StarCrossed. Part 21

She was actually pacing in front of her tall frosty windows. "Reynart said not to. They've gone deeper into the forest for some reason, and they're not camping in there anymore."

That was strange, but Meri didn't have an explanation for it. Was there something in those tunnels that Reynart and his men didn't want Meri to see? The bodies, perhaps? That didn't make sense.

"I have an idea," I said - before any such idea was even half formed. "Let's find out."

Meri looked at me blankly. "Find what out?"

I grinned up at her. "That's what I want to know."

She was a little harder to coax into an adventure than I'd expected, and we ran into an obstacle on the way: Berdal, outside in the snowy courtyard, mounting up on a tall brown horse. He was bundled heavily into his coat and mantle, a hat pulled low to protect his face. He lifted a hand in greeting.

"Morning, Lady Merista, Celyn. Haven't seen you much about these days."

I pulled my coat closer. "It's too cold out here. I have a soft post, inside."

Berdal grinned. I'd known boys like him all my life - common, plain-speaking lads who didn't cloak themselves in courtly flattery. Or conspiracy. I missed them.

"You can keep that," he said. "I'll take the fresh air out here any day." The horse made its own commentary just then and I gave Berdal a look. With a laugh, he said, "It still smells better in the barns, if you ask me."

Meri giggled. "I think so too."

I glanced at the horse and the heavy saddle packs. "Are you leaving?"

"It looks like we're finally getting a string of enough good weather to go on a mail-and-supply run down to the inn. I'll be back in about a week. Want me to carry a letter for you? I can wait." He smiled at me, wide and friendly, but at the word mail, my stomach clenched.

"Who's sending letters?" I tried to sound curious and casual.

He flipped the saddlebag open and pulled out a packet of papers. I edged nearer, trying to see. "Lady Nemair, that Lord Wellyth, and Sorja from the kitchens. Lady Merista, are you sure you don't have one to add? Maybe to that Decath cousin of yours?"

Not Daul. I restrained my relief. "I thought I heard Lord Daul mention a letter to - friends, in the city," I said. "Did he get that to you?"

"Nay, I've not seen Lord Daul," Berdal said. "Maybe I should wait -"

"Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't like to delay you," I said hastily. But I was confused. "Is - is this the first time mail's gone out, since the avalanche?"

"Aye."

"And there's no other way a message could have gotten out, before now?"

Meri was looking at me strangely. "Celyn, what are you talking about?"

I glanced at her. "Nothing," I said firmly, but my thoughts were astir. Why hadn't Daul sent his report? Did he have another way to get messages in and out of Bryn Shaer? "Let us know when you get back," I said to Berdal. "We can hand the letters around, so you won't have to breathe the foul air in the Lodge."

Berdal grinned again. "Deal." He swung up onto the horse and, clicking at it, turned and rode out through the snow.

We took the outside entrance Meri had shown me before, the one that led from the covered pentice down beneath the Lodge. Today we'd brought a conventional lamp and descended the narrow steps carefully.

"What are we looking for?" Meri asked. She was clutching my arm, which made it harder to maneuver in the dark, even with the light bouncing all over the low, arched walls.

"Show me the route you take to meet them."

She led me back through the freezing tunnels, and I shone the light into every corner and alcove. After an hour or so, we still hadn't seen anything suspicious - but I had to admit dragging Meri through dark tunnels wasn't a terrible way to spend a morning.

"How did you get that wine?" Meri asked abruptly. "That first night?"

"What?" We'd paused by a narrow gap in the stone, and I could see straight down the tunnel . . . into the back of the Lodge wine cellar. Well, why not? Cheaper to use the tunnels that had been here for centuries than dig your own. "I stole Yselle's keys." I was about to move on when the bobbing light flashed on something just beyond the gap - an empty wooden crate, stamped with Eptin Cwalo's insigne. I stepped toward it.

"Oh, I know what's back there," Meri said. "I saw the crates when Mother and Master Cwalo unloaded them. Loads of wine, and I think the other crate was pears."

Wine and pears. I'd seen the falconry inventory in Lady Lyll's account book, and something had to account for the entries recorded there. Cwalo's cargo was the missing piece that made it all make sense - the ledger, the mangled embroidery, the armies marching across the model landscape that Daul rearranged again and again. Those green toy soldiers weren't ma.s.sing in the sculpted foothills because of wine and pears.

"Meri, wait here." Forgetting I was walking off with our only light, I squeezed through the gap until I stood behind the storage racks, the lamp casting a wan glow into the empty s.p.a.ce beyond the last shelves. My little mouse friend was nowhere to be seen - but there in the deepest shadows was something I'd missed, my first time around.

Another door.

I was starting to think that Bryn Shaer might actually have too many secret pa.s.sages.

One of the shelves had been dragged over from another part of the room to hide the door; black smudges on the stone wall opposite showed me where it had formerly stood, and lines in the dust on the floor gave up its path across the room.

"Celyn?" Meri's wavering voice floated out of the darkness.

