Chapter 118: Anniversary

There's a rule in our house about the anniversary, and it's the only rule I know of that was made by children.

Carol made it. She was seven. She'd found out, from Mary, that Mary and Melody had a rule for their anniversary: one gift each, the lower market, and no records that day. And she'd marched into the south solar, where our parents were sitting by the fire after supper, and stood in front of all three of them with her hands on her hips.

"You haven't got a rule," she said.

My father said, "For what?"

"For your day," said Carol. "The one in the autumn. When you married Mother Adriana and it got to be all three of you." She frowned at them. "Mary and Melody have a rule. You haven't got one. So we're making it."

"Who's we?" said Adriana.

"Me and Garrick," said Carol. "He's outside. He's shy."

I was outside. I was shy. I remember the door was very cold against my ear.

And the rule Carol made, standing on the hearthrug at seven with her hands on her hips, was this: on the anniversary, the three of them aren't allowed to do anything for anyone. Not Council, not the infirmary, not treaty law, not a single tool on a single table. The children do everything. The children cook breakfast. And at sunset the three of them go to the bench, and nobody follows them.

That was sixteen years ago. We've kept it every year since.

This year was the sixteenth.

* * *

The children cooking breakfast has got worse every year, because there are more of us.

When it was Carol and me, it was toast and an egg each, burned. Then Caitlin was old enough to count the eggs, and Roderic old enough to carry the tray, and then Elenos, and then Faelan and Mirelle, until by this year there were seven of us in Helena's kitchen at five in the morning, plus Seraphina, plus Ignatius, plus little Uriah, who had been given a wooden spoon and the job of "stirring," and was stirring the floor.

Helena was not allowed to help. That's in the rule too. Carol added it the second year, after Helena "helped" and the eggs came out perfect and our father said it didn't count.

So Helena sat on a stool by the door with her arms folded and a face like a closed shutter, and said nothing at all, very loudly, for an hour and a half.

* * *

"Too hot," she said, at twenty past five, to nobody.

Caitlin moved the pan off the heat without looking up from her count.

"Twelve eggs," said Caitlin. "Mother likes hers soft. Father likes his hard. Mother Adriana likes hers however they come out but she'll eat the yolk last. That's thirty-six eggs if we want them to have three each, and we have thirty-one."

"Why do we have thirty-one?" said Roderic.

Everybody looked at Faelan.

"I asked the hens," said Faelan. "Five of them said no."

"You can't ask hens," said Mirelle.

"You can ask anything," said Faelan. "It's in the rules."

From the stool by the door, Helena made a very small noise that might have been a laugh, and then turned it into a cough, and then looked at the ceiling.

* * *

I was on toast. I'm always on toast. Carol says it's because it's the only thing I can't make worse by trying to help. I stood at the long fire with the toasting fork and watched my brothers and sisters fill Helena's kitchen with smoke and noise and flour, and I thought, the way I think every year: they built this.

Not the kitchen. The kitchen was here before any of us. Not the castle. Not Greykeep, not Havenreach, not the Accord.

This. Seven children who argue about eggs. A house where a ten-year-old asks the hens. Where the cook isn't allowed to cook one morning a year and sits by the door pretending to be cross because it's the only way she knows to show she's moved. Where Seraphina, who was a princess of Concordia, is up to her elbows in bread dough because my sister handed it to her and said "You knead," and she said "May I?" and Carol said "That's what I just said."

Three people built that. Out of tools on tables and treaty law and twenty-five years at sickbeds. Out of a chapel bench in Havenreach, and a refugee princess who asked for the wrong thing for the right reason, and two women who fell in love with each other on a bench before either of them said a word to the man they'd both married.

And out of asking. Mostly out of asking.

* * *

"Garrick," said Carol. "The toast is on fire."

It was.

* * *

We carried it up at seven. All of us, in a procession, the way we do every year. Roderic first with the big tray, because he's the tallest and the steadiest. Then Caitlin with the eggs, counting them on the stairs. Then Elenos with the tea, walking very slowly and listening to the pot the whole way so it wouldn't spill. Then Faelan and Mirelle with the butter and the honey and the jam. Then Carol with the flowers, late asters from the kitchen garden, picked in the dark. Then me, with the toast, slightly black. Then Seraphina and Ignatius and little Uriah, who was carrying his spoon and saying "Up" on every stair.

We knocked. Three times. All of us at once, so it sounded like twenty-one knocks.

"Come in," said three voices.

* * *

They were sitting up in the big bed in the east range, the three of them, my father in the middle in his oldest shirt, my mother on his left with her hair down and her reading glasses pushed up on her head, Adriana on his right with a book on her knees she'd obviously been pretending to read for an hour.

They always pretend they don't know what time we'll come. They always know. Mary says that's part of the rule too, now, though nobody wrote it down.

"Oh," said my mother. "What's all this?"

"It's your anniversary," said Faelan severely. "You know it is. You're not allowed to pretend."

"We're allowed to pretend," said Adriana. "We're not allowed to do anything for anyone. Pretending's for us."

Faelan thought about that.

