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“Look, there’s Brizen.”
Ferris ducked behind the parapet at the back of the castle wall. The last thing she wanted was to spend the morning answering any more of his admiring questions about Valing and Ussene.
“Don’t let him see us,” she said.
“Oh come on, Ferris. He’s not that bad.” All the same, Avender crouched down beside her.
“Maybe not for you. He’s not following you around the castle like a lost gosling.”
Leaning around a corner of the stone, Avender peered once more across the courtyard at Rimwich Keep’s tall tower.
“Did he see us?” she asked.
“Not yet. He’s still looking, though. You know, if he comes out onto the wall, we’ll never get away from him. All he’s got to do is start up the stairs and there’ll be nothing we can do.”
“We’ll start crawling the other way if he does.”
“You can do that, but I’m not going all the way around the keep on my hands and knees. Uh-oh. Here he comes. If he asks the guards, they’ll tell him we’re out here for sure.”
Ferris resisted the urge to peek over the parapet. Already they had attracted the notice of the sentry stationed nearest them on the wall.
“He’s stopped. Now he’s leaning out over the wall and looking in the courtyard. No, we’re not there.” Avender chuckled, his interest in Ferris’s game increasing. “Now he’s standing on tiptoe, scanning the wall one last time. I think he’s going back inside. Yes, that’s it. He’ll probably be up and down the tower another half dozen times before he gives up.”
Ferris started to rise, her skirts getting filthy from the stone. Avender caught her arm with his hand.
“Don’t get up,” he said. “Let’s make sure he doesn’t come back out first.”
“He’s not that clever.”
“He’s not that stupid, either. Really he’s much nicer than we thought he’d be. You don’t have to be so mean to him.”
But the prince didn’t return, so the two lurkers got to their feet. Sighing, Ferris turned to the town, whose narrow streets cut through the houses like deep gullies in a bank of brown clay. At the bottom, where things began to flatten out, a high Dwarven wall stretched all the way around Rimwich from one bend in the river to the other. “Designed the defenses myself,” Nolo had told them when they marched in through the main gate two days before. “These Wayland masons didn’t do a half bad job of work on it, either.”
Beyond the gate, a road passed the houses of the outer town, then split west and south. Golden fields stretched across the level plain to forest and more hills. Right and left the fields gave way to long commons along the river, where cattle and horses spotted the lush green grass. Small boats plied the water beside them, disappearing occasionally around the end of the upstream wall where it ran out a third of the way across the channel to guard the docks on the other side.
“I wish we could go into town.” Ferris leaned over the edge of the parapet, the wall sheer for five or six fathoms to the cobblestoned square below. Surely Hern hadn’t let them out of Valing for the first time since Reiffen’s capture the year before just so they could loiter like gargoyles on top of the castle wall.
“You know Redburr said we could this afternoon.”
“If Brannis wants us to meet with him, he should just say when and where. This hanging around is a pain.”
“You know kings are used to having people hang around waiting for them. And stop calling him Brannis.” Avender glanced at the guard who had been watching them. “What if he heard you?”
“What if he did?”
Turning from the town, she looked up at the keep. It was an impressively tall tower, though not nearly as spectacular as the unnerets in Issinlough. At the very top, above the grey pigeons and brown doves fluttering like bees around a hive, a crown of trees clustered like green blooms atop a single giant stem. Thin windows pitted the dark stone below.
“All Brizen has to do is look out one of those windows to find us,” Avender pointed out.
“Yes. But we’d be gone by the time he got back to the wall.” With one hand shading her eyes, she glanced up at the top of the tower. “The only good thing about having an audience with Bra— I mean the king, will be that we’ll finally get to see what it’s like up on top. It’s a great view from here and all, but Redburr told me you can see Malmoret from up there on a clear day.”
“Today’s the day to prove it,” said Avender.
