Tuesdays at the Castle (14 page)

“Celie! Oh, darling, are you all right?”

“Yes, but I’m so tired,” Celie said, plucking at the rope with fingers that still ached from clutching the hamper. “I don’t know how I’m going to get up.”

“I’ve made a sort of pulley system with the table legs,” Lilah said. “Tie the rope under your arms again, and I’ll pull you up.”

Celie tied the best knot that she could, and Lilah began to tug her up the side of the Tower. Celie’s face scraped against the rough stones, and her knees banged painfully against a protrusion of rock, so in the end she braced her feet against the wall and tried to walk up while Lilah pulled.

When she reached the window, she lost one of the food bundles climbing in, and the flask tumbled out of her bodice and landed on one of Lilah’s feet, making her sister gasp with pain.

“Sorry,” Celie mumbled. Then she collapsed onto the floor.

Lilah exclaimed in concern, and Celie moaned in reply. She was barely aware of her sister removing the various bundles from her person, plus the mirror-wand, the broken bits of biscuit, and the atlas. Lilah gently undressed Celie and helped her into a clean shift, washed her face and hands, and then had her lie down on their makeshift bed. She brought her some only slightly crushed tarts and a slice of bread with ham and hard cheese on it.

Celie managed to eat while lying down, then she told Lilah everything that had happened since she’d climbed down out of the Tower. Lilah’s white-faced horror as Celie told her about her several near misses with Prince Khelsh and the soldiers made her realize how great the danger truly had been.

“I need to sleep now,” she mumbled when she was done. Her eyes closed and she fell into a dreamless sleep before Lilah could reply.

Chapter

23

I
n the morning, Celie was stiff all over and could hardly move. When she at last rolled out of her blankets, it was to find Lilah trying to get dressed with similar stiffness.

“I can’t lift my arms over my head,” Lilah confessed with a little half-hysterical giggle. “They’re so sore from pulling you up!”

“I wish I’d found a rope ladder,” Celie apologized. “But I completely forgot.”

“It’s all right,” Lilah said. “I don’t know where you would have found one, anyway. And you were busy helping everyone else.”

Celie helped Lilah dress, and then Lilah helped her. They feasted on apple cider, tarts, and sausages while they planned what to do.

“Clearly we have to get out of the Castle,” Lilah said. “There’s no help for it. Hiding here like rats isn’t going to win any battles, and by now Khelsh and the others will surely know that everyone else has left.”

Celie felt the floor plummeting out from beneath her. They couldn’t leave the Castle, not when the Castle needed them the most! She looked up at Lilah, her eyes wide and her mouth already forming the protest.

“Don’t even give me that look,” Lilah said. “I mean it.” She held up a hand as though warding off Celie’s expression. “Celie, there is nothing more we can do. Yesterday I thought that it would be best for us both to stay here, hiding in the Castle until help arrived. But now I just don’t think so. The Castle is dead, and—”

“But what if it isn’t?”

“What?”

“What if it isn’t dead?” Celie felt her heart expanding with the very idea. “I mean, yes, Khelsh did that horrible spell, but … what if there is some way we can undo it?” She remembered the feeling she had had when the guards had come toward her the night before. The feeling like the Castle’s strength was surging around her again, just for a moment.

“All right, all right, I understand,” Lilah said. “But we can’t do any of that from in here! We need to get out, and summon the Wizards’ Council, and find Mother and Father and Bran. Stuck in here, Celie, I just don’t think there’s anything else we can do.”

At last Celie nodded. She couldn’t bring herself to agree out loud.

“Let’s see what’s going on outside, anyway,” Lilah said.

Brushing crumbs from her hands, she went to the window that faced the front of the Castle. She looked through the spyglass and then let out a gasp. Celie got up and joined her at once.

Looking through the spyglass, Celie gasped as well.

An army had gathered on the plain in front of the Castle. There were tents, and ranks of men and horses, and cooking fires, all evenly spaced. She couldn’t pick out individual faces, but she could see that some of the men were in the bright yellow tunics of the royal army, while others wore the simple clothing of farmers, shepherds, and other common folk. There was also a bright blue tent flying the falcon flag of Grath, and a plum-colored tent with the twin trees of Vhervhine. And proudly, above it all, was the flag of Sleyne: green with a golden griffin above a silver tower.

“That was quick,” Celie said. “How did they all get here so fast?”

“It must be because of Lulath’s letter, the one he sent last week,” Lilah guessed. “They must have started out then, to get rid of Khelsh.”

“Well done, Lulath,” Celie breathed, looking through the spyglass again. The great road was dark with horses and men, all coming toward the Castle as more allies joined the siege. “Oh, well done!”

“Now you see that we’ve got to get out there,” Lilah said, rubbing Celie’s back.

“Yes,” Celie said more eagerly.

