Part 7 (2/2)

Metal sc.r.a.ped on stone, and a heavy door creaked shut - the stillroom must have a door that led out to the kitchen gardens. A moment later, the splinter of light opened up, and Lady Lyllace stepped out. I sprang away from the door before it could crack me in the head, but that was the last of my advantage.

”Celyn! You startled me!” Lady Lyllace clapped a hand to her chest. I had never seen her so informally dressed: in just a dark kirtle, her smock sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She dumped a bundle of laundry by the fire, briskly crossed the darkened kitchen to the sink, where fresh water was pumped in from underground springs, and set about scrubbing her hands with the cake of soap. ”What in the world are you doing, wandering about at this time of night?”

”Meri - Lady Merista wanted some wine,” I said. Not one of my better cover stories, but how else would I explain the bottle in my hand? Why should I, a mere maid-in-waiting, presume to think my lady was not ent.i.tled to a bottle of wine in her own home?

Lady Lyllace glanced toward the cellar door as she dried her hands on her ap.r.o.n. ”The wine cellar is supposed to be locked,” she said, a note of mild reproach in her voice. But she sounded distracted.

”It was on the counter,” I said hastily.

She gave me a look that said she didn't believe me, but girls with lock picks clearly didn't figure into her household accounting. ”Hmm.” She held out her hand, and I found myself handing the bottle over. She glanced at the label and pursed her lips briefly. ”I'll have to have a word with Yselle about leaving valuable supplies lying about. Water it well, Celyn. Merista is younger than you, and it's late.” To my surprise, she handed the bottle back to me.

I quickly bowed my head. ”Yes, milady.”

Together we turned back toward the wing where the family was staying. As we walked, Lyllace gave me a bemused smile. ”Celyn, why do I think you were probably one of those girls who gave the Holy Daughters fits trying to keep up with your mischief?”

Surprised, I had to laugh.

CHAPTER NINE.

Late morning sun streamed through Meri's windows, making golden puddles on the polished wood floor. I stretched and gazed up at the embroidered canopy with its frolicking deer and fat rabbits. On the table beside the bed - close enough for me to put out my hand and touch it - was a pitcher of fresh cream, a plate of pears and honey, and half a loaf of steaming oat bread. Draped across my feet was a mantle of soft white fur, edged in gold; at the foot of the carved wood bedstead, an inlaid trunk, stuffed with linen smocks so fine I could see my hand through them.

And tucked into a hollow between the herb-scented mattress and the wall, three gold crowns, a dozen silver marks, and a jet ring somebody wasn't using anymore. I was going to have to find a better hiding place for those. Another time. I turned over in the bed, breathing deeply the scent of crisp white linen sheets n.o.body had ever slept in before.

I heard the sound of the curtain rings being shoved apart, and more sunlight flooded the rooms. Meri stood before me, fully dressed, her hands on her hips and cheeks pink from her early morning ride with her parents.

”Get up!” she cried gaily. ”I am to inform you that my lady mother says it's deplorable how lazy you and Phandre have gotten. We have guests arriving today, and you are both to report immediately to the courtyard to greet them.” She flung my kirtle at my head.

”Lazy!” Phandre stepped out of the little maid's room adjacent to Meri's bedroom. ”You have no idea how much work it is, trying to make a good impression on the household staff.” She yawned elaborately. ”I was up all hours last night explaining the problem with my door latch to Ludo.”

”We heard you,” I said, although it was untrue, and Meri shrieked with laughter and turned scarlet.

Phandre just looked haughtily at me, then marched over and carried away the entire tray of food.

”Beast,” I said.

”Guttersnipe,” she called back as she kicked her door shut. Meri's chambers had a bedroom with an adjacent dressing room, a sitting room, and a small, spare bedroom for her ladies-in-waiting, which Phandre had appropriated on sight. I couldn't mind that much; there were only two beds, and if I had to share with somebody, at least Meri gave off some body heat.

The thing was, I had gotten lazy, and it was deplorable. Lady Nemair's workload notwithstanding, after two weeks at Bryn Shaer, all my instincts were dulling. Having every thing provided for me was making me soft, and I loved it. I added to my little squirrel h.o.a.rd out of habit, without the thrill it should have brought me. I refused to think about what I was going to do when winter was over. That was an entire lifetime from now, and I was determined to enjoy this one as long as I could.

