The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [47]
The chatelaine had climbed this spiral, the Northeast, countless times, since she was a little girl, but never once had she been able to count the actual number of steps. Even now, ascending, as an adult (albeit an adult in fairly bad condition and somewhat preoccupied with events of her day), the chatelaine tried to count them. Of course, she had the capacity to reach higher numbers than she had as a girl, but seldom did she pass three hundred with any confidence of accuracy, and this number was reached perhaps a third of the way up—still well below the level of the highest rooftops outside.
The stairs themselves were barely wide enough for her feet, and the torch the chatelaine carried illuminated only the nearest of the steps and the immediate curve of the adjacent wall. She was very careful to make sure her footing was secure on the damp and worn stone before moving upward; if she hurt herself here she might lay for hours, or tumble head over heels to her death. Servants seldom came up, the palatinate never. Not anymore. Thanks to her. Food for the castellan was delivered via a system of pulleys, through a long shaft from the kitchens. There was one old man, Tuerdian, who lived permanently in the dungeon with her father, in tiny chambers of his own, employed to tend to the castellan’s fires, arrange his meals, and draw the old man’s infrequent baths, but Tuerdian spent most of his time sleeping or sitting in his cot, hacking up his lungs. Thinking about the man now, the chatelaine realized she had not seen him in many moons. She would ask her father about the old servant’s health, when and if she finally got to the top.
Moments later, glancing out one of the tiny apertures in the tower wall, the chatelaine sighed at the clutter outside. Perhaps, she thought, walls surrounding the entire city should come down, to let Nowy Solum spill forth. There had been times when the chatelaine had ordered the destruction of makeshift homes, which appeared—seemingly overnight—hastily built in such a way that access to one of these windows was compromised. Whenever she gave the orders, she felt bad, for a little while anyhow, and even considered offering the displaced families compensation—though she had not done anything of the sort so far. Shacks and hovels would completely smother both her and Jesthe, if she let them.
Resuming her tedious climb, around and around, the chatelaine moved above the last of the rooftops. Her mouth was gummy, her tongue sticking to her palette. The taste of the kholic was on her lips. At the highest window, the chatelaine paused. The parchment cover was torn, and it crumbled when she tried to move it aside, to get a better view. She was far above the city now. Only the other towers remained, and the mists. A small flock of brown lizards flew by. It was starting to rain again. She thought about her father, emptying his chamber pots onto the homes below. There were no pipes up here, and the castellan balked at the idea of having them put in; he claimed they would make him ill. Symbolism of her father’s act was so obvious that the chatelaine, thinking about it now, smiled sadly.
A breeze murmured in low tones, as if mad. Nowy Solum extended, cluttered and dark, the rooftops muted tones of rust and brown. She saw the River Crane, and the parapets atop the perimeter wall, where it arched over South Gate.
As she began going up again, pigeons erupted from a hiding spot very near her, in a panic, preceding her and leaving behind a small storm of feathers and debris. She put a hand on her aching heart to calm it. On this day, it had seen such extremes.
When the storm had passed and waters were relatively calm, the women tried to repair the mast, which had snapped and trailed in the sea. All they had to work with was the clothes on their