CEDAR IS AT the palace again the next morning. There is a different guard on duty.
“No one sees the King without proper documentation,” he says.
“How do I get the proper documents?” she asks.
“Do I look like a secretary? Go.”
“Perhaps you can point me in the right dir- ”
“What’s your name?” he says.
“My name is my business, sir.”
“And helping you is not mine. Now get out.”
She does not bother to tell him she will be back. He will know soon enough.
She returns to the palace on the third day and is again turned away. Her days begin to take on a routine of morning palace calls and days at the shop. Each night she pulls the cello out from under the bed, aching to run her bow across the strings and give a voice to the music that plays in her mind.
Each morning, she ignores the cello’s beckons and leaves the guesthouse without it.
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR SEES THE guard from the first day, as she often does now. These are the days she looks forward to the most.
“Hello, Basil,” she says as she approaches the door.
Basil smiles. “Hello again.”
“How are your children?”
His expression brightens as it always does when she asks. “My wife borrowed a bicycle from our neighbour. She is teaching them to ride.”
These brief, friendly interactions contrast heavily with the days the other guard is on duty.
“Will you let me in today?”
“No, my dear. I cannot. Perhaps I can pass along a message.” This is his usual response.
Cedar pauses this time. “Will it reach Prince Ash?”
“His correspondence is monitored.”
“By the King?” Cedar asks. If he reads Ash’s correspondence, perhaps she can convince him to meet with her.
Basil shakes his head. “No, my dear. The King is away.”
“Oh.” The Governor’s letter could have made the situation so much simpler. People paid attention when she revealed the letter. She thinks of contacting the Governor, not for the first time. She pushes the thought away. She knows what she has to do. She need only gather the courage to do so.
“Listen, I think you mean well, but you are beginning to upset some of the guards,” Basil says.
“Am I breaking any laws?”
“No my dear,” he says.
“Then I will see you again soon.”
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR SITS UNMOVING in the chair where she is cuffed. A guard stands at the door. He avoids meeting her gaze, though she has been watching him since being brought here by the guard at the palace doors. He had marched across the courtyard and slapped handcuffs on her the moment she had crossed the outer archway.
Neither guard has told her why she has been arrested, but she suspects they have discovered her identity. Cedar has not seen any pictures of herself in the newspapers, or taped to shop walls, like the pictures she has seen of Slate and Finch, but one of her coworkers had remarked on her similarity to a sketch of a woman who had been wanted.
An old analog clock ticks on the wall behind her. It chimed once, shortly after she had been brought to the room that looks like a break room for the guards. It chimes now for a second time.
She breathes deeply, tainted as the air is with cigarette smoke. Do palace jails still exist in dank basements of palaces? Or will they extradite her to Koshluk straight away?
There is a commotion, and the guard near the door moves to the side just before it is swung open. A tall, blond figure storms in.
The moment he sees her, his stormy expression softens.
“Linden!” Cedar says.
“Are you well?” He moves forward to inspect her.
“What are you doing here?” she says.
“You did not come into work. The maid at the boarding house said you come here each morning.” Having looked her over, he turns to three guards behind him and addresses the most irate-looking one. “Uncuff her.” Linden tilts his head in Cedar’s direction.
“She is an enemy of the King,” the guard says.
“My work is valued by the King, and she has worked for me with conscientious diligence since her first day. Thus she has worked in service for the King. She is the furthest thing from an enemy to him,” Linden says.
The guard stomps to a counter. He rummages through a drawer before returning with a paper that he thrusts in Linden’s face. “See? Is this not the same girl?”
Linden remains standing where he is. He raises his hand and takes the paper. Cedar can see the drawing of her face when he lowers it to his side.
“I have seen myself that she possesses a document signed by the Governor of Sapphire City,” Linden says.
He looks at her as though waiting for something. Cedar shifts in her chair. He seems to comprehend the meaning behind her silence and jerks his attention to the guard.
“Telephone my father, Justice Carpenter. If he cannot be reached we can always telephone the Governor directly. I am sure he would love to hear how a woman he has taken particular care of has been arrested by the King’s palace guard.”
One guard shifts closer to the open door. The other steps forward, cutting off whatever it is the irate guard is about to say. “If Justice Carpenter can speak for the woman, it will not be necessary to disturb the Governor himself.”
