Chapter 124: The Question

My father asked Iselle if he could talk to her on the Sunday after the walls went up, at breakfast, in front of everyone.

He does that with the things that matter most. Asks in front of everyone. So that the person can say no in front of everyone too, and everyone will know it was allowed.

"Iselle," he said, putting his cup down. "May I have an hour of your time today? I'd like to ask you something. It's large, and it isn't urgent, and you can say no to the hour as well as to the question."

The whole table went quiet.

Iselle had a piece of toast halfway to her mouth. She put it down.

"Is it about him?" she said.

"It's about what comes after him," said my father.

* * *

She looked at him for a long moment. Then at her mother, beside her, who was buttering her bread very slowly and not looking up. Then at Roderic, across the table, who had stopped eating altogether.

"Yes," said Iselle. "The hour. I'll say yes to the hour." She picked her toast up again. "I don't know about the question yet."

"That's fair," said my father.

"Where?"

"Wherever you like."

Iselle thought about it.

"Somewhere with a window," she said.

* * *

She chose the top of the north tower. I didn't know until later why.

It's the highest window in Greykeep. Ninety-one steps up, past the ninetieth where Carol and I sit to talk at night, to a small round room at the very top that nobody uses because it's too far to carry anything. One table. Four chairs. And a window on every side, tall and arched and old, with the glass gone wavy, so that the whole country lies around you in every direction: the river and the city to the south, the hills to the north, the long road west toward the sea.

In the golden city, Iselle's rooms had no windows at all. Painted ceilings, silk walls, a fountain. No windows. She told me that once, at Westmere, the first week. I chose the college in Concordia because my room there has a window.

She chose the room in Greykeep with the most windows in it.

* * *

My father asked if I would come. He asked Iselle first, at the foot of the stair, whether she minded.

"Why him?" said Iselle.

"Because one day it'll be his chair," said my father. "And whatever you and I say up there, he'll be the one who has to keep it, long after I'm gone." He paused. "And because he's the one people tell which way they're walking."

Iselle looked at me.

"Yes," she said. "He can come." She hesitated. "May my mother come?"

"Of course."

"And Roderic—" She stopped. Went pink. "No. Not Roderic. Not for this. I'll tell him myself. After." She looked at my father. "Is that all right?"

"It's yours," said my father. "All of it. You decide who hears it."

* * *

So there were four of us, at the round table at the top of the north tower, with the sun coming in from the south window and lying across the wood in long wavy stripes.

My father didn't start straight away. He sat for a while and looked out of the west window, toward the sea, as if he were deciding how to put a heavy thing down without breaking it.

"There's going to be a war," he said at last.

Iselle didn't move.

"Not today," said my father. "Maybe not this year. But it's coming. Your brother's had a week to think about Carol's voice through a closing door, and a sail's sat on the line at Westmere for seven hours looking at us. He's not going to stop. He doesn't know how. You've said so yourself." He turned from the window. "I don't want it. Nobody in this house wants it. We're not going to cross the sea and take Kethra. That's not what the Accord is for. We'll hold our side, and we'll open every gate to anyone running, and we'll say no as many times as we're asked."

"But," said Iselle.

"But wars end," said my father. "One way or another. And sometimes they end in a way nobody planned." He looked at her steadily. "Your brother may not be emperor forever, Iselle. His own people may put him down. His own gods may stop being held. The war may go a way none of us can see from here. One day there may be a morning when the golden city wakes up and there's no one on the throne."

He folded his big hands on the table.

"And I've seen what happens to a country when that morning comes and nobody's thought about it," he said. "Something always fills the chair. And it's almost never someone kind."

* * *

Iselle's hands were in her lap. Open. I watched them. They didn't close.

"Kessavel," she said quietly.

"Perhaps."

"Or him." She didn't say the name. She didn't need to. "Our father. The hand behind the hand. He'd just pick up the empire like a coat somebody dropped."

"Perhaps," said my father.

"So you're going to ask me," said Iselle, "if my brother is put down. If there's a morning when the chair is empty." Her voice was very steady. "Whether I'd sit in it."

My father didn't answer straight away.

"I'm going to ask you," he said, "whether you'd want to. That's a different question. I'm not going to ask you to. Nobody's going to put you anywhere, ever again. You were put in a room with no windows when you were twelve. I'll never be the second person to do that to you." He leaned forward a little. "I'm asking, if Malachar were deposed as emperor, and it were offered to you, would you want to be the empress? Or the queen? Or anything at all?" He paused. "You can say no. You can say you don't know. You can say ask me in ten years. All of those are answers."

* * *

Iselle laughed.

It wasn't a happy laugh. It was short and startled and it came out of her like something knocked over. She put her hand over her mouth.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. It's just—" She took her hand away. "Nobody has ever asked me what I want to be. Not once. Not my brother, not his court, not the college. Mama asked me what I wanted for supper." She glanced at Saba. "That was the only one."