"That's very sensible," he said. "I hate it."

* * *

They ate everything. They always do. My father ate the black toast first, the blackest piece, the way he does every year, and said "Perfect," and meant it. My mother ate her egg, which was hard, because Caitlin had mixed them up, and didn't say so. Adriana ate her yolk last.

And then came the gifts.

That's not in the rule. That's just something that happened, the way the best rules in our house do. The year Caitlin was four she gave them a pebble she'd counted to a thousand while holding, and after that everyone had to.

* * *

Caitlin went first. She held out a folded slip of paper. My father unfolded it.

7,665.

"Mornings," said Caitlin. "Since you got married. All three of you. I counted them last night." She hesitated. "It's seven thousand six hundred and sixty-five mornings that somebody in this house has woken up with all three of you in it."

My mother put her hand over her mouth.

* * *

Roderic gave them nothing in his hands. He stood at the end of the bed, very tall and very red, and said, "I asked Iselle a question yesterday. At eight o'clock. In the south solar. I asked if I could sit down." He looked at the floor. "I've been watching the three of you do that my whole life. Ask first. I didn't know I'd learned it until I did it." He swallowed. "That's my present. That I learned it."

Adriana held out her hand. He came around the bed and she took it, and didn't say anything, and didn't let go for a while.

* * *

Elenos gave them a sound.

He's thirteen. He hears what things are. He doesn't talk about it much; he says most things sound sad when you listen properly, and he'd rather not tell people. But he stood by the window with the light behind him and said, "I listened to the house. Last night. To what it sounds like." He closed his eyes. "It sounds like three people breathing in the same room. Very slowly. And a lot of little ones breathing around them. In other rooms. Like a wheel with spokes."

"Is that sad?" said my mother. Quietly.

Elenos opened his eyes.

"No," he said. "That's the first thing I've ever heard that isn't."

* * *

Mirelle, who is seven and a half and will tell you so, lit a candle on the windowsill without a taper, because she can, and said "That's for the bench," and went pink.

Faelan gave them a page from the green ledger. Their page. Three names on the left, Uriah, Evelyn, Adriana, in his roundest hand, with what each of them does. And on the right, three favorite things. He'd asked them each separately, a month ago, and sworn them to secrecy.

My father read it out.

"Uriah: when the twins were babies and sparked at whoever leaned over the cradle." He stopped. He had to stop for a moment. "Evelyn: the chapel bench, in winter, at five o'clock." My mother didn't look at anyone. "Adriana:" He looked at Adriana. Adriana looked at the ceiling. "Adriana: the first time Evelyn said my name like it was hers too."

Nobody said anything for a while.

"It balances," said Faelan, into the silence. "I checked."

* * *

And Carol and I gave them the one we give every year, which is the same one, which is the rule.

"No Council," said Carol. "No infirmary. No treaty law."

"No tools," I said. "On any tables. Anywhere."

"Nobody asks you for anything," said Carol. "All day. Helena packed you a basket. It's at the bottom of the stairs."

"And at sunset," I said, "you go to the bench. And nobody follows you."

My father looked at the two of us, standing side by side at the foot of the bed, twenty-three years old, the way we've stood there every year since we were seven.

"You were outside the door," he said to me. "The first time. Your sister said you were shy."

"I was shy."

"I know," said my father. "I could hear you breathing through the keyhole."

* * *

The day was very quiet.

That's what the rule is for, really. Not the breakfast. Not the gifts. The quiet. For one day a year, nobody in the whole Accord is allowed to ask the three of them for anything, and the whole house holds itself very carefully around them, like you'd hold a cup that's full to the brim.

I saw them three times that day. I wasn't looking for them; the rule says not to. But Greykeep is a small place, if you live in it.

* * *

The first time was at ten, in the orchard. My mother and Adriana were walking between the old apple trees, arm in arm, the way the Concordian aunts cluck about. Not talking. My mother had her head on Adriana's shoulder, and Adriana had her cheek against my mother's hair, and they were walking very slowly, the way you walk when you're not going anywhere at all.

I stopped at the orchard gate. And went the other way.

* * *

The second time was at two, in the inner court. My father was sitting on the edge of the old stone well, in his oldest shirt, with his hands empty. Not a tool anywhere near them. He was looking at his hands as if he didn't quite know what they were for, and Aurelia was sitting beside him, on the well edge, with her own open hands in her lap.

They weren't saying anything either.

But I heard Aurelia say, as I went past along the gallery, very quietly: "You knocked."

And my father said: "Every year. Twenty-one years. I still don't know how I got so lucky."

And Aurelia said: "You asked. That's how."

* * *

The third time was at four, and it wasn't them I saw. It was everyone else.

I went down to the kitchen for tea and found Helena at the long table, not cooking, with Iselle on one side of her and Saba on the other, and Selvane and Wend across from them, and Ansel by the door. And Iselle was asking.

"How did it happen?" Iselle was saying. "The three of them. I've never understood it. Where I come from, a king takes a second wife for a treaty. That's all it ever is. A paper. A door you can't go back through."

"That's what it was supposed to be," said Helena.

