StarCrossed. Part 16

"Enough." He loomed over me, and for a moment really looked like he could send me over the edge, and it would be nothing for him. "What was amusing grows tiresome. Do the work you're capable of, or there will be consequences."

"Wait - what about this?" In desperation, I dipped into my bodice and pulled out the letters I'd been carrying for weeks, crumpled and warm from being up against my body. "They're not from Bryn Shaer, but I think they might be useful to you, in some way."

Daul's gaze sharpened, and he released his grip on my arm. I used my freedom to unfold Chavel's letters. "Look. Here's a letter from Secretary Chavel to somebody in Corlesanne - asking after 'friends' in Varenzia. That could be suspicious," I added hopefully. "I don't know what that second page is, but that last one -"

Daul's eyes lifting over the paper and settling on my face were enough to stop me cold.

"Well, you can see for yourself," I finished.

"Where did you come by these?"

I shrugged. "Are they any use to you?"

Daul was difficult to read, but he gave the third letter - the one that had so shocked Marlytt with its news of a royal bounty on Prince Wierolf - only a cursory glance.

"I thought that was the important one," I said. "That's not news - a price on Prince Wierolf's head?"

Daul gave a mirthless laugh. "No, little mouse, that's not news." He folded the letters carefully and slipped them inside his doublet. "In fact, they're worse than worthless."

"Then why are you keeping them?"

That slow, dangerous smile I was coming to hate. "Because clearly they have some value to you."

"Give them back, then!"

"When you bring me something I can use. Incriminating letters written by the Nemair. Evidence of treason. My journal."

I glanced down to the woods. Meri and her purple friend had stepped away from the trees. If Daul turned to go now, there was no question he'd see them. I grabbed for one last wild chance. "Stockpiled weapons?"

Daul wheeled around and looked hard at me. "Did you say weapons? Firearms?"

I stepped back, nodding warily.

Daul broke into a wide, wolfish smile. "But that would be a grave offense," he said. "According to the Covenant of Kalorjn - which Antoch himself signed - former Sarists are strictly prohibited from owning any artillery, let alone raising a standing army. If the king were to find out that the Nemair were secretly buying and storing weapons on this property . . ."

"I get my life back?"

"Exactly, little mouse."

Meri had actually given me the best place to start looking, the very day we'd arrived here: Tunnels under the castle, all the way to Breijardarl.

Lyll and Antoch had made it very plain that those tunnels were in dangerous disrepair, that they weren't part of the restoration. But if the tunnels were one of Bryn Shaer's most important defenses, then surely they'd want to make sure they were as war-ready as the walls and towers.

And just a tiny thread of a voice whispered that those tunnels went to Breijardarl. Right under the snow-blocked pa.s.s. Away from Daul and too-shrewd merchants and wizards lurking in the trees and Sarist revolutionaries planning their next rebellion.

And Greenmen waiting for Daul's report. My report.

After leaving Daul, I joined Lady Lyll in the stillroom, where she put me to work sorting through a bowl of seedpods. She stood with her back to me, cataloguing our work, moving easily through the motions of labeling bottles and scribing notes in her ledger. The heavy pleats of her skirt fell in smooth, even folds that never seemed to wrinkle. Watching her now, it seemed impossible that this peaceful woman might be mixing up a war as deftly as she stirred a batch of head ache tincture. I wanted it to seem impossible. I wanted her to just be Meri's mother, the bighearted, soft woman who had taken me in without a question. I wanted to be a girl who didn't find that suspicious.

"Milady, did you once tell me there were tunnels to Breijardarl underneath the castle?" I blurted it out like that, hoping - I don't know for what. For her to laugh and give me some reason to think I was crazy, that Daul was crazy and a bird was a bird, and for her to put her hand on my head and smooth my hair and say, Digger, you worry too much.

Lady Lyll scrubbed with a rag at a stain on her workbench. "There were. Before Llyvraneth was one nation, there was frequent fighting between Kellespau and Briddja Nul - particularly who laid claim to exactly what land in the mountains. Bryn Shaer was constantly in dispute, so one of the landholders - Ragnhald Shortbones, I believe he was called! - supervised the excavation of almost the entire mountain between here and the pa.s.s. It was really quite an amazing undertaking. Though of course they had magic to help, in those days. I don't know how you'd accomplish such a thing without it."

