“Wednesday. Yes, that would be good timing,” the old man agreed, leading the way into the shop. He scooped a handful of coins from his pocket, counted them quickly, and frowned. “I may have to pick a couple more items from my family’s estate to sell,” he muttered, almost to himself, “and then I have to go talk to a farmer about ordering some corn. I’ll meet you back here on Wednesday at nine o’clock. Will that be enough time?”
“It should be,” Anya agreed, choosing a spool of bright silver thread, and another of gold, from a tray near the counter. She had always wanted to try gold and silver embroidery, though she had never been able to afford the expensive thread before. “I work fast.”
In the dusty little back room of Porlim’s shop, Anya sat on an empty crate and plied her needle. Lamplight glinted off the glittery thread as the design took shape beneath her hands. It was fancy enough to be suitable for a prince, but not so flashy that it would make him look vain. Just simple and regal.
As she stitched, she wondered where and when Prince Jaymin would be wearing this cloak. In public, obviously, if its appearance mattered so much. And soon, probably, since the man had wanted it finished in the next few days. Of course, it was possible that he wasn’t planning to return to the market before the cloak would be needed, but Anya preferred to think that was because the prince would need it right away.
But if everyone’s guesses were correct, the prince was hiding somewhere in disguise. And this cloak would not make a good disguise for a prince who didn’t want to look like one. Which could only mean one thing: Prince Jaymin would be revealing himself soon. But how did he intend to do that without being captured and killed? He must have a plan, as Wennish kept asserting, though Anya couldn’t imagine what. Perhaps he had recruited a new army already. An army of civilians, armed and ready to help him defeat the Malornians. They might finally make their move this week.
Anya’s heart beat faster at the thought. In just a few days, Prince Jaymin might come marching up to the palace gates, wearing the cloak she was embroidering and demanding Regent Rampus’s surrender. How exciting!
Anya could hardly wait. As though it would hasten the process, she bent over her work and began to stitch faster.
Chapter 15
Back at the palace, Anya was summoned to appear before Regent Rampus once more to give more details about the supposed uprising. There were even more conspirators now, she told him, though they were still not using each other’s names. They were in disagreement as to the best part of the city to stage their uprising in. They agreed that they still needed to wait a few more days to let their numbers continue to increase. Rampus no longer seemed suspicious about her story, only concerned, and once again he reminded Anya to go back the next day and try to find out more.
Anya went back the next day, all right. She finished the rest of the embroidery, exchanged the cloak’s plain button for the ornamental silver clasp that she had picked out, and began to attach the fur lining. Arvalon stepped into the back room of Porlim’s shop now and then to watch her work, and the two of them chatted about Father and trade and how their relatives in Malorn were doing.
Anya had told her brother that a friend of Tonnis’s had hired her to do a sewing job, but she thought it best not to mention who she was certain the cloak was for. You never knew who might be listening. Even in here, she found herself glancing around now and then, wondering if Dannel could be lurking somewhere nearby. Just thinking of him made her distinctly uncomfortable. Later, when Prince Jaymin was back and the Malornians were gone and everything was safe again, she would tell her brother everything.
By the time the gong sounded twelve o’clock, Anya had nearly finished with the cloak. Standing to stretch her stiff limbs, she folded it up carefully and hid it in the sack in a corner of the room where she had left it yesterday. She didn’t dare bring it back to the palace to work on, but she would come as early as she could tomorrow, and she was confident she could get the job done before the old man showed up at nine.
Back at the palace, a soldier told her that Rampus was in a meeting and that her report would have to wait. That was fine with Anya, who was in no hurry to talk to him anyway. She joined Eleya, Tonnis, and Wennish for lunch in the clinic and brought them up to date on what she had been doing.
“Be careful when you do talk to the regent today,” Eleya warned. “He looked to be in a foul mood when I passed him in the hallway earlier. And I’m afraid you’re getting too bold with this story you’re making up. Rampus won’t be merciful if he finds out you’ve been lying to him all along.”
“He won’t find out,” Anya assured her, refusing to be discouraged. Now that Dannel had backed her story, the regent believed every word she said. Yesterday afternoon Rampus had even ordered extra patrols sent out to various parts of the city, and it was exciting to think that she had fooled him well enough that he believed it was necessary. I’m practically a professional at this now, Anya thought with pride as she gathered up their dirty lunch dishes and piled them on a tray.
She was carrying the tray back across the courtyard toward the kitchen when she saw the gate swing open just wide enough to admit a lone rider on horseback. He was wearing street clothes, not a uniform, and was admitted without question by the soldiers on duty. Pausing to watch, Anya saw him dismount by the stable and hand his reins to Bronin before turning to one of the privates patrolling the courtyard. “Do you know if the regent is available?”
“He’s in a meeting right now,” she heard the soldier reply. “Do you need to talk to him?”
“When it’s convenient,” the man answered lazily. “I’ll get a bite to eat in the meantime. Let me know when he’s free.”
It was Dannel. Even from this distance, Anya was sure. Why was he coming to the palace all alone and out of uniform? Where had he been for the last two days? What did he want to talk to Rampus about? And would he approach Anya to claim the favor she owed him?
