StarCrossed. Part 9

"Not one of the Cwalo boys, I hope!" I tried to laugh with the others, but my wrist stung like I'd been burned, and my heart was a hot frantic flame in my chest. I couldn't believe it. I never got caught.

"I think not." He was looking straight at me, his voice low enough for only me to hear. "Take care, Lady Celyn. Beware!" That last was for the crowd, and he dismissed me, but it was all I could do to curtsy like I was supposed to and stumble back toward my seat.

The dinner was breaking up. Antoch had risen, and the others had followed, spilling down into the room and covering me with a merry, laughing crowd. I glanced across the hall, for Meri, for Marlytt - for the alcove behind the curtains where the servants slipped in and out - "Very entertaining per for mance."

I spun. Daul had me by the arm, and was steering me - with perfect decorum - to that selfsame alcove. My heart resumed its panicked flutter as I stared at him.

"Keep walking or I yell, 'Stop, thief!' Don't make a scene."

"What do you want?"

He spoke in my ear, in a low voice. "Satisfaction. You've piqued my curiosity, Lady Celyn. One does not expect a display of quite those skills among Lord Antoch's retainers."

"I don't know what you mean." Marlytt could have pulled that off, but I sounded strained and false.

"I'm sure. Sit down." He shoved me down onto a bench half hidden behind a tapestry and leaned over me. He reminded me even more of a wolfhound now, slavering jowls dripping. "Pull yourself together. People will be staring."

I fought for breath. Above us, musicians in the minstrels' gallery had struck up a merry tune, and a knot of people were sorting themselves into a dance. Daul thrust a goblet of wine into my hand as a servant drifted past with a tray. "That was a neat trick," he said conversationally. "You almost got away with it. Another man wouldn't have noticed - you're very good, as I'm sure you know."

I didn't say anything, just stared at him.

He shrugged. "Fair enough. Just know, I'm a kindred soul." He popped open the b.u.t.tons holding his tight sleeve closed. Smoothly he rolled his shirt up to the elbow, revealing a long, iron-black tattoo crudely inked deep into the dark, scarred flesh. I forced myself not to shiver. The scars told me more than the tattoo - the shiny white blots were burns from the scald, the rough skin at the wrist the "manacle's kiss." Silver, superheated until it burned off the hair and flesh, cauterized the blood. The star was a brand. He'd spent time in prison as a Sarist.

The tattoo was a footnote compared to all that - a black blade halfway up the forearm, some dungeon brotherhood, the prisoners banded together for mutual protection against other inmates, against rats, against hunger, against loneliness. Oddly enough, I found it calming.

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"Oh, I think it will. I want information."

"About me?"

"Don't be stupid. Of course not. You're going to do a little job for me."

I stared at him. "Here?"

Before I could ask anything else, the end strains of the music slowed. Daul pulled his sleeve back down, smoothly doing up the b.u.t.tons with one hand. "Come to my rooms tomorrow before the noon meal."

"I'm not coming to your rooms!" In the s.p.a.ce left by the music, I said that too loudly - surprised faces turned our way. "What do you take me for?"

"Stop, thief!" His voice was musical, light - not quite loud enough to be overheard. "And before you say they won't believe me, I saw you slip Lady Cardom's headpiece into your sleeve. So unless you mean to spend the rest of the winter in the Bryn Shaer dungeons, you will be in my chambers tomorrow, before the noon bell strikes. Do we understand each other?"

I understood, all right. Understood the way the boar understands the circle of hunters surrounding it with spears. When the music stopped for good and Daul let go my arm, I fled.

Minutes later, there was a pounding on the door to Meri's room. I had stripped out of my frothy gown and was casting through the heap of clothing she had lent me for something I could run in. It was four days back down the mountain toward Gerse - I could never make that on my own. With no woodcraft and no supplies, I wouldn't even make it to the first settlement. But I might have a chance heading east through the pa.s.s to Breijardarl, which was only a day's walk. It was still raining, but the moons were out and the path was clear, my own shoes were st.u.r.dy, and - d.a.m.n it! There was nothing here but velvet and brocade. Was I going to have to raid the stable boy's wardrobe?

"Digger!"

I glanced behind me. That wasn't Meri. The door - which I had locked, fat lot of good it did me - burst open, and Marlytt tumbled in, in all her iridescent silken glory.

"What are you doing?"

I ignored her. Meri had wool drawers - I could maybe wear those, for a while - Marlytt grabbed me. "What are you doing? You ran out of there so fast. What happened?"

"I'm getting out of here, that's what I'm doing. I was stupid to think this would work -" I pulled free of Marlytt's grip but stood, panting, at a loss.

She sank onto the bed with some considerable composure. Her eyebrows lifted; she was ready to hear the gory details.

"Do you know that - that Remy Daul?"

