Starcrossed (22 page)

But here was
real
knowledge, real medicine to treat the sick and the injured. Forbidden knowledge in Llyvraneth. If Bardolph hadn’t closed the Sarist college in Breijardarl, Llyvrins might have learned this too, along with astronomy and anatomy and the other sciences Lady Lyll had talked about.

“How do they get away with it?” I said, reading an entry showing disorders of the liver. I held my fingers to the rusty-red pictures, as if there were some power to be absorbed from the page, beyond the simple, clear meaning of the words. But these words
were
just words, plain and simple and true — and yet powerful in their own way for all that.

Lady Lyll touched my wrist with her warm hand. “We let them, Celyn,” she said, and her voice was low and fierce. “We
let
them.”

I didn’t know what to do with her fierceness, and so I just hid my head in another batch of the ointment I had fouled. Lady Lyll stepped out for a moment to fetch more water from the kitchens, and I was left alone in the stillroom for the first time. I looked around me, almost in awe of this room of hidden knowledge. I was hungry for it — to understand the secrets inside every bottle, every packet, in all those books. It was even more intoxicating than Antoch’s library. Taking advantage of Lady Lyll’s absence, I pulled another volume off the shelf.

I thought at first it was the gamekeeper’s ledger, for there was a detailed listing of game birds, along with numbers and shorthand notations I couldn’t make out, but it was in Lady Lyll’s firm, tidy script. Tucked between notes on the new construction at Bryn Shaer — tile orders and the payment of Breijard workmen — I found something familiar and out of place: a scrap of embroidery, rows of black and scarlet on white linen, with some of the stitches cut out.

I ran my fingers along the cut bits, frowning. One mangled sampler was strange. Two was suspicious. I cast my eye along the pattern, which was mostly obscured now, but counting the repeats and the images that remained.
I thought there were five repeats. No, she could only find four.
I had dozed through that conversation, but it pricked at my mind now. Was there more to this than just silk and linen?

The more I looked at the stitching, the more I felt sure of it. Hidden in those torn stitches was a message. From Lady Cardom to Lady Lyll, about what? I tried to remember. Something about Lady Cardom’s daughter, and the place she lived. Gairveyont. A castle on Llyvraneth’s southeastern coast. Four repeats, when Lady Lyll had been hoping for five. Five what?
They’re only offering their daughter because they want our help.

Help with what? I turned back to the page in the ledger book about the construction, thinking about those fortified bailey walls. Five ships? Five cannon? Five — rosebushes? I had no clue what I was looking at.

But Tiboran hadn’t marked me as a fool. I knew it was
something.
I stuffed the scrap of cloth into my bodice, just as Lady Lyll pushed open the stillroom door.

I brought the embroidery to Daul, interested to see what he’d make of it. We met in the servants’ hallway behind the Round Court, both pieces of cut-up stitchery in my hand.

“What is this?” he said, predictably.

“Isn’t that your job? ‘Let me decide what’s suspicious’?” But I recounted the conversation between Lady Lyll and Lady Cardom. “Maybe it has something to do with the new defenses.”

Daul sighed and took them. “Very well. I will look into it. Is that all?”

I bristled. “I went to a lot of work to get those. I hid in a freezing window for
an hour
. You could at least pretend to be interested.”

“Bring me something interesting, and I will.”

“Fine. But I want to be paid.” Enough of working for threats and intimidation. I wanted something
real
out of this job.

His gaze sharpened. “You have something, then?”

I gave a faint shrug.

“The journal?”

“Forget the damn journal. This is better.” For the first time, I had something I knew he wanted, and the power of that made my blood feel hot.

He rolled his head back in exasperation. “Five marks —
if
it’s something useful.”

“Ten. It is. And I’m going to need a knife.”

“I need a thief, not a mercenary. Who are you planning to use it on?” But I heard amusement in his voice.

“You.”

He did laugh then, a thin sound like the barking of foxes. Something stiff cracked in my own face, and I thought perhaps I was almost smiling.

“You’re very amusing, little mouse. Give it to me.”

I hesitated. I had to tell
somebody
— this knowledge was too big for me alone. I was crawling with it, like fleas, and I’d go mad trying not to scratch. Let Daul get bitten for once.

“There are Sarists camping in the woods behind Bryn Shaer.”

Daul’s expression shifted from surprise to . . . something else. “I don’t pay for fantasies.”

I shook my head, described the camp I’d seen. Well, camp
fire.

“A band of filthy beggars, no doubt.”

“No doubt. And they stole their purple cloaks.”

He wheeled his gaze around, leaned very close. “Outlaws. Brigands.”

“Not these guys. Their leader had a purple tattoo on his hand.”

Daul pulled himself away from me and smoothed down his doublet. “That’s worth a half-noble at most,” he said, fishing for the coin. I caught it smoothly as it sailed toward me. “Get yourself a knife from the kitchens. I trust a girl of your talents can handle that much.” He pushed past me into the Round Court. “I’ll give you the rest of your fee when you bring me the journal.”

