Rolf nodded to her, then reared back on his hind legs and leaped, up onto the roof of the wing directly to her right. Two more leaps took him up two more stories, to a balcony that Merrigan thought sure would snap under the dog's weight. He passed through the wall. She found it rather disturbing to watch in the moonlight, so she turned away. Now, where was she in relation to the throne room or wherever treasures would be kept?
She chose the nearest, most likely door. It led her into what she assumed was the receiving room, where petitioners awaited their chance to stand before the king. There were padded benches along both walls, several doors leading off the long room, and a decent runner down the middle to soften the sound of boots on the flagstone floor. Merrigan found the furnishings rather charming in their simplicity, though she could never understand the attraction of decorating with nets and seashells. The long murals of ocean vistas, however, she found soothing. They would be even lovelier in the daylight, rather than in the long streaks of moonlight from the windows high on both walls.
She took the first door to her right off the reception room, deciding to take her search counterclockwise. It would be easier to remember where she had been if she did things systematically. The first room looked like a secretary's chamber, shelves of stacked papers, inkwells, quill pens, blotters, and an entire wall of drawers with abbreviated words marked on little bits of paper attached to the front of each drawer. Not a likely place to hide magical items. There might be more to this room than appeared in the moonlight that spilled over her shoulder, but she couldn't take the time to find a candle or lantern, or risk someone seeing the light and coming to investigate.
Merrigan suspected it would take her several trips to do even a basic search.
The second room looked like a sort of miniature kitchen, or a pantry for serving visitors. She saw stacks of plates and shelves of cups and pitchers. The third door on the right wall turned out to be a long passageway from another wing of the palace. Merrigan saved that for another night of exploring, and hoped there wouldn't be any need. She might walk into the servants' wing. Granted, that would shorten her search, because no one hid treasures in the servants' domain, with all the dirty clothes and dirty dishes and mending and tools. Then again, that passageway might lead to the royal family's living quarters. She could imagine the king hiding treasures there. Perhaps a hole under the floor of his sitting room? Or perhaps it would have been safer to hide something under the nursery floor? The queen's sitting room? The schoolroom?
There was only one door in the wall directly opposite where she had entered the receiving room. The throne room. She was mildly impressed. The craftsmanship was simple and dignified. The woodwork gleamed, in the cornices and the beams decorating the vaulted ceiling, the high-backed throne wide enough for two to sit, the dais with one step—high enough to signal the presence of royalty, but not too high. Quiet dignity. She wondered if the current king had designed this throne room, or it was a holdover from a previous king who had ruled with austere dignity. The decorations of a throne room could reveal quite a lot about the king.
She was wasting time, critiquing the fashion sense of the very people she needed to steal from. Merrigan walked the perimeter of the room, trying to decipher through gray shadows and black shadows and silvery streaks of moonlight where a good hiding place might be for a magic knife and an enchanted handkerchief. The knife was supposed to be encrusted with jewels. Where would a king of fishermen display something so gaudy, so out of character for his kingdom, or would he hide it?
"No, please," she whispered. If King Devon stayed in character, he would have had the jewels removed, sold, and the money used for the good of the kingdom.
Hadn't Quincy pointed out repairs to the cobblestoned streets and the new breakwater and docks, built since his last trip to Seafoam? Where would the money for such things have come from, other than adding to the taxes? The people wouldn't speak of their rulers with honest admiration and respect if the king had raised their taxes. The money had come from somewhere else. If the king sold the jewels, where was the knife?
"Please, please," she whispered as she sped up her walking tour of the perimeter of the room, "please don't have melted it down, or worse, given it to one of your guards? Or decided to use it for a filleting knife when you went fishing!"
She flinched and pressed both hands over her mouth, and it seemed that her voice, though a whisper, was still shrill enough to ring off the vaulted ceiling.
Discretion urged her to retreat, out of the throne room, out of the receiving room, and back to the courtyard where Rolf had left her. Merrigan spent the rest of the night curled up in the shadows on a bench, until the moon slid behind the high roofs of the palace. She thought long and hard until she started to doze, then jerked herself awake, and repeated the process.
She needed to get into the palace in daylight, when she could see details better. How was she going to gain not just admittance, but the freedom to wander around and poke into things, open doors and raise lids? She needed to be invited to sew for the queen and princess. Tomorrow, she would make some noise, get some attention, let the entire city know
