Part 15 (2/2)

”Again.” He raised his sword and darted back.

But Antoch turned slowly, with a dark look I'd never seen before. He took three swift paces toward Daul and caught him by the shoulder. ”Have done,” he said very softly, but the room almost shook with the warning in his voice.

Daul went rigid, gripping his weapon. I saw Marlytt stiffen, pulling slightly away from Lord Sposa. Then Antoch's face broke into a grin. ”Come, brother - enough fighting for one morning. Peace?” He held out his hand.

Daul shook him off, stuck the practice swords carelessly into their rack, and stalked off across the room. I pulled back, deciding this probably wasn't the best moment to talk to him, but he stopped at a long table and poured himself a drink. Across the room, Lord Antoch shook his head and turned back to the fire.

Very well. Daul and Meri both accounted for. Now what? I wandered more slowly down the hallway, until I found myself back in the courtyard once more. I looked up at the white tower, still occupied by its family of rooks, marching along the crenellated battlement, poking their beaks through the narrow slits. Why did that seem so strangely familiar - and significant? I watched them, tapping my fingers against my lips, until I finally tapped something loose.

I slipped back inside, straight for the stillroom, and nicked Lady Lyll's account ledger. I would have to bring it back immediately, of course - there was no way someone as efficient as Lady Lyll wouldn't notice it was missing. But tucked in the stairwell, I slowly flipped through the pages until I found the catalogue of the birds at Bryn Shaer: Pigeons: 125 Falcons: 15 Gyrfalcons: 12 and two very fine Drakes: 5 Crows: 24 by count ”I found you,” I whispered into the neatly inked pages. When is a pigeon not a bird? I knew Lyll kept precise records, but I had been to Bryn Shaer's mews, and though everyone here enjoyed poultry and falconry as much as the next n.o.b, they didn't have a hundred and twenty-five pigeons. I had seen one or two falcons, not a dozen or more. Lady Lyll had taken a careful account of something - something that would look innocent to prying eyes.

But it wasn't birds.

A fowling-piece called a pigeon, Cwalo had said. A gun.

I cornered Marlytt the next day. I had to drag her away from a tennis match between Daul and Lord Cardom (who was surprisingly good, for all his size). In the hall, she clutched at my arm, looking anxious.

”Digger, please be careful. Someone is bound to notice.”

”Did you tell me Eptin Cwalo was an arms merchant?”

She just looked at me. ”I suppose - why?”

I paced down the hall. Marlytt didn't need to be involved in this, but she was still my best source of information. ”But you said he was from Yeris Volbann, didn't you? That's west of the Carskadons.”

”Digger, you're talking nonsense.”

”Am I? Cwalo came here with you and Daul - from Breijardarl. That's east. What was he doing over there?”

She gave her dainty shrug. ”Exactly what he said he was doing - buying fruit and wine? I think you'd be glad of that too, that he and Lyll so thoughtfully stocked the larders before we were all snowed in here.”

I let her go. The Nemair had been sending s.h.i.+pments over the mountains for months before we arrived, and big things too: furniture, cloth, casks of ale, tapestries, all the fine wood and stone used to build the Lodge. The disa.s.sembled crates were stacked in the older part of the castle, but it would hardly be a difficult matter for a man as shrewd as Eptin Cwalo to label something ”pears,” when what was really inside was - gyrfalcons. It made too much sense; what good were new artillery walls without new artillery? What if Cwalo wasn't just a wine merchant desperate for daughters-in-law? Cardom, s.h.i.+ps. Wellyth, timber. Sposa, grain. In his account of what the a.s.sembled families had to offer the Nemair, he'd left one out: Cwalo, guns.

It was like having an itch under my corset - it was going to niggle away at me until I scratched it. Daul was going to niggle at me. With a whistle and a wave to the rooks who'd given me the idea, I set off to find Bryn Shaer's missing birds.

My search took me back to the old part of the castle and its raised battlements. I wanted another look at the walls - not that I'd know what I was looking at. Maybe I could persuade Eptin Cwalo to give me another tour. Marau's b.a.l.l.s. A stair inside the white tower wound up to a wide walkway overlooking the whole castle. Arrow loops spiraled up alongside it, making a series of tiny windows in all directions. I remembered Antoch miming a firearm on the battlement. Would these tiny slits be useful for the new artillery, or were we too far away from anything to get good range?

