Then Elma approached and placed a hand on Jaeim’s shoulder.
“Come, Jaeim. Your teacher is waiting. Rosa, go to the sewing room. The old woman says her thread has tangled. Isn’t the sunlight lovely today?”
Kyprosa left without answering. Elma shook her head as she watched the girl’s back.
“Why can’t she answer? I never taught her to behave like that.”
Jaeim thought it would be difficult to greet anyone cheerfully after being slapped without explanation and then sent to do tiresome work that would take half the day, but he said nothing to his mother. Even if he felt sorry for his cousin, there was almost nothing he could do. Everything in the castle lay in Grandmother’s hands. Besides, Grandmother had filled his entire day with lessons, so he scarcely had time to speak with his cousin, who was always in the sewing room, the laundry, or the kitchen. And Jaeim did not have the courage to question his grandmother’s decisions. Just like most of the castle’s inhabitants.
Only one person had that courage. He had been standing at the entrance to the worship hall, swaying to a tune of his own. When Rosia came out, he took off his hat, bowed, and whistled.
“Whew! As beautiful as ever, even after so long, my darling lady!”
Had it been anyone else, the spearmen following Rosia would already have split his head in two. But this was Denistrios, commonly known as the mad wizard. Those who could not accept that he was a wizard simply called him Mad Denny.
To everyone’s surprise, Rosia answered him.
“Instead of loitering about here, why don’t you go and make food for the bird?”
“Why, my lady concerns herself even with bird feed? But I need ingredients to make it. If you would permit it, the heads of those fellows standing behind you would do very nicely.”
“That is not permitted.”
The officers scowled. Though everyone in the castle feared the spearmen, Mad Denny was the only person who did not. And Rosia let Denny do whatever he pleased. Whether he danced atop the battlements on a snowy day or squatted in the middle of the council chamber gnawing a chicken leg, Denny suffered no consequences for things that would have earned anyone else a beating and a hanging in the square. Profanity and outrageous jokes were all overlooked. Many wondered why Rosia, as stern as frost, was so indulgent toward Denny alone. Rumors circulated, but no one knew for certain.
Denny, who had settled in Fir Castle when Rosia’s late husband Jaeim was lord, called himself a wizard, but as far as anyone remembered, he had never shown them any impressive magic. His greatest achievements amounted to lighting the pipe of a hunter who had forgotten his tinderbox, or finding a rat’s nest full of squeaking pups that someone else had shuddered at and left alone. That made it awkward to say he was no wizard at all, yet he was hardly a person worthy of so grand a name. Nor could one excuse him by saying he was still in training, for Denny was older than Rosia. The only person in Fir Castle as old as Denny was the mute old woman in the sewing room.
Given Rosia’s attitude, even the spearmen, who listened to no one but her, could not lay a hand on Denny. Those who disliked him said the castle had two useless mouths to feed: the bird in the rear courtyard and Mad Denny. Some called Denny a jester rather than a wizard. A jester was ordinarily free from criticism no matter what he did. Of course, Denny did go rather far.
“If my lady says no, what can I do?”
Denny skipped out of Rosia’s way. When Rosia started walking, the officers followed. Denny giggled at the young lieutenants with their shoulders held rigid.
“Have you had spear shafts shoved up your backs? Such stiff postures. I bet they stand just as straight in bed. Careful. They might snap. Hee hee.”
However tightly they clenched their fists, they could not smash Denny’s skull. After the spearmen had gone, Jaeim and Elma came out. Denny did not let them escape either.
“Oh, look at this pretty chick. Did Mama give you plenty of milk this morning?”
Elma hated Denny, but did not dare cross the invisible line Rosia had drawn around him. She pulled at Jaeim’s hand and quickened her pace, while Denny brought his wrinkled face close to Jaeim’s cheek.
“So pretty I could squeeze you till you burst.”
After those two disappeared, Kyprosa came out last. At the sight of her, Denny burst into laughter.
“What happened to your face? You look like an apple that’s only half ripe.”
“Your wild hair looks just like a giant jellyfish, Denny.”
Kyprosa had never seen a jellyfish. Neither would anyone else living in Fir Castle have seen one. The nearest sea froze for three months of the year. There was no possibility of jellyfish living in such a sea.
“You’ve been reading Birgion’s book in the library.”
“It was interesting.”
“You only looked at the pictures, didn’t you?”
“Do you think I can’t read?”
Denny scratched vigorously at his graying hair, scattering dandruff everywhere.
“Even if you can, do you mean to tell me you know the southern language?”
Kyprosa answered with a shrug. When she began walking, Denny followed.
“Have you studied the southern language?”
“A little.”
“Why?”
“To read Father’s books.”
Denny fell silent. It was because he was Denny that Kyprosa answered so readily. Her father, Rosia’s youngest son Raeven, was a dead man who was still alive. They said he had gone mad while burying himself in strange books, then fled the castle without looking back at his wife or young daughter. Rosia’s disappointment had been so great that, eight years earlier, she had declared she would never forgive him even if he returned. Since then, she had forbidden anyone to speak of him in her presence. When Raeven’s wife saw what had become of her husband, she abandoned their daughter and returned to her own family. It was only natural that Kyprosa, left alone, became an unwanted burden.
If Kyprosa so much as said “Father” in front of Rosia, she would have been slapped. Kyprosa was not so foolishly stubborn as to invite a beating. As a result, people assumed she had no interest in her father. In truth, they had no idea what Kyprosa thought about as she lived.
“Don’t read books like that.”
“It’s my choice.”
“If your grandmother finds out, she’ll strip you naked and throw you out into the snow.”
“Since when have you been afraid of Grandmother, Denny?”
“I’m not, but you should be.”
“I am. That’s why I only told you.”
She spoke so easily, without a change of expression. There was no way to tell whether she was being bold or stupid. What was certain was that this child’s way of expressing emotion was twisted. She said she was frightened, and presumably she was, but neither her expression nor her behavior showed it at all.
“Why were you hit today?”
“I don’t know. Because I drank the blood?”
“Who gave you the blood?”
“Aller.”
“There was still blood left after Aller drank?”
“There was.”
Denny understood the situation at once. But instead of telling the girl the reason, he only said this.
“Well, stranger things have happened.”
When they left the corridor and entered the spiral stairway to go around, something strange did happen. A tit flew through a cross-shaped window and perched on Kyprosa’s shoulder. Even when she tried to send it away, it would not budge. When Denny looked closely, the bird’s toes were tangled tightly in the weave of the shawl Kyprosa wore. So tightly that it was hard to imagine how they had become so entangled in such a brief moment.
“This is an omen.”
“An omen of what?”
“If I knew that, I’d be a prophet, not a wizard.”
Kyprosa tried to pull the bird free and throw it out the window, but once she held it, it was so soft and frail that she could not bring herself to do it. She put it on the windowsill and went down the stairs. She thought that if she left it there, it would recover and fly away. The mute old woman who ruled the sewing room hated every animal, from the rats that gnawed the cloth to the restless little dog the cook kept. There was no chance she would like it just because it was a little bird.
Discover more from Lilly Translations
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.