A slight frown, no more than a shadow on her smooth forehead. "I've heard of him. He's dangerous. I wouldn't cross him -"

"Well, he's crossed me. Says I have to work for him, or he'll expose me to the Nemair. You're the only person here who knows who I really am." I realized it was true as the words left my mouth.

She looked shocked. "Digger, I wouldn't! You know that. I am the very soul of discretion."

She might be telling the truth. She wouldn't stay in her line of work long by being indiscreet. I didn't trust her - didn't trust anyone - but I believed her. Maybe.

"You came here with him."

She shook her head. "I arrived here with him. I came here with Cwalo, from Tratua. Ask him."

"I will." I wouldn't - I was never going to see the man after tonight. I threw open another trunk and cast all its contents onto the floor, digging through the mess of small clothes and stockings. "He -" I paused, remembering something. "He said something strange about my brother."

"Celyn's brother?"

I turned to her. "I thought so, but -" Marlytt was one of only a handful of people who knew that Digger of Gerse was not simply some nameless orphan with a blank past. She knew about the convent, and . . . other things. "I don't know."

"Well, what does it mean?"

I sighed. "That Celys really does see every thing we do?"

"What?" Marlytt said.

No. It wasn't possible. It was just pure chance Daul had caught me; I'd been drinking and I was careless and I'd slipped up. "It doesn't mean anything." I found my blue wool kirtle and wrestled into it.

"What does he want with you?"

I balled up the rest of the clothes and shoved them back in their trunks. Meri must have a bag here somewhere. I ducked under the bed and found my hidey-hole. A nice little stash to get me started on my way to a whole new life. Again. I shoved the coins in my sleeve and the ring down my bodice. I opened the trunk that held the clothes and things the Nemair had given me, and found Durrel's dagger. I weighed it in my hands, then hoisted my skirt and strapped it to my leg.

"Aren't you even curious?" she pressed.

The only way I was going to find out what Daul knew and what he wanted was if I met with him. "Not a bit. I left my curiosity behind in Gerse. With Tegen. I'm getting out of here," I repeated. "Tonight. I don't care how -"

I broke off. A jangle of voices and footsteps carried down the corridor, stopping outside Meri's room. The door banged open, and a breathless, flushing Meri burst inside.

"Celyn - Marlytt?" A cloud of confusion briefly darkened her features, but she ignored the mess in her chambers, waving us toward the corridor. "Come see, it's too exciting!"

I stared at her and the a.s.sembled company in the hallway behind her, all dressed, improbably, in their cloaks and coats.

Marlytt rose. "What's going on?"

"We're all off to the east tower to see the Breijarda Velde. That thunder we heard at dinner? It wasn't. There's been an avalanche, and the pa.s.s is completely blocked!"

PART II.

DON'T GET CAUGHT

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Bryn Shaer could make a celebration out of anything, I decided, huddled in my stolen coat beside the tower wall, as the n.o.bs cl.u.s.tered excitedly at the crenellated edge, pointing through the trees at the vast white swell that had been the Breijarda Velde. And, until an hour ago, my only avenue of escape. The sleet had settled to a soft snow, pinkish in the moonslight and just now sticking to the cold wet stones.

"Well, we're stuck with each other now, it seems," said Lord Cardom, accepting a goblet of wine from Eptin Cwalo. "It'll take weeks to dig that out."

"Weeks?" I echoed, my voice a strained squeak. I turned to Lord Antoch. "But won't it melt, or something?"

"The folk of Breijardarl are no strangers to avalanche," Antoch said. "They'll have it clear as soon as they can, but they'll have to wait until the danger of further collapse has pa.s.sed. I suppose we should send somebody to help, maybe with dogs, dig a little bit from our end as well - and make sure no one was caught in it." He looked up into the snow-filled sky. "This looks like it's shaping up to be a h.e.l.l of a snowfall, though. Cardom, I think you're right. Could be weeks."

I just stared at them and pulled my coat closer, painfully aware just how inadequate it was. If the lot of them weren't distracted by the excitement, they'd have noticed how strange I was acting. The snow drifted steadily downward, like a soft, white nightmare, as the n.o.bs around me laughed and chattered like a flock of nattering crows.

I spent the night arguing my options with myself, but come morning finally admitted there were none. It wasn't just the avalanche - this freak impediment flung into my path by G.o.ds who clearly hated me - but the steady fall of snow on top of it as well. It had drifted up against the castle walls during the night, smothering the courtyard, swallowing the lower stories, pinning the larder and b.u.t.tery doors shut. Out in the world, a vast white blanket stretched from the bailey wall into the forest beyond. Even the tracks of the messengers and their dogs disappeared again within the hour.

"Don't do anything stupid," Marlytt had said the previous night, as we stood atop the tower. "I know what you're thinking. You'd freeze to death by morning, and your body wouldn't be found until spring. Is that what you want?"

