Beyond the Pale (46 page)

“At your service, my lady.”

It was late.

Grace woke to moonlight streaming through the window of her chamber. She sat up in bed, grimaced, and lifted a hand to her temple. Her head throbbed—the aftereffects of too much wine. She was still clad in the woolen gown she had worn that evening, now bunched up and rumpled. She forced herself to think back. After her conversation with Durge she had felt bold enough to walk around the great hall in the knight’s company. She had spoken with some of the nobles, and even a king or two. Only it seemed every third person had thrust a full goblet into her hand. The last thing she remembered was Durge leading her back to the door of her chamber, and then … she must have climbed into bed without changing and fallen asleep.

But what had awakened her? It had been a sound: distant, yet high and silvery, a sound almost like … bells. Yes, that was it, a sound like far-off church bells on a still winter night. But she had noticed no bell tower in all her wanderings about Calavere. And even if there were, who would ring the bells so late at night? Urged on by curiosity, she slipped from the bed, padded to the chamber door, and stepped into the corridor.

The stone floor was cold against her bare feet. She had gotten her boots off at least. She glanced down the corridor in both directions. The castle was silent. Now what?

She was just beginning to feel foolish, just beginning to think she should go back into her room, drink some water, shuck off her gown, and slip back into bed, when she heard them again. Before, in her sleepiness, she couldn’t be certain. Now she was wide-awake, and there could be no doubt. The faint sound had not come from outside the castle, but from within.

Bells.

She hastened down the corridor in the direction of the sound. A minute later she heard them again, closer this time. She quickened her pace until she nearly ran down
twisting passageways. Then a blast of cold air brought her to a halt. The corridor ended in an alcove set with a single round window. The window hung open, and frigid air streamed in. Grace approached the window, shivered, and peered through. It had snowed outside, but now the clouds had parted, and the land glowed under the light of the rising moon. She looked down, and that was when she saw them, at least twenty feet below: a line of small depressions dinted in the newfallen snow. Footprints.

The trail led to the edge of the hill on which the castle rested, then vanished over the edge. Grace lifted her eyes and peered in the direction the footprints led. Her gaze crossed white, glowing plains to a dark line on the horizon. The eaves of Gloaming Wood.

How long she gazed out the window she wasn’t sure. A shiver jolted her back to the present. Whoever—whatever—had jumped out the window was now long gone. She shut the window, then turned and started back toward her chamber.

She was halfway there when she rounded a corner and let out a gasp. In front of a door, not a dozen paces away, stood a man. At least Grace assumed it was a man, for she could not see his face, as he was clad from head to toe in a robe as black as night. He held a knife in his hand and was using the tip to carve something into the surface of the door.

Grace drew in a breath, unsure what to do, then called out. “Hello.”

The robed figure froze, then the cowled head snapped in Grace’s direction, although she could not glimpse the face within. She took a step forward. The figure turned and fled, his robe billowing behind like black wings. Something fell with a clatter to the stone floor.

Grace held out a hand. “Wait!”

It was too late. The stranger turned a corner and was gone. Grace shook her head. Why would anyone be afraid of her? She walked to the door the stranger had been standing before. There. It was so small she probably never would have noticed it had she not seen him doing it. A symbol had been scratched into the wood of the door near the upper left corner, formed of two curved lines:

No matter how much Grace stared at it the symbol made no sense. She sighed—she was far too tired to think. Tomorrow she could bring Aryn or Durge here. One of them might know what the symbol meant. Perhaps it related to one of the mystery cults.

Grace turned away from the door, and a flash of silver caught her eye She bent and picked up the object. It was a small knife with a black hilt. The stranger must have dropped it when he fled. She tucked it into her belt as she started down the corridor. Grace wasn’t sure why, but the knife seemed important for some reason.

She reached her chamber without seeing another soul and slipped inside. Quickly—her room was
cold
—she shucked off her gown and, navigating by the brilliant moonlight, climbed onto her bed. She started to pull back the bedcovers, then gasped. With a trembling hand she reached out and picked up the object that rested on her pillow.

It was a sprig of evergreen. She remembered a pair of nut-brown eyes gazing at her, and she saw again the small footprints in the snow. Then Adira the serving maid’s words echoed in her mind.
The Little People must have gotten to it.…
Grace tightened her grip on the twig. She didn’t know what it all meant, but one thing was certain.

Strange things were prowling the halls of Calavere.

On the last day of Sindath, the day before the Council of Kings was to convene, a curious traveling party arrived at the gates of Calavere.

The news—along with Aryn—found Grace in the east wing of the castle’s main keep, in the company of the knight Durge. A week had passed since the evening of the revel, when Grace had felt herself adrift in the subtle sea of power and politics in the great hall and Durge had pledged his help to her. During the intervening time Grace had learned a great deal about the art of intrigue.

“The first rule of any conflict,” the knight had said in Grace’s chamber the morning after the revel, “is never wait for your enemy to come to you. Rather, go to him first.”

Grace had stopped dead in her pacing to stare at the knight. “Even when you’re at a disadvantage?”

Durge had regarded her with his usual gravity. “Especially when you’re at a disadvantage. If you’re going to perish, better at least to choose the place.”

