Tuesdays at the Castle (11 page)

“Yes, yes,” Lulath said, getting up much more gracefully. “Please tell her I will help, and your brother also will I help.”

“Of course,” Celie said.

“If I find out a new thing, how shall I say to you?”

“Put a handkerchief in your sleeve,” Celie said promptly. “One of us will find a way to talk to you. Also …” Celie stopped and blushed, remembering how the spyglasses could also peer into the Castle’s rooms. “I think I can see into your rooms from our hiding place.”

Lulath blinked rapidly, but all he said was, “Wonderful Castle!” He seemed to be quite into the spirit of the adventure, and not at all disturbed that Celie and her siblings might be spying on him.

“Also, if I have the news, I will write to you notes and put them under my girls’ bed, with a scarf on top to signal,” he decided, pointing to the post of the dog bed. “And if I must speak to you as person to person, I will put the handkerchief here.” He tugged at one of his lace-edged cuffs.

“Perfect,” Celie said in delight. Impulsively, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Lulath’s cheek. “You are wonderful, too,” she told him.

He looked surprised, and smiled at her. It was not his usual grin, which made him look a bit daft, but a small sheepish smile that made him seem even younger than his twenty-two years.

“Will I take you to the kitchens?” he asked.

“No, better stay here. We can’t be seen together too much,” she said. “I’m fine on my own.”

“Until a next time, Princess Cecelia,” he said, and bowed to her.

She curtsied. “It’s just Celie,” she told him.

“Celie. Have the good luck.”

Chapter

18

T
elling Rolf and Lilah that Lulath was going to help them made the Glower children realize something: they could probably be doing more to help themselves. They had been spying on Khelsh and the Council, but they hadn’t done anything to actually oust them from the Castle.

But perhaps …

“If I can get down to Lulath’s rooms to get his messages, why not Khelsh’s rooms?” Celie suggested.

“Celie! Why would you—” Lilah began.

“What did you have in mind?” Rolf asked, interrupting her.

If Lilah had been indignant at the idea, Rolf seemed more intrigued. He looked defeated: hair hanging in his eyes, face drawn and eyes haunted. This was the first time he had perked up since they had started their nightly planning meeting.

“What if I stole his sheets?” she suggested.

Rolf snickered, but Lilah shook her head.

“No, he’d only make trouble for the maids,” Lilah pointed out.

“Hmm.” Celie thought hard for a while. “What if I did something a little bit sneakier? Like did something to his clothes?”

“What, though?” Rolf tapped his lips in thought. “We could spill ink on his shirts.”

Celie nodded. “Not all of them, maybe, so it looks like someone did it on purpose, but just on the sleeves of one or two.”

“We could sabotage some of them,” Lilah said, getting into the spirit of the thing. “Rip it until the seams are just barely holding together, so that it comes apart when he’s out of his room!”

Celie laughed. “The back of his trousers!”

Lilah blushed, but nodded.

“Let’s do the Emissary, too,” she added. “And Lord Feen.”

“Yes, let’s see how many of the Council we can get,” Rolf agreed.

“All right,” Celie said. “But we’ll have to wait until morning. They’re in their rooms right now, and that’s too dangerous.”

“We’d better get some sleep, then,” Lilah said with a yawn.

They bedded down on the blankets and pillows that the girls had brought up from their rooms. Even Rolf, who could have easily gone back to his comfortable bed, stayed on the floor in the Spyglass Tower, as reluctant as his sisters to be parted from one another.

Once she was certain her siblings were asleep, Celie pulled Rufus out of her pillowcase and tucked him against her chest. He smelled like her old room, and she cried silently for a moment before falling asleep.

The next morning they began their campaign. The Castle opened passages for them, and they ran back and forth gathering armloads of official black robes, tunics, and trousers. Lilah made the most delicate of cuts in the seams of the trousers and robes so that only a few threads were left holding them together. Rolf gleefully dipped sleeves in a pan of ink, and Celie used a small, sharp scissors to cut partway through tunic lacings.

Then they had to run back through the passages and return the clothing to its proper owners, which is when they ran into a little problem.

None of them could remember which clothes went where.

Prince Khelsh’s Vhervhish tunics, which fastened up the side of the breast with heavy gold buttons, were easy to sort out, of course. But most of the Councilors wore black even under their robes, and all of them seemed to be tall and thin. Celie thought that Lord Feen’s clothes had a certain smell to them, like moldy cheese and cats, but no one else seemed able to detect it.

