Barefoot Pirate (9 page)

“We go up the back stairs, only used by servants,” Blackeye
whispered.

She led the way to a narrow, plain door, and they slipped
inside. Small glowglobes like the ones in the gang’s cave lit the way up steep
stairs. Nan ran after Blackeye, ducking with her into a narrow alcove when they
heard a door slam and loud footsteps somewhere above.

“Usually not many servants brought along on these pleasure
runs,” Blackeye murmured. “House used to belong to the Senna family, but it was
taken by Todan. He lets the Lorjees use it—that being the one Great House that
went over to his side. What we can’t figure is why they come out here at all.”

“So they don’t know about your hideout on the island.”

“We thought they knew when they first began coming here, but
they searched so poorly—like they didn’t expect to find anything. They stay for
a week or so, holding drunken parties, then go away again. The others think
they come just to be silly away from eyes in Fortanya, but I don’t think that
duke would come, or let his allies come, unless it served some purpose.”

“And Mican and the others want to do—what?” Nan asked.

“Run ’em a little.” Blackeye’s slanty eyes narrowed in
challenging humor. “We always steal our supplies from Todan’s warts. These
would be perfect. You’d think. Except that’s why we shouldn’t—for they’d wonder
why we came all the way to this island to steal from them, unless we already
lived here. Once or twice the others have pulled a haunt. Once we even scared
them into leaving right away—but then a week later we had the soldiers crawling
over the island, and we had to sit in the cave for three weeks.”

“Was that Warron’s idea?” Nan asked. “When he was in
charge?”

Blackeye’s eyes widened. “Now how’d you know that?”

Nan flushed, being completely unused to praise. “Just a
guess.”

Blackeye laughed, a soft sound. “Come. Study’s this way.
It’s where the Lorjee duke roosts when he comes. And it’s that same duke who
commands Todan’s fleet.”

“What are we looking for right now?” Nan asked as they
slipped out into the hall again, and resumed climbing.

“Talk. I think they come here where no one in Fortanya can
overhear...and maybe they meet people here they wouldn’t want to be seen
meeting in the capital.”

Blackeye stopped at the top of a long flight, listened at
another of the unmarked, narrow doors. Her fingers rested on her knife hilt.
Nan felt her own sweaty hand move to the threatening steel shape riding so
uncomfortably on her own hip.

“We’re okay,” Blackeye said softly. She opened the door—then
pulled it shut again. “Guards!” She snorted a surprised laugh, then bolted
through an adjacent door and down another narrow hall.

Nan pounded after, trying not to choke on her fear. They
skidded around a corner and stopped, pressing themselves against a wall. A
moment later the door they’d first bolted through slammed open.

“Not here,” a deep male voice said.

“Probably a kitchen lout sneaking off duty,” another voice
answered further off. The door slammed shut again.

“Whew, what a close one.” Blackeye laughed. “Well, some
important toff is in that study—those two guards were posted on either side of
the servants’ entry. First I’ve seen that.”

“So we can’t listen?”

Blackeye’s challenging grin flashed again. “Sure we can,”
Blackeye said. “I noticed you were pretty good at climbing today. We’ll just
have to use the green stairs. Okay?”

“Green stairs?” Nan repeated, confused.

“Joke name.” Blackeye rubbed her hands in anticipation. “For
the ivy.”

You’re supposedly a princess, Nan thought. If you chicken
out now, they’ll know you’re a fake—and McKynzi’s laughter will be nothing to
theirs.

Nan shrugged, fighting to hide her fear. “If you show me
how.”

“It’s easy,” Blackeye said. “Trick is to only step on the
big branches. They’ve shot roots into stone cracks, and they’ll hold you. Little
creepers will just tear away.”

Once again they ran down a confusing array of halls. Nan
knew she was tired—the glowglobes and torches glared at the edge of her vision.
But she kept reminding herself that princesses were always fearless and heroic.

Blackeye found an empty room, which they crossed in the
darkness. She opened the window, and cool salt air blew in. “We go up here,”
Blackeye said, throwing her leg over the sill.

Again Nan followed her every move, forcing herself not to
look down. Luckily the ivy was thick and strong as a tree, with branches
curling every which way along the wall. She could hear the surf booming and
hissing far below, but she kept her eyes on the leaves right in front of her as
she crept sideways.

