Starcrossed (31 page)

And weird little hidden bedrooms,
I thought.

These tunnels were built to the same Bryn Shaer standards every where on the property, with arched brick ceilings and a hammered-earth floor that had turned nearly to rock over the years. I wanted to scurry like a rat down every dark turning of the entire network. Here and there we passed a bit of broken brick, or a spot of ceiling that seemed to sag — and I could see the patchwork the Sarists and Meri had done, bands of magic wound like straps around the weak parts.

“How long will it stay like that?” I asked, and Meri shrugged.

“Forever, I think. We used a permanent charm.”

“You’re learning so much,” I said.

She shook her head, ducking as we crossed beneath a wide stone beam. “Oh, no. I can’t imagine ever knowing as much as Reynart or even some of the others. They’ve been studying it all their lives, and I —” She trailed off, the glow of her hands fading just slightly. “Here, we’re at the garden wall — that’s the buttress we just passed under. The kitchens are just ahead.”

Meri passed by another room, the bulky shapes within briefly illuminated by the swoop of light from her hands.

“Wait, Meri.” I had another mission in these tunnels. “Can you shine your light here?”

Meri turned back and joined me, and we stepped into the little alcove. Inside the room were two long, canvas-covered humps. They were low to the ground and the wrong shape to be cannons, but there might be muskets wrapped up in there.

“Oh,” Meri said. She added in a low, respectful whisper, “Those are the bodies of the avalanche victims.”

“What?” I stepped closer, drawn by morbid curiosity. “I want to see.”

Meri frowned, but stayed by the door and looked out into the hallway as I crept closer and pulled away the canvas covers. The bodies were pale and cold — it was freezing in here; apparently an appropriate place to store someone until you could bury him when the earth thawed out again. I knelt there with them, looking at their still forms, imagining what it must have been like to die like that, under a ton of snow.

“Who were they?” I was shivering, even wrapped in my heavy mountain coat. They did not seem to be related; one was heavy and muscular and fair, the other older, slighter, grizzled.

Meri shook her head. “No one knows. They don’t belong to Bryn Shaer, so they must have been coming up from Breijardarl. Someone there will probably claim them in the spring.”

Over their bodies I made the signs for Marau, meant to bring the crows to find them and carry their souls to the gods, although someone had done so already — their arms were laid out properly, one crossed over the chest, one pointing toward the feet. Their hands were bare, and the big one wore an onyx signet ring on the little finger of his left hand. Inscribed into the stone was an arrow. Frowning, I looked at the other man. He wore the same ring.

“Meri, come and look at this.” She approached and reluctantly shone her light on the bodies, where I pointed at the hands crossed over each man’s chest. “Lord Daul has a ring just like that,” I said, and she leaned in closer.

“What do you think it means?” she whispered.

“I wish I knew.”

I took the rings, when Meri wasn’t watching, wrestled them from the stiff cold fingers and stuck them inside my gloves. It was just one more thing that didn’t fit — that two dead men were connected somehow with Daul? Who were they?

The arrow was the symbol of Zet, goddess of royalty and the hunt. Black was the color of Marau, god of death. What did Zet plus Marau make?

More math than my poor brain could figure out.

“Maybe it has something to do with hunting,” Meri suggested as we covered the bodies and left. “A guild, or something?”

“Have you ever seen Daul go hunting?” I asked, knowing full well Daul never left the Lodge if he could help it. Probably because he hadn’t had the benefit of his father’s treatise on the subject. I choked back a half-hysterical laugh.

“Something to do with the war, maybe?” I said, but we dismissed that as well. The bigger man had been far too young to have fought with Daul and Antoch.

Well, there was only one answer: I was going to have to ask Daul himself.

Pox.

There were workmen in the Lesser Court, so that evening’s entertainments were held in the Armory. Nobody had thought to modernize this room; it was Old Bryn Shaer, every inch: rusting shields and polearms on the stained walls; a massive iron cage of a chandelier; a great model landscape of Llyvraneth, left over from the last days when people had planned wars here. A fire blazed, flanked by life-sized marble Spear-Bearers of Zet, their stone hair flowing over their bare shoulders, naked bodies cleverly concealed behind their oblong shields.

Eptin Cwalo offered to walk me through the weapons displayed on the walls, but I declined, watching Daul instead. His moon charts were spread before him, but he seemed edgy and cold tonight, reading the fates of his fellow courtiers with less than his usual humor. When he predicted that Marlytt would have a fat husband and fat ugly children, her pale face reddened and her smile grew tight.

“I’m tired of this game. Let’s have another,” she said softly, pulling her hand away.

Something in Daul’s face went very hard. He bowed to Lady Lyll and Lord Antoch, who clapped politely, then, to my dismay, he headed in my direction. I looked around desperately — but Cwalo was all the way on the other side of the room, pointing out the features of one of the fencing swords to Phandre and Lord Cardom. I turned to cross back to where the Nemair now chatted with Lord Wellyth, but Daul sidestepped me, cornering me near the map table. From across the room, I saw Phandre’s gaze sharpen.

“What do you want?” I hissed. “People are staring.”

He bent over the model landscape, tapping his fingers on its rim. On the map, Gerse was a mass of gray bricks in the south; the river Oss a painted silver ribbon stretching from the city; the Carskadon Mountains, built up with lumps of plaster, rising like the spine of some beast. Purple and green markers made of painted lead sat in the corners of the board, along with tiny matching flags.

I leaned against the wall, waiting for him to say something. But he ignored me, playing with the figures, placing flags and men across the board — purple on Tratua, western Gelnir, near Breijardarl, matching the markers to the families here at Bryn Shaer. There was something calculating and concentrated about his focus on the map, and I watched his eye draw repeatedly to the southeastern quadrant.