They filled a knapsack with food, the flask (now mostly empty), the beautiful velvet cloak that Lulath had given them, the atlas, and the mirror-wand. Celie shoved Rufus down the front of her bodice, for lack of a better place to put him, and Lilah kindly didn’t comment. Lilah put on the knapsack, and used her system of ropes and table legs to lower Celie down to the roof below. Once Celie was down, Lilah drew the rope back up, and tied it even more firmly to the table and then around her own waist, climbing down with much grunting and squeaking.

Watching her sister, whose arms were shaking with soreness, creep her way down the side of the Tower, Celie’s whole body instantly slicked with sweat. When Lilah was about halfway down, the table in the Tower slid across the floor with a loud scraping sound, and Lilah dropped toward the roof with a jolt and a scream. Celie rushed forward to try to catch her, but Lilah managed to land on her feet, though it looked quite painful.

For a moment the two sisters just stood there with their arms around each other, panting. Then Lilah untied herself, and they carefully picked their way over the roof tiles to the balcony and let themselves down into the rest of the Castle.

The silence of the Castle was even eerier now. The thick walls and heavy oak doors had never allowed much sound to carry, but there was a quality to the quiet that was unnerving. Not only was the Castle no longer watching and listening, but there truly were no people at all.

“Is the Council gone, too?”

Lilah’s whisper startled Celie, who was using the mirror-wand to look around a corner at yet another empty corridor. They were nearly to the kitchens and had not seen a single soldier, nor Councilor, in the hour they had been creeping through the empty Castle.

“Maybe they’re all gone,” Celie said as she led her sister across the corridor and into the kitchens. “Maybe we’re the only ones left.”

“Not quite. There’s a few of us still hanging around,” said a dry voice.

Celie and Lilah stopped in shock. There were two Councilors sitting in the kitchens, eating what looked like bowls of very lumpy porridge. It was Lord Feen, and it seemed that Lord Sefton had been released from the dungeons. He was the one who had spoken, and now he rose and bowed to the sisters.

“Please join us, Your Highnesses,” he said, without a hint of threat or sarcasm.

“No, thank you, Lord Sefton,” Lilah said stiffly. She grabbed Celie’s arm and started to pull her back the way they had come.

“We won’t hurt you,” Lord Feen said softly. He looked even older than he was, his face so creased and gray that it was painful to behold, and his hands were shaking. “We’ve already done enough damage.”

Pity swelled Celie’s heart, seeing how … broken Lord Feen looked. Then the pity was replaced by anger: How
dare
he look repentant! No, not when he had just stood there watching as Prince Khelsh admitted to trying to have her parents killed and threatened Rolf. Not when Lord Feen simply watched as Khelsh killed the Castle!

Lilah tried to pull her away again, but Celie shook her off.

“Traitors!” It was the first word that came to Celie’s lips. “You horrible traitors! How dare you even speak to us? How dare you sit here inside the Castle and eat our food? You deserve to die!”

“Celie!” Lilah took hold of Celie’s waist and tried to drag her away.

Celie fought her off, struggling away from her sister, which moved her closer to the two men. She stood there shaking and looking at them through the mess of her tangled hair.

“Celie, please come away,” Lilah whispered.

Celie found it interesting that her normally polite-to-a-fault sister did not apologize to the two lords, or even look at them. She took another step away from Lilah, toward the table. Lord Feen actually drew back a little.

Lord Sefton, however, just laughed. It was a grim laugh, with no amusement in it that Celie could detect.

“Your sister is right to shout at us,” Lord Sefton said to Lilah. Then he turned to Celie, and she saw that his handsome face now had lines, and there were gray strands in his dark hair. “In fact, Your Highness, your condemnation is correct in all things: we are traitors, and we should leave the Castle.”

“Then why don’t you?”

Even Celie was surprised by the coldness in Lilah’s voice. She turned to look at her older sister, and saw why Lilah was trying to get her to leave. Lilah’s face was red with anger and a host of other emotions, and there were tears streaking her cheeks.

“We can’t,” Lord Feen said. “Khelsh and the Lord Emissary have all the doors guarded. They are looking for you, but they have said that they will kill anyone else who tries to leave.”

“So you’re
cowards
,” Lilah said with a sniff. “I’m not surprised. Let’s go, Celie.”

This time Celie went with her sister. She wanted to continue to yell and scream at Lord Feen and Lord Sefton, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Lord Feen would just sit there cringing and looking so lost and
old,
and Lord Sefton seemed to welcome the punishment. Besides which, she could feel Lilah trembling, and wanted to get her sister out of the Castle. If Khelsh really was watching all the doors, they would need to plan their route carefully.

Of course, there were doors that Khelsh and the Emissary didn’t know about. Celie was betting she could find at least two that they had never seen before.

“Wait! Your Highnesses! Where are you going?”

Lord Sefton held out one hand to them.

