The Price of Piece

THE OTHER SIDE

Elara had spent almost the entire morning pretending to listen.

Her teacher was talking about an old road in northern Aren while she kept her eyes on the open book in front of her, although every few seconds she ended up looking toward the windows, where autumn had covered the courtyard in leaves and two gardeners were trying, without much success, to gather them before the wind scattered them again. Elara found it much more interesting to watch one of them chase his hat between the trees than to memorize the name of a tower built hundreds of years ago, so when the man sitting across from her asked her to repeat what he had just explained, she had to lower her eyes to the page and search for some kind of clue among the words.

She was about to answer with anything related to the north when someone crossed the gallery beyond the open door so quickly that his cloak lifted behind him as he turned the corner. Elara raised her head immediately; everyone in the palace always seemed to be in a hurry for one reason or another, but adults rarely ran. They preferred to walk quickly while pretending they still had everything under control, so watching the man disappear toward the stairs made her completely forget her teacher’s question.

He was not the only one. A servant passed soon after with several papers pressed tightly against his chest and, behind him, two guards moved down the corridor speaking in low voices, one of them resting a hand on the hilt of his sword. Elara followed them with her eyes until they disappeared and then asked what was happening, but her teacher only said that he did not know and tried to return her attention to the book, an answer that had exactly the opposite effect, because if an adult admitted so easily that he did not know something, there had to be a good reason.

The sound of horses reached them before she could ask again. It was not the calm rhythm Elara heard every day from the stables, but a quick pounding against the stone courtyard, mixed with raised voices near the outer gates and the heavy sound of them opening. Elara left her chair almost without realizing it and moved toward the window; her teacher said her name behind her, although he did not make much effort to stop her, perhaps because he had lost interest in the lesson too, or simply because he was curious.

From there she counted six horses entering the courtyard, all of them splattered with mud up to their legs, carrying men who looked as though they had spent far too many hours on the road. One had a torn cloak near his shoulder, another dismounted so slowly that a guard had to take the reins from him, and none of them stopped to greet the people who came to meet them. Elara had seen messengers arrive many times before, but they usually came alone or in pairs and had never managed to bring half the palace guard into the courtyard to wait for them, so she kept watching, trying to understand what made that morning different.

One of the men dismounted and handed over his reins without even looking at the stable boy who had rushed toward him, then headed straight for the main entrance with two guards at his side. From the window, Elara followed him until he disappeared beneath the gallery and then noticed another rider leaning over his horse’s neck while someone examined a small injury on one of the animal’s legs. Everything was happening too quickly to feel like an ordinary arrival and, even though no one was shouting or running across the courtyard, there was a different kind of urgency in the way everyone moved.

Her teacher had stopped trying to continue the lesson. He stood behind her looking down into the courtyard and, for the first time that morning, Elara stopped feeling guilty for being distracted because it was obvious that he was no longer thinking about the old northern road either. She wanted to ask again who the men were, but remembered that he had already admitted he did not know and decided to keep watching instead; if she waited long enough, she thought, someone would eventually do something she could understand.

She did not have to wait long, because the door opened and Ruth appeared in the doorway faster than usual. Her dark hair was pinned back with the same neatness as always and there was nothing out of place in her dress, but Elara knew the woman’s calm expression well enough to notice that she was making an effort to keep it. Ruth looked first at the teacher, then toward the window and finally at Elara, who was still standing on her toes trying to see the courtyard.

The lesson was over.

Ruth did not need to explain much; saying that the queen wanted to see her was enough for the teacher to close the book without the slightest protest. That gave Elara a new feeling of unease, because adults could argue for a very long time about almost anything, especially her studies, and seeing two of them agree so quickly meant that the men in the courtyard had brought something more important than a letter.

She gathered her papers quickly and left with Ruth. The gallery, which had been almost empty only a few minutes earlier, was now full of people trying not to get in one another’s way; servants moved aside to let guards pass, several doors remained closed and, near the stairs, a man covered in dust was speaking with someone Elara had seen more than once entering her father’s study. No one looked frightened, but no one seemed to be wasting time on useless conversation either, making the palace feel different without anything inside it having truly changed.

Elara walked beside Ruth trying to look everywhere at once and ended up telling her that she had seen six men arrive from the window, that some wore the insignia of the northern posts and that one of the horses seemed injured. Ruth turned toward her, surprised by how much Elara had managed to notice during a lesson she was supposed to be paying attention to, although instead of scolding her, she only said that she had sharp eyes and kept walking.

That was not enough for Elara.

