The corridor led to a balconied gallery; we went down a graceful curve of stairs to a wider corridor with high, plastered ceilings and no carpet. The three servants made no sound at all—their shoes were soled with felt, I guessed. We came at last to an arched double door; the Keeper threw the doors open and stepped aside so we could enter. “’S Lady Rose th’y want t’ see,” she slurred.
“I’ll wait here,” Timothy said tensely.
“All right,” I told her. “I’ll be careful.”
The room was long with a very high ceiling encrusted with white plaster curlicues and flowers. White pillars were set along the walls, and the floor was black-and-white checkerboard tiles. At the other end of the room was a cluster of men and women, all finely dressed. There was a rustle of wide skirts and a murmur of whispers as they turned to stare at me in the doorway.
I paused, looking for Griff and Quirk.
“Go ’long,” whispered the Keeper. The keys at her waist jingled as she motioned toward the end of the room where the people were, and also a pair of chairs set on a low platform beneath a blue velvet canopy; a man and a woman sat on the chairs, watching me.
The heels of my shoes sounded very loud on the tiles as I walked toward them. The air of the room was chilly, and smelled of floor wax and flowery perfume. When I reached the cluster of people, they bowed low and curtsied as I passed; I heard more whispering. I reached the man and the woman.
The man, who had dull blond hair streaked with gray and a bland, lined face, wore a simple suit of black, but over it he had on a rich, dark-blue mantle edged with fur; a chain made of heavy gold links hung around his neck. The woman’s dress was the same blue, and her mantle was black edged with fur, and she had a stack of jeweled rings on each of her fingers. Her face was heavily made up, the eyes outlined in black, the lips a very bright red, the skin powdered pale with smudges of pink on each cheek. As I approached, her mouth opened in a perfect O.
Everyone in the room, I realized, was staring at me. I glanced around, looking for Griff and Quirk. My heart started fluttering in my chest; I wasn’t sure what was happening.
The woman gasped; she reached toward the man with one bejeweled hand.
Ignoring her, he nodded at me.
I nodded back. “Hello,” I said, my voice sounding thin and nervous.
“Nah, show ’em th’ arm,” whispered the Keeper’s voice from right behind me. I hadn’t heard her following, in her felt-soled shoes.
“My arm?” I asked, turning to her.
She nodded, then pointed to her own wrist.
“Oh,” I said aloud. The burn hadn’t been bandaged up again, I realized, after my bath last night. “But it’s been—” I turned my hand over, and there, on the pale inside of my wrist, was my rose. The burn was gone, and the rose mark, which had been just a bud before, had blossomed.
I turned back to the man and the woman on the blue chairs and held up my wrist. “Is this what you wanted to see?”
“Oh!” cried the woman. Her eyelids fluttered as if she was going to faint. She leaned back in her chair and held a trembling hand to her forehead.
The man got to his feet. “It is true,” he announced, and leaned down from the platform. Seizing my hand, he pulled me up to stand beside him. “She has returned to Castle Clair at last. The birthmark on her arm proves it. This is our most beloved and long-absent daughter, Rose.”
CHAPTER
18
WHEN GRIFF OPENED HIS EYES, A PIG-SNOUTED FACE WAS peering down at him, baring fangs that jutted from a heavy lower jaw.
He reacted immediately, finding himself tangled in a woolen blanket and his coat, falling from a narrow bed to the floor, then scrambling to his feet and backing away. Looking wildly around, he saw he was in a narrow room with whitewashed walls and a row of beds like the one he’d just flung himself out of. Not so different from the barracks in the citadel.
Quirk was in one of the other beds, lying quiet and still.
The pig-snouted man climbed to his feet.
Griff reached for the knife sheathed at his back, beneath his coat, but didn’t draw it; without taking his eyes from the man, he edged closer to Quirk’s bed.
The pig-snouted man took a lumbering step toward him.
“Hold there,” Griff said tensely; he gripped the handle of the knife, ready to fight if he had to.
“Whoa, whoa,” the man said in a deep, snuffling voice, holding up his hands. “Steady on. Don’ mean you any harm.”