“We’re going to join our brother and his army,” Lilah said loftily. “Outside.”

“Please stop,” Lord Sefton said with real fear. “Aren’t you afraid—”

Celie turned again and looked at him, stopping Lord Sefton in midsentence.

“I will never be afraid to walk the corridors of my Castle,” Celie said. “Even though Khelsh has murdered it.
While you sat and watched
.”

The sisters turned to leave again, but Sefton called them back once more. “The Castle isn’t dead.”

Celie and Lilah froze. They looked at each other, but Celie didn’t dare to look at Sefton. She didn’t want to find out that he was lying, trying to gain her favor or make himself seem less of a coward.

“Nothing could truly kill Castle Glower, not unless you took it apart stone by stone. Maybe not even then,” Sefton said to their backs. “He could only put it to sleep.”

Lilah turned, but only partway. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “Come, Celie.”

“You should believe him,” said Lord Feen. “He has some wizardly training.”

Lilah turned all the way around, pulling Celie around with her. “You do?”

“I scrubbed out of the College of Wizardry my final year,” Lord Sefton admitted with a self-deprecating grimace. “But I know a thing or two, and I wanted no part of this scheme. I know how dangerous black magic can be.”

“How did you get out of the dungeons?” Celie put one hand to her mouth, feeling like a fool for not remembering that she had wanted to go down and speak to him, to find out if he was on their side.

“I let him out,” Lord Feen said. “There was no point in keeping him down there. We’re all in a giant dungeon of our own making now.”

“The Castle is
not
a dungeon,” Celie said heatedly.

At the same time Lilah said, “Not dead?”

Then Lord Sefton’s words sank in, really sank in, and Celie collapsed onto the nearest stool.

“The Castle isn’t dead?” Now it was her turn to ask.

“No, Your Highness,” Lord Sefton said gently. “It’s not.”

“I told you, Lilah,” Celie said, with a hiccup that she refused to allow to turn into sobs.

“Do you know about the spell that Khelsh used, Lord Sefton?” Lilah was more direct, while Celie tried to recover herself. “Could another wizard undo it?”

“I think so … yes, Your Highness, I believe it could be lifted, if the wizard knew what he was facing,” Lord Sefton said.

“Excellent,” Lilah said. “Come with us.”

“Lilah,” Celie said, grabbing her sister’s sleeve and forcing her to lean down to hear Celie’s whisper. “What if he’s lying? What if he’s trying to trick us?”

“Then we’ll just lose him in the Castle somewhere, and let him starve,” Lilah said, not bothering to whisper.

Celie let out a short laugh and got to her feet. So did Lord Feen.

“No,” Celie said, and then blushed at how curt it had sounded. No matter what he had done, Lord Feen was the most venerable member of what had once been her father’s trusted Council. “I’m sorry, Lord Feen,” she said in a gentler tone. “But you can’t come with us. We’re going to have to crawl through a tunnel—” She stopped, not wanting to reveal too much about her planned escape route, in case Feen or Sefton did betray them.

“Oh,” Lilah said, understanding where Celie intended to lead them.

“Yes,” Celie said to her sister. “I don’t think anyone knows about that one but you, me, and Rolf. It’s the safest way.”

Lord Feen sat down, nodding his head. “I understand, Your Highness. It’s best that the three of you get out, and quickly.”

“Thank you,” Celie said. “Come if you mean to come,” she said to Lord Sefton, and then she checked the passage outside the kitchens before gesturing for Lilah and Sefton to follow her.

They would need to backtrack to get to the tunnel, and she muttered under her breath as she used the mirror-wand to navigate back around corners and down dark corridors where she and Lilah had just been. They would have to pass the base of the Spyglass Tower, and work their way over to the ladies’ solarium on the southeast side of the Castle. There was a secret passage there that led to the royal bedchamber, so that the queen could come and go in privacy. And from the royal bedchamber, there was a dank little tunnel under the floor that went straight under the outer wall of the Castle.

Directly into the moat.

But if one could swim, and hold one’s breath for a half a minute or so, one could swim under the grate at the end of the tunnel, and then out into the moat. And then to safety.

“You
can
swim, can’t you?” Celie asked Lord Sefton as they all crammed into a cupboard to wait for a pair of Vhervhish guards to march by.

“Swim? Yes. Why?” Lord Sefton sounded distinctly nervous.

“You’ll see,” Celie said, opening the cupboard door a crack to make sure the guards were gone, and then waved the others after her as she hurried down the passage.

They reached the solarium without seeing anyone but that lone pair of guards. Celie moved the arras on the wall aside and pushed on a brick that was slightly darker than its fellows. With a scrape, a section of the wall turned on a central pivot, and Celie squeezed through with Lilah and Lord Sefton following. His lordship barely made it through, and she worried that the tunnel would be too small for him.