StarCrossed

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  She hesitated, but apparently decided I couldn’t do any more harm either. I studied the strange notations in Daul’s coded message, and for a moment every thing went absolutely still and quiet. “I know this,” I whispered, dipping into my bodice. I pulled out Chavel’s papers — the letter, the death warrant, and the third page that we hadn’t been able to identify. Wordlessly, I passed the lot to Lady Lyll. She took them, her breath growing quicker as she read.

  “Where did you come by these?”

  I looked at her. “Milady,” I said, “I’m not really a jeweler’s daughter.”

  She glanced up. “I was beginning to wonder.”

  Slowly I explained about the job at Chavel’s, about the Greenmen waiting for us. About Tegen. Everything I had worked for Daul to keep hidden. As I spoke, Lyll took the packet of letters to her desk and lit a candle. Exactly as I had seen Daul do, weeks ago, she held the papers up, one by one, to the flame. Chavel had not had time to seal his letters with wax — but on the lip of each page appeared a faint circle of ink, showing an arrangement of four moons.

  Lyll put a hand on my arm. “Your friend died recovering a Celyst code key,” she said. “You have no idea how important this is. This will change every thing for us.”

  I watched the hidden ink seals darken over the flame. “Secretary Chavel?”

  “A Sarist sympathizer,” she said. “He was taking enormous risks, sending sensitive information out of Hanivard Palace. I’m sorry to say we heard that he had been arrested, but perhaps the fact that you removed this evidence will spare his life.”

  “What is that symbol?”

  Lyll reached inside her desk and found another letter. As she held it over the flame, I saw the same symbol appear — no, not quite the same. A circle with three moons. She layered one paper over the other, so the seals overlapped, and held them before the light. Together, they made a circle with seven moons showing the seven points of a star.

  A knock struck her door, making us both jump. Lyll extinguished the flame and tucked the papers into the heavy folds of her sleeves. “Get that, will you?” she said, and I swung the door open to admit Eptin Cwalo.

  “Excellent,” Lyll said. “Cwalo, come. I have news.”

  “I have as well, your ladyship,” he said. “Your lord husband has returned.”

  I shot a panicked look at Lyll, but her practiced calm never wavered. “Good,” she said. “Did our friends come?”

  Cwalo stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. “Unknown, milady. But apparently his lordship brings further news: Workmen have succeeded in clearing the snow from the Breijarda Velde. The pass is open.”

  “More good news,” Lyll said brightly. “Lady Celyn —” She paused, and a cloud of something passed over her face, but I couldn’t tell what it was. She slipped the packet of letters from her sleeves and turned them over in her hands. “My dear,” she said, “may I hold on to these for a bit?”

  I reached out to touch the softened edges, the dried spots of Tegen’s blood. Love letters, Phandre had called them, and I’d been wearing them pressed against my heart as if that were true. “Keep them,” I said. “I’ve been trying to deliver them for two months.”

  Lyll squeezed my arm. “Go and see what tidings my husband brings,” she said.

  I stiffened. Daul was out there. “But what about —”

  “Do nothing,” she said firmly. “We must give no cause for alarm, do you understand me?”

  I nodded, not at all confident I was that good a liar. But Lyll held me steady in her gaze. “All will be well, Celyn. Have faith.” She gave me a nudge toward the door, and I left, wanting desperately to believe her.

  Men and horses bustled in the paddock, unloading supplies and milling about Lord Antoch. I counted well over a dozen strange faces; where had they come from? Berdal had ridden out alone, and Antoch and Daul had taken only a handful of guards. Lord Antoch spotted me and gave me a crushing hug. “Ah, Celyn, good to be home,” he said.

  “I think her ladyship wants to see you,” I said. Daul was glowering at me over the back of his horse, and I couldn’t help noticing that his hands were bare. His ring was gone. I was dismayed — without that ring, there was nothing to tie him to the prince. Lord Antoch set off for the Lodge with Daul, most of the men trailing behind them.