Griff eyed him warily.
The man was wearing a leather coat with a blue vest under it; his hair stuck up in brown bristles. “No harm,” he repeated. “M’ name’s Arny. I’m th’ stableman. Ye’re at Castle Clair.”
Right. The castle—he remembered now. The night before was just a blur of exhaustion and cold. But Timothy had warned them to be careful, hadn’t she? “Where’s the girl, Rose?” he asked. “The one who came in with us?” He nodded at the bed where Quirk lay.
“Keeper has ’er,” the pig-snouted man, Arny, answered. “She’s well enough.”
“And the other girl?” Griff asked.
“Well enough. No harm meant, as I said.” Arny’s face was . . . strange, but he wasn’t, after all, threatening. Griff straightened and released the knife without unsheathing it.
He was, he realized, still falling from the precipice, but he hadn’t hit the ground yet after all.
Keeping an eye on Arny, he stepped to Quirk’s bed, then went to his knees beside it.
Quirk’s closed eyes seemed sunken, and he was so still, barely breathing. “Do you have a physician here?” Griff put the back of his hand to Quirk’s forehead. Fevered.
“Healer’s seen ’im,” Arny said, with a heavy nod. “Gave ’im a med’cine.”
Griff frowned down at Quirk’s too-pale face. He would talk to the healer later. He got stiffly to his feet, feeling the lingering weariness and the ache of their long, freezing walk to the edge of the Forest. His clothes and coat were still damp and streaked with drying mud, and he was cold and needed to eat something, but first he had to be sure Rose was all right. “Take me to the girl,” he ordered.
“Whoa, whoa,” Arny said, and made a calming gesture with his broad hands.
Swiftly Griff stepped past him and opened the room’s only door; he heard Arny’s heavy footsteps following as he went down a bare, stone-floored corridor that led to an empty eating room with a scarred wooden table and benches running its length. He cast a look around the room, then headed for the door at the opposite end.
It opened onto the kitchen they’d come into last night. It was hot, with a fire in a huge stove, and another fire in a hearth, and busy with aproned cooks stirring pots and chopping vegetables; they all looked up when he came in, then went back to their work. Like Arny, they were strange. Not entirely human. Griff made his way to an arched doorway, and out a heavier door to a part of the castle that was suddenly very fine, with polished wooden floors and pictures in gilt frames. And lots of doors along the corridor. He stopped, disoriented.
“Best not to be in this part of th’ castle,” Arny puffed, catching up to him.
“Where is she?” he asked. When Arny didn’t answer, he whirled to face him. “I’ll open every door in the castle until I find her,” he threatened.
“A’right, a’right.” Arny made his calming gesture again. “They was goin’ to take the Rose to see th’ lord an’ lady.” He pointed with a blunt finger. “Great Hall, at the end there.”
Griff paced along the corridor to a double door; a figure in a dress was waiting outside it. She turned: Timothy, and she had her sword with her.
He gave her a brief nod, as he would to another Watcher. “Is she in there?”
“Yeah,” she answered. “Something strange is going on.”
Stepping past her, he opened the door and scanned the room.
Rose was there, standing on a low platform with two other people. He started across the shiny black-and-white tiled floor, noting the other exi
ts and the number of people in the room, and the decorative rapiers worn by three of the young men near the platform, aware of Arny’s lumbering presence at his back.
There was a murmur from the cluster of people at the other end of the room. Rose turned, saw him, and said something to the woman and man who stood next to her, then hopped down from the platform in a swirl of pink skirts, and came to meet him. “Oh, Griff,” she said, and gripped his hands.
“You’re all right?” he asked, studying her face. She seemed all right. Tired, still. Her hands were cold. And she was even more beautiful than before, but the beauty didn’t seem to matter as much, despite the new dress she was wearing, and the elaborate hairstyle. She was Rose now, not some lovely stranger.
“Yes,” she nodded. “Yes, I’m fine. Is Quirk all right?”
He shook his head. “He’s sick. A healer’s seen him.”
“Oh, goodness,” she breathed. “I’m so glad you’re here.” She really was, he realized. Something had changed between them.
