Meri"s mother nodded grimly.
"Milady, what about -" About Wierolf, and Daul? I stared ur gently at her, but she shook her head.
"There"s no time," she said simply. "It"s too late."
Five days, a week at the most, and the Inquisition would be at Bryn Shaer. I didn"t want to believe it, but they were riding even now. Werne and his six Confessors on their dun-brown palfreys, with their snoop ing noses and their air of authority and righ teousness, coming to comb their fingers through Meri"s things. Through Lady Cardom"s perfectly composed embroidery. Through Lord Wellyth"s sweet letters from his granddaughter. Through every inch of Bryn Shaer, prying up loose floorboards and wall panels, digging into every crevice and crack until they found all the evidence I"d helped Daul alert them to.
Coming here to find me, stinking of Sarists, and lighting up like a candle in the presence of magic. I knew they had tools - their blue jasper lodestones, charmed by specially trained priest-confessors to light up when held by someone with magic, their treated silver chains that burned the skin. It didn"t always work, but it would be enough to condemn me.
My very face alone was enough to condemn me.
And what about Meri, with her silver and her tattoo?
And Reynart, Stagne, Kespa, and all the others?
And Wierolf - would he be safe?
After the Inquisition came through Bryn Shaer, the only person left standing would be Remy Daul. They"d burn the hangings, smash the new gla.s.s windows, leave the Lodge a tower of smoke to be seen for hundreds of miles, rising above the Carskadons and telling all of Llyvraneth that we were powerless against them.
What had I thought would happen, when I agreed to help Daul?
The next days were dark ones at Bryn Shaer, everyone in a pall of defeat and dread. Lyll directed a tense masquerade, leading us through a steady progression of feasts and games and kernja-velde rehearsals as if nothing was out of the ordinary, but all of the Sarist conspirators had been alerted to the Inquisition"s arrival. Meri reported raised voices from the Lesser Court gallery more than once, but I"d lost the heart to eavesdrop with her. The promise I gave Lady Lyll, to stay away from Wierolf"s cell, only made things worse. I knew n.o.body else would tell the prince that the Inquisition was coming, but I was desperate to show Lyll that I was not some wanton gutter brat bent on pulling apart every thing she"d worked for. Besides, I was too busy stalking Daul.
Lyll had said to give Daul no sign that he"d been exposed, but it wouldn"t have mattered if we did. He strode the halls of the Lodge like he owned them, walking into the kitchens and helping himself to wine and food, ordering the servants about and rearranging the furnishings in the Round Court and Armory, which Lady Lyll always quietly put back into place again.
I found him late one afternoon in Lady Lyll"s apartments, lounging before the fire and eating an apple, his wet boots propped up on a silk damask robe thrown across a bench. I suddenly realized what Daul thought he would get out of all of this. "Ah, mouse," he said lazily, "now we shall reap the rewards of our labors."
I stalked over and yanked the robe out from under his feet. "Get out of here!"
The oily smile spread. "Our friends are on their way. The world will finally know what kind of man Antoch Nemair really is. And I know they"ll be particularly interested in hearing from you, all your fascinating discoveries about our hosts."
I felt something hot under my breastbone - and I liked it. I looked him in the eyes. "I don"t have anything to say."
Daul looked surprised. "Don"t tell me you"ve grown scruples, mouse. That won"t save them."
"Maybe not, but I might feel compelled to volunteer some other information I"ve gathered here and there."
He rose so fast he knocked the bench over. "You"re bluffing. You don"t know anything."
"I know what you are, and I know what Antoch is," I said fiercely. "And you"re wrong about every thing. Now take your hand off my arm before I break it." I didn"t wait, but shook him off and pushed past him out into the hall.
Daul was right, as usual; I wasn"t bluffing, but his crimes weren"t anything the Inquisition would care about. Still, I couldn"t just stand and wait for all of Daul"s plans to destroy us. That fire in my breast propelled me all the way out onto the east tower, where the icy air woke me out of my fog. Master Cwalo was walking the battlement, holding his hands up to the walls as if estimating mea surements. He was bundled in a long Kurkyat coat in shades of fiery orange and gold, a fluffy fur hat covering his bald head.
"Fine afternoon," he said as his words were whipped away by a brutal wind and snowflakes swirled before his face.