She wanted to know why the men had arrived together, why one of them had gone straight into the palace and why her mother had decided to interrupt her lessons immediately afterward. Ruth answered that she still did not have all the information and, although she said it calmly, Elara noticed that she was not asking questions of the people passing them either. That probably meant Ruth knew more than she wanted to say or, at the very least, had some idea of what might have happened.

When they turned a corner, they had to slow down because one of the riders was approaching with two guards beside him. Up close he looked even more tired than he had from the window; dried mud covered his boots, dust clung to his hair and there was a reddish mark near his temple, while the way he walked suggested one of his legs hurt. When he recognized Elara, he gave a brief bow of his head and continued without stopping, too occupied answering one of the guards in a low voice.

Elara only managed to catch a few words from the conversation: an outpost, two patrols and, finally, a name she knew.

Avelor.

She kept walking for several steps before looking toward Ruth and noticing that the woman had pressed her lips together slightly. It was not much, but it was enough for Elara; Ruth did that when she heard something she did not like and did not want to talk about in front of her.

Avelor appeared on the maps used in her lessons, on the other side of a line her teacher called the border, and also in old stories where someone almost always ended up angry with someone else. Elara still did not understand how two kingdoms could keep arguing for so many years without getting tired of it, but she had learned that the name had a strange effect inside the palace: conversations became quieter and certain doors ended up closing.

That morning, it was happening again.

Elara did not ask immediately. She continued walking beside Ruth, waiting for the woman to say something on her own, but when they reached the end of the gallery and she still had not explained anything, Elara decided she had waited long enough.

“Was it Avelor?”

Ruth did not answer at once and kept walking for several steps before looking at her. She did not seem surprised by the question, only resigned to the fact that Elara had heard more than she was supposed to.

“It seems so.”

It was the first clear answer anyone had given her all morning, and it did nothing to make her feel better.

When they reached the room where the queen was waiting, Elara expected to find her mother alone, but the door stood open and two men were bent over a table covered in papers. One held a map and pointed to different places while speaking quietly; the other listened with his arms crossed, so focused that he barely raised his head when Ruth and Elara entered.

Her mother did.

Seraphine stood near one of the windows, still wearing the clothes she had worn at breakfast, although now she held several documents in her hands and her expression was much more serious. When she saw Elara, she placed the papers on the table and came toward her immediately, as though for a few seconds she could forget everything happening outside the room.

Elara did not wait for her to ask how the lesson had gone. She told her that she had seen the men arrive, that they had come from the north and that she had heard Avelor mentioned in the corridor; while she spoke, she watched her mother’s face for any reaction that might give her more information, but the queen was much better than Ruth at hiding what she thought.

“Ruth says it was Avelor.”

The queen glanced briefly toward her companion, who remained near the door, then turned her attention back to Elara. She did not seem upset that she knew, although she took her daughter’s hand and led her toward one of the chairs farther from the table before sitting beside her.

She explained that there had been a problem near one of the border posts and that they were still trying to understand exactly what had happened. A group of Aren soldiers had encountered men from Avelor in an area both kingdoms claimed the right to occupy, the disagreement had become worse and, although no one in the room seemed willing to give her too many details, Elara understood that they had not limited themselves to arguing with words.

It seemed unnecessarily complicated.

“Don’t they know whose land it is?”

Her mother smiled faintly, although she did not seem to find the situation amusing. She explained that both kingdoms believed they knew, and that was precisely part of the problem.

Elara looked toward the map still spread across the table. From where she sat, she could only make out lines, drawn mountains and names too small to read, but it seemed ridiculous that one of those lines could cause so much trouble when all they needed to do was find out where one kingdom ended and the other began.

“Then someone is wrong.”

One of the men beside the table lowered his eyes as though the papers in front of him had suddenly become very interesting, while her mother let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh.

“I wish it were that simple.”

Elara did not understand why it could not be and was about to ask, but then she noticed her mother looking toward the door again. Footsteps passed through the corridor every few seconds and, farther away, someone called for one of the guards; even inside that room, it was impossible to forget that the rest of the palace was still moving around them.

She asked about her father and knew, before anyone finished answering, that she would not be able to see him yet. The king was meeting with the men who had arrived and several members of the council, trying to decide what to do before sending a response north.

Elara rested her hands on her dress and looked down for a few seconds. She was not angry with him, because she knew her father worked and Aren needed many things from him, but she did not like it when everyone seemed to know something important except her.

Her mother must have noticed.

