Brokedown Palace by Steven Brust Page A

face, drinking pálinka from the bottle. “What happened to the girl?” he asked, as he knew he was supposed to.
    The coachman smirked. “She married the demon,” he said.
    Miklós nodded his appreciation and watched Miska for another moment. Then he asked, “What, exactly, is the point, good coachman?”
    Miska snorted. “Point? I don’t know, my Prince. Maybe, within this story, there is a prophecy of the tale of your own life. Maybe more. Maybe the point is the futility of all human endeavor. Maybe it is the triumph of justice, whatever the cost. The point? I don’t know. You wanted to hear a story so I told you a story. Ask yourself the point. If you were entertained, that is enough for me.”
    Miklós looked at him some more. At length he stood. “Yes, Miska,” he said. “I was entertained. Thank you. Drink well. Perhaps I’ll see you later.”
    Miklós climbed the stairs past the sodden coachman. The story the coachman had told him came and went in his mind as he considered what he should do next. He made no effort to be silent, as he knew the sounds his weight made on the wooden slats of the stairway would blend with the Palace night sounds. He reached the top and slipped past the draperies. The warmth inside made him realize that the cellar had been chilly.
    All was still in the Palace itself. He walked past the buttery, the corridor toward the servants’ quarters, the hall that led to his old chambers, and so came to the grand winding stairway that led to the Great Hall (called so mostly by tradition—in the Old Palace the Great Hall had started on the ground level and gone up three stories).
    He reached it and found a guard sleeping outside of the door. He walked past and the other never stirred, leaving Miklós to wonder if losing his boots hadn’t been a stroke of good fortune—or else the guard had become so accustomed to the creakings of the Palace that little could have disturbed him.
    Miklós stepped into the hall, where fires were still burning in two of the five hearths. He stepped beneath the doorway at the far end. This put him on a very small winding stairway (he had to turn sideways to ascend). He followed it easily. There was now a certain amount of light, both from torches in the Great Hall below and from narrow window slits high above him, letting in starlight. It occurred to him that he had never really noticed the transition, as he walked, from darkness to faint light. These stairs were less familiar to Miklós than most of the rest of the Palace, so he went slowly, using both hands to guide himself.
    There was a small lamp glowing in the chill room at the top, smoking and giving off the pungent odor of burning oil. It was set on a table between two beds.
    Miklós’s breathing echoed loudly here, as if the rest of the Palace sounds didn’t penetrate. He had the sudden feeling that he was entering a different world—one bare of the luxuries of the Palace, yet also without its decrepitudes.
    Decrepitudes? he thought. Now, where did that notion come from? His mind traced back the path he had just walked, through a dank, smelly cellar, past cracked wooden panels and crumbling sandstone that he somehow had not seen as he actually passed them. Sudden tears sprang to his eyes.
    In the test of memory against reason, reason had achieved the final victory.
    The air was chill against the back of his neck. He looked at the pair of beds from the which soft, disjointed sounds of his parents’
breathing could be heard. He realized that he had nothing to say to them.
    As softly as he could, he made his way back down the stairs.
     
    THE GREAT HALL WAS AS QUIET AS EVER. MIKLÓS STOOD IN the middle of it, feeling its vastness and trying to decide where to go from there. Several doors led down: one to the hallway that led to the sleeping rooms, another to the King’s audience chamber, still another to the kitchen and servants’ quarters, yet another led up to László’s private chambers. Miklós