When Daul still didn’t say anything, I picked up one of the green figures and tossed it into the air, catching it neatly. “What’s that ring you always wear?”

He looked up sharply. “A sudden interest in me? Perhaps our little game has gone to your head.”

“Some game,” I snapped, my voice low. “But fair’s fair. I bring you information all the time. Now I want some.”

“You bring me worthless information!”

I jumped, and looked to see if anyone had noticed. But everyone else was occupied on the other side of the room, listening to Lord Antoch tell some amusing story. Almost everyone; Meri had turned toward me, brow furrowed with concern, but Marlytt’s hand on her arm turned her back to the party. Daul’s eyes were with mine, watching Antoch across the Armory. But he said, “My ring? Say it’s a token of my commitment.”

I scowled. “Commitment to what? What’s the arrow mean?”

He turned back to the table, shifting some pieces on the map board. I watched him, perplexed. Across the room, Marlytt had evidently engaged Lord Sposa in conversation with Meri, pouring wine for both of them.
She’d
know precisely how to get a man to talk. Maybe I could use my own talent to annoy Daul to crack something open. “What’s the matter? Bad news in the journal?”

For one cold, deadly moment, I thought he might actually hit me — there in front of everyone else. He gripped the edge of the map table. “Have a care for your tongue, little mouse,” he said in a tight voice. “I fear it will get you in trouble someday.”

“What did it say?” I pressed — but softly.

“Nothing. It said nothing. As I believe you mentioned, when you were so forthcoming about admitting you had read it.” Daul took up one of the violet armies and flung it into the center of the map. It skidded on the rough surface and came to a stop at the foot of the bony spine of the Carskadons. “No matter. I know the truth of things, and Antoch does as well. I will just have to find some other way to prove it. He’s the one. I know it.”

“Celyn, come back to the fire,” Meri called. My head shot around.

“In a minute,” I called back in a strained voice, then whispered to Daul. “What are you talking about?”

Daul slowly drew one of the pawns down the southern tip of Gelnir, to a low sea-bordered plain between Gelnir and Kellespau. “Antoch Nemair is the Traitor of Kalorjn.”

I stared at the armies scattered across Llyvraneth, and tried to make sense of the words Daul had just said. I heard Lord Antoch’s huge, jolly laugh, the clink of glasses raising a toast. “He can’t be,” I said.

Daul turned on me. “Do not speak of things you cannot possibly understand.”

“
That’s
what this is about? You were never after Sarists?”

Daul looked darkly into the model landscape and its multicolored armies. “Oh, trust me, I am happy with whatever evidence of disloyalty you can find, but as I mentioned, this was a personal interest.”

It was insane to be having this conversation, out in the open in front of everybody, but maybe Daul was half crazy. And me? Well, that was established.

“I thought you were after Lord Antoch because he
was
a Sarist,” I said. “But now you say he betrayed them? I don’t understand.”

“Everything points to it!” Daul’s normally mea sured voice verged on shrill. He leaned closer, speaking low and harsh. “How else is a man — an avowed Sarist, the left hand of the commander — appointed ambassador to Corlesanne, awarded a lavish mountain estate, allowed to escape the prosecution of his fellows — while the rest of us spend years in exile or prison?”

“I don’t believe it,” I said, just to fill up the dead, crushing quiet left after Daul’s words. The trouble was, maybe I did. Prizes like Bryn Shaer and a post at a foreign court weren’t things the king normally lavished on his mortal enemies. If Antoch was the traitor, if he had engineered the fall of the Sarists’ last hope of rebellion . . . that might have been a valuable favor indeed for a grateful king.

“But Lyll told me they were sent overseas for helping you get out of prison.”

Somehow Daul’s cold gaze grew even icier. “That’s the official story, is it? Don’t believe every thing they tell you, little mouse. I remember that gaol — twelve stinking years of it. Ask Antoch how long he spent there.”

Laughter drifted closer, and Lord Antoch rose from his spot near the fireplace. “Remy, Remy — leave the poor girl alone. You’ll put her off her dinner.” He crossed the room in a few easy strides and threw a huge arm around Daul, who stiffened. “Celyn, my girl, this snake of a brother of mine isn’t bothering you, is he?”

For a moment I felt dizzy. Daul couldn’t be right.

Could he?

All evening long I stole glances at Lord Antoch. Was he really a man who would send his own people to their deaths in return for a post at a foreign court and a run-down castle in the mountains? Daul was convinced, but I just didn’t know — Antoch doted on Meri, and there was nothing but love in his gaze for his wife. But that was no good mea sure of what a person might do when pressed hard, or when tempted. And I knew better than anyone not to judge somebody by his relatives.

Lord Antoch’s best friend was trying to destroy him. The prince insisted he was nobody. The wine merchant was an arms dealer. Lady Lyll was hiding
every thing
, and Meri was a wizard. There had to be
somebody
in this castle who was exactly what he seemed, with no treacherous secrets or betrayals to conceal. There
had
to be.

And what about me, sneaking around spying, working for Daul? Why could I accept such treachery from Daul — or myself — but it seemed unforgivable in a person like Lord Antoch?

I was still stewing over it all the next morning when I ducked down to check on the prince.

“Celyn just-a-maid! You’re just in time for my debut.” Wierolf was sitting on the edge of his bed — in a shirt finally, thank the gods — and he held up his hand. “Wait — stand there.” Very carefully, he pushed himself to standing, wavering only slightly. He took a few tentative steps, then lurched for me, grabbing my wrists.