Tuesdays at the Castle (10 page)

Chapter

17

C
elie could only look at him with wide eyes of her own. Seeing his impeccably coiffed hair and immaculate tunic, she was suddenly aware that she was slightly dusty and still wearing the oddly heavy muffling cloak. Lulath really was quite handsome, and extremely tall. He had one of his small dogs tucked under his arm, looking like a limp fur muff.

Celie took off the cloak and arranged it over one arm. “You were, um, seeking me?”

“Yes,
yes
!”

Lulath looked like he was going to embrace her for a moment, and Celie took a step back. The prince was rather alarming, because much like Khelsh, he said everything very loudly. But in the case of Lulath, it seemed to be more because he was excited, rather than angry.

“What did you need?”

“I needed to speak of the matter of the very great importance, and to check that you are well!” He looked anxiously at Celie, searching her face as though truly concerned.

“I am fine,” Celie said. “What is the matter of … of great importance?”

“And your sister, the Princess Delilah, is she also well?”

“Delilah is fine,” Celie said.

“And you are … safe?” The prince actually lowered his voice to something approaching a whisper. “You have a sleeping place that is the safest?”

“Yes, yes, we do,” Celie said. She blinked at him, gratified yet uncertain. Did he really care?

Lulath leaned in closer, and the small dog perked up and sniffed at her. It was the color of a caramel, and had a pink bow holding its long hair out of its eyes. Celie reached out and it licked her fingers.

“She like you,” Lulath said in a conspiratorial whisper.

Was this the matter of great importance? That his dogs liked her?

Celie gave the prince a puzzled look, and noticed that Cook was hovering over his shoulder. She grimaced at Celie, and held up her rolling pin as though offering to knock the prince over the head. Celie’s eyes widened and she shook her head just slightly.

“It is because you are a good person,” the prince said earnestly. “And your sister, and your brother.” His whisper dropped lower, and Celie took a small step forward to hear him better. “And I,” the prince went on, “I also am a good person, and want to be helping you. This regency, I think they are not good. They are with Khelsh, who is very much not good.”

Celie hesitated. Was this a trap? Was he trying to catch her saying something against the Council, so that he could report it to them?

A thought struck her.

“Can I see your rooms?”

Cook dropped her rolling pin. “Princess Cecelia!”

But Lulath was nodding. He looked Celie over again, this time with a level of understanding that she hadn’t suspected a man who carried around small dogs to be capable of. He held out his free arm to her, but Celie politely shook her head. She stepped around him and went to Cook, who had picked up her rolling pin and was muttering under her breath.

“Cook, it’s all right,” Celie said quietly. “Prince Khelsh’s rooms are very
small
, and
dark
, and
poorly furnished
.” She raised her eyebrows, and waited to see if the older woman understood.

“Oh,” Cook said, raising her own eyebrows.

“I understand that Prince Lulath’s rooms, on the other hand, are very fine,” Celie hinted further.

“Indeed, the girl who cleans there said something to that effect,” Cook said.

“I want to see what they’re like today,” Celie said.

“I could send the girl up—”

“It’s all right,” Celie said. “I need to see with my own eyes.”

She didn’t explain further, because she didn’t really know what she was looking for. She had seen into Lulath’s rooms, but it had been through the haze of a tapestry. Were they as large and opulent as they had seemed? And had the Castle provided the furnishings, or had his servants brought them? She had some questions for the prince, and it didn’t help that the kitchen maids were all straining to listen in. What if one of them was a spy for the Council?

“All right,” Cook said. “I know that you’ll be well protected. The Castle has always loved you best.”

She said this last loud enough for Lulath to hear. He bobbed his head and beamed as if agreeing. He held out his arm again, and this time Celie took it.

“I’ll have another food basket ready in a few minutes,” Cook said, again for Prince Lulath’s benefit as much as Celie’s.

“Thank you,” Celie said, as lightly as though she were going on a picnic, instead of hiding in her own home.

“The cook, she is good woman,” Prince Lulath said as they went out of the kitchen and up a long flight of stairs.

“Yes,” Celie agreed. “She’s like a queen of her own kingdom down there.”