They wandered back to the tower and went inside. A pair of sentries guarded the stairs leading up to the apartments of the king, but the wide stair down to the main hall and the rest of the castle was clear. They had already started for the kitchens when footsteps echoed from the upper way. Ferris feared Prince Brizen was about to catch them on the landing until she realized more than one pair of feet were scuffing the stone. The guards drew back; Sir Hinnder appeared, leading two soldiers carrying a large wicker basket. A third brought up the rear. Nodding to Ferris and Avender, the king’s steward led his small party across the floor to the next section of winding stair. The children bowed in return.
“Do you think that was a hisser?” Ferris asked Avender before the sound of footsteps died away. In Grangore she thought she had caught glimpses of thin, forked tongues protruding from similar, smaller baskets. Maybe in Rimwich she would get to see even more.
“It looked like one.”
“What would a hisser be doing in Rimwich?”
“How would I know?”
Further speculation about the basket ended as a second, heavier tread sounded on the stair. The guards stepped aside once more. Redburr, in human form because a town and castle were no place for a bear, descended the last few steps. In one hand he held half a loaf of dark bread, a goblet of something even better in the other.
“There you are.” His cheek bulged as he shifted his mouthful to one side so he could speak. “Your turn next. Nolo spotted you on the battlement.”
“Was that a hisser Sir Hinnder was escorting down the stair?” asked Ferris as the Shaper led them upward.
Redburr filled his mouth with wine to sweeten the bread and swallowed loudly.
“It was.”
“What’s it doing here?”
“None of your business, girl. The king doesn’t need to explain himself to you.”
“I still don’t understand why we’re even here. Why should we talk to Brannis?”
“You wanted to come to Rimwich more than anyone.” The Shaper’s growl was much less threatening when he wasn’t a bear. “I told you the king would want to see us if we came. And so he has.”
“He already saw us at dinner last night.”
“That was a banquet. This is different. A personal audience.”
A window in the outer wall flushed the stair with light. The river glistened far below, curving around the town like a dark snake.
“For all you know, he’s hired the hisser to murder us in our beds tonight,” Ferris complained.
“I hadn’t thought of that.” The Shaper took another bite from his loaf as he plodded heavily up the stairs. “But, to tell the truth, I don’t think he’ll bother. Hissers are generally hired as spies, not murderers.”
“Who knows what Brannis might do.”
The Shaper turned around, his wooly red hair almost golden in the light of the window behind him.
“You know, Ferris,” he said. “The situation with Brannis is more complicated than you think.”
“Complicated? How can it be complicated? He stole Reiffen’s throne.”
Dust swirled in the light above the Shaper’s head. “Yes, but you’ve only ever heard Giserre’s side of the story. It’s always looked a little different from Rimwich.”
“Hern and Berrel agree with Giserre.”
“Giserre’s their friend.”
“She’s our friend, too,” said Avender loyally.
“Even Brannis knows what he did was wrong.” Ferris pressed her advantage now that Avender had joined her. “Why else did he try to murder Reiffen? He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t think Reiffen’s claim was real.”
“True.” Redburr held Ferris’s gaze with his small, dark eyes, his wide body filling the stair as he loomed on the step above. “But Brannis has never admitted to being behind that.”
“Why would he?”
“He wouldn’t, but that still doesn’t prove his guilt. Ask yourself, who had the most to gain by an unsuccessful attempt on Reiffen’s life? Brannis had to know any attempt was bound to be unsuccessful with Nolo and me watching the boy. So why even try?”
“It would help the Wizards,” said Avender thoughtfully.
The Shaper grunted, glad someone had finally seen the obvious.
“But the men you caught said Brannis hired them,” argued Ferris.
“They said an agent of Brannis’s hired them,” Redburr corrected. “But there was never any proof. Anyone can claim to be Brannis’s agent.”
“It’s just the sort of thing the Wizards would do,” said Avender. “Look how we all thought it was Brannis who kidnapped Reiffen last summer.”
“If Mindrell had gotten clean away,” said Redburr, “we would never have been any the wiser. Everyone would have said Brannis had taken him. And then, when the Wizards showed up with Reiffen years later, they could have said anything they wanted to make themselves look better. They might even have claimed to have rescued him from Brannis. And who would have been there to deny them? Now come on. We’ve talked about this enough. We’re going to be late. And it’s never a good idea to be late for an appointment with a king, no matter what you think of him. Or his son.”
