Tuesdays at the Castle Read online

  Celie’s jaw dropped. “He can’t return to Vhervhine? He’s been exiled?”

  “Yes. The exile.” Lulath nodded, his face grim. “I do not think the Vhervhish know he is here. I think Khelsh pay ambassador to pretend that he comes … by this royal request, which must have been a false thing.”

  “Really?” Her eyebrows shot up and she couldn’t pull them back down. “Where is he supposed to be?”

  “I do not know.” Lulath shrugged. “I do not think he would listen to me, if I told him to go. Or I would, I would tell him.”

  Sitting there on the floor with Prince Lulath, watching him play with his dogs, Celie suddenly realized something. The prince, despite his height and his fine clothes, was not as old as she’d originally thought.

  “How old are you?” Then trying not to appear rude, she added, “I’m eleven.”

  “I am two plus the twenty,” the prince said.

  Celie had thought he was at least twenty-five, if not thirty. But there were no lines on his smiling, handsome face, and he seemed far less imposing with a small dog burrowing under his chin.

  “Please, Princess, can I help?”

  Celie realized that he had been offering to help, and waiting for her to give him an order, this entire time. He was hers to command, she thought with a little thrill, but what should she ask? And how much of their situation should she truly confide? She wished she could consult with Lilah and Rolf, but there was to be a banquet tonight, and Lulath’s servants would come to help him dress any minute.

  Celie took a deep breath, and made up her mind.

  “My parents are alive, and so is my brother Bran,” she said in a rush. “Wizards from the College confirmed this, but they don’t know where they are—yet. We sent our friend Pogue Parry and some of the Castle guard to search for them. We think they’re hiding because they’re afraid of being ambushed again. Prince Khelsh paid men to attack them in the pass,” she finished.

  Lulath’s eyes widened, but he nodded as though not truly surprised.

  “Prince Khelsh and the Emissary to Foreign Lands have been plotting for years to take over the Castle and Sleyne,” Celie went on. “Khelsh wants Rolf to make him his heir. We think he’ll kill Rolf as soon as that happens.”

  The prince nodded again. “Yes,” he said simply. “I did think something like this.”

  “Exactly,” Celie said. “It’s all very horrible.”

  “Khelsh came to me, to know where you and the Princess Delilah were,” Lulath told her. “He wanted look under my bed, and in my dressing room.” He tutted and shook his head. “Very rude. I say I do not know. He start to yell, but then the Castle close my door.” Lulath smiled in delight. “But first Toulala made water on Khelsh’s boot.” He gave the black-and-white dog a rub. “Pretty girl,” he said. “Good girl!”

  Celie laughed. “Very good girl!”

  “So you have a place to sleep, and the cook makes you food,” Lulath said.

  “Yes.”

  “What else is there that you need? Something else you must need!”

  “Yes,” Celie said, an idea striking her suddenly. “You say that Prince Khelsh’s father does not know he is here?”

  “I think so, Princess.”

  “Would you write him a letter, and tell him what Khelsh is doing?”

  Now it was Lulath’s turn to drop his jaw in astonishment.

  “Why never did I think of that?”

  Celie shrugged.

  “I will send it today, with my own man.”

  “Good idea,” Celie said.

  She hesitated, rubbing JouJou fiercely while she thought. She did not want to tell Prince Lulath about the Spyglass Tower; it would be safer if no one knew except Pogue, Lilah, and Rolf. But there had to be something else Lulath could do.

  “Oh!” She stopped petting the dog, and JouJou nudged her to make her keep going. “Sorry.” She rubbed the dog’s head. “I know what would help Rolf so much!”

  “Anything!” Lulath nodded. “Anything!”

  “Rolf needs support.”

  The prince looked baffled.

  “The Council is trying to convince people that Rolf is too young to be a good king. If you were to tell people that you think he is a fine king, that he makes good decisions, and things like that, then it would help us so much!”

  “Ah!” Lulath nodded. “So very very! I will as you ask. Should I tell that the old king and queen are much alive?”

  “Hmm.” Celie had to ponder that for a moment. She didn’t want to make it too obvious that Lulath was on their side. It would be safer for all of them. “Maybe if you just say that you feel that the Council called off the search too soon?”

