The Silver Key

The pale sky, still tinged with blue but no longer quite night, pressed through the gap above the window. When Eiran woke, he did not know what had drawn him out of sleep: footsteps in the corridor, a neck stiff from a night spent on a rolled-up cloak, or a thought so loud he had to interrupt it.

His mouth tasted of old ash. Before he could sit up, he knew he would not sleep again before dawn.

Saeron’s studio, the same room where they had spent years mixing pigments and repairing frames, was empty and silent now. The drawers had been left open, linen covers lay on the floor, and a pale rectangle of dust remained in the storeroom where The Image of Unity had stood. The two men who had carried the canvas away had not told Eiran what would happen to Saeron.

He did not wait to be greeted. He went down to the street and crossed the waking square. It took him a little over ten minutes to reach the palace hill. The higher he climbed, the fewer windows stood open and the more people fell silent at the sight of him. In the outer courtyard, a maid stepped away from him almost theatrically, knocking a cup of water with her elbow. Cold water spread across the tiles and was soon absorbed by a linen rag.

Two guards stood at the side gate leading to the upper pavilion, wearing dark jackets bearing the palace crest. One, perhaps barely older than Eiran, had a face as smooth as glass and eyes that never looked straight at anyone. The other was shorter, his hair matted with sweat. Eiran knew the shorter one by sight. He was sometimes here in the colder months, warming his hands over a flame when letters were brought for Saeron to sign.

Today there were no letters. No questions, either.

“He’s not receiving visitors,” the shorter guard said as soon as Eiran tried to pass them.

“I want to see Master Saeron.”

“The order was clear.”

Eiran did not lower his gaze. He had no need to pretend; his exhaustion was real.

“Who gave the order?”

“The Court Council,” the guard repeated. He lowered his voice on the last two words. He was uneasy barring the way to the apprentice of a man who, only yesterday, had been admitted without question.

“I could always bring him food. A notebook. Even when he was painting the councillors’ portraits.” Eiran spoke quietly, reluctantly, as though each syllable were a test.

“Not today.” The maid scrubbing the stones beneath the colonnade stopped working and listened.

The guard reached to his belt and took out a large iron key. He turned it between his fingers before slipping it back into his pocket.

“At this hour tomorrow, Master Saeron will be moved from the temporary holding room to the cells beneath the north pavilion.” As he spoke, the guard looked over Eiran’s shoulder at the doors leading to the garden. Beyond them stood the old servants’ wing, with its row of low windows. Eiran knew the building. What he did not know was a way in that was not guarded. “By order of the Council, access to him is suspended.”

“Suspended,” Eiran repeated, to hear his own voice.

The other guard glanced furtively at his companion. There was something closer to sympathy than contempt in his eyes, as though for a moment he had seen Eiran in a position he himself might soon occupy.

“Sorry,” he muttered. He probably even believed he meant it.

There was nothing left but to leave, though he had nowhere to go.

Stone steps led down to the outer courtyard. Between the pavilion wall and a ditch full of muddy water, a few servants drifted past, stable boys slipped by, a girl in a dirty apron. Every one of them knew something had changed. The rumour had already spread through the entire palace grounds.

He stopped by a low wall. The rough brick caught the leather of his glove. If he stayed much longer, the guards would remove him from the courtyard. If he left, he would have only until the following morning to do what he could out of their sight.

It was colder than yesterday. The wind lifted dry sand from the courtyard and blew it towards the pavilion’s shuttered windows. Above the roofline, a thin wisp of smoke rose from a hearth. Eiran tried to imagine what Saeron was doing at that moment: whether he was sitting at a table in his customary silence, or whether he already knew they had shut him off from the world.

He followed the wall to the visitors’ gate, the same one he had passed through almost every day since work on the palace commission began, carrying notes and orders for his master. Today, guards stood on either side, different men from those up above. Strangers. They were as inscrutable as stone, as though they had been replaced along with the air at dawn.

“Do they expect me to run?” Eiran asked quietly, more to himself than to anyone else.

A maid with a bucket glanced at him and pressed her lips together. The guards did not stir.

He was no prisoner, yet the guards already decided where he could stand, what he could pass on and whose answer would reach him.

He tried once more.

“If the master asks for anything…” he began.

“We won’t pass it on.”

The wind was rising, carrying the smell of smoke and wet earth from the northern orchards.

He had little time before tomorrow. After that, Saeron would disappear into the cells beneath the north pavilion.

He stood for a moment as though waiting for a signal. None came. Then he turned towards the courtyard, slowly, because that was all he was allowed now.

Each step sounded as though someone were closing another gate behind him.