Redburr accompanied this last remark with a sharp look at Ferris, then headed up the stair. The light soon grew brighter, much brighter than from any window, until their last steps brought them out on top of the tower.
They entered a garden edged about with sky. Battlements and cherry trees walled off the clouds. Roses and snapdragons bloomed in stone flower boxes that filled much of the open space between, lending an extra air of unreality to an already insubstantial perch. Even from the middle of the tower, with no long drop in view, Ferris felt exposed. At the first slight brush of wind she braced herself for swaying in the stone below her feet. But it never came and, after a while, she learned to appreciate the roof garden’s quiet calm. Though the nearer hills clearly rose taller than the tower, she still felt as if she were standing at the top of the world.
She was disappointed she couldn’t see Malmoret, however.
Not quite at the middle of the roof, the king sat on a stone bench, a grapevine drooping heavily from an arbor above his head. Other, empty benches circled a bank of red and yellow roses. Sir Firnum and several other members of the Rimwich court stood beside their liege; Prince Brizen was there as well.
The prince came forward first, a clumsy smile lighting his hopeful face. “I was so happy when Redburr told me on the stairs that father was having an audience with you. Now we can spend the afternoon together.”
Ferris bobbed a curtsy in reply. There was no escaping the trap now, but Redburr was going to catch it the next time she was alone with him. Nolo emerged from the foliage to join them as the Shaper brought his charges before the king. Acknowledging the introduction with a nod, Brannis gestured for his visitors to rise.
Now that she saw him up close, Ferris found her original impression of the king at the banquet, when she had only seen him from a distance, confirmed. He was not what she had expected. She had always pictured a cruel man with a thin face and a hard laugh, something like what Reiffen had described in meeting the Three. Instead she found herself regarding someone who looked both quiet and sad. The lines in his face led from his mouth to his eyes, where they dissolved in weary pools. But there were currents beneath the pools, and other things, perhaps, adrift in the currents. He studied her closely, and Avender also, and when he was done Ferris doubted he would ever forget either of them. As she would not forget him.
His melancholy reminded her of the weariness they had found in Reiffen after rescuing him from Ussene.
Gesturing to the bench beside his own, the king bade them sit. “I wish to hear your tale,” he said. “Baron Sevral and Sir Firnum have told me what you told them, but I believe it’s always better to hear things firsthand. So please, speak to me of your quest.”
Ferris did most of the talking. Prince Brizen listened with rapt attention. She told them everything, with Redburr nodding for her to continue every time she glanced his way. She spoke of Issinlough and the Abyss; of the Nightfish and sailing through the darkness to Cammas; of the long trek through the Stoneways and the discovery of Durk; of sneaking into the dungeons of Ussene with Delven and the other Dwarves; of Reiffen’s rescue and the attack of the mander, when Redburr went berserk and Durk was lost. Last, she described returning home only to have Reiffen stolen away from them once more. Avender only spoke when Ferris asked for his opinion or confirmation. And neither he nor Redburr said a word when Ferris explained how she was certain the Wizards had called Reiffen back with the thimbles, no matter what anyone else believed.
When she was finished, the king called for wine. Ferris would have preferred cider or plain water and sipped at her cup sparingly, one eye on Avender to make certain he did the same. The day had turned hot, though the breeze at this height was soft and cool. Pale fruit thickened on the branches overhead.
“You are my nephew’s friends,” said the king at length. “It is only right for you to take his side in any quarrel. At another time I might well have had you killed. No doubt that is why Redburr has brought you here now, when he knows you are safe. Reiffen may be more a threat than he ever was before, but that threat has fallen beyond my reach. What is done, is done.”
A dove cooed from the feathering branches. Regret, or a shadow from the trees overhead, drifted briefly across King Brannis’ face.
