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The tower on Sorontil was nestled deep in the Forostar, rising up from a bed of shale and short, squat evergreen trees. It was rather unimpressive next to the mountain on whose southeastern slope it stood; Ancalimë found herself staring more at the mountain than the tower as she stepped out from the shelter of the carriage. Sorontil the mountain was not the equal in size of the Meneltarma (though from what Ancalimë understood, nothing was, perhaps not even fabled Taniquetil in the West), but it certainly wasn’t the Meneltarma’s twin in form. It did not show itself green and brown, but gray and black, capped with stark white snow that gleamed against the darkening sky. The tower was located on a ledge high up, though still far from the peak.
Ancalimë stepped aside to let her grandfather out of the carriage, wrapping her cloak close about her and ignoring the look shot at her by one of the guards. Evidently, he disapproved of her exiting the carriage before the King, even if he was a King who’d passed the Scepter on to his son. Oh, well. Ancalimë didn’t see anyone else complaining about it, and she had other things she was more interested in than the protocol for getting out of carriages.
“Is it always this cold here?” she asked Meneldur, straightening her back so it would feel less like a complaint. She certainly wasn’t complaining about being somewhere that wasn’t loud, crowded Armenelos or the subtle, unforgiving royal court. Just… commenting. And wincing when the wind cut through her like a knife.
Meneldur, on the other hand, seemed not to feel the wind, and he let out a quiet, throaty chuckle as he replied, “Armenelos and the Emerië have left you ill-prepared for this, haven’t they? We are much further north than either of those places, Ancalimë, and higher from the sea. Yes, it is often this cold here.”
“Oh.” Ancalimë frowned slightly. “Will it snow here, in the winter?” Asides from the white cap at the crest of the mountain, Ancalimë had never seen snow. She had heard tell of it, from the sailors her father surrounded himself with, and from Grandmother Almarian’s kin. While Ancalimë professed little interest in the wonders of Endóre that Aldarion and his men were constantly going on about, she did have to admit curiosity, sometimes.
But to her disappointment, Meneldur shook his head. “Ah, no, child. Even this far north, snow comes perhaps once every fifty years, and even then, you’ll not have pleasure of it for long—snow is not a guest that stays in its host’s house over-long. Now, come, child. It is still some walk to the Tower.”
Ancalimë’s grandfather had suggested this ‘outing’ to her father, who had accepted the idea rather too eagerly for Ancalimë’s tastes. She wasn’t quite sure what motive Aldarion had had in consenting to send her from his side with so little fuss, but she doubted it boded well. Perhaps we’ll return to Armenelos to find Father’s gone on another one of his voyages, she thought, rolling her eyes, the kind where he says he’ll be gone for two years and doesn’t return until five have passed—and then wonders why Grandfather is so angry with him. The last she checked, Ancalimë was still too young for the business of ruling, and Meneldur had stepped down precisely because he didn’t want to anymore.
Whatever the reason Aldarion had permitted his father to take his daughter out of Armenelos and several hundred miles away to the tip of the Forostar, here Ancalimë was now, following her grandfather up the narrow, winding path towards the Tower while half a dozen guards followed single-file at a distance behind them. Ancalimë didn’t know what the guards thought they were going to protect them from. They were following too far behind to keep either Ancalimë or Meneldur from falling down the side of the mountain if they were to stumble, and there wasn’t much spears and shields could do against rockslides. But still, they followed. Ancalimë suspected that some of them would have been happier if they had been allowed to stay behind at the house in town Meneldur had claimed for their stay.
All the same, at least it was quiet here. Not a week went by in Armenelos without Ancalimë’s head starting to ache and pound from the sheer noise that surrounded her. At least the guards didn’t make much noise.
The path took them higher and higher, as the ground below dropped away and the air grew thinner, Ancalimë working for each breath. Finally, they reached the outcropping of stone on which the Tower stood, and Meneldur paused, and looked to the guards. “You are to remain outside until the princess and I have returned.” When one of them opened his mouth to protest, Meneldur held up a hand. “Please. There is no peril within those walls.”
Ancalimë couldn’t help but be grateful when no further protest was attempted. She didn’t know when the next time would come, that she wasn’t surrounded by men. Any respite from that was welcome.
(Her mother had tried to warn her that this would be her fate, when she left the white house in Emerië, that she would be constantly caught up in men’s affairs, their noise. That she’d never find a moment’s peace again unless she demanded it, claimed it out of the stone and held it fast to her breast. Ancalimë hadn’t thought to listen at the time, but the idea of heeding her mother’s advice and warnings stung, when in all this time, Emerië had not once come up from the white house to see her.)
