Tuesdays at the Castle

by Jessica Day George

  As soon as they were both on the stairs, lugging their burdens, the door to Celie’s room sealed behind them. Once they got to the top, the stairs disappeared as well. The two sisters looked at each other for a moment, and Celie thought that she might cry again.

  “What about Rolf and Pogue?” she asked.

  “We have to trust the Castle,” Lilah said simply.

  She nodded, and did her best not to cry. Soon Lilah had her busy arranging her bedding on one side of the room. Lilah put her things next to Celie’s, and helped her spread her gowns on top of one of the trunks against another wall.

  When they turned around, another doorway had opened just beside them, making Lilah jump. It was a small dark stairway that Celie recognized as the one that led to the Council’s private chamber. The sound-muffling cloak was just inside the entrance, hanging from a hook.

  “Where does this go?” Lilah poked her head into the opening, and looked at the cloak suspiciously.

  “The Council’s privy chamber,” Celie said. She reached around Lilah and plucked the cloak off the wall. “I’ll go find out what’s happening.”

  “I’d better come with you,” Lilah said.

  “I think you should stay,” Celie said. “There’s just one cloak. It makes it so you don’t make any noise and can spy on people.”

  Now it was Lilah’s turn to look near tears. “But I don’t just want to sit here alone,” she said.

  “You could watch out the windows, and see if another search party gets sent out,” Celie suggested. “That will mean that someone is actually listening to Rolf. And someone should wait to see if Rolf and Pogue make it up here.”

  “All right,” Lilah said meekly. She sighed. “You’d think all that food we ate last night would have stayed with us longer, but I’m starving. I’ll have to eat some of these hard biscuits.”

  “Don’t eat them all, you’ll break a tooth,” Celie said with mock severity. She pulled on the cloak and put up the hood. She stomped her feet, but they made no noise. “Do you see?”

  Lilah gaped as Celie’s mouth moved, but no sound reached her. “Amazing,” she said. “Now hurry!”

  Celie hurried as much as she dared on the narrow, dark stairs. They seemed to go on a lot longer then she remembered from the first time. At last she came to the little slit in the wall, behind the tapestry, and peeped through.

  The entire Council wasn’t there, but Prince Khelsh, Lord Feen, and three others were sitting around the heavy table. The prince was sitting in an enormous chair that looked enough like a throne to make Celie grit her teeth. He was leaning back, his hands on the carved arms of the chair, a smug look on his face. The Councilors were looking at one another uneasily, and Celie guessed that Khelsh had just finished telling them what had happened that morning.

  “If there’s any chance that His Majesty is still alive,” one of the Councilors said, “then we should certainly look for him. And the queen and prince!”

  “Impossible,” Khelsh said. “They are made dead, the wizards must lying be.”

  “But if their magic has revealed that Prince Bran, at least, is still alive, we must send someone to search,” the Councilor protested. “The wizards know how to find one of their own!”

  “If alive, why not here?” Prince Khelsh asked. “He could have to the Castle walked.” He shrugged. “Is dead.”

  “You seem very sure of yourself,” Lord Feen said.

  “I sure? Yes!” Khelsh laughed loudly. “My best assassins did I send.”

  Celie let out a small scream.

  Lord Feen and the other Councilors looked variously ill or outraged.

  “What devilry is this?” The Councilor—it was Lord Sefton, Celie saw—was on his feet. “What have you done?”

  “I make sure what I want,” Prince Khelsh said. He was still slumped in the chair as though completely relaxed, but Celie could see that he was gripping the arms ever so slightly, and there was a tension to his legs that said he could leap to his feet at any moment.

  “You were behind the ambush!” Sefton pointed a long, shaking finger at Prince Khelsh. “Those were your men!”

  “Yes,” Khelsh admitted with a shrug. “As I plan wif Emissary.”

  “The Emissary?” Sefton was the color of dried paste now. “And now these men continue to hunt the king and queen and their son?”

  Khelsh gave the man a hard look. “You no like?”

