Shadow Over Kiriath (25 page)
Was today someone’s idea of ensuring his wager won?
She got a good idea of the answer to that question shortly after she returned to the palace, when Lady Leona and her friends waylaid her at the foot of the west-wing staircase.
“Back from your trip to Graymeer’s, I see,” Leona said with a wicked smile. “I hope you weren’t attacked by any more sea gulls!”
“I wasn’t. But how did you know I went to Graymeer’s, Lady Leona? Or that I was attacked by sea gulls at all?”
And all her ladies tittered in their obnoxious we-know-something-youdon’t manner.
“Well, those big loops of your hair pulled up from your braid are something of a giveaway,” Leona answered with a nasty smile. “Besides that, the king’s men gave us a full report.”
A full report, did they?
Maddie sighed. Even when she tried to be discreet it didn’t work. Why couldn’t people mind their own business?
“Knocked you straight into the pit they’d dug, the men say, though you don’t appear to be injured. Except for your hair, of course.”
Leona’s ladies tittered again and exchanged knowing glances.
“I wasn’t injured, my lady.”
“I guess you have the king to thank for that, eh? Or perhaps your own quick thinking.” Leona smiled prettily while her eyes remained hard and cold. She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “You don’t really think any of us believe for one moment it was an
accident,
do you? Falling right into his arms? Please, Madeleine, what do you take us for?”
A flock of circling, squawking sea gulls, but with less brains?
“Besides, were any of us to find ourselves in a similar situation, I can assure you we’d have done exactly the same thing. I just wish you’d be a little more friendly and share with the rest of us poor deprived ladies what it felt like.”
Maddie stared at her blankly, silenced as much by her shock at Leona’s blunt suggestion as she was by the flood of her own memories. And then, by the heat that rose in her face.
“Oh, look,” said Lady Amelia, “she’s blushing!”
“I don’t know, Madeleine,” Leona said with another wicked smile. “You’re going to have to cover yourself better than this. What is your poor sister going to say?”
Maddie pressed her lips together, decided she’d had quite enough of this, and started past them.
Leona said, “Word came this morning that she’s just crossed over the Rhivaald at Foxton Bluff. Should arrive within the week, they’re saying.”
Madeleine refused to stop moving, refused to give them any more material for their fun. If Leona detested her, Maddie took comfort in observing that the feeling was mutual.
“Just thought you’d like to know, dear. . . .” Leona purred.
“I’m told that toast and tea are good for morning ailments. . . .” Lady Melissa called after her.
Maddie left the tittering behind and hurried along the crowded hallway toward her chambers, stepping in quickly and closing the door with a great sense of relief. She walked across the empty sitting room and on into the adjoining bedchamber, where Liza was picking wilted buds off one of the flower arrangements.
Ignoring the girl, Maddie’s eye caught on her reflection in the vanity mirror. Stopping, she stared at the freckled face with dismay. No great beauty there, that was certain. Her hair all flyaway, two big loops of it bobbling off her crown, her nose and cheekbones as red as a crofter’s girl. No, like that milkmaid Leyton was always saying she should have been.
I wish I had been born a milkmaid. At least
those
cows wouldn’t talk back!
A sense of profound inadequacy swept her. She hated the way she looked. Hated that she couldn’t seem to make herself adopt the customs of the other women with regard to dress and adornment, even as she tormented herself for her differences. What was that she’d said to Abramm last fall? How you had to accept your differences and leave others to their own opinions, living in who and what Eidon had made you to be? Yet here she was, fretting again at how pathetically plain and unattractive she was. It made her thoughts about Abramm even more absurd and painful.
Especially in light of the fact that Briellen would be here in only a week or so.
She turned from the mirror with a grimace, realizing Briellen was the reason for this sudden pique of self-condemnation. For all she’d anticipated her sister’s arrival as the cure for her infatuation with Abramm, now that it was actually coming to pass, she dreaded it. Dreaded the old smothering, soulkilling sense of inferiority that was sure to overtake her. That was already overtaking her.
She left the mirror, went over to her desk, and dropped into the chair with a sigh. Then she frowned, leaned forward, and lifted the leaf of inked parchment where it lay beside her pen and inkpot. “Liza . . . did you notice the book I had out here?”
