tiles as she tried to find the names. The complicated curves twined themselves across the full length of the floor, only taking identifiable shapes where they turned into gods in the corners.

“There are some,” said the prince, seating himself on a bench by the wall. “Poor ones, or hidden in the mountains.”

Dianor shook her head and sat down beside him. “I think you’re wrong.”

He took her hand. “Well, it’s the Spring maid who rules when peace comes, so I suppose women aren’t really supposed to understand war.”

She frowned, ready to argue this point, but he went on.

“In your situation, though, you ought to.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if you wanted to, you could make a claim to the throne, you know.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Anyone who married you would have a claim to the throne. There’d be two claimants, two factions, and a war between them if someone else married you. So I have to.”

“You have to! Not if I know it!” She pulled her hand free and jumped up, then stood speechless, trying to think of something nasty enough to do herself justice. If she had had a weapon to hand—even if it were no more than a lute—she might have followed Juggler’s example and tried to express her feelings by making an assault on her cousin.

Juggler froze into silence. He would have liked to warn Bramble to keep still as well, but he could not make a signal without drawing attention he did not want to attract under the circumstances. But no doubt Bramble would be quick enough to understand that quarreling nobles did not appreciate distractions.

“I didn’t mean it the way it sounded,” said the prince. He tried to frame a defense, an apology, and a change of subject all in one, and sat stuttering. His father, stopping to look in on them as he went to his chambers, gave him an excuse to abandon the attempt. “Here’s Father to talk to you,” the prince said. “Shall I tell your waiting-women to be ready to attend you?” He left without waiting for an answer.

“Dianor,” said the king, “what’s the matter, child?”

She was silent, waiting for her anger to cool. Her cousin had meant well, clearly enough. He might jerk his hands as if he hoped to shake an apology out at the fingertips instead of putting one into words properly, as he should have done, but his distress at having hurt her feelings had been plain to see. She managed a smile and sat down again. “I’m afraid we were quarreling, Uncle. Lyndred seems to think that fighting your neighbors is the most important thing he can do.”

“It may not sound so, put that way,” said the king, “but I think it is. It’s no wonder if my son thinks so, too.”

“Justice is more important.”

“How very abstract youngsters can be!” he said, smiling at her.

She looked up at him from the bench where she sat, irritated at his evasion and the touch of mockery. “Yes, but it is,” she said, not letting the subject drop.

“Very likely. But it takes power to defend justice, and the one who holds the power is the one who must decide what justice is—it’s part of the power. Try again.”

“Love is more important.” She glanced up at him, and out of the corner of her eye saw Juggler, hunched over the keyboard, with his hands in his lap, trying to look as if he weren’t there. “Music and art,” she added.

The king said, “You look as your aunt Dianor did at your age.”

“My aunt?”

The king sighed and sat down next to her. “Your father’s sister. She died before you were born.” Then he went back to the neglected argument. “Love and art?—pleasanter, of course. But they don’t matter over time. If you do nothing but love someone, or something pretty, you’re forgotten and nameless in a hundred years.”

“People remember artists.”

“Oh, yes.” The king leaned back on the bench and pointed a finger in Juggler’s direction without bothering to look at him. “The bards remain. But I’m not a bard. Short of inspiring Juggler to write an epic to glorify my reign, his immortality, if he wins it, means nothing to me. But suppose I am so wicked as to bring the red sword and conquer the northlands. With one law to govern all those little kingdoms, trade will be easier, and they won’t be able to fight each other. In a hundred years, the people on the borders perhaps need not worry that their homes may be burned once in the year by raiders.”

“Your raiders,” said Dianor stubbornly.

“And my neighbors’ raiders. The nobles will not send people and grain to the wars, and the people will be glad not to be sent.” He mused for a moment, looking about the hall. “I don’t suppose the grain will care,” he added lightly, then shrugged, and said, “Lovers won’t care, either, but lovers in the first glory of finding one another have never had eyes to spare to watch how the world wags.”

Dianor stood up. “I never knew I had an aunt.”

“It was many years ago, child.”

“Were you in love with her, Uncle?”

“Yes.”

She bent and kissed his forehead. “Good night,” she said, and left him.

He sat where he was, apparently remembering another Dianor, one who had left him and married the king whose crown and throne had been seized by Dale. At last he got up and stood in the hall a moment, looking at the reflections of flames glinting on the Winterfather’s cape, the one on the statue and the one in the tiles below it. Then he snuffed out the tapers by the door and left.

Juggler let out his breath with a gasp. He might be an immortal bard by the king’s account, but he didn’t think it was healthy to have overheard so much. Either the king had then forgotten he was there, or didn’t think he mattered. Whichever it was, he hoped his majesty would continue of the same mind. His head ached with holding so still and trying not to breathe noticeably. “Come out, Bramble,” he said.

The girl crept out from behind the organ and looked up at him as if wanting to ask questions.

Juggler smiled, and shook his head.

Bramble opened her mouth, closed it, thought, and then said only, “I liked the song.”

“Thanks.” Juggler turned away and snuffed the remaining tapers, beside the organ. They blundered through the darkness to the archway, and went silently to the servants’ quarters. Their only conversation was a subdued, “Thank you,” from Bramble, when Juggler gave her back the mended stilt.

Bramble went on to her parents’ room, holding the wooden stave delicately, as if she put no faith in splints and glue. And so much the better, Juggler thought, if it made her more careful when she tried it again. Youngsters who broke stilts could just as well break their legs.

Juggler dropped down on the pallet.

He meant only to rest, in case he slept past midnight, when he was to meet Garis. But other servants were going to sleep around him, and his eyes closed.