Tuesdays at the Castle

by Jessica Day George

  “Now what?” Rolf barely bothered to keep the irritation out of his voice. Several of the petitioners from last week were back with the same problems, and Rolf had whispered to Celie earlier that they must think him terribly stupid to petition him all over again.

  “Just wondering, Your Highness, if Princess Delilah is at home,” said Pogue Parry.

  Celie would recognize his voice anywhere. Pogue was easily the handsomest young man in Glower Valley, which was presumably why he ended up in so many fights. All he had to do was look at a girl, and she would completely forget her beau and run after Pogue. Even Celie wasn’t immune to his smiles, and poked her head out from under the throne to grin at him.

  Pogue winked at her. “Hullo there, Princess Cecelia. Want to help me find your lovely, lovely sister?”

  “No, she does not,” Rolf said crossly. “And Lilah’s busy. Next!”

  “I might have another issue to discuss,” Pogue said lazily.

  “If it concerns either of my sisters, the answer is no,” Rolf said.

  Pogue smiled his mischievous grin, and Celie found herself sighing a little. She clambered out from under the throne, her bundle of papers in hand. She was done making a master map of the passageway; now all that remained was to copy it a few times.

  “I’ll take you to Del—Lilah,” she said.

  Nobody but Pogue or very elderly courtiers called Celie’s sister by her full name. It was as if Pogue savored the name. Celie made a mental note to ask her parents why. They would be home that night, or the next day at the latest.

  “Your parents should be home soon,” Pogue said, startling her as his words echoed her thoughts.

  “Yes, we expect them at any minute, really,” Celie replied, leading him down a long passageway. If they turned right and took the next flight of stairs, they should end up near the small dining hall, where Lilah would be overseeing the table setting for dinner. The Councilors of Finance and Public Works would be joining them that night.

  “I like your parents,” Pogue said unexpectedly.

  She goggled at him. “You have to,” she pointed out. “They’re the king and queen.”

  “I don’t have to, actually,” Pogue said with a quick grin. “I just have to respect them … not even that! All one really has to do is obey royalty. But I like them all the same. If you ever need anything, you know where m’father’s shop is, don’t you?”

  “Of course. He’s the only blacksmith in the village,” Celie said. Something about this conversation felt strange. Not that Pogue wasn’t sincere: just the opposite. And that was part of it. Pogue was never sincere, or at least, he was never serious. He usually just teased.

  “Good girl,” he said, and tweaked one of her curls. They had reached the small dining room, and could see Lilah through the doors, ordering around a footman with a chair. “O fair Delilah!” Pogue went down on one knee, and Celie left him to flirt and Lilah to flutter.

  She took the map to her room and carefully copied it five times. Then she went to the housekeeper’s sitting room and delivered the copies to Ma’am Housekeeper, as everyone called her. Celie had kept the master copy to add to her own atlas, and on her way to her room she began to muse about how many pages it might be when it was finally completed. But how could she ever finish? The Castle grew new rooms every week, and occasionally got rid of others that were no longer used. Already there was a series of closets in her maps that were now gone, since the linens Ma’am Housekeeper had kept in them had been eaten by moths.

  “Someone should help me,” Celie muttered. “But no one else seems to care. They just shrug and say that the Castle does what it does and … huh.”

  Maybe the Castle really was doing what it wanted, she finally realized. And to her. She’d been aiming for her room, but instead found herself at the foot of the stairs that led to the tower with the four spyglasses. It was as if the Castle had turned the corridors around to lead her there.

  “Fine, then,” she agreed, and went up to the little room.

  Nothing had changed. Celie set her notebook and pencil case on the table and looked around. There was the rope, the biscuits, the book, and the spyglasses mounted on the windowsills. She took a moment to sketch the room, and made notes about where she had found it both times. Then she went to one of the spyglasses and peered through. She could see the main road, and hovering over it a plume of dust that signaled the approach of someone traveling toward the Castle at top speed.

  She squinched her face and tried to look harder. Was that her parents’ carriage? And if it was their carriage, where was the luggage cart? The attendant soldiers on their horses?

