Part 17 (1/2)

”Impossible. I'd be disappointing too many people.” He winced. ”Besides, I have this.” His hand fumbled for the chain around his neck, with a bronze pendant like a small coin suspended from it. He held it out with shaking fingers, and I was just about to touch it, to see the design stamped in the metal, when he said, ”It's magic.”

I curled my fingers back. ”Right.” He had to be feverish to tell a total stranger that.

”I've worn it all my life,” he said. ”My nurse gave it to me. I guess I should thank her, shouldn't I?”

”Don't be premature,” I said. ”Those wounds are serious. How long have you been here?” The bruises weren't fresh, and the wound had had time to become infected.

The prince shook his head carefully. ”If I had to guess, probably a couple of weeks.”

Frowning, I pondered this. Before the avalanche? It had to be, but who had brought him here? There hadn't been any other new arrivals since then, and this man certainly hadn't gotten here on his own.

This is not your business. That voice was a very wise warning, and if I was smart, I would heed it. I rose from the side of the bed a little too quickly, and a shadow of pain flashed across the prince's face. ”I - I have to go,” I said. ”They'll be looking for me.”

”Don't go.” The voice was a hollow thread, a weak plea from a man used to being obeyed.

”I have to. You're right - I'm not supposed to be here.” A question crossed his eyes, and I forced a little smile. ”I bribed the other girl to let me come in her place” - praying that there was another girl - ”and she'll get in trouble if they find out. Please, don't tell anyone?”

He eyed me steadily, but I could see he was flagging. ”On one condition,” he breathed.

d.a.m.n. It was never good when your betters put conditions on things. I nodded.

”You'll come back and see me again?”

”Why?” His face had taken a grayish cast I didn't like. I rummaged among the vials until I found one that smelled right. Poppy. It was a dangerous decoction for a man in his condition - like I needed the death of the prince on my hands - but I feared pain would keep him awake. I dipped my little finger in the vial and held it to his lips. He shook his head.

”Not unless you promise to come back,” he whispered, so softly I could barely hear him. His face was twisted with pain.

”Oh, all right!”

The prince parted his lips and allowed me to smear the poppy juice inside his mouth. ”Tomorrow?”

I yanked my hand back. ”Certainly not.” But I caught a glimpse of something familiar in his dark eyes - something that all too often went with fatal wounds. Fear. Who was I to try and alleviate this man's pain and fear? n.o.body, but he kept staring at me, d.a.m.n it. ”All right,” I said. ”Tomorrow. If I can get away.”

His head sank back against the bed. ”I'll be waiting.”

Oh, G.o.ds. I got out of there as fast as I could.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

I didn't sleep that night, and by the time the mountains outside were tinged pink from the rising sun, I was in a rage of panic. I'd thought I'd understood what I was piecing together about the Nemair - the cryptic embroidery, their magical daughter, Bryn Shaer's new defenses, the possible gathering of weaponry - but this shook my neat stack of secrets into a pile of rubble and made every thing else seem minor by comparison. They were hiding the missing prince, literally beneath our feet. Who else knew about him? Hardly anyone, surely, or why keep him down there in that freezing cell, instead of up in a guest room, where Lyll could tend to him properly? I'd seen Prince Wierolf's wounds; they weren't the wild random mess of cuts and bruises you'd pick up in a casual fight - even a bad one. They were made with skill and deadly intent. Everyone had heard the rumors, and I had seen the order, signed by the king, that put a price of five thousand sovereigns on his nephew's life. Clearly someone had tried to carry it out.

And I had given that order to Daul. Oh, h.e.l.ls. However the prince had come to be hidden down there, Daul was the last person who should find out about him. It didn't take much to figure out what his Greenmen friends would do with that information. As if Meri and her Sarists weren't bad enough, now I had the biggest secret in all of Llyvraneth to keep from him too.

This was getting exhausting.

I paced from the window to the bed. Meri was fast asleep, her breath a swirl of s.h.i.+mmer in the half-light. On another night, she'd have been the one awake, writing in her secret journal. I glanced back toward the window seat. Maybe I could use one secret to cover another.

Obviously the prince was worth more than the journal - more than any of the Nemair's secrets put together, for that matter - whatever it was that Daul was so interested in. Was there any chance Daul might back off and let me go if he finally got his hands on that book? Or would he keep pus.h.i.+ng me until I gave up every thing, turned over every loose stone in this castle until the secrets crawled out like beetles? Could I say, Stop, enough, I won't do this anymore? I couldn't risk it. I'd have to find a way to steadily dole out smaller secrets to him, or - I knew what the ”or” was. It wasn't just the pressure of revealing my deception to the Nemair anymore. Lady Lyll liked me. She'd be disappointed, but she might not kill me. But if Daul really had the connections he claimed - Or.

I held my fingers just above Meri's fanned-out hair and let the thick, watery air waft between them. He was not going to find this out. The Inquisition would not have Meri. Maybe there was a way to give Daul exactly what he wanted, without risk to anyone else.