“Yes, milady. And I was sure not to disturb it, either.”
“You didn’t move it?”
“O’ course not, milady. I know better ’n that!” Her eyes flicked to the desk and widened. “It’s not there?”
“No. Who was in here today?”
Of course there had been no one save Jemson, whom Maddie summoned at once. But he knew nothing about it. Which gave Maddie a moment of doubt: he’d been the one to send her to the fortress on the pretext of Abramm not being there, after all. Maybe it wasn’t Leona who had given him the wrong information. . . .
But no, she couldn’t really believe that of the man.
A few moments of searching and recalling brought her to the realization that they had taken not only the book but the map she’d begun drawing, as well. Which said to her as strongly as anything that the book held a treasure someone did not want her to find.
She’d discovered the volume three days ago, slipped in among a row of thick tomes, completely out of the cataloguing order. It was the journal of the architect who had planned and designed one of the early additions to the palace—a volume she’d inquired after ever since she’d learned of the other missing books. If they weren’t in the University library, and they weren’t in the royal library, nor in the king’s private collection . . . then there must be another room, hidden somewhere on the grounds. Uncovering Avramm’s tapestry had made her more certain than ever there was a secret library somewhere, similarly masked. But it would take her a century to go through each inch of the palace searching for it, and even then she might miss it. The best way would be to start with the original floor plans.
Unfortunately, she’d been unable to find anything less recent than a hundred years ago. When she’d found the journal she’d been thrilled. Though it had not held actual schematics, it had offered detailed descriptions. From those, she’d begun to compile her own drawings. Now both book and drawings were gone.
“Not entirely, miss,” said Jemson as she lamented this fact to him. “There is the copy you had me make of your most recent work last night.”
“That’s right!” she cried. “Are you sure you still have it?”
He did, and delivered it over to her along with a sheaf of architectural plans. “These came from the king earlier,” he said. “The servant said you’d asked for them.”
She studied them eagerly for a few minutes, then slumped back in her chair. “These are contemporary,” she said. “I wanted older plans.” But Abramm had said he didn’t have any. She sighed in disappointment, her eyes wandering over the lines on Jemson’s copy of her drawing. After a moment she frowned and sat forward, pulling closer the top leaf of the stack Abramm had sent over. Absently she told Jemson he could go, continuing to compare, line by line, the two maps.
A few minutes later she sat back with a gasp and a cry of dismay. There did indeed appear to be a hidden room, concealed right in front of everyone’s eyes for centuries, it would seem. Unfortunately, it was also right in the middle of the royal apartments.
But how could she possibly investigate that? And how could she send word? She didn’t really trust Jemson. And anyway, though he was a Terstan, he wasn’t strong in the Light and probably wouldn’t be able to even find the illusion that cloaked the entrance, let alone walk through it.
Beyond that, there was the fact that someone didn’t want her to find it. If he knew she already had, and if the missing books were in it, what was to stop him from removing them before she could get there?
An audacious idea came to her, and at first she discounted it, laughing at herself for even considering it. But when it wouldn’t leave her alone, she began to consider it more seriously. Yes, it was bold, but its very boldness argued for its success. People saw what they expected to see. It was a principle she’d used repeatedly. Indeed, the only person she would definitely have to worry about was Abramm. He might not see past her disguises any better than the others—certainly his record was poor—but she didn’t think she could be with him and keep her wits about her. She’d have to figure out a time to do it when he wasn’t there. Sometime soon, before the book thief could guess the truth. Perhaps in the morning while the king went out to ride.
Gillard awoke to the sounds of trickling water and the distant braying of an ass. He lay in a real bed again, in a small stone-walled room. Sunlight flooded through a narrow glassed window to his left, pooling on the patterned rug in a vivid splash of scarlet against what was otherwise a tableau of grayness. He couldn’t see well through the glass, but it looked like dark, snow-patched hills rose outside against a blue sky.
He’d long since lost track of the days, recalling only that he’d been transferred from barge to carriage to barge again, then finally to a shaded wagon when they’d left the river for good. Drifting in and out of consciousness, he had noted numerous times when his bed tilted sharply as the wagon labored up some mountainous road. That, in addition to the air’s increasing coldness, indicated they were in the northernmost regions of the realm, most likely in or crossing the estates of Northille and Carnwarth.
