28. The Great Way Takes Them to the Willow Lady

28. The Great Way Takes Them to the Willow Lady

When the hour was up, the boys went to the portal of the Great Way. It opened onto a shaft, running down into darkness and up into light. Frin clapped his hands together three times, which Rook had told them to do. Soon, a lantern glided up from the depths and its door opened. A Sparrow listlessly motioned them inside and began whistling. Up went the lantern, moving much more smoothly than those in the West Passage.

There was no mellified man in Black Tower. Rook knew of none in the palace at all. "It's long since any man went into the casket for another," they said.

To become mellified, a man must, of his own free will, live upon nothing but honey for years, until he pissed and shat and sweated it. When he was saturated with it, he would be drowned in honey, then entombed in a casket full of it. After a suitable time had passed, his flesh would be carved up. Its powers of healing were miraculous. In Downfall, the Thistle Lady had fed upon mellified man and grown strong enough, in the absence of Guardians, to defeat the Beast by herself. Kew was no Lady, but if he could just eat some of it, combined with the chants and the Guardian's steel, he knew he could handle the Beast.

But there was none in the whole palace.

While Kew thought, Frin looked out the lantern window as they passed room after room. Rook had said that everything above the Library was the Lady's own. Her quarters were here, her parlors and dining salon and study, and at the very top of the tower, her throne room.

In one room, people in fine robes lounged on divans, feasting on spiders they speared from the floor with sharpened sticks. A harpist played while six beautiful young dancers in gossamer twirled. The song sounded like the one the beekeepers sang to welcome apple blossoms.

In another room, several people with spoonlike faces were mopping a tile floor. They moved in patterns, mopping the same places over and over, while piles of dust between their strokes showed that the same figures had been mopped for years and years. A ritual, then, whose purpose was probably forgotten.

I wish I'd seen more of the tower, thought Frin. To be warned against temptations and then encounter none is quite a hardship.

He squeezed Kew's hand, who squeezed back.

The lantern slowed to a halt, and the Sparrow opened the door. Frin handed them a bun from the kitchen (only slightly burnt), and their eyes lit up. As the boys walked away and the lantern closed again, they heard the sounds of frenzied chewing.

A short hall led them to an antechamber of dull lava blocks, where a bored-looking official took their names and places of origin. They were directed to a second antechamber of glossy black stone, this one very tall, apparently reaching up to the top of the tower, and very wide, extending from the north face to the south face, but very short, with hardly room for four people to stand lined up between the outer and inner doors. And it was crowded.

A gold and crimson carpet (dingy and worn) led between the two doors. Since nobody was standing on it, it was probably sacred, so Kew and Frin pushed in among the people already there. This did not win them any friends.

"Absolutely rude," said a frog-faced person in a red doublet.

"The idea," said a ferret-bodied person wearing only ropes of amber beads.

"We were here first," said a mouse-headed person with a huge lace headdress, under which smaller but clearly older mouse-headed people crowded.

"I'm going to die here," said an ancient person of simple flesh who wore a pilgrim's badge from Red Tower. Their tone was plaintive and accusatory, as if Kew and Frin should be held responsible for their imminent demise.

A soft bell chimed. The boys straightened up, thinking it might mean something, but the other petitioners only looked bored. The huge inner doors opened a crack, and a person with an ibis's head slipped into the antechamber. Going to a brass tube in the wall, they cleared their throat and said,

On this thirteenth day of the third month of the three hundred and fortieth year of the Willow Era, Her Ladyship has decreed that all eggs laid in the last fortnight are to be smashed against a stone, as an offering to those lost during the downfall of the Lily dynasty.

They cleared their throat again and went back into the inner chamber.

"It's never anything that applies to us," said the pilgrim fretfully.

"Nor to anyone else either," said the mouse-headed person. "I never once heard tell of these decrees before coming here."

"Not even the towerfolk follow them," said the frog-faced person. "I came through the Chocolate Rooms, and not a one of those speeches did they heed. Not. A. One." They punctuated their words by digging their left forefinger into their right palm.

"Then we needn't?" said the ferret-bodied person, holding a round bluish egg in their hands that they had, apparently, just laid.

