The Castle Behind Thorns (17 page)

30

Saints

B
ESIDE HER
, S
AND YELPED IN SURPRISE
. P
ERROTTE
rose trembling to her feet and turned to face the voice.

Two figures stood in the dimness of the chapel, a faint glow emanating from their white raiment. A woman with dark hair stood beside a boy about their own age. For a flicker of a moment, the strangers' aspects changed; shadowy scars appeared across both their necks, and one of the boy's hands gleamed silver. But the signs of their bodily infirmities fled as soon as they appeared, and Perrotte half wondered if she had imagined them, then decided the marks were meant to ensure that the visitors would be recognized.

Sainte Trifine and Saint Melor.

Sand moaned, very quietly, and crossed himself. He'd recognized the saints too.

Crossing herself seemed like a good idea, actually. Perrotte did so too.

“Why did you bring me here?” Sand blurted.

But the saints did not appear offended; they just regarded Sand with eyes both calm and dark. “You know why,” Sainte Trifine chided.

Sand shook his head. “I have
ideas
why. I don't
know
.”

Saint Melor didn't appear to like this response. “Knowing was never promised to you.”

Sand subsided. Sainte Trifine was kinder, her expression warm and sympathetic. “You know more than you think,” she told him.

Perrotte shuffled her feet, and now the saints gazed upon her. Their attention was not comfortable. She took a deep breath. “I prayed for the removal of the thorns,” she said at last.

“You did?” Sand exclaimed.

Perrotte spoke to the saints and him both. “I did not expect to receive a visitation.”

Saint Melor's eyes remained on her, assessing and impartial. Her scalp prickled. She shifted from foot to foot, waiting.

But it was Sainte Trifine who spoke. “The thorns are none of our doing,” she said.

Perrotte's breath hitched. “They're not? But—you destroyed the castle—you raised the thorns.”

Sainte Trifine shook her head. “It is true that I sundered the castle, when your stepmother laid her hand over my heart and swore that she had not killed you—”

“But she did kill me,” Perrotte said fiercely. “It was Gilles's hand, but
her
will.”

Sainte Trifine's face was rueful and sorrowing. “I do not think it was her will. I confess I should have looked into her heart then, but the lie, the false oath taken on my heart, angered me so; a lie meant to cover the slaughter of a Cygne daughter no less . . . It was my impetuous doing. I have long regretted it.”

Perrotte rubbed her forehead with her thumbs, frowning. “I don't understand!” she cried. “She
murdered
me. You punished her. What is there to regret?”

“She was punished, but my actions also punished an entire generation of your family and your vassals,” Sainte Trifine said. “Who knows what courses their lives would have taken if I had done differently? I did not know that the sundering would be compounded by the thorns, and that being cut off from the wealth of the countship would plunge the countryside into such poverty—which in turn caused your sister to marry a French prince for his wealth, and thus lose Bertaèyn one more inch of its independence from France. I have much to make up for.”

Perrotte's thoughts were frozen.

“That is why,” Sainte Trifine said, her pale hand extending to Melor, “we brought Sand to this place, and we enhanced certain of his abilities—we gave him mending magic.”

Perrotte felt Sand tense beside her, rocking forward on his feet. He'd gotten his answer after all—and more.

“But the thorns are neither of ours,” Sainte Trifine said.

“Who, then?” Perrotte demanded. “Who has trapped us here?”

Saint Melor said, “The thorns are from the earth
you
were laid in, Perrotte.”

“Wait.” Perrotte's hands flew to her cheeks. “The thorns are mine? I control the thorns?”

Saint Melor shook his head. “The thorns are not one person's magic. Do not read intention in the thorns. They are a wilderness created by rage and sorrow.”

“
My
rage, though—
my
sorrow?” Perrotte crossed her arms, holding her upper body tight against the sudden trembling that had overtaken her.

“No. Not just yours,” Saint Melor said.

“Not only rage and sorrow, but fear, as well, and guilt,” Sainte Trifine said. “The thorns grew not from your feelings alone, Perrotte. There is more grief and rage and fear in this castle than one girl could create. Many people grew these thorns. But only from within the castle can they be taken down.”

