A Princess of Landover (24 page)

She was appalled. “Why would your father do that?”

“Ah,” he said, drawing the word out. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

She frowned. “Well, you have to tell me!”

He shook his head in rebuke. “Not until you tell me something more about yourself. Then I’ll tell you the rest.”

She leaped to her feet. “That isn’t fair!”

“Who said anything about playing fair?” He stretched lazily. “Anyway, I’m off to bed. We start early around here, and tomorrow is your first full day in the Stacks. You’ll need all the sleep you can get.”

She stared at him in disbelief, started to say something, then stopped. He was already getting to his feet, picking up his plate, and carrying it to the basin to wash. She was furious, but would not give him the satisfaction of finding that out. Two could play this game. She was already thinking about what she would tell him tomorrow that would shock him even more.

He gave her a cheerful wave as he walked out the door, and she smiled back sweetly.

W
hen she rose the following morning, she was pleased to discover that the washroom was no longer plagued by the threat of uninvited Throg Monkeys. Thom had nailed heavy wooden boards over the panel through which the troublesome little monsters had appeared yesterday, and it looked as if they were shut out for good. Nevertheless, she kept close watch as she washed and dressed herself, a good-sized wooden staff close at hand for head-bashing should the need arise.

Afterward, she did not go directly into the kitchen for her breakfast, but down the hall and through several connected passageways to a small, well-sealed door that opened into a mucky courtyard and stables beyond. She saw Shoopdiesel right away, sitting on a bench next to a woodpile, hunched over and picking pieces of
straw and clumps of dirt out of his clothing. He looked as if he might have volunteered for duty as a scarecrow in a windstorm, but she was certain that the explanation was far more complicated.

“Princess!” Poggwydd exclaimed loudly, as he came around the corner of the shed leading a small donkey.

“Not so loud, please!” she hissed, motioning him to quiet down. “And don’t call me that! It’s Ellice!”

His grubby hands flew to his mouth in horror at the obviousness of his mistake, and he hurriedly nodded his understanding. “Sorry, so sorry,” he offered in a hushed voice.

She walked over to him, stopping to take a look at Shoopdiesel, who appeared not just to be coated with straw and dirt but impaled. Moreover, he was the recipient of multiple bruises and cuts. “What happened to him?” she asked Poggwydd.

“Oh.” Poggwydd looked embarrassed. “It’s a rather long story, Princess … I mean, Ellice. Rather long and boring. Perhaps it would be better to tell it another time … ?”

“I have time now. What have you two been up to?” She glanced at the animal he was leading. “And what are you doing with that donkey?”

Poggwydd looked all around, as if afraid someone would hear. Shoopdiesel had given up plucking out hunks of straw and earth and was limping as unobtrusively as possible toward the interior of the shed.

“Shoopdiesel, you come back here!” she snapped at him. “Whatever’s going on, you’re obviously involved!”

“It’s really nothing you need to bother yourself with,” Poggwydd insisted in something like a whine.

Mistaya shook her head. “Stop wasting my time, Poggwydd. Just tell me what you and your piggy little friend are doing.”

Poggwydd seemed to consider the advisability of doing so for a moment and apparently the scales tipped in her favor. “Foraging,” he admitted.

She shook her head, despairing that there was any hope for these two. “I thought as much. What did I tell you about that?”

“But, Princess!”

“Don’t call me that! Just tell me why you are back to stealing other people’s animals!”

“But we’re not stealing.” Poggwydd managed to look put upon. “Consider our situation. We have been living out here in the stables since we arrived. It’s very nice out here, too. Lots of soft earth for burrowing, lots of soft straw for sleeping, and a great many rats for eating. Do you know, Princess, that the stable hands actually
want
us to eat the rats? They encourage it! So we did just exactly as we were told.”

He gave a prodigious sigh. “But we have been eating rats constantly since our arrival, and we thought that perhaps we should eat something else. A varied diet is important, you know. A varied diet keeps you healthy of body and mind, Princess.”

He saw the look that crossed her face and hurried on. “Well, being of a curious nature, naturally we decided to look around. And what did we find but all sorts of strays that no one has any claim to! We could take our pick! But, admittedly, we got a little carried away. Well, Shoopdiesel did, anyway. He’s always been a little too ambitious for his own good. He shouldn’t have tried to capture something that big, even if it was just standing out there, waiting for someone to come along and take it away. He should have known better.”

“A horse?” she guessed.

“A bull. A rather large, unpleasant bull with big horns and a keen dislike for G’home Gnomes. He threw Shoopdiesel twenty feet in the air and then tried to trample him. Poor Shoop only barely escaped with his life!”

As if on cue, Shoopdiesel began to whimper softly. Mistaya rolled her eyes. “And you, in your wisdom, Poggwydd, have settled on this donkey? Is that right?” she pressed.

He nodded wordlessly, dropping his gaze. “It was just wandering around. No owner was in sight.”

“You know, just because you don’t see an owner doesn’t mean there isn’t one,” she pointed out. “For instance, if an ear is tagged
with a metal clip, like this one?” She reached out and fingered the tag attached to the donkey’s ear. “That might suggest that you have overstepped your bounds once again.”

“Oh,” he said, trying to look abashed. “I didn’t see that.”