“I never wanted my brother’s crown,” he continued. “Redburr can tell you that. I was Brioss’s faithful servant, his strong right hand. I was the one who should have led the flanking force beyond the Wetting, not Mennon, when Martis in his slyness suggested there might be a way to attack Cuhurran from the rear. But Brioss wanted me to remain in the town, in case anything should happen to him. And when Cuhurran slew Mennon on the fields of Rimwichside, before the truce was called, it was I who led the sortie from the city to avenge our brother. It was I who stayed behind when Brioss took Ablen with him to see the Sword.
“When he and Ablen died, the crown came rightfully to me. There were no other heirs. By the time I heard of Reiffen’s birth it was too late to go back, even had I believed it. We had come through years of strife and, when it was revealed who Martis and Cuhurran truly were, I doubted everything but the evidence of my own eyes. Were the stories of a wedding true, what assurance had I that the child wasn’t some fresh trick of Cuhurran’s? So I chose to rule my kingdom instead, as justly as I might. The Three will find no traitors in Wayland – the thanes agree with what I’ve done. Only in Banking, where a few barons chafe at Wayland rule, is there any real grumbling. I have ruled both kingdoms fairly. On occasion my hand has been heavy and my justice harsh, but there will always be hostility from a conquered enemy, no matter how open the hand of the conqueror.
“I tell you this now so you don’t misunderstand me. There is no malice in me toward Reiffen. Had his mother not been so loud in her son’s claim to the throne, I might well have welcomed him to be a brother to my own son, the way I was brother to his grandfather. But Giserre resisted my overtures, and now the world is as it is. The Three have a weapon in Reiffen far stronger than anything we have ever faced from them before. Now they can act openly, claiming they have the right. Everyone will know Reiffen is a puppet, but there will always be those who prefer convincing themselves that such is not the case. It is because of them that I will forever be Reiffen’s enemy. And his friends will be my enemies as well, should they ever seek to aid him again.”
The king looked among his guests, from Redburr to the children, passing over Nolo as someone beyond human affairs. “Even if that person is my own friend,” he said, his gaze settling on Ferris. “Or the friend of my child.”
Ferris flushed. She wanted to say something clever, but King Brannis’ manner cowed her.
Prince Brizen coughed into his hand. The king smiled and gestured broadly beyond the tower’s walls.
“My son reminds me I promised to be brief, as he wishes you to be his guests for the remainder of the day. Please, it is my privilege to have such brave heroes in Rimwich Keep. You honor us all. I regret having spoken so bluntly, but I have found plain speaking to work best when I wish to make myself clear. I am certain you understand.”
The prince bounded forward, tugging at his ear. “Um, what shall we do first?” he asked.
Ferris decided the problem with Brizen was that he was like a too-affectionate puppy, with the disadvantage that, unlike the puppy, he couldn’t be smacked on the nose.
Chattering away, he led them down the stairs. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take you out to show you the farms? Or we could go for a sail on the river. I’m quite a good sailor, you know, especially where the current slows at the bend around town.”
A malicious glint started in Ferris’s eye as they filed past the guards on the landing. “I’ll tell you what you can do, Your Highness, if you really want me to remember your lovely keep. You can take me to see the hisser.”
“The hisser?” Brizen’s eyebrows rose nervously. “Um, I can’t do that.”
“Why not? You’re the prince. You should be able to do whatever you want.”
“But hissers are dangerous.”
“I fail to see how a snake in a basket can be dangerous.”
“There are guards.”
“Don’t the guards in your father’s palace do what you tell them?”
“Um. Actually, no.” The prince pulled awkwardly at his ear again, his eyes falling back and forth between Ferris and Avender without managing to settle on either.
“Come on, Ferris.” Avender reached for her arm. “Stop being so difficult. I’m sure His Highness would show us the hisser if he could.”
“I suppose. But, if I can’t see the hisser, I’m not sure I really want to do anything. I am a little tired after the banquet last night. There were so many speeches.”
With a hand to her forehead, Ferris pretended a twinge of fatigue. What Avender had said was true, but she really found Prince Brizen completely annoying. He meant well, and didn’t put on airs or anything, but she couldn’t stand to think how Reiffen’s crown would fall into his feeble lap some day. And while Reiffen suffered in Ussene, too. It wasn’t fair. Why should Brizen get everything?