"And what did you say?" said my father.

"Fish," said Iselle. "Mostly." Her eyes had filled. "And now the King of Greykeep is sitting at the top of a tower asking if I'd like an empire."

* * *

Saba put her hand over her daughter's. Open on open.

"Take your time, little fish," she said. "He said it's not urgent. He means it. I've watched him for a month. He always means it."

Iselle sat very still for a long time.

The sun moved across the table. Somewhere far below, the dragon in Havenreach rang noon, faint and deep across the river; it carries, now, all the way up the valley if the wind's right. A gull went past the west window. I didn't say anything. Nobody did.

* * *

"Not empress," said Iselle at last.

My father waited.

"Empress is his word," she said. "Emperor of Kethra. Lord of the Ostrane Imperium. Son of the Unnamed God. Who Holds." She said the titles the way you'd read out a list of things somebody had stolen from you. "An empire is just a hand, King Uriah. One hand closed around a lot of countries that used to be their own. Twelve valleys and a coast and a river and the high plateaus and the golden city, all held in one fist, so they can't go anywhere." She shook her head. "I won't be the hand. I can't. I'm the other way around. If you put me on that throne, I'd open my hand and the whole empire would just—" she opened her hands in her lap, palms up, "—go. Back to being twelve valleys and a coast and a river."

"Is that bad?" said my father.

Iselle looked at him.

"No," she said slowly. "No. I don't think it is."

* * *

"Then queen?" said my father.

"Of what?" said Iselle. "Kethra isn't one place. That's the lie he tells. It's a lot of places that he's holding in one shape." She looked out of the south window, toward the river. "My valley. The Ilvane. There's a mill, and my mother's loom, and a river that's very high this year. They never had a queen. They had a miller and a council of whoever turned up, like Westmere. They were all right. Until he sent engineers."

She was quiet.

"I don't want to be anyone's queen," she said. "Not because I'm frightened. Well. I am frightened. But that's not why." She turned her hands over in her lap. "It's because the minute I sit in a chair over them, I'm one more person deciding for them. And nobody in Kethra has ever been asked anything. Not in my whole life. Not the storms in the towers, or the gods in the garden, or the people in the twelve valleys." She looked at my father. "If anyone's going to sit in that chair, King Uriah, the first thing they ought to do is get up out of it and go and ask."

* * *

My father didn't say anything.

But I saw his face. It was the face he had at the Thursday hearing, at the back of the hall, when I told the boy from Lower Brook no and then told him what to do instead. The face of a man who's just heard someone get it right.

"So no," said Iselle. "Not empress. Not queen. Not if it's offered." She took a breath. "But."

"But?"

* * *

"But if they ask," said Iselle.

She said it very quietly.

"If there's a morning when the chair's empty. And the people in the golden city, and the twelve valleys, and the gods in the garden, if any of them are standing again, if they come to me and ask." Her hands were shaking in her lap. Open. "Not you. Not the Accord. Not a treaty. Them. If they knock on my door and say we'd like you to hold this for a while, until we can hold it ourselves." She swallowed. "Then yes. I'd say yes to that. For a while. Not forever. Just until they don't need anyone." She looked up. "And then I'd give it back and go home and help my mother at the loom."

* * *

"A queen who leaves," said my father.

"Is there such a thing?"

"There's a steward at Westmere," said my father. "Tamar Vale. His father held it before him, under a charter from my crown. He rules Westmere because Westmere asked him to, and the day they stop asking he'll give it back and go fishing." He almost smiled. "His father did exactly that. Edric's on the harbor wall every morning with a rod and no fish, and he's the happiest man I know."

"A steward," said Iselle slowly.

"Of no one's crown," said my father. "Not mine. Not anyone's. Just theirs. Holding it for them. With your hands open. Until they want it back." He sat back in his chair. "I don't think there's a word for that in Kethran. I don't think there's a word for it anywhere. You might have to make one up."

* * *

Iselle looked out of the west window for a long time. Toward the sea. Toward a city she'd lived in for years and never once seen from the outside.

"There's something else," she said.

"Ask."

"My brother." She didn't look away from the window. "If he's deposed. You said deposed." Her voice wavered for the first time. "Not killed. Deposed. Is that what you mean? Truly?"

My father was quiet for a moment.

"I don't want anyone dead," he said. "Not him. Not anyone. I've killed in my life, Iselle. I'm not proud of any of it. I'd rather never do it again." He looked at his hands. "Deposed means he stops holding things. That's all. That's all I want from him. Stop holding. Let go. Let the storms out of the towers and the gods out of the garden." He looked up. "What happens to him after that isn't mine to decide. It isn't even yours. It'll be up to the people he held."

