Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (7 page)

He moved slowly around the parapet, his eyes wide, his red-brown hair blowing wildly. I said nothing

more until he completed his survey and stood beside the metal box that sat in the crenel beside me. He

glanced up at me quickly.

“Do you want to see what’s in it?” I was careful not to smile.

He shrugged and said nothing, backing away a few steps.

“You’ve been interested in my doings these past days.”

He flushed, but didn’t run away.

I opened the box and pulled out a cloth bag. “When I was a girl and wanted to be alone, I often came

up here. I didn’t want anyone to spy me going in and out of the secret door, so I made sure to keep a

box of supplies up here—a metal box to keep out the mice. I pretended I was the lady of the keep, and I

needed enough food to sustain me until I could be rescued. That’s what all this was built for, you know.

At one time a supply of wood was kept in the secret room, so a balefire could be lit in this firepit to let

the lord’s troops know survivors were waiting for help.”

From the bag I pulled out two more apples, a chunk of dry bread, and a lump of cheese, and set

them beside me. From another bundle came a flask of wine and two mugs, then a tightly rolled shawl, a

cloak, three candles, flint and steel, and a book.

I held up the shawl and the cloak. “It’s nice to have something soft to sit or lean on, and, of course,

the wind never stops, so at sundown, even in summer, it can get chilly. But the stars make it worth the

wait. That’s everything in my box. As with most things that look mysterious or frightening, it is really quite

ordinary.”

The boy narrowed his eyes, waiting.

I poured a mug of wine, stuck the rolled cloak between my back and the merlon, and picked up the

book. “Help yourself to something to eat if you like,” I said and began to read.

After only a few moments, the boy turned on his heel and disappeared down the steps. Too much to

expect he’d say anything.

Gerick continued to watch me for the next few days, though he was quieter and more careful in his

stalking. I was pleased in a way, for it meant he was still interested, and there was some hope that my

scheme would succeed. Late one afternoon, as I started up the tower stair once again and passed the

lumpy rug on the first landing, I said, “If you come, I’ll show you how to open the door. Then you can go

up whenever you like.”

He didn’t answer, but when I reached the eighth step past the third landing, the boy stood at my

elbow. Without saying a word, I demonstrated how to turn the gargoyle’s head and push on the proper

place. Once I had it open, I shut it again and let Gerick try. He struggled a bit with the stiff and balky

mechanism, but I didn’t offer to help. When he managed to get it open, I acknowledged his success with

a nod and started up the inner stair. “You can come too if you wish,” I said. “I won’t bother you.”

He stayed well behind me, and he sat himself in his own crenel while I settled down once more to

read. I poured myself a mug of wine, but didn’t offer him any or attempt any conversation. After an hour

or so of pretending not to watch me, he left.

After that, I went up to the northwest tower every few days, and on occasion found Gerick there. I

always asked him if he minded my staying, and he always shook his head, but inevitably he left within half

an hour. Had I not heard his voice on my first day at Comigor, I might have believed him mute.

Every morning he worked with the Kerotean swordmaster in the fencing yard. Although Gerick tried

hard, he wasn’t very good. His form was poor and his attacks more earnest than effective. But he was

still young. The language difficulty was surely part of the problem. Once the Kerotean master had

demonstrated a move, all his coaching and teaching was in the way of waving his hands and stamping his

feet.

Three more weeks passed, and it seemed I was getting nowhere, but at least matters were no worse.

And then on one evening I found ink spilled over the papers on the writing desk in my study. There had

been little of importance on the desk: a letter to my friend Tennice’s father asking for advice about roofs

and forges, a shopping list for Nancy’s next trip to Graysteve, half a sheet of musical notation for a

melody I was trying to remember. But of course, the value of what was destroyed was not the measure

of the loss. Nor was it the invasion of my privacy, for I had clearly left myself open to such a violation. I

almost laughed when I realized what bothered me so sorely. It was the lack of imagination. I had been

consigned by a ten-year-old to the company of weak-willed tutors and spineless schoolmasters. All my

cleverness had advanced me not a whit. I was insulted.

