Tuesdays at the Castle (16 page)

Chapter

25

I
knew the Castle loved you best,” Rolf said gently into Celie’s ear.

His breath blew hair into her ear, and it tickled. She tried to brush him away, but someone was holding her arms down. She tried to open her eyes and look, but there was a cool, wet cloth over her eyes. She could hear a great many voices, and the clatter of men walking in armor, and other footsteps in heavy boots.

“Just rest, my darling,” said her mother.

“We’ll need you to stand back, Your Majesty,” Pogue said politely.

“Are you sure you’ve got her?” Her mother’s voice was anxious.

“She weighs about as much as a newborn foal,” Pogue said.

“As light as the plume of a cap,” said Prince Lulath, and then Celie felt herself rising into the air.

Pogue and Lulath carried her from the brightness into a dim coolness that was just as loud with footsteps and voices. A great feeling of warmth and love enveloped Celie, and she knew that they were in the main hall.

And the Castle had come back to life.

“I missed you,” she murmured.

“That’s why I came back,” Pogue said in a teasing voice.

“Are you flirting with
another
of my sisters?” Rolf sounded aggrieved. “Is no woman safe from you?”

“Boys, stop that,” the queen said indulgently. “Ah! There’s her room, just there.”

“I’m surprised the Castle didn’t put it right
in
the main hall,” Pogue remarked as they turned into a room whose familiar smells greeted Celie like an old friend. “Have you got her, Bran?”

Strong arms lifted her from the litter and placed her on her own bed.

“What happened?” Celie finally had the strength to ask as she snuggled down into the pillows. Her right arm twinged, and strong hands gently took hold of it again.

“Here, put it on this.” Bran nested her arm in a pillow.

“The Castle caught you,” Rolf said, and the edge of the bed sank down as he sat on it. “No one has ever seen anything like it. The stones seemed to go soft under you, and you were lying there like an empress in a bed of silk when we reached you.”

“What about Khelsh?” Celie struggled to sit up, knocking the compress aside with her good hand, but Bran pushed her back down. She smiled up at her brother. His face was thinner than when last she’d seen him, and he had a freshly healed scar above his left eyebrow.

“Khelsh,” Rolf began, but their mother hissed at him.

“Carried off by that griffin, wherever it came from,” Pogue said. When the queen gave him a look, he shrugged. “She would find out eventually, Your Majesty,” he said. “It snatched him up, and then it just … disappeared.”

“Oh,” was all Celie could think to say. So Khelsh was dead, or as good as. She looked up at her mother and Bran again. “Where have you been?” Tears trickled out of her eyes.

The queen sat on the other side of the bed and put her arms around Celie. “I’m so sorry, my darling. Your father and Bran were badly hurt, and I didn’t know whom we could trust. Bran managed to use magic to protect us during the ambush, and we made our way to a little shepherd’s cottage. That good man and his wife hid us until your father had recovered. Pogue found us just as we had decided to risk coming home. There were assassins still looking for us; we were attacked again on our way here, but fortunately Sergeant Avery’s men were able to dispatch them.”

“The worst part has been convincing Father not to declare war on Vhervhine,” Bran said with a crooked smile. “We ran into King Kharth and his men, and Father was certain that the story of Khelsh being exiled was all a ruse. It took days of talk for us all to get to trusting one another.”

“Khelsh would have much loved big war between Sleyne and Vhervhine,” Lulath said, shaking his head. “And Grath, too. It has been no harvest festival, this week.”

“I don’t know about a party,” King Glower said, coming into the room. “But what about a celebratory feast?”

“Daddy!” Celie held out her arms to him, and he limped to her bed and embraced her.

“My Celia-delia,” he said fondly. “Thank you for protecting the Castle, and your brother and sister, for me.”

“Excuse me?” Rolf looked affronted. “I think I did a rather good job at being a king!”

“And I’m not sure if what Celie did was brave or foolish,” said Lilah, who had followed their father into the room. “Jumping off the battlements! Calling up a griffin from who-knows-where!” But she couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

“You are very bravest of the girls,” Lulath said.

“No, I’m tired,” Celie said.

Everyone laughed, and Celie blushed, feeling childish, but she couldn’t find the strength to do much else. The queen herded everyone out, after they had all stooped to kiss Celie’s cheek, including Lulath, and to her further embarrassment, Pogue. Last of all her parents kissed her, and then left her to sleep.

But Celie wasn’t alone.

“I really have missed you,” she murmured sleepily to the Castle.

The curtains over her windows closed, and Castle Glower painted the ceiling of her room dark like the night sky, twinkling with thousands of gemlike stars.

Acknowledgments

From that sudden lightning flash of “Hey, magic castle!” that strikes late at night to seeing your book on a bookstore or library shelf, a lot of people have to pitch in. My family and friends are always there to cheer me on, and I love them so much for that (and so much more). We are also very lucky to live on the same block as two of the world’s best babysitters. Thank you, Miranda and Ethan, for playing Indiana Jones and Slidebaby for endless hours while I wrote. And while the children were thus engaged, I was at my local library, which is happily full of very nice chairs, very nice books, and even nicer librarians!

Thanks are also due to my dear patient agent and friend, Amy Jameson, who doesn’t cry with frustration (even though I’m convinced she secretly wants to) when I call her up to tell her about a brand-new book … even though I haven’t finished the book I’m supposed to be working on.

And thanks, so many thanks, go to Melanie Cecka, who said a resounding “Yes!” to me after so many editors had said “No!” This book is lovingly dedicated to her, for that “Yes!” and for knowing that I had a book like this in me.

Also by Jessica Day George

Dragon Slippers

Dragon Flight

Dragon Spear

Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow

Princess of the Midnight Ball

Princess of Glass

Copyright © 2011 by Jessica Day George

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

First published in the United States of America in October 2011 by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
Electronic edition published in October 2011
www.bloomsburykids.com

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

George, Jessica Day.

Tuesdays at the castle / by Jessica Day George.—1st U.S. ed.

p.        cm.

Summary: Eleven-year-old Princess Celie lives with her parents, the king and queen, and her brothers and sister at Castle Glower, which adds rooms or stairways or secret passageways most every Tuesday, and when the king and queen are ambushed while travelling, it is up to Celie—the castle’s favorite—with her secret knowledge of its never-ending twists and turns, to protect their home and save their kingdom.

ISBN 978-1-59990-731-4 (ebook)

[1.  Fairy tales.    2.  Castles—Fiction.    3.  Princesses—Fiction.    4.  Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction.]    I.  Title.

PZ8.G3295Tu2011           [Fic]—dc23           2011016739