The Castle Behind Thorns (14 page)

24

Door

T
HE THORNS WERE FADING
. S
HRINKING
. T
HINNING.
Every measurement that Perrotte took confirmed this, and she took many measurements from many angles, climbing this tower and that, using a sighting stick, and recording all her observations.

By day, she worked side by side with Sand—in the smithy, in the kitchen, in the carpenter's shop, in the garden. They mended stools with hammers and chisels, wove baskets, stitched leather, sewed bedsheets, stuffed mattresses, rehung doors, repaired latches, coopered barrels . . . Many things neither of them knew anything about, but through careful examination of broken objects and the use of what Sand called “the smith's imagination,” they often found a way to move forward.

But the key to their success in repairing things was really Sand's mending magic. The only problem was, Sand wouldn't admit that he had that magic. Not aloud. Not to her. But he did admit it, tacitly, by making sure he assisted in everything that she couldn't do perfectly. Certainly, with all her practice, Perrotte could turn out many basic tools and implements that were whole and functional in the end. They were not beautiful, but she thought she might become quite good at smithing someday.

But in the crafts that neither of them understood, the difference was clear. Perrotte's lumpy carvings turned magically smooth and useful if Sand even took a moment to chisel a few gouges near the end of the task. She was the better tailor, from years of practicing embroidery against her will, but when she tried to sew pages together back into a book, she just created an awkward mess until Sand punched a few holes and pushed through a few threads—then,
voilà
! A perfectly repaired book.

She might have been jealous, except it was so very clear that it made Sand uncomfortable and perhaps even a little scared.

And because she felt guilty, she didn't push him. She knew she should tell Sand about Sir Bleyz. About the army that he rallied on her behalf. But she thought—she was quite certain, in fact—that Sand wouldn't approve.

So she only spoke with Bleyz in the night, leaning out from one of the guard towers. She never told him why she only wanted to talk at night, but he preferred it too; no one from the village would see him approach the castle, see her lean out of a tower, and report the whole thing to the Countess. They both knew, though never spoke directly about it, that if the Countess discovered Bleyz's doings, he would be executed.

She found it difficult to plot a rebellion from shouting distance, but they managed it. Bleyz reported in every few nights about which barons he had approached. All agreed to war. All were weary of the hard times since the sundering of the castle. The countship was poor. The Countess's taxes were as high as she could set them, and stayed that way, year after year. She pushed the
corvée
to its limit, requiring her vassals and her vassals' vassals to labor in her fields and on her roads longer than any other lord in Bertaèyn. She forced them to surrender ever-larger portions of their harvests. She overcharged for the use of her mills, her ovens, and her winepresses. And she had closely and freely allied herself with France, not only supporting the King against Breton lords, but marrying her daughter to a prince of France.

Every instance of mismanagement or injustice that Perrotte heard strengthened the ember in her heart. She wanted revenge. She wanted justice. She wanted Jannet on her knees, pleading for her life.

Sir Bleyz worried about funding the army, until Perrotte checked the treasury and found it to be as well-stocked as the rumors suggested. The coronet and sword of Boisblanc were gone. Clearly, some money had been taken away. But many money chests remained, reminding Perrotte of broken eggs, with silver deniers spilled like egg whites, and golden francs like yolks. It would have been impossible to gather all the coins together and carry them off during the castle's abandonment, with invisible beasts attacking the stragglers. The thorns had kept anyone from coming back.

Broken coins spent as well as whole ones. Perrotte scooped up bag after bag, night after night, and threw them over the hedge for Sir Bleyz. The lost wealth of Boisblanc would buy Boisblanc back. Jannet would be deposed.

When
that
thought crossed Perrotte's mind, she stopped in her night's coin scooping. An emotion coursed through her, something between sorrow and dread, something that prickled like a hedge full of thorns trying to get out from deep inside her. Perrotte stumbled, then fell, landing hard in the pile of coins around her.

Against her conscious will, the door in her mind burst open.