“I appreciate your reasonableness. I have my phone with me
here.” Linden pulls a phone from his pocket and dials. The call is answered before the second ring. The irate guard slumps into a chair facing a television. Linden fills the diplomat in on the details.
“Yes, of course,” Linden says, after a brief silence. He hands the phone to the more civil guard who had spoken. The guard accepts the phone, placing it to his ear.
The guard says, “Yes sir,” several times, before returning the phone to Linden with a bow. “Our apologies, we had not realized.”
“Sorry to bother you, Dad,” Linden says, ending the call even as Cedar can hear the voice on the other side still speaking. He slips it back into his pocket.
The guard unlocks Cedar’s cuffs. She massages her wrists as she rises.
Linden grips her arm, and leads her out of the room. They walk without speaking until they have passed under the archway and merge onto the crowded streets.
“This way,” Linden says, turning down a narrow alley.
Cedar follows without question.
“I’ll take you to your guesthouse. But I prefer the back way.”
“Thank you,” Cedar says. “I can go to work.”
Linden stops in the alley and turns to face her. The streets are busy, but the noise is muffled enough in this narrow alley to hear one another.
“Thank you for helping me,” she says.
Linden nods curtly, and picks up her wrist, examining it. He scowls.
“I am fine. Really. Thanks to you,” she says.
“What exactly are you trying to accomplish?” he snaps, dropping her arm.
She wants honesty between them.
“I am trying to have Prince Ash released.”
He winces. It is a long moment before he speaks again.
“It’s foolish to go about it in this way. You must know you can be of no help to him if you are rotting away in prison.”
“It was not a good plan, but I had to do something.”
“Why did you not use your pass from the Governor?”
“It was stolen from my room,” she says.
He lets out a slow breath.
“Prince Ash has powerful enemies. You will need to be more careful,” he says.
Cedar knows her next course of action. She is only sorry Sister Nettle is not here to witness it. Everything in her radiates certainty and strength. She lets it wash over her. She is silent for so long that Linden places his hands on her shoulders, a question in his expression.
Cedar looks into Linden’s blue eyes. “On the contrary, I will need to be more daring.”
~ . ~ . ~
ASH THINKS OF the servants and the meaningful looks they keep exchanging. He flips from his back onto his stomach and begins his pushups. Ash knows something has happened. They whisper secrets to one another. Ash also knows it is futile to question them.
They have been chosen as his servants because of their loyalty to their King’s principles over their Prince’s. They think him reckless. Those particular whispers he has heard. They imagine he will imperil their lives if he becomes king, by contesting King Marcus’ authority over their country. He cannot refute that. It is the reason he questions himself. Can a ruler defend his people’s well-being if he compromises their safety? Can he negotiate with King Marcus without compromising their safety? He does not know. He does know that it is not right that their culture be so impinged. A more rational side of him tries to reason that they are small freedoms, not worth risking life for. On the other hand, a persistent nagging that it matters, more than even he thinks, grows louder each day.
He pauses his repetitions, turning to rest on his back. He takes calming breaths. At the least, he needs to learn how to better govern his impulses. He needs control of his emotions if he wants to navigate the path to freedom from King Marcus’ oppression. He has no desire to prompt a declaration of war.
It is on his next inhale that he hears the first vibrations of sound moving across space. He holds his breath, desperate to silence the slightest noise. The song that penetrates the stone wall transports him to the winter cabin and the warm glow of a fireplace. He closes his eyes. In his mind’s eye, Cedar sits across from him as she pulls her bow across the strings. In his next picture of her, she dances to the movements of the sounds as they unfold. He anticipates the next notes. He knows this song.
The tone is different – richer, fuller, and more practiced.
The song is the same.
To Ash’s ears, Cedar’s style of easy grace is unmistakable.
The notes wash over him, and it is as though he could reach out and touch her.
The cold stone floor of the palace sucks him back to reality. His breath resumes in irregular bursts as the sounds continue.
It is over too soon. The final note lingers in the air as if the musician is as reluctant for the song to end as he is.
He places his hands on his head, pressing them against his scalp, and grasps his thick hair. If only his windows were not boarded, and he could catch a glimpse of her. If only he could storm his way past the guards and catch her in his arms.
