Royal Blood Part 23

She nodded. "His father works for us. We played together when I came here in the summers. We were always such good friends as children. And then I was sent to Paris and I found he was there too, studying art. This time we fell in love-wonderful, pa.s.sionate love. Then my father informed me that I must marry Nicholas. I begged him to change his mind, but he wouldn't listen. A princess always puts duty first, he said. I told him I loved someone else but he forbade me to see him again." She reached out and covered my hand with her cold one. "In the end one does one's duty. Just like you and Siegfried. I'm sure you don't love him. You can't love him. But you do what the family expects of you."

I nodded. "It must be really hard for you. I'm not sure I can actually marry a man I don't love."

"Vlad wanted me to run away with him," she whispered, glancing up to make sure that the other occupants of the salon were still far away and engaged in activity. "We'd live together in Paris and be happy. But I'd been brought up with duty rammed down my throat. I couldn't do it."

"So you asked to have the wedding here because of your happy memories?"

"Vlad suggested it so that we could be together one last time," she said. "He promised he'd find a way to come and see me. He knows this castle so well. You saw him climbing up the wall, didn't you? He always was one for taking horrible risks, but how else could he get in to see me without being seen himself?"

"You left a rope for him hanging down?"

"No, I had no idea he was going to try to scale the wall. We attached the rope afterward, from my maid's room, in case he had to make a hasty retreat."

"And I am sleeping in your old bedroom," I said, understanding now. "He was expecting to find you there. No wonder he looked so surprised."

"Yes, my parents announced at the last minute that I must sleep as far as possible from my future bridegroom and close to my chaperon, Countess Von Durnstein, until the wedding. My father is very much into old-fashioned protocol, you know."

"Is Vlad still here?" I asked.

"Oh, yes. There are fortunately several secret rooms in the castle. He's been hiding out and my maid, Estelle, is so wonderfully loyal. She brings him food. And speaking of food-you also saw my other guilty secret, did you not?"

"When was that?"

"In the hallway outside the kitchen," she whispered, glancing around again. "I couldn't resist, you know."

"What exactly were you doing?" I asked cautiously, not really wanting the answer.

She leaned closer. "Cook's cherry tarts. All that wonderful gooey cherry jam. I went down to the kitchen and she'd been baking them. I stole a couple. I've had to be on this strict diet, you see, so that I fit into the wedding dress, but I've always had trouble with my weight. I like to eat. That was another thing-Vlad didn't care when I had meat on my bones. He loved me just as I was." She chewed on her lip. "Now I'm afraid that Nicolas will not like me if I put back the weight and he sees me as I was when I was eating normally."

I looked at her with compa.s.sion. I could understand how awful it must be to give up one's true love and marry someone one doesn't love at all. And to condemn oneself to not eating. But I couldn't forget the big question that still remained unanswered. "Matty, about Pirin's death. Do you know who put the poison in that gla.s.s?"

"It had to be an outsider, an a.s.sa.s.sin," she said. "Who else could it be?"

"You don't think that your Vlad might have . . ."

"Killed a foreign field marshal? Why would he do that?" she demanded angrily.

"Matty, there's something you should know," I said, realizing I was taking a risk. "The gla.s.s of wine was intended for Nicholas."

"What?"

"Pirin was a peasant," I said. "He had never learned decent table manners. And he was very drunk. He grabbed the nearest full gla.s.s of wine when he made that toast and he grabbed it with his left hand. I was sitting opposite him. I saw. It was Nicholas's winegla.s.s, only Nicholas had switched to drinking champagne when the toasts started, remember?"

"No," she said so loudly that the other women in the room looked over at us. Then she shook her head violently and lowered her voice again. "No, that's ridiculous. Unthinkable. Vlad would never. He's sweet. He's kind. You should see how he treated me in Paris. Like a princess should be treated." She took my hand. "I can trust you as my dear old friend. Come and meet him for yourself, come and ask him yourself, then you'll see. I've told him about you, and soon you are to be my dear sister."

"All right," I said.

She led me out of the salon, then opened a door in the paneled wall that led to a narrow side staircase. "My little shortcut to the secret room," she said. "This castle is full of them. We used to have such fun playing hide-and-seek when we were children. Except for Siegfried. He was stuffy even then. Watch your step, they are very narrow and it's dark in here."