  “Welcome back,” I said to Berdal, even daring to reach my gloved hand up to touch his horse’s face, as I’d seen Meri do. It bumped back at me in a snuffling, hungry way I didn’t altogether care for.

  “She likes you,” Berdal said. “You come out when the weather’s better, and I’ll teach you to ride.”

  “Right,” I said, curling back my fingers. I’d make time for that. “How was the trip? We were worried about you.”

  He looked embarrassed. “Sorry about that. We had a little drama at home. One of my cousins has joined the army.” He shook his head, hauling off his horse’s saddle.

  “Bardolph’s army?” I said, and he actually spat into the snow.

  “Worse. Astilan’s! I thought my aunt Thilde would die of the shame.”

  I looked at him in surprise; people normally didn’t speak so freely. “You don’t support Astilan’s claim?” I said tentatively, but guessing what the answer would be. He worked for the Nemair, didn’t he? I remembered that woodsman in the inn saying the mountain people had supported the Sarists in the last rebellion.

  “Not me,” Berdal was saying, heading with his saddle toward the stables. “I’m strictly Wierolf’s man, when the time comes.”

  He’ll be glad to hear it, I thought. Berdal reappeared, still talking as he worked. “My father died at Kalorjn,” he said. “A lot of boys up here are just waiting for a chance to fight that battle again.”

  I turned to where the liveried Nemair guards were leading a knot of commonly dressed fellows into the older part of the castle, and recalled Lady Lyll asking Did our friends come? The Nemair had no army; who did they plan would wield the guns waiting in the wine cellar? “Uh, how many boys?” I asked, and Berdal grinned.

  “I guess it wouldn’t do any harm to say her ladyship had better instruct that housekeeper of hers to start cooking meals for about five dozen. We brought about twenty home with us, but more are on their way. And more will be on the way soon, now that the pass is open.”

  “You weren’t just delivering the mail,” I said stupidly.

  Berdal looked toward the castle. “It’s not much, unfortunately, but it’s a start. Men will come, now that word’s out that Bryn Shaer is recruiting.”

  I hoped there would be time for Lady Lyll and Lord Antoch and their allies to gather all the troops they’d need. Bardolph had had eigh teen years to build up his army, while the Sarists had been barred from retaining more than a handful of guards. Oddly, a little thrill went through me, knowing every thing Lyll and the others were doing to prepare themselves.

  Which would all be for nothing, if we couldn’t safeguard the prince.

  Upstairs in the Lesser Court, Lady Lyll and Meri were reading a letter together, their matching heads bent over a sheet of green-dyed parchment, a cracked seal of gold wax making two half-moons on the paper. Antoch stood behind them, looking grim. Meri was pale, but Lyll’s face was set. She glanced up and waved me over.

  “Milady?” I said. “What is it? Is it from the king?” Would the conspirators finally get their opportunity to present their demands to Bardolph’s representative?

  Wordlessly, Lyll passed me the green letter, and I felt the chill in the room descend as I read it. This document didn’t offer anybody at Bryn Shaer a chance to do anything except turn on each other in a bloody scramble to dodge the scald and gallows.

  The letter was from Bardolph — and, as anticipated, he was declining the Nemair’s invitation. And he was sending someone in his place. But this representative would not be interested in the complaints of a handful of disgruntled nobs.

  Because the king was sending Werne Nebraut, the Lord High Inquisitor.

  CHA
PTER THIRTY

  I held that letter tight, my head buzzing. The name Werne, in thick black script, marched across the page like a roach, but I couldn’t make myself drop the paper. Werne, coming here.

  “When?” My voice was a mere thread of sound.

  “The letter is more than a week old,” Lord Antoch said. “They’ll have word that the pass is open by now. With clear weather, Gerse is no more than five days’ ride. If there’s another storm, maybe a day or two more. But soon.”

  “By my birthday?” Meri said faintly. Somehow I had forgotten, but the Dead of Winter was only a few days away.

  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 glass 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 nobody 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, stitched 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.”