Winterkeep

by Kristin Cashore

  “What if I’m getting cavern dirt on my bottom?” Bitterblue asked. “And I end up having to approach the gate, announcing I’m the Queen of Monsea? Would a queen believably have a dirty bottom?”

  “Are we sure she drank the right amount of rauha?” asked Lovisa, who kept rubbing her temples. “Isn’t it supposed to be wearing off?”

  “Saiet packed it for me,” said Bitterblue. “I trust Saiet.” Then she lay on her back and said “Saiet” several times at the ceiling to see if it made an echo.

  “She does seem pretty far gone,” said Nev. “Did she drink more than half?”

  Giddon fished in his pack for the flask. The moment he touched it, he said, “Uh-oh.”

  “What is it?” said Nev.

  “Bitterblue?” he said. “Did you drink the whole flask?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Why?”

  “You were supposed to drink half.”

  “What!”

  “And save half for the trip back.”

  “I thought he gave you two flasks!” she said. Then she sat up, put her hand to her mouth, and started giggling.

  “Oh dear,” said Nev.

  Now Hava was laughing too, snorting and cackling, which wasn’t helpful.

  “Did she drink an unsafe amount?” asked Giddon anxiously.

  “Not unsafe for her,” said Nev. “Unsafe for our plan, though, if we need her.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Bitterblue, throwing a hand out and whacking Giddon’s chest. “I can act so normal!”

  “I doubt she’s coming down for a long time,” said Nev. “And even if she could act normal, she’s not going to be able to hide pupils the size of plates.”

  “Okay,” said Giddon, whose heart was sinking. “I’m afraid any part of the plan involving Bitterblue is out.”

  “Although . . .” said Hava.

  The scheming look in Hava’s eye made Giddon hopeful, but wary. “Yes?”

  “Could she be someone else?” said Hava. “A traveler in need of medical assistance? I mean, in her current state,” she said, pointing to Bitterblue, who was lying back again making very poor bird calls, “they’d never believe she was the Queen of Monsea anyway.”

  “Who, then?” said Giddon.

  “She’s obviously Lienid,” said Lovisa.

  “People in Torla’s Neck aren’t going to be primed to expect a Lienid traveler,” said Hava, “are they?”

  “They might be looking out for this very Lienid traveler, if they’ve been watching the signal messages,” said Lovisa with a snort.

  Bitterblue lifted both legs in the air and used them as leverage to swing herself up to a seated position. “Everybody,” she said. “I know how to get me and Giddon into the house, and I think I could make it very distracting.”

  * * *

  —

  Sometime later, Bitterblue and Giddon trotted up to the Cavendas’ front gate.

  All had gone to plan so far. Hava had taken off first, then, sometime later, Nev. Davvi had followed Nev. Then, climbing out of their cavern under a pale pink sky, Bitterblue, Giddon, and Lovisa had stepped into the forest, passed through the trees, and found the road. The road had led them to the high stone wall.

  “That’s it,” Lovisa had said. “I’ll hang back and hide behind trees.”

  “All right,” Giddon had said, still not liking Lovisa’s uncertain role. The hope was to get her onto the property secretly somehow, so that her native knowledge would be available to the others, but she seemed so unfriendly and remote that Giddon didn’t entirely trust her. Should they really be bringing the daughter of the house to the storming of the house? Mightn’t she have her own agenda? “We’ll be near,” he added.

  When Bitterblue and Giddon reached the gate, they found only one guard. Also, the gate he was guarding was open, which was going to make things much, much easier. The guard was tall, but slight. Giddon was taller.

  “Hello!” Bitterblue cried, speaking in Lingian, then following her greeting with a strange bow that involved a lot of expansive arm movements. The guard, watching her with a puzzled and nonplussed expression, didn’t respond. Giddon imagined he was getting pretty weary of random visitors showing up at his gate this morning.

  “I am the Queen of Monsea!” Bitterblue almost shouted.

  Something cleared in the guard’s face. “Another one?” he said, in Keepish. “I met one last month.”