Turning the coin over in my hand, I watched him leave. It was a neat solution to my problem; I had found Daul some real Sarists, and in chasing them down, maybe he’d turn his attention away from me for a few days. I tried not to think too much about what would happen if he caught them.

After dinner, everyone gathered in the Lesser Court for games. I played a match of chess with Eptin Cwalo while the others engaged in a lackadaisical round of riddles, a silly game that usually started out innocent and degenerated after the glasses were filled a few times. Meri excelled at it — both in guessing the answers and in posing cryptic questions.

Cwalo had taken the seat closest to the fire, and the flames leaping all about his small shiny face made him look weird and sinister. Luckily the particular brand of chess he’d chosen, a fast-moving game popular in the south, was one I knew well. I played it by raucous, reckless tavern rules, knocking over his pieces and sacrificing my own with abandon. A slow grin of delight spread across his pasty features.

“My word, Lady Celyn — you have a fearless streak about you.”

I grinned back and hooked his Courtier from the game board. “I just hate to lose.”

“When it’s a cold soup!” Meri exclaimed from across the room. “When is a pigeon not a bird?” She was smiling widely, her color high. Antoch looked on, ever the proud father. Daul sat beside them, thin legs stretched out lazily, watching everyone with a sort of bored, scorn ful gaze.

“When it’s a fowling piece,” my opponent offered in a low, smooth voice. I scrunched my face in confusion, and Cwalo explained, “There’s a large gun for hunting birds they call a ‘pigeon.’ No one knows why.”

“Master Cwalo, do you know every thing?” I turned the game piece over in my hands, a silver figurine in the shape of a nob sketching a bow.

“Perhaps not
every thing
, milady.” He reached toward me to Bargain back the lost man, brushing his hand against my sleeve. “But do you know who is exceptionally well-informed?” he said. “My son Andor.”

“Your sons again! Did you ever think I might like some of these other families, their sons? What would you say then?” I made a ridiculously demure move with my Maid — one that put her directly in sight of his newly reclaimed Courtier.

“I’d say your interest was not misplaced.” He sat back in his tall chair, eyeing me through the pyramid of his fingers.

“Indeed?” I slid my Maid down the game board. “If I were a maid in the market for a husband, do you think they’d have anything to offer me?”

“Mayhap. Who are you interested in?”

“I find Lord Cardom pleasing,” I said lightly. “What sort of assets does he have?”

“The Cardom are from Tratua. They can offer you ships.” He put the Galleon on the board, between the Maid and my Lady.

It was fun playing the nob with Cwalo. “What kind of ships?”

“What kind do you need?” Cwalo’s voice was still casual, but he spoke quietly, and his eyes had gone cool and serious. I stared at him for a moment, then hazarded a dangerous, wild guess.

“Warships?”

“That could be arranged.”

I breathed in sharply, suddenly sure we weren’t playing a game anymore.

“Anyone else catch your eye, my lady?”

What was he doing? Still, Cwalo might have even more information about our fellow guests than Marlytt. It was worth a try. “Uh — Wellyth?”

“Timber.”

City girl that I am, I faltered here. “What would I do with timber?”

“For firewood, bridges . . . siege engines. And ships.”

I glanced at Lord Antoch. Meri sat at his feet, and he had one massive hand resting softly on her head. Lady Lyll leaned close to Lord Sposa, and was speaking to him in what appeared to be serious tones.

“Sposa.”

“Lord Sposa is from Gelnir. He has grain.”
To feed your army.

“And the Nemair?” I asked. “What — what do they bring to this union?”

Cwalo picked up my Lady piece and a Flag that was not on the board, laying them side by side. “Allies. They have friends in Corlesanne. And Corlesanne has friends in Varenzia.”

I felt a tremor in my blood. First the castle’s new defenses, and now this — Cwalo had as good as told me the Nemair were preparing for war. But was it just the sensible precautions of diplomats reading the political climate? Noble families all over Llyvraneth would want to be prepared, whenever princes Wierolf and Astilan finally came to blows over their uncle’s throne. Or was Daul right, and there was something more . . . covert going on here?

A burst of laughter lifted from the other side of the room. “When is a sovereign not a noble?” That was Lord Sposa.

The riddle was about coins, but Daul leaned forward languidly, and said, “When it’s Bardolph of Hanival, of course.”

Everyone laughed, but I tensed and looked at Cwalo. He was watching me steadily.

“And what does Lord Daul bring?”

Cwalo said nothing, just took the Courtier off the game board and set it on the table. With it he put my Flag, my Regent, and my Cleric. Country, king, and church. It matched Daul’s own claims, his implications that he was a loyal anti-Sarist with friends near the Crown.

“Are you sure?”

A shrug. Almost imperceptible. What did that mean?

Cwalo continued rearranging the chess pieces. Galleon, Lady, Courtier, and Knife together on one side of the board; Regent, Cleric, Ring, and Flag on the other. I watched the pieces, confused, but he kept stacking more and more men on the Regent’s side, until it utterly overwhelmed the others. What was he telling me? Slowly he turned the Knife toward the smaller force, its own men, and drove it through the center of the line.