She promised that the king would come see her as soon as he was finished and then asked what Elara had planned to do that morning before the riders arrived. It took Elara a moment to remember; everything that had happened made her walk outside feel like something she had planned for another day, although the moment she thought about leaving the palace, she wanted to go again.

She looked toward Ruth.

The woman already knew what was coming.

Elara had been asking to go outside since breakfast and, after spending the entire morning trapped between lessons, windows and adults discussing things they never fully explained, the idea of remaining inside seemed even worse.

Her mother did not object too much. Elara could go with Ruth as long as they remained close to the palace and returned before the afternoon, and she also had to obey if Ruth decided it was time to come back, a condition Elara accepted far too quickly for either woman to believe she actually planned to obey without arguing.

Before letting her leave, the queen hugged her and told her not to worry about what she had heard.

Elara said she was not worried.

It was not exactly a lie.

She was not afraid, because the border was very far away and nothing inside the palace seemed truly dangerous, although as she left the room, she looked back at the map on the table and thought about the six horses covered in mud, the man who had been walking with difficulty and all the doors that had begun to close.

Maybe worried was not the right word.

She simply wanted to understand what was happening and, for the moment, no one seemed willing to explain all of it.

Outside, the palace seemed less concerned.

The wind still moved through the treetops, the gardeners continued working and the usual sounds drifted up from the lower part of the hill: wheels against stone, a dog barking somewhere among the houses and the market bells marking an hour Elara did not bother to count. From there, it felt strange to think that only a few rooms behind her, men were leaning over maps trying to decide what to do about a border she could not even see.

Ruth walked beside her as they followed one of the paths through the gardens and, during the first few minutes, Elara asked several questions about what she had heard in her mother’s room. She wanted to know how long it would take someone to reach the border, whether Avelor could be seen from there and what would happen if the soldiers decided to argue again, although Ruth only answered what she actually knew and refused to invent the rest. Elara accepted that reluctantly; she had discovered that morning that adults could fill an entire room and still fail to have a clear answer between them.

The farther they moved from the main palace buildings, the less orderly the gardens became. Perfectly clean paths gave way to trails covered in leaves and the neatly trimmed hedges disappeared among trees that grew wherever they pleased, something Elara preferred because she could step away from the path without feeling as though she were ruining something a gardener had carefully arranged.

Autumn had been changing Aren for days and this part of the hill showed it more than anywhere else. Some leaves still held almost all the green of summer, while others had turned yellow or red from one week to the next and fell whenever the wind moved through the branches. Elara stepped on several dry ones, searching for the crackling sound only some of them made, and for a while the border stopped taking up so much space in her thoughts.

From one of the clearings, part of the city could be seen spreading below the hill. Houses crowded around narrow streets and rooftops descended until they blended into the fields, while beyond them began the forests and, farther still, the mountains seemed cut against the sky. Elara stopped for a moment and tried to imagine which direction Avelor lay in, but there was no line drawn across the land to show where one kingdom ended and the other began.

It still seemed like a problem that could be solved with a better map.

Ruth had to call her when she fell too far behind and Elara started walking again, although not long afterward she was the one moving ahead. She knew the path; it descended between the trees, crossed an area where thick roots had pushed through the ground and ended near a quiet stretch of river they visited sometimes when the weather allowed it.

The sound of the water reached them before they could see it.

Elara always knew when they were close because the air became damper and the murmur of the river started mixing with the wind in the leaves. She quickened her pace, but Ruth only had to say her name for her to slow down without another word; Elara knew perfectly well what that tone meant.

When the trees opened, the river appeared between them exactly as she remembered it, narrow and calm in that part, the water moving around dark stones before continuing toward the valley. Several leaves floated on the surface and disappeared downstream, while near the bank stood a tree much larger than the others, with a thick trunk and roots so wide that some formed small spaces where Elara liked to sit.

She headed toward it almost out of habit.

Only then did she see the sword.

It lay among the dry leaves near one of the roots and, for a moment, Elara thought someone had forgotten it there, although she quickly realized it was made of wood and then noticed a boot on the other side of the trunk.

She slowed down.

A boy was sitting beside the river.

He did not seem to be doing anything. His arms rested on his knees and he stared at the water with his head slightly lowered, as though he had been sitting there long enough to forget about everything else. His clothes resembled those worn by the boys who trained in the palace courtyards, although his were much dirtier; soil clung to one knee, dust covered his sleeves and his black hair was so messy it looked as though he had run his hands through it again and again.