And everything Perrotte had been hiding from herself came out.

  

A
FTER HER LESS THAN
triumphant return from the convent, Perrotte had comforted herself with going down to see the shoemaker's apprentice, to ask him if he would scent a pair of slippers for her as one might scent a pair of gloves—just as she had explained to Sir Bleyz while weaving her stories for him.

She had known Gilles since his apprenticeship at Castle Boisblanc began, a handsome boy who always lurked behind his master. She couldn't remember when she started being friendly with him, or when friendliness had changed to friendship.

It was not proper, to be friends with an apprentice shoemaker, but Gilles
liked
her, or pretended to. All the other boys she'd ever met, peasant or noble, apprentice or page, had been respectful or frightened or fawning or reserved. No one else had ever smiled at her, or asked her questions about her life. Gilles did that, whenever his master wasn't looking and Loyse wasn't paying attention.

So she went to him then, with her plan for success at Anna's court, and asked him for help, all unknowing of what ill would come of it.

She had stopped in to check the progress of the work several times. At last, Gilles brought the finished slippers and gloves to the tower room, the night before she was to leave for court.

She was watching the stars. She had no astrolabe, no books, and no charts, but Raoul had come and opened the hinged roof of her observatory, and it was enough. She hadn't bothered to write her father about the disappearance of her astrolabe and other things. She hadn't let him know about the emptiness of her tower room. The few times she had complained about Jannet early on, he'd at first told her not to be inhospitable to her new mother; later, he had told her not to be a brat. So Perrotte had never complained to her father about Jannet again.

Footsteps sounded on the tower stairs, and Gilles's face appeared in the opening, lit from his candle. He climbed to her level, smiling uneasily.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

“I'm not pleased to be here,” he said baldly, but when she scrunched her nose in confusion, he explained. “I am unfond of heights.” He plopped a bag down between them. “Your gloves and dancing slippers.”

She clapped her hands and opened the bag. She pulled out the shoes first, kicking off her fur-lined slippers and sliding her toes into the soft leather. They fit perfectly, almost like a second, but tougher, skin. They were not as soft as her squirrel slippers, but they were comfortable in a different way. She wriggled her toes in them, then got to her feet and danced around the room. It wasn't quite as she imagined, with every footfall releasing an obvious puff of perfume, but they would do.

“Try the gloves too,” Gilles said, and Perrotte danced back and pulled those on too. She spun around the room again, carrying on in an imaginary
basse danse
.

She stopped, panting. “Fast shoes,” she announced.

“Pardon?” Gilles asked.

“They dance so quickly, I'm already out of breath!”

“Ah,” Gilles said, nodding. “Certainly. Sit down, and rest a moment.”

She sat beside him and yawned gapingly. “I'm tired,” she said.

“Then I should go.”

“No! Stay. I won't see you again for a long time, after tomorrow.” Maybe not ever. If Jannet ever managed to have a son, would Perrotte ever return to Castle Boisblanc?

At least she would see her father at court from time to time.

“I suppose not,” Gilles said. “But still. I should go.”

“Why?” she asked, yawning again. “Do you think I'm going to go to sleep here, and need some privacy?”

“Mayhap. If you wish to sleep here, perhaps you should. Just . . . close your eyes.”

It did seem an attractive prospect, to close her eyes. Her vision blurred. Tiredness crashed over her like a wave. Her muscles relaxed of a sudden, and she toppled over. “Gilles?” she slurred. “What's happening . . .”

“Shhh. Just go to sleep, my lady. Let yourself fall.”

That was when she knew—knew that Gilles knew something. Had done something. She fought the tiredness, trying to sit up. She managed to push herself upright, even shoved to her feet.

“What did you
do
?” she asked, stumbling toward him.

“Lady Perrotte.” His voice was pleading. He was standing now, his arms were reaching for her, his hands were on her shoulders, he was trying to push her down—she jerked away.

“What did you
do
?” she asked again.