  “Not like it? You are talking about treason, and assassination!” Sefton clutched at the edge of the table as though it were the only thing keeping him upright.

  “What were we talking about at the last meeting, or the one before?” the Emissary said with an expression of amusement that made Celie want to punch him until his smile went away. “But if you’re feeling squeamish now … guards!”

  Immediately two burly Vhervhish soldiers, one of them the man whose foot Celie had stepped on earlier, came into the room. “Arrest him for treason,” the Emissary said, flicking a finger at Lord Sefton, whose fists were clenched, lips bloodless in shock.

  The two men seized the Councilor and dragged him, shouting, from the room.

  “We appear to have an opening on the Council,” the Emissary announced as soon as the door closed behind them. “Can anyone think of a likely candidate?” His voice was perfectly cool.

  Khelsh grunted. “I want my cousin Khulm. Smart. But not so smart I must kill him, eh?” Khelsh didn’t wait for an answer. He laughed and pushed himself to his feet. “He here, wait in room. I tell him,” he said. “No others here be foolish,” he warned, wagging his finger at Lord Feen as though he were a child. Laughing again, he went out of the room and slammed the door.

  Celie didn’t care what Lord Feen or the Emissary said after he left. They were traitors and cowards, and would probably sit there dithering and wringing their hands anyway. She pulled the cloak tight about her so that she wouldn’t trip, and hurried up the stairs to tell Lilah about the terrible new thing Prince Khelsh had done.

  And that they might have another ally, although this one was locked in the dungeon for the time being.

  Chapter

  15

  It was the next morning, almost noon, before Rolf could join them. He brought some food with him, which his sisters fell upon like wolves. While they ate he told them everything that had happened to him.

  “It’s just as I thought it would be, only now the Emissary has come right out and said it to my face,” Rolf said, staring at Lilah as she folded an enormous slice of ham and crammed it into her mouth. “I’m to be their puppet: do what they say, say what they tell me, or they’ll kill me and put Khelsh on the throne.”

  “Won’t they try to do that anyway?” Celie was eating an apple, taking the largest bites she could without choking. Juice ran down her chin onto her gown, and she didn’t even try to wipe it off with a napkin.

  “I don’t think so—at least, not if I cooperate,” Rolf said. “The Emissary probably needs to wait until people get used to having a Vhervhish prince around. I just hope Khelsh is that patient,” he said, shaking his head skeptically.

  “He won’t be,” Celie said. “He’s already replaced one member of the Council with one of his own men. He’ll keep doing it until they’re all Vhervhish.” She shuddered.

  “He’s replaced someone? Who?”

  Celie and Lilah told him what Celie had heard, and then Rolf told them everything else that had happened. Like the Emissary having Pogue locked up, only to find the blacksmith’s son gone an hour later.

  “The Castle must have given him a way out,” Rolf assured them. “And what’s more: half the soldiers are gone. And that includes Sergeant Avery! No one will say where they went, but I’m willing to bet Pogue took them to the pass to look for our parents and Bran.”

  “But how can we be sure?” Lilah asked. “What if Khelsh and the Council have done something horrible to them?”

  “I really doubt it,” Rolf told her. “They’re too angry about the disappearanc
es. They’ve questioned me several times, and everyone else from the lowliest kitchen drudge to the other members of the Council. There’s quite a to-do down there! Everyone is either terrified or offended.”

  “Does everyone know, then, what Pogue and the wizards found out?” Celie stopped eating for a moment, looking at her brother with a flutter of hope in her breast.

  “They do,” Rolf said, taking a deep breath and smiling at her. “They do, and that’s why I think Pogue must have gotten out all right. Even before the Emissary started to interrogate everyone about the missing guards, I heard some whispers. The maids know, and if the maids know, the whole Castle will soon know as well.”

  Lilah relaxed visibly, and Celie found that her appetite came back in a rush. She tore a roll in half, smashed a piece of ham between the two pieces, and ate it in a few bites. Pogue had gotten free, people knew her parents were alive, everything would be all right.

  “Where did you go after we fled the throne room?” Lilah was now eating her own apple in rather unladylike bites.