He recalled arriving here last night, borne on a litter from the wagon through frigid darkness into the warm, smoky haven of an old keep’s great room. Cloaked men had clustered around him, blocking his view of anything save the heavy-beamed ceiling high above him, and speaking to each other as if he were not there. He would’ve reprimanded them for this lapse if he could’ve made his tongue work. Next thing he knew they were transferring him to this very bed, a broad wooden-framed affair with a down-stuffed mattress and silken sheets. Which seemed an odd thing to find in such a rough and barren chamber so far from civilization.
The tightness that constricted his chest last night had vanished along with the oppressive weakness, replaced by a deep aching in his legs and arms. He was, however, able finally to lift his hand to scratch his face—and was startled to find he’d grown a beard. He let his fingers play over the long whiskers, feeling as off-balance as if he’d suddenly been tossed from the bed. He distinctly recalled being shaved by his valet the morning he had gone out to face Abramm . . . and while it was clear he’d been captured and imprisoned for some time, it didn’t seem long enough for his whiskers to have grown this much.
His exploration continued to his hair, increasing his dismay: the long, pale locks extended halfway down his chest. Then he saw his hand and the sense of disorientation became so strong the bed seemed to spin around. His hands were large and powerful, heavy boned, thickly tendoned . . . but this thing . . . it looked hardly more than a skeleton, the fingers weirdly long, the width of the palm thinner by half than what he recalled. And with those long, curved nails, it looked almost . . . womanish.
A chill of horror spread through him, and again he felt the pressure on his chest. This couldn’t be his hand! And yet there it was at the end of his arm, its spidery fingers opening and closing as he bade them. . . . The other was just like it. And now, holding both aloft before his eyes, he saw that the arms were also shrunken—not just the depletion of skin and muscle . . . the bones were smaller, looking delicate and weak. Indeed, he was already shaking from the effort of holding them up.
“Torments take you, Abramm!” he hissed, letting them fall to his sides. “What have you done to me?”
The approach of footfalls outside preceded the door’s opening, and in stepped the same thin, shaven-headed acolyte who had attended him since shortly after his journey had begun. Shutting the door with his heel, the man carried a tray on which sat a steaming, red-glazed bowl alongside a tin cup and a crust of dark bread. He looked near middle age despite his acolyte’s robe, and his pate was several shades lighter than the skin on his weathered face, as if it had only recently lost its covering of hair. His nose was round and red, his mouth too wide for the narrow face and eyes. Seeing at once that Gillard was watching him, he broke into a smile so tight it seemed painful.
“Ah, you are awake, my prince. Splendid. Ready to eat, I trust?” He came around the bed to set the tray on the small table at Gillard’s left.
“Where am I?” Gillard growled. “Who are you? What’s happened to me?”
The man, whose stiff posture hinted of a military background, bowed. “You are at Haverall’s Watch, sir. Safe and sound. As you will remain so far as we have life to protect you.” His voice was dry, nasal, and prissy.
“Haverall’s Watch?” Gillard frowned. “That’s a Mataian place.”
“Indeed it is, sir.” His visitor stood beside the bed. “And as such it will shield you from the eyes of the evil ones. . . . Now, if you’d like to sit up, I’d be honored to assist you.” Without waiting for agreement, he lifted Gillard’s shoulder a bit to pull out the pillows and plump them up. Then he hooked his hands under the prince’s armpits and gently shifted him upward, propping him in a half sit against the pillows. It was an operation that left Gillard breathless. And sitting just halfway up made the room spin.
Meanwhile, his visitor pulled a chair from near the fire around to the side of the bed where he’d left the tray, then sat upon its front edge so straightbacked he might have had a metal rod for a spine. “Now we can put the tray in your lap,” he said, doing just that. Gillard noticed then that the man’s right thumb was stuck permanently in an extended position, unable to press toward the palm and rendering the hand virtually useless. A substantial, clean-lined scar—the kind one got from a blade—ran across the base of it into the palm.
