Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3)(61)
Author: Kristin Cashore

"That was it," she said.

"I'll go back to my work, then?"

"Saf," she said, "I don't understand. What does this mean? Are we friends?"

The question seemed to confuse him. He placed the journal back on the table careful y. "Maybe we're something else,"

he said, "that hasn't figured itself out yet."

"I don't understand what that means."

"I think that's the point," he said, pushing his hand through his hair a bit hopelessly. "I see I acted like a child. And I see you clearly again. But it's not like anything can ever be how it was. I'll go now, Lady Queen," he said, "if that's all right."

When she didn't respond, he turned and left her. After a while, she went to her table and tried to push herself through a bit more of the book about monarchy and tyranny. She read something about oligarchies and something about diarchies, but none of it sank in.

She wasn't sure that she had any idea who Saf was now, and his use of her title had devastated her.

THE NEXT MORNING, Bitterblue opened her bedroom door to the prospect of Madlen brandishing a saw.

"This is not a reassuring sight, Madlen," said Bitterblue.

"Al we need is a flat surface, Lady Queen," said Madlen, "and everything will go swimmingly."

"Madlen?"

"Yes?"

"What happened to Saf in Silverhart?"

"What do you mean, what happened?"

"Yesterday, when he talked to me, he seemed changed."

"Ah," said Madlen thoughtful y. "I couldn't say, Lady Queen.

He was quiet, and I did think that the bones sobered him.

Perhaps they encouraged him to consider who you are, Lady Queen, and what you're dealing with."

"Yes, perhaps," said Bitterblue, sighing. "Shal we go into the bathing room?"

One of Leck's journals lay open at the foot of the bed, where Bitterblue had been puzzling it over. Walking past the pages, Madlen paused, struck by it.

"Are you any good at ciphers, Madlen?" Bitterblue asked.

"Ciphers?" Madlen said in apparent bewilderment.

"You mustn't tell a soul about it—not a soul, do you understand? It's a cipher written by Leck, and we're having a terrible time cracking it."

"Indeed," Madlen said. "It's a cipher."

"Yes," said Bitterblue patiently. "So far, we haven't managed to identify the meaning of even a single symbol."

"Ah," Madlen said, peering at the page more closely. "I see what you mean. It's a cipher, and you believe each symbol represents a letter."

Bitterblue came to the conclusion that Madlen wasn't much good at ciphers. "Shal we get this over with?" she said.

"How many symbols are in use, Lady Queen?" asked Madlen.

"Thirty-two," said Bitterblue. "Come this way."

BEING WITHOUT THE cast was marvelous.

Bitterblue could touch her arm again. She could scratch the skin, she could rub it; she could wash it clean. "I will never break a bone again," she announced as Madlen introduced her to a new series of exercises. "I love my arm."

"Someday you'll be attacked again, Lady Queen," said Madlen sternly. "Pay attention to the exercises so that you'll be strong on that day."

Then, when Bitterblue and Madlen stepped out of the bathing room together, they found Fox standing at the end of the bed, staring at Leck's ciphered book and holding one of Ashen's sheets in her hands.

Bitterblue made an instant decision.

"Fox," she said pleasantly. "I'm sure you know better than to trifle with my things when I'm out. Put that down and come away."

"I'm so sorry, Lady Queen," Fox said, dropping the sheet as if it were on fire. "I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself. I couldn't find Helda, you see."

"Come along," said Bitterblue.

"Your bedroom door was open, Lady Queen," Fox continued eagerly as they walked. "I heard your voice beyond, so I poked my head in. The sheets were piled on the floor and the top one was so beautiful with embroidery that I went to it to see it closer. I couldn't resist, Lady Queen.

I apologize. I had a report for you, you see."

Bitterblue saw Madlen out, then brought Fox into the sitting room. "Wel then," she said calmly. "What is this report? Have you found Gray?"

"No, Lady Queen. But I've been hearing more rumors in the story rooms about Gray having the crown, and about Sapphire being known to be the thief."

"Mm," Bitterblue said, not finding it difficult to playact concern, for her worry was genuine, even while her mind spun with a hundred other things. Fox, who was always around when delicate things were happening. Fox, who knew an awful lot of Bitterblue's secrets, but about whom Bitterblue knew practical y nothing. Where did Fox live when she was outside the castle? What kind of city people encouraged their daughter to work such odd hours, run around with lock picks in her pocket, snoop and ingratiate herself?

"How did you become a castle servant, Fox, not living in the castle?" asked Bitterblue.

"My family has been the servants of nobility for generations, Lady Queen," Fox said. "We've always tended to live outside the homes of our patrons; it's just been our way."

