Rasnake(18)

"I think so," Milton said, breaking the silence, but keeping his voice low. "Notice a problem?"

"You mean other than the missing duke?" Tallant asked dryly.

"No, just that one," Milton replied.

"The doors were locked," Tallant said. "Did he lock them behind him?"

Milton shook his head. "No. It's not impossible he has duplicate keys, but it is improbable. Only the seneschal holds the keys; it's a safety measure. Unless Marden stole the keys from Henry and managed to make duplicates, he could not have keys himself."

Nodding, Tallant looked around the tower room again. It was remarkably tidy—for some reason, he'd expected it to be chaos. The room was large, with a canopied bed and writing desk on one side, along with a small, low set of bookshelves that held a modest number of books.

On the other half of the room were sitting and dining areas. Something about the room was off, but Tallant could not put his finger on what. Tapestries covered the walls; large, elaborate, costly pieces that were more decorative than functional. A small one covered the single window in the room. All the others ran floor to ceiling, and were roughly the span of a man in width.

Shaking his head, annoyed that he could not grasp what bothered him, Tallant strode to the bookshelves and knelt in front of them. All books on magic, minus five slim volumes bound in green leather. Those proved to be personal journals.

Tallant flipped through the first one. After a moment, he put it back. They had been written in code; he did not have the time now to see if the code could be broken and he dare not take one with him.

Switching his attention to the books of magic, he opened them to find that someone—Marden, obviously—had penned notes throughout the volume. Like the journals, the notes were in code—or maybe he was giving Marden too much credit and the code was nothing more than gibberish. He didn't think that was the case, however. Everyone believed Marden to be locked securely in his tower prison and he obviously wasn't.

"Here," Milton said, from the opposite side of the bed. "Look at this." He lifted something up for Tallant to see. It was a tree made of gold, with silver leaves and red glass apples, a little taller than the length of his hand. "Cecil would carve these trees, then he and Henry would cover them in gold leaf, and make the silver leaves. Marden had a glassmaker's apprentice create glass balls they used for fruit. Cecil used to be an excellent wood carver. He said it helped his hands after hours of illuminating." He sighed and set the tree back down on the small table by the bed. "I wonder where we'll find all the other stolen objects."

"I'm sure they're tucked away somewhere in here," Tallant replied, and rose. "My only question is: why does he steal them? Do you think—" They both froze at the sound of stone scraping on stone. With a snap of his fingers, Tallant banished his mage light. Then almost as one, he and Milton dove for the bed, scrambling under it. They'd only just barely settled into their hiding place when a sliver of yellow-orange light spilled into the room—from behind a tapestry.

The light came from dead ahead, slightly off to the right. It increased steadily, until a generous pool of flickering light filled the space across the room. A torch, followed quickly by a hand, an arm, and finally the shadowy form of the mad duke himself.

He was, as Cecil had said, corpulent. But he didn't move like a man overburdened by his own weight—quite the opposite. Tallant tried to make note of the tapestry that moved, all the while hoping fervently that the torchlight would not strike them in such a way as to reveal damning shadows.

But if it did, as Marden carried it to the table which held the tree, he did not notice them. Instead, Tallant waited, barely breathing, as Marden's clothes dropped piece by piece to the floor. All the while Marden muttered to himself, too low and quick to understand.

Marden climbed into bed, and Tallant wondered for a brief moment of panic if they'd be able to slide back out from under the bed later; his weight was so great that it pressed the mattress down upon them, so that he could just barely feel it. The sound of turning pages indicated Marden was reading, and it seemed to drag on forever, every minute an hour, until Tallant thought he would scream.

At last the light went out, and a short time later the sound of snoring filtered down to them. Thank the gods Marden was a snorer. They continued to wait, until they were absolutely certain. Finally, just when Tallant decided he really would scream, Milton signaled. I'll go first.

Signaling acknowledgment, Tallant watched, even more tense than before, as Milton slowly squirmed free. When Milton was well clear of the bed, Tallant moved himself. When he could finally breathe properly again, he looked at Milton, who only shook his head. They fled, moving as quickly as they could, stopping only to lock doors, before finally bolting back to the safety of their room.

Once back in their room, Tallant dropped down on his bed and let out a long sigh. "What the hell?"

Milton shook his head and sat down on his own bed. "I can't believe it. I've found little nooks and a secret room before, and Henry told me there were supposedly secret passages around, but I did not expect to so easily find one, even if that's what we were looking for."

Tallant snorted. "Indeed. I am more troubled by the fact that no one else knows about that passages"

"The castle is old—really old. I think it was here before the kingdom. Like I said, Henry told me about the secrets tunnels and rooms, but he spoke of them the same way he told ghost stories. He always said that if they had existed at all, and that was doubtful, they were long since blocked up or caved in."