“I—nothing bad! Nothing wrong! You are going to go to sleep, my lady. Gentle as anything. Go to sleep, and dream pleasantly for a long time.”

“I wasn't tired,” she told him, fighting to understand what he meant, fighting to think how to explain to him why it was that she was
not
going to sleep.

“Be still, you don't want to fall and hurt yourself,” he said, reaching for her.

She pulled away from him, but the movement overbalanced her. She stumbled and hit her head against the wall. Gilles cried out. Her blurred vision turned black and sideways for a moment. She lost track of up and down. She fell to her knees, then collapsed completely. Her head hit the floor and a light sparked behind her closed eyes. Gilles shouted again, grabbing her arm.

She tried to protest, to tell him how wrong he was to grab her, to tell him how she knew, she
knew
he had poisoned her slippers or gloves, but it all came out as an incoherent, garbled howl. She had lost her ability to stand. She had lost her ability to talk. Her vision was gradually fading back in from black and sideways, but it was slow to return, and everything remained a blur.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to use words and fists. But she couldn't. Her body wasn't her own anymore.

From beyond the blur of her vision, Gilles cursed. “She's dying!”

Farther off, a woman's voice answered. “What did you
do
?”

“Only what you told me! You lied, my lady. This wasn't gentle.”

25

Coins

A
SHRILL SCREAM WOKE
S
AND
. H
E SAT BOLT UPRIGHT.

“Perr?” he asked into the darkness, but she didn't answer. He couldn't hear her breathing, and when he reached for her hand across the corner of their mattresses, he touched nothing but fabric.

The scream had come from far away. He leaped up, lit his candle from the fire's embers, and went in search of her.

She wasn't in the library, her old room, or the kitchen. Nor the chapel. The last place he expected to find her was the crypt, and when he didn't find her there, he truly began to worry.

She was close enough that he'd heard the scream, so he presumed she must be in the area of the inner courtyard. But she had not screamed again. He called for her in the great hall and then started searching the keep, room by room.

He noticed a tattered tapestry had been pushed aside, and a small, broken door once hidden by the fabric was open. The faint light of a candle came from within. He heaved a sigh of relief, and entered the room.

It was the treasury. He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. He'd never thought himself particularly greedy, but here lay more gold and silver than he imagined existed in the world, let alone an amount he ever expected to find in one room.

Perrotte sat on a pile of coins, a leather bag grasped tightly in one hand, staring at the ceiling.

Was she having some sort of fit?

“Perrotte? Perr? Are you all right?” He placed his candle holder near the door and knelt beside her. Sharp edges of broken coins poked his knees, and he shifted uncomfortably.

To his relief, her eyes moved to meet his. She gasped and grabbed his arms. “Sand. Sand.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on to him tightly.

He wasn't sure if she was crying or not; if so, she was nearly silent. But then the hot tears hit his neck, and he knew. It was sort of foul. He was pretty sure she was leaking snot onto him, too. But he put his arms around her in return. The world was too big and the castle too small to worry about the foul sensation on his neck while his friend was weeping. He held her tight.

Eventually, her arms loosened and her body relaxed away from him. He let her sag back onto the pile of coins.

“What's wrong, Perrotte?”

Her mouth worked, trying to form words, before she closed her eyes and shook her head.

He sat for a long moment, frustrated and fearful. “You don't have to tell me, of course,” he said at last. “But it will make you feel better. My grandmère likes to say, ‘A burden shared is a burden halved.'”

Perrotte opened her eyes. Now she scowled at him. “Oh? And you've halved all your burdens, have you?”

“You know my heart better than anyone living, at this point.”

Her eyes dropped to the candle flame, which she watched for a few moments. A small line creased between her eyebrows as she looked down at the candle. His father's forehead had a line like that, made permanent by repeated use over the years. Agnote would pretend to try to wipe it away with her thumb. She called it his worry line.

“Is that it?” Perrotte asked quietly. “Those are all of your burdens? You want to be a blacksmith but your father wants to send you away?”