At this hour, the castle courtyard looked cut off from the rest of the world. No delegations, no carriages, only closed shutters and swept gravel crossed by those everyone had been told not to see. Eiran walked through the middle of the gateway without looking back to see whether anyone was following him. He felt he could hide nothing now in any case.

Before he could pass the servants’ garden, he felt a movement at his hip. It was no forceful touch, more a slipping between layers of clothing, like frost. His hand went to his belt by instinct, and he knew he was already too late.

He turned and saw the same girl in the dirty apron whom he had passed by the ditch. She must have come in with the people carrying supplies to the kitchen. Now her apron was tucked up beneath her jacket, and she had abandoned an empty basket by the wall. She might have been thirteen or fourteen. Small and compact, with unevenly cut dark brown hair. Her wide-set brown eyes rested on him for only a moment; the freckles across the bridge of her nose betrayed a youth absent from her movements. Hands accustomed to taking things from other people’s pockets brought the courtyards of the Lower Canals straight back to Eiran.

The girl was already a dozen or so paces ahead, squeezing between a barrel and the wall as though by chance, her head bent low. In one hand she held a black rag. The other, the one that mattered, was hidden beneath the skirts of her jacket.

For a moment she blended into the shadows, then vanished beneath a stone arch leading to the back of the kitchens. Eiran quickened his pace, his steps firm and silent. He could call after her, but he understood at once that it would earn him nothing but laughter. He would have to catch her himself.

He saw her again around the corner, but only for a fraction of a second. She was running towards the wall that separated the outer courtyard from the city. She changed direction twice as she ran, as though she knew where the watchers stood and how to avoid straight lines. She pushed off a crate, vaulted a low fence and vanished at once.

She knew how to disappear. This was not her first time.

Eiran did not break into a run at once. He stopped, felt bile rise in his throat, then mocked himself: Did you really think you could beat a child of the streets? But he knew it was not about the money. In the purse was the silver key to Saeron’s secret cupboard, the only way to reach notes the court might not have found.

As he set off, Eiran noticed the traces. A small print in the soft mud, a broken piece of a shoe, a bent nail in a fence board. He had run these paths himself as a child, and even now, years later, he still knew where to hide and where the guards would not look.

He followed her.

The city below the castle was not asleep at this hour. It kept watch for footsteps, for the sound of an overturned bucket, for an unfamiliar shadow. Eiran crossed the marketplace, which stank of spilled water and onion scraps even at dawn, then followed a long street only just woken by barking dogs.

There was no sign of the girl. But on the threshold of one of the hovels, the mud held the narrow print of a sole with a piece missing at the heel, just like the one on the path beyond the palace wall.

He entered a courtyard and felt the air grow damp and heavy. He was certain the girl would stay within a few paces to see whether anyone had followed her. If he startled her, she would vanish for good.

He left the courtyard for a side street. He stood in the middle of it, staring for a moment at a wall of grey brick. He was convinced she was watching him. He could feel it.

He held out his hand and flicked it as though shooing a fly. “I only want what’s mine,” he said. Not loudly at all, but in the emptiness it sounded like an order.

He waited. Nothing.

He turned, pretending to give up. He took three steps, then noticed a dark head poking out of a window at about the height of his chest, with a pair of eyes that caught every movement faster than a blink.

Eiran knew he had lost the opening move, but he would not give her the next one for nothing.

He went to the wall and leaned against it. He took a stub of drawing charcoal from his pocket and began to scrawl on the brick.

The girl’s figure appeared at the window. She watched him as though trying to decide whether he was dangerous or merely stupid.

“Can you read?” he called to her.

Silence.

“If not, I’ll leave a mark.”

The girl blinked rapidly, then disappeared. A dozen or so seconds later, a shadow slipped across the other side of the courtyard, small and compact as a weasel.

Eiran smiled to himself. At least he knew where to look for her.

For now, that was enough.

The girl was letting him follow her. Every few streets she showed herself for a moment, checking that Eiran was still behind her and had not brought a patrol. She kept a dozen or so paces ahead, but no longer tried to disappear completely. She led him further down: first over cobbles, then soft mud, into a tangle of courtyards with no glass in the windows.

The key had been a gift from Saeron: real silver, an engraved head and a small motif like a painted ornament. It did not open the main entrance, but a secret cupboard holding the master’s private notes and samples. If the court sealed the studio, the contents of that cupboard might be the only things not already seized.

That was why he followed her without a word.

They passed people already awake: a woman with a jug of water, a boy throwing coal into a stove, an old beggar wiping his face after a night spent against a wall. The streets grew narrower. Rats ran here and there, but no one troubled themselves about them.

The girl slowed at one of the little bridges, plainly waiting to see whether Eiran would come closer. She gave him a scornful look, as though he were some stray dog at her heels.

“Leave it. Stop following me,” she hissed.