“By mending things,” Sand said.

Saint Melor turned his head with regal slowness, and Perrotte remembered: Saint Melor would have been a king had his uncle not stolen his inheritance. “Mending the castle is an important part of it, Sand, but it is not the only part.”

Sand's lips thinned as though he were thinking hard. He nodded stoically. Perrotte wanted to poke him. Did he understand what Melor meant, or was he just accepting that he couldn't understand in his Sand-like way?

Sainte Trifine said, “You are so angry, Perrotte, and you have much to forgive.”

“
Forgive
?
” Perrotte exploded. The saint was right, she
was
angry. None of this was fair. The world wasn't fair. Armies weren't fair. Revenge wasn't fair. Jannet wasn't fair.
Her stupid father wasn't fair
.

No one was blameless in this, but most of the time, she was angriest at her father for marrying Jannet, for letting Jannet kill her, for being dead now.

And Bleyz. Bleyz must have done something very wrong, for Jannet's army to be camped out in the asparagus fields.

And Gilles, who had let himself be duped by Jannet—for he must have been duped—how could he have been so stupid?

Every once in a while, she was even angry at her mother for dying, and leaving an empty place for Jannet to occupy.

“You chose anger over Heaven, Perrotte. You would not forget and move on,” Saint Melor said, and placed his thumb on her forehead, between her eyebrows.

Her vision blacked out, and memory flicked through her mind like lightning bolts:
The fields of white lilies, the banks of the slow-fast river, and the souls who drank and forgot.

And:
The red-mawed woman, and the white tree, and Perrotte's refusal to drink.

And:
The dark-haired woman who came to her in the marsh, the red seed that glowed with life, and the reminder of her mother's love.

The memories faded, and Perrotte found herself standing with her eyes shut, rocking back and forth on her feet slightly with her heartbeat.

“It is time for you to break with your past, as you should have broken with it when first you died,” Trifine said.

Perrotte opened her eyes, flinching.
I don't want to die
, Perrotte thought. Her heart was a fist. This was the end. She'd never been meant to be resurrected, and now she must undo the mistake.

“No, Perrotte,” Trifine said kindly. “We do not ask you to face death again now, but to face life. With forgiveness.”

“How do you—?”

“I can see into human hearts, Perrotte.”

She knew—she knew in the core of her—that the saints spoke the truth, even though she didn't understand everything they said. But there was something else she knew.

“I don't want to forgive,” she admitted. “I can't. It will—” She broke off.

“Forgiveness is not death,” Trifine said. “It is life.”

“For who? Whose life? Forgiving allows people to get away with murder.”

“Whose murder?” Melor asked, in the same tone her tutor had used when she was supposed to know the answer already.

“Mine,” Perrotte ground out.

“Murdered, and yet, you live.” Melor raised his palms toward her, as if presenting her the world.

She grimaced.

He smiled.

Trifine said, “Jannet never intended to kill you, Perrotte. She only wanted to put you to sleep for a very long time.”

“
Only?
” Sand spoke up. “What does
that
matter? Putting someone to sleep so long that their loved ones die and the world moves on without them—that's very evil too!”

Trifine nodded. “Of course. But it is just far enough from murder to assuage the guilt of a woman who yearns for Heaven.”

Perrotte burst out, “So I'm supposed to forgive Jannet because she didn't
mean
for me to die? That makes her worthy of my forgiveness?”

Saint Melor said, “No, Perrotte. Forgiveness is not for her worth, but yours.”

Trifine stretched her hands toward Perrotte. “Child, you do not forgive because the person who wronged deserves it. You misunderstand the point of forgiveness entirely. The only cage that a grudge creates is around the holder of that grudge. Forgiveness is not saying that the person who hurt you was right, or has earned it, or is allowed to hurt you again. All forgiveness means is that you will carry on without the burdens of rage and hatred.”

“The choice belongs to you,” Melor said. “To both of you. Now: approach us.”

