Starcrossed (32 page)

“Very impressive,” I said, leading him back to the bed. His color was better, and dressed now, he didn’t look quite so frail. “You’ll be storming the castle in no time.”

This drew one of Wierolf’s rare frowns. “I don’t think so,” he said quietly.

“What did Lady Lyllace say when you talked to her?” I asked.

“Surprisingly little,” he said. “And I scared the other one when I tried to speak to her in Corles.” With a sigh, Wierolf leaned back against his cushions. “What is going on here, Celyn? This place, with its mysterious silent keepers and spare accommodations and its strange little maids who show up in the middle of the night?”

I sank down as well. “I don’t know.” I thought for a moment. Maybe the missing piece to the puzzle upstairs could help untangle this whole mystery. “Do you know anything about the Battle of Kalorjn?”

“I’ve studied it, of course. The Sarist and Royalist forces were evenly matched, and the Sarists had the advantage of terrain. By rights they should have carried the day.”

“I was thinking more about the end of the battle.”

Wierolf turned, propping himself on his elbow. “The unknown traitor? Well, that’s the great mystery, isn’t it? There are rumors, theories — but only the dead know for certain.”

“What theories?”

He shrugged. “Names, suspects — Daul, for one.”

“Daul — Remy Daul?” I blinked.

“No, Senim. The commander. There’s no evidence, of course.”

“Did anyone ever say it might have been Antoch Nemair?”

He eased back and regarded me carefully, letting out a long, low whistle. “Are you serious?”

I stared at my hands and gave a shrug.

“All right,” Wierolf said. “Let’s think about this. The Sarists were defeated because they were given false intelligence about the size and movements of the Royalist troops. Nemair had command over the Sarists’ right flank, which was supposed to protect against a charge coming at them on their seaward side. That charge never came, Nemair’s men never mobilized, so Daul’s forces faced the full brunt of the Royalist attack. By the time Nemair’s men got word, it was too late. More than twenty-five hundred rebels were killed in the battle alone. Vorstig — the Royalist general — had the surviving common foot soldiers rounded up and executed. Their commanders were arrested.”

I’d heard the rest of that story. “So . . . it
was
Nemair’s fault? If he’d attacked when he should have —”

Wierolf turned up his hands. “Who can say? Most people give the blame to the reports he and Commander Daul relied on to plan their strategy. Unfortunately no one has ever been able to determine the source of that information.”

“But how can they be sure it wasn’t just a mistake?”

“No. The Royalist attack was too specific — they knew exactly where to strike, and how hard, knowing that a third of their opponents’ forces would be distracted elsewhere. That could only have come from spies within Daul’s camp.”

I sighed. Maybe it
was
true.

The prince was watching me. “Look, I’ve never met the man, and apparently I’m not quite the judge of character I thought I was” — he gestured vaguely toward his wounds — “but every thing I’ve heard of Antoch Nemair would suggest he’s not your man.”

I was silent, turning that over and over in my mind.

“Eighteen years is a long time. Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It
does
.” I was surprised at the vehemence in my voice.

Wierolf touched my arm with a cold hand. “Why?”

“Because it does.” But Wierolf was right. Why did I even care? The Battle of Kalorjn had nothing to do with me. I sighed and tried to explain it, even to myself. “They took me in when — when I left the Celystra. They gave me a home and a post and a —” I faltered. “I just need to know.”

“Would it change anything? He’d still be the man that took you in.”

“The truth
always
changes things.”

“He might not be the same man he was, eigh teen years ago.”

I made a skeptical sound. “People don’t change that much.”

Wierolf lay back against the pillows. “What happened to becoming anyone you want if nobody knows the truth?”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Oh,” he said. “Because that’s what it sounded like to me.”

Meri was getting anxious and fussy. For the last several days, she’d been told to stay away from the Sarists’ camp. The weather had been clear, and with no new snow to obscure her tracks leading to and from their little settlement, apparently Reynart felt it too risky for everyone for them to continue to meet, until he sent word that it was safe.

“Why can’t you take the tunnels?”

She was actually
pacing
in front of her tall frosty windows. “Reynart said not to. They’ve gone deeper into the forest for some reason, and they’re not camping in there anymore.”

That was strange, but Meri didn’t have an explanation for it. Was there something in those tunnels that Reynart and his men didn’t want Meri to see? The bodies, perhaps? That didn’t make sense.

“I have an idea,” I said — before any such idea was even half formed. “Let’s find out.”

Meri looked at me blankly. “Find what out?”

I grinned up at her. “That’s what I want to know.”

She was a little harder to coax into an adventure than I’d expected, and we ran into an obstacle on the way: Berdal, outside in the snowy courtyard, mounting up on a tall brown horse. He was bundled heavily into his coat and mantle, a hat pulled low to protect his face. He lifted a hand in greeting.

“Morning, Lady Merista, Celyn. Haven’t seen you much about these days.”

I pulled my coat closer. “It’s too cold out here. I have a soft post, inside.”

Berdal grinned. I’d known boys like him all my life — common, plain-speaking lads who didn’t cloak themselves in courtly flattery. Or conspiracy. I missed them.

“You can keep that,” he said. “I’ll take the fresh air out here any day.” The horse made its own commentary just then and I gave Berdal a look. With a laugh, he said, “It still smells better in the barns, if you ask me.”

Meri giggled. “I think so too.”

I glanced at the horse and the heavy saddle packs. “Are you leaving?”