  “The others are imposters,” Bitterblue cried in Lingian, bowing again. She swept a hand at Giddon. “This is my royal retainer!”

  “And what’s your act?” the guard asked, in Keepish.

  “Not dancing!” she announced. “Not naughty dancing either!” which briefly startled Giddon. She held her hand out to the guard, fingers closed over something. “And now,” she said, “are you ready for a little magic?”

  Grinning, the guard held his palm open to her. She made a show of opening her hand, but when she did, it was empty. She shook the hand and glared at it, making frustrated noises at it as if it were malfunctioning.

  “My magic is stuck at the moment,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sure you’re very good,” said the guard kindly, still responding to her Lingian with Keepish, which was making Giddon a little dizzy. Behind him, Giddon heard the tiniest movement, which he guessed to be Lovisa slipping from tree to tree, so he made his shoulders big and tried to block the guard’s view.

  “What’s wrong with her?” the guard asked next, for Bitterblue was now leaning both hands on the wall and resting her face sideways, gently, against the rock. She’d cleverly chosen the wall beyond the gate, which turned the guard’s back to Lovisa. Her expression was familiar to Giddon, for she was plainly trying not to vomit, and as she blinked up at the guard, her pupils were as big as saucers.

  “Oh,” the guard said knowingly. “You should be careful with our teas, miss. Some of them are quite addicting.”

  “Might I rest inside your gates?” said Bitterblue. “Until I’m feeling better?”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have those kinds of facilities,” the guard said.

  “Not even for the Queen of Monsea?”

  “I’m sure it seems cruel to someone of your magnificence,” he said with a sympathetic grin.

  “It’s all right,” Bitterblue said, pushing herself away from the wall. “Sincerely yours, Queen Glitterboo,” she added thickly, as if she were signing a letter, then tried to sweep away, stumbled, and crashed to the ground.

  In the ensuing hubbub, Giddon couldn’t tell whether her collapse was real or not, which made his performance as a worried royal retainer even more convincing than it otherwise would have been. He shoved the guard aside and insisted on picking her up himself, relieved that the thing he wanted to do was the thing someone in his position would believably do.

  “You can’t leave us out here,” Giddon said, in Keepish.

  “I’m sorry—” began the guard.

  “I’m bringing her in,” Giddon said, taking full advantage of his height, his breadth, the combined volume of him and Bitterblue as he walked straight into the guard and pushed him back through the gate. “Get some water!” he shouted over the protests of the guard. “And a doctor! She has a heart condition!”

  “A heart condition?” cried the guard in renewed alarm as Giddon bullied him along a path that wound through leafless trees. “What kind of heart condition? Would an animal doctor be sufficient?”

  “Does she look like a poodle?” shouted Giddon, briefly proud of his Keepish. He could see the gray, weathered wood of the house through the trees ahead, then the place where the trees stopped, with nothing but air and light beyond. A rushing noise he’d mistaken for wind resolved itself into the sweep and pound of water against rock, reminding him that this house stood on a cliff. Behind him he heard nothing, but he knew Lovis
a had had every opportunity to enter the property and begin to make her own way through the trees.

  “It’ll take a while to call a doctor,” said the guard, who was no longer making any serious attempt to stop Giddon. His aspect was rather depressed, actually, and Giddon wondered if his failure to refuse them entrance was going to get him into trouble. “But there’s an animal doctor on the property at present. That’s why I suggested it.”

  “I’m sure he’s busy with your animals,” said Giddon.

  “It’s a woman.”

  “I don’t care if it’s the prime minister! We need a doctor.” Then, as the guard moved ahead up steps that led to an entranceway surrounded by late-blooming flowers, Giddon squeezed Bitterblue harder. “Hey,” he whispered. “You okay?”

  She opened her eyes and shot him a mischievous, black-eyed look. Then she closed her eyes and let her mouth hang open slightly.

  Giddon relaxed.