  “Yes, very good!” Lulath looked delighted. “It will make the Council seem the very bad, if say they want old king to be dead, they want new king to fail.”

  “Exactly!”

  They beamed at each other, then Celie gave JouJou one more pat and scrambled to her feet.

  “I had better go now,” she said. “I need to get the basket from Cook, and then get back to the Sp … to our room. Lilah will be worried.”

  “Yes, yes,” Lulath said, getting up much more gracefully. “Please tell her I will help, and your brother also will I help.”

  “Of course,” Celie said.

  “If I find out a new thing, how shall I say to you?”

  “Put a handkerchief in your sleeve,” Celie said promptly. “One of us will find a way to talk to you. Also …” Celie stopped and blushed, remembering how the spyglasses could also peer into the Castle’s rooms. “I think I can see into your rooms from our hiding place.”

  Lulath blinked rapidly, but all he said was, “Wonderful Castle!” He seemed to be quite into the spirit of the adventure, and not at all disturbed that Celie and her siblings might be spying on him.

  “Also, if I have the news, I will write to you notes and put them under my girls’ bed, with a scarf on top to signal,” he decided, pointing to the post of the dog bed. “And if I must speak to you as person to person, I will put the handkerchief here.” He tugged at one of his lace-edged cuffs.

  “Perfect,” Celie said in delight. Impulsively, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Lulath’s cheek. “You are wonderful, too,” she told him.

  He looked surprised, and smiled at her. It was not his usual grin, which made him look a bit daft, but a small sheepish smile that made him seem even younger than his twenty-two years.

  “Will I take you to the kitchens?” he asked.

  “No, better stay here. We can’t be seen together too much,” she said. “I’m fine on my own.”

  “Until a next time, Princess Cecelia,” he said, and bowed to her.

  She curtsied. “It’s just Celie,” she told him.

  “Celie. Have the good luck.”

  Chapter

  18

  Telling Rolf and Lilah that Lulath was going to help them made the Glower children realize something: they could probably be doing more to help themselves. They had been spying on Khelsh and the Council, but they hadn’t done anything to actually oust them from the Castle.

  But perhaps …

  “If I can get down to Lulath’s rooms to get his messages, why not Khelsh’s rooms?” Celie suggested.

  “Celie! Why would you—” Lilah began.

  “What did you have in mind?” Rolf asked, interrupting her.

  If Lilah had been indignant at the idea, Rolf seemed more intrigued. He looked defeated: hair hanging in his eyes, face drawn and eyes haunted. This was the first time he had perked up since they had started their nightly planning meeting.

  “What if I stole his sheets?” she suggested.

  Rolf snickered, but Lilah shook her head.

  “No, he’d only make trouble for the maids,” Lilah pointed out.

  “Hmm.” Celie thought hard for a while. “What if I did something a little bit sneakier? Like did something to his clothes?”

  “What, though?” Rolf tapped his lips in t
hought. “We could spill ink on his shirts.”

  Celie nodded. “Not all of them, maybe, so it looks like someone did it on purpose, but just on the sleeves of one or two.”

  “We could sabotage some of them,” Lilah said, getting into the spirit of the thing. “Rip it until the seams are just barely holding together, so that it comes apart when he’s out of his room!”

  Celie laughed. “The back of his trousers!”

  Lilah blushed, but nodded.

  “Let’s do the Emissary, too,” she added. “And Lord Feen.”

  “Yes, let’s see how many of the Council we can get,” Rolf agreed.

  “All right,” Celie said. “But we’ll have to wait until morning. They’re in their rooms right now, and that’s too dangerous.”

  “We’d better get some sleep, then,” Lilah said with a yawn.

  They bedded down on the blankets and pillows that the girls had brought up from their rooms. Even Rolf, who could have easily gone back to his comfortable bed, stayed on the floor in the Spyglass Tower, as reluctant as his sisters to be parted from one another.

  Once she was certain her siblings were asleep, Celie pulled Rufus out of her pillowcase and tucked him against her chest. He smelled like her old room, and she cried silently for a moment before falling asleep.

