The Tide Enters the Palace

The water came up the marble without a sound, red only at the edges, as if the sea were blushing at its own bad manners. Servants lifted hems. Ministers did not. A minister who notices the tide has already admitted it has business here.

Lady Sol stood where the last step became a shore. She had been taught to read water the way other women were taught to read letters: not for beauty, for what it refused to say. Today it refused the king’s name.

“It wants the old terms,” she said.

The chancellor smiled with his mouth only. “The old terms drowned three reigns ago. Tell it we have new ones.”

The tide rose one finger and stopped against her shoe, polite and immovable. Somewhere under it, a voice that was not quite a voice answered: Then send someone who can sign without a tongue.