  Celie found a ring on the spyglass that adjusted the view, and toyed with it until the vehicle in the dust cloud came into better focus. It was the royal carriage, but it was unaccompanied by luggage or soldiers, and moving far too fast for comfort. This was not right.

  Celie raced back the way she had come and burst into the throne room, where she skidded to a halt amid the curious gazes of the petitioners and the amused look of her brother. He clearly wanted a break, and looked expectantly at her as she straightened her skirts and hair.

  “In a rush, Cel?”

  “I need to talk to you,” she said, hurrying over to the throne. “In private. Right now.”

  “Thank heavens,” Rolf muttered. “A five-minute break, everyone,” he announced loudly.

  They ducked through a door behind a tapestry of a sea serpent and into the small study their father often used to meet with his Council. Refreshments had been set on the table there, and Rolf started to pour a glass of water before he saw her expression and froze.

  “What is it?”

  “I found a room with a spyglass and was looking at the road. I can see the carriage coming, but it’s moving awfully fast and there aren’t any soldiers with it. Or luggage.” She said it all in a rush.

  “What? Are you sure it’s the carriage? Mother and Father’s carriage?”

  “Yes,” Celie said.

  Only now she wasn’t so sure. True, it was a large carriage, but there were probably dozens like it in the kingdom. She hadn’t actually seen the royal crest on the doors; it was too dusty for that. What if she made a fuss and she was wrong?

  “You’d better show me,” Rolf said.

  Celie always appreciated the fact that her brother treated her like an equal. She just hoped that she wasn’t abusing his trust now, as she guided him to the foot of the winding stair that led to the Spyglass Tower, as Celie had dubbed it in her head.

  “Up here.”

  Rolf took the stairs two at a time despite his robes of state, and was soon peering through the south-mounted spyglass at the road.

  “You’re right, that’s their carriage,” Rolf said. “It just passed through the village, which means it should be here in a minute. We’d better go down to meet it.”

  It was a matter of minutes before they were in the courtyard. Rolf sent a servant to find Lilah while he and Celie paced up and down the cobblestones.

  They didn’t have to wait very long. Lilah arrived at the same time as the carriage, which came barreling through the main gate and lurched to a halt just a few paces away. The horses were lathered and blowing, and the carriage was filthy and battered.

  “Is that an arrow?”

  It was Pogue who asked. He’d come with Lilah, of course, and was the only one of them who could speak. Because there was an arrow stuck in the carriage door. In fact, several arrows studded the carriage, and now that the horses had stopped, Celie noticed that one of them was a gray while the rest were the chestnuts preferred by the king, so they’d had to replace one of the horses somewhere along the way.

  “Mummy?” Celie took a hesitant step toward the carriage, but Lilah pulled her back.

  The door crashed open and a man half fell out. It was one of the royal guard—no, it was their sergeant. He was streaked with dirt and blood, and his left arm hung in a sling made out of a silk scarf. One of the queen’s s
ilk scarves.

  “Your Highness,” he said when he saw Rolf, and straightened with an effort. “I mean, Your Majesty.” He bent his head stiffly. “I regret to inform you that King Glower, your father, is dead.”

  “And Mummy?” Celie’s voice was so small she wondered if he had heard her.

  He had.

  “I regret to say that Her Majesty is dead as well.”

  Chapter

  4

  Bandits, in the pass,” Sergeant Avery explained.

  They had all stumbled into the throne room, dismissed the petitioners, and summoned the Council instead. Avery slumped in a chair, but Rolf refused to sit on the throne. He’d sat in it all day, with ease, but now Celie noticed that he couldn’t even look at it. Avery kept trying to rise, but he was exhausted and injured, and they all pushed him back down whenever he started up.

  “They were waiting for us. As soon as we reached the narrowest stretch they attacked from both sides. Arrows thick as a swarm of bees, most of my men down before they had time to draw sword. The carriage horses spooked, but one of them tripped and broke a leg, otherwise I’d have had to walk here.”