  The next morning they began their campaign. The Castle opened passages for them, and they ran back and forth gathering armloads of official black robes, tunics, and trousers. Lilah made the most delicate of cuts in the seams of the trousers and robes so that only a few threads were left holding them together. Rolf gleefully dipped sleeves in a pan of ink, and Celie used a small, sharp scissors to cut partway through tunic lacings.

  Then they had to run back through the passages and return the clothing to its proper owners, which is when they ran into a little problem.

  None of them could remember which clothes went where.

  Prince Khelsh’s Vhervhish tunics, which fastened up the side of the breast with heavy gold buttons, were easy to sort out, of course. But most of the Councilors wore black even under their robes, and all of them seemed to be tall and thin. Celie thought that Lord Feen’s clothes had a certain smell to them, like moldy cheese and cats, but no one else seemed able to detect it.

  “I’m not that worried,” Rolf said breezily. “It will make it that much more diabolical if their clothes don’t fit, either!”

  He took up an armload and simply headed down one of the passages. Celie shrugged and did the same, and Lilah took the rest, grumbling that they had left her the largest pile. When they were done it was time for Rolf to meet with his regents, and he went down with the same tunic he’d had on yesterday and a smirk on his face.

  “Don’t be so obvious,” Lilah warned.

  “Oh, come now, Lilah!” Rolf protested. “Why would they suspect that I’m behind all this?” But he did his best to act sober and cowed once more.

  “I have to watch,” Celie said, going to one of the spyglasses.

  Lilah went to another, and they eagerly peered into the throne room.

  The Council would have already been dressed for the day, so none of their tunics or trousers were going to split at an inopportune moment. But they had met in their privy chamber, so they hadn’t yet put on their formal black robes. Now, as they prepared to speak with—or rather, at—Rolf, they would have to put on their robes so that they looked more impressive.

  “I hope this is worth it,” Lilah fretted. “We barely got things back to the rooms in time. And we’re very lucky we didn’t run into any of their personal servants.”

  “We’ll plan better next time, I promise,” Celie said soothingly.

  “Next time?”

  Celie just smiled to herself. She had thought of something else they could do to the Council, but didn’t want to tell Lilah yet. She knew that Lilah would oppose the idea, but Rolf would love it. She wanted him to be there to help convince their sister.

  “Shh, here they come,” Celie said.

  Like a murder of crows, the Council all filed into the throne room, with Prince Khelsh at their head. Trailing behind, with his two bodyguards, came Rolf. He looked rumpled but positively cheerful, though it made Celie mad to see how disrespectfully the Council treated him, as though he were a scribe coming after them to take notes.

  Rolf sat on his chair in front of the dais, and gestured for the Council to sit in the straight-backed chairs Rolf had ordered for them, though they never did. They clearly liked looming over him, and Celie had a sort of guilty satisfaction that Lord Feen, who was older than mud, probably had joint aches and wasn’t comfortable standing for very long.

  The Councilors talked, Prince Khelsh pounded his fist into his other hand, and Rolf sat in silence. He was supposed to sign the agreement to make Khelsh his heir today, but the paper was nowhere in sight. Celie knew that Rolf had taken it to his room yesterday to look over, and he must have left it there. She giggled as she told Lilah.

  Khelsh waved his arms some more, and a servant was sent running, likely to Rolf’s rooms to fetch the paper. Still Rolf just sat there, an expression of boredom on his face that seemed to infuriate Khelsh even more. He raised one hand high, as though calling on the heavens to witness Rolf’s stubbornness, and froze.

  “What is it?” Celie could barely whisper, pressing her eye so hard to the spyglass that it hurt. “What’s happening?”

  “His sleeve!” Lilah was giggling. “Can you see? Under the arm!”

  Celie peered around, moving her spyglass in a little circle until at last the prince’s sleeve came into view. The seam of Khelsh’s black robe had split right under the arm. It was hard to spot, because Khelsh wore a dark, plum-colored tunic underneath, but it was there.

  The sensation of his robe tearing had frozen Khelsh for a moment. Then he hastily lowered his arm, clamping it tight to his side and looking around to see if anyone else had noticed.