She started up the steps ahead of me. I went to follow. One second I was standing on the stone floor; the next, the slab I was standing on tilted downward and I was plunging into darkness.

Chapter 30.

In a dungeon. Not very nice.

Sat.u.r.day, November 19

I was half sliding, half tumbling down a rough stone chute, unable to stop or slow my fall, waiting for the inevitable moment when I would crash onto a hard surface below. The ridiculous image of Alice in Wonderland, falling down the rabbit hole, flashed through my mind as I struck another stone panel that swung open. Then I tumbled into nothing-ness, had an odd sensation of arms reaching out to me, then landing on something softer than I'd expected, before I hit the stone floor and everything went black.

I came back to consciousness to some kind of awful noise-an unearthly wailing sound. I opened my eyes. I was lying on a cold stone floor in almost total darkness. A round white thing was hovering over me-a pale moon face, staring at me with its mouth open in some kind of horrible chant. Then I made out words in the wail.

"Oh, lawks, oh, blimey, oh, miss."

"Queenie?" I murmured. I tried to sit up and the world swung around alarmingly while a pain shot through my head.

"Sorry, miss. I tried to catch you but you was coming too fast. At least I broke your fall a little."

"That was you I landed on?" I asked.

"That's right."

"Goodness. That was brave of you. Did I hurt you?"

"Not too bad. I'm well padded. But you come flying down at such a rate-"

"Well, you would too if the floor suddenly opened up beneath you," I said.

"I know. I did. Luckily I landed on me b.u.m-pardon the expression, miss-and like I said, I'm well padded. But it weren't no worse than when my old dad used to take his belt to me when I was a kid." She helped me into a sitting position. "I ain't half glad I am to see you. You're a proper toff to come and rescue me. I knew you would, of course."

"I hate to disillusion you, Queenie," I said, "but I'm now a captive with you, not your rescuer."

"Where are we, miss? This ain't half a creepy old place."

I looked around. We were in a circular chamber. A glimmer of gray light came in through a small grille near the bottom of one wall. Apart from that, every surface was stone. There was no door of any kind.

"I rather fear we're in the oubliette we were joking about earlier."

"The oobly-what?"

"It's a place where you put unwanted guests," I said. "I've heard of them in old castles but I've never actually seen one before. You step on the wrong slab, it opens and you fall into a dungeon where n.o.body will ever find you again."

"Ooh, don't say that, miss." She grabbed at my sleeve. "Someone's going to find us, aren't they?"

"I hope so," I said. But even as the words came out I wondered who actually knew of the presence of this place. Matty had obviously been told about it because Vlad had grown up here and knew every nook and cranny. But did others know? Servants? Dragomir? I had a horrible vision of everyone hunting for me throughout the castle and not finding me, while Queenie and I starved to death. Not the ending I would have chosen; in fact, I think I'd actually have preferred to marry Prince Siegfried if I'd had an option-which shows you how desperate I was feeling. "Don't worry," I said. "We're going to get out somehow, I promise. How did you come to be in here, by the way?"

"I don't rightly know," she said. "I saw a man taking what looked as if it would be a shortcut to the kitchen. He opened a door in the paneling and he went through, and I saw he was going down a staircase so I thought I'd follow him. Next thing I knew, I was falling down a shaft and I landed up in here."

"This man-what did he look like?"

"I can't really tell you. He was dressed in black. One of the servants, I thought."

"Did he have light blond hair?"

"Now that you mention it, he did."

"Then he thought you were following him for a reason. That's why you landed up here."

"Who is he, miss? A criminal?"

"He's the young man you saw in your room that night, and he may well be a murderer," I said. "When we get out of this place, we'll have to go carefully."

"How are we going to get out?" she asked. "There's not even a door."

"Well, we got in," I said, trying to sound more cheerful than I felt. "So we can try getting out the same way. If you're strong enough to hold me on your shoulders, I can reach the ceiling. Perhaps I can push one of those slabs open."

She crouched down and let me climb onto her back, then we inched our way around until I was directly under the high point of the arched ceiling. I found the slab that had opened to admit me all right but it was positioned so exactly that there wasn't enough room to get a grip on it. I broke my fingernails trying to drag it down, but it was no use.

"That's not going to work," I said. "You'd better let me down."

I clambered off her back and we sat panting while I examined the room.

"There's that little grille in the wall down there," I said. "I'm quite skinny, maybe I would fit through it."