“I’m not that worried,” Rolf said breezily. “It will make it that much more diabolical if their clothes don’t fit, either!”

He took up an armload and simply headed down one of the passages. Celie shrugged and did the same, and Lilah took the rest, grumbling that they had left her the largest pile. When they were done it was time for Rolf to meet with his regents, and he went down with the same tunic he’d had on yesterday and a smirk on his face.

“Don’t be so obvious,” Lilah warned.

“Oh, come now, Lilah!” Rolf protested. “Why would they suspect that I’m behind all this?” But he did his best to act sober and cowed once more.

“I have to watch,” Celie said, going to one of the spyglasses.

Lilah went to another, and they eagerly peered into the throne room.

The Council would have already been dressed for the day, so none of their tunics or trousers were going to split at an inopportune moment. But they had met in their privy chamber, so they hadn’t yet put on their formal black robes. Now, as they prepared to speak with—or rather, at—Rolf, they would have to put on their robes so that they looked more impressive.

“I hope this is worth it,” Lilah fretted. “We barely got things back to the rooms in time. And we’re very lucky we didn’t run into any of their personal servants.”

“We’ll plan better next time, I promise,” Celie said soothingly.

“
Next
time?”

Celie just smiled to herself. She had thought of something else they could do to the Council, but didn’t want to tell Lilah yet. She knew that Lilah would oppose the idea, but Rolf would love it. She wanted him to be there to help convince their sister.

“Shh, here they come,” Celie said.

Like a murder of crows, the Council all filed into the throne room, with Prince Khelsh at their head. Trailing behind, with his two bodyguards, came Rolf. He looked rumpled but positively cheerful, though it made Celie mad to see how disrespectfully the Council treated him, as though he were a scribe coming after them to take notes.

Rolf sat on his chair in front of the dais, and gestured for the Council to sit in the straight-backed chairs Rolf had ordered for them, though they never did. They clearly liked looming over him, and Celie had a sort of guilty satisfaction that Lord Feen, who was older than mud, probably had joint aches and wasn’t comfortable standing for very long.

The Councilors talked, Prince Khelsh pounded his fist into his other hand, and Rolf sat in silence. He was supposed to sign the agreement to make Khelsh his heir today, but the paper was nowhere in sight. Celie knew that Rolf had taken it to his room yesterday to look over, and he must have left it there. She giggled as she told Lilah.

Khelsh waved his arms some more, and a servant was sent running, likely to Rolf’s rooms to fetch the paper. Still Rolf just sat there, an expression of boredom on his face that seemed to infuriate Khelsh even more. He raised one hand high, as though calling on the heavens to witness Rolf’s stubbornness, and froze.

“What is it?” Celie could barely whisper, pressing her eye so hard to the spyglass that it hurt. “What’s happening?”

“His sleeve!” Lilah was giggling. “Can you see? Under the arm!”

Celie peered around, moving her spyglass in a little circle until at last the prince’s sleeve came into view. The seam of Khelsh’s black robe had split right under the arm. It was hard to spot, because Khelsh wore a dark, plum-colored tunic underneath, but it was there.

The sensation of his robe tearing had frozen Khelsh for a moment. Then he hastily lowered his arm, clamping it tight to his side and looking around to see if anyone else had noticed.

No one had, but the rest of the Council did give Prince Khelsh some very perplexed looks as he stopped speaking midsentence and turned to glare at Rolf. Rolf looked back guilelessly, while Celie silently begged him not to laugh or say anything witty, lest Khelsh realize that Rolf had something to do with it.

“Look at Lord Feen,” Lilah cried. “Oh, just look, Celie!”

The elderly lord had at last consented to sit, which was probably a mistake on his part. For when he sank down into the straight-backed chair, his robe pulled tight at the shoulders and the seams promptly parted. Now his robe was sliding down his chest and back, exposing his rusty black tunic and trapping his arms as he squawked and flapped about like a surprised crow.

Celie couldn’t stop giggling, and neither could Lilah. As the Emissary leaned over Lord Feen to help him gather up the pieces of his robe, his own robe split under the arms as well. Celie let out a cheer and Lilah snorted in a most unladylike fashion, she was laughing so hard.

In the meantime, Rolf continued to sit on his chair, only now he assumed an expression of great concern. He watched the Council cluck and fuss for a little while longer, manfully hiding his amusement as three more lords fell victim to their prank, until the footman came back with the papers from his room.

Rolf said something that looked as though he was excusing himself from the mess. He stood up and nodded regally around at the discomfited lords, his royal air only ruined by the fact that he appeared to be whistling as he strolled out of the throne room.

