Chapter 23

How long has she been up here?”

The voice came from above, lonely in the dead night sky. Katherine looked up to see a guardsman ascending to take his place atop the small turret that projected from the castle’s keep.

“She was there when I took my watch at sunset.” The guard on duty in the turret yawned, then bent to collect his things.

The first guard, a young, rangy sort, leaned out to look down at Katherine, who sat huddled in a corner behind the battlements. “That’s the marshal’s daughter, isn’t it? Doesn’t she know she can sleep in the hall?”

“I don’t care where she sleeps.” The other guard slung his crossbow on his back. “What news of Harry?”

“No news.” The young guard poured oil into the basin of the watchlight. “If he dies, do you think there will be war?”

“I doubt it,” said the other guard. “Wolland’s twice our size, at least, to say nothing of Tand and Overstoke. We’d be crushed.”

“What about the king, though? Surely, for the death of a lord’s only son and heir—”

“Pfah. The king. Weak as a kitten.”

“The way I hear it, the Earl of Quentara doesn’t like Wolland much,” said the young guard. “They’ve been enemies since who knows when. This could be his chance.”

“Let’s hope for our own sakes he doesn’t take it.” The other guard turned to climb down. “Good night.”

“Good night.” The young guard unbuckled his sword and set it down. He lifted a drinking horn and took a gulp while waving to the distant figures of the guards who walked the tops of the outer walls.

Katherine shut her eyes for a while, then opened them, staring up. The stars wheeled overhead—silent, their patterns suggestive of everything, and then nothing.

The watches of the evening passed. Every so often, the young guardsman would poke his head over the side of the tower and glance down at Katherine. The moonlight caught his face from time to time and seemed to show him watching her more than anything else he had been charged with protecting.

“Are you hungry?” His voice came after such long silence that it made Katherine jump. She looked up at him.

“You must be hungry,” he said. “Or thirsty. You’ve been up here all night.”

“I’m not hungry.”

The guard rummaged through something on the turret and spoke with his mouth full. “Well, let me know if you change your mind, and I’ll toss something down to you.”

Constellations rose; others set. The young guard’s helmeted head appeared again. “What are you asking the sky?”

Katherine ran a hand down her cheek, though she had done with crying long before. “I’m asking it please, please no. Please not him, please not now.”

The guard glanced up, then down again. “Worth asking, I suppose.”

He left her to her silence, watching around into the dark distance and signaling his fellow guards with an all-clear from time to time. His yawns came louder after a while—closer and closer together—then Katherine heard the sound of the trapdoor being raised on the roof of the keep below.

“About time, Ulf.” The young guard bent to pick up his things. “I nearly fell asleep. Any news?”

A narrow, balding head stuck up from below. “Is the old marshal’s daughter up here?” A third guard climbed up onto the roof of the keep, wrapped in a heavy cloak.

The young guard pointed. “She’s over in the corner. Why? What’s the trouble?”

Katherine stood up, slow and stiff and in a clutch of fear.

Ulf reached for the ladder to the turret. “Harry’s awake—he’s past the worst. They say that he’ll live, more than likely.”

Katherine let out a cry. She put her hands to her face, then hugged herself.

Ulf turned to look from halfway up the ladder. “Oh, I see her now.” He took the young guard’s offered hand. “Anyway, I was down in the barracks when the news came in—Harry’s awake, and he’s calling out for Katherine—Katherine Marshal, over and over again.”

Katherine leapt up and raced for the trapdoor down into the keep.

“I wouldn’t bother.” Ulf shook his head at her. “Not a chance my lady Isabeau will let you in there.”

Katherine threw back the door. She cast a last glance up at the silent sky and at the guards changing places on the turret above. Ulf looked down at her, shaking his head, while the young guard stared at the stars with a more thoughtful look on his face than any she might have guessed he could wear.

“I’ll tell you this.” Ulf’s voice faded from Katherine’s hearing as she hurried down the stairs. “Whatever happens, I feel sorry for that girl.”