Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (30 page)

recognized. Their light dusting of snow sparkled in the glow of white lanterns mounted on the cloister

walls.

I grabbed the Dulcé‘s arm. “Before we go further, Bareil. Tell us. Where are we?” I needed to hear

him say it before I could believe.

“Have you not guessed, my lady?” He smiled. “We’ve come to Gondai. You walk in Avonar.”

CHAPTER 17

Gerick

I guess I have been scared my whole life. When I was little, I was scared of the dark, and Lucy

always left me a candle or stayed with me until I went to sleep. And I was scared that when I grew up to

be a soldier, I’d end up with only one arm or one leg or with my eye cut out like the men that came back

from the war. But Papa told me that if I worked hard at sword training then I’d never have to be crippled

like that. So I decided to train harder than anyone, though I knew I would never be as good as he was.

Everyone said he was the best in the world.

Of course, I didn’t really know what being scared was until the night Lucy caught me making the lead

soldiers march around Papa’s library. It was terrific fun, and I wondered why Papa hadn’t shown me

how to do it earlier that evening when he’d finally said I was old enough to play with them. The idea of it

came to me when I was in bed. I couldn’t sleep for wanting to try it, so I crept downstairs after Lucy had

turned down the lamp and gone to bed. Mama and Papa had guests, so nobody would bother me in the

library. Well, Lucy must’ve come back to the nursery to check on me that night. She ran down to the

library— she was always good at guessing what I was thinking—and she saw what I was up to.

I never saw anyone so afraid. I thought she would be pleased like she was when I learned how to

turn a somersault, or how to ride my horse without falling off, or how to write my name without getting

ink all over. But on that night, if someone had given her a voice, she would have screamed every bit of it

away again. She backed up against the door, looking like she wanted to run away, but instead she waved

her arms and shook her head and pointed to the soldiers.

“But Lucy, it’s all right. Honest. Just tonight Papa told me I could use them,” I said, showing her how

I could make the silver king climb over my leg.

But she wouldn’t hear anything or even move until I let them all drop down still. Then she ran over

and held me tight until I thought I was going to be squashed. She was crying and rocking me like I was a

baby even though I was five years old.

I didn’t like her to cry. Mostly Lucy and I had the best time. She knew lots of fun things to do, and of

course because she was mute, she couldn’t yell or whine like Mama. Even if she thought I’d done

something bad, she’d just show me again how to do it right and give me her “disappointed” look. I had

never made her cry before. I told her over and over that I was sorry that I was out of my bed, but I just

wasn’t sleepy and thought it wouldn’t hurt to play with the soldiers a while, since Papa did say I was old

enough.

She acted like she didn’t even hear what I said, like she was thinking of something else altogether,

something that she didn’t like at all, and she made me put the soldiers away and go back to the nursery

with her. We sat by the nursery fire, and with her mixed-up way of signs and making faces and drawing

pictures, Lucy told me that if anyone ever, ever saw me do anything like what I did with the soldiers, they

would kill me. Even Papa.

“I don’t believe you!” I yelled at her. “You are an ignorant servant!” That’s what Mama always said

when one of the servants told her something she didn’t like. “Papa loves me more than anybody. He’d

never hurt me.” I turned away from her so I couldn’t see her tell me anything else, but she took me by the

shoulders and marched me all the way through the castle to a room near the northwest tower. It was a

girl’s bedchamber. Everything was tidy and clean, but it smelled closed up, like no one had lived there for

a long time. Dolls and little carved horses sat on a shelf, and books and writing things lay on a desk. On

the wall was a painting of four people: a man, a woman, a boy, and a girl. I couldn’t understand why

Lucy was showing me that room, until I caught sight of myself in the looking glass that hung next to the

picture. The boy in the picture could have been me, and the woman in the picture looked a lot like the

portrait of Grandmama that hung in the music room.

“Is that boy Papa?”

Lucy nodded, and then pointed to the little girl in the picture and to the room we were in.

“That must be Papa’s sister, Seriana, and this is her room.”

Lucy nodded again. No one ever talked about Papa’s sister. Whenever she was mentioned, people

looked upset and clamped their lips tight. I’d thought she must be dead and that it made people sad to

think of her. That gave me a terrible idea. “Lucy, did someone kill Seriana for making the soldiers

march?” Lucy started to cry again and bobbed her head. I didn’t ask her to explain any more, and I

didn’t ask her who had done the killing. I just let her hold me for a long time and told her I really didn’t

mean it when I called her ignorant. She showed me that she understood.

Only after Lady Verally came to live with us when I was seven did I learn that it wasn’t Papa’s
sister

that had been killed, but her
baby
, and that Papa had done it. I learned that the things I could do were

called sorcery and that sorcery was the most evil thing in the world. Seriana’s husband had been burned

alive for doing it. I didn’t
feel
wicked when I made the soldiers march around, or when I made the cats

stay out of my room when they made me sneeze, or when I made the sharp thorns fall off the draggle

bushes when I went exploring in the hills, but I knew that what Lady Verally said had to be true, because

Papa would never kill anyone who wasn’t wicked.

So Lucy hadn’t been exactly right in what she told me. Some things were just too hard for her to

explain in her signs and pictures. Probably she thought I was too little to understand, but she got me

scared, which is what she was trying to do. From that first day she watched everything I did even closer

than before. She taught me to stay away from anyone who might guess that I could do such wicked

things, and how I always would have to think about everything I did and everything I said so they would

never know the truth about me. I certainly couldn’t stay around Papa any more. I figured that if he could

see the wickedness in a little baby, then he would be able to see it in me, too. Lucy didn’t think I was

wicked, but she was not near so wise as Papa.