I buried my hands deep in the seeds and let them pour through my fingers. "I'd love to see them."

Lady Lyll turned to me with a smile. "Wouldn't it be exciting to explore them? Unfortunately, the cellars here are unstable, and part of the tunnels collapsed about a hundred years ago. There's been no reason to open them up again, of course, now that Briddja Nul and Kellespau are at peace. Not to mention the expense. Even Antoch and I haven't been more than a few hundred yards inside them."

"Oh," I said, and I was almost relieved.

"And so I must urge you, Celyn - I know how much you like to wander off by yourself - not to go looking for them. It's much too dangerous. I can't imagine what we'd tell your brother if anything should happen to you."

I blinked at her. Her broad face looked gentle, genuine, but there was a core of iron in her words, just the slightest edge of something I couldn't make out. She never mentioned my brother; was that meant to be a threat of some kind? Or merely the sensible cautions of an overprotective mother? I shook my head, said, "No, milady," and told myself that I was definitely imagining things.

I rose to join her at the workbench, but I set the bowl too close to the edge, and Lyll's next movement knocked it to the floor, scattering seedpods every where. I bit back a curse.

"No matter," Lyll said. "We'll just count them again." She crouched on the floor with me to gather the spilled seeds. The spiky pods snagged in the fringe of the rug as I picked them up, lifting the corner of the rug off the floor, and I couldn't help peeking under it.

Impossible. Tiboran didn't love me this much. I glanced toward Lyll, but her back was to me, so I lifted the rug as high as I dared, and reached my hand under.

My searching fingers found something that was not a lost seed: a cold smooth curve of iron in a recess big enough for my hand. I pulled my hand back and gave it a look to be certain. In Lady Lyll's stillroom, set into the flagstones and hidden under a rug, was the iron pull ring of a nice-sized trapdoor.

I love trapdoors. They mean secrets and hiding places and the thrill of discovering things you were never meant to see. Of course, this one might be nothing more than a cold-box, set into the chilly floor and the cool stone beneath to keep perishable medicines fresh. But then why hide it with a rug?

I could find out right now - flip the rug back, grab the handle, and haul it open with Lady Lyll watching, there to explain away its very mundane purpose. And lose my chance at anything that might really be hidden down there.

I folded back the edge of the rug and smoothed the fringe. Tonight, I promised it.

PART III.

DON'T GET INVOLVED

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

The hours until Bryn Shaer fell asleep were an agony of mindless impossible boredom in the stillroom and solar and Round Court. I felt edgier than I had since that first n.o.b banquet at Favom Court - was it only a month ago? Though we'd been ticking off the days until Meri's kernja-velde, my sense of the time pa.s.sing had been buried by the barricade of snow, added to almost every day, that trapped me here in Bryn Shaer.

Finally, finally, the family and guests all went to bed, and by some miracle Meri fell instantly asleep beside me. I slipped out of bed and crept down the servants' stair to the kitchens. I had timed my hour precisely; the kitchen staff was asleep and I pa.s.sed no servants on my way.

I slipped my lock pick from my seam and tumbled the stillroom lock. With the door shut behind me, the light from the hallway was swallowed up immediately. Inside the stillroom it was dark and freezing; the moons light filtering through the small, high window didn't help much, but I had some good idea where I was going.

I knelt on the floor by the workbench, flipped back the rug, and, cringing against the possible shriek of stubborn hinges - and the possible disappointment of a cavity full of chilled medicines - heaved hard on the pull ring. It came open easily, revealing a square opening large enough for a person to fit through. I flattened myself to the floor and reached a hand down into the hole. I don't know what I expected - a cache of doc.u.ments, perhaps, maybe valuables - but my outstretched fingers found nothing, brushed nothing but darkness. I scowled. n.o.body took this much care to hide an empty hole.

I peeled myself from the floor and rolled a sc.r.a.p of paper into a taper that I lit from the tinderbox on the workbench. Carefully I lowered the burning taper into the hole and found what I was hoping for: stairs. Moving slowly so the taper didn't blow out, I slid feetfirst over the polished edge of the opening and dropped easily down onto the stone floor below.

