The Celestial Globe: The Kronos Chronicles: Book II (34 page)

Let’s leave, Petra,
Astrophil said.
We shall turn around, and try to find the others.

“Kit, I—”

“Is this any time to argue? Your friends are probably already inside the manor. They’re expecting you to do your part. After all, they came here because of you.”

When he said that, the decision was easy. Petra slipped inside.

“T
REB AND
A
NDRAS
aren’t going to thank you for not telling them about this,” Tomik muttered. Moonlight glowed through the windows, illuminating huge laundry tubs.

“I want to surprise them with that starry globe. Treb said some things to me once in the
Pacolet
pantry that he’s going to regret.”

“Just don’t forget why we’re here. Our first priority is to help Petra win her wager. The globe comes second.”

“No,” said a new voice from a dark corner. “It comes first, just like I do.” Prince Rodolfo stepped into the moonlight, and guards filed into the laundry room.

Tomik had never seen his country’s prince, and did not recognize him, but no one needed to tell Tomik that the appearance of this young, elegantly dressed man meant trouble. He drew his glass knife.

Neel muttered, “I don’t think that’s going to help.”