Maybe he hadn’t, but maybe he had, too. Who knew? She couldn’t be sure with these two. What she did know was that they were becoming increasingly annoying and were going to get into some sort of trouble sooner or later that would call attention to them and therefore to her. She couldn’t allow that to happen. Maybe it was time to send them back home.

“You’ve both been of great help to me,” she declared, bestowing on each in turn her most persuasive smile. “I wouldn’t have gotten to Libiris without you. But now that I’m here and staying for a while, there’s really no need for you to worry further about me. You’re probably anxious to get back to your own homes and lives.”

The G’home Gnomes exchanged a hurried glance. “Oh, no, Princess,” Poggwydd said at once. “We want to stay with you. You still might have need of us. Might’nt she, Shoop?”

Shoopdiesel nodded vigorously.

“If we leave, what will you do for friends if you find yourself in trouble again? That cat can’t be trusted. I bet you haven’t even seen him since we arrived.”

There was no arguing with that. She sighed, resigned to the inevitable. “All right. You can stay a few days longer. But pay attention to me. If you do one more thing that causes trouble, you’ll have to leave immediately. I mean it. I’m trying to stay in hiding here, and you don’t help matters by doing things that are likely to anger our hosts. So there will be no more foraging. Stick with eating rats, if you must.”

The image was nauseating, but then she wasn’t a G’home Gnome, either. “Can’t you eat grass or something?”

Poggwydd frowned. “G’home Gnomes don’t eat grass, Princess.”

“That’s an example, Poggwydd! I’m just telling you not to eat anything you haven’t been given permission to eat. Are we clear?”

Both Gnomes nodded forlornly, their wizened faces crestfallen and their shoulders slumped. They couldn’t help being what they were, she knew. They couldn’t be something else; they didn’t know how. Given all the time in the world, she probably couldn’t teach them.

“I have to go eat my own breakfast,” she muttered in disgust, turning away.

B
eset by images of rats being gnawed on by Gnomes, she discovered that she really wasn’t very hungry anymore. Nevertheless, she managed to eat a little bread and cheese and drink some milk before going off to work in the Stacks. By the time she arrived, Thom was already there, sitting cross legged on the floor as he sorted through the latest batch of books the recalcitrant Throg Monkeys had stacked next to him. He gave her a cheerful greeting, and she was relieved when he didn’t say anything about the fact that she was late. Putting thoughts of the G’home Gnomes behind her, she settled down to the job at hand and in no time at all was deeply enmeshed in cataloging and cleaning.

The morning passed quickly, helped along by her concentration on her work. Very little conversation passed between Thom and herself, and when he did speak it was only to ask her if she had slept well, if she had eaten and if she needed anything. She wanted him to say more, was eager to talk with him, but his seeming reluctance left her unwilling to push the matter. She had to content herself with watching the furtive movements of the Throg Monkeys as they slithered through the stacks like wraiths, crouched over and slit-eyed, their purpose and destination unknowable. She might have been frightened of them before, but by now she had grown used to them and found herself mostly irritated that they insisted on lurking rather than helping.

She was aware, too, of Rufus Pinch peering out at her from various hiding places, a spy without spy skills. It didn’t seem to bother Thom, who appeared unaware of the wizened face and furtive
movements of the little man. Thom just worked along as if nothing unusual was happening, humming to himself, sparing Mistaya an occasional look, but saying nothing. She found herself increasingly irritated with him, too. She wanted him to acknowledge what was going on instead of acting as if he were oblivious. But Thom never once said a word or even gave her one of those conspiratorial looks that he had shared with her yesterday.

Then, just when her patience was nearly exhausted, he leaned forward suddenly and whispered, “Had enough, little sister? Let’s go somewhere they can’t spy on us.”

He took her to the kitchen to gather up bread, meat, cheese, and cups of cold well water for their lunch, then walked her out again and down a hallway to a huge old stone stairway that climbed into gloom and a flutter of bat wings.

“Up there?” she asked doubtfully.

He laughed. “Don’t worry. It’s safe enough once we’re at the top. And we can lock the door when we get there.”

She followed him up, ascending the tower steps in steady progression, counting until she lost interest. Slits cut into the walls allowed for just enough light to find the way but not enough to chase the gloom. The bats clung to the walls here and there in shadowy communities, but she couldn’t quite decide how they got in since the slits seemed too narrow. It wasn’t until she neared the top and the light brightened that she saw barred window openings in the upper reaches of the tower flanking a heavy ironbound door that sat at the apex of the stairs.

Thom reached the door, lifted the latch, and pushed. The door opened with a creaking of metal fastenings, and sunlight poured through in a bright gray wash.

Once through the opening, they were outside the castle, elevated on a battlement that gave a 360-degree view of the countryside beyond. Mistaya could see for miles, even though the day was hazy and the lake country mists snaked through the forests to coil in pools in the vales and deeps. She could see the dark flanks of the
mountains south and west, and father north the deep emerald of the Greensward.

She even thought she caught a momentary glimpse of Sterling Silver’s bright gleam through the drifting haze.

“What do you think?” Thom asked her, and she gave him a broad grin.

They sat facing each other on a bench at the edge of the battlement, their food and drink settled between them, the sweep of the countryside visible through notches in the ancient stone. It seemed to Mistaya that the battlement had been constructed not so much for defensive as for architectural purposes, and she didn’t think it was ever intended for Libiris to be defended against an attacker.