And then I banged my head softly against the wall for even having such a thought.

I pushed my way through a short arched door onto a raised walkway ringing the tower. Wind whipped at my head. I could see all of Bryn Shaer's lands, down to the dip of the Breijarda Velde. Men and dogs were still working at clearing the snow, and from up here, they looked tiny and ineffectual. They probably looked tiny and ineffectual down there too. Something in the snowy distance closer to the castle caught my eye - a lone figure on a white horse, bundled in a red coat, streaming across the white fields toward the trees. Oh, Meri, I thought. We need to teach you a thing or two about stealth.

And then I remembered she had eluded me already, and kept her lone morning jaunts a secret to everyone except perhaps the groom. Maybe she wasn't doing too badly on her own after all.

I pulled my coat closer and tried to recall what Cwalo and Antoch had told me about defending Bryn Shaer. The way they had talked about artillery and artillery walls, it had sounded more hypothetical than real, but there were five main towers - each corner of the outer bailey, the white tower I stood upon, and a square gatehouse perched right above the sheer drop Cwalo had so enthusiastically pointed out to me. Five towers, five drakes. Even I knew you'd need a big gun to defend a tower. Like a cannon.

So where were they?

Behind me, I heard the door being shoved open. Startled, I spun, and Daul stepped out onto the ledge with me.

”What are you doing here?” I glanced past him; the curve of the tower partially blocked his view of Meri, moving with excruciating delay toward the fringe of trees. I made a mad decision and headed toward him.

”Looking for Sarists?” he said, a note of amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice.

”Of course I am,” I snapped. ”Don't you know they've added snow and crow droppings to the Inquisition's Catalogue of Transgression?” I made to push past him, but his arm came up and blocked my path.

”Not so fast. Any more entertaining lies to sell me this morning?”

”What?”

”Sarists in the woods,” he said, his voice a low, dangerous slip of sound. ”Very diverting. You truly are Tiboran's own child. To think I very nearly believed you.”

”I wasn't -” I stopped myself just in time. ”You didn't find them.”

” 'You didn't find them,' ” he echoed. ”You're fortunate I enjoy riding out into the wilderness chasing the fantasies of little girls, but I would advise you to adhere more closely to the truth than you're probably accustomed to, if you don't want me to dissolve our little partners.h.i.+p.”

”Good! I wish you would.”

Daul leaned in close enough that I could smell his clove-scented breath. ”I think you misunderstand me. If you stop working for me, little mouse, you'll never work for anyone again.” The icy wind shrieked around the tower. ”Just remember how many sheer drops there are in these mountains, and how very much snow.”

I pulled back. ”I'm tired of your threats,” I said, but I sounded unconvincing.

He held my arm and squeezed. ”Show me some good work, then, and perhaps I won't feel so compelled to make them.”

Below us, Meri had finally reached the woods. Smoothly she dismounted and tethered her horse to a tree. And then just stood there, stroking its nose.

”Why are you doing this? Going after the Nemair?”

His gaze went straight over my head, out into some shadowy distance. ”Because someone has to. You know that too - I've seen the way you look at them. What is it you called them - n.o.bs? Men like Antoch Nemair think they can get away with anything, and it has to stop. He'll find out soon enough that lands and a t.i.tle won't protect him from the G.o.ddess's justice.”

”I don't understand.”

His gaze fell on me, clear and sharp as ever. ”You don't need to understand. You need only to obey. Go along now; I believe you have a report due.”

I wasn't budging, not until Meri disappeared into those dark trees. ”Report of what?” I asked wildly. ”I haven't found anything else!” Just the hints from Cwalo and Lady Lyll's weird notations, which, without evidence, added up to exactly nothing. Oh, yes, and the little matter of magical Merista Nemair and the wizards in the woods.

A figure in violet, with a fair pale head, stepped out of the trees and opened his arms to Meri. Stagne. I had to keep Daul occupied until they turned back into the forest.

”What's in that journal you want so badly? Don't you have enough evidence yet to send your Greenmen friends?”

Daul's expression darkened. ”No. The journal is . . . a personal interest.”

”A personal interest?” I repeated. Mainly because Meri and Stagne were still lingering by Meri's horse, stroking and patting it. Sweet Tiboran - was I going to have to kiss the man? ”I charge extra for personal interest.”

<script>