The castle seemed to be made mostly of really long, cold, corridors. She had been allowed out of her room to walk down a flight of stairs and sit in the sun in a big kitchen garden, but that was as far as her exploration had gone as yet. Now Alice led her down the stairs in the opposite direction, out of the infirmary wing of the castle and down into a big courtyard paved with stone. Across from them, there was a big staircase going up to a dark doorway. There were horses standing saddled there. As they crossed the space slowly - for she could not walk quickly yet, although there was no more constant pain - she saw the big knight who had found her come down the stairs and get on one of the horses. He rode it off towards a little archway, but before he went he smiled and waved to her. She smiled back.
The boundaries between Inside and Outside were negligible here. No locked doors, no codes, no permission slips. The girl loved it. That was how she remembered her family home.
0000
The throne room was big and built of wood and stone. It must have been incredibly expensive, she thought, and then thought again. If it was built hundreds of years ago, the builders had used what was available. But it was still beautiful.
She only got a glimpse of the throne room through the open doors as Alice led her past. They entered a small room further down the corridor. There were two knights on guard. One of them entered the room ahead of them.
"Alice and the girl, sire," he said, and then hurried out again. The girl couldn't see the point. Surely the King could see that for himself.
He was not what she had expected. He was sitting at one end of a long rectangular table. The Queen sat on his right side. He had fair hair and blue eyes, and he was young. He couldn't be more than thirty at the oldest. His face managed to look both young and dignified. The girl liked him on sight.
Alice bowed. "Here is the girl, sire."
The King smiled at her. "Thank you, Alice." He had a nice smile. It was slightly crooked and warm and real. He was so different from the broadcast pictures of the politicians of the girl's world.
He gestured to the chair at the end of the table nearest to the girl. "Sit down." Alice helped her sit and then went out of the room. The girl looked alarmed.
"It's all right. She'll be back," said Guinevere reassuringly. "But the things we are going to talk about are personal. She didn't want to intrude."
"I'm Arthur," said the King. "And you're from the other world. The other side, as we call it." He slid a few pieces of thick paper down the table to the girl. "Is this you?"
She looked at the documents in amazement. They were copies of her birth certificate, fingerprints, school records, job accomplishments, and criminal record - for everyone who was a delinquent was automatically a criminal.
"Yes."
"So your birth name is Naira Hallie Parker? You have just turned seventeen?"
"Yes."
"But you legally have no name now and are known by a number?"
"Yes."
"Well, we don't work like that here. Everyone deserves a name. So if you want, I can put your birth name down as a citizen. Or you can pick a new name. After all, you're starting a new life." The King smiled.
"May I think about it?"
"Of course. If you like, I will give you a list of common names here. They are a little different from the ones in your world. It might help you choose."
"I think I know the name I want," she said slowly. He looked surprised.
"You can take as long as you want to think about it. Now, about your future. I am happy to accept people from your world as citizens of my kingdom. Especially one like you, who apparently has an Independent Thought rating of ninety-five percent. I've only ever met one man with ratings even close to yours. I can use people with imagination in my kingdom."
"Aren't you worried I might steal power from you?"
He regarded her curiously. "My people are content with me. I am fair. No. I am not afraid of you."
No one had ever said that to her before; she had always been treated rather like a ticking time bomb. "Thank you. But I am injured. I cannot do much. I have no skills that will be useful here."
He nodded understandingly. "You have a wounded leg and an old injury to your shoulder. But that doesn't mean you're useless. What kind of person are you? Do you like to work inside your mind or outside with your body?"
"I live in my mind."
The King looked at the Queen. She smiled down the table at the girl. "Then I would like to offer you a position as a servant in our household. We don't have many these days. Most of them were needed in other places, and we share the ones that are left with their businesses in the town. But you have no other responsibilities, and it will let you get used to this world while you decide what you want to do."
"What would I have to do?"
"Because you are injured, you will assist the other servants. Do you have any special talents? Tasks you enjoy doing?"
The girl thought. "I like to organize."
The King looked alert. "What kind of organizing? Can other people follow it?"
The girl smiled. "I was assigned to work in a library filing documents when I was not filling in as a Monitor. They said I would move up a grade for my skill."