"Where are you from?" I snapped, and he laughed. In the distance, the Breijarda Velde was a wide white gash in the hills. For weeks the avalanche had trapped us here; now, without it, we were suddenly vulnerable. "We have to do something."
Cwalo turned and leaned against the wall, eyeing me strangely. "Not much to be done at this point," he said. "Everyone here knew the risks, and we knew what would happen if we were caught. Now, Lyllace will try to bluff, but it"s difficult to make a cannon look innocent. And if they were to find anything worse . . . well."
"And nothing happens to Daul." I was sure Lyll had confided in Master Cwalo.
"He hasn"t done anything wrong," he said.
"He tried to kill Prince Wierolf!"
". . . Not in the eyes of the law, anyway," Cwalo continued calmly. "Exposing traitors to the crown, carrying out an order to kill the prince. Everything Daul"s done has been absolutely legal. No, Celyn, the hard truth of it is, the people we care about are the criminals here."
His words hung in the windswept air. "What did you say?"
He watched me evenly. "I said we"re the criminals here."
It was like he"d slapped me, and suddenly I felt the tightness in my chest disappear, like I"d shucked off my silver or stepped out of a fog. "You"re right," I said. The people I cared about were criminals.
Well, so they were. That wasn"t anything new. And as I turned this odd idea over in my mind, something else started to stir, as well. Just a faint little niggle - but I"d learned to trust those niggles. I couldn"t get rid of all the evidence against the Nemair, but there was one thing I could do. One thing I had to do, before the whole thing came crashing down around us. Everything depends on him.
Impulsively I gave Master Cwalo a kiss that brought flames to his cheeks. "Thank you," I said, and started to run off.
"Wait - Celyn!"
I turned back.
"What are you going to do?"
Snow flew up all around me, and the moons were just winking to life in the pale afternoon sky, and the Breijarda Velde glowed with a faint dusty light. I turned my face to Tiboran and Zet and Sar and the rest and grinned. "I"m going to steal something!"
Meri was in her rooms when I got back, my plan half-formed. When I saw her, curled into the window seat with a lamp and a bit of needlework, I was seized with inspiration.
"I need your help."
She looked up expectantly. "Of course. What is it?"
"Something brave. But, Meri - it"s going to be hard."
"I"m ready."
"I"m serious. You know that the Inquisitor is riding here now, and you know what that will mean to Reynart"s men, to Stagne."
Her face was solemn, and I knew that this was something that had not gone undiscussed during their rendezvous. "Yes." She was looking at her embroidery, a cipher of a star of violet silk, intertwined with a heart, st.i.tched into the corner of a handkerchief. I touched the hem.
"For Stagne?"
She looked tearful, but she nodded. "It"s not finished," she said sadly.
"You can finish it when you see him again," I said firmly. "Here"s what I have in mind."
It was nearing midnight when I found my way back to Wierolf"s vault. Meri had gone off on her part of the mission, though she had soundly rejected one facet of the plan, no matter how I tried to convince her. The prince was barely asleep, but I struck a flint and woke the chamber into light.
"Celyn - Digger - what is it?" Wierolf fumbled for his bedclothes. I stooped and threw him the braies he"d dropped in the middle of the floor, then turned my back.
"Get dressed, Highness. It"s time for you to go."
"I don"t understand. What"s going on? I haven"t seen you since you ran off that day."
"Questions later. Will you hurry?" I put the candle on the prayer stand and shook out the bundle I"d brought with me: a coat and boots for Wierolf, in a nice, invisible dun-brown wool, fur-lined mittens, and both a linen coif and wool cap, all of it nicked from Berdal"s rooms above the stables. Nothing could hide his height, of course.
"What are we doing?"
I turned back. "You"re leaving."
He stood to tie his hosen. "You make that sound so ominous. I"m hoping you haven"t had a change of heart and decided to kill me after all."
"You"re not funny," I said impatiently. "Now move."
Infuriatingly Wierolf sank back down to the bed. The half-healed scar stood out pink and furious on his wan skin, his magic pendant a blurry blot of light on his chest. "I think I want you to explain yourself first."
"I have a plan."
"A plan? Does Lady Lyllace know?"
"No."
"And why not?"