She was slight, yet her voice held an adult’s weariness.

“I only need the key,” Eiran said without raising his voice. “Keep the coins. Even the ones hidden inside the purse.”

The girl snorted something like a laugh, as though she did not even need to check.

“Who cares about your key?” she muttered, but she was already turning towards a darker alley.

At that moment, three men emerged from a side street. They had neither swords nor knives. They wore patrol uniforms and carried clubs slung over their shoulders. They spread out, pushing two beggars back against a wall.

The girl sensed the danger but did not turn back. She slowed and began straightening her jacket as though to look innocent, slipping something into a pocket at the same time.

“Stop!” the tallest patrolman shouted.

She did not even try.

The guard seized her firmly by the arm. She staggered but made no sound. Only when his fingers dug into her wrist did she hiss and hook her other arm round his waist.

The guard took out the purse she had just stolen and tossed it in his hand, testing its weight.

“What have we here?” he said with disgust, passing his find to another member of the patrol.

The girl said nothing. With her other hand, the one the guard was not holding, she tried to reach into a pocket where Eiran expected there would be something sharp. She probably had a knife in there or, worse, a piece of glass. As soon as her fingers slipped beneath her jacket, the guard slammed her against the wall so hard that her cheek struck the plaster.

A dark mark began to spread beneath the skin of her cheek. She clenched her jaw and still made no sound.

Her knees gave way for a moment. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She blinked several times, as though the street had tilted beneath her feet, and only then tried to pull her hand free again.

“Thought running fast would be enough?” he hissed.

Eiran moved before he could consider whether he was doing it for her or for the key. He stepped between them and caught the patrolman by the wrist.

“Let her go.”

The guard raised his club, but Eiran did not retreat. He straightened and met the man’s eyes with a coldness learned from watching Saeron deal with the court.

“Your child, is she?” the guard scoffed.

“My assistant. Today she’s working for the royal secretary, Averan Sorn.”

A moment’s silence. On the far side of the city, the name would have meant little. Here, below the castle, everyone knew Sorn spoke for the court and could ask questions the guards had no wish to answer. If the girl was carrying out his instructions, every further blow could mean trouble.

The guard loosened his grip but did not release her. He looked round, seeking confirmation from his companions.

Eiran repeated it slowly, with emphasis:

“If word reaches Averan Sorn today that you detained someone working for me, the Council will know at once who started this. Do you really want that?”

The second patrolman raised his hands as though to demonstrate his neutrality. “Sorry, sir. We didn’t realise.”

The girl dropped onto the cobbles like a sack of meat, but she did not groan. To get up, she had to brace a hand against the wall. For a moment she stood with her head lowered and her weight unevenly balanced before she dared take a step.

The second guard pressed the purse into Eiran’s hand. Then the patrol moved off, leaving him and the girl in the middle of the street. The air smelled of dirty wool, sweat and old blood.

For a long moment, neither spoke.

“What do they call you?” Eiran asked.

The girl ran her tongue over the cut inside her cheek and spat something onto the ground that might have been a piece of tooth.

“Lira.”

“I don’t need help,” Lira said.

“You need money,” Eiran replied.

The girl looked at him with undisguised hatred.

“Give me the key.”

Lira took the silver object from her pocket and held it high. She must have removed it from the purse before the patrol had time to search her.

“This is for that little performance,” she said. “Keep playing the fool like that and you won’t last another day.”

She wanted to humiliate him, or perhaps only to see whether he would dare take it by force. Eiran stepped closer and reached out. Lira tried to pull her hand back, but he was faster. In a flash he caught her fingers and twisted them, hard enough to make her let go of the key, but not hard enough to break them.

“I know what pain feels like, too,” he said quietly.

Lira sprang back, cradling her hand in the other. For a moment she looked as though she might cry, but then she turned away and spat on the ground again.

“Next time I cut first.” Her voice did not break, but blood gathering in her mouth slurred the words.

She watched him sidelong from beneath her brow, as though still waiting for another blow.

Eiran slipped the key into his jacket’s inner pocket.

“There won’t be a next time,” he said.

“Do you know a way beneath the old servants’ wing from the north wall?” he asked.

Lira pressed a hand to her aching cheek. She was looking at the purse, not at him.

“Maybe.”

“Show me.”

“For silver. One coin for the way there. You open the doors yourself.”

“You’ll get it when I’m under the window.”

Just around the corner, once the sound of the patrol’s boots had faded, Lira stopped. She remained half turned away, one foot pointing further into the alley and a hand ready to throw. Eiran could see her fingers trembling and how carefully she held her head to keep her aching jaw still. The smell of old sewage hung in the air.

He took a silver coin from the purse but did not hand it over at once.

“Show me the way first.”

