Palace of Stone Read Online Free PDF Page B

attention is drawn to this work of art.”
    Miri nodded. Before coming to Asland, she’d seen only one painting and had prized it almost as much as her six books. Now it seemed inconsequential. This painting was not only larger but more vivid. It showed a girl pouring milk from a jug and looking out the window at the night, and yet Miri felt as the girl must be feeling. That her home was small and safe. That the world out there was huge and scary, but it called to her. Would the girl stay home and keep pouring milk? Or would she leave?
    “It is one of the few surviving works of the master painter Halstein. Notice the way the candlelight outlines the girl’s cheek, mirroring the shape of the milk pitcher and the curve of the moon. Perfection.”
    “Yes,” Miri agreed.
    “Now, imagine the Queen’s Castle catches fire. Besides yourself, there is only one other person in the building—a confessed murderer of a child, chained in the dungeon. If you save the murderer, he will not harm you but will live the remainder of his life in another prison, and the painting will burn. If you save the painting, the man will burn. Which would you choose—the murderer or the painting?”
    The painting of course , was Miri’s first thought. But suspicious that she was missing something, she just said, “The painting is irreplaceable ….”
    “And so is the man,” said the girl Hanna.
    And with that began a debate so rapid Miri could scarcely note who said what.
    “The painting inspires, but the man kills.”
    “Unlike the painting, the man is alive and so has endless potential for good—”
    “Or evil.”
    “The painting gives us beauty.”
    “Beauty isn’t a useful commodity. Simply calculate what’s worth more: the painting or the work the man can do.”
    “Oh, it’s always about gold and silver with you. What about right and wrong?”
    “Who has the right to weigh the value of any person?”
    “Is any object of greater value than human life?”
    “He nullified his life by choosing to end another’s.”
    “And that, Miss Miri,” said Master Filippus, raising his hand to quiet the voices, “is Ethics. The science of right and wrong.”
    “It’s an impossible question,” Hanna said.
    “As impossible as life itself,” said Timon.
    It did not seem that impossible to Miri. Once a thieving bandit had tried to kill her. He was dead now, and Miri was not sorry. Besides, the painting was beautiful.
    They spent the rest of the morning on Mathematics, and though Miri worked hard with her slate and chalk, she kept glancing at the painting. The ethics question seemed to hang in the air before her, a dust mote that she could not quite catch in her hand.
    At the end of the day, Timon fell in beside her on the stairs going outside.
    “You aren’t lodging at the Queen’s Castle?” he said. “I live in town too. We could walk together.”
    “Well … there’s a carriage waiting for me.” She tilted her head, letting her hair slide over her face. Only the wealthy had carriages, and Miri felt like a fraud riding in one.
    “Are you staying far from here?”
    “At the … the palace.”
    He blinked. “You are a courtier?”
    “Um … I’m a lady of the princess?” she said as if she were not sure.
    “I see.” He hesitated and then walked ahead of her toward the bridge.
    Miri watched him go, feeling a failure as well as a fraud. How could she hope to learn anything for Katar? She could not exactly say to Timon, “Lovely weather, I like your shoes, and by the way, can you tell me about the revolution?” She might as well holler at the city: “Everybody who wants to get rid of the king, raise your hand!”
    Suddenly two children came at Miri. They were very thin, about five and seven years of age, and their feet were bare. With bony hands they seized her robes and made a raspy, keening noise.
    “A quint, please, be kind,” said the little boy.
    Miri knew from her reading that a quint was a unit of money. “I