My face was hard. "Because what she doesn"t know, she can"t give up under torture."
"What are you talking about?"
"Werne is coming."
The prince hesitated a moment, letting the words sink like stones in water. "Start over," he said.
I sketched out the situation: Meri"s kernja-velde, the arrival of the Inquisitor and his men, the incredible danger we were all in if Werne found Wierolf here. He frowned and heard me out, but when I finished, nearly breathless, he shook his head.
"I"m the prince - I have nothing to fear from the king"s Inquisitor."
"You"ve been in hiding for a reason," I reminded him.
"Yes," he said slowly, "and I"m still not entirely sure why, exactly."
"Because people are trying to kill you, remember?"
He shook his head, but fingered the scar. He said nothing - he didn"t have to. I recognized the look of someone lying to himself. "But the Inquisitor -"
"Won"t care that you"re the prince. Trust me, Highness - I have known him all my life, and he is without mercy, without inhibition. And if the Lord High Inquisitor discovers His Royal Highness, Wierolf of Hanival, in a nest of Sarist traitors -"
He hauled himself to his feet. "All the more reason I should stay, help protect them!"
"Protect? Are you crazy? You"re barely fit to stand. What kind of protecting do you think you"ll be able to do here?"
"Digger, you worry too - Aaagggh!"
My hand shot out and jabbed him under the breastbone, where the scar was still healing. The prince stumbled backward with a gasp, all the color drained from his face. "Point taken," he panted. "He really scares you, doesn"t he?"
"He should scare everybody."
Wierolf struggled into his shirt, looking like he wanted to say something more.
"Can we talk about this when you"re not in mortal danger?" I said.
"We"re in mortal danger every second of our lives," he said gravely.
"Now you sound like me."
He grinned at that, and against my will, I had to smile back. He was good at that - at looking deeply into people and knowing exactly what to say to them. It would be a good skill in a king.
If he survived that long. "Can you move a little faster, Highness? I don"t know how much time we have, and they"re waiting."
He looked up sharply from his coat laces. "Who"s waiting?"
"That"s a little hard to explain. You kind of need to see them."
A worried crease lined his forehead. "Just how planned is this plan of yours?"
Finally I got the man dressed and his few belongings packed. As Wierolf crossed the threshold before me, he gave one last glance around the room. Strange, indelible things had happened in this room the last several weeks, things that had changed both of us. I knew I wouldn"t soon forget them - and it seemed Wierolf of Hanival, prince of the realm, would not either.
We took the kennels route, though Wierolf stopped to say h.e.l.lo to the sleepy dogs, crouching down to put his fingers through the cages.
"Aren"t you a pretty beast?" he murmured as a slavering hound turned to pudding at his touch. "Those are very impressive spots -"
"Wierolf!"
He swung his head around. "Sorry." As we resumed our flight, he said, "I could hear them barking, sometimes. Before you appeared out of the shadows, sometimes it was the only way I knew there was still a real world out there."
"Yes, and if anyone hears them barking now, we"re done for. Down here." Using the path Meri had shown me, I led the prince down through the hidden entrance near the pentice, taking odd turnings through the roughest and most abandoned path I could plot out for us, avoiding the bits that ran past wine cellar and mews. On my own I could make up a lie if I were caught, but I"d be hard-pressed to explain why I was making off with the prince. As we went, I explained how the tunnels below the old castle continued through the mountain.
"Unless they"ve collapsed in the last few weeks, they go straight to the Broad Valley."
Wierolf halted. "Collapsed?" he said, a note of alarm in his voice.
I shrugged. "Don"t worry - they"ve been using them all winter. I"m sure it"s safe."
"They?"
"Your new allies."
At last we came to the cold rough stones that marked the foundations of the oldest part of Bryn Shaer, where the tunnels left the castle and became caves beneath the mountain. I fairly pushed Wierolf into the pa.s.sage. He had to duck - I"d forgotten how b.l.o.o.d.y tall he was. I scurried ahead and found a lamp and the flint that hung beside it. A second later, leaping yellow light danced with shadows on the cave walls.
"Tiboran"s breath - you weren"t kidding," Wierolf said, coming forward to take the light. I hefted his pack over my shoulder and let him wander down the path ahead of me.