After that night in the library, I only felt safe when I was with Lucy. When Mama said it was time for

Lucy to be sent away, because I needed a tutor rather than a nurse, I planned to run away to wherever

they would send Lucy. I should have known she would find a way to stay with me. Lucy was my best

friend in the whole world.

I couldn’t believe it when Seriana—Seri, she said to call her—came to live with us. Lady Verally said

she’d heard that Seri had killed Papa, and that she was a witch and had stolen Mama’s senses, though

everyone knew Mama didn’t have much sense to steal. I didn’t see how I was going to keep my secret if

Seri was around. She would be used to sorcery and would see it in me even easier than Papa. The first

time I met her, she went right to the soldiers in the library. That scared me, even though I didn’t know

who she was. I wondered if she could tell what I’d done with them. So I decided that I had to get rid of

her right away. Lady Verally said that Seri had come to Comigor for revenge, and I was certain that

when she found out about me, she would make sure I was burned like her husband was.

But all that thinking was at first, before I started watching her. She wasn’t at all like I expected. When

she told me about Papa dying . . . well, it didn’t sound like she hated him, even though she must have

thought I was a stupid five-year-old, who couldn’t guess she was leaving out a lot of the truth. She

worked hard and treated everyone with respect, even the servants and Mama. She didn’t seem vengeful,

and she knew all sorts of interesting things about the weather and history and making things, and

especially about Comigor. Even though I didn’t dare trust Seri, I started to wonder if maybe Lady

Verally had the story wrong.

When Lucy heard that Seri had come to stay at Comigor, she was almost as scared as the night I

made the soldiers march. I asked her if she thought Seri was come to kill me for revenge or if she would

tell King Evard and have me burned if she found out about me. Lucy just let me know over and over that

I must stay away from Seri. When I talked about Seri, she would start to cry, so I couldn’t ask all the

things I wanted. And so, as the weeks passed, I didn’t tell Lucy that I had come to think that Seri might

actually be a good person to have as a friend. Seri might not think I was so evil as everyone else would.

Maybe she had loved her wicked husband and her wicked baby like Lucy loved me, even though they

were evil and deserved to be killed. Then came the day before Covenant Day, when I found out how I’d

been fooled.

I had given up watching Seri all the time. She knew about the spyholes and always guessed when I

was around, though she didn’t seem to mind very much. One day when we were both up on the secret

tower, she had told me that there were only a few places in the castle where there were no spyholes:

Papa’s study, some of the bedchambers, the guard towers, the small reception room, the banquet

kitchen, and the locked garden that had been Grandmama’s. I thought it might be fun to see if I could

make spyholes for those places. Then there would be something I knew about the castle that Seri didn’t.

Some of the places were too hard, and I decided I oughtn’t spy on the bedchambers, but I got up every

night when everyone was asleep and worked on the others.

On the morning before Covenant Day I got up while it was still dark to work on the spyhole in the

reception room. But I got sleepy and decided to go back to bed. Before I reached my room, Seri came

down the stairs, bundled up in her cloak like she was going outside. I thought that was strange, as it was

still at least an hour before dawn and she always took her walks in the afternoons. I followed her down

to Grandmama’s garden, and used my new spyhole to watch her. For a long time it wasn’t interesting at

all. She just walked up and down the paths, but she looked excited, and at every sound she would jump

and look behind her.

Just at dawn, I started feeling hot and prickly all over, like the sun was coming up inside of me instead

of in the sky. Then, even stranger than that, two people walked right out of the sunrise. There wasn’t a

gate or a door, or any place they could have been hiding. They wore white robes, and it was clear Seri

had been expecting them. She sat down with one of them, an older man that looked wild and strange. A

lot of what they said I didn’t understand, but some things—the important things—I did.

Seri said, “I’d never endanger either one of you. I’m only here because I came upon an opportunity

to repay my brother for all that happened.”

Repay my brother for all that happened
.... Revenge. Lady Verally was right.

The old man said that the younger, taller man that walked with Seri in the garden was the prince who

had killed Papa. I couldn’t hear everything she said to the younger man, but there came a time when they

stopped in front of a dead tree, and he lifted his hand to it. Suddenly the tree leafed out and bloomed and

died again, a whole year’s worth of living all while I watched. I knew what evil could make such things

happen, so I knew what evil Seri had brought to my house. Lady Verally had been right all along. A

sorcerer had killed Papa. That sorcerer was Seri’s friend, and she had brought him to Comigor to finish

her revenge.

I didn’t wait to see where they all went. Instead, I hurried inside so I could tell somebody what was

happening. I ran to Mama’s room, but Lady Verally told me that Mama couldn’t see anyone and that it

wasn’t proper to tell me why. That meant the baby was being born. Maybe Seri had persuaded the

sorcerers to make this baby come early so it would die like the others.

“You won’t let Seri into Mama’s room, will you—or any strangers?” I said. “I know she’s a witch,

just as you’ve told me.”

Lady Verally used my chin to pull my face up into her old, wrinkled one. “Have you seen signs of

evil? We’ll send for the royal inquisitors and have them question her.” Her eyes burned.

I didn’t know what to answer. The thought of royal inquisitors made my stomach hurt. If they started

looking for sorcery, then they would be sure to find me. I tried really hard not to do anything evil, but I

didn’t always know what was evil and what was not. Some things just happened. That’s why Lucy

always watched me so close. No, I couldn’t tell Lady Verally what I had seen, so I just said I didn’t

want Seri to hurt Mama or the new baby.

“She’ll never get close, my little lambkin, and you stay away from her, too. I’m going to have her sent

away from here. Captain Darzid is on his way here from Montevial. The captain helped your papa