Iselle closed her eyes.

"If it's up to me," she said. "Even a little. If anyone asks me." She opened them. "I'd want him somewhere he has to knock."

* * *

Nobody spoke.

Saba's hand tightened on her daughter's.

"Somewhere with a door," said Iselle. "A good door. A kind one. With a fire on the other side and someone who'll always say come in. But a door he has to knock on, every single time, and wait." She was crying now, quietly, the way she does, without seeming to notice. "Because he never has. Not once in his whole life. Nobody ever taught him. Our father certainly didn't." She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "I think if he had to knock, every day, for a long time, he might learn how it feels to be the one on the outside, waiting to be let in."

"Ansel learned," I said. It was the first thing I'd said since we'd climbed the stairs.

Iselle looked at me.

"He did," she said. "Didn't he. It took him a thousand years. But he did."

* * *

"I have one more question," said Iselle. "And then I've used up my hour."

"You haven't," said my father. "Take as long as you want."

"Would I have to go?" said Iselle. "If they asked. Would I have to go back across the sea and live there? In the golden city?" She was looking at the table now. Not at any of us. "Because I'd go. If they needed me. I would. But I'd—" She stopped. Started again. "I'd want to know if I'd be allowed to come back. Here. To Greykeep." She was going very pink. "To the people here."

My father looked at her for a long time. And I saw something in his face that I'd seen once before, on the anniversary, at the foot of the big bed, when Roderic stood there red to the ears and said I learned it.

"Iselle," said my father gently. "Nobody in this house will ever make you choose between a country and a person. Not for a treaty. Not for a war. Not for anything." He smiled. "We've had that conversation in this family once already. Helena told you. It started with two noes and a bench."

Iselle laughed. Wet. Real.

"You'd never have to go anywhere alone," said my father. "And you'd never have to stay anywhere you didn't want to. And there'd always be a door here. With a fire on the other side. That's a promise."

* * *

"Then that's my answer," said Iselle.

She sat up very straight in her chair, at the round table at the top of the north tower, in the light from all four windows, with her mother's hand in hers.

"Not empress. Never empress. Not queen unless they ask. And if they ask, yes, for a while, with my hands open, until they don't need me." She took a breath. "And my brother somewhere with a door he has to knock on. And a way home to Greykeep whenever I want it."

"Heard," said my father.

Iselle looked at him in surprise.

"It's what we say," said my father. "When a name's been said. It takes two voices." He held out his hand across the table. Open. Palm up. "Iselle. Daughter of Saba. Who'd be a queen only if she's asked."

Iselle looked at his hand for a long moment.

Then she put her own open hand on top of it.

"Heard," she said.

* * *

"May I tell anyone?" said my father. "The Council, one day? Aurelia? Or should it stay at the top of this tower?"

Iselle thought about it.

"Ask me then," she said. "When it matters. Ask me again. I might have changed my mind." She almost smiled. "That's allowed. Isn't it."

"It's the most allowed thing there is," said my father.

* * *

We came down the ninety-one steps one at a time. My father first, then Saba, then me. Iselle came last, slowly, with her hand on the wall.

At the bottom, in the doorway to the court, Roderic was waiting.

He hadn't come up. Nobody had asked him to. He'd been sitting on the bottom step for an hour, I found out later, with his elbows on his knees and an apple in each hand, not eating either.

He stood up when he saw her.

Iselle stopped on the last step, so that for once they were the same height.

"I said I'd tell you myself," she said.

"You don't have to."

"I want to." She took one of the apples out of his hand. "Will you walk with me? To the orchard? It'll take a while. You can say no."

Roderic looked at her.

"Yes," he said.

* * *

I don't know what she told him. It was hers to tell. But I saw them go across the inner court together, slowly, toward the orchard gate. Not touching. Close. Her talking, him listening, the way he always listens to her, with his whole face. And halfway across the court she stopped, and said something, and he stopped too.

And then, very carefully, the way you'd put down something that might break, he reached out and took her hand.

And she let him.

* * *

Mary's book. That night.

Sunday. Uriah asked Iselle for an hour, at breakfast, in front of everyone. She said yes to the hour.

The top of the north tower. She chose the room with the most windows.

He asked whether, if her brother were deposed and it were offered, she would want to be empress, or queen.

Not empress. Never empress. "An empire is just a hand."

Not queen unless they ask. If they ask: yes, for a while, with her hands open, until they don't need her.

Her brother: somewhere with a door he has to knock on.

A way home to Greykeep whenever she wants it. Uriah: a promise.

"Heard."

Roderic waited an hour on the bottom step with two apples. She took one.

In the court, he took her hand. She let him.

And under that, in a careful, upright hand that had learned its letters in a valley mill and its court hand in a room with no windows:

Iselle. Daughter of Saba. Asked what I want to be. Said: asked.