The Dragon of Trelian (25 page)

Despite the lateness of the hour, the kitchen was still warm and brightly lit. In her frequent excursions as Mellie, she had learned that there was some sort of cooking or washing or preparing or cleaning up going on at nearly all hours of the day and night. Tonight was no exception; the cook’s assistant was supervising several scullions at their duties at the far end of the room, near the fire. Servants often stopped in to grab something to eat at odd hours, especially if their jobs kept them busy during the normal mealtimes, and no one usually batted an eye at one more serving girl passing through the room.

She had planned to walk right through without stopping, but the smell of food when she entered the kitchen assaulted her senses with an overpowering intensity. She could not clearly remember the last time she had eaten; all she knew was that the hunger pains that had faded to a dull constant ache inside her flared into full life again, and she couldn’t see what harm it would do to take some bread and a bit of cheese and meat on her way through.

She had sliced off the end of a loaf of bread and was just cutting one more hunk of cheese from the table when she heard giggling. Looking up, she saw a kitchen maid and a well-dressed youth sitting in the corner, their heads bent close together. It could have been anyone — there were bound to be dozens of young men that age in the castle this close to the wedding — but she knew instantly, even before she heard his voice murmuring in the girl’s ear, that it was Wilem. Fear and hatred rose up within her until she felt herself shaking with suppressed emotion. She looked at the knife in her hand. He was so close. She could walk over and plunge the knife into his back before anyone would realize what she was doing. Meg felt she had never wanted to do anything as much as she wanted to go over right now and kill him. It took her several seconds to coerce her clenched fingers to relinquish their hold on the knife. When she was finally able to let go, she clutched her bread and cheese and turned to leave, but not before her still-shaking hands knocked the cheese platter to the floor with a resounding crash.

Her heart stopped as everyone turned to look.
Don’t see me,
she begged him silently as she bent to retrieve the fallen items.
Don’t see me — it’s not me — you don’t see me, please, please, please, you traitorous bastard, please.
She tried to look sheepish and embarrassed rather than terrified, but she had no idea how well she was succeeding. She heard someone mutter, “Clumsy oaf,” and several other people laughed. As she rose back up to return the platter to the table, she kept her head bent forward, her hair covering most of her face. Then she ran, hoping they all saw the same mortified, clumsy serving girl and that no one recognized the tatters of her fancy dress or caught a close look at her frightened, furious face. More laughter followed her out into the hallway, and she kept running until she turned the corner. Then she froze, straining to hear. No footfalls sounded on the stone floor behind her. Finally, she swallowed and moved on.

The bread was soft and delicious. Meg ripped off a huge bite with her teeth and chewed angrily as she walked. There were so many painful emotions swirling around inside her that it took her a moment to realize one of them was jealousy.
Stupid,
she told herself contemptuously. All she should feel for him was hatred. Besides, he was probably only sweet-talking the maid for more information about the wedding night. She took a bite of the cheese next and was momentarily distracted by how good it tasted. She had never before truly appreciated the pure enjoyment of eating. If it weren’t for all the other, far more pressing concerns, she would have gathered up a much larger collection of food items and found some quiet corner where she could sit and eat and properly focus her full attention on each tasty morsel.

Except for the kitchen, the castle seemed quiet; it was late enough that many people had retired to their chambers. On the few occasions that someone else appeared in the hallway, Meg hid her face in her hair and kept her eyes down until they had passed. Finally she reached the narrow staircase of the southwest tower and began to climb. Almost there. At least she knew she would not run into Wilem in some dark stairwell corner, since he was probably still trading gentle whispers with the kitchen maid. And surely it was too late for a noble advisor like the distinguished Sen Eva Lichtendor to be skulking about the castle. Still, Meg would be glad when she reached the safety of the royal family suites at last.

Soft footfalls suddenly sounded on the steps above her — someone headed down. Meg glanced around and then hid behind her hair again. She was too far from the next landing to get there without being seen. Better to pretend she had nothing to hide. She hugged the wall and waited respectfully for the other person to pass.

