“The histories make no mention of it,” he challenged.
“Would you write down all your secrets? I gather you’re interested in places that could hold a few people in reasonable comfort.”
“I need to find them quickly, Myrdal,” he said.
“The sorcerers and their Merida assassins specialized in quick escape routes—like the one at the grotto. But hiding holes were put into Stronghold by faradh’im.”
Rohan caught his breath. “And they’d need sunlight more than anything else!” He thought rapidly. “An outer wall, then—and southern exposure to get the most light.”
“Very good. Help me up, boy.”
He did so as the guards returned. Arlis came to him with negative reports. “Not even a stray bedbug, my lord.”
“I should think not!” Myrdal sniffed. “Princess Milar spent the first year of her marriage having them all hunted down. Why, I remember—”
Rohan interposed gently, “Arlis, bring my wife and son here, please. I need Lord Chaynal, Lord Maarken, and Lord Riyan as well.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Myrdal squinted up at him in the gloom. “Have you thought what you’ll do when you find your sorcerer?”
He put his hands back into his trouser pockets. “I have an idea or two.”
“She’ll throw everything she’s got at you,” the old woman warned.
“I know. But she doesn’t know what I intend to do to her.”
“I doubt you’ll be able to kill her.”
“So do I.”
Myrdal thumped her cane on the step. “Don’t play coy with me!”
Making innocent eyes at her, he replied, “I wouldn’t presume.”
“Oh, as you like, then,” she muttered. “You haven’t changed since the day you were born.”
“But I have, you know,” he said seriously, “I’ve learned how to be afraid.”
Pol helped Meiglan into the torchlit courtyard, pleased that she seemed to be growing stronger with each step. A tinge of color had returned to her lips and cheeks, she breathed more easily, and her eyes were brighter, more lucid. There were hundreds of people currently in residence at Stronghold. Every last one of them—save a telltale few Pol looked for and did not find—jostled for space in the courtyard. Confusion there was; guards posted at strategic spots made sure there would be no chaos. Pol heard snatches of conversation as he and Meiglan descended the outer steps, and it intrigued him that while junior servants and the strangers from Cunaxa and Gilad and Tiglath all speculated on what the High Prince had in mind, those who knew his father simply waited in silence. Their long service here had bred a trust he had never thought about before. But it was not blind faith; it was the certainty of experience that whatever the difficulty, Rohan would solve it the cleanest and quickest way possible.
Pol escorted Meiglan to a place beside Walvis and Feylin. She murmured words of thanks to the couple for their assistance.
“Not at all,” Feylin replied briskly. “Actually, I’m astonished you were able to stand up, let alone walk. That sleeping potion was one of the strongest I’ve ever encountered.”
“Are you feeling better now, my dear?” Walvis asked.
“Yes, my lord.” She cast a brief glance at her father, who was out of earshot. “I-I need to explain what happened, your grace,” she said to Pol.
“I wish you would,” Feylin told her with frank curiosity.
A deeper color mounted her cheeks, and she again looked toward Miyon.
“It will be between us,” Pol reassured her.
Meiglan gave him a strangely dignified nod. “Thank you, your grace. But I d-don’t have anything more to fear.”
He stared down at her, taken aback. “Not here, of course,” he said, groping for words. “You’re quite safe, my lady.”
“Perfectly,” Walvis agreed. “I can understand that watching that man’s face changing into something else altogether was startling—I admit I had to pick up my jaw with both hands.”
“It’s what I saw when the change was complete, my lord. I recognized him.”
“As what?” Pol asked, unable to keep suspicion from shading his voice.
“Before we left Castle Pine, I came upon my father talking with a man while another approached. He was very displeased and s-sent me away.” The catch in her voice at remembered ill-usage tore at Pol’s heart. “That man was one of them. I-I recognized his red hair.”
“So when you saw his real form. . . .” Feylin encouraged.
Meiglan shivered. “I’m sorry for my behavior. But I—when I knew who he was, and Mireva came to take me out of the Great Hall—”
“She drugged you to the eyebrows to keep you quiet,” Feylin said.
“It’s my fault,” Meiglan said miserably. “I was the excuse and the opportunity to bring sorcerers within this keep.”
Walvis took her hand. “Nonsense. Nobody could possibly blame you.”
Pol watched the huge dark eyes fill with tears of gratitude. But she did not weep. He tried to be logical, tried to examine her story rationally. If all was as she had said, then she could not have been in his bedchamber last night. Meiglan’s form, but not Meiglan. Mireva. The twist of physical sickness in his guts told him he had best not dwell too long on that idea. Meiglan was what mattered now. Did he believe her? Suspect her? Trust her?
What had she to lose at this point? Everyone now knew who the diarmadh’im were. There was no danger to them in telling her tale. He saw her dry her tears with her sleeve, a childlike gesture that brought a renewed ache to his chest. Did he dare believe? What if it really had been her last night, not Mireva? What if this was just one more lie designed by sorcery and her father?
But she had just handed him her father on a golden plate. Miyon had been seen with Marron and Ruval, Miyon had taken them into his service. Pol had been sure of Miyon’s complicity before, but now he had proof. Of a sort, anyway. If he could believe her. She looked up at him, beseeching his forgiveness and understanding. He opened his mouth to speak, not knowing if he would accuse her or accept her.
“Your pardon, your grace, but the High Prince commands your grace to attend him within the keep.”
He swung around, startled by Arlis’ voice and formal phrasing. “What? Why?”
“The High Prince did not share his reasons with me, your grace. But he was most insistent that your grace obey him immediately.”
Pol looked down into Meiglan’s dark eyes, tortured. Decide—one way or the other! He saw his fingers caress the lingering drops from her cheek. Her lips parted in fearful wonder at his touch. Unable to bear even this tenuous contact with her, he turned and followed Arlis up the steps.
25
Stronghold: 34 Spring
Sioned felt wrapped in darkness, shut away from the sun as she had been in Ianthe’s dungeon, touched with the madness of that long-ago time. Weeping had cleansed neither her eyes nor her heart; she felt sick, her eyes throbbed, her whole body ached. She wanted to crawl to her bedchamber and huddle in that darkness like a wounded animal.
She stood silently by the closed doors of the Great Hall. When Pol came into the foyer, her control wavered for a moment. Candles revealed shadows around eyes already bruised with strain. There was darkness about him now, where before there had always been only light.
He saw her and glanced quickly away. Sioned fixed her gaze on the emerald resting heavily on her hand, remembering how she’d wrested it from Ianthe’s finger. Claimed back everything that was hers. How young she had been then, only a few years older than Pol was now, how certain of herself and her vision. But what was a wound on her shoulder seen in Fire and Water was a scar on her cheek in reality. Andrade had told her long ago that conjured visions came to pass if one worked to make them happen. The difference between what she had seen and what had occurred, symbolized by that crescent-shaped scar on her face, had never troubled her before tonight. Now it frightened her. Perhaps it meant she had been wrong to take Pol, wrong to destroy Feruche.