  “The Council sent me to my room and locked me in,” Rolf said. Although he tried to sound unconcerned, Celie could see in her brother’s eyes that he was angry about this. “Then the Emissary came and demanded to know where I had sent the guards. And Pogue. And when I couldn’t tell him, he threatened to keep me locked in my room forever, so I told him I didn’t care, since Prince Khelsh was going to kill me as soon as he was named crown prince anyway. That made him leave in a hurry.” Rolf smiled without much humor.

  “Now you know that Khelsh put his cousin on the Council, too,” Celie reminded him. “So you can bring that up, and startle him again.”

  “Good point, Cel,” Rolf said.

  Lilah’s brow was furrowed. “How did you get out of your room? Did he leave your door unlocked after all?”

  “Of course not,” Rolf reported grimly. “I went to sleep for a little while, then when I got up I was hungry, and lo and behold there was a door in my room leading to the kitchens! And the door that used to lead to my private study now leads here.”

  “What do we do now?” Lilah had finished her apple and was wiping her fingers on a napkin.

  “You girls should stay up here, it’s the safest place,” Rolf said. “But I’m going back to my room.”

  “I’ll keep spying for you,” Celie said. “I wonder if I could get the Castle to bring us an invisibility cloak?”

  “I think you’re better off just not being heard,” Lilah said. “An invisibility cloak sounds too dangerous. You know you’d be tempted to spy on Khelsh, and he’d catch you for certain!”

  “Either way, I need lots more information about Khelsh,” Rolf said. “I want to keep him off balance, and know everything he’s planning.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Celie said.

  “And what am I supposed to do?” Lilah was twisting her napkin around and around her hands. “Sit here studying Vhervhish?”

  “Why not?” Rolf cocked his head. “You know, if we had known more about them before Khelsh came, we might have been better prepared for this.”

  “You also need to keep a lookout for Pogue,” Celie said, knowing that Lilah would appreciate that duty. “Perhaps he’s almost reached Mummy and Daddy. They might come home any day now.”

  “All right,” Lilah said reluctantly.

  “It will be a relief to me to know that you’re safe up here,” Rolf said with uncharacteristic gentleness. “I won’t have to worry every minute that the Emissary has taken you hostage or some such.”

  “What about me?” Celie put her sticky hands on her hips in indignation. “Aren’t you worried about me spying on the Council?”

  “Not at all,” Rolf said. “The Castle would never let anything bad happen to you. You could jump out one of these windows and the Castle would probably conjure up a hundred feather beds to break your fall.”

  “Don’t test that!” Lilah put a hand on Celie’s sleeve, but Celie didn’t want to jump out the window. She would much rather be a spy, even without an invisibility cloak. And she knew exactly whom she wanted to spy on next: Prince Lulath of Grath. He, and his small dogs, had been suspiciously quiet for the past week. She had seen him at the coronation, but he had only smiled and waved, and not once approached. Was he involved with Khelsh in some way?

  But before she could get to that, Lilah had more questions. “Did anyone see you in the kitchen?”

  “No, but I had to hide twice. Vhervhish guards kept coming to get some of the staff, to question them in the throne room. Cook stuffed me into the cold room where she keeps the meat.” Rolf made a sick face. “I never want to do that again!”

  “How much do the servants know about what’s happening?” Lilah persisted.

  “They suspect a great deal,” Rolf said. “They don’t like Khelsh, or his men, I know that for certain. Cook started to say something about ‘when’ Mother and Father return, but then we heard the soldiers clanking down the stairs, and she pushed me into the cold room.

  “When she let me back out, Cook told me that they were all being questioned. And a couple of the kitchen girls whispered that they thought I was too old for a regency as they went by, but they may have just been flirting,” Rolf said, blushing.

  “Probably both,” Lilah said crisply.

  Celie had to admire her sister for not teasing Rolf more, considering how much Rolf teased her about Pogue.

  “So, it seems that the servants aren’t happy about all this mess,” Lilah went on. “That’s good. If you see Cook again, make sure to tell her that Pogue and the guards are looking for our parents, and that the wizards at the College say they are still alive.”