  Inside the house, rooms opened to left and right and a corridor streaming with light extended straight ahead. A woman was marching down this corridor toward them, her boot heels clomping like horseshoes on stone and a peeved expression on her brown face. Her white hair, soft as a cloud, was pulled into a knot at the nape of her neck.

  “What now?” she snapped at the guard, deep-voiced and annoyed.

  “Traveling entertainers,” said the guard, looking cowed before the woman, despite his greater height. “Heart condition.”

  “I’m the Queen of Monsea,” Bitterblue moaned, still tucked in Giddon’s arms.

  “Of course you are,” said the woman, glancing at Bitterblue’s bedraggled furs and the plain, overly large tunic and pants she wore beneath it, borrowed from Nola. Her messy hair, her enormous black eyes. “And who are you supposed to be?” the woman barked at Giddon.

  “I’m Giddon,” said Giddon.

  “Yes, I’ve heard of you,” she said sourly. “Very good. Big and loyal-looking. You only need the Graceling and a few pasty men and your act will be complete. Would you like to plop Her Majesty down on a couch?” she said, extending an arm through an open doorway. “We can rustle up a drink for you, but I’m afraid that then you’ll have to be on your way.”

  “We need a doctor,” said Giddon firmly.

  “We can direct you to the nearest doctor.”

  “My companion can’t walk, as you can see.”

  “We’ll lend you a horse,” she said with finality, then turned and swept off. “No more guests!” she shouted for the benefit of the guard, who was still standing by, shoulders slumped, face tight with apprehension.

  “I hope we haven’t gotten you in trouble,” Giddon said. “She’s plainly upset about something.”

  The guard seemed unable to decide what to say. “I’ll ask someone for water,” he said, turning to go.

  “I’ll do some magic for you later, to thank you,” Bitterblue moaned, which made him turn back once, half smiling. Then he left the room, leaving Giddon to tuck Bitterblue into a sofa with dark fluffy cushions and pillows into which her body sank, as if it were a bath.

  Immediately Bitterblue popped her eyes open. “This sofa is eating me,” she said, fighting with the upholstery in an attempt to rise, then holding her hand out to Giddon, fingers closed over something. “And now,” she said, “are you ready for a little magic?”

  “Always,” said Giddon, opening his hand below hers, knowing where this was going. She dropped his own pocketknife into his palm. It explained why, a few minutes ago, while he’d been carrying her, she’d very obviously stuck her hand into his pockets and groped around.

  “Remarkable sleight of hand,” he said gravely.

  Her giggles began again, then immediately turned into moans. When Giddon reached for her in alarm, she touched his face, patted his cheek. “It’s okay,” she said. “I have waves of feeling happy as pie, then waves of feeling like I ate too much pie. Too much poisonous pie,” she said miserably. Then she checked herself, her expression changing as she looked at the doorway.

  Giddon turned to see Lovisa standing there, staring in at them silently. He opened his mouth to say something cautionary or bossy, but Bitterblue tugged his arm to stop him.

  Lovisa slipped away.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Lovisa was so happy for the Queen of Monsea and her gigantic boyfriend, that they should be enjoying this invasion of her house so much. What a hilarious act, the queen’s “are you ready for a little magic” bit. Especially while Hava snuck around somewhere, spying, interfering with things that weren’t hers, all while employing actual magic. Lovisa had used to fantasize about the Royal Continent and its magic, but now she could see that that magic was really just another kind of lying. This was a game to them. Find the clues, solve the riddle, while Lovisa’s life came apart.

  The white-haired woman who’d received Bitterblue and Giddon was a disgraced academy professor named Linta Massera. LM. Lovisa had recognized her immediately. And a puzzle piece had settled, with a sickening click, into place, because Linta Massera was the chemistry professor who’d been kicked out of the academy a few years back because something had exploded in her lab. Lovisa had mentioned it to Benni, during their conversation about the explosive properties of varane. He’d responded that that particular explosion had had to do with zilfium.