Elara looked toward Ruth, expecting some kind of explanation, but the woman had only slowed her steps. She seemed to recognize him from somewhere, although before Elara could ask, the boy raised a hand to his face and quickly wiped his eyes.

That caught all of her attention.

“He’s crying,” she murmured.

Ruth watched the boy for a moment and quietly explained that it might be better to leave him alone. Elara nodded, mainly because she knew she was supposed to, although she kept watching and did not quite understand why someone who was sad would rather sit alone beside a river.

She took a few steps toward the tree.

Ruth said her name behind her.

Elara turned just enough to assure her that she was only going to look, although both of them knew that probably was not true.

The crunch of leaves made the boy raise his head. His eyes were brown and slightly red around the edges, confirming immediately what Elara had already suspected; he seemed to realize she was watching him and straightened awkwardly, trying to recover an expression that revealed nothing.

Elara saw no reason to pretend she had not noticed.

“You were crying.”

His reaction was immediate. The boy frowned and denied it, but Elara kept looking at him because his eyes told a very different story. When she pointed that out, he wiped one of them with his sleeve and insisted that something had gotten into it.

It took Elara only a second to find the problem.

“Both of them?”

The boy went quiet.

For a moment he seemed to search for a better explanation, then looked toward the river and said there had been wind. Elara raised her eyes toward the branches above them; they were barely moving, although she decided not to argue because the boy’s expression made it clear that he would rather face another hour of training than keep talking about his eyes.

That was when she noticed the wooden sword again.

The change of subject seemed to make him feel a little better. Elara learned that he had been training and that he was not especially happy with how it had gone, although he avoided explaining exactly what had happened; every time she came close to an answer, he found a way to make his response shorter.

Eventually, Elara sat on one of the wide roots and studied the small scrapes on his hands, trying to solve it on her own. He had not fallen and he had not lost a fight either, so she could not understand what could have gone badly enough to make him end up alone beside the river.

The boy seemed to grow tired of her questions before she grew tired of asking them and picked up a stone, throwing it into the water without much interest. It sank immediately.

Elara watched the place where it disappeared, then searched among the stones nearby until she found a flatter one.

“This one is better.”

He turned toward her with an expression that seemed to ask what she was talking about, so Elara held it out and explained that flatter stones bounced. The boy accepted it without arguing and threw it; it touched the surface twice before sinking farther away.

For a few seconds, both of them watched the same place in the river.

Elara looked at where the stone had disappeared and began searching for another among the roots, pushing the round ones aside with the tip of her shoe. The boy was still watching the water, much calmer than when they had arrived, so she took the opportunity to ask if he trained every day.

“Almost every day,” he answered, picking up another stone and rolling it between his fingers. “My father says that if I want to be a knight, I have to get used to it.”

That made Elara stop searching. She had seen knights for as long as she could remember, entering and leaving the palace with swords, armor and horses, although she had never thought very much about everything they had to do before becoming one.

“You want to be a knight?” she asked, looking at him with more interest.

The boy nodded without the slightest hesitation and, for the first time since they had started talking, answered without trying to hide behind a short sentence. He had wanted it for a long time, he explained, although he still had years of training ahead of him and his father did not allow him to take it lightly. Elara listened and eventually asked whether his father was a knight too, because that was the only reason she could think of for him to know so much about it.

“Yes. And he’s very good,” he said, lowering his eyes toward the wooden sword resting near his feet. “That’s why he expects me to be good too.”

His voice changed slightly at the end, just enough for Elara to understand that this was the part he did not like. She looked again at the dirt on his clothes and the small scrapes on his hands, then remembered how she had found him sitting alone beside the river and began putting the pieces together without needing him to explain.

“Is that why you were sad?”

The boy lifted his head quickly.

“I wasn’t sad.”

Elara simply looked at him.

He held out for a few seconds before giving in a little and looking back toward the water.

“It just went badly today.”

He did not seem to want to say more and, this time, Elara decided not to insist. She understood at least part of it: he wanted to be as good as his father and that day he had failed to do so, which probably explained why he had ended up there pretending the wind was responsible for his eyes.

A gust swept across the river just then and shook the branches above them, sending several leaves down onto the roots. One landed directly in the boy’s black hair.

Elara pointed before she could stop herself.

“Now there’s wind.”

It took him a moment to understand what she meant and, when he remembered his excuse from earlier, he pulled the leaf from his hair while trying to keep a serious expression. He did not manage it; a small smile appeared on his face.