I unrolled the blue dress Meri had thrown at me and climbed out of bed. Even the floors at Bryn Shaer were warm; you could pad around barefoot, but why? The leather slippers they'd given me had pearls sewn around the collar. Tucked alongside my shoes in my very own clothes chest was the Decath dagger Durrel had given me. I'd been wearing it strapped to my leg, a curiosity Meri had noticed but never commented upon, but this morning I just held it up to the sunlight and looked at the bowing dog on the pommel.

”I miss him,” Meri said quietly. She'd sat on the edge of the bed; her feet almost reached the floor.

”I know,” I said, but I was thinking not of her cousin, but of another man with a knife.

”You must miss your - young man too.” When I looked sharply at her, she smiled. ”I hear you dreaming, sometimes.”

Marau's b.a.l.l.s. I didn't remember those dreams, I just woke sweating and disoriented and sick with fear.

”It must have been very romantic,” Meri pressed. ”I gather your brother didn't approve.”

For a moment I was confused, then had to choke back my laugh, imagining what my brother - Celyn's invented brother - would have made of Tegen. I put the dagger back in the trunk and dropped the lid. ”That was a different lifetime,” I said.

Out in the courtyard, we cl.u.s.tered together among the bustle of wagons and bodies pouring in. It was probably one of the last warm afternoons we would see for a while. Golden trees I had seen in the distance just days earlier had given up their leaves, and the black hills seemed to loom even closer. Lord Antoch had warned us that weather in the Carskadons can change suddenly, and although he still took hunting parties out daily to catch the last of the hillside game, we girls were cautioned never to go beyond the outer bailey alone, lest we run afoul of bandits or fall off the mountain. For now, the plea sures inside Bryn Shaer were enough for that warning not to chafe. With nothing but thin air above and endless black rolling forest below, Gerse felt as far away as the moons.

Meri stood flanked by Phandre and me, in a bronze damask coat, her black hair caught up in a gold caul. Her curtsies had become less rigid, the hand she offered to her arriving suitors trembled less. Mountain air was good for her, I thought.

And then wondered why, by the Nameless One, I even cared.

The arrivals of the hour included a merchant and his wares, and the press and swirl of people and goods made it like a n.o.b's market day. I half expected somebody to break out pipes or start hawking roasted meat on skewers. I stood behind Meri and curtsied and nodded and freed a few coins and rings here and there.

The merchant, a small, bald man in an expensive doublet, seemed well-acquainted with Lady Lyll, walking her through the heaped-up wagons he had dragged up the mountain from Breijardarl. Their laughter carried across the courtyard as Meri hung back shyly.

”That's Eptin Cwalo,” she said. ”He's only a merchant, but he's very rich, and he has six sons.”

”Six?” Phandre broke away, swis.h.i.+ng her green silk skirts like the tail of a peac.o.c.k. I shrugged and followed, curious to see what was in all the crates. Probably cheese and beer and wool - but they might have some of the candied Breijard fruit I was coming to love, which I would be more than happy to help unpack. n.o.body would see me in this crowd. I was certain of that. I was peeking beneath the canvas cover on one of the wagons when I heard Meri squeal with delight.

”Uncle Remy!” Meri craned her neck to see over the crowd. ”That's my uncle, Remy Daul - my father's foster brother. I didn't know he was coming!”

The man in question strode into the courtyard rather on the heels of everyone else, leading a tense silver horse. He was tall and lean, dressed to accentuate that fact, in a close-cut gray doublet and tight breeches. His hair was impeccably cut, fas.h.i.+onably short, and he wore a thin beard that did not quite conceal the scar twisting the side of his lip. He reminded me of a wolfhound.

”His foster brother?”

”Father lived with him as a boy, and they fought together in the war.”

I could believe it. There was a kind of coiled strength in him that reminded me of Tegen, always wound up and ready. He strode across the courtyard as if he owned it, straight to Lady Lyll, who dropped what she was doing to throw her arms around him.

”Remy! Such a surprise! Wherever have you been? We can't keep track of you.”

As a groom scurried in to remove the horse, Lord Daul cracked a slight smile. ”Here and there. Olin, recently. Very good hunting there.”

Meri was still chattering on. ”. . . in a grand house on the Briddjan coast, but he isn't there much. He's very much in demand at court as a lunarist, and -”

”Well, go see him.” I gave her a little shove, but she froze, rooted to the spot. ”What's the matter?”

”I've never met him.”

”How do you know it's him, then?”

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