  “Zilfium explodes too?” Lovisa had said, and Benni had waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t know anything about it,” he’d said, but he must know something about Linta and her work if she was living here in the Cavenda house, giving orders to the Cavenda guards as if she were the queen. Linta had disappeared from Ledran society after the shame of leaving the academy. No one talked about her anymore. But she had to be the LM who’d written a warning letter to Benni.

  Lovisa needed to get to the storehouse.

  She heard a sound in a nearby room. Before someone stumbled upon her, she slipped through a narrow doorway that looked like a cupboard but was really a back stairway down to the kitchen.

  * * *

  —

  From her position behind the kitchen door at the bottom of the steps, Lovisa could hear someone doing something with broken pieces of ceramic and glass. Sweeping them, possibly, across the slate floor? And someone else was hammering, and a woman who sounded like the cook, Liv, was yelling that it was nice to have a chat with new people.

  Davvi’s voice responded to Liv. Then a third voice, sweet and female, said, “The water’s almost boiled.”

  Nev’s voice responded. “I’m grateful.”

  “Is it a bad blockage?” said the sweet voice.

  “I don’t know yet,” said Nev, “but these things can be quite straightforward, once you’ve got your hand in the right place.”

  “Poor thing’s been off her food for days.”

  Liv said, “Here, Ella, you run this water upstairs to the sitting room and I’ll bring Linta Massera her tea.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the sweet voice. Footsteps shuffled away; doors opened and closed.

  “What’ve you learned, Nev?” Davvi asked in a low, urgent voice.

  “The white-haired woman works in the storehouse,” said Nev. “I’m dealing with a constipated cow and I can see her marching to and from that building. I’m sure Hava’s somewhere, but I haven’t spotted her. How many people have you seen?”

  “The white-haired woman,” said Davvi. “Liv, Ella, and a man who seems like the housekeeper. There were two guards at the gate when I arrived this morning.”

  “Yes, me too,” Nev said. “One of them’s now watching me in the barn and at least four others have walked by the barn windows. Seems like they’re doing some kind of regular patrol.”

  Lovisa pushed the door open. Both Davvi and Nev started in alarm, Nev joggling the cauldron-sized kettle she held with both hands.

  “So, at least six guards total,” said Lovisa. “That’s a l
ot of guards for a mostly empty house. Have fun sticking your arm up a horse’s butt,” she added to Nev, who was carrying her kettle toward the outer door.

  “It’s a cow,” said Nev, “don’t you listen?” Then, with half a grin, she strode outside.

  Lovisa surveyed the kitchen. The long row of cabinets that stretched along the upper wall was tilted at a funny angle and the strip of wood that formed the base seemed to have come disattached. A bin in a corner was full of the fragments of plates, bowls, and glassware.

  “Hava did that?” she said, impressed.

  “I don’t even know how she managed it,” said Davvi, “unless she carries a crowbar hidden inside her clothes.”

  Lovisa glanced around the kitchen and saw two or three implements that could double as an improvised crowbar, for an imaginative woman with personality problems. “I’ll go check out the storehouse,” she said.

  * * *

  —

  She was not experienced in sneaking across yards in daylight, and she didn’t have Hava’s advantages. But she was a quick learner. Aiming for the barn, Lovisa slipped from tree to tree, diving behind a fallen trunk once as a guard strode by.

  A moment later, peeking out from a corner of the barn, Lovisa assessed the storehouse. Unlike the house that was perched on the cliff, one whole side composed practically of glass, the storehouse, like the barn, was set back from the cliff and had few windows.

  Inside, it resembled a stable, with open areas divided by low walls into sections that functioned as stalls for the storage of supplies. In Torla’s Neck, you had to travel for supplies, buy in bulk; or you stocked up once a year as vendors passed through. The storehouse was full of things, spices and cheeses and sacks of flour that left a cloud of white dust on everything nearby; as a child, Lovisa had pretended it was the hold of a ship, a place she’d never been. She’d escape to the storehouse sometimes, tuck herself among the supplies, find a snack with which to comfort herself, then pretend she was going somewhere far away and different.