Grace had resisted the urge to scream. She was never going to best the other nobles at their own game—she might as well have embroidered the word
amateur
on her gown. Yet the alternative to taking Durge’s advice was to tell Boreas she couldn’t help him at the council. And the only thing that
terrified Grace more than the prospect of playing Boreas’s spy was facing the wrath of the bullish king of Calavan.

She had sighed like one condemned beyond reprieve. “Let’s get started.”

However, a week truly did make a difference. In the days since that uncertain morning, Grace’s confidence had grown—tentatively at first, then by great strides.

One by one, she and Durge had questioned the nobles attending the council—the courtiers, the counselors, the seneschals. The two would wait until the most opportune moment, usually when the object of their attention was alone, then as one they would pounce. To Durge this may have been a war, but to Grace it was more like medicine: Observe, diagnose, then go in with a sharp scalpel. All she had to do was think of the nobles, not as people, but as cases to be solved, and it was not so different from a shift in the ED at Denver Memorial.

On that particular afternoon their chosen target was Lord Sul, High Counselor to Persard, the ancient—if sprightly—king of Perridon. Sul was an inherently fretful man and had proved an elusive quarry. They had followed him nearly an hour before they saw their opportunity and seized it. The two split up and came upon the counselor from opposite directions, trapping him in a corridor. Sul was a mouse of a man with big ears and a whiskery mustache that was in constant motion. His black eyes darted from knight to lady and back to knight again. Grace bit her lip to conceal a smile.

“Tell me, Sul,” Durge said, “is it true what they say of your king?”

Sul fingered the neck of his tunic. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, my lord.”

“Don’t you?” The Embarran knight backed the counselor up against a wall. “I’ve heard Persard will petition the Council of Kings to cede all the lands along the north bank of the Serpent’s Tail River to Perridon. But you know as well as I the north bank of the river belongs to Embarr.”

Sul batted his eyes. “But my king has no such plan!”

“You’re lying, of course,” Durge said. “I know you can’t help it, Sul. You’re a Perridoner, after all. Telling the truth goes against your basic nature. But in Embarr we have ways
of convincing liars to speak the truth, and most of them involve heating iron tongs in a bed of coals first.”

The counselor’s eyes bulged as he struggled for words. Now it was Grace’s turn. She laid a hand on Durge’s arm and did her best to look imploring.

“My lord, can’t we resolve this with words rather than violence?”

Sul nodded in vigorous agreement.

Durge reached up and over his left shoulder to grip the hilt of the Embarran greatsword slung in a leather harness strapped to his broad back. “You cannot understand, my lady. Yours is too gentle a soul.”

“Please, my lord. Allow me to speak with the counselor. Just for a moment.”

Durge hesitated, then nodded. “Very well, my lady, but only a moment. Then I will deal with him my way.”

The knight stepped aside, and Grace approached the trembling Sul.

“I beg you, my lady,” the counselor whispered. “You seem to have some influence on this madman. Call him off!”

Grace gave her head a regretful shake. “I’m so sorry, my lord. It is beyond me to influence the earl of Stonebreak. You know how Embarrans are when angered. It’s the dreary landscape of their homeland. It makes them a trifle insane, I think.”

Sul was frantic now. “But you have to do something, my lady! My lord cares nothing for the north bank of the river, I swear it.”

This wasn’t surprising, given that Durge had made the rumor up on the spot. Grace tapped her cheek. “Well, perhaps if I knew what your liege
really
intended at the council, I might be able to convince the earl he is in error.”

Sul licked his lips. “My king’s only concern right now is Toloria, my lady. Ever since Ivalaine came to the throne three years ago, Persard has been concerned about his southern neighbor. The queen has refused to sign any of the treaties he has offered her. So Persard intends to support Boreas at the council in hopes of solidifying his alliance with Calavan should he ever need aid against Toloria.”

Grace knew at once the little man was telling the truth.
She could not quite prevent the hint of a smile from touching her lips.

“Now please, my lady,” Sul said. “Speak with the earl of Stonebreak!”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

As it turned out, the duchess of Beckett was indeed able to calm the earl of Stonebreak, and a much relieved Sul scurried down the corridor.

Durge regarded Grace with somber brown eyes. “You’ve made an ally, you know.”

Grace shook her head, half in amusement, half in regret. “Poor Sul. I suppose the gods of this place will strike me down for having so much fun tormenting him.”

Durge shrugged. “I know not how things are in your homeland, my lady, but it is my experience that the gods seldom mete out punishment to those who deserve it.”

Her smile faded, and she gazed at the knight. “Don’t you believe in the gods, Durge?”

The knight seemed to think, his eyes distant. “My father used to say the wind in Embarr was so harsh it blew all the gods away. It is true you’ll find more masons and engineers in my homeland than you will priests of the mystery cults.” He looked again to Grace. “But to answer your question, my lady, I believe there
are
gods. I just don’t necessarily believe
in
them.”

Grace slipped a hand into the pocket of her gown and touched the crude wooden bull she had found in the bailey, the symbol of the Warrior Cult of Vathris. For some reason she couldn’t name she had kept it close to her these last days, although she had always favored science over religion.