For just a moment, as he looked down at her face, he forgot that they were probably in danger; he forgot that he was plunging from a great height and that he didn’t know who he was anymore. There was just her.
She gazed back up at him. Her lips parted, but, surprisingly, she didn’t speak.
From beyond their bubble of quiet, someone cleared his throat.
Rose gave herself a little shake. Still holding his hand, she led him to the two people on the platform. They were finely dressed, Griff noted. The lord and lady that Arny had mentioned, he guessed. “This is Griff,” Rose told them.
There was a rustle of whispers from the others in the room. Griff felt suddenly aware of how muddy and ragged he was compared to all the finery.
Rose turned back to him. Excitement lit her eyes. “Griff, these are my parents. My mother and father.”
Griff looked at them again, more carefully this time. The woman sat in one of the velvet chairs; the man stood beside it. They both seemed bland, ordinary—nothing compared to Rose. They seemed safe, too, not dangerous, not a threat.
Then he frowned. The Forest had just happened to lead them here? Or the thimble had? Timothy had been right—something was going on. “Rose . . . ,” he said warily.
“I know it’s strange,” she murmured. “But I think it’s all right, really. Or I hope it is.” She tipped her head back to look at him, and her smile was glorious. “Don’t you see what it means, Griff?”
What it . . . “No,” he said blankly.
“My mother. My father,” she answered, eyes shining. “I have parents. I’m not a construct.”
“I never thought you were,” he reminded her.
She gripped his hand with both of hers and gazed up into his eyes. “I know.” Her lips trembled. “You were the only one.” Giving him a quick smile, she released his hand. With a quick step and a hop, she rejoined the lord and lady on the platform. The man—her father?—leaned closer and said something to Rose.
“No, he’s not a servant,” Rose answered, with a quick glance at Griff. “He’s my—”
“Oh,” her mother said faintly, interrupting.
The lord made a dismissing gesture and spoke in a deep, commanding voice. “Deal with this, will you, Arny? See that our daughter’s servant is settled appropriately.”
Griff felt a big hand on his arm. For just a moment he tensed, ready to draw his knife and call Timothy to help fight to get Rose out of here. But Quirk was ill and needed rest. They couldn’t leave yet.
“Come along wi’ me, now,” Arny said from behind him.
“But he’s not a—” Rose protested.
“It’s all right,” Griff reassured her, and let Arny pull him from the room.
“SHOULDN’T ’A GONE in there,” Arny chided as they passed through the doorway that led from the finer corridor to the kitchen. “It’s not for th’ likes of us.” In the eating room he paused and scooped up a few slices of bread and cheese from a side table and handed them to Griff. “Here.” Then he went to the door that led out to the courtyard. “Come ’long now.”
Griff shook his head. “I want to be sure Quirk is all right.”
“Your little friend, y’ mean?” Arny asked. “He’ll sleep for a bit longer, and that other girl’s gone to see him. Nothin’ to do f’r him now.” He opened the outer door. “We’ve orders. Come ’long to the stable.”
As they stepped outside, a few pigeons flew up and circled overhead. Halfway across a courtyard paved with smooth, square stones, Griff paused and turned to see what the castle looked like in the daytime. It was monolithic, a big central section built of black stone, flanked by asymmetrical towers, some taller, some shorter, some round, some square, all topped with pointed slate roofs. It had not been built as a fortress; its many windows were large and had lots of tiny, diamond-shaped panes. The pigeons had settled on a few of the windowsills. On one side of the castle, facing a large gate, was a huge arched door with a stairway edged by stone railings. The gate in the thick wall was open; through it Griff could see a stone road that rolled away into the distance. Oddly, there was no village, no sign of any people. Just the castle set alone in the middle of the empty plain they’d crossed the night before.
The stable was off to the side, a long building set against the castle’s inner wall. As they went through its wide sliding door, Arny pointed to the left. “Tack room’s there.” And overhead. “Hayloft.” To the right. “Stalls for eight horses, and I c’n use the help with ’em, that’s for certain.” He nodded at a bale of hay just inside the door. “Sit y’rself there and eat a mite.” He bared his fangs in what looked like a smile. “Look half done, y’ do.”