The footfalls stopped. Meg waited, trying not to fidget. The person was just standing there, looking at her. It couldn’t be Sen Eva. It couldn’t. She’d be able to feel the waves of evil coming off the woman if it were. Besides, Sen Eva would have killed her by now. And it couldn’t be Wilem unless he had dashed out of the kitchen without her hearing, circled around to run up another staircase, and then run down to meet her here. Why didn’t the person speak? Probably he or she was wondering the same thing about Meg, she supposed.
Bloody Hunter,
she swore finally to herself, and looked up.

Maurel was staring at her, wide-eyed, her mouth open in a shocked little circle. “
Meg?
Oh, gods, it
is
you. At first I thought someone had stolen your dress and got it all dirty, and I didn’t know what that meant they had done to you or whether I should say something or run and get Morgan. . . .” She trailed off, bewildered. “What happened? Where did you go? We were looking
everywhere
— poor Maerlie even made them open up the secret passage in the cellar so she could check the cell down there that they found Lysetta in that time. . . .”

Meg grabbed her sister in a rough, tight hug that made the younger girl squeak with surprise. Somehow it hadn’t really seemed like she had made it home until this moment.

Maurel bore it gracefully for several seconds before she began to squirm. “Ugh, Meg, you don’t really smell very good,” she said, pulling away. “I think you need to take a bath.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Meg said, grinning like an idiot. Maurel probably thought she’d lost her mind. “But — wait a minute. What are you doing up at this hour? Oh, never mind. I’m just so glad to see you. And I don’t have time to scold you; there are some important things I need to tell Mother and Father.” Her grin slipped. “And Maerlie.”

“But they’re not here,” Maurel protested. “What things? What happened?”

Meg barely stopped herself from grabbing the girl again. “What do you mean they’re not here?” That couldn’t be. They had to be here.

Maurel took a cautious step backward. “Mother went with Maerlie and Queen Carlinda for the bridal retreat. The wedding is in two days, remember? And Prince Ryant asked Father to come for his last hunt, so Morgan is looking after us and . . .” She peered worriedly into Meg’s face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Meg sat down heavily on the steps. They weren’t here. The burden of everything she had learned fell back upon her with the weight of a thousand stones. What was she going to do? She hadn’t thought any further than getting home and revealing Sen Eva’s plot to her parents. She tried to force herself to be calm and think. If the wedding was in two days, that meant everyone would have to return tomorrow. There was still time. As long as Sen Eva and Wilem didn’t discover that she and Calen had returned. He hadn’t recognized her in the kitchen. She was sure of it. Almost sure.

She looked up at Maurel. “Where’s Morgan?”

“In her rooms. Come on, I’ll take you.” She reached down and pulled on Meg’s hand. Meg followed numbly, grateful that her sister had stopped her endless stream of questions. It would be all right. She would tell Morgan, and Morgan would help her figure out what to do. She thought Maurel could be trusted to keep her return quiet. Her parents would be home tomorrow, and there would still be plenty of time to warn them before the wedding. It would all be fine. Meg wished she knew why she still felt such a strong sense of foreboding. She wished she was certain that Wilem hadn’t recognized her. She wished she could climb back onto her dragon and fly away, leaving these problems for someone else. She tried to wrap her sense of him around her, warm and safe, like a blanket.

Maurel knocked on the door to Morgan’s rooms and then pushed inside without waiting for a response. Morgan glanced up from her desk, where she sat busily writing. “Maurel, I hope you have a very good reason for being out of your bed at this —” She broke off, eyes going wide as she saw Meg. She was out of her chair and across the room in a blink, grabbing Meg’s arms and staring into her face. Meg flinched; her sister looked more angry than relieved, her eyes practically throwing off sparks. A stern lecture would be forthcoming if Meg didn’t start talking first, and there wasn’t time for a lecture right now.

“Maurel, please close the door,” Meg said. Maurel did as she asked, then sat down on the floor with her back against the heavy wood. Morgan looked at the door, then back at Meg. She backed off and sat on the edge of a chair. “Tell me,” she said.