Lulath laughed. “A good way to say,” he said. “I would wish very much that she would come to Grath. She would cook most excellently for us, too, then! But Castle Glower, it would be fill with anger! I would not take any one person from the Castle Glower. Not any one.” He squeezed her elbow in a meaningful way.

“That’s very nice,” Celie said. “But … do you want to stay here forever?” She could not think of another way to say it. Khelsh didn’t seem to want to take anyone away from the Castle, unless getting rid of Rolf counted, but he also didn’t seem to want to go back to Vhervhine.

The Grathian prince furrowed his brow and thought for a while as they walked. Celie wasn’t sure if he hadn’t understood her, or if he didn’t know how to speak his answer, or didn’t know how to answer her at all. She stayed silent and let him struggle with it as they continued down the long corridor and up another flight of stairs in the guest wing of the Castle.

“I do not know,” the prince said, stopping outside a broad door carved with the Glower coat of arms: a stylized Castle with the silhouette of some large-winged creature above the towers. “I do not know what I want. First I want to help you and the other princess and the new king be the safest.”

He opened the door to his rooms, and Celie knew at once that Prince Lulath of Grath was sincere. She also knew that the Castle liked him, possibly as much as it liked her family.

Lulath’s rooms
were
enormous, with high ceilings and wide balconies, just as she’d seen before. The fireplace was big enough to roast an ox, and in front of it was an elaborate dog bed that held two other small dogs.

The one that the prince was carrying leaped out of his grip and ran to her companions. They began rolling around on the luxurious carpet, yipping at one another.

“My babies,” the prince said fondly. “They are such the silly things.”

“Er, yes,” Celie said, tearing her gaze off the dogs and looking around the room again.

They were in a large sitting room, and she could see through a tall doorway to a bedroom on one side, and on the other side was the dressing room full of clothes. The racks were not anything Celie had ever seen before; neither was the dog bed and some of the chairs in the sitting room. But the bigger, heavier furnishings were Castle-made, she was sure: elaborately carved sideboards, a settle with blue-and-gray cushions she was fairly certain had once been in the nursery, and a wide four-poster bed with the Sleyne coat of arms on it.

“These are very nice rooms,” she said. “Did you bring these things yourself?” She put her hand on the back of a spindle-legged chair she had never seen before.

“Some, yes,” Lulath said. He pointed to the chair and a rug on the floor. “The ambassador said, maybe the Castle, it will not like you, so I brought some of my comforts.”

Celie wondered what the ambassador’s room looked like, and why he’d been worried the Castle might not like Lulath.

“And of course I have the many clothes.” He laughed in a self-deprecating way, waving a hand at the racks in the dressing room. “And my girls must have their bed.”

Hearing this, the small dogs raced across the floor and leaped around their master’s feet. Lulath laughed again and sat down on the rug, heedless of crumpling his fine tunic. The dogs clambered onto his lap, fighting for position, and one of them scrambled up the breast of his tunic so that she could lick his chin.

“Ah, my girls!”

Celie couldn’t help it: she got down on her knees and held out a hand. The caramel-colored dog immediately came to her, wagging her whole body, and Celie stroked her soft ears. The dog licked frantically at Celie’s fingers, and she rubbed the little creature’s back with her other hand.

“Very much she likes you!” Lulath cheered. “Dogs, they are very good to know people’s hearts. And JouJou is the very clever.”

“JouJou?”

The caramel dog yapped with pleasure at Celie saying her name, and sprang onto Celie’s lap. She promptly slipped off again, because Celie’s black satin mourning gown was very slick, and Celie laughed. The dog rolled onto her back and Celie rubbed her round tummy.

“You see,” Lulath said. “The dogs, they like you, and I like you, and the Castle likes me. Now you must tell me what I do for you, and the new king, and the sister. What is it that I do to help?”

“Prince Khelsh is a very … He is not … a good man,” Celie said slowly.

“No. Very bad,” Lulath agreed. “So bad, his own father say he cannot come back.”

Celie’s jaw dropped. “He can’t return to Vhervhine? He’s been exiled?”

“Yes. The exile.” Lulath nodded, his face grim. “I do not think the Vhervhish know he is here. I think Khelsh pay ambassador to pretend that he comes … by this royal request, which must have been a false thing.”