Though she had no idea what he might want from her, the mere thought made Anya nervous. Hastily, she darted down the hallway and into the kitchen, sliding her tray of dishes onto one of the counters. I’ve got to get to the secret room, she told herself. Then she would be in position whenever Rampus finished his meeting and called Dannel in. Whatever the man had to say, she wanted to hear it.
She hadn’t had a chance to do any eavesdropping lately, having been out in the mornings and kept busy working in the afternoons. But now she hurried out of the kitchen and through the dining hall, pausing only to seize a broom and dustpan – the most convenient excuse – from the supply cupboard beyond. She forced herself to slow down and look casual as she mounted the stairs with them.
A couple of soldiers were sitting on the stairway between the fifth and sixth floors, playing cards. They both jumped up guiltily when they heard her footsteps approaching, but relaxed as she rounded a corner and they saw who she was.
“Get back to work, Alasian,” one of them barked. “Someplace else.” Anya recognized the private who often hung around the clinic, tracking in mud and getting in the way as they tended patients. She retreated back to the fifth floor as the two of them sat down again with obvious relief.
Well, she would just have to wait until they left. It couldn’t take that long. Anya knew there were other ways up, but she wasn’t sure where the nearest staircase was, or exactly how to get to the room with the closet from anywhere but this one. The palace had a complicated layout, and she really hadn’t learned her way around most of it very well, but that was all right. Rampus and Dannel weren’t meeting quite yet, anyway.
Anya swept her way up and down the hall, and then she began opening the doors on either side and sweeping the rooms. Some were locked, but those that weren’t were all richly decorated and full of expensive-looking furniture. Obviously important people – perhaps even the royal family themselves – had lived and worked up on this floor before the Invasion.
She was in the sixth room, listening all the while for the two soldiers
to leave, when she heard heavy footsteps thudding up the stairs from below.
“There you two are. Is this what you call being on patrol?” demanded Lieutenant Dwiller’s stern voice.
Anya stuck her head out into the hallway to listen, and she heard the two soldiers leap to their feet.
“Oh! Um, no, sir! Sorry, sir!” one of them exclaimed hastily.
“Beg your pardon, Lieutenant,” the other added. “We were just taking a moment’s break. We’re returning to work right now, sir.”
“You had better,” Dwiller warned. “If I catch you slacking off again, you’ll forfeit a day’s pay. Now get busy again. You each have an extra two hours at the ends of your shifts tonight for this. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” they chorused dutifully, and Anya heard the lieutenant’s footsteps proceeding further up the stairs.
“I thought you said he never comes up here,” grumbled one of the soldiers when the officer had gone.
“I didn’t think he did,” the other grumbled in reply. “Well, give me my cards back. We’d better get back on patrol before he comes down again.”
“I had a good hand this time,” the first man protested. “Let’s each hold on to our cards and we’ll finish the game later.”
Anya heard their voices receding down the hallway. When silence had fallen, she tiptoed up the stairs, pausing on the landing halfway up to peer around the corner. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the area was deserted.
But if they were supposed to be patrolling, they would be back. Quickly, Anya hurried to the third doorway on the left. Once inside the dusty room, she pried the hidden door open, set her broom and dustpan inside, and picked up the candle she had left on the floor. It took only a moment to light it from the torch out in the hallway and shut herself into the stuffy little closet.
The moment she raised the trapdoor, a draft wafted up, and her candle flame flickered and went out. Bother. Anya hurried back to the corridor to light it again, listening first to make sure there was no one there. This time she shielded the flame with one hand as she closed the closet door and lowered herself onto the hidden stairway.
The secret passage seemed colder than she thought she remembered it. Anya shivered as another puff of air ruffled her hair and sent the candle flame dancing. She had to walk slowly to protect the flame, which threatened to go out again with every step.
If only the regent is still in his meeting. With all the delays, she was afraid he might already be talking to Dannel, and she would miss hearing the news.
The second stairway came sooner than she remembered. Anya was being so careful with the candle that she didn’t see the first step until her foot stepped out into nothingness. She stumbled and fell, instinctively clutching at the walls to try to brace herself. She succeeded in reducing her headfirst tumble into a slide, slithering the rest of the way down the stairs on her stomach. And, of course, dropping the candle in the process.
Anya lay motionless at the bottom, staring into the darkness, waiting to find out if she was hurt. “I’m not afraid of the dark,” she whispered, clutching the cold stone floor with her palms. “I’m not.” It was a good thing, too, because the dark was pressing in on her from all sides with a smothering heaviness. If she had been afraid of the dark, it would have been terrifying to be in here by herself without a candle. But she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t, even though there was absolutely no difference between when her eyes were open and when they were closed. This must be what it’s like to be blind. Anya squeezed her eyes shut, preferring to imagine that that was the only reason she could see nothing.
Carefully, she rose to her feet. Both her knees felt bruised, but not badly, and all the rest of her seemed to be all right. She bent down and swept her hands across the floor until she found the candle. Well, there was nothing for it but to go back out and relight it. She certainly wasn’t going to fumble along the passage in the dark and risk breaking her neck on the next stairway. Pocketing the candle, Anya limped back up the steps, feeling her way with one hand on each wall.
