CHAPTER 753: THE CONSORT’S DISAPPEARANCE (2)

They took the small council chamber—the narrow one with the long window and the map-table that held the city like a patient. The sealed horn sat in its velvet sleeve near the door, mute by decree. The floor smelled faintly of wax and old paper. The room always sounded smaller than it was.

Aelthrin stood at the long side already, spine straight, hands folded as if he were keeping two thoughts from escaping. His eyes had that calm hinge look he used when rooms needed balance. Three runners waited by the threshold with their leather satchels and their restless feet, each of them leaning forward just a little, the way people do when they want to be useful.

Elowen didn’t sit. She took the short end of the table where the afternoon light fell across the river district on the map. She glanced once at the horn, once at the window, then at the people. "Silent muster only," she said. "Knights in plain clothes around nodes. Witness-sap kiosks open. Nothing reaches the nobles."

One of the runners exhaled like a fan opening. Aelthrin’s eyebrow moved by the width of a grain. "Your Majesty," he said, gentle as a hand on a book, "breathe. We know the prince-consort’s brilliance; he will surface."

Her face didn’t change. Her right hand loosened by one finger. "Breathing," she said. It was almost dry humor, almost not.

Lira had come in behind the runners and taken the place most people didn’t notice—between the door and the table, a step off the center line. She spoke without clearing her throat. "He always leaves rooms better than he finds them," she said. "He will leave a trail."

If there is a trail, I will learn to crawl.

Elowen nodded once. She pointed to the map with two fingers, tapping three spots without noise. "Nodes are bell towers, messenger houses, waterworks. Add the lower market corners and the shrine steps. No armbands. Plain clothes. If anyone looks like a soldier, send them home to change."

Aelthrin turned a page on his slate. "Granaries?" he asked.

"Two watchers each. No counting aloud," Elowen said. "If someone starts a clap, break their eye contact and offer them bread."

Cerys slid in next, quiet despite the weight she carried. She stood at the table edge, eyes on the map, jaw working once and then still. "You want me outward," she said.

"Yes. City margins. You know the lanes," Elowen said. "Post prime-step placards where you need to. No uniforms. If your people must move together, stagger their feet."

Cerys’s mouth pulled to one side in approval that didn’t try to be a smile. "Understood."

Aelthrin’s pencil made a soft tick. "Witness-sap kiosks," he said, looking to Lira. "Where?"

"West hall," Lira answered. "Cross-corridor by the barracks canteen. One outside the kitchens. We want the places where talk turns into pictures." She lifted her chin a hair. "I’ll need three bowls, four scribes who can write fast and not add comments, and the nurse-captain for the stare."

"You have them," Elowen said. She turned to the runners. "You three. Names."

"Deral," said the first, loud, then looked like he regretted the volume.

"Enne," said the second, as if tasting the syllable.

"Joss," said the third, bouncing once on their heels.

"Deral to the bell towers," Elowen said. "Find the sextons. Tell them the Queen asks for quiet maintenance—no bells rung, none tested. If they argue, tell them the clappers will be inspected tomorrow at dawn and the sound will be deducted from my patience. Enne—messenger houses. Ask the guildmasters for their last three hours of outs and ins. Do not read. Do not comment. Stack the slips by hour on Aelthrin’s left. Joss—waterworks. Speak to the valve-keepers, not the engineers. The keepers know the leaks. If they say the pipes hummed, I want where and when."

All three looked taller in a small way. "Yes, Majesty," they said together, then flushed because it sounded like a chorus. Lira gave them a look that split them into three single people again.

Aelthrin leaned toward the sealed horn, then away from it. He placed a finger on the velvet sleeve and did not press. "We should craft language for the nobles," he said, voice low. "If they are told nothing, they will invent something. They are very quick at that."

"Draft a narrow truth," Elowen said. "The prince-consort is on assignment. The Tower is conducting maintenance. Any questions to be routed to my office tomorrow. No couriers sent tonight for anything that is not food, fire, or birth."

"Birth?" Aelthrin asked, looking up.

"Babies ignore orders," Elowen said. Aelthrin’s mouth twitched. He started to write.

Serelith had come in last, silent, hair still a little wild from her circles. She didn’t take a chair either. Her hands were empty. That meant she was still thinking, not casting. "I’ll stay inside," she said. "I’m still trying to catch him through the trace he left. It’s thin. I need quiet near the tower and no sudden noise near the halls. If I find anything, I’ll send a page with a single word."

"What word?" Aelthrin asked.

"’Found’ if it’s good," Serelith said. She paused. "Nothing if it’s not yet." She pulled her sleeve once as if to straighten air.

Elowen tapped the lower market with a knuckle. "Plain-clothes knights in pairs at the bridge corners," she said. "If any peddler starts a call-and-response, buy the entire basket and send them home with a note that says ’the Queen has your stock for now and will return it with a lecture.’"

"I want the old women," Cerys said. "The ones who can stop a room by breathing. Put them near the bread lines."

"Choose them," Elowen said, "and do not call them anything official. Not captains. Not wardens. Give them baskets and stools."

Aelthrin’s pencil stopped. "What do we tell the temple?" he asked. "They can turn a whisper into a sermon in an hour."

"Tell them the Queen requests a night of quiet prayer," Elowen said. "No drums, no bells. If they argue, remind them that silence is also holy."

Lira spoke again, plain and quick. "I’ll have the maids move like it’s a normal evening," she said. "Supper on time. Floors washed. Curtains shaken, not slapped. If anyone looks frightened, I’ll give them something to carry."