Then the full weight of what she has risked hits him, and he draws in a ragged breath.
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR PUTS DOWN her bow and returns her cello to the case. She latches the case, picks up her stool, and looks around. Basil is the only guard here in the courtyard. He stands unmoving in front of the palace doors.
Something jerks him from his trance. He looks toward the outer archways, then sprints forward, grabbing Cedar by the arm. He hauls her to a small door in the courtyard wall as she struggles not to drop her cello case. Suddenly Linden is there too. He pulls the case from her grasp and leaves her only the small stool she had brought with her. Basil fumbles for keys inside his pockets.
Linden leads her through the door and before Cedar can turn to thank the guard, Basil closes the door in her face. Linden pulls her along. The door has led them outside the palace courtyard onto the paths that run along the river. This early in the morning the paths are empty.
“You can hide your instrument in my workroom. The guard was the only one who saw you,” he says.
Cedar wants to tell him she had never imagined she was capable of so courageous an act. She wants to tell him she had never imagined music could come so alive beneath her touch. She wants to tell him she knows Ash heard her song. She wants to, but she has no words. The music fills her mind trying to be released into her feet. She wants to dance.
Cedar pulls her arm from Linden’s grasp. He grabs it again, looking over his shoulder. He curses. “I knew you were up to something, but this? I hope you believe in a god, Cedar.”
He does not release her arm until they find their way to his workshop.
Once there, he unlocks the wardrobe door and she follows him in. He closes it behind them, places the case below his worktable, and lets out a long breath.
Cedar studies the violin hanging on the wall while Linden runs a shaking hand through his hair.
“I’ve burnt most of the instruments I’ve built. I can’t seem to stop myself from making them. Then I come to my senses, and I burn them.”
Cedar turns to face Linden.
He gives a short laugh. “Most people here do not even consider me a citizen of Danbarrah. They look at me with the same hatred they look at anyone from Koshluk. My father is feared but respected. My mother calls this her home as much as any of them do, but it doesn’t matter.” He meets her eye. “This isn’t my battle to fight.”
His eyes are pleading. She understands, but she does not pity him. Pity has no place in a world with music.
“But it is mine,” she says.
He opens his mouth but no words come out. He slumps back against his worktable. He crosses his arms and looks up at a violin on the wall. “I can hear the whispers. I can’t make out the words, but I sense the emotions. Your cello, it’s alive, like my violins.” He looks at her. “I must sound like a lunatic.”
“Then I am one too.”
“You hear them then? I had always hoped they were a trick of the wind.” He picks up a bench planer from the table, turning it over in his hands. “Music comes alive when you play. Even more than wood comes alive when I build.”
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR MOVES THROUGH the workday in a daze. When she had played in the courtyard, she had felt an ocean of something mysterious open up in front of her, something that was so large, so intense, that even now the experience fills her with awe.
The next morning, she is so eager to play she thinks of little else. Inside the courtyard, she sees no sign of Basil. The guard in front of the palace doors is the same one who arrested her. Her spirits sink, but she sets her stool down in the center of the courtyard. The music will sway him.
The guard watches her withdraw the cello from the case but makes no move. She breathes a sigh of relief and brings the bow to the strings. She pulls the bow across, reveling in the notes. She moves along, her soul soaring with the sounds.
From her peripheral vision, she sees a shape coming closer, but she does not pause in her playing to look. The music, the music will give her everything she needs.
The cello is ripped from her hands.
Cedar’s eyes open in time to see the guard bring the cello down on the ruby-red stones of the palace courtyard. Splinters of wood fly at her. The harsh twang of strings resounds dully through the courtyard. She cannot comprehend that the painful scratches on her face are a result of her shattered cello.
A familiar figure steps in front of her, positioning himself between her and the guard.
“Run,” Linden says.
The guard steps beside Linden, who bars him with an arm. The guard raises the elaborately carved cello scroll in his hand. His nose wrinkles and he raises his upper lip. He throws the scroll to the ground, and the final assault severs Cedar’s connection with the music. Even the song in her mind ceases. Cedar’s limbs are numb.
“You thought you could get away with it,” the guard says.
He looks like Samuel, with his weathered tan. His condescending snarl is Jasper’s.
“Cedar, run!” Linden shouts over his shoulder. He steps forward to meet the guard’s wrath.