Soon I found myself devising one scheme after another to crack Gerick’s shell. One day when I

visited the tower, I brought a small wooden box that held chess pieces and unfolded into a small game

board. I asked Gerick if he played. He nodded, but refused to have a game with me. Another day, I

brought my knife. Surely knives were irresistible for young boys still practicing swordplay with wooden

weapons. I made a flute from a hollow reed, proud that I got it to play passably. When I offered to show

Gerick how to make one, he flared his nostrils in distaste. “You are a wicked, evil woman. Everyone

knows it. Why do you stay here? Go away!” At least I had evidence he was not struck dumb by my

presence. On another day I brought a bundle of tall meadow grass and spent an entire afternoon weaving

figures of animals as my old friend Jonah had taught me to do when I lived in Dunfarrie. Gerick stayed,

pretending to shoot arrows at birds, only leaving the tower once I had used up my supplies. I considered

that a victory.

Only one certain conclusion resulted from my activity. The boy was not afraid of me. Though he still

maintained his reserve, he would sit on the windy parapet all afternoon, separated from me only by the

empty firepit or a stone merlon. He watched me for hours at a time while I was at my business, though he

knew I was aware of him. So, if fear that I might somehow ensorcel him was not keeping him silent, he

must have some other reason, well calculated and determined. It made me look at him with new eyes.

What could prompt a child to maintain such control?

Not for the first time I wished I had the ability to steal the boy’s thoughts as Karon’s people could.

Scruples prevented the Dar’Nethi from using their power without permission, but for my part, the puzzle

of my nephew would have quickly overcome any such ideals.

Philomena paid no attention to Gerick’s attempts to be rid of me. She was pleased with our

arrangement, she told me. No one bothered her with tedious business, yet the house was calm, the

servants well ordered, the food excellent, and, most importantly, it would soon be Covenant Day, and

silver would flow into the Comigor coffers once more. “You’ve been a great blessing, Seri,” she told me

one evening after our reading time. She had just finished detailing Gerick’s latest complaints. “I told him

he’s acting the selfish little pig.”

“Tell me, Philomena, have you considered getting some friend of Tomas’s to foster Gerick?”

“Well, of course. Not that anyone I know would put up with him. One would think someone might

offer out of sympathy, but only the captain has said he’d do it. He’s such a nosy.”

“The captain?”

“You know him. Tomas’s trained dog. Captain Darzid.”

Hatred bubbled up from my depths for the immaculately groomed courtier who had stood in every

dark place of my life. Karon’s arrest and trial. My son’s murder. Darzid had hunted the sorcerer prince

who had come to me at midsummer, and I believed he had lured Tomas to his death, making him a pawn

in the long war between Karon’s people and the three sorcerers who called themselves the Lords of

Zhev’Na. “Darzid has offered to train Gerick?”

“Of course, I would never consider him.” Philomena fanned herself with a flat of stiff, painted paper

cut in the outline of a rose. “He’s no more than a common soldier really, not even knighted. Not at all

suitable for a duke’s companion.”

“Very true. How perceptive of you to see that a relationship with your son would be only to Darzid’s

advantage and not Gerick’s at all.”

“Gerick loathes him. He’d probably kill the man if forced to be with him. I told the captain not even to

think of it.”

I almost patted Philomena’s head that evening. I read to her for an extra hour, which put her quite to

sleep. “Your snobbery has served you well for once,” I whispered as I blew out her lamp.

Common sense told me to waste no more time trying to befriend a child who so clearly wanted

nothing to do with me, but somehow that answer was no longer acceptable. I could not shake the image

of his red-brown hair blowing wildly in the wind on the roof of the northwest tower. Whatever was

troubling Gerick had cut him off from the most basic human contact. No child should be so alone.