Both the King and Queen were looking thoughtful now. "The palace library is in a hideous state," he said. "The chronicler has been ill for months."
As they were talking, the girl had noticed that there was someone else in the room. He had been in the back, fussing around with some papers, and she could not see him clearly. Now the King beckoned to him and he came forward, handing him another stack of papers. He was a tall young man, about her own age. His eyes were what had caught her attention. They were big and clear and the most beautiful shade of blue she had ever seen, and they were accented by the shape of his face, which was pointed, wide across the temples and narrow at the chin. They contrasted strongly with his hair, which was as dark as an unlit room.
The King pushed the papers towards her. "Look these over. You'll have to sign them." It was a confirmation of citizenship. She hesitated. He noticed.
"Is there something wrong?"
"How many names do I need?"
"One will do. Last names aren't a requirement here. Most people know each other by sight."
She nodded decisively. "I have a name, then," she said. "Will it do?"
"What is it?"
"Cottia."
He looked at the Queen, who smiled, and then at the boy - who was still standing behind his chair - who shrugged.
"It's pretty," the boy said.
"It's a good name," said the King, and she signed the papers.
0000
"She's an interesting person," said the King as the guards closed the doors behind Cottia.
"I like her," said Guinevere. "She thinks."
"Apparently, so much so that she was considered one of the top ten dangers to the state," said Arthur. He looked perplexed. "And yet she seems so meek."
"What?" said the boy.
"Come on, Merlin. She barely made eye contact the entire time."
Merlin shook his head. "I think she'd fight quickly enough for something she valued. She looks stubborn."
"She has to have some substance to her to be able to escape," said Guinevere.
"She doesn't trust you."
"Of course she doesn't," Arthur scoffed. "You know the world she has come from; do you think anyone with any authority was ever trustworthy? We will have to prove to her that we are different. I have an idea for her. Ask Alice to come talk to me as soon as she can, will you? Don't let the girl see you."
Merlin hurried out.
0000
It was arranged that she would stay with Alice for a while. Apparently, it would save space and keep her close to her new job. Cottia was fine with that. She even had a tiny room of her own in Alice's chambers. It was barely large enough for a bed and a wardrobe, but it was her own space. That was something she had not had since leaving home at five years old.
Alice kept her busy with small tasks related to the running of the infirmary for a few days - cutting up bandages, cleaning bottles, and sorting jars of strange-looking powders. Then she moved on to work in the palace library, and helped Alice in the evenings.
The man who looked after it, Geoffrey of Monmouth, was very old. He had white hair and the bushiest eyebrows she had ever seen. But he was a nice, absent-minded person, and seemed to like having her about the place. The library itself was a disaster. The books were covered in dust and cobwebs and some of the shelves had rotted, spilling their contents in untidy heaps.
They slowly began to set the library in order again. Because of Geoffrey's age and Cottia's injuries, neither of them was very strong or fast, but by working together they soon began to see respectable results. Gleaming wood began to show on some neat shelves, and the old leather of the bindings glowed where they had cleaned the books.
Cottia was happy enough with the work she was doing - and being paid fairly generously for, too, considering Alice would not hear of having her pay for her room and board. But she was lonely. All the girls near her age, indeed, most of the women servants, worked down in the kitchen. The castle staff upstairs was limited to a few men and their wives who came in every few days to clean the public areas. The rest of the castle was looked after by the servants of the occupants.
It was odd, she thought, that they'd go to the trouble of building a big beautiful castle and then use it like a combination of apartment block and government office. Quite a few of the knights lived on various floors of the castle (mostly on the ground and first floor), and they had only one or at the most two personal servants, who were silent men focused jealously on their work. The only time they seemed to relax was when they were in one of the taverns scattered around the town.
The women in the kitchen and the few nurses in the infirmary were polite and nice, but distant. Apparently, they were quite status-conscious, and no one knew where she fit in. Alice had tried to explain it to her - how there had once been a much bigger staff that worked around the palace and how she would have been one of them, but she didn't quite comprehend it. It all seemed silly to her. It was like a ship, right? Everyone had to do their job, and it didn't matter what it was, because without all the little bits, the ship wouldn't float. When she said this to Alice, she had gotten a smile and a pat on the back and told that she was right, only it made sense and so most people would never think of it.