Elowen glanced at her, a small thank-you in the look. Lira met it and dipped her head. Her hands had stopped the small tremor they carried in Serelith’s room.

Cerys traced the road out to the north gate on the map with one finger. "I’ll take two through the aqueduct arches and then cut down along the old kiln," she said. "We’ll post ’one pebble’ at the echo spots and make the ratlines dull. If I see anyone moving like a story, I’ll break the beat."

"Quiet hands," Elowen said.

"Always," Cerys said.

Aelthrin turned a second slate over and slid it toward Elowen. "We should also consider the optics of a silent city," he said. "Merchants will invent shortages if the markets feel odd. I recommend we freeze grain prices for three days and authorize the bakers to open early without music."

"Do it," Elowen said. "Stamp it with my seal. And send someone to the taverns with coin. Tell the minstrels the Queen is paying them to rest today. If anyone insists on playing, they must do it off-beat."

Serelith’s mouth curved. "That will make them furious," she said.

"Good," Elowen said. "Fury is loud inside and quiet outside."

One of the runners coughed into his fist, too loud in the small room, and then turned lobster-red. Lira reached him in two steps and adjusted the strap on his satchel, more to give him a task than to fix anything. "You’ll do fine," she said in a tone that made it a fact. "Walk, don’t sprint. People trust the ones who don’t rush."

He swallowed. "Yes, lady."

"Aelthrin," Elowen said, eyes still on the map, "I want a small note posted at the palace gates. ’By order of Her Majesty: no horns, no drums, no marches, no applause. This is a quiet day. If you need permission to be quiet, consider this permission.’ Keep it polite. Keep it firm."

"I’ll make it plain," Aelthrin said. He wrote while he spoke, a habit that had saved two wars from becoming three. "Do we inform the Guild of Porters?"

"Later," Elowen said. "For now, have the head porter keep the lift lists to himself. If anyone asks for numbers, tell them to ask me tomorrow with tea."

Lira’s eyes had gone already to a hundred small places in the palace that weren’t on the map. "I’ll change the corridor lamps," she said. "Softer light makes people talk less. And I’ll swap the kettle spots. If you move the kettles, you move the gossip."

Aelthrin looked almost amused. "Is that... true?"

"It works," Lira said. "That is enough."

Serelith made a small unhappy face at the horn. "I’ll set a page to sit outside the tower with a board and write down every door that opens within earshot," she said. "No judgments, just a line and a time. If there’s a pattern, I’ll see it."

Cerys tilted her head. "Use two pages," she said. "If one gets bored, the other writes."

Serelith nodded. "Two."

Elowen reached for the box of seals and took out the small iron one she rarely used—the one that said "for now." She pressed it into hot wax on the order Aelthrin had finished. The mark came up clean. "Send that to the baker’s hall and the granaries," she said. "No flour moved without a name. If a man has no name, he has no flour."

Aelthrin handed the sealed sheet to Enne. "No detours," he said softly. "Straight there. Hand to hand." Enne held it like it mattered, because it did.

The second runner—Deral—looked at the horn again. "Majesty," he blurted, then looked like he wanted to swallow the word, "if something... bigger... happens, how will we know?"

Elowen met his eyes. "Someone will come and tell you plainly," she said. "Until then, do the job in front of you."

"Yes, Majesty," he said, steadier.

Lira’s attention returned to Elowen. "The nobles will send notes anyway," she said. "They can’t help it. Do we answer any?"

"Not tonight," Elowen said. "Aelthrin will draft one line for all of them: ’Her Majesty thanks you for your concern. All is in hand.’ If any of them are truly afraid, they can come and pour tea at the witness-sap desks like everyone else."

Aelthrin’s pencil paused mid-stroke. "You want nobles at the desks?"

"I want them to see the bowls," Elowen said. "Truth keeps better with witnesses who think they’re above it."

Cerys had been watching Elowen’s fingers. The queen had stopped digging little half-moons into her palm. The small tells were settling. Cerys let out a breath so quiet it was almost thinking.

Serelith shifted weight. "One more thing," she said. "Please keep people from slamming doors near the west stairs. It’s nothing mystical. It just ruins my count."

"I’ll put a boy on the hinge with oil," Lira said. "He will make a game of it."

Aelthrin raised his head. "Envoys," he said as if tossing a stone into a still pond to see the rings. "We have two in residence and three expected by week’s end."

Elowen didn’t sigh. "They get the same line the nobles get," she said. "If any of them ask for an audience tonight, the answer is tomorrow morning. If they say war can’t wait, tell them war can look at the sunrise like the rest of us."

Aelthrin’s mouth turned into something like approval. "Yes, Majesty."

Elowen looked again at each face. Cerys’s controlled anger. Serelith’s bright worry sharpened into work. Lira’s elegance turned into function. Aelthrin’s steadiness. The three runners learning how to stand still.

"Serelith," Elowen said, "if your trace strengthens, you send me a single word. Lira, you own the halls. Cerys, you own the edges. Aelthrin, you own the paper. I will sit where people can find me and sign what must be signed."

She didn’t raise her voice. The room still felt it. It traveled into the table and through the map and down into the floor the way water finds a seam.

Aelthrin lifted his hand toward the runners. "You have your routes," he said. "Go."

They did not sprint. They left with their heads up and their feet set to a quiet pace. The door closed softly behind them.

Elowen’s knuckles tapped the map once, not a rhythm, only a mark. "That’s all," she said. "Move."

Orders ran like stamps. The runners took them as if their bones were ink.