Stories
Nadev had disappeared after showing her to the small gardener’s cottage for the night, scolding her when she stammered her thanks. “Knew I should have just let you keep thinking I was the gardener. That’s all I am, Sela. Just the gardener. This wasn’t my tower, I’m just caretaking it awhile. I get so little company, let’s be pleasant together until your work is done, hmm?”
“I’ve heard so much about you though—“
“Forget what you heard. Different Nadev. It’s more than half invention anyway. That’s how stories work. Just think of me as the gardener.”
“Won’t you tell me the real story then?”
The old man sighed, rubbed at the callous between his thumb and forefinger. “I can try. Another night. If you’ll sit with me a while and tell me the news of the world below this bluff. And remember I’m just an old man now, not some oracle or great warrior. Just an old man who likes to pull weeds on occasion and sleep in the sun and hear a friendly voice from time to time.”
He’d left then, and Sela had tried to sleep in the clean, cheery cottage.
She’d spent the morning in the little wood again, chopping sturdy pieces for her scaffolding. Constructing the remaining platforms and stairs had taken the rest of the day. The hazy afternoon cooled and the sun set, throwing the front of the tower into shadow by the time Sela had secured the final railing. She should have started to inspect the roof, but instead she watched the last fingers of light rake back across the valley, shrinking up to the foot of the bluff. The glitter of hearth fires and lanterns filled up the dark instead.
“I’ll say this for Dror, he picked a fantastic view.”
Sela turned and found Nadev hunched over the railing a few panels back. “How did you—“
“Of course, what did I expect from a tactician? Always worried about our escape routes. Every blasted night. Couldn’t just post a lookout and flop down, even though your legs ached and your back was screaming. No, we had to scout for a mile around the site. Had to know which way we’d flee. Which way we’d have something at our backs if we had to fight. Go over the plan ten times during supper. Dror was my best friend but there were days I hated him. Of course, he kept me alive all this time, so I suppose it’s no good complaining about it now, is there?”
“How did you end up here, Nadev?” she asked.
He glanced behind him. “The stairs you made, of course. You’re right, they aren’t rickety at all. You are good at this.”
“No, I meant here. At this tower by yourself. Where’s your family? Your servants? Your friends?”
“Ah. Never had any servants. The stories say I had servants?”
Sela shifted to lean on the railing next to him. She could see the distant shimmer of the capital city from here, leagues away, but still bright enough to make the horizon blush a deep rose. “The stories never talk about servants. I just assumed you’d have people clamoring to help you. To take care of you.”
Nadev uttered his raspy laugh. “What would I pay them with? Dror could always find a way to get by, there were always parties and shows for the wealthy. Someone with light fingers could always find something or other that no one would miss. And Maija was able to gift him the tower. That much she could wheedle from the advisers. The holder of the Ker Splinter would always remain here. As far from the Hagion Splinter as possible. It was a pretty place once. I visited many times on errands between Dror and Maija. He had servants and his love, of course. And Barnabus had his knighthood. Asa and Zyvie were both nobles. That just leaves Maija and me. Maija became Queen and I— had Maija. For a while. They were all the family I had. Now only Maija and I remain. But she cannot come here and the Splinter stays at the tower.”
“Why?”
He patted her hand. “It’s been a long day. You must be hungry.”
“I’d rather hear about the Queen. And you.”
He laughed again. “And I would rather talk about Maija than anything else. But the stairs are steep and my knees aren’t what they used to be. Will you go down to the kitchen with me, granddaughter?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, quickly lending him her arm. He didn’t lean on it quite as heavily as she expected. They made it easily down to the blue door and she suspected he hadn’t needed her aid nearly as much as it had seemed. The man crossed the Great Eastern Ridge and battled the Khemeia. He doesn’t need help, she told herself.
The kitchen was already bright and humid. A large covered pot sat on the table with a pair of small bowls nearby. “Thought you might like something fresh today,” said Nadev. She could smell the earthy green of the stew as soon as he lifted the pot lid. She sat and ate with him quietly for a few minutes.