One morning in late fall, Allard, the head stableman, came to me with an odd story. Two days

previous, a boy had come to the stables asking for work. Being unknown to anyone, he was sent away.

“An ordinary kind of boy,” said Allard. “But yestermorn, that same boy was at the kitchen door, asking

cook for work. Cook sent him away, too, though she gave him a morsel of food as he looked so forlorn.

I hope that’s all right, ma’am, as I wouldn’t want to get cook in trouble.”

“Of course, that’s all right,” I said.

“Then last night late,” said the stableman, “I woke with the feeling that all was not right with the

horses. When I went to the stable, I found that boy again! I thought to take a whip to him, but he started

talking about how Quicksilver was getting a twist in his gut that was hurting him terrible, and how

Slewfoot had a crack in his hoof and would soon go lame if it weren’t fixed, and about how Marigold

was going to foal a fine colt, but we needed to keep her quiet as she was delicate. . . .”

I almost burst out laughing. Paulo! No other boy in the Four Realms had a feel for horses like Paulo.

It was hard to let Allard talk his worries out.

“. . . and he sounded so true, that I took a look and Quicksilver was tender in the belly just as the boy

said. All the rest was right, too. The boy is lame, which some would hold against him, but I could see as

he was a natural with the horses, far past any lad in the stable. But I didn’t want to take him on without

your say. I thought there might be something odd, as he was asking if this was where ‘the lady called Serf

was set up to run things.’”

“Allard, would it make you feel better if I were to speak to this boy before you took him on?”

Relief poured out of the man like summer ale from a barrel. “Aye, my lady. That would be just what I

was thinking.”

“Send him to me in the housekeeper’s room.”

The old man touched his forehead in respect and looked relieved to have shed the burden of the

extraordinary. I hurried to Nellia’s sitting room and shooed her away, saying I was to interview a new lad

for Allard. When Allard brought Paulo to the door, the boy grinned shyly.

“You can go, Allard,” I said. “No need to interrupt your work. Come in, young man.”

Paulo limped in, his twisting gait the result of one leg misshapen since birth. The old man bowed and

closed the door. The boy grinned shyly at me and touched his brow.

Only the certainty that Paulo would be mortified with embarrassment kept me from embracing him. I

offered my hand instead. “What in the name of the stars are you doing here, Paulo?”

“Sheriff sent me.”

Graeme Rowan, Sheriff of Dunfarrie, had sheltered the homeless thirteen-year-old since our

adventures of the summer. Rowan, Paulo, and Kellea, an untrained young sorceress from Valleor, had

become valuable, if unexpected, allies, as I helped the mysterious Prince of Avonar evade pursuit and

accomplish his mission in our world.

“Is anything wrong?”

“Nope. Just checking on things. Not heard from you in a while. Sheriff thought you might want one of

us about to take letters or help out or whatever. Easiest if it was me.”

“I’ve just been a bit busy. I’ll write a letter to send back, but before you go, I want to hear all the

news from Dunfarrie.”

Paulo’s brown hand twisted the tail of his tunic, and his eyes roamed everywhere in the room except

my face. “Course, I don’t
need
to go back. You got horses here need a good hand.”

“I’d be delighted to have you here, but don’t you think the sheriff would worry?”

“Time I was getting me a job. Don’t want to be a burden. He and Kellea are . . . well, you know.

Don’t need me about all the time.”

I knew that the courageous sheriff, bound by his office to hunt down sorcerers and burn them, had

lost his heart to a talented, short-tempered young woman who was probably the last living Dar’Nethi

sorcerer born in the Four Realms. But I also knew that neither of them begrudged Paulo a home. “It’s

not that Graeme’s making you work at your lessons?”

It wasn’t easy to make Paulo blush, but a spring radish would have paled in comparison. “Horses

don’t care if a man can read.”

“I’ll give you a job in the stables. Allard needs the help. But later this winter, we might have to work

on your schooling a bit.”

I returned Paulo to Allard, who was waiting in the kitchen, and I said I could find no fault with the boy