And I'd just looked down into the white depths, weighing death by snow against whatever Daul had planned for me.

Most mornings I would have been entrenched in Lady Lyll's plans for my day - grinding medicines in the stillroom, or marking hem lines for Meri's kernja-velde gowns - as her ladyship marshaled the troops to organize the coming birthday feast. The Dead of Winter was fast approaching, a mere six weeks away now, and prep ara tions were mounting, from the planned menu and its stockpiled exotic foodstuffs (Talancan spices and cones of sugar), to the continuing construction work on the castle (a new tile floor to the Lesser Court), to the invitations being dispatched to ever-more esteemed guests - including, I had just learned, His Majesty.

"We don't expect him to come, of course," Lady Lyll had explained. "He hasn't left Hanivard Palace in years. But an invitation is expected, and who knows? He might send a representative. Maybe even Queen Lieste!"

I hadn't been able to tell if that news excited Meri, or frightened her.

Today, however, with the pa.s.s closed and snow piling up along the longer route south toward Gerse, Lady Lyll and the serving staff were distracted, scrambling to check that the supplies would hold out until the pa.s.s opened up again, sending snowshoed messengers with shovels, axes, and medicines down through the drifts to the site of the disaster, all on top of stirring up the guests into a festival mood. I should have been helping (with the supply-checking, I mean, not with the mood), but I took a chance that one missing set of hands might go unnoticed.

I'd had a lifetime's practice making sure I wasn't noticed when I was there. It must work in reverse too.

It took some effort to find Daul's rooms; he was on the third floor, same as all the guests, but I couldn't very well go about asking people at random which door was his. Or knock at every one and wait for the right face to answer. In the end I grabbed a serving boy scuttering past with somebody's mid-morning posset.

"I have an urgent message for Lord Daul. Could you see that he gets it?" I didn't give him time to answer, but plowed on impatiently. "Oh, just show me which room." And I sailed off down the hall with him hurrying to catch up to me. Phandre would have been proud. When the lad stopped at one of the middle suites at the back of the corridor, I caught him by the arm and twisted it behind his back until he gasped. The posset sloshed out of its cup, dripping sticky pink onto the floor.

"Breathe a word of this to anyone, and I'll break your arm. Got it?"

Blinking back tears, he nodded. I let go, and he sped off down the hall.

Before I could knock, the door swung open, and Lord Daul stood in the threshold, looking me over. The scar on his lip stood out in the harsh morning light, and I could see another through the open collar of his shirt. I wondered which were from battle, and which were from prison.

Some of my fear from last night had faded, since I'd survived the night without guards hauling me out of Meri's bed and tossing me into the ancient dungeons. I cast a glance around Daul's quarters, waiting for him to say something. His room was bigger and brighter than Meri's, but more spa.r.s.ely furnished. The curtains were pulled closed around a tall bedstead, and a ridiculous fire blazed like a furnace. The heat from it hit me like a blow through the open door.

"It seems a serving girl found Lady Cardom's jewels right under her table in the Round Court this morning." No greeting, no explanation. "How fortunate that they hadn't wandered farther afield. I believe our hosts might have launched a castlewide search."

I said something rude, and he grabbed my arm and yanked me inside, slamming the door shut behind me. "How very refined you are."

I rubbed my arm. I'd have bruises where his fingers had dug into my flesh. "What do you want?"

Daul stepped back into the rooms and strode to a carved oak desk by the windows. His rooms overlooked the sculpture garden, where the nymphs and griffins were reduced to formless lumps under their white shrouds.

"Wine?" He lifted an inlaid decanter toward me, twisting the gla.s.s stopper with his other hand. He wore an onyx signet ring on his little finger, but I couldn't make out the symbol etched in the stone.

"No."

"Come now, there's no need to be rude. I'm toasting our a.s.sociation."

"I don't drink with people who threaten me," I said baldly.

"Oh, please. I had to give you some incentive. You don't strike me as a girl who's easily convinced." He poured out two goblets. The wine was white, almost clear.

"Convinced of what?" I said.

Daul glanced up. "The value of what I'm offering, of course. A chance to put your considerable skills to good use, and work for me. It seems we're in a position to help each other."

"I don't need your help."

"Oh, I think you do. You have a valuable secret to protect, and that will be much easier if someone doesn't expose you, don't you think?"

I halted, my breath tight. "I'm listening."

"Good!" His cold smile spread. "If you agree to work for me - and you will - I can arrange it so that my friends ignore your petty transgressions, and that their lordships never learn the truth about your ident.i.ty."

"Your friends?"

He looked surprised. "Oh! I thought I'd mentioned that. You know, you really do look so much like him -"

I was staring at him, tense and cold. "Like who?"