Sand half turned to Perrotte; she could read the fear and awe on his face. He grabbed her hand tightly, and she squeezed his fingers, as if saying, “I am here, I am beside you.”

They stepped forward together, closer to the saints. Melor made the sign of the cross over both of them. Sainte Trifine bent down and bestowed a kiss on each of their foreheads, then also signed the cross over them.

“We will be near, no matter what happens,” Trifine said.

Free yourselves, and go, with our blessings.

The voice was from everywhere and nowhere, and it filled her full. Perrotte covered her head with her free arm, holding on to Sand with her other hand as if he were her hope of life, until the voice faded from her skull. When she lowered her arm, the only remnants of the saints were their relics on the altar.

31

Siege

S
AND AND
P
ERROTTE STARED AT EACH OTHER.

“Did you see? Their feet didn't touch the ground,” Sand whispered.

“I wasn't looking at their feet.”

Sand's chance to respond was interrupted by another cannonball hitting the castle walls.

“I believe the army wishes to speak with us again,” Sand said.

“Or else the bombardment has started in earnest.”

They raced to the guard tower and climbed up to look out. Sand was correct; the cannon fire had been a greeting. Another group of knights had come to parley—and this time, they had a prisoner.

Sir Bleyz, armorless and bound, was held between two of the knights.

“To the trespassers in Castle Boisblanc, and the pretender claiming to be Perrotte of Boisblanc: Know that the traitor, Bleyz of Redon, will be executed for his crime of fomenting rebellion among the barons of this countship, lest the squatters vacate the castle by dawn.”

Sand glanced at Perrotte, who shrugged helplessly. “Um, it's going to take a little longer than dawn,” he called down.

This appeared to surprise the knight who was shouting the ultimatum up to them.

“How long?”

“Maybe by winter?” Sand said. After all, that had been their previous estimate on when they could finish mending the castle.

The knights making parley were too far away for Sand to read their expressions, but they didn't
seem
to think this was good news.

“I will return at sunset with an answer to your counteroffer!” the knight said. “Be here, or we will fire the cannons again!”

“We'll be here!” Perrotte cried.

She left the tower, and Sand followed. They met at the foot of the stairs.

“I'm not wrong, am I?” Sand asked, suddenly uncertain what Perrotte wanted. “You really do want to leave the castle? You prayed for the thorns to be down. The Saints all but told us to go. But Perrotte, if you want to stay here forever, I'll stay with you.”

Her eyes moistened when he said that, but she shook her head. “I have to try to save Sir Bleyz,” she said.

“And if they execute him anyway?”

Perrotte shook her head, knotting her fingers together. “We can't stay here forever. I think—I think it's time to live in the world.”

Sand nodded. “Yes. I think you're right.”

They stood awkwardly together for a moment. Sand thought: If she were his sister, he would just hug her. She looked like she needed comfort. But the awkward moment passed when Perrotte said, “Anyway, if we stay,
she
will just pulverize the walls and let the thorns take us, and—oh, Sand, I don't know how to bring down the thorns! I'm
trying
to forgive. Honestly, I'm trying with all my being.”

Sand looked at the sky. “We have until sunset to come up with a plan, I guess.”

Perrotte said, “If
she
just wants the wealth that is trapped in here, we could just . . . give it to her. Then she'd go away.”

He frowned. “Are you sure that's all she wants? She tried to kill you, Perr. Or put you to sleep for a long time, anyway. Do you even know why?”

Perrotte let out a whoosh of breath, and started walking toward the kitchen. “I would have to guess that once she had a daughter and not a son, she wanted to make sure her daughter would inherit instead of me. But she could have had more children, and tried again for a son and heir.”

“Perhaps not? Agnote is a midwife. Sometimes, women have babies, and their midwives know right away that they can't have any more children. . . . She could have had a childbed fever or too much bleeding, something like that.”

“Maybe. I never heard even a rumor of it, and the servants will talk about things like that.” Then Perrotte gasped. “Oh! How long after the sundering did my father die?”

