D-024: Long Galley

Theme: Long Galley

When Temperance was seven years old, a great shadow swept over the city of Corli. For a long time her own household seemed safe from the plague and misery; but like all things, this too would pass, and the light of the brilliant young family was not enough to drive the shadow from the doorstep of their palatial mansion. Temperance, the youngest, was the first to fall visibly ill. The doctor's recommended the best care, and that she be placed somewhere with many windows, perhaps taken out of the city entirely. But the plague had closed many of the roads, and she quickly grew too ill to be moved.

And so her father tore out a wall of the house and replaced all the plaster with massive doors that opened onto stone terraces. He built an alcove filled with pillows and blankets; her mother wanted to remove the portraits of the family members, but her father had winked and said maybe they'd bring good luck. Between fever dreams and fitful wakings, Temperance could remember her parents sitting by her sickbed, her dragon constantly at her side. Her siblings were kept well away, but they sent letters and gifts and it didn't seem so bad, all things considered.

But then her parents stopped visiting. The doctors' faces grew wan. Though she did not know it, the dead piled up in the streets and the entire world seemed to hesitate, hold its breath, and then grind inexorably forward. When the winter ended, her parents were buried in the family crypt. Temperance, still weak, was not allowed to attend.

She was not allowed to attend a great many things. Tutors came into the long gallery; teachers in dance and decorum, in Latin and the other languages. There was embroidery to do and games that she and Pilgrim invented. The gallery stretched the length of the house and from one corner she could just see a city street; from the wide terraces she had the pleasure of the gardens. It was lonely, yes, but she was constantly reminded that she was alive (alive, alive).

Not everyone had been so lucky.

So she buried any resentment and tried to practice gratitude. Her siblings visited, and eventually she was allowed to rejoin the world by small degrees. Whenever she grew tired, though, she would return to the long gallery. After so many days spent in the sunbeams and among the portraits, there was no place that felt more like home...