Inside the tower, Ancalimë was surprised to see more than just a staircase winding up to the top. Oh, indeed, that staircase was the centerpiece of the room, situated in the very center as a sort of tower within a tower—a spire of stone leading upwards. But there were several doors off to the side of the room, all of them shut.
“Where do those doors lead?” Ancalimë asked curiously, sweeping her hand around the room.
Meneldur’s lip twitched, halfway between wry and rueful. “When I was a young man, just after the tower was completed, I used to spend days at a time here, and there was quartering for myself and anyone who accompanied me, a storehouse for room, and a kitchen to cook it in.”
“Is this where we’re staying for the night?” Ancalimë eyed her grandfather cagily. While she wasn’t like some of the girls at court, the ones who couldn’t sleep at all unless it was on top of two mattresses stuffed to bursting with down, she had a hard time seeing how anyone could get any kind of bed up the mountain, let alone a comfortable one.
“No, Ancalimë. It has been many years since I last spent time here; none of the rooms are fit to stay in. Isil is full tonight,” he added with a reassuring smile, as though Ancalimë needed to be reassured of that. “There will be plenty of light to travel by when we make our way back down. Now, come.”
That sounded about right, Ancalimë thought, as she followed him up the stairs. Erendis had told her that about men, that they filled their days with their own pursuits, even when they had other responsibilities that should have kept them closer to home. That Meneldur’s chosen pursuit was one that didn’t constantly take him out of the kingdom, that he’d eventually stopped… Well, Meneldur was a different sort of man from his son. A better one? Maybe. Ancalimë wasn’t sure yet.
Mercifully, there were fewer stairs to climb than Ancalimë had thought (Even if they were designed for the stride of a grown man, rather than a still-growing girl). The tower was not as tall as some of the ones in Armenelos and Rómenna, towers Ancalimë had raced up the stairs of alongside any of the girls at court who had the inclination. When she came to the top of the stairs, when she stood in the top chamber, she couldn’t bite back a gasp.
The tower was capped with a glass dome, one that hadn’t shown too well from the outside, against the dark sky. From this great height over the earth, and with the keen eyes of the Núnatani, Ancalimë drank in more at once than she thought she’d ever had.
She saw the rocks and squat trees of the Forostar, the hills and those peaks that aspired to the height of mountains, but had never quite succeeded. She saw the little settlements, the ramshackle cottages and the patches of green of their vegetable gardens. Beyond them, the steep, sheer cliffs, and the gray sea tossing and turning fitfully. The sight of the sea detracted from her sense of wonder somewhat—there was that fickle thing her father loved more than kin or country—but when had one of the towers in Armenelos boasted so great a view?
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Meneldur murmured, a smile on his solemn face. “At midday, when there is no fog, or clouds, if you look southeast you can see the tallest spires of Armenelos.”
A look in that direction showed the Meneltarma at least, looming up against the darkening sky. If the tower had been located on the westernmost tip of the Andustar, Ancalimë suspected she still would have been able to see it. “Aunt Isilmë told me you had the tower built for stargazing.”
“That is correct,” Meneldur confirmed. He took a seat in one of many stone chairs situated near the edges of the room. “I meant to have a matching tower built on the west, north and south sides of the mountain, but alas, only the eastern side had any ledges suitable for building on. The ideal site would have been the summit of the Meneltarma, but that—“ his gray eyes twinkled “—would be sacrilegious. Come sit down, child.”
Ancalimë took the chair to the left of her grandfather’s, wincing at the feel of the cold, hard stone against her flesh. I wish I’d known I was going to be sitting on something like this, she thought irritably. I would have brought a cushion with me.
The skies were darkening, but it was not full night yet—Anar had not completed her descent into the far reaches of the West. Ancalimë could pick out a few stars, but not many. She recognized a few as being from the Valacirca—Zamîn had taught her the constellations long ago. But Ancalimë had never had much inclination to stare at the stars for hours on end. There wasn’t much point in it.
“How do they clean the glass?” Ancalimë asked suddenly. She remembered how quickly the windows in the white house would get dirty, how often they had to be cleaned. Keeping the dome clean enough to look out of must have been a nightmare.
“With great difficulty, Ancalimë.”
