Chapter Five

The Queen's Clade and Beyond

The Queen’s Clade and Beyond

Eupraxia. Iris had thought my name and I alone was astir. It was strange to rise in this way. Ordinarily we all rose together at the bidding of the chamber mistress: an idea would be broadcast among us, a wordless instruction that the day was to begin, and we would begin our daily rituals, our dressing and blessings, before we came together to share nectar and receive our tasks. Of course I wasn’t truly alone, Iris was there watching me, but it was a quite alien experience nevertheless. Seeing Aggie still at rest in our nook sent a shiver through my mind.

‘Eupraxia,’ Iris thought again. ‘We must go quickly. Walk behind me and keep your thoughts to yourself.’

I wanted to look back and see Aggie once more but I was still unsettled by the thought of her at rest without me, so instead, as I followed Iris out of the chamber, I recalled the image of my friend as she had been the night before, twisting thread. As soon as I thought of the bracelet I noticed that it was now tied about my wrist. Until you come back... Aggie had thought, but I knew I might not.

Aside from the bracelet and the gown I had yet to change out of, I took nothing with me. My satchel, its contents gently clinking against each other, hung about Iris’s shoulder and this too felt strange. I should carry for her. That was the way of things. Another shiver ran through me, but tinged this time with a kind of giddy excitement.

I did as instructed and followed behind Iris, keeping my thoughts private. She strode purposefully along the colonnade and out into the weak early light. The sleepers keeping watch over Selene’s mourning bed followed our movements with furtive glances as we headed past the farm wall and towards the gate. The boundary of the clade was marked with stones, but there was no fence. When the freed left the clade they did so from any point, but Iris and myself would be required to pass through the gate to be duly recorded by the keeper.