Sand shook his head. “I don't really know. Fairly soon, I think—within the year?”

Perrotte closed her eyes, and her voice was pained when she spoke. “Papa was dying. He tried hard to hide it from everyone, but he was much reduced from the man he was before the League War. When he married Jannet, I remember him saying something like, ‘At least when I'm gone, you won't be alone.' Oh, Papa.” A tear slipped down her nose.

Sand really wanted to hug her then, even held one arm out to welcome her close—but she just took his hand as if that was all he offered. He was comforted that he could offer her something, though; her hand clutched his as if he were saving her from drowning.

“How was your father so wrong about her?” Sand asked.

Perrotte shook her head. “She was so annoyingly
pious
, I would never have thought she was dangerous to me.”

“Really?” Sand frowned.

“Really. When she first married my father, I—foolishly—told her I loved her. I didn't really, but it seemed like the right thing to say to my new mother. She told me not to lie, and that she would not lie to me either. And as far as I know, she never did lie about anything, up until the point when the castle was sundered. Well.
If
she lied then. Sainte Trifine said something about intention, and I thought she was trying to excuse Jannet, but maybe she was trying to explain something about her—and the sundering.” Perrotte shook herself, then looked guiltily at Sand. “I failed to tell you about the sundering as Sir Bleyz explained it to me,” she said, and proceeded to relate the tale.

So many pieces fell into place with that story. Sand's mind reeled, thinking about invisible beasts harrying stragglers out of the castle.

Unbidden, Sand's stomach growled.

“I'll go hunt Merlin,” Perrotte said.

“I can—”

“You should probably consider how to repair some of our defensive weapons,” she said gently. “Either we'll need to mend them when we mend everything, or we'll need to mend them to hold off our enemies.”

 

S
AND WENT TO THE
armory. He no longer believed that mending mere objects would bring the thorns down entirely. Though maybe the magic of the mending wasn't of the material
things
of the castle; maybe the mending was, and always had been, of Perrotte.

Except . . .

Some things don't need to be mended.
The words echoed in his mind.

Some things are not for you to mend.

You get used to things, Sand realized, thinking about winter. Agnote made him a new goatskin coat every autumn, which at first never felt like it kept out the cold. Sand always shivered and cursed winter at its start. But as the weeks passed, Sand found himself turning into the wind, letting it knife through his coat, through his very bones. Even though he recognized he was cold, he knew he was but a few steps away from a warm fire, and so he welcomed that bracing chill—because it was so unlike summer, and spring, and autumn.

When winter finally faded away, he always missed it a little.

Was winter broken? He'd never thought of it in those terms, but he hated winter so much at the start of the season when he was always so cold, and so angry about being cold, that yes, if you asked him then, he would have said: Winter is broken.

But winter was necessary. Why else would the world have it? The trees seemed to welcome the season, from the way they changed colors before they dropped their leaves and went to sleep. Winter was part of a cycle, like day and night, life and death. Winter
was
.

Some things are not meant to be mended
. Some things, even though uncomfortable, maybe even horrible, were things you needed to pass through. For winter, you put on your goatskin coat, thought ahead to summer, and knew that you could not mend it, even if you tried.

Some things are not for you to mend.
Sand had not been brought to the castle to mend Perrotte's mind or soul. He was sure of that, because he did not have the ability to do either. He was, at the heart of it, a blacksmith. Not a scholar. Not a saint. He was a smith. He was here to do things that only a smith could.

It came to him then, in that moment, staring at the giant crossbows in the armory: a mad, strange idea—a way to mend the castle itself.

 

P
ERROTTE APPEARED IN THE
armory with a roasted lark and some asparagus. Sand ate them, staring at the great crossbows he'd been working on so feverishly when she came in.

“What can I do to help you mend those?” she asked, and he shrugged, and pointed out some things while he snapped down the food. She set to work, and when he was done eating, he joined her.

“You're repairing all four of the great crossbows?” Perrotte asked. “The book on warfare I found said we only needed two or three, and Sand—there are only two of us. I'm not sure that's enough to man more than one crossbow.”

