Starcrossed (5 page)

The silver chains — and now I realized the bracelet she wore, as well — must be used to bind Merista’s powers. Somehow the silver worked against the magic, the way water doused a fire, keeping it suppressed and invisible. Normal people couldn’t see the haze of power given off by the magical, but that didn’t stop suspicious neighbors from pointing fingers, or Greenmen from stopping you on the street. It was safer just to keep that little spark buried deep where it could not escape. But Merista wore so much of it — I’d seen her cure Durrel’s head ache with a touch, and she’d only had to doff the bracelet to do it. How
much
power was coursing under all that silver?

Cursing myself for a softhearted fool, I poured the chain from my sleeve into my cupped hand and pooled it carefully on the floor of the boat, just behind her slippered foot.

“Lady Merista,” I whispered, trying to nudge her without actually
touching
her — I hated the way magic sparked and flared under my fingertips, even if I
felt
nothing. “Milady —”

She mumbled and shifted in her sleep, blinking awake.

“You’ve lost a necklace, I think.” I grated out the words with effort, and showed her.

“Oh.” Merista leaned down to retrieve the chain, and I saw that Durrel had woken up and was watching me again. By the gods, but those intense eyes were unsettling! Back home I’d smack him for it, but here I let my own gaze drop, wondering what he might have seen.

Eventually the rocking boat and my own rough night caught up with me, and the next thing I knew, Durrel was shaking me awake under four full moons. I jumped up, knocking his hand away. It was dark, I was stiff, and for a heartbeat I couldn’t remember where I was.

“Easy there,” Durrel said.

All my muscles tense, I glanced around, the day filling in its details in my memory. “I can’t believe I slept so long,” I said, surreptitiously examining myself. Bruised and thirsty, but I seemed to be all here — and the letters were still tucked inside my bodice. Strangely, though, I had a soft dark hat in my lap.

“You must have been exhausted.” Durrel retrieved the hat and perched it on his head. “Meri was afraid you’d burn.”

I glanced between him and Merista, who smiled faintly at me. Who were these people? This was not the behavior I’d been led to expect from nobs. But they’d saved my life, smuggled me past the Acolyte Guard, fed me, watched over me while I slept, and protected my delicate skin to boot. So far I hadn’t done too badly in their company.

“We’re almost to Favom,” Merista said, pointing downriver, to where a pale shape hulked on the left bank. Favom Court. By night, there was little to see, and my small party grew quiet as we approached Durrel’s home.

“It’s not too late to keep on sailing, old boy,” Raffin said, but Durrel shook his head.

“We need to get the girls in.” He grinned and clapped Raffin on the shoulder. “Might as well take our medicine like men, eh? Pull to the left here. The mooring’s under that big oak. Don’t look so surprised, Raff — this is the real country, boyo.”

We tumbled onto the dock in a shivering heap of wrinkled court clothes. Phandre fished a pocket mirror from somewhere — I had a sudden desperate longing for the thing, all gold and enamel, with a massive green carnelian on its back — and examined herself. She gave her mane of tawny hair a violent shake that somehow managed to make her look even
more
polished, and, bowing low, reached deep inside her bodice to arrange her bosom. I thought Raffin’s eyes would fall out of his skull.

Merista turned to me. “Here, let’s get you tidied up a bit, Celyn.” And under the bright light of the moons, she seized the laces of my bodice and undid me almost to my waist. I scrambled frantically for the let ters and managed to slip them into the lining of my sleeves before anyone noticed. She pinned up my tangled hair in her own gold fillet, brushed down my skirts, and finally pronounced me “quite seemly.”

“Dear Meri,” Phandre said. “You were born to be a lady’s maid.”

And even in the moonslight, I saw Merista’s pale face flush as she turned away from us.

Durrel glared at Phandre, and even Raffin noticed. “Oh, very nice, Phandre.”

“What?” she said. “What’d I say?”

Durrel led us through the scrabbly undergrowth between the lap ping water and the cold stone walls of the keep, into a walled paddock and the stables beyond. As he pushed the door aside, the smells of hay and horseflesh rose in the cold clear air. Durrel motioned us to wait and stepped inside.

He returned a moment later, his face grim.

“Well, they got here before us.”

“Who?” I said. Greenmen —
here
?

Durrel glanced at Raffin. “Our parents.”

Raffin swore. “Not
all
of them?”

Never having contended with parents, I had a little trouble grasping the gravity of the situation, but Merista looked close to tears, Raffin had an expression on his face I can’t begin to describe, and even Phandre was subdued. Well, for fat or lean, I had thrown my lot in with these people, and irritated parents seemed a mild alternative to what awaited me back in Gerse.

“There’s nothing for it, I’m afraid,” Durrel finally said. “The faster we get this over with, the faster it’s over with.” He ushered us all inside. Something rustled in the pungent darkness, too close to my head, and I jumped.

“Easy, Celyn,” Durrel said. “It’s just the horses.”

“Horses,” I echoed faintly. “Right.”

“What will they do to us?” Merista whimpered, but Phandre was calm.

“You don’t seem worried,” I said.

She turned slowly to gaze down her perfect nose at me. “My father died in exile.”

“Oh.” Bastard pigs, indeed.

“What are we going to tell them about Celyn?” Merista said.

“Don’t worry,” said Raffin, reviving a bit. “We’ll say she’s Phandre’s maid.”

And in the darkness, it was really impossible to tell who found
that
idea more offensive.

It was not until we had crossed the threshold that I remembered something critical: I
knew
Raffin’s father.