She turned to go. Prince Brizen continued tugging at his ear. Avender stood between the two of them, torn between following Ferris despite her bad mood, and remaining with the prince.
Ferris was almost through the door when Brizen finally spoke. “There is a way,” he said. “I think I might be able to manage it. We’ll get in an awful lot of trouble if we’re caught, though.”
“Who said anything about being caught?” asked Ferris as she started back into the room.
Avender threw up his hands. “This is exactly why Reiffen and I never used to let you come with us on any of our raids.”
“Raids?” asked Brizen.
“Of Mother Spinner’s sugar house,” said Ferris. She fixed Avender with a withering stare that would have made Hern proud. “Really? And I suppose you’re going to tell me I was a nuisance in the Stoneways? Or Ussene?”
Brizen nodded, his chin bobbing. “She has you there, Avender. Ferris has already proven she’s just as brave as you.”
“Bravery’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Oh, come on.” Ferris looped her arm through Avender’s, knowing he was just as likely to go off and sulk if she didn’t stop arguing with him. Being alone with the prince was not what she had in mind. “You know you want to see the hisser as much as I do.”
Unable to disagree, Avender let himself be carried off. Brizen led the way into the heart of the castle, up and down stairs and through long hallways, some busy with the business of the kingdom, others completely empty. Other than the fact that everything was made of stone rather than wood, there was much about Rimwich Keep to remind Ferris and Avender of their home in Valing. The same rambling halls, with odd rooms and stairways encountered when least expected; the same sparse furnishings. Instead of cupboards at the ends of otherwise empty halls the castle held suits of armor, and far more portraits of kings with dogs and dead stags, and queens with cats and embroidery hoops, than Ferris could ever imagine hanging anywhere.
They came to a door where two soldiers stood guard. Ferris thought she recognized them as the ones who had carried the basket on the stair, but wasn’t sure. They bowed to the prince as he passed, and Brizen nodded to them in turn. Ferris felt a tingle of anticipation but, rather than ordering the guards to let them in, the prince led his new friends away down the hall.
“Wasn’t that the hisser’s room?” she demanded the moment they rounded the corner.
Brizen nodded, his eyes bright with brazen glee. “Yes. That’s it.”
“Aren’t we going in?”
“We can’t go that way. Even if the guards let us pass, they’ll report it to Sir Hinnder. And he’ll tell my father.”
“Is there another way?” asked Avender.
Pleased with his own cleverness, the prince went on. “I know the castle pretty well. Much better than the Old Palace in Malmoret. We only go there in winter, or for special events.”
“Well don’t just tell us about it,” said Ferris briskly. “Show us.”
The eager prince led them on. A set of short stairs ended in the kitchens, which were nearly five times the size of the one in the Manor, and with ten times as many cooks. Ferris smelled bread baking in the ovens, and someone peeling onions. Pots bubbled on a dozen stoves. Judging from what she saw hanging from the ceiling, Rimwich Keep’s collection of saucepans was enormous.
Through a side door nearly blocked with baskets of potatoes, Brizen escorted them into a small courtyard. Several chickens squawked and half flew up to the roof of their coop against one wall. Pigeons swooped down to peck at the hens’ unguarded grain.
“Up there.” The prince pointed to a window above the chicken coop. “That’s Ssiliss’s room.”
“Ssiliss? Is that the hisser’s name?”
“Um, yes.”
Ferris’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Have you met it already?”
“Um, no.”
“Then how do you know its name?”
“I heard my father call her that.”
“Why does it matter if he’s already met her?” asked Avender.
Ferris answered with a prim smile. “If he’d already met her, then there really isn’t any need for sneaking around like this, is there?”
“Um, Sir Hinnder says she’s dangerous.”
Avender sniffed at the barnyard at their feet. “I want to know why such an important guest has a window looking out over the chicken coop.”
“This way,” answered the prince, “if she gets hungry in the middle of the night, she can get herself a snack without scaring anybody.”