"Hold on," I said. I drew closer and felt my way around the shelf. It had been cleverly positioned to look like it was flush against the wall, but there was plenty of room for me to wriggle behind and reach the latch.

It was locked, of course. And not one of the flimsy Bryn Shaer locks that fell open if you shook them hard enough. This was a serious, heavy iron padlock. I had to rest the lamp on the shelf to work it with my picks, but three tries in, I had it. The tumblers fell into place, and the latch clicked open. I gave the door a gentle push, and it swung inward easily.

I lifted the lamp and stepped inside - and shone the light on something I was never meant to see. "Sweet Tiboran's breath," I swore, and clutched the light so hard its bra.s.s handle bit into my fingers. I didn't want to drop it - not in here.

Barrels - no bigger than small ale casks - stood stacked all around the room; sixty, a hundred, maybe more. They were end-up, not sideways, as you'd store wine or beer, with a crest in Vareni stamped on each one. I crept in, lifting my light as high as I could. Behind the bar rels, tucked deep into the retreating darkness, I saw the blacker black of iron, the bulky shape of a small wagon. I sucked in my breath. A cannon. I turned, casting the glow around the room. Two more cannons. Four. A row of matchlock muskets, mustered up against the raw stones - polished and ready to be hefted and fired. There were dozens, scores . . . I lost count. This wasn't some forgotten artillery, tucked away for storage and abandoned years before. These guns were modern, new, and ready. Waiting.

And they were hidden. With barrels and barrels and barrels of gunpowder.

"Celyn!"

Meri surprised me and nearly knocked the lamp out of my hand. I gave a little shriek and fumbled to hold my grip. She pushed past me into the storeroom.

"Celyn, what is this?" Meri turned slowly, taking in the scene. "What does it mean?"

"You saw your mother unpack those crates? Are you sure?"

"Well, not unpack them. What's going on?"

And that was the point at which even Tiboran apparently ran out of lies. I just couldn't think of a single thing to say to Merista Nemair that explained away the armaments hidden beneath her parents' castle. Well-fortified castles were proud of their armies and fortifications and their weapons stores. They didn't tuck them underground, behind locked doors concealed by heavy furniture.

"We're not supposed to have weapons," she said slowly.

Meri wasn't stupid. No matter what I'd tried to tell myself. This was the girl who'd talked us past the Greenmen in Gerse, who'd been teaching herself magic in secret for weeks, who'd ingratiated herself with a band of outlaw wizards, who'd gotten a Sarist tattoo and possibly even a Sarist lover. Who'd figured out that I had some kind of magic.

Who'd saved my life.

The girl who'd told me it was her duty to be ready when war came. Like her parents, the war heroes. I turned to her.

"I think your mother is planning another rebellion."

"With Eptin Cwalo?"

"With everyone here." Briefly I sketched out the hints from Cwalo, the Kalorjn connection all the guests shared, the coded embroidery. I left out Daul, the prince, the Traitor of Kalorjn . . . and my part in all of this. Meri listened thoughtfully, nodding, and interrupted me while I described Lady Cardom's st.i.tchery.

"Four, not five? Gairveyont has five de pen dent houses," she said. "They were all loyal in the war, but the smallest, Bryn Gairve, borders on Kalorjn. Maybe Lady Cardom's daughter couldn't convince all the houses to support them, if Gairveyont went to war with -" She faltered. "With us."

That was a better theory than any I'd come up with. Would Daul work that out from the sc.r.a.ps of st.i.tchery?

And then Meri said something surprising. "Do you think Master Reynart is working with her?"

"Now that," I said, turning to look at her, "is an excellent question."

Meri was somber all the rest of that day, uncharacteristically silent when I tried to talk to her about it. She just shook her head and kept saying, "I need to talk to Reynart." Not her mother - I supposed that was something.

I'd found the guns, but that only made my questions niggle at me more. I thought maybe Wierolf could help me make sense of things, so at the next opportunity, I slipped down to see him. He was getting stronger, fast, and it was starting to worry me a little. Once he was well enough to move around, what was to keep him confined to this little s.p.a.ce? The last few afternoons, I'd found him standing or pacing his rooms - first a tentative shuffle from the bed to the prayer stand and back, then the weary walk of a man whose very boredom was exhausting him, now the wound-up stride of a lion determined to slip his cage and run free again. We'd not discussed the Traitor of Kalorjn again, which was fine by me. I had enough on my mind, now that I'd found Lyll's "birds."

Today he stood in the middle of the room, shirtless, shifting his stiff body through a series of mea sured poses. The shiny pink skin near his wounds twisted as he moved, and I feared they would break open again. He reached for his shirt and fumbled into it awkwardly. His left arm was still not much good to him.

"Thank the G.o.ds, are you going to feed me?"

I had nicked a loaf of spice bread from the cooling tables in the pantry, and I laid it on the shelf behind the bed. "Your arm was high, just now," I said. "You need to keep your elbow down or you'll expose your . . . flank." I winced.

