Tuesdays at the Castle: Chapters 16–20

The spyglasses always showed things with such clarity that it was hard to believe they weren’t in the same room with you, and this time was no exception.

The spyglass was somehow looking directly through all the layers of stone and slate and who knows what else, to show the interior of the throne room, where Rolf sat on a stool in front of the dais.

Lilah kicked ineffectually at the stone wall, her eye still pressed to the spyglass.

She went down the narrow steps with a great deal of trepidation that she hid as best she could from Lilah, keeping her shoulders square and her pace steady.

The door itself was hidden behind an arras.

“Your Majesty is very young; Prince Khelsh will have ample time to learn our language and our ways.”

As it was, she merely tried to send her brother thoughts of love and strength while he faced the horrible Khelsh and his horrible Council lackeys.

“But I want the paper to say that you are only my heir until I marry and beget an heir of my 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.

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.

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

“It is because you are a good person,” the prince said earnestly.

Were they as large and opulent as they had seemed? And had the Castle provided the furnishings, or had his servants brought them?

“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.

“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.

But there were no lines on his smiling, handsome face, and he seemed far less imposing with a small dog burrowing under his chin.

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.

They had been spying on Khelsh and the Council, but they hadn’t done anything to actually oust them from the Castle.

If Lilah had been indignant at the idea, Rolf seemed more intrigued.

“It will make it that much more diabolical if their clothes don’t fit, either!”

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lilah looked down, demure.

Manure 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.

It had been a week since what Rolf called the Night of Manure Mayhem.

And as he said the words, with a few of the Council tentatively joining in, he uncorked the little bottle and poured the glutinous contents over the dust on the cloth. It made a nasty-looking mud that he stirred with a small silver wand he took from his pocket until the whole thing was a thick, gluey lump.

A mighty groan suddenly seemed to emanate from every stone of the Castle, and every wall shifted a bit before settling back with a screech.

Lilah looked into Celie’s eyes intently.