Well, that wasn’t an answer at all. Ancalimë frowned reprovingly at Meneldur. “Really, how do they keep it clean? If there wasn’t anyone cleaning it, it would be filthy by now.”
Meneldur shifted his weight in his chair, sighing the sigh Ancalimë often heard adults employ when children asked questions they found tiresome. “I cannot say for certain, Ancalimë. I know that the dome is cleaned, for I have never come here to find it stained with dirt or other debris. I can only assume that ladders are involved.”
That he was unaware of the secret behind such a vital part of his chosen pursuit struck Ancalimë as rather careless, but she held her tongue. As she had discovered in Armenelos, to great embarrassment, people did not like it when the princess called them ‘careless’ or ‘foolish,’ or anything like that. Once she was Queen, they would have no choice but to listen, but for now, it looked like she would just have to bide her time—no matter how much doing so irked her. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or faintly alarmed that her grandfather was showing the same strain of carelessness she’d picked out in so many at court.
As it stood, Meneldur was not content to let things fall back to silence. “Ancalimë…” He paused, his brow furrowed. “…You’ve asked me many questions today, but I cannot help but take notice of the question you haven’t asked me, in all the time since we left Armenelos.”
Ancalimë stared evenly at him, saying nothing.
At his granddaughter’s silence, Meneldur sighed again, tiredly. “I have been wondering, child, why you have never asked me why I brought you here.”
Ancalimë didn’t really know what to tell him. Men dragged women hither and thither as they would—Aldarion had taken her from the white house, stonily indifferent to Erendis’s pleading, and Ancalimë had known, even then, that it would be useless to object. More than once had she watched one of the lords of the royal court drag their wives or daughters to or from Armenelos. It might be on account of some slight or infraction (imagined or not), ‘for their own good,’ or for no apparent reason at all, and oftentimes over the lady’s objections. That was what men did; her mother had warned her…
But that obviously wasn’t the answer Meneldur was looking for, and somehow, Ancalimë suspected it would hurt him, if she said so. That thought did not fill her with joy. So she asked, in a neutral voice, “Why did you bring me here?”
Now, it was Meneldur’s turn to fall silent, his gray eyes clouded with uncertainty. When finally he spoke, he said, very quietly, “In all the time you have lived in Armenelos, you have not seemed entirely comfortable there. It was a discomfort I recognized, for I have seen it in myself.” Ancalimë bit her tongue to keep from saying that anyone would dislike the noise of Armenelos, if ever they had known true silence beforehand. “It would seem that neither of us were made to thrive in loud places.
“Ancalimë, this place—“ he looked away from her, sweeping his hand around the room “—it isn’t just for me to look at the stars and track their movements. It is a place of respite for me.” Meneldur’s mouth twitched wryly. “When my father still ruled, and his father before him, all the nobles of the court would say, ‘Oh, Prince Írimon has gone away to his tower on Sorontil again. How strange he is, to shun the court as he does.’ But I achieved my purpose, in coming here.”
“No one bothered you?” Ancalimë supplied. It was a rather clever strategy, she had to admit. Stargazing was not exactly in vogue at the royal court, and according to her grandfather, it had not been when he was a young man, either. Likely the courtiers flocked to outgoing, vivacious Silmariën in his absence.
Meneldur nodded. “Indeed, no one did. A few friends traveled with me on occasion, but they shared my inclinations; there were not there to bother me. Ancalimë, this…” He smiled a small, subdued smile. “…This is not a place where you can stay constantly. You must spend the better part of your time in Armenelos, to familiarize yourself with your people, and to learn the duties that will be yours when you are Queen. But if you find yourself in need of a few weeks’ respite, this place is open to you.”
Several responses whirled through Ancalimë’s mind in that moment. She was no fonder of stargazing than were most members of the royal court, and she was not sure that any of them would believe her when she said she came to Sorontil to stargaze. She did not particularly want to say she went to stargaze; she could not bear the idea of them sniggering once her back was turned, recounting her words amongst themselves and laughing. Moreover, she did not want to give anyone the satisfaction of thinking they were capable of driving her away. Armenelos might be horribly loud, might set her ears to ringing and her head to pounding, but let no man think they were capable of driving her away from her birthright.
But what came out instead was a quiet “Thank you.”
It wouldn’t do to coddle herself like this. It wouldn’t do to let herself grow attached to vain pursuits. Ancalimë wasn’t sure how much it would take to make herself like her father, neglecting kin and country in favor of vain pursuits. But maybe, just for now, she could allow herself the quiet.