And suddenly Griff felt half done, light-headed with hunger and leftover weariness. He could almost feel the wind of his fall from the precipice rushing past him, a kind of roaring in his ears. He sat on the hay bale, lined up the cheese on the bread to make a sandwich, and took a bite. The stable was warm and smelled of hay and what he guessed was horse droppings. He’d seen horses before, but only the small sturdy ponies that were used for pulling carts in the City. The horses that poked their heads out of the half doors of their stalls to look at him were much bigger than that, and had elegantly long noses and intelligent-looking eyes.
“Right,” Arny said, sitting down beside him on the hay bale. Then he groped behind him, picking up a jug from the floor, resting it on his leg while he tugged out its cork stopper, then taking a long drink. “Ah,” he said, wiping his fanged mouth with the back of his hand. He held out the jug to Griff. “Have a snort?”
Griff could smell the alcoholic fumes from where he sat. He shook his head.
Arny shrugged and stowed the jug behind the hay bale again. “So y’ll be lookin’ after the stable wi’ me. Know anythin’ about horses, do you?”
Griff swallowed down a bite of sandwich. “I’m to work here?”
“Y’s,” Arny said with a blink. “Settled apporpritally is what th’ lord said.” He gave a decided nod and another one of his fanged smiles. “Y’r the Lady Rose’s servant, and she’ll be looked after well enough, so y’ll work wi’ me instead.”
Griff considered protesting—he wasn’t a servant, he was a Watcher, except that he wasn’t a Watcher anymore, was he?
“Right, so,” Arny said, and leaned back against the stable wall. “Your name’s Griff, is it?” At Griff’s nod, he went on. “Whereabouts do you come from?”
“The City,” Griff answered.
“Don’t get many visitors from the City,” Arny said. “Not usually. Not f’r a long time.”
Griff was surprised they got any at all.
“Not a lot of call for horses, neither,” Arny went on. “But y’ got to have horses.”
Griff nodded and took another bite of his sandwich.
“Huh.” Arny reached for the jug again, drank, and belched. “Not much of a talker, are you?”
Without answering, Griff got to his feet and went across the hay-strewn en
try to the first stall to have a better look at the horse that lived there. As he approached, its ears pricked toward him. Stepping closer, he rested a hand on its nose.
“Careful o’ that one,” Arny called from his seat on the hay bale. “It’s a biter.”
“Hello, Biter,” Griff whispered, and leaned a shoulder against the doorframe.
The horse shifted closer and lowered its head, and Griff reached out to pat its neck. He could feel its solid warmth and strength. He and Biter were going to get along just fine, he thought.
So he would work in the stable, but only until Quirk was better and they’d figured out why the Forest had brought them here. Having access to horses might not be a bad thing, if they had to escape from the castle in a hurry. He’d have to see if Arny would teach him to ride.
CHAPTER
19
“ALL RIGHT, THEN,” MY FATHER SAID, AFTER GRIFF WENT out.
My father. My mother. I was worried about Quirk, and about Griff, too, but the thought of it—I had parents! I belonged to them, not to Story!—made me smile widely at them. My mother blinked back at me. My father made a lordly gesture, and the other people in the room went out, whispering. Three of them were young men, who seemed completely fascinated, staring over their shoulders at me until the door was closed.
“I’m so happy to meet you,” I said.
“And we are very glad to have you returned to us, of course,” he answered. “After so long.” He glanced down at my mother; I saw no sign of affection in his face. “Can you see that she is settled?”
My mother licked her brightly colored lips. “Yes, I suppose I can.”
“Very well.” He touched the gold links of his chain, as if for luck. “I have things to . . . er . . . see to myself.” He glanced at me, cleared his throat, and looked away. “My dear daughter, I should say.” He stepped from the platform and went out the door.
“I suppose we should see you settled, then,” my mother said, gathering her skirts and climbing from her chair. She was shorter than I was, and seemed frail, and, behind the bright makeup, rather colorless.