“Are you going to tell me the story?” she asked.
“Pah. Stories. I told you, stories just shake a person until the worst moments of their lives come loose. That’s the part they tell you. What have you heard about me? About us? The day we fought Grindall?”
“Yes. And how the Khemeia blade shattered—“
“There you go,” he said, waving his empty spoon toward her. “It wasn’t a blade, to start. It was a lump of stone. Why’d they make it a blade? Because that’s more exciting. It should make you wonder about what else they invented, these storytellers. The day we fought Grindall, bet the stories only tell you about the hour it took to actually corner him and beat him, don’t they? They don’t say anything about how I burned our breakfast because Maija was crying and I wanted to calm her. Or how Asa couldn’t sleep once we came in sight of the river. Or that Dror’s hand smelled like death because he had sickness in it after getting a nasty scrape in the swamp. The thing they don’t tell you in the stories is that you don’t just save the world in an afternoon. Or with one battle. Or even when the stone shatters and you go home. You have to keep doing it. You have to wake up and decide to save it all over again, every day. It’s like— it’s like being in love. The exciting parts are glorious and triumphant and happy. But some people walk away after those parts. And things fall apart. Those stories leave off before they ever get to that point.” He shook his head and plunged his spoon into his bowl again, scowling.
“If they told the whole thing, those stories would last as long as your journey. It can’t be told in one evening.”
“Exactly.”
Sela picked at a scrape in the table. “I can’t stay a year and a half, Nevdah,” she said. “The Queen’s steward only hired me to fix the roof. I have work lined up in the village when I get back—“
“How long is it going to take you to fix the roof?” he asked.
Sela shrugged. “I haven’t taken a good look at it yet. Are you trying to get rid of me or trying to keep me longer?”
He squinted at her. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Then— I could probably finish in a month if I hurried.”
“And if you didn’t? If you helped an old man with a few other projects around the tower, a few more repairs?”
“Until the frost, maybe. Until the steward’s patience runs out, anyway. I can repair the statues on the road, perhaps. And you’ve got some damage on the western wall. Is that long enough?”
Nevdah rubbed his chest with a grimace that deepened the creases around his mouth. “What about the people in your village? Sweetheart, kids, parents?”
“You’re very curious.”
Nevdah’s wheezy laugh echoed on the kitchen walls. “So are you.”
Sela flushed. “I suppose I am. No sweetheart and my parents do well for themselves. Besides, who could be upset that their daughter is commissioned to help the Ashen Cuckoo, no matter how long it takes?”
“But I’m not the Cuckoo.”
“You’re Nevdah. The one who shattered the bla— the lump of stone. That’s as good or better. And knowing the real tale will buy tavern meals for a year even in my village.”
“It won’t. The real story isn’t as flashy as the one you know.”
“I still want to hear it.”
“You can really fix the statues? You can put Maija’s arm back without marring her?”
Sela hesitated and then nodded. “Her statue I can fix. She’s been under the tower roof all these years. A few of the others— what wind and water have melted, I can’t put back. I’m a mason, not a sculptor.”
“The story then, in exchange for Maija’s statue. And the roof you’ve been paid for.” He stuck his hand out. She grasped his arm. “I’d better get started then, I suppose, if we’re going to finish in time,” he said. “I told you Dror and I were friends. From long before Grindall was ever a threat. We lived in the back alleys of Parin, down near the river docks. My mother was a healer and Dror— well, Dror was a thief from the very beginning. He had no one. So whenever he got caught stealing from the unloaded ship crates, he ran to me to fix the cuts and bruises from the beatings the sailors gave him. I didn’t know much, not even then, but it was enough to keep him patched together. My mother wouldn’t let him into our home at first, but he plied her with fruit he’d snatched from the market and she knew he had no one. He was sleeping in front of our hearth by winter of the year we met and we didn’t separate until he came here….”