When Fox had gone, Bitterblue went looking for Helda. She found her in Helda's own bedroom, knitting in a green armchair. "Helda," she said. "What would you say to us having Fox followed?"

"Goodness, Lady Queen," said Helda, needles calmly clicking. "Has it come to that?"

"I just . . . I don't trust her, Helda."

"What's caused this?"

Bitterblue paused. "The hair that stands up on the back of my neck."

BITTERBLUE WAS IN the royal bakery a day later, thudding her tired arm determinedly against a bal of dough, when she looked up to find Death bouncing before her.

"Death," she said in astonishment. "What in the blue sky—"

His eyes were wild. A pen behind his ear dripped onto his shirt, and there were cobwebs in his hair. "I've found a book," he whispered.

Wiping her hands, moving him away from Anna and the bakers, who were trying not to look too curious, Bitterblue said quietly, "You found another ciphered book?"

"No," said Death. "I found a whole new book. A book that will crack the cipher."

"Is it a book about ciphers?"

"It's the world's most wonderful book!" he exclaimed. "I don't know where it came from! It's a magical book!"

"Al right, all right," said Bitterblue, pulling him away into the clatter of the rest of the kitchen, toward the doors. Trying to soothe him and shush him and keep him from bursting into song or dance. She wasn't worried about his sanity, at least no more than she worried about anyone's sanity in this castle. She understood that books could be magical.

"Show me this book."

THE BOOK WAS big and fat and red, and it was spectacular. "I understand," said Bitterblue, flipping through it, sharing his excitement.

"No, you don't," said Death. "It's not what you think."

What she thought was that this book was a sort of enormous, extended key that showed what each of Leck's symbol words really meant. The reason she thought this was that the first half of the book contained page after page of words Bitterblue knew, and each word was followed by a symbol word.

The back half of the book seemed to be the same information reversed: symbol words, followed by the real words they represented. And it was interesting that the symbol spel ings seemed utterly random. A four-letter word, like care, might have a threesymbol spel ing, and another word also made of c's, a's, and r's, like carry, might, in its symbol spel ing, share only one of the symbols used to spel care.

Also interesting that anyone would take such a risk with a cipher, all owing a book like this to exist. Leck's cipher was, indeed, uncrackable, only as long as this book was where it couldn't be found. "Where did you get this?" she asked, frightened, suddenly, of it disintegrating—of fires. Of thieves. "Are there more copies?"

"It's not the key to his cipher, Lady Queen," said Death. "I know you think that, and you're wrong. I tried it. It doesn't work."

"It's got to be," Bitterblue said. "What else would it be?"

"It's a dictionary for translating our language into an entire other language, and vice versa, Lady Queen."

"What do you mean?" Bitterblue plopped the book onto the desk beside Lovejoy. It was huge and her arms were tired, and she was beginning to be annoyed.

"I mean what I said, Lady Queen. Leck's symbols are the letters of a whole other language. This is the lexicon of our shared languages: all the words of our language translated into their language, and all the words of theirs translated into ours. Look, here," he said, flipping to a page at the book's very beginning, where all thirty-two symbols were listed in columns, each with a letter, or a combination of letters, beside it.

"I theorize that this page is a pronunciation guide for speakers of our language," said Death. "It shows us how to pronounce the letters of the new language. You see?"

A whole other language. It was an alien concept to Bitterblue, so alien that she wanted to believe it was Leck's own personal language, one he'd made up for cipherment purposes. Except that the last time she'd assumed Leck had made something up, Katsa had come marching into her rooms with a rat pelt the color of Po's eyes.

"If there is another land to our east," Bitterblue whispered, "I suppose they would be likely to have a language and a lettering that differed from ours."

"Yes," Death said, hopping with excitement.

"Wait," she said, realizing something more. "This book isn't handwritten. It's printed."

"Yes!" cried Death.

"But—where is there a press with letter molds of these symbols?"

"I don't know!" cried Death. "Isn't it marvelous? I broke into the castle's defunct printing shop, Lady Queen, and fairly ransacked the place, but found nothing!"

Bitterblue hadn't even known there was a defunct printing shop. "That accounts for the cobwebs, then?"

"I can tell you this language's word for cobwebs, Lady Queen!" cried Death, then said something that sounded like it should be the word for a delightful new kind of cake: hopkwepayn.

"What?" Bitterblue said. "Have you learned it already? Dear skies! You've read the book and learned an entire language." Needing to sit down, she rounded the desk and col apsed into Death's own chair. "Where did you find this book?"