“Stop!” Prince Khelsh bellowed—Celie could read the word on his thick lips—but Rolf didn’t look back.

“Hurrah!” Celie spun away from the spyglass, laughing. “Rolf did it!”

She had not realized until that moment how nervous she was about Rolf having to sign the succession papers. But she had a deep, hidden terror that once he did, Khelsh would plan to have him killed immediately. She could see that Lilah felt the same way, for her sister was visibly shaking as she turned away from her own spyglass and groped her way to the table and a stool.

“Oh, thank goodness! And they didn’t accuse Rolf of playing a prank on them, either,” Lilah said, resting her forehead on the table.

“Why would they?” Celie tutted over Lilah’s fear. “If anything, we need to warn the maids. Khelsh already knows that the Castle doesn’t like him; he’s sure to assume that the Castle itself is doing these things.” She rubbed her hands together. She had a great many more pranks planned now.

“Celie,” Lilah said in a warning voice.

“Li-lah,” Celie singsonged back. “Only look how well this has gone! And tomorrow morning they’ll find their clothes ink stained, and more seams splitting … We can’t stop now!”

“Too right,” Rolf said, coming into the Tower. “That was the most fun I’ve had in weeks. The look on Khelsh’s face when he raised his arm! Priceless!” He smiled and closed his eyes, savoring the vision all over again.

“And Lord Feen,” Celie added eagerly. “When his robes just sort of
slithered
down around him … Lilah, you’re amazing!”

Lilah looked down, demure. “But we do need to be careful,” she said finally.

“Do we?” Rolf ran his fingers through his hair. “Surely they’ll assume it’s the Castle working against them, don’t you think? They won’t suspect us unless we get caught in the act. And we’ll just take great pains not to get caught,” Rolf said. “We’ve got the staff working with us, plus Lulath. I think there’s a great deal we can do.”

“I already have a plan,” Celie said, raising her hand as she would with her tutor.

“Do you?” Rolf’s eyes gleamed. “What is it?”

“I don’t think you’ll like it, Lilah,” Celie apologized straightaway. “It involves manure … a great deal of manure.”

Rolf started to laugh again.

Chapter

19

M
anure was duly fetched, and applied to the bottoms of shoes, hidden under beds, and smeared in the corners of wardrobes. Rolf and Celie went to the stables in the dead of night and loaded up as much as they could push in a wheelbarrow. The Castle obligingly turned all the staircases into ramps and put all the Councilors’ bedrooms in a long row. Celie did most of the work with her sound-muffling cloak firmly in place, with Rolf helping in the rooms where the wardrobes were located in a separate dressing room. They took careful note of which Councilors still had large suites of rooms, since it possibly indicated that they were not firm supporters of Khelsh and the Emissary.

One of the maids caught them at it, and with a giggle she agreed to help.

“I already short-sheeted all the beds this morning,” she told them then, covering her mouth to smother a laugh.

“You did what?” Celie blinked at her, but Rolf started laughing.

“I folded the sheets in half and tucked them in real tight. So that when you put your feet in, you get caught,” the maid explained.

“Oh, I’d like to have seen Lord Feen’s face,” Rolf said, smothering another laugh with his hand.

Celie’s eyes widened as she imagined it, and then she giggled as well. She had an idea for the maid, and for any of the other maids who might be willing to help.

“Do you empty the chamber pots?” Celie asked.

“Yes,” the maid said. “Some of them. And Bessy and Suze do the rest.”

“Would they be willing to help?”

“They might,” the maid said slowly. “If you—”

“You have my solemn promise,” Rolf told her, “as do all the maids, cooks, footmen, and stable hands, that if you are fired trying to help us sabotage the Council, I will rehire you as soon as I get rid of Khelsh.”

“Very well,” the maid agreed. “What did you have in mind, Princess Cecelia?”

“What if all the chamber pots just … disappeared?” Celie asked, her head cocked to one side and her mouth twitching with a smile.

The other girl’s eyes and mouth went round, and then she was covering her own mouth again to muffle her laughter. “We take them all down to the scrub room to be washed,” she said when she’d stopped giggling. “It will be quite simple to make the Council’s disappear. And that awful foreign prince! I’ll take care of it tomorrow morning!” She pursed her lips in thought. “What about that other prince? The one from Grath?”

“Oh, he’s all right,” Celie was quick to assure her. “In fact, if you need help, you can go to Prince Lulath. He’s definitely on our side.”