The prince gingerly fingered his side. "You think?" He eased himself down on the edge of the bed. "You know the Kaal-haia? You are full of surprises, Celyn just-a-maid."

"The what?"

"The Kaal-haia, a technique for self defense and hand-to-hand combat. It was developed by monks - and you don't care."

I'd never heard its n.o.b name before, but I'd learned my share of street fighting over the years. "Brothers," I said simply.

"Ah." Wierolf cupped the heel of the hot bread in his hand. "How many?"

I started. "What?"

"Brothers. How many? Older or younger?"

I clamped my mouth shut for a heartbeat. "One. Older. But there were always other . . . guys around." I was mixing my stories now. Tiboran help me untangle them later.

Wierolf nodded. "It was like that back home too. There were always cousins or wards or hostages to spar with." He seemed to trip over the word hostage. "In fact . . . you remind me of my cousin Deira. She was always kicking me in the shins when we were kids."

"Hey! I can leave you to starve, you know." But I knew who Deira was. She was the sister of Astilan, the nephew Bardolph hadn't issued a death warrant for. I watched him eat, talk of brothers and cousins making me feel inexplicably sad. Why were the families of the world so unfairly parceled out? I'd have loved a big brother like Wierolf, maybe even a little sister like Meri, but instead I'd had . . . oh, h.e.l.ls. What was the point of that line of thinking?

"Here." Abruptly - or as abruptly as his injuries would allow - the prince rose and held out his hand. "Do you know the Fifth Forms - the ones that start with the crow postures?"

Stupidly I nodded yes, and before I realized what I was agreeing to, he had pulled me to standing with his good right arm. "What are you doing?"

"I need a sparring partner. Can you see Lady Lyllace running through the Wolf-and-Boar with me?" The prince moved me into place in the center of the room. "Good. So, just stand there. You don't have to do anything." He gave a slow twist to his neck, a roll of his shoulders. "Hey, relax. Think of it like we're dancing."

I barked out an involuntary laugh. "Even better," I said, but backed up a pace and stood as still as I could.

As Wierolf slowly worked his way through the poses, clumsily trying to make his reluctant limbs obey him, it was all I could do to keep my mouth shut and not offer commentary. Shoulders down. Turn your hips out for that kick - you'll get better reach. But he knew all that; he just couldn't make his injured body bend to his will.

Yet. I saw determination in his face - in the set of his jaw, the evenness of his gaze, the steady rhythm of his breathing as he moved through the forms, drilling the moves over and over. There was no doubt that this prince of the realm would make himself heal, pushing through the pain and weakness until he had control again. And once he had conquered his own body, he could turn his will to other goals.

He tracked closer to me, swinging an arm toward my ear, darting a punch at my eyes. I blinked, and Wierolf grinned. His weak left arm was slow to respond, and flew awkwardly, but I could see him learning, adjusting to its limits. As I watched, something flashed to my left, just at the edge of my vision.

"Was your brother at the Celystra with you?"

I struck out, whapping his fist away from my jaw and seizing his other wrist, twisting it upward so he stumbled to his knees.

We hung there a moment, the prince gazing up at me, bemused and breathless, me frozen in place, unable to move from the shock of striking His Royal Highness.

A grin spread across Wierolf's sweaty face. He pulled gently on his arm, and after a moment, I let him go. "Nice. I think, Celyn just-a-maid, there's a little more to you than you're letting on. What other secrets are you hiding? Maybe a knife in that basket of yours?"

"That's not funny!" I was tired of pretense, of n.o.body being what they said or appeared, and of trying to keep everyone's lies straight. "And what about your secrets, Your Highness?"

To his credit, he barely reacted - just watched my face for a heartbeat, gave the shadow of a nod, and backed off a few paces. "How long have you known?" he asked, reaching for a towel.

"Since that first night."

"How did you know? We haven't met before, have we?"

I managed not to laugh at that. Instead I opened my fist to reveal the ring with the royal crest I'd palmed when he struck at me.

He did react to that - his dark eyes grew wide and he glanced hastily at his naked hand. "How did you -"

"It slipped off when I blocked your blow." Well, there was technical truth in that. I handed it back. He gave it a strange look, as if expecting it to speak to him, before sliding it back onto his thumb.

"Just who or what are you, Celyn of Bryn Shaer? One of Bardolph's spies? Is he training little girls as a.s.sa.s.sins to kill me in my sleep now?"

"It's a little late for that, I think."

His gaze shot to my face. "Is that what you were doing, then, hovering over my bed that first night? Plotting a new and stealthy way to murder a prince? Bardolph making sure they finished the job?"

The thing was, I could have been - and both of us knew it. But I shook my head. "I was trying to figure out how not to get involved."

It was Wierolf's turn to laugh. "Too late for that," he echoed, but his voice was bitter. He finished mopping his face with the towel, and dropped it in a heap next to the washbowl. "Do they know you've been coming here?"

I shook my head.

"Then you haven't been spying on me?"

I flushed guiltily. Brilliant. If there was one time for Tiboran to desert me . . .

"I see."