The recollection brought me up short, and Phandre stumbled into me and swore. I felt like swearing myself. After that long day of fling ing myself blindly between danger and opportunity, I wasn’t sure which this was. It had been a long time since I’d seen Lord Taradyce; would he recognize me? Would he
help
me? Have me seized for the thief I was and thrown into whatever served Favom as a dungeon?

I had no idea.

The jobs I’d done for Taradyce had been simple things — a councilman’s incriminating love letters, a doctored accounts book for a shipping firm — your basic fodder for blackmail, and the kind of things noblemen did to their enemies all the time. Only Taradyce made a career of spying on his
friends
as well.

The stables opened out onto wide, moonslit gardens, herby and fragrant and ridiculously tidy. Durrel marshaled us through a narrow, low-arched doorway — obviously a back way; I approved — and into a shadowed ser vice corridor.

“Easy here,” he said, one arm raised to hold us back as he glanced down the passage. From my position between Phandre and Raffin, I could hardly see anything but age-darkened stone and rumpled damask. The same sleepy quiet of the gardens, a smell of river and damp, and behind it — something cooking. If Tiboran truly loved me, we would head in that direction. Nobs might live off wine alone, but I required actual sustenance.

“We need an ally,” Durrel said, and I detected a trace of mischief in his voice. He waved us across the corridor and toward the roasting chicken. Or was that rabbit? Rabbit was rare enough in the city; most establishments were likely to serve up an alley cat and —
concentrate, Digger!
This was no moment to let my guard down.

Round a corner and under another arch, and the five of us slinked into a warm, glowing kitchen — and nearly into a wide-eyed serving maid clutching a pot of grease. Immediately Durrel had his arm around her, one soft hand clamped against her mouth. He held his other finger to his lips. The corner of her mouth lifted in a smile behind her lord’s hand. She gave us a wink and ducked out of our way. Nice. I would have found a less . . . charming way to silence her.

The stealth of our approach did not last long, however; once inside the kitchen, Merista gave a cry.

“Morva!” She flung herself headlong across the ruddy tiled floor, into the arms of a squat woman swathed head to foot in aprons and kerchiefs and veils.

The woman gathered Merista to her bosom and glared at the rest of us. “Ach, seedling, you’re all right now. You, young master — your lord father will have words about this, mark me!”

I looked around the kitchen, realizing with devastation that all the work was being done for the wrong end of the meal. The fire had been tamped down, the spit was bereft of meat, and Morva shifted Merista aside just in time to avoid a splash of water cast on the floor from a scrub bucket. I tried hard not to moan.

Merista was pouring out the woeful account of her kidnapping and torture by the roguish knavery of her cousin and his friend, when Durrel’s voice broke in. “Lady Morva, please get the girls some food. And make sure Celyn gets seconds. She missed breakfast.”

When Morva’s gaze came to me, her eyes grew shrewd, and for a moment I was sure I’d been caught out. “And what in Her holy name have you lot done to this poor girl, then? She’s a fair mess!”

“We found her like that,” Raffin put in cheerfully, and Phandre snickered.

“You! Do not speak in this kitchen if you don’t wish to know what I think of Taradyce manners. Why, you’ll have the —”

Before Morva could finish, Raffin swooped down and kissed her squarely on the lips. Her already scarlet face turned purple, but she grinned. “Get on, then. Lord Durrel, what would your lady mother say, I wonder?”

“I think she’d ask you to please get Phandre, Celyn, and Lady Merista something to eat,” Durrel said patiently.

The kitchen woman fed us, tut-tutting all the while over the state of our clothes, our hair, our appetites, and my size. “A mousy thing like you, even your clothes don’t fit proper. We’ll find you something else, pet. Lord Ragn don’t let his guests go hungry or cold.”

I ate in silence, taking in the noisy room as servants bustled about. The food was simple and good, obviously the servants’ portion, but I would have eaten cat stew and liked it at that point. They only gave me a clay bowl and a hunk of bread to mop up the broth; hadn’t these people heard of spoons? They hadn’t heard of much that was grand or valuable, apparently. In all that great room, aside from Merista’s silver and Raffin’s amber ring — which I
would
have, by the end of this — the only things of value appeared to be the roasting spit (too big to carry), the stone statue of Mend-kaal on the hearth (impossible to sell these days), and a couple of books on cookery. Not even worth it.

As I absorbed my surroundings and my meal, Morva filled the others in on just how much trouble they were in. “You’ve done it now, then, Master. Don’t you know they’ve been at hounds and pitchforks looking for you both? The night of your own betrothal, and the very day Lady Meri’s parents sail back to Llyvraneth?”

“What?” Merista pulled away from the woman.

The cook held up her left hand and kissed her knuckles. “You didn’t hear it from me, but word came this morning. They’ve landed in Tratua and will be sailing home this week. You were
supposed
to meet them in Gerse, young lady, so that the entire lot of you could be presented before the king. His Majesty won’t be pleased. No, not at all.”

“But they never wrote,” Merista said in a shaky voice. “What happened?”

“Ah, pet, I’m sure they meant to, if it weren’t so sudden. Seems His Majesty’s decided Llyvraneth no longer needs an emissary in Corlesanne. Or Corlesanne’s decided they don’t want Llyvrins in their court. Either way, it amounts to the same thing, love: Your lord parents are on their way home even now.”

Even I knew that wasn’t a good sign. A king recalling his eyes and ears in a foreign court — particularly one that had shown itself sympathetic to Sarists? It could be a prelude to war. The Corles letters in my sleeve didn’t seem so cold and dead anymore.

“That’s just like Bardolph,” Durrel said grimly. “Pick a fight overseas, and ignore the trouble brewing on your own doorstep.”