“What I want to know,” said Ferris, “is how we’re supposed to get up there.”
“The last time I was here there was a ladder. But that might have been because they were working on the windows on the other side.”
“Well, there’s no ladder now,” said Ferris. “Any suggestions?”
The prince pulled at his ear for a second, then clambered on top of the coop. The roof creaked but held, as if it had been built with just this sort of alternative use in mind. Hands over his head, Brizen reached for the windowsill above, but was still an arm’s length short. He gave a little jump, afraid of the roof collapsing when he came back down.
“Maybe we can climb,” he said, eyeing the rough stone.
“Have you ever tried to climb in a skirt?” asked Ferris.
“I’ll give you a boost.” Avender clambered up onto the coop to test its strength. More creaking, but nothing gave way. Hopping back to the ground, he helped Ferris up, then joined her.
“Um, don’t you think I should go first?” A hint of pleading lurked in Brizen’s eyes as he asked the question. “I mean, it is my castle. And you are, um, wearing skirts, Ferris. Like you said.”
Frowning, Ferris removed her foot from Avender’s cupped hands. Avender offered the makeshift stirrup to Brizen.
“How will you get up?” asked Ferris, as Avender grunted and heaved the prince up the side.
“I’m taller than Brizen. I can reach the window.”
Brizen’s clothing scraped the stone; for a moment he scrabbled at the sill, almost losing his grip. Avender gave both the prince’s boots a hard shove with his hands and propelled him up and into the room.
Ferris followed more easily. Though she was shorter than the prince, she was much lighter too. Avender’s first boost sent her flying halfway over the sill. She rolled the rest of the way in and landed atop Brizen in the dark.
“Ow,” said Brizen.
“Shh,” said Ferris. This wasn’t nearly the same as creeping through the dungeons in Ussene, but she still didn’t want to get caught.
Quietly she got to her feet. Beside her the prince stumbled against something but managed to catch it before it hit the floor. Ferris glared at him in the gray, dimly lit room. Not a lot of light came through the window.
They were in a small chamber, much smaller than her own in the castle. A narrow bed lined one wall, a small fireplace on the other side. In between stood the basket.
Something moved. Ferris’s heart nearly jumped out of her throat, but it was only a rabbit creeping in the corner. She and Brizen exchanged a glance; yes, Brizen had seen it was only a rabbit too. She put a finger to her lips in case he forgot himself and asked the same question she was thinking. Then the answer came to her, making her frown at the ridiculousness of her own fright. She hadn’t expected a snake would eat its rabbits stewed, had she?
Now that she found herself in the hisser’s room, she wasn’t sure what she had expected. The snake coiled up in the fireplace? Hanging from a chandelier? She looked up and, with some relief, saw there was no chandelier.
Brizen tapped her on the shoulder and pointed toward the basket. Carefully they both stood up. It occurred to Ferris that, no matter how much they tiptoed now, the hisser had already heard them come crashing into the room. Nonetheless, she didn’t stop tiptoeing.
They were still a couple of steps from the basket when the lid popped open and a very large head, much larger than Ferris had imagined, rose out of the shadows inside. Diamond-shaped, the head floated just above the level of Ferris’s nose. Its eyes glowed, the same color as the setting sun. The body below was thicker than her arm.
“Greetingss, guesstss,” said the hisser. “What a pleassant ssurprisse.”
Ferris thought of the rabbit hopping timidly on the floor. The hisser’s tongue, much longer than the one she thought she had seen in Grangore, flickered out of its broad, snubby mouth. She realized she was close enough to count the scales between its eyes. Holding back a shudder, she asked herself why she had wanted to look upon such a creature. Had it ever really been about the hisser at all? Had teasing the prince been worth it?
Softly the hisser began to sing.
“‘Pleassant food, sso good to eat
Ssing a ssong and have a treat.’
“Come again?” asked the prince.
The hisser’s eyes flicked from Ferris to her companion. The thought occurred to her that she ought to look away, but, before she was even halfway to acting on the idea, the hisser had fastened its orange-gold eyes on hers once again. In a soft voice, slick and dry as scales, the hisser chanted a second time.