Well. I was in it now. The opening above me glowed with square silver light, making it easy to see the distance I'd have to climb to get out again. One good jump, and I'd be able to grab the edges. But that was for later. I gathered my skirts in one hand and edged downward, the flickering taper throwing the pa.s.sage into uneven light.

The stairs twisted downward in a tight spiral, each tread barely wide enough for even my small feet; this pa.s.sage had been constructed for secrecy, not for convenience. There was no dust on the stairs, but I didn't know if that was because they were used often, or just that no dust ever found its way this deep.

When I found myself on flat ground once more, I paused for a moment, feeling the darkness press all around me. When I was small, I'd spent a lot of time hiding in dark s.p.a.ces like this - tucked behind shelves in a root cellar, or curled up tight in a catacomb. I felt safe in the dark and silence; the world went on, however wicked or righ teous, far above, never touching the lives of the mice and spiders below.

The little landing was hardly big enough to turn around in, let alone conceal anything as bulky as a stash of firearms. I moved the taper in a slow arc, showing up the s.p.a.ce I'd found myself in. Shadows flew out of its range, up into the darkness above me and against stone walls barely an arm's reach away. After turning three quarters of the way around the s.p.a.ce, I came face-to with a smooth wooden wall.

Wood was good - it could conceal hinges, a squint with a view to the room beyond, a catch for a secret door. . . . I shone my dubious light over the wall and found a seam, tracing along it with my fingers until I felt the notched-out hollow of a latch. Just an easy toggle with my finger, and the door eased open, inching toward me with a click.

The overwhelming silence of the pa.s.sage pressed in on me, making my rushing heartbeat feel as loud as stomping feet and slamming doors. Something was behind that door - something somebody didn't want found - and I was on the other side.

I grinned. Perfect.

I squeezed through the door, ready at any moment for someone's great hand to grab my shoulder and yank me bodily into - wherever. The taper lifted high, I squinted into the darkness. It seemed to be a relatively ordinary Bryn Shaer chamber, maybe a little smaller and less drafty than most. Bare stone floors, half-paneled walls, hardly any furniture. I stepped a little farther into the room, watching beneath the shadows, but could see nothing suspicious. No hidden cache of doc.u.ments or weapons, no Sarist priestess tucked away under an eave, no secret alchemical laboratory.

I sighed. I was getting ready to shake out the taper before it burned my fingers, when I heard something.

I froze, listening. Was someone on the stair behind me? Or in the stillroom above, getting ready to close the trap? No - the sound was closer than that, and quieter.

Whoever had gone to the trouble to hide this room had also done me the favor of hanging a lamp beside the doorway. I lifted it down and lit it with the taper, and the chamber sprang into bobbing light.

The shadows in the far corner revealed themselves to be heavy woolen curtains draping an alcove, parted slightly in the center. I crept closer and lifted a hand to move the curtains aside. But my hand stopped midway, and the lamp swung as I stared at what lay behind the drapery.

It was a bed. With a man in it, fast asleep and breathing in fitful, gaspy breaths as his fingers curled and uncurled around the hem of his blankets. He was pale and sweaty, with dark curls sticking to his damp forehead. I sprang backward, nearly tripping on my own hem, and clamped my mouth tight to silence my own breathing. The light made a wild streak of brightness on the walls; I hastened to steady it, but not before it threw its light across the sleeping man's chest and abdomen, tightly wrapped in bandages seeped with blood.

Abruptly, I saw every thing - the basin and sponges on the table behind his head, the roll of linen for bandages, the vials and packets of herbs. This wasn't a laboratory - it was a sickroom. And its injured occupant? The light also showed up the ma.s.sive signet ring on his thumb - a rampant stag crowned with ivy - the mark of the House of Hanival, Llyvraneth's royal family.

My heart flew into a crazy rhythm, and I squeezed my fingers tight on the handle of the lamp to stop their trembling. Only a handful of people would wear such a sign. And only one of them was famously missing.

I should have turned back, rehung the lamp, climbed back up the stairs, pulled myself through the trapdoor, locked Lyll's door, slipped into bed beside Meri, and thought no more about it.

But I didn't.

Because in the next moment, exactly the wrong thing happened.

He woke up.