Elara could not tell whether that smile meant he was no longer sad or simply that he had decided to stop arguing with her, but she did not try to find out. She stayed looking at the river while turning a stone between her fingers and, for a while, neither of them spoke; the silence did not feel uncomfortable, especially because the water made enough noise against the rocks and the boy no longer seemed to be waiting for her to leave.

Ruth was eventually the one who reminded her that they could not stay there all afternoon.

Elara looked back and found the woman several steps higher on the path, waiting with the patience of someone who had already given her more time than she had planned. Elara tried to negotiate a few more minutes, but hearing Ruth’s answer was enough to know it would not work; when she used that tone, arguing only delayed the inevitable.

Elara stood and brushed the leaves from her dress while the boy picked up the wooden sword and quickly checked that there was no dirt on the handle. Standing, he seemed even older, although Elara still had no idea how old he might be and, for some reason, did not think to ask.

“Are you going to keep training?” she asked while he rested the sword against one shoulder.

The boy looked toward the path leading back toward the palace and said that he would probably have to return soon, although he did not look especially excited about it. Elara considered telling him that maybe tomorrow would go better, but she was not sure it would help and decided to keep it to herself; she did not like it when adults tried to fix her bad moods by saying something would be better later either.

Ruth called her again from the path and this time Elara obeyed. She took a few steps before turning back toward the boy, who remained beside the tree with the sword resting against his shoulder and his hair still messy from the wind.

“Goodbye.”

He raised one hand slightly.

“Goodbye.”

That was all, and Elara caught up with Ruth several yards farther up the path; before the river disappeared behind the trees, she looked back once and saw the boy walking in the opposite direction along the bank until the branches finally hid him from view.

She did not think much about him afterward, because there were too many things around her capable of stealing her attention.

She found a stone with a green line running through it near the path and bent down to pick it up, then spotted a small bird hopping between two branches and wanted to know why some birds remained in Aren when the weather turned cold while others disappeared for months. Ruth tried to explain as they climbed, but Elara moved from birds to asking whether fish could also travel somewhere warmer and, when the conversation turned to rivers, she remembered that her mother had told her that morning about men arguing over a piece of land both kingdoms believed belonged to them.

It still did not make much sense.

Elara turned the stone between her fingers as she walked and asked how long it would take someone to travel from the palace to the border. Ruth thought for a moment before explaining that it depended on the road, the horse and the weather, although even traveling quickly would take a long time. The answer reassured Elara more than she expected; if it was so far away that someone had to sleep several times before reaching it, then whatever had happened that morning could not suddenly appear at the palace gates.

At least, that was what she believed.

The path began to climb and, little by little, Aren’s towers appeared again between the branches. From that distance, the palace looked exactly as it had when they left, its pale stone lit by the afternoon sun and the flags moving above the walls, although as they came closer Elara began noticing small differences.

There were more guards.

They were not running and did not seem alarmed, but several stood in places where she normally saw only one, while others spoke near the entrances and watched the roads leading up from the city. A group of travelers waited near one of the outer gates while a soldier checked something before allowing them through, and near the stables the mud-covered horses Elara had seen arrive that morning were still there.

She recognized one by the white mark on its forehead and the sight brought the memory of the riders rushing back.

Elara stopped playing with the stone.

“They’re still here.”

Ruth followed her gaze toward the stables and explained that the men would probably remain at the palace until her father finished speaking with them and sent new orders north. She said it naturally, as though it were simple, although Elara began to notice that the woman was walking a little faster.

When they reached the main entrance, two guards were pushing one of the enormous wooden gates closed.

Elara slowed down.

She had seen them close many times before, but always much later, when the light began to fade and the streets of the city gradually emptied. That afternoon, there was still plenty of sunlight and several people continued moving through the gate that remained open.

“Why are they closing it?”

Ruth stopped too.

For several seconds she watched the guards work and then explained that they probably wanted better control over who entered the palace until they knew exactly what had happened at the border. She did not sound worried, although this time she did not pretend it was completely normal either.

Elara watched the gate move slowly on its hinges. It was thick, much thicker than it looked when it stood open, and the sound of the wood scraping against stone made everything that had happened that morning feel less distant.

She thought about the six horses, the man who had been walking with difficulty, the map spread across her mother’s table and the word she had heard in the corridor.

Avelor.

“Is it because of them?”

She did not need to explain who she meant.

Ruth remained beside her while the guards finished securing the first gate and, this time, did not search for a gentler way to answer.

“Yes.”

Elara tightened her hand around the green stone.

Until that morning, Avelor had been little more than a name written on the other side of a map, too far away to mean anything beyond her lessons. Now it had managed to close the gates of her home.