So, Cottia was the only young woman servant in the upper part of the castle. She stood out from the servants of the knights, and got stared at. It was a relief when it was market day and she could accompany Alice into the noisy bustling crowd. There were plenty of girls there, and she was just another dress in the crowd.
It had been weird at first to wear a dress, but her years in the primary school had helped. They had insisted on skirts for females, and a dress was basically just a skirt with sleeves when you got down to the basics. The stays had irritated her at first, but Alice had been kind and helped her adjust them and now she actually found them more comfortable than the stiff camisole with the heavy elastic and wires they had made her wear at the special school. She hadn't even needed it - she was so thin that she could pass as a boy with long hair if she slouched a bit and remembered to look tough and sullen.
So much for the costume, she thought as she followed Alice through the crowd, every nerve screaming. She hated crowds. They were far too loud.
"Nessa!"
She turned. "Ace!"
It was indeed her friend from middle school - the only real friend she had ever had. There she was in a doorway, wearing a dress similar to Cottia's own, staring at her in delight. She came running out into the street.
"So you made it out too!" said Ace.
"Yes," said Cottia.
"Let's duck into the alley for a few seconds. Oh, hello, Alice."
Cottia looked doubtfully at Alice, but she smiled and made a shooing motion and so she let her old friend tug her into the alley. Ace had grown. She was still short, but now she was not exactly stocky, but she looked strong. She'd let her light brown hair grow out and it was braided up around her head.
"Ace," she said again, wonderingly. They had both gotten their nicknames through the mysterious channels of the girls' school dormitory.
"You can't have been here long, or I'd have heard. You've turned out beautiful! Are you working for Alice? You should be good at that. By the way, I've changed my name. I'm Sophie now."
"I dropped Naira. Now I'm Cottia."
Sophie smiled. "That's a lovely name. I don't think I've ever heard it before."
"It's from a book. Do you live here?"
Sophie patted the wall they were standing by. "Yes. My uncle the Doctor runs the tavern. He got me and Jenny out. We live with him and Rose now. Did your parents finally come for you?"
Cottia shook her head, swallowing the ache in her throat at the mention of them. "But I'm going to go back and get them. Who's Jenny?"
"My sister. She was a grade ahead of us. You probably knew her as Killer. I'm so sorry about your parents! Do you need a place to stay?"
"No, I'm staying with Alice."
Sophie wrinkled her forehead. "Really? Where do you work? I thought you couldn't do nursing. But you'd be a great dispenser."
"I - I work in the palace. In the library, right now, although I'm supposed to be a general kind of helper. But I can't do much. I got shot escaping and then I'd broken my arm and torn the muscles in a fight when they split us up and sent us to different special schools and you weren't there to protect me anymore." She smiled sadly.
Sophie stared. "Good grief. Which one did you go to?"
"City Middle West."
"Was it as rough as the rumors said?"
Cottia nodded shortly. "I survived. And now I'm free. Except for my damned portal."
"Oh, but you can get that taken out," said Sophie. She saw the brightening hope in her friend's eyes and went on. "There's a man up at the castle - well, really he looks like a kid, but he's clever - and he knows how to disconnect them. He did it for all of us, me and Jenny and my uncle and aunt. It didn't even hurt that much. His name is Merlin. He's the apothecary."
"I'll look for him," Cottia said eagerly. "Thank you!" She saw Alice waving at her from the other side of the square. "I'd better go. Can I come back and see you?"
"Yes, do! Evenings are busy around suppertime, but by the ninth bell, I usually don't have much to do."
0000
Cottia was happier after that meeting than she had been for years. Sophie did not completely understand her and how she could not hold her mind back from turning everything into a story, happily mixing reality and fiction and stitching together pieces and people from many different stories into one long saga. Sophie looked the world squarely in the face and shouted back. That was how she coped with it. Cottia turned into herself and hid among her fictions like a snail diving into its shell. But Sophie had always liked hearing her stories and eagerly participated in them. And she did not fear Cottia's imagination. She was the only person never to do so. She understands me enough to talk to me, Cottia thought. I just wish there was someone who will never think I'm strange.