A m.u.f.fled snore turned into a moan, and as the lantern light swung across his face, he winced and turned his head away. I lowered the light and shaded it behind my skirts, but I was too late. The flickering eyelids parted, and a frown formed on the sweaty forehead.

"Hullo," he said in a breathless voice, still thick with sleep.

I bobbed a curtsy.

"Are you supposed to be in here?"

One might ask the same question. "Of course," I improvised. "They've sent me to . . . see to your wound . . . s."

He tried to sit up, but grimaced. Impulsively I stepped closer to him, set the lantern on the table, and reached one arm behind him for support. Well, if this was the role I was going to play, I might as well fling myself into it. He had clearly once been a big man, but injury, sickness, or inactivity had wasted him, and he was not difficult for even tiny me to lift. Now propped up, he made a sound that was half sigh, half groan.

"Water?"

There was a pitcher behind him, and I poured out a cup, realizing, as I had to crack the ice on the surface, just how cold it really was in here. Shouldn't he have a fire going, hot bricks in his bed at the very least? Trying very much not to care, I lifted the cup to his lips. His own shaky hand came up to meet mine, steadying the vessel. He managed a sip or two before his head fell back, his eyes closed, breathing heavily.

"Thank you."

My mind raced. What had I stumbled onto this time? And what was I going to do about it? This was worse than finding the love letters Lord Keran had written to his squire. Worse than uncovering the plot to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Brion amba.s.sador. This man, in this condition, in this castle, was more kinds of danger than I could count.

"Milady?"

I blinked and wrenched my thoughts back to the present moment.

"I -" He waved a hand weakly in a vague direction. I shook my head, not understanding. "I need the chamber pot."

Oh, G.o.ds. I won't record the details of the utter absurdity of me, Digger the gutter rat, dressed up like a n.o.b, helping one of the dueling princes of Llyvraneth take a p.i.s.s. But I'm sure I heard Tiboran laughing at me.

I finally got His Highness lowered back into his bed, with entirely too good a view of his bandages as I was maneuvering him about. Well, my cover was that I was here to see to his wounds, so see to them I would. Fortunately or unfortunately, I had cleaned up after enough bar fights to have a pretty good idea of what I was doing. I bade him sit up so that I could unwind the old wrappings, which I did as gingerly as possible. He was short of breath and too pale. And all the while, he looked at me out of deep brown eyes that harbored their own share of secrets, as if he wished to ask me something.

"What?" I was a little short, I admit it. He was leaning heavily against me as I peeled the linen strips from his bare chest.

"What's your name?" It came out in a gasp as I stripped the last bit of cloth from his skin, and he seized my hand and squeezed until I thought my fingers might break.

"Celyn," I gasped back. "You're hurting me."

"Sorry," he mumbled, freeing my hand. "It's just - stings a little."

The beads of sweat that had sprung up on his brow in this frigid room said it hurt a little worse than that. "Sorry," I echoed. "I'll try to be gentler." Under the bandages, his body was a horror. One giant gash, obviously a sword wound, stretched from his breastbone almost to his pelvis. Sickly green-and-violet bruising spread all across his flank, and one shoulder bore the marks of an arrow - or a musket ball - that had pierced straight through. His body had once been well-muscled, but now his skin hung slack and sallow. The largest wound had been st.i.tched closed with neat, competent st.i.tches that threw a brief, insane image of Lady Lyll and her embroidery into my mind. What in the name of all that was holy had happened to this man?

And how, by Marau, did he get here?

"This wound is inflamed," I said, indicating the sword gash. "What have they been treating it with?"

"There - there's a powder, in a packet -" He tried to gesture, and I reached behind him before he could strain himself. Inside the pouch was glittery gray dust.

"Silver. Good." It wasn't a treatment we'd had much access to in the back rooms of the Mask & Barrel, but of course one spared no expense when treating a prince. According to Lyll's herbal, the metal fought poison in a wound. I sprinkled a liberal amount down the length of the wound, wishing I could do more. If he didn't die from the injury, fever would take him. It was beyond a miracle that he was conscious and alert.

"Don't look so optimistic," he gasped out when I had finished rebinding the wounds and had him laid back as gently as I could. He tried to smile. "It's not that bad."

I stared at him. "You're dying. You must know that."