Blackeye reached down and motioned to Nan. Holding tightly,
Nan craned her neck and looked up. An open window glowing with light was about
six feet above her. She could barely hear the clinking of crystal and the
mutter of voices over the sounds of the surf below.

Blackeye wanted her to position herself alongside the window,
which she accomplished with slow, careful movements. Blackeye swung her way
silently to the other side of the window, her dark eyes reflecting the yellow
light from inside. She was clearly enjoying herself.

Nan was too frightened to get any closer to the window. She
wedged herself tightly into the ivy and tipped her head back to glance through
the window. All she could see was the corner of a tapestry on a wall, and the
end of a low table with gold edging. Raising her head just a tiny bit farther,
she glimpsed people sitting in gracefully carved low chairs.

As she did, the talk she heard resolved into words. One
woman in particular had a very penetrating voice. Nan stared at her velvet gown
with its jeweled embroidery and festoons of pearls. A wave of envy swept
through Nan, then passed by when she looked at the woman’s face. It was not a
particularly notable face—long and thin and kind of chinless—but the way the
sharp nose was angled straight in the air, and the mouth was pruned up, made
Nan think of Mrs. Evans when she talked about “trashy teenagers.”

“...and then I set rubies into the lace,” the woman was
cawing. “The sheerest stroke of genius. You may be sure Matiri was just
desperately
put out. So at the Naming she tried rubies, but with her red hair, the effect
was just
hideous
.”

Nan shifted her grip, raising her head just a bit more. All
she could see were three of the woman’s listeners, two women and one man. All
three of them wore the kind of polite, fake smile that Nan had seen on the
faces of kids trapped in adult company, or on the faces of adults when kids
talked: boredom. But the woman either didn’t see or didn’t care. She just
talked on and on about her clothes at various parties and how lousy everyone
else had looked. Once or twice others tried to get a word in but she sharpened
her voice and plowed on louder.

A slight sound on the other side of the window caught Nan’s
attention. The ivy rustled as Blackeye moved closer to her. “That’s the duke
himself in there,” she whispered impatiently. “And I can’t hear a word he’s
saying over that goose’s squawking.”

Both girls were silent a bit longer. The clothes-woman
droned on, punctuating each triumphant detail with a screechy laugh.

Blackeye shook her head. “Let’s try some diversion.”

She swung out one-handed, using the other to tear a leaf
from the ivy. In the soft glow from the window, Nan watched Blackeye roll the
ivy around in her fingers. Occasionally she dug her thumbnail into the leaf. Meanwhile
she kept watching the people inside.

Suddenly Blackeye lunged upward so she was almost in direct
view of the window. Then, with a strong flick of her wrist, she zipped the
ivy-ball straight through the open window.

“...and those sleeves were
simply hideou
s on her!”
the woman was boring on. “I told her—Ack!”

The ivy ball splatted on the woman’s cheek, leaving a gooey
green smear. She slapped her beringed hand to her cheek and looked at it. When
she saw the green gook, she yanked her hand back and shrieked as if she’d been
stabbed.

Her hand smacked squarely into the hand of the man sitting
next to her, just as he was lifting a full wineglass to his lips.

“Hey!” he yelled—and the wine splashed backward right into
the face of a servant holding a full tray, who was standing behind the couple.

“Got it in one,” Blackeye chortled, collapsing into her ivy
as she tried to muffle her laughter. “Now watch the wine—”

The servant gasped, and the tray—and the brimming
wineglasses on it—dipped, splashed, and as the man clutched desperately at it
several glasses clashed together and went flying—right onto the seated couple.

Crashes, shrieks and angry exclamations sounded forth. Below
the window, Blackeye stuffed her knuckles into her mouth.

A short, gray-haired man with a heavy gold chain resting on
his shoulders addressed the clothes-woman in soothing tones. His brows flicked
together in a quick frown when he saw the smear on the woman’s cheek, and he
turned a fast glance toward the window.

Nan pressed herself flat into the ivy, her blood pounding in
her ears. She heard noises at the window, but she was afraid to look—or to
move.

“Probably a bird,” a male voice said clearly, from inches
above Nan’s head. “There’s nothing else out here.”

