He got his bath — lukewarm, but he hardly noticed — and ate without tasting his supper, in such haste that he came close to choking once. He was in place long before the bell rang, and Alberich, arriving early, smiled to see him there. And to see him in the uniform of a page, the pale-blue and silver that all of Selenay's pages wore.
“Come,” was all he said, and he didn't ask where Skif had gotten the uniform. As it happened, he hadn't stolen it, he'd won it, fair and square. Another little bet. He'd had the feeling that he might need it at some point, and he was still small enough to pass for one of the pages without anyone lifting an eyebrow.
Won't be able t'pull that much longer, though, he thought with regret. He'd learned a lot, impersonating a page in Lord Orthallen's service, and he hoped to learn more, slipping into the Palace proper.
“I trust you know how to serve,” Alberich murmured, as they walked together down the corridor, servants whose duty it was to light the lamps passing by them without a second glance.
Skif just snorted.
“I should like to note,” Alberich went on, as they made a turn into the second half of Herald's Wing, “that I specified you be in a place of concealment.”
“Hide in plain sight,” Skif retorted. “When does any highborn look at a page?”
“Unless it is his own kin — a point you have made. Well, this may serve better than having you lurking in the rafters.” Alberich nodded a greeting to a Herald just emerging from his room; the other saluted him but showed no sign of wanting to stop and talk.
“Can't see nobody's face from the rafters,” Skif pointed out.
They made another turning, into a section that looked immensely old, much older than the Collegium or the Wing attached to it. Skif looked about with avid curiosity; they must be in the Old Palace now, the square building upon which all later expansions had been founded. The Old Palace was rumored to date all the way back to the Founding of Valdemar, and it was said that King Valdemar had used the old magics that were only in tales to help to construct it. Certainly no one in these days would have attempted to build walls with blocks of granite the size of a cottage, and no one really had any idea how the massive blocks could have been set in place to the height of six stories. There were even rumors that the blocks were hollow and contained a warren of secret passages. Unlikely, Skif thought, but it would be impossible to tell, unless you knew where a door was, because the outer walls were at least two ells thick, and you could tap on them until you were a graybeard and never get a hollow echo.
Alberich stopped, just outside a set of massive double doors. “This, the reception chamber is. The reception will be in slightly less than a candlemark. Your plan?”
“Set an' ready,” Skif said boldly. “You go do whatever you're gonna do, an' leave me here.”
Alberich nodded, and continued on his way. Skif checked the door of the chamber, and found it, as he had expected, unlocked.
He slipped inside.
The walls were plastered over the stone, and the plaster painted with scenes out of legends Skif didn't even begin to recognize. Candle sconces had been built onto the walls to provide light later, and there was an enormous fireplace truly large enough to roast an ox. There was no fire in it now, of course, but someone had placed an ox- sized basket of yellow, orange, and red roses between the andirons as a kind of clever fire substitute. The room looked out into the courtyard in the center of the Old Palace; here the walls were not of the massive thickness of the outer walls, and the windows ran nearly floor to ceiling, with a set of glass doors in the middle that could be opened onto the courtyard itself. There were sideboards along the wall, covered with snowy linen cloths, set up to receive foodstuffs, though none were there yet except two baskets of fruit. Candles and lanterns waited on one of the tables, though none had been put in their sconces and holders, nor lit. Skif took a tall wax taper, and went out into the corridor, lighting it at one of the corridor lamps. He then went about the room setting up the lights, quite as if he'd been ordered to do so. There seemed to be too many lanterns for the room, so after consideration, he took the extras out into the courtyard and hung them on the iron shepherd's crooks he found planted among the flowers for that purpose.
Roughly a quarter-candlemark later, a harried individual in Royal livery stuck his head in the door and stared at him. “What — Did I order you to light the lamps?” he asked, sounding more than a bit startled.
Skif made his voice sound high and piping, more childlike than usual. “Yes, milord,” he replied, with a bob of his head. “You did, milord.”
The man muttered something under his breath about losing one's mind as the hair grayed, then said, “Carry on, then,” waving a hand vaguely at him.
Skif hid his grin and did just that. It was one of the things he'd learned impersonating a page at Lord Orthallen's. If a boy was doing a job (rather than standing about idly), people would assume he'd been set the task and leave him alone. Even if the person in charge didn't recall setting the task or seeing the boy, that person would take it for granted that it had just slipped his mind, and leave the boy to carry on.
When the upper servant appeared again, with a bevy of boys clad just as Skif was in tow, Skif was relieved to see that none of them were the boy he'd won his uniform from. That had been his one concern in all of this, and with that worry laid to rest, he paid dutiful attention to the servant's instructions. He actually paid more attention