"I say smash it," said the pilgrim. "I could do with a snack."

The ferret shrugged and cracked the egg open. The shell and its contents were passed around on that side of the rug, but never reached the boys.

Are you hungry? Kew wrote on one of his last slips of paper, and held it up for all to see.

In a clamoring rush, everyone on their side of the rug agreed. Frin began to tear up and distribute bread.

"Ah," said the mouse-headed person, passing out hunks of it to the nest in their headdress. "That's proper food, that is. Not the stuff they give us while we wait."

"This came from the great kitchens, didn't it," said the frog-faced person, chewing. "Nobody I ever talked to knew how to get there. I s'pose, seeing as how you wrote that down, neither of you do much in the way of talking?"

Frin shook his head.

"Pity. You might've traded the knowledge for favors. What way did you two come up by? You have the look of people who didn't have to toil like the rest of us. Ah, never mind. I spose the answer would take too much paper."

Indeed it would. Kew took more bread across the rug, then quickly returned, lest he stay too long on it. As bread was chewed and swallowed, the mood of the room turned somewhat in their favor. This, however, began to fade again, as hours went on and nothing more happened, and the supply of bread turned out to be finite.

The door opened again and the ibis-headed person came out and went through the whole process of throat-clearing. Kew tapped his pencil on his paper and cleared his own throat. The long black bill turned a degree or two in his direction.

Let us in , Kew wrote.

The official ignored his note and spoke into the tube.

On this thirteenth day of the third month of the three hundred and fortieth year of the Willow Era, Her Ladyship has decreed that butter shall no longer be used on bread, in order to relieve the strain on the palace's dairy herds.

They repeated their throat-clearing and returned to the throne room, once more ignoring Kew's sign.

"No good, that," said the mouse-headed person. "They don't listen to anything."

Kew made a motion as if to say Then how do you get in, and it was apparently understood, for the mouse-headed person said, "They just… call you."

"Doesn't happen often, though, I can tell you," said the frog-headed person. "I've been here a week and I've only seen one brought into Her Ladyship's presence."

A week ? Kew was no tutor and did not know the more arcane laws of the palace, but surely the Lady of Black Tower was bound to see her subjects, by honor if by nothing else.

Another hour or two wore on. A small coterie of officials entered from the outer door, buckets in hand, and moved among the crowd so people could relieve themselves. Most of them did it with scarcely a thought; only those who were new, like the boys and the ferret, blushed and tried to hide their indignity.

Another hour passed. The mouse-headed people fell asleep, the big one supported by the small ones. The frog-faced person yawned. Kew wrote a single sentence and waited for the official to return with the next nonsensical decree.

At last, the inner door swung open again. Kew thrust the note directly into the official's path. They stopped short, coughed, choked, and coughed again. Singing an urgent, tuneless da da da da to themselves, they whisked back into the throne room and the door banged shut.

"Oi, what did you say?" said the frog-faced person, with a return of resentment and suspicion. "I've been here a week ."

"Oh hush," said the mouse-headed person, stirring. "We've been here two ."

" I've been here a month, " said the pilgrim. "They'll be wondering back home what's become of me. I suppose I'll die here, and then the Lady will be pleased. I suppose that's what she wa —"

The ibis head poked into the antechamber and the pilgrim clammed up immediately. "You, come in," they said, pointing. The frog-faced person, right next to Kew, acted as if the official meant them, and started forward. "No," said the official, and consulted a list held in their pink feathery hand. "Kew, of Grey Tower, and Frin, of the Beekeepers."

The boys started forward. Frin urgently poked Kew in the arm, then jabbed his finger at the paper, hoping for an explanation, but none could be given with signs. The throne room door opened wider to admit them, then closed with a marrow-shaking boom . Kew and Frin stood in the throne room of the Willow Lady, ultimate ruler of the palace, and the light blinded them so that they could not see her when she first spoke. But they felt the hum of her holiness, lilting and vertiginous.

Explain yourselves to me, she said. Is the report correct? Do you have it?

"Yes." Kew's voice came out cracked and hideous, and he coughed. "Yes," he said, closer to normal. "We do." He raised his voice. "Your Ladyship, we come bearing Thistle honey for you."