“Sslither and sswim,
Ssquiggle and ssquirm
A sspeaking ssnake iss not a worm.
Sso pleasse don’t run
And pleasse don’t fly
A ssneaking ssnake will help you die.”
Ferris hardly heard the words. It was the sound that held her, not the sense. The hiss of Ssiliss’s voice reminded her of the first murmur of a kettle on a winter day, the whisper of wind-stirred leaves in fall. Like the hum of summer insects, the song suggested she relax. There was no tension in her neck or shoulders. No worry in her mind. Only the snake holding her with its eyes, its great head, attractive as a flower on a vine, bobbing back and forth between her and Brizen.
Something crashed. The hisser shot high above the basket, its head nearly to the ceiling, its song cut off. The eyes turned fiery orange. Something clunked against Ssiliss’s body and dropped to the floor. An instant later Avender threw himself against the basket, sending snake and wicker tumbling.
“Get out!” he cried. “She’s trying to eat you!”
Ferris snapped back to the castle, remembering the hisser’s words. She was trying to eat them! Beside her, Prince Brizen gaped at the snake writhing on the floor.
Avender scrambled to his feet, still shouting. “Quick! Before it gets all the way out of the basket!”
Ferris, seeing the prince still wasn’t moving, grabbed his jacket and pulled him toward the window. That was enough to wake Brizen from his trance. Together they clambered over the sill.
“Ssweetmeatss, why are you here?” called the sibilant voice behind them. “Are you not for eating?”
Holding herself up with her arms, Ferris looked back. Avender held a chair before him, guarding the window. The snake swayed in the middle of the room, its tongue questing. Its coils writhed on the floor. With a last, long hiss, its broad head darted forward. The chair rammed against Avender’s chest. Back he flew out the window. Letting go the sill, Ferris and Brizen dropped to the roof of the chicken coop. A great crash followed as all three landed together and smashed through to the nests inside. Chickens rose squawking in the air, wings beating as fast as Ferris’s heart. Straw and splinters exploded across the tiny courtyard.
Ferris lay briefly stunned, wondering if she were dead. Opening her eyes, she saw the jagged edge of the smashed roof above. Something wet seeped through the seat of her skirt. Straw prickled her face and neck.
“Um, are you all right?”
Brizen’s worried face appeared above her.
“I think so.”
She sat up, pulling bits of straw from her mouth and wrinkling her nose at the smell. An egg that had somehow survived rolled off her lap. She caught it before it hit the ground.
“How’s Avender?” she asked.
“I can’t tell.”
Avender lay between them. He had fallen the farthest, breaking through the floor of the coop to the stone below. Splintered boards and feathers spread beneath him. Not until he groaned were his friends convinced he was alive.
By that time the kitchen staff had all pushed through the door and were staring at their prince in amazement. Ferris and Brizen helped Avender to his feet, but he was still having trouble breathing. His mouth hung limp as he tried to force the air back into his lungs. Just as Ferris was becoming concerned, he coughed and took a great, gasping breath.
“Prince Brizen.” The chief cook stepped forward, his towering white cap marking his rank. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, Gridlin. I’m, um, fine.”
“Might I inquire what Your Highness has been doing?”
“I was, um, showing my friends, um, the, um...”
“I wanted to know where you got your eggs,” said Ferris. She lifted her chin confidently. “His Highness was kind enough to show me.”
Gridlin grew more confused. “But Your Highness. You know we get our eggs fresh from the market. These are for the snake.”
“Which was just what His Highness was telling me when Avender here felt he had to climb on the roof. Now, if you don’t mind, His Highness and I have to take our friend somewhere he can lie down.” Ferris waved her hand. The crowd of cooks and scullions parted to let them pass.
“That’s, um, correct,” said the prince, tugging at his ear.
“He’s missing one of his shoes, sire.” One of the kitchen girls pointed at Avender’s bare foot with a wooden spoon.
“If you find it, um, please bring it to the tower.”