  “Yes, General,” Rolf said, and saluted her.

  “I want to learn more about Lulath,” Celie blurted out. “Are his rooms really nice? Is he friends with Prince Khelsh?”

  Her older siblings stared at her for a moment.

  “Lulath!” Rolf smacked himself in the head. “I’d completely forgotten about him! Good heavens, I wonder which side Grath is on?”

  “I’m sure that Lulath is on his own side,” Lilah said. “But it would be nice if he wasn’t for Vhervhine, at the very least!”

  “You’d better go find out, Cel,” Rolf said. “And I’d better go back to my room, before the Emissary finds me missing.”

  “And I’ll do a check through the spyglasses,” Lilah said.

  They all three hugged, then Celie put on her cloak and demonstrated it for an admiring Rolf. She put her hands on the wall of the Tower, and whispered a plea for the Castle to open a way to Lulath’s rooms. A minute later, a small door materialized next to her, and Rolf shouted in surprise. The door was only slightly different from the one that led to the Council’s room. Celie waved to Lilah and Rolf, and headed through the door and down the narrow steps.

  It didn’t take as long to get to Lulath’s rooms as it did to get to the Council’s chamber. Celie was there almost too soon, and nearly smacked her nose on the wall when she came around the last twist of the stairs. Once more there was a slit to look through, this one screened by some sort of drapery.

  The Prince of Grath’s room was indeed very nice. It was almost as large as Lilah’s, with an elegantly carved door leading out to a wide balcony, a large bed on a dais, and an enormous fireplace. Through a door, Celie could see an adjoining room full of racks of clothing: the prince’s dressing room. The room had lots of windows, and some very fine tapestries on the walls. Celie was quite impressed, and a little jealous. The Castle certainly must like Lulath a great deal. Did that mean, then, that he wasn’t part of the plot against Rolf?

  Impossible to tell, for the prince and his servants were not in the room, or the next room. It was quite silent: not even the dogs were there. Celie waited a little while, then turned away. So he had nice rooms, that was one thing. She decided to find Prince Khelsh’s room and compare.

  “Castle,” Celie said, rubbing the wall. “I want to see Prince Khelsh’s room, please.
”

  A passageway opened up to her left, and she followed it for a few twists and turns, and then down a flight of stairs and around a few more corners. Celie wasn’t sure, but after consulting her atlas she thought that Prince Lulath’s room had been fairly close to the throne room. By comparison, Prince Khelsh was far away from any of the Castle’s main rooms. Not that it mattered; he seemed to walk about the Castle, getting into everyone’s business.

  At last she came to his rooms, and laughed when she saw them. She was glad the cloak muffled any sounds she might make, but it didn’t matter, because Khelsh wasn’t in his room, either.

  And really, Celie couldn’t blame him. His room was awful. It was about the size of one of the cells in the dungeon. There was only one plain bed, which looked barely large enough to hold someone Khelsh’s size, a chair, a rickety washstand, and a crooked desk. Through an open door, Celie could see a smaller room crammed with cots where she assumed Khelsh’s attendants slept.

  Celie had never seen the Castle treat a guest so coldly before. She wondered if his room had always been this bad, or if it had just happened recently. She thought that Lilah had inspected all the guest rooms last week, and Lilah surely would have mentioned Khelsh’s rooms if she’d seen them looking like this!

  “Serves you right,” Celie said to the hard bed. “The Castle may not be able to spit you out like a bit of gristle, but it can still let you know that you are not wanted here!”

  Grinning broadly, she went to tell Lilah and Rolf.

  Chapter

  16

  Lilah was delighted when Celie told her what she’d seen. She wanted to tell Rolf immediately, but they weren’t sure where he was. That made them both fretful, worrying that Rolf was being threatened by Prince Khelsh or the Emissary. Lilah paced the room from end to end, muttering to herself, while Celie ate the last of the food that Rolf had smuggled in to them.

  Then Lilah went to one of the spyglasses and looked through it, and gave a little shriek.