  “How did you escape?” Lilah’s voice was thin, but calm.

  “Hit my head on a rock when my horse went down. That’s how I wrenched my shoulder as well.” He took a long drink from the cup a maid offered him. “When I woke, it was all over. Men dead everywhere, horses scattered, a disaster.” He drank again, avoiding looking at the throne. Or Rolf.

  “And did you actually see Their Majesties’ bodies?” This from one of the Councilors.

  “No …,” Avery said slowly. “I thought I saw the queen’s green gown, over beneath some of the mess from the luggage cart. Prince Bran had been riding, and I saw his horse, dead, on the road.”

  “But the king?” The Councilor—Lord Sefton, who was barely older than Bran—leaned in, eager, and Celie felt a flutter of hope rise in her heart as well.

  “No,” Sergeant Avery said in a grim voice. His eyes flicked to Celie, and she looked steadily back. “I’m afraid … I didn’t see him.… But I found this in the dust.”

  Celie’s heart plummeted.

  Lord Sefton sat back, the shock and strain making him look much older. Sergeant Avery was holding up the Griffin Ring; the winged lion was fashioned from gold with emerald-chip eyes that seemed to wink in the light of the room. Celie’s father, like every other King Glower, was given the Griffin Ring at his coronation. It was to be worn always as a reminder of the king’s duties, and Celie had never seen her father without it. She wasn’t even entirely certain that it could be taken off. Rolf had once told her that it was enchanted, and could only be removed after the king’s death.

  She had thought he was teasing then.

  Sergeant Avery was holding the ring out to Rolf, but he wouldn’t take it. Finally, the elderly Lord Feen held out a shaking hand, and the sergeant dropped the heavy ring into it. A shiver passed through Celie.

  “Nevertheless, we’ll send a search party,” the Emissary to Foreign Lands said in a brisk voice. “To see if there are any more survivors, or anything left to salvage.”

  “Of course, my lord,” Sergeant Avery said, straightening. “I’ll lead the party myself.” He looked at Rolf now, and started to get up, but Rolf waved him down again.

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Rolf said. “But first we’ll have a physician look at your wounds.” He sent one of the footmen for the castle physician, and one of the guards to gather a search party, armed.

  “That is a noble idea, Lord Emissary,” Lord Feen said in his quavering voice. “If it is true they are dead, then it will be good if they can bring back the bodies of our lamented King Glower the Seventy-ninth and his queen.”

  Lilah made a little mewing noise at the word “bodies,” and Celie clutched at her sister’s waist. She felt like she was in a nightmare, and hoped desperately to wake up. Pogue Parry, who was hovering behind them, stepped forward and put one hand on Lilah’s shoulder, and one on Celie’s. His hands were large and very warm, and Celie was glad that Pogue had come to flirt with Lilah that day.

  “And of course,” Lord Feen went on, “if it is true that the king and queen are dead, there are arrangements that must be made. Castle Glower cannot go very long without a king. Plans for your coronation—”

  “No,” Rolf said. “We must be certain that my parents are … not alive, first.”

  Lilah made another mewing noise.

  Celie felt tears slipping down her face and wetting the front of her gown. How could Rolf stand there and suggest that their parents might be dead? How could he?

  A sob burst out before she could stop it, and Pogue’s hand tightened on her shoulder. Lilah had both her arms around Celie, and now she bent and rested her cheek on Celie’s hair. Tears dripped from Lilah’s eyes onto Celie’s cheek, and she didn’t brush them away.

  “I will do my best to find them, Your Maj—Your Highness,” Sergeant Avery said. He stood up, and this time no one stopped him.

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Rolf said. “I am glad that I can rely on you.”

  The physician had come, and now Sergeant Avery followed the man out, so that he could be examined in private. The rest of the Councilors clustered together, whispering and eyeing Celie and her brother and sister. Rolf stepped in front of the throne and cleared his throat. They all fell silent.