Meg told her. She realized almost immediately that she would have to tell about Jakl after all in order for the story to make any sense, so she did, ignoring Maurel’s shocked gasps from behind her and trying not to notice the way Morgan’s neat eyebrows kept climbing higher and higher on her forehead. Maybe she could still manage not to tell her parents that part of it right away. Maybe. She told about her time spent with Calen and how he was helping her with Jakl and finally how they had met in the east wing and gone together into the empty guest suite to watch the tourney workers from their secret window. Most of that was surprisingly easy to tell; the words seemed to flow from her almost of their own accord, casually spilling what had seemed untellable secrets such a short time before. The next part would be much harder.

Morgan went very still when Meg repeated what she and Calen had heard from behind the curtains. Stupid tears of anger and pain flooded Meg’s eyes as she recounted Wilem’s betrayal and Sen Eva’s blunt discussion of her plans to have Maerlie killed on the night of the wedding. Maurel had gone completely silent behind her, and Morgan seemed frozen behind a wall of denial and disbelief. Meg rushed on, eager to get past this part. She gave her confused retelling of how Sen Eva and Calen had each begun
something
she couldn’t understand and of then awakening in the forest, Calen unconscious beside her, with no idea of what had happened or how they had arrived there.

She skimmed over much of what had passed between her and Jakl — they didn’t need to know about that, and she doubted she could explain it in any case — and only said that Calen had worked out a way to summon the dragon to take them back home. Maurel whimpered softly when Meg told about the army of monsters they’d seen and the flying one that attacked them. Meg cursed inwardly; she hadn’t meant to tell that part to Maurel, but it was too late now.

“We thought it might be best not to let Sen Eva know we’d returned,” she went on quickly. “Calen went to speak with Serek, and I came straight here. Well,” she amended, “straight here by way of the kitchen. I was starving.” Meg left it at that. She couldn’t bring herself to mention seeing Wilem. She rubbed wearily at her finally cried-out eyes and wished she still had some of the cheese and bread left.

Her tale told at last, Meg collapsed into her sister’s comfortable reading chair, feeling heavy with exhaustion but lighter for the sharing of her burden. “So,” she said, “what do you think we should do? How should we handle it? I wish Mother and Father were here to decide, but they’re not, so it must be up to us.” She leaned forward. “Oh, and Calen wanted me to stress that Sen Eva is likely very dangerous. Sending the guards won’t be enough. Perhaps we should consult with Serek before doing anything; with luck he will know some way to prevent her from casting any spells to attack us or escape.”

Morgan was silent. She shook her head, not meeting Meg’s eyes. When she finally spoke, her words were hesitant. And unexpected. “Meg, I think you’re getting ahead of yourself. I want to believe what you’ve told me, but frankly, all together it’s a bit hard to swallow.”

Meg felt she must have misheard. Morgan
wanted
to believe? She opened her mouth but couldn’t think of what to say. Morgan looked at her with sympathy and concern. Somehow that only made it worse.

“I’m not accusing you of lying, Meg. Truly, I’m not. But your behavior has been so odd of late, and this story . . . well, isn’t it possible you misunderstood what Sen Eva and Wilem were arguing about? It doesn’t make a lot of sense if you think about it, does it? Why would they want to kill Maerlie?”

Hadn’t she even been
listening
? “I told you, to get revenge for the death of Wilem’s father and brother. I mean, I know the part about our father and King Ryllin has to be a lie, but . . .”

“Meg, listen to yourself. You’re saying Sen Eva and Wilem made up a lie to give them a reason to kill your sister. Does that really seem logical to you?”

“No, you’re twisting it around. That’s not how it was.” She was getting flustered. That wouldn’t help anything. But she knew what she’d heard. “Calen heard it, too! And then she tried to kill us! Did I misunderstand that as well?”

“You don’t really know that’s what she was doing. Calen told you that, but you said yourself that there was nothing you could actually see.”

“Morgan!” She was shouting now, but she couldn’t help it. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I have to!” her sister shouted back. She struggled visibly to get her voice back under control. “Meg, please try to understand. Even if you are right, if everything you said is true, what would you have me do? We can’t just accuse Sen Eva of murder and treason without a shred of proof. At best, we’d offend King Ryllin and Queen Carlinda. At worst, they would see this as a ploy to call off the wedding and an end to the peace negotiations. They would certainly never believe this story without substantial evidence to support it. Sen Eva has been their trusted advisor for twenty years!”