“You're right,” Sand said, but he was having a conversation with himself in his own mind. He wiped his brow. “We really only need two—we can move them.”

“That's not what I—”

He shushed her. He could barely hold the whole of this mad idea in his head. All he could see was what needed to be done next, and then he did it, the whole plan only glimmering at the edges of his awareness. His mind ticked over, doing mental equations, thinking about angles, and praying that his magic was up to the task.

“Maybe I should get to work on mending the crossbow bolts for these fellows?” Perrotte asked. “It can't be too hard to mend them, they're just like giant arrows—”

“Yes. No, don't mend the ones we have, forge them out of iron. Yes, we'll need four of them, with loops on the end, like the eye of a needle—but wide enough for rope to pass through.” He showed her the size by making a circle with both his hands.

“But won't that make the bolts fly wrong? I'm not sure what the point is,” she said.

He gestured impatiently. “Are you helping or not?”

“It's my castle,” she said, offended.

“And I'm the one mending it.”

“But why? Why needle eyes? Also, won't we need a
lot
more than four bolts?”

“No. Just four.”

Dimly, he heard Perrotte question him, and he didn't answer.

He felt himself being shaken by the shoulder.

“Sand! You're acting very strange. Tell me what's going on.”

His eyes focused on her. He had worked in a manic daze, not wanting to stop lest he lose the whole plan before he understood it. He forced his mind to return to normal paths. He still didn't know how to explain the plan, but he had to try.

“I'm going to make a very large chain,” he said. “I'm going to need your help with the welds.”

“Why?”

“Well, this chain has very large links,” he said, spreading his hands to illustrate the size.

“You don't say. And to what end, Sand? Are you making an anchor for a great ship? It's very impractical to make something so big here, miles from the seacoast.”

She was teasing him. He liked it.

He was going to miss her.

“No,” he said, finally understanding her question. “We can use the chain to mend the castle. I think that will bring the thorns down, once and for all, more effectively than mending all the little bits inside the castle.”

“That's madness. You have no proof that will work.”

He thumped his chest. “No. But I feel it here.”

She twisted her hands together. “It's a frightening thought. That you'll do one great act of mending, and then—we'll be free.”

He understood this. The thorns were their protection as much as their cage. Uncertainty faced them beyond the castle walls. Even though he knew his magic was from the saints, that didn't mean there wouldn't be an accusation of witchcraft. And Perrotte's future was extremely perilous, far more than his own.

“We'll need to bargain for your freedom tonight,” he said. “We need to look strong. We have the wealth of the countship in the treasury, and they think we can control the thorns, so we have a position of power, in a way.” Sand decided not to mention his fears about accusations of witchcraft. “All I face for my own peril, when we leave, is going to university. But your peril is greater, and I couldn't live with myself if, through my actions, you died—
again
.”

She shook her head. “You aren't going to university.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No. Your father owes me a life, and I'm going to take yours as payment.”

The words might have sounded like a threat, taken by themselves, but said by Perrotte with her steady gaze and her wry half-smile, Sand understood they were not.

“What—what would you do with my life?”

“Give it back to you.”

He swallowed past a sudden lump in his throat.

“Like you did for me,” she said. “I'll also offer you a forge. If I own
anything
when this is all over, any bit of land, I'll give you a smithy of your own on it. And a master blacksmith to take you on as an apprentice, if your father doesn't see reason.”

Sand said hoarsely, “I know mending magic isn't good for much when it comes to rescuing people from prison, but I'll figure out how to use it to free you. If you're taken prisoner.”

She nodded. “But if I die—” She turned her face away for a moment. “I don't think I want to be born a third time, Sand. Just . . . let go.”

“I don't promise that.”

“Well, you have to.” She turned back, glaring at him with wet eyes. “It's not your choice to make.”

He stayed silent.

She glared at him. “Yes, of course, your actions
are
your choice. But it's my body and my life. So it shouldn't
be
your choice. So therefore, it's not your choice. Honorably and rightly, it is not.”