“Payment first,” Lira muttered, as though testing whether she could get the words out without drooling.

Eiran laid the coin on her open palm.

Lira rubbed the silver with a fingernail, then tucked it beneath her belt.

“For that, I’ll show you the way in,” she said. “If we get caught, I don’t know you.”

Lira went first, still holding one hand against her side. Eiran followed half a step behind, leaving enough space between them that she would not take his closeness for another attempt to grab her.

This time Lira was the guide. She did not look back at Eiran or gesture for him to follow. She simply walked, assuming that if he really wanted something, he would have to keep up.

The corridor she led him into through the adjoining garden was damp from the spring thaw. The red brick walls were cold, soft with grime in places, and old leaves squelched underfoot among small pieces of plaster that had fallen from the vault over the years. Each footstep was muffled.

They did not speak. Lira slowed only where the shadows thinned and sound might echo off the walls. Eiran noticed that she sometimes stopped beside a doorframe, motionless as a lookout, before moving on, two or three steps quicker than him.

The light reaching them from the windows above was dull and bluish. Ahead stood an iron hatch with flaking paint, probably leading to a fuel store. Lira prised it open with her uninjured hand. On the first attempt she swayed and braced her shoulder against the wall, but she tried again at once. She bent down and crawled inside.

For a second Eiran felt foolish for not having realised at once that it was no dead end. He slipped in after her, into a stone-lined tunnel. It smelled of must and rotting grain. At the end of the passage, beyond an iron grille, he could see a semicircular courtyard and a row of low, glazed windows through which candlelight barely showed.

Lira stopped before the grille, crouched and pressed her ear to the wall.

“You can hear everything here,” she said, speaking for the first time since they had entered the tunnel.

Eiran said nothing but did the same. The sounds were muffled, as though coming from inside a barrel, but after a moment he could make out voices: a hurried, official tone, then something like laughter, then a single cough. A moment later, the voices fell silent.

Lira did not look at him.

After five minutes, Lira eased the grille open. They crossed into the courtyard and sat on the stone slabs beneath one of the low windows, their backs against the wall of the holding room. The tunnel exit was opposite them; from time to time they glanced towards it. Lira took out a knife. She used it to pin a length of cord she had pulled from her boot, as though ready to use the blade the instant anyone approached from the tunnel.

Then, through a narrow gap above the barred window, they caught sight of a guard leading another guard, a man of higher rank, judging by the quality of his boots and the movement of his shoulders.

The courtyard was silent. Eiran felt another struggle unfolding beneath that silence; Lira was only counting the guards’ footsteps.

He had paid her for the way in, not for answers.

They waited there together, with no need for words.

The windows of the temporary holding room were set just above the ground and secured with thick bars. Eiran and Lira pressed themselves against the wall, beyond which came the faint sounds of furniture being moved and footsteps. Outside, the air smelled of cold smoke and wet grass.

At last, when the shadows drew closer to the bars, they saw him. Saeron stood motionless, his arms hanging at his sides, his gaze fixed on a spot just beside the door. He wore the same worn jacket, now dusted with dried pigment. Dark shadows lay beneath his eyes, and a streak of red remained at his hairline. His lips were pressed so tightly together that their edges had turned white.

At first he did not notice Eiran. Only after a moment, when the young man risked a quiet movement towards the window, did their eyes meet.

What Eiran read in his face was closer to recognition than surprise, as though Saeron already had words prepared for him but could not decide which to begin with.

Eiran was not sure whether Saeron was waiting for a signal. Still, he did not look away, as though holding his gaze alone could convey what they were forbidden to say.

A guard emerged behind Saeron and pointed to the iron table against the wall. Saeron went without a word, resting a hand on the bars as though he remembered the touch of something more yielding than metal.

Lira twisted her mouth. The movement pulled at her cut cheek and wiped the expression from her face at once.

“Masters always look their best behind bars,” she said under her breath, more to herself than to Eiran.

Eiran opened his mouth but found no words the guard could not use against Saeron. Instead, his fingers tightened on the edge of the window grille.

Saeron raised his head. He looked at Eiran, then over his shoulder towards the narrow passage beyond the grille. Eiran did not know whether it was a signal, a warning or merely the movement of tired eyes.

Lira turned towards the grille.

“Is he why you chased me halfway across the city?” Lira said. “Him and that key?”

Eiran caught the shadow of a smile in Saeron’s eyes. He did not know whether the master had understood her question or whether it was only a twitch of exhausted muscles.

Lira wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and spat at the foot of the wall.

“I thought you were after the silver,” Lira said.

Saeron looked at them one last time.

The guard led him further inside, where the candlelight never reached the windows.

They remained by the wall: Eiran, Lira and the questions they had not asked.