"Don't try it, miss. It's bound to be dangerous," she said.

"We're not just going to sit here and hope that someone finds us," I said. "I've already had people searching for you all over the castle. If they couldn't find you I don't think there is much hope that we'll be discovered." I lay on the floor and peered out. It wasn't encouraging. All I could see was another stone wall, about ten feet away. I tugged at the grille, I pushed it, but it wouldn't budge. Truthfully I didn't think it was likely to, having been in place for several hundred years, but I had to try.

"Help me pull this thing, Queenie," I said.

We pulled together but it was hard to get our fingers through the small holes of the grille. We turned around and tried kicking it. No use.

"We need some leverage," I said. "My petticoat is silk. Are you wearing a cotton one?"

"A cotton petticoat? Yes, miss."

"Then take it off."

She obeyed, eyeing me strangely as I attempted to tear it into strips. Eventually, using teeth and nails, Queenie's hairpins and my brooch, we did manage to rip it and ended up with a couple of long strips. We tied these to the grille.

"When I say pull, you brace your feet against the wall and pull with all your might," I said.

We pulled. Suddenly there was a cracking, crumbling sound as the grille came flying out. We looked at each other and nodded with satisfaction.

"But I don't see how you're going to get out of there, miss," Queenie said. "You'll get stuck, likely as not."

I had to say that I agreed with her. The opening couldn't have been much more than about fifteen inches high and two feet wide.

"Luckily I'm skinny and I have been told by milliners that I have a small head," I said.

"I'd go out for you if I could, miss," Queenie said, "but I don't think my big toe would fit through there, to say nothing of the rest of me."

I looked at her and smiled with real fondness. She might be the worst servant in the world, but she was trapped in a hopeless situation and she wasn't making a fuss.

"Well, here goes," I said and stuck my head out of the hole. What I saw wasn't encouraging. I was near the bottom of a long shaft of some sort. It might be a well, because there was ice below me, and there was another grille over the top, far above me. I couldn't even see any other openings in the side.

"Maybe if we shouted, someone would hear us," I said. "Try shouting 'help' with me, Queenie."

We shouted. I tried it in French. Nothing happened.

"There seem to be the remains of iron rungs on the far side," I said. "If the ice holds me, I could lower myself down and get across."

"What if it don't hold you, miss?"

"The worst that can happen is that I'll get really wet and cold," I said. "It's worth a try. I'm going out backward."

I lay on the floor and stuck my feet through the hole, then I inched myself backward until my feet were hanging down, then until I was bent at the waist and then until I was braced at my shoulders.

"Hold my hands and don't let go until I tell you," I said. Queenie took my hands in hers. I squeezed my shoulders together, then tilted my head to one side to take it through the hole. The ice was still about two feet below me.

"You can let go of my hands, Queenie," I said. "I'm going to try to climb down."

I hadn't bargained for the slippery rocks. I slithered down and landed hard on the ice, which groaned ominously. I immediately dropped to my knees then crawled forward. It bobbed as I moved but I reached the other wall. Then I found one of the old rungs and started to climb. They were broken and slippery and it was horrible going. One of them came out of the wall when I went to haul myself up on it and it landed on the ice with an echoing thunk.

"You can do this," I said to myself. "You've climbed mountains at home. It's no worse."

After what seemed an eternity I reached the top.

"I'm at the top, Queenie," I called back down. "I'm going to try to push up the grille."

As soon as I looked at it, I realized that this was going to be an impossible task. The grille was in the middle, a long stretch from where I was. I could just about reach the edge of it, but I couldn't push it with any strength at all, stretched out like that. I fought back tears of frustration. I cleared as much snow as I could from the grille and tried to look out. All I could see were blank stone walls. Not a friendly door or window in sight. Surely someone would come this way eventually. The question was how long I could hold on before my frozen hands stopped obeying me.

"Help!" I called again. "Au secours!" "Au secours!" Drat. I wished I knew the word for help in German, as this area used to be part of the Hapsburg Empire and many of the peasants spoke that language. Drat. I wished I knew the word for help in German, as this area used to be part of the Hapsburg Empire and many of the peasants spoke that language.

Suddenly I heard heavy breathing above me and a face peered down at me. I looked up hopefully, only to find it was a long snout covered in gray fur. It was hard to tell, from this angle, whether it was a dog or a wolf.

"Good dog, good boy," I said.