“Charlotte’s invitation to you still stands, of course,” the queen murmured to Beatrice. “In the event that, after a little time, you need a place to think things over.”
About Phelan, her mother meant. In case he turned out to be as exasperating as his father, and Beatrice, having lost her heart to one who broke it, lost her job as well. How her mother imagined that Beatrice could have a solitary moment to trail through dewy mornings, scattering wildflower petals and brooding, with Small Marcus and Tiny Thomasina always with her, she had no idea.
“There are other digs,” she answered calmly. “I think quite clearly when I’m working.” She heard her mother’s sigh under the genial clatter of cutlery, and added, somewhere between humor and exasperation herself, “It’s what I do. If you don’t want to look at me in my dungarees, I’ll go up north. They’re digging up an entire ancient village in the Marches.” The queen flung her a horrified glance. “I am sorry, Mother,” Beatrice added softly. “Truly. But, honestly, how long could you stand living among country roads and cows and hobby farms? If you insist I go there, I’ll only find the nearest dig site and disappear into it. There are some wonderful barrows and tombs in that part of the country.”
Her mother’s knife scraped gracelessly across the porcelain. “At least Charlotte talks about shoes at the supper table,” she said darkly. “Not tombs. You really are hopelessly like your father.”
“I suppose so,” Beatrice agreed amiably, while on her mother’s other hand, Lady Petris picked the word eagerly out of the air.
“Shoes?” she exclaimed, actually drawing a second syllable out of the word. “I adore them, don’t you? I have so many I had to turn the old nursery into a closet. Tell me, Harriet—”
Jonah found the princess at midmorning the next day, alone at the site except for the guard in the car, who glanced up from his book and recognized the interloper. Everyone else had gone to the competition for a few hours, to experience the historical anomaly of it, as Campion put it. Beatrice had been drawn back to the runes. Only for an hour, she told herself, brushing dirt out of the deep scores in the stone. They had haunted her dreams the night before, like mute faces trying to speak. She searched for the rayed circle within the silent, continuous chatter patterning the face of the tomb. The sudden shadow falling over her startled her as deeply as if one of the runes had spoken.
“Master Cle.”
“Phelan sent me to get you,” he said, stepping onto the ladder and descending. “So this is what you’ve found. Where is everyone?”
“They went off to hear the music. I just came—I had to see this again.” She gestured inarticulately at the mystery. “I couldn’t help myself. Master Cle, have you ever seen anything like this?” He did not answer; she took her eyes off it finally to glance at him. “Master Cle?”
He was utterly motionless, not even breathing, as far as she could tell, his face so white she thought he might collapse there at the bottom of the dig. She touched him. He moved then, gripped her fingers.
“Yes,” he said harshly. “I have seen it before. Or something very like it.” He dropped her hand, turned abruptly toward the ladder. “Come with me.”
“But what is it? What does it say? I don’t recognize that symbol at all. We searched for it—my father and Master Burley and I—in all the runic dictionaries, and we couldn’t find it.”
“Of course not.”
“But—”
He was halfway up the ladder; he gestured for her to follow. “There’s no time. I think Phelan may be in terrible danger.”
“From what?” she asked bewilderedly. “An old tomb door?”
“Don’t ask.”
She guessed anyway. “Kelda,” she said abruptly. “You think—Master Cle, I have no idea what you’re thinking. What would happen to Phelan in front of everyone in the middle of the competition ?”
“What happened to me,” he answered grimly, and she felt her throat close, dry with fear.
“Is Phelan that good?” she asked shakily, starting up the ladder.
“Only when he thinks of you. I want to be where I can see him. And Kelda.” He gave her a hand onto the upper ground, paused briefly to take in her impossible attire.
“I brought clothes in the car,” she told him quickly. “I’ll change at the amphitheater.”
“Good,” he said with relief, and added, dourly, “If it’s still standing. Kelda has already played once this morning. The place might be a heap of rubble by now, with all the shouting and stomping he caused.”
“Magic?”
He shook his head, the lines on his face as rigid as the runes. “Not yet. He doesn’t need it yet.”
Beatrice told the guard to park the car down by the royal barge, got out of her dig clothes and into a frock in the private rooms reserved for king and courtiers. She went outside and climbed to the highest circle, at a level with the stage on its scaffolding, where she found Sophy under the flapping pavilion. It was Quennel’s preferred spot as well, Beatrice noticed; the old bard sat along the rim, wearing his formal robe of kingfisher blue, his ivory hair in a tuft, his expression as tense as Jonah’s.
“He went to speak to Phelan,” Sophy told her, before she could ask. “Isn’t that your aunt Petris under that wonderful hat? All those plumes look as though they’re about to fly away with her.”
“How is Phelan?” Beatrice asked anxiously.
“Better, I’m sure, now that you’re here. He’s playing—” She paused to put her spectacles on, study the program. “Quite soon, I think. With Zoe.”
“There’s my mother,” Beatrice breathed, startled as she recognized the flowery hat next to the plumes. “I hardly thought she’d be interested ...” She applauded at the sound of it around her, as one bard’s song ended and a court bard took her place, wearing instruments like body armor that flared with light at every note, as though the sun played his music for him.
Her thoughts strayed again; she tried to find Phelan, sitting in the shadows under the scaffolding. She missed him; maybe he was somewhere with Jonah. But Jonah had come back, sat down next to Sophy, before the sun’s song came to an end. Beatrice’s hands moved mechanically; her face turned to Jonah’s grim, closed face, a question pending for when the noise died down again. She drew breath to ask it, then lost it again as Zoe began to sing.
Beatrice stared at the stage, forgetting entirely to close her mouth. Two figures, one dark-haired, dressed in silks like blowing flames, the other pale-haired, in blue shot with silver threads down which light rilled like water, seemed to pull music not from their voices, their instruments, but out of the grass roots of the plain, the lichen on the ancient stones, the words carved into them as old as Belden. She felt her eyes burn, put a hand to her mouth. Surely, that was the sound of the spiraling circle on the tomb: that was its voice; the music pouring into her heart was the word itself, saying its name. The world blurred around her, flashing, melting. As the tears finally fell, she heard Jonah’s sudden exclamation.
She could see again, but in what world she had no idea.
Chapter Twenty-five
Another harper played with them. Zoe heard the sweet, exuberant run of notes like a stream rilling and splashing into her music, then merging with it, sometimes deep, secret water, sometimes leaping into light. Phelan, attuned to her, eyes lowered to his hands, did not seem to notice at first. Then his head flicked up; he glanced at her. His eyes grew very wide; Zoe heard his fingers slow, lag after a beat, a sudden, startled absence before his fingers caught up with her.