While Meri slept, I pulled out the hidden journal again. I stroked my fingers over the shakily written pages. That might work to my advantage, although where I was going to find a binding to match this - I was crazy.

But I knew I could do it.

I was going to have to copy the whole d.a.m.n book.

I awoke to a crick in my neck, the white fur mantle tucked around me, and Meri gone. G.o.ds - what now? Stumbling to my feet, I almost fell over the breakfast tray. Meri - riding. Or not riding. My head was fuzzy from a night spent cramped - apparently - in the window seat. I'd done one thing right, at least: The hidden chamber under the bench was tightly shut, Meri's secrets safely tucked away inside.

I changed my smock and shook out my kirtle, did something more or less respectable with my hair, and headed off toward the stillroom. I told myself it was absolutely not to visit the prince again; I had to pretend every thing was normal, for one thing - and for another, I still hadn't satisfied my curiosity about the bird-guns. The trapdoor in the stillroom was my only clue about the tunnels; could I help it if it also happened to lead to Wierolf?

I pa.s.sed Phandre along the way, coming up the corridor in a sunny yellow gown, her hair bouncing as she walked. She gave me a significant look as we met.

”I'd call you lazy,” she said, ”but you were still dressed, so I think you were actually up all night. What were you doing, I wonder?” She twirled a packet of papers in her hand. ”Something with Lord Daul?”

”What?”

”Don't snap at me,” she said. ”People are noticing. I'd say it takes a pair to set your aim on his lords.h.i.+p's best friend. But I don't think you have it in you.”

I could have laughed, if I wasn't staring at her in astonishment. ”Me and Daul? Sure.”

Phandre shrugged. ”Well, I don't know. Maybe there's something about gutter rats he finds exotic.”

I knew better than to let her bait me. ”Have Ludo's parents given their approval yet?” I asked sweetly. ”Because I heard Lord Wellyth ask if Lyll knew any well-bred girls with no prospects. His granddaughter needs a governess.”

Her face darkened briefly. ”She wouldn't,” she said, but there was doubt in her voice. I'd struck a nerve. ”You're lying.”

I wasn't, exactly: I had seen a letter from Lord Wellyth to his daughter-in-law, proposing ”the Sethe girl” for just such a role. ”Apparently she needs to learn how to shake her tail at every thing that moves.”

But Phandre wasn't listening anymore. She twisted the papers in her hand and stalked off down the hallway, back the way she'd come.

Downstairs, the stillroom was empty, so I went next door to the kitchens, where I managed to work out from Yselle's halting Llyvrin and my nonexistent Corles that Lady Lyll was in the solar this morning. I should go and make sure of that, but if Lyll saw me, I wouldn't get away again, and I had a command to appear from someone who outranked her. I had meant to ignore it, but it was like trying to set a bowl of cream out of reach of a cat. Sooner or later she'd nick in for a taste. I'd just have another nip down, take a proper light and see if Lyll's tunnel led anywhere else, and then maybe check in on the prince on my way out.

Accessing the hidden stair was even easier by daylight, even if I did have to crawl under the rug and pull the trapdoor shut above me. As I trotted down the twisting steps, I decided the architects who had designed this castle must have been great friends to Tiboran. This time I'd helped myself to one of the stillroom candles and I s.h.i.+ned it now around the stairwell, looking for more doors or pa.s.sages that had slipped past me last night. The prince's presence here made such a thing even more likely; there had to be a route in and out of his hidden chamber that made a little more sense than crawling underneath Lady Lyll's stillroom. That hardly seemed a practical way of bringing an injured man treatments or clearing away his soiled bandages and chamber pots. Chamber pots - pox! I'd been smart enough to carry the changed bandages away, and stuff them into one of the great ovens kept burning all night in the kitchens, but that hadn't even occurred to me. Oh, this was all kinds of foolishness, and I was being stupid about it, to boot.

The little landing at the foot of the stair seemed to lead nowhere else, though I tapped all around the s.p.a.ce and inspected every crack in the wood with my candle. If there was another pa.s.sage, it was through the prince's rooms. Of course.

He was awake this time, propped against the pillows with a tray beside him on the bed. He smiled weakly when I came in. ”Hullo,” he said hoa.r.s.ely. ”I thought I'd dreamed you.”

”That would have been nice,” I said, ”but no. I'm as real as you. You are real, aren't you?”

Wincing, he maneuvered an arm out from beneath his linens. ”This certainly feels all too real.”

”I'll bet.” The hanging lamp was lit already, and I stuck the candle in a bra.s.s holder on the shelf behind the bed. I glanced around the little room but, even with twice the light, there wasn't all that much to see. Just the bed and the prayer stand and the shelf full of medicines. ”When was the last time you had something for the pain?”

He closed his eyes briefly. ”Someone was here a while ago; she gave me something. What time is it?”