  No one had, but the rest of the Council did give Prince Khelsh some very perplexed looks as he stopped speaking midsentence and turned to glare at Rolf. Rolf looked back guilelessly, while Celie silently begged him not to laugh or say anything witty, lest Khelsh realize that Rolf had something to do with it.

  “Look at Lord Feen,” Lilah cried. “Oh, just look, Celie!”

  The elderly lord had at last consented to sit, which was probably a mistake on his part. For when he sank down into the straight-backed chair, his robe pulled tight at the shoulders and the seams promptly parted. Now his robe was sliding down his chest and back, exposing his rusty black tunic and trapping his arms as he squawked and flapped about like a surprised crow.

  Celie couldn’t stop giggling, and neither could Lilah. As the Emissary leaned over Lord Feen to help him gather up the pieces of his robe, his own robe split under the arms as well. Celie let out a cheer and Lilah snorted in a most unladylike fashion, she was laughing so hard.

  In the meantime, Rolf continued to sit on his chair, only now he assumed an expression of great concern. He watched the Council cluck and fuss for a little while longer, manfully hiding his amusement as three more lords fell victim to their prank, until the footman came back with the papers from his room.

  Rolf said something that looked as though he was excusing himself from the mess. He stood up and nodded regally around at the discomfited lords, his royal air only ruined by the fact that he appeared to be whistling as he strolled out of the throne room.

  “Stop!” Prince Khelsh bellowed—Celie could read the word on his thick lips—but Rolf didn’t look back.

  “Hurrah!” Celie spun away from the spyglass, laughing. “Rolf did it!”

  She had not realized until that moment how nervous she was about Rolf having to sign the succession papers. But she had a deep, hidden terror that once he did, Khelsh would plan to have him killed immediately. She could see that Lilah felt the same way, for her sister was visibly shaking as she turned away from her own spyglass and groped her way to the table and a stool.

 
“Oh, thank goodness! And they didn’t accuse Rolf of playing a prank on them, either,” Lilah said, resting her forehead on the table.

  “Why would they?” Celie tutted over Lilah’s fear. “If anything, we need to warn the maids. Khelsh already knows that the Castle doesn’t like him; he’s sure to assume that the Castle itself is doing these things.” She rubbed her hands together. She had a great many more pranks planned now.

  “Celie,” Lilah said in a warning voice.

  “Li-lah,” Celie singsonged back. “Only look how well this has gone! And tomorrow morning they’ll find their clothes ink stained, and more seams splitting … We can’t stop now!”

  “Too right,” Rolf said, coming into the Tower. “That was the most fun I’ve had in weeks. The look on Khelsh’s face when he raised his arm! Priceless!” He smiled and closed his eyes, savoring the vision all over again.

  “And Lord Feen,” Celie added eagerly. “When his robes just sort of slithered down around him … Lilah, you’re amazing!”

  Lilah looked down, demure. “But we do need to be careful,” she said finally.

  “Do we?” Rolf ran his fingers through his hair. “Surely they’ll assume it’s the Castle working against them, don’t you think? They won’t suspect us unless we get caught in the act. And we’ll just take great pains not to get caught,” Rolf said. “We’ve got the staff working with us, plus Lulath. I think there’s a great deal we can do.”

  “I already have a plan,” Celie said, raising her hand as she would with her tutor.

  “Do you?” Rolf’s eyes gleamed. “What is it?”

  “I don’t think you’ll like it, Lilah,” Celie apologized straightaway. “It involves manure … a great deal of manure.”

  Rolf started to laugh again.

  Chapter

  19

  Manure was duly fetched, and applied to the bottoms of shoes, hidden under beds, and smeared in the corners of wardrobes. Rolf and Celie went to the stables in the dead of night and loaded up as much as they could push in a wheelbarrow. The Castle obligingly turned all the staircases into ramps and put all the Councilors’ bedrooms in a long row. Celie did most of the work with her sound-muffling cloak firmly in place, with Rolf helping in the rooms where the wardrobes were located in a separate dressing room. They took careful note of which Councilors still had large suites of rooms, since it possibly indicated that they were not firm supporters of Khelsh and the Emissary.