  “Whoever did this must be brought to justice,” Rolf said, his voice grim. “I will be sending a full complement of soldiers with Sergeant Avery, as soon as possible, to look for my father and mother, but also to hunt down—”

  “Your Highness, please,” interrupted the Emissary. “Let us not mar this sad occasion with talk of revenge. This can only lead to more tragedy.”

  Rolf stared at him incredulously. “You don’t think that the attack on your king merits retaliation?”

  The Emissary shook his head, sighing softly as though Rolf had disappointed him. “Until such time as we can verify the fate of the king and queen, and until those who perished in this attack are properly mourned and laid to rest, there is nothing more to be done,” he announced. “For now, you are all dismissed.”

  Rolf looked at him for a moment in shock, then he stepped down off the dais and nodded curtly to Pogue, who bowed and moved back. Rolf put his arms around Lilah and Celie, and everyone else left the room, leaving the three siblings to their grief.

  Chapter

  5

  The country of Sleyne mourned, and Castle Glower mourned with them. It didn’t grow new rooms, didn’t stretch corridors, and when the bright banners that hung from the Castle walls were taken down, it didn’t replace them. Courtiers and commoners alike filed through the Castle with black armbands to bow and curtsy and murmur condolences to Celie and Rolf and Lilah, who refused to accept them. Not yet.

  Celie didn’t have a dark-colored gown, which fretted her, and she worried that people would think she wasn’t showing proper respect. Her parents and brother were missing, and people had died, and she was wearing pale gray. It seemed silly to be concerned over such a thing, but at the same time, she had little else to do.

  The morning after the terrible news had come, Lilah had helped Celie into the gray gown, made for a war remembrance ceremony a few months before, and wound a piece of black silk around her waist for a sash. The seamstresses were working quickly to make her a more suitable black gown, however, and one for Lilah as well, although Lilah already looked elegant in a black satin gown she had worn to their great-aunt’s funeral the year before. Celie was growing so fast that her funeral gown couldn’t be fastened up at all, and as it was, the gray gown was an inch too short and chafed under her arms.

  But when Celie went to the throne room two days after the news had come, she found other things to worry about than her clothes. Rolf was sitting on a low stool that had been placed to the side of the throne. He was wearing a black tunic of their father’s that was the right length and width in the shoulders, but far too loose a
bout the middle. His face was pale, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

  All the Councilors were clustered around, whispering to one another and eyeing Rolf, and there were two couriers from neighboring countries standing before the dais, looking patient. Celie could tell that this was more worrisome than her ill-fitting gown and Rolf’s too-large borrowed tunic. She knew if anyone saw her, she would probably be sent out, so she sidled along the wall to where Lilah was standing with Pogue Parry.

  In the days since their parents had been attacked, Pogue had become the royal family’s staunchest ally. He had turned up at the gates of Castle Glower for the past two mornings, properly and soberly dressed in a dark gray tunic with a black armband. He had been quiet and respectful to Rolf and Lilah, and kind and friendly to Celie. He stopped flirting with Lilah (and the maids, and the girls from the village) and ran errands for Lilah instead, helped her arrange mourning bands for the servants, organized the townsfolk gathering to hold vigil, and was quickly becoming indispensible.

  “What’s happening?” Celie took Lilah’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Lilah whispered. “Go to the kitchens and get some lunch.”

  Celie let go of her sister’s hand and slipped behind her to stand by Pogue instead. “What’s happening?”

  “The ambassador to Vhervhine is here,” Pogue whispered, pointing with his chin at a large man in plum-colored velvet and heavy boots standing before the throne. “He brought some interesting news.”

  Celie’s pulse raced. “What? Do they have news of my parents?”

  Pogue took her hand gently. “No. I’m sorry,” he murmured, leaning down so he could speak softly to her. “Vhervhine wishes to send an Emissary to the … funeral … next week.”

  “But that’s good.” She straightened a little, trying to look more like a princess. “Isn’t it? Shouldn’t they send an Emissary? Even if there isn’t really a funeral.” Celie held fast to this hope, that Sergeant Avery would return, escorting her parents, and the funeral preparations would be used instead for a grand celebration.