By the time they reached Avender’s room, Avender was urging them to find Redburr and tell him everything. Ferris, however, insisted they wait till they were actually caught.
“That’s what you and Reiffen always did,” she said. “We’ll have plenty of time to confess then.”
Which was why she didn’t hesitate when Redburr turned up at the door with Avender’s shoe dangling like a mutton chop from his hand. “Any reason why I found this in the hisser’s room?” he asked.
“I threw it,” said Avender. “To distract—”
“It was my fault,” Ferris interrupted. “I told Prince Brizen I wanted to see the hisser. I made him do it.”
“That’s not true,” Brizen protested. “I didn’t have to show her.”
Raising his bushy eyebrows, the Shaper turned to the first of the three companions. Avender accepted the return of his shoe.
“Well, it was Ferris’s idea,” he said. “But I suppose I should have stopped her.”
“Avender saved us, Sir Redburr,” added the prince.
Crooking his finger for them to follow, Redburr led the three miscreants back up the tower. Ferris, despite her contrition, couldn’t help but ask questions.
“But why did it try to eat us?”
“Why wouldn’t she?” Redburr answered. “I’m sure she’s tired of rabbit and eggs. There are tribes in the Blue Mountains known to feed their prisoners to hissers.”
“You’d think she’d know better. She is in the middle of a town.”
“It’s precisely because she doesn’t know better that King Brannis has two soldiers guarding her all the time. And to think I thought Avender would keep you out of trouble now he’s on his own.”
Even Ferris’s defiance disappeared in the face of Redburr’s reminder of what had happened to Reiffen. Whatever Brannis decided to do to them couldn’t possibly compare with the suffering Reiffen was going through. What was the worst the king could do to them? Order them to clean the stables?
Which was precisely what he did. With a stern face he lectured them on the importance of guests behaving themselves, especially around other guests. What would their mothers think? Ferris almost pointed out that Avender hadn’t had the advantage of a mother for a long time, and how he should be forgiven. After all, he had saved the prince. Who knew what might have happened had Avender not thrown his shoe?
But the king reserved the worst of the lecture for his son. At some length he explained, in front of everyone, that this was hardly the sort of behavior he expected from the heir to the thrones of Wayland and Banking and how, if Brizen couldn’t learn to conduct himself in the proper manner of someone who had to think of all his subjects, and not himself, then perhaps the king should call a gathering of the thanes to discuss the subject of selecting another heir. Ferris’s eyes went wide. She knew that a gathering of the thanes was a very rare occurrence. She could only imagine what it must be like to be told you have misbehaved that badly.
At the end it looked as if only Ferris and Avender were going to be sent to the stables. Prince Brizen, however, his jaw set stubbornly, faced up to his father and insisted he be punished too.
“Very well.” The king turned to his steward. “Sir Hinnder, if you please. Send for the whipping boy.”
“Immediately, sir.”
“Whipping boy!” Ferris almost raised her voice above a whisper in her disgust.
“Don’t you know what a whipping boy is?” asked Avender. “That’s some poor fellow who has to take Brizen’s punishment for him.”
“I know that,” she hissed in reply. “And just when I thought he might amount to something, too.”
She was still fuming after Hinnder led them all the way down the tower and around the back of the castle. Rimwich Keep’s stable was much bigger than the Manor barn. Even with the whipping boy to help, a husky lad almost as large as Avender, they would be lucky to be done by midnight.
“It’s not such a bad job,” said the boy when Ferris apologized for having gotten him into trouble. “Better pay ‘n any other job I can find. I almost make as much as my mom does washing. An’ sometimes there’s tips, too.”
They hadn’t been at the work five minutes when a fourth figure slipped into the long, smelly building. Ferris thought she saw a flash of silver as Brizen clasped his whipping boy’s hand. Then the other tipped his cap and, casting a quick glance about to make sure no one was watching, dodged out to the courtyard and away. Brizen fumbled with his shovel for a moment, then fell in beside his friends without a word.
After that, Ferris never tried to hide from Prince Brizen again.