Everyone looked at her. Helena doesn't tell stories. Helena tells you when the bread's done.

"Lyradon was burning," said Helena. "The war. They came through the gate with nothing. The old queen, Adriana's mother, and Adriana, and Cassia, and everyone who could walk, in what they stood up in. And on the second day, Adriana and her sister went to the chapel in Havenreach, where Evelyn sat every evening between the infirmary and supper. And Adriana asked her." Helena folded her hands on the table. "Asked her whether her husband would take a second wife. So that Lyradon's people would be safe. Guests can be sent away, she said. A wife can't."

Iselle's eyes were very wide.

"And Evelyn said no," said Helena. "Just like that. No. And then Uriah said no too, every time they asked him. Twice in Council, once on the stairs. He said they were safe already. He said nobody needed to marry anybody to be safe in his house." She almost smiled. "That's the first thing to know about the three of them. It started with two noes."

"Then how—" said Iselle.

"The bench," said Helena.

* * *

"Every evening that winter," said Helena, "Evelyn sat on that chapel bench. And Adriana came and sat with her. Because she'd been told no, and she didn't know what else to do with herself. And Io came through the Concordia gate, most nights, because it was the only place in the world where nobody called her Your Majesty. And the three of them sat there. All winter. Talking. About nothing. About everything." Helena looked at the table. "And somewhere in that winter, Evelyn and Adriana fell in love. With each other. Before either of them said one word about it to him."

Iselle had gone very still.

"Io knew first," said Helena. "Io always knows before anybody. One evening she came through the gate and found Adriana with her head on Evelyn's shoulder, and Evelyn's hand in her hair, and neither of them moving. And Io turned around and went home without a word." Helena nodded. "And Adriana had fallen in love with him too, by then. With his tools on tables and his boots in the hall and all of it. So in the spring, the two of them went to him together. Hand in hand. And told him."

"And he said yes," said Iselle.

"He asked," said Helena. "That's the part. He asked Adriana to marry him. Not for Lyradon. He said that. Not for Lyradon. For her. So she'd never have to be anybody's secret." Helena looked at Iselle. "And then he turned to his wife and asked her if she minded. And Evelyn laughed at him. And said, by now it's been my idea for months."

* * *

Iselle didn't say anything for a long time.

"Two noes," she said at last. "And then a bench. And then everybody asked everybody."

"That's it," said Helena. "That's the whole recipe." She got up. "Now. The bench basket is at the bottom of the stairs, and if anybody in this kitchen so much as looks out of the window at sunset, I'll know."

* * *

At sunset the three of them went to the bench.

I didn't follow. Nobody follows. That's the rule, and in twenty-one years, nobody has broken it, not even Loki, who considers rules in general to be suggestions made by people who lack imagination.

But I know what the bench looks like at sunset, because I've sat on it myself. Plain wood, against the chapel wall in Havenreach, worn pale where people have sat on it for a hundred years. The square in front of it. The infirmary lamps coming on across the way. And the three of them would be sitting there, I knew, my father in the middle, with Helena's basket between their feet, and a cup of tea each from the flask, and not saying very much. And at some point Io would come through the Concordia gate, because Io always does, and stand at the corner of the square for a moment, and look at them, and smile, and go home without a word.

That's the anniversary. That's all of it.

* * *

I went up to the east wall instead.

Seraphina was in the nook, with the blanket and little Uriah asleep in it. I sat down beside her. She put her head on my shoulder.

"Twenty-one years," she said.

"Twenty-one."

"Do you think we'll have a rule?" she said. "When it's ours? When our children make one up and stand on the hearthrug with their hands on their hips?"

"He'll make it," I said, looking at the small sleeping face in the blanket. "He'll stand on the hearthrug and say Up."

Seraphina laughed.

"I'd keep that rule," she said.

"So would I."

* * *

Down in the court, the Castellan's lights went from blue to soft gold, the way they do at dusk. It had logged nothing on the western sea all day. Nothing at Westmere. Nothing at Blackstack. No black sails, no hollow singers, no seals with closed hands. The first entirely quiet day since Selvane washed up on the sand.

I don't think that was an accident. I think, somewhere across the water, even the people who want things were holding their breath for a day.

Or perhaps it was just a quiet day. They happen. You have to let them.

* * *

Mary's book.

Mary doesn't write much on the anniversary. That's not in the rule; it's in Mary. She says some days are for living in, not for writing down, and she's learned from Melody which ones.

The twenty-first. Thirty-one eggs. The hens said no to five.

7,665 mornings.

Roderic learned it. Elenos heard a wheel with spokes. Faelan's page balances.

The bench at sunset. Nobody followed.

Quiet on the western sea.

And under that, three lines, in three hands. They'd come back from Havenreach after dark and stopped at the library on their way up, all three of them, and knocked on the open door of an empty room, and gone in, and written. One after another. A big square hand, a fine slanting one, and a small quick one that's read every treaty in the world.

Uriah. I asked.

Evelyn. I said no. Then I said it was my idea.

Adriana. I asked for the wrong thing. They gave me the right one.