Castle of Deception

But there were always ways around such awkward little facts. Once Amber had been declared dead—or so it had been believed—in heroic battle (when actually, Volmar thought wryly, Carlotta’s magics had turned him to stone), the poor old king would surely have ... pined away. Volmar grinned sharply. Why, the shock alone would have finished him; Carlotta wouldn’t have needed to waste a spell. The people, even if they had, by some bizarre chance, come to suspect her of wrongdoing, would have had no choice but to accept Carlotta, with her half-share of the Blood Royal, as queen.

Ambitious little girl ... Volmar thought with approval. What a pity she didn’t succeed. Sorceress or no, she would have been too wise to try riding alone. She would have taken a consort.

And who better than one of her loyal supporters? Even one whose role in the attempted usurpation had never become public.

Volmar suddenly realized he was grimacing, and forced himself to relax. His late father had been an avid supporter of the old king, and if he had ever found out his own son was a traitor ...

But he hadn’t. And of course if only Carlotta had safely become queen, it wouldn’t have mattered. The only traitors then would have been those who failed to acknowledge her!

If only ... Bah!

Carlotta would have become queen if it hadn’t been for the boy's Master, chat accursed Bard and his allies ....

“Forget the past, Volmar.”

The count started, thrown abruptly back into the present “You—.. have learned to read minds ... ?” If the sorceress suspected he planned to use her to place a crown on his own head, he was dead. Worse than dead.

“You must learn to guard your expressions, my lord. Your thoughts were there for anyone with half an eye to read.”

Not all my thoughts, the count thought, giddy with relief.

Carlotta got restlessly to her feet, dark green gown swinging about her elegant form. Volmar, since she was, after all, a princess and he only a count, stood as well:

politic courtesy.

She never noticed. “Enough of the past,” the sorceress repeated, staring into the flames. “We must think of what can be done now.”

Volmar moved warily to stand beside her, and caught a flicker of alien movement in the flames. Faces ... ah. Carlotta was absently creating images of the boy, the bardling. “Why do you suppose he sent the boy here?” the princess murmured—”And why just now? What purpose could the old man possibly have? You’ve convinced me the manuscript is merely a treatise on lute music.” She glanced sharply at Volmar. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Volmar said easily, hiding the fact that he wasn’t really sure which of the many manuscripts stored in the library it might be; his father had been the scholar, not he. “My father collected such things.”

“Yes, yes, but why send the boy now? Why is it suddenly so urgent that the thing be copied?”

“Ah ... it could be merely coincidence.”

“No, it couldn’t!” The flames roared up as Carlotta whirled, eyes blazing. Volmar shrank back from her unexpected surge of rage, half expecting a sorcerous attack, but the princess ignored him, returning to her chair and dropping into it with an angry flounce. “You’re the only one who knows how I’ve been in hiding all these years, lulling suspicions, making everyone think I was dead.”

“Of course.” Though Volmar never had puzzled out why Carlotta had hidden for quite so many years. Oh. granted, she had been totally drained after the breaking other stone-spell on Amber, but even so ...

“Maybe that’s it.” Carlotta’s musings broke into Volmar’s wonderings. “Maybe now that I’ve come out of hiding, begun moving again, the Bard has somehow sensed I’m still around. He is a Master of that ridiculous Bardic Magic, after all.”

Volmar was too wise to remind her it was the Bardic Magic she so despised that had blocked her path so far. “Eh, well, the bardling is safe among the squires,” he soothed. “I’ve been debating simply telling him the manuscript isn’t here and sending him away.”

“Don’t be a fool!” Sorcery crackled in the air around Carlotta, her hair stirring where there was no breeze. “The boy was sent here for a purpose, and we will both be better off when we find out just what that purpose might be.”

“But how can we learn the truth? If the boy becomes suspicious, he’ll never say a thing. And I can hardly