Nan’s fingers tightened painfully on the ivy branches.

Wood slammed, glass rattled—the window being pulled shut.

Two, three longs breaths. Then Blackeye’s whisper. “Come on!
They’re going in here to talk.”

Blackeye pointed at the next window down. She followed
Blackeye, who swung with ease and apparently boundless energy toward the next
window.

Nan uncurled her stiff, shaky fingers and gripped ivy
farther over. Dug a foot in, tested the ivy. Shifted her weight. One hand and
foot at a time, she neared the second window. Presently she heard voices.

“We should know if Averann will back us by month’s end, at
latest,” a deep-voiced man said.

“We had better,” a woman said coldly.

“Todan will have his seer before then,” a second man said.
“If Dhes Andis keeps his promise. And then we’ll—”

Two hands appeared on the sill. Nan lunged back against the
ivy. She saw a brief gleam of cobalt blue in a square ring on one of the hands.
Nan glimpsed some kind of carving on the ring—a bird—then the window swung
shut. Nan heard nothing but the crashing of the sea, and the faint cawing of
distant gulls.

“That’s it,” Blackeye said then. “Let’s get out of here.”

Gratefully, Nan followed Blackeye back down to their entry
window. When she slid inside, she breathed a silent sigh of relief. Now she was
glad she hadn’t chickened out.
But we’re not safe yet.

Blackeye checked the door, then led the way into a hall.
They retraced their way back down to the storeroom, Blackeye pausing to steal
one of the glowglobes from its stand and thrust it down her tunic.

When they were in the tunnel Blackeye pulled the glow globe
out, and used its light to push the false stone black carefully into place.
Then she sat back with a sigh. “Hoo,” she said. “If you’re not tired, then you
must be made of brick.”

Nan grinned. “I could sleep a year,” she admitted, relieved
at being able to tell the truth for once.

“Me, too,” Blackeye said, rubbing her eyes. “Well, not long
now. And what a find! Did you hear what they said?”

“I think so,” Nan said, and repeated what she’d heard.

Blackeye nodded emphatically. “Not much, but it tells us
lots. One, Todan really
is
trying to get a wizard who’s trained in
magic. That’s bad for us. But it also looks like that Lorjee duke wants to
double-cross him.”

“He’s a good guy?”

“No way,” Blackeye said. “He was the only toff who joined
Todan, and he sure wasn’t any slouch about taking things from the others as
Todan’s warts defeated them. He’s just as big a slime. So’s his sister, who was
the woman. Anyway, if those two are planning something against the warts, we
don’t join him—we plan for
that
.”

She got to her feet, and cupped the glow globe in her hands.
Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she studied it. “Which brings us to the third
thing, the identity of that other man. Who was he? We’ll have to find out.”

She led the way back down the tunnel.

Nan remembered the subject they’d been discussing on their
way to the castle, and she said, “So what happened with Warron, anyway?”

Blackeye tossed her shiny dark braids back, giving a
surprised laugh. “So you’ve got strategy on your mind, too?”

Confused, Nan did not return an immediate answer.

Apparently Blackeye did not expect one. “After a few months
of his captaincy—and I never once said anything or interfered between him and
the others—we were hot stuff with knives, swords, and swinging on ropes, but
they were unhappy. His plans didn’t have any fun to them. Always the same
thing: rush in, grab stuff, threaten anyone we found, and get out fast. Over
and over.”

“That ghost thing sounded fun,” Nan said.

“That was the only one—and it was something I’d suggested
once, as a plan for entering Castle Rotha when we finally make it. That was
before we found out about the magic on the prince.” Blackeye shrugged, grinning
ruefully. “So anyway, one day when the others were feeling fed up, but no one
said anything, I said it was time to plan. He came up with a lot of his usual
stuff. And maybe it would work if we had an army. And though the others didn’t
speak, I could see, and he could as well, that they weren’t convinced. But my
idea is something a bunch of kids have a chance to pull off—and it’ll be fun.
So I offered to lead a few practice runs, and made ’em good ones...and Warron
just stood up at dinner one night and said he wanted me to take over again.
He’s backed me ever since. So you might say he’d won the battle—but lost the
war.” She chuckled. “Ever heard that saying where you come from?”