The maid nodded. “I’m glad. He’s been very nice. I mean, he’s got those dogs and always seems to be ringing for food for them, or extra towels or clean sheets, but I suppose it’s more because he’s spoiled than because he’s bad.”

“Just so,” Rolf said, his eyes twinkling at this description of Lulath. “Now we’d better all be about our business, before it gets light out.”

“Your Majesty,” the maid said, curtsying. “Your Highness.”

“Good-bye, and good luck,” Celie said cheerfully.

Rolf and Celie quickly finished spreading the manure around, leaving the last of it under the table in the Council’s chamber. Rolf took the wheelbarrow back to the stables, and Celie went to her bedchamber to see about getting some clean stockings, since she had accidentally taken an odd number when she had packed before. To her irritation, there was a large padlock hanging off of her door now, and she had no doubt that the key was with Prince Khelsh. She slipped along the corridor to check Lilah’s room, and found the same thing.

Muttering darkly, she went down the corridor, looking for the stairs to the Spyglass Tower. Her mind turned over and over what they had already done, and wondered what else they could do to sabotage the Council.

“Celie!”

She turned a corner and there was Prince Lulath. He smiled at her, and snatched one of her hands to squeeze it. She smiled back, and reached out with her free hand to pet the dog he was holding.

“I am this glad that I have found you,” he said, lowering his voice. “I wanted to tell: I have written to my father, and written also the letter to Khelsh’s father. The very day of our talk.”

“Oh, thank you!”

“And I have carried this, to find you.”

The prince shrugged the strap of a large leather carryall off his shoulder and set it on the floor between them. Celie looked down at it, and then up at Lulath, eyebrows raised. The prince smiled charmingly.

“I thought that there would be things you have not with you in your … place …” He trailed off, looking slightly embarrassed.

Celie bent down and looked in the bag. There was a cake of scented soap wrapped in paper, a bundle of clean, pressed handkerchiefs tied with a ribbon, a couple of books, a box of imported Grathian sweets, and a small bit of mirror on a long brass wand.

“What’s this?” Celie pulled out the mirror and looked at it.

“It is for … for checking in the corners. The corridors. The corners of corridors,” Lulath told her. Seeing her continued bafflement, he took it and walked to the end of the corridor, showing her how it could be positioned so that she could see down the other corridor. “It is really a tool for … tooth doctors?”

“Dentists?”

“Yes!” He beamed. “But I borrow for you. I thought to help you with your sneaking.”

“This is brilliant,” Celie told him. She took the wand and peered in the mirror, practicing angling it so that she could see different views of the corridor beyond. “Thank you so much!”

“You are very much welcome!”

“I should probably warn you,” Celie said, putting the mirror-wand in the bag and heaving it onto her shoulder. “We just talked to one of the maids. She’s going to hide the Council’s chamber pots tomorrow, but just in case she forgets and hides yours, too …” She made a face.

“Ah, I shall be warned,” Lulath said. Then he laughed. “Very clever!”

“Thank you,” Celie said, blushing. “Also, we’ve slit some of the seams of their clothes, and dipped their sleeves in ink. And Rolf and I just got done putting manure on the bottoms of all their shoes.”

Lulath clapped his hands together softly, shaking his head and snorting with laughter. “You will have them run soon, I hope,” he said.

“That’s what we hope as well,” she said fervently.

Lulath bowed to her, and Celie just nodded, rather weighed down by the bag. She went around the corner then and found the door to the Spyglass Tower and trudged up the stairs. Rolf had already popped in, Lilah told her, and then left to sleep in his own bed. Celie showed her sister the things that Lulath had given her, and discovered the reason that the bag seemed so
thick
: the bottom was lined with a heavy velvet cloak the same dark peaty color as the leather of the bag.

“Oh, this is beautiful,” Lilah said, stroking it. She held it up, and it was just the right length to fit her.

“Pogue will be jealous,” Celie said, her eyelids drooping. She swayed a little where she stood, and then shook herself.

“Don’t be silly, it’s just— Oh, you poor darling!”

Lilah finally noticed how tired Celie was, and led her over to their nest of blankets. She took off Celie’s shoes and stockings and helped her get comfortable, spreading the velvet cloak over her.

“You take it for now,” she said generously.

“Save some of the sweets for me,” Celie mumbled.

“Yes, yes,” Lilah said, tucking her in as best she could.

“I hope Pogue finds Mummy and Daddy and Bran soon,” Celie mumbled as she fell asleep.

“I hope he does, too,” Lilah whispered, and kissed Celie’s forehead.