“It looks like we’re finally getting a string of enough good weather to go on a mail-and-supply run down to the inn. I’ll be back in about a week. Want me to carry a letter for you? I can wait.” He smiled at me, wide and friendly, but at the word
mail
, my stomach clenched.

“Who’s sending letters?” I tried to sound curious and casual.

He flipped the saddlebag open and pulled out a packet of papers. I edged nearer, trying to see. “Lady Nemair, that Lord Wellyth, and Sorja from the kitchens. Lady Merista, are you sure you don’t have one to add? Maybe to that Decath cousin of yours?”

Not Daul. I restrained my relief. “I thought I heard Lord Daul mention a letter to — friends, in the city,” I said. “Did he get that to you?”

“Nay, I’ve not seen Lord Daul,” Berdal said. “Maybe I should wait —”

“Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t like to delay you,” I said hastily. But I was confused. “Is — is this the first time mail’s gone out, since the avalanche?”

“Aye.”

“And there’s no other way a message could have gotten out, before now?”

Meri was looking at me strangely. “Celyn, what are you talking about?”

I glanced at her. “Nothing,” I said firmly, but my thoughts were astir. Why hadn’t Daul sent his report? Did he have another way to get messages in and out of Bryn Shaer? “Let us know when you get back,” I said to Berdal. “We can hand the letters around, so you won’t have to breathe the foul air in the Lodge.”

Berdal grinned again. “Deal.” He swung up onto the horse and, clicking at it, turned and rode out through the snow.

We took the outside entrance Meri had shown me before, the one that led from the covered pentice down beneath the Lodge. Today we’d brought a conventional lamp and descended the narrow steps carefully.

“What are we looking for?” Meri asked. She was clutching my arm, which made it harder to maneuver in the dark, even with the light bouncing all over the low, arched walls.

“Show me the route you take to meet them.”

She led me back through the freezing tunnels, and I shone the light into every corner and alcove. After an hour or so, we still hadn’t seen anything suspicious — but I had to admit dragging Meri through dark tunnels wasn’t a terrible way to spend a morning.

“How did you get that wine?” Meri asked abruptly. “That first night?”

“What?” We’d paused by a narrow gap in the stone, and I could see straight down the tunnel . . . into the back of the Lodge wine cellar. Well, why not? Cheaper to use the tunnels that had been here for centuries than dig your own. “I stole Yselle’s keys.” I was about to move on when the bobbing light flashed on something just beyond the gap — an empty wooden crate, stamped with Eptin Cwalo’s insigne. I stepped toward it.

“Oh, I know what’s back there,” Meri said. “I saw the crates when Mother and Master Cwalo unloaded them. Loads of wine, and I think the other crate was pears.”

Wine and pears. I’d seen the falconry inventory in Lady Lyll’s account book, and something had to account for the entries recorded there. Cwalo’s cargo was the missing piece that made it all make sense — the ledger, the mangled embroidery, the armies marching across the model landscape that Daul rearranged again and again. Those green toy soldiers weren’t massing in the sculpted foothills because of wine and pears.

“Meri, wait here.” Forgetting I was walking off with our only light, I squeezed through the gap until I stood behind the storage racks, the lamp casting a wan glow into the empty space beyond the last shelves. My little mouse friend was nowhere to be seen — but there in the deepest shadows was something I’d missed, my first time around.

Another door.

I was starting to think that Bryn Shaer might actually have
too many
secret passages.

One of the shelves had been dragged over from another part of the room to hide the door; black smudges on the stone wall opposite showed me where it had formerly stood, and lines in the dust on the floor gave up its path across the room.

“Celyn?” Meri’s wavering voice floated out of the darkness.

“Hold on,” I said. I drew closer and felt my way around the shelf. It had been cleverly positioned to look like it was flush against the wall, but there was plenty of room for me to wriggle behind and reach the latch.

It was locked, of course. And not one of the flimsy Bryn Shaer locks that fell open if you shook them hard enough. This was a serious, heavy iron padlock. I had to rest the lamp on the shelf to work it with my picks, but three tries in, I had it. The tumblers fell into place, and the latch clicked open. I gave the door a gentle push, and it swung inward easily.

I lifted the lamp and stepped inside — and shone the light on something I was never meant to see. “Sweet Tiboran’s breath,” I swore, and clutched the light so hard its brass handle bit into my fingers. I didn’t want to drop it — not in here.

Barrels — no bigger than small ale casks — stood stacked all around the room; sixty, a hundred, maybe more. They were end-up, not sideways, as you’d store wine or beer, with a crest in Vareni stamped on each one. I crept in, lifting my light as high as I could. Behind the bar rels, tucked deep into the retreating darkness, I saw the blacker black of iron, the bulky shape of a small wagon. I sucked in my breath. A cannon. I turned, casting the glow around the room. Two more cannons. Four. A row of matchlock muskets, mustered up against the raw stones — polished and ready to be hefted and fired. There were dozens, scores . . . I lost count. This wasn’t some forgotten artillery, tucked away for storage and abandoned years before. These guns were modern, new, and
ready.
Waiting.

And they were hidden. With barrels and barrels and
barrels
of gunpowder.

“Celyn!”

Meri surprised me and nearly knocked the lamp out of my hand. I gave a little shriek and fumbled to hold my grip. She pushed past me into the storeroom.

“Celyn, what is this?” Meri turned slowly, taking in the scene. “What does it mean?”