“Really?” Her eyebrows shot up and she couldn’t pull them back down. “Where is he supposed to be?”

“I do not know.” Lulath shrugged. “I do not think he would listen to me, if I told him to go. Or I would, I would tell him.”

Sitting there on the floor with Prince Lulath, watching him play with his dogs, Celie suddenly realized something. The prince, despite his height and his fine clothes, was not as old as she’d originally thought.

“How old are you?” Then trying not to appear rude, she added, “I’m eleven.”

“I am two plus the twenty,” the prince said.

Celie had thought he was at least twenty-five, if not thirty. But there were no lines on his smiling, handsome face, and he seemed far less imposing with a small dog burrowing under his chin.

“Please, Princess, can I help?”

Celie realized that he had been offering to help, and waiting for her to give him an order, this entire time. He was hers to command, she thought with a little thrill, but what should she ask? And how much of their situation should she truly confide? She wished she could consult with Lilah and Rolf, but there was to be a banquet tonight, and Lulath’s servants would come to help him dress any minute.

Celie took a deep breath, and made up her mind.

“My parents are alive, and so is my brother Bran,” she said in a rush. “Wizards from the College confirmed this, but they don’t know where they are—yet. We sent our friend Pogue Parry and some of the Castle guard to search for them. We think they’re hiding because they’re afraid of being ambushed again. Prince Khelsh paid men to attack them in the pass,” she finished.

Lulath’s eyes widened, but he nodded as though not truly surprised.

“Prince Khelsh and the Emissary to Foreign Lands have been plotting for years to take over the Castle and Sleyne,” Celie went on. “Khelsh wants Rolf to make him his heir. We think he’ll kill Rolf as soon as that happens.”

The prince nodded again. “Yes,” he said simply. “I did think something like this.”

“Exactly,” Celie said. “It’s all very horrible.”

“Khelsh came to me, to know where you and the Princess Delilah were,” Lulath told her. “He wanted look under my bed, and in my dressing room.” He tutted and shook his head. “Very rude. I say I do not know. He start to yell, but then the Castle close my door.” Lulath smiled in delight. “But first Toulala made water on Khelsh’s boot.” He gave the black-and-white dog a rub. “Pretty girl,” he said. “Good girl!”

Celie laughed. “Very good girl!”

“So you have a place to sleep, and the cook makes you food,” Lulath said.

“Yes.”

“What else is there that you need? Something else you must need!”

“Yes,” Celie said, an idea striking her suddenly. “You say that Prince Khelsh’s father does not know he is here?”

“I think so, Princess.”

“Would you write him a letter, and tell him what Khelsh is doing?”

Now it was Lulath’s turn to drop his jaw in astonishment.

“Why never did I think of that?”

Celie shrugged.

“I will send it today, with my own man.”

“Good idea,” Celie said.

She hesitated, rubbing JouJou fiercely while she thought. She did not want to tell Prince Lulath about the Spyglass Tower; it would be safer if no one knew except Pogue, Lilah, and Rolf. But there had to be something else Lulath could do.

“Oh!” She stopped petting the dog, and JouJou nudged her to make her keep going. “Sorry.” She rubbed the dog’s head. “I know what would help Rolf so much!”

“Anything!” Lulath nodded. “Anything!”

“Rolf needs support.”

The prince looked baffled.

“The Council is trying to convince people that Rolf is too young to be a good king. If you were to tell people that you think he is a fine king, that he makes good decisions, and things like that, then it would help us so much!”

“Ah!” Lulath nodded. “So very very! I will as you ask. Should I tell that the old king and queen are much alive?”

“Hmm.” Celie had to ponder that for a moment. She didn’t want to make it too obvious that Lulath was on their side. It would be safer for all of them. “Maybe if you just say that you feel that the Council called off the search too soon?”

“Yes, very good!” Lulath looked delighted. “It will make the Council seem the very bad, if say they
want
old king to be dead, they
want
new king to fail.”

“Exactly!”

They beamed at each other, then Celie gave JouJou one more pat and scrambled to her feet.

“I had better go now,” she said. “I need to get the basket from Cook, and then get back to the Sp … to our room. Lilah will be worried.”