I’m almost back. It’s almost over. I’ll light the candle again, and this time I won’t drop it. There will be light again in just a moment.
At last she mounted the final step and felt her head bump the ceiling. Gratefully, Anya reached up and pushed the trapdoor open, seizing the edges of the hole and hoisting herself up. It was a relief to see an ever-so-faint glimmer of light from the crack where the edge of the nearly invisible door met the wall.
The sound of muffled laughter made her pause an instant before she pushed the door open. Someone was out there. Placing her ear to the crack, she heard a Malornian voice say, “I told you I had a good hand. Now pay up.”
“You want to make it the best two out of three?” a second voice inquired.
“You think we’ve got time?”
“’Course we do. The lieutenant will never think to look in this room.”
“That’s what you said on the stairway. I don’t want to get in trouble again. You heard what he said.”
“Since when do officers go poking their noses into unused meeting rooms? If we hear him walk by looking for us, we’ll just come out as soon as he’s passed, and act like we were around the corner in the other direction.”
“All right, fine.” Anya heard the slap of cards against the table. “Your turn to deal.”
So she couldn’t come out and light the candle. Anya sat down and leaned against the wall to consider her options.
She could always wait in here until she heard the soldiers leave. But it might be a long wait, she reminded herself, if the time it took them to play their first game was any indication. And she didn’t want to miss Dannel’s conversation with the regent. He might say something important that would help the prince, or even something that would give her another hint about her father.
Anya made up her mind. As dark as it was, she would just have to make her way back down the passage. It wasn’t as though she could get lost. All she had to do was feel along the walls and be careful with every step this time. She could do it. There was no reason why not.
Drawing a deep breath, Anya lowered herself through the trapdoor once more. Somehow it didn’t seem quite as bad this time. Even though the darkness pressed in thickly from every side, it felt a little better to be pushing her way through it on purpose. She wasn’t running away. She was making the deliberate choice to step out and face it. She wasn’t going to let it conquer her. And so Anya kept her chin high as she inched her way down the stairs and limped along the hallway, around a corner, down more stairs, her fingers tracing the rough stone walls beside her. She just wished there wasn’t that draft. Somehow it made the darkness seem a little vaster than it really was.
The draft.
Anya stopped short at the bottom of the steps, in the same place where she had sprawled a few moments earlier. Why was there a draft in here? She frowned, trying to remember if she had felt one the last time she had come, or when Professor Dreytin had brought her here last week. No, she was sure the air had been still before. Why would it be different now?
Anya knew the answer even before her mind had finished framing the question, and her heart seemed to stop as it came to her. There was only one reason why a breeze could be wafting through the passage. There was an opening at one end through which the air was moving.
Which meant the door to the secret room was open.
Which meant there was someone in there.
Anya froze, her heart clenching up in horror. She wasn’t alone here in the darkness. Someone else knew the secret. Someone else was here too.
Her knees felt suddenly weak, and Anya sat down limply on the bottom step, trying not to panic. Being stuck down here in the dark all alone was bad enough. Being stuck down here in the dark with some unidentified person was much worse. Much, much worse.
Maybe it’s Professor Dreytin, she told herself. But she remembered having seen him in the dining hall earlier when she had hurri
ed through.
Who else knows about this place? No one, according to the professor. Perhaps someone had found it accidentally, the way Prince Jaymin and Erik had. In which case, it could be an Alasian. Perhaps somebody trying to eavesdrop on the regent for reasons similar to hers.
Or perhaps a Malornian soldier, here to provide extra security from an unusual angle. Or a soldier simply out to learn what he could for his own gain. Talifus might have known about the room. He could have told the Malornians, perhaps in an attempt to put himself back in their good graces.
In any case, no Malornian would be pleased to find Anya in there. In fact, it was extremely likely that if she were discovered, she would be killed to preserve the secret. At the thought, Anya swallowed hard, her hands clammy with fear. There was nowhere to hide. When the person, whoever he was, eventually headed back out, he would be sure to catch her. The passage wasn’t wide enough for two people to pass without touching. And besides, he would have a light. What could she do? What could she possibly do?
Well, sitting here on the step until she was caught wouldn’t help. And she couldn’t go back; not with the soldiers playing cards in the room. That left only one choice: to go forward. Because the secret room was the only place along the whole passageway where two people could fit at the same time without touching, and possibly without seeing, each other.
Anya took a deep, trembling breath. She had to try it. If the intruder were a soldier, it was her only chance. If he were lying down with his face pressed to the hole in the floor, she might be able to creep softly into the room behind him without his hearing her. Then she could crawl around to the other side of the hill and lie there against the wall until he left. It would be dim in the room, and if his eyes were used to the lamplight from below, he might not see her when he got up to leave. She had to chance it. It was a long shot, she knew, but it was the only course of action she could think of that offered any hope at all.
In the Enemy's Service (Annals of Alasia Book 2) Page 23