“That's far from
it
,” he said sharply. Anger rose within him that she would be so callous. “I fear that I'm a witch. I worry for my sisters, if my father wants to send them away as he wanted to send me. I am sad for my grandparents, who lost a daughter to fever and a son to war, and now have no one to pass their secrets on to. I fear we will never escape this place, and we will die here before our times.”

Her laugh was brittle.

“What?” he asked, appalled that she should laugh at his fears.

“One of us
already
died before her time.” She stood abruptly and shook away the coins whose ragged edges clung to her skirt.

He tamped down his anger. She wasn't thinking properly. “Perrotte . . . ,” he said. She looked down at him, waiting. “You screamed. It woke me. What happened? Did you remember something bad, like you did in the tower?”

Perrotte offered him a hand, her eyes steady on his. “I did.”

He took it and rose to his feet. “Well?”

Their hands parted, and fell to their sides.

“Well, Sand, I was murdered.”

Sand's whole body tensed. He found himself panting for breath as though he'd run miles. His legs wanted to crouch, his hands wanted to become fists. He was ready to fight. But who would he fight with? Perrotte?

He forced his legs and hands straight and his breath to slow. He was shocked by Perrotte's news, but not
surprised
at the same time. Because it made sense of a strange story: How could a girl so young and so healthy die so suddenly? Certainly, she was just as likely to have died of some plague or disease as anyone, including his own mother—but she would have remembered falling sick. And castles did not sunder themselves over natural deaths. He was certain of that.

No, he wasn't surprised. What did surprise him, however, was the sudden, violent rage that filled him, and how all he wanted to do was find the person who had killed her, and—kill that person back. Murderous rage, he'd heard this feeling called, but he'd never realized how hard it was to bear, how he was bursting with it, how he felt it in his eyes and ears and down to his toes. Rage filled him to the brim, and it felt like any movement would tip him and he'd spill this disastrous emotion out into the world, using words or fists—or a knife if he could find one.

His rage chose fists. He turned and pounded one of the broken money chests in the room, breaking it wide open. Coins fell, pelting the floor in a hard, swift rain. Perrotte may have called his name, but all sounds had meshed into one, and he wasn't sure.

Sudden embarrassment at his outburst pulled his rage back from the edge. He cringed away from the money chest he'd been pounding, and pulled his fists into his sleeves. He gulped for air, filling his belly with breath, then let it out in a slow, ragged rush.

He took a physical step away from Perrotte, his feet crunching on the half-coins below. He swallowed painfully, his throat suddenly parched.

“Yes, well,” Perrotte said, eyeing him closely. She hadn't moved during his explosion. “And sometimes a burden shared is a burden doubled.”

“Who?” he asked.

Perrotte was silent.

“Who murdered you?”

“Who do you think?”

“The Countess.”

Perrotte turned away, speaking to the wall. “She and my father married when I was seven years old. It never occurred to me then that it might end like that, that it
could
end like that. Mothers love you, don't they? Mothers protect you. Even if you are a bad child. Even if you don't deserve it.” She held herself stiffly, arms folded tight, looking very narrow and alone.

“I'm so sorry, Perrotte. Even if you
were
bad, you didn't deserve it.”

“Of course I didn't.” Her voice was hollow, unconvinced. He had no idea what to do for her. “Perhaps you should go back to sleep,” she told him.

Anger had burned through him like a wildfire, and now he felt ash-ridden and raw. His hand was raw too, bleeding lightly from a half-dozen fine cuts caused by the rough edges of coins and splinters of wood that he'd smashed his fist on.

It was the opposite of his nature, to feel so wild. Perhaps it was having been practically raised in a smithy; perhaps it was because he had been tending fires under his father's eye for six years; but Sand had the most appreciation for a purposeful fire, not one that was out of control.

He had to help her. He had to make Perrotte's life better.

“How can I mend this?” he asked.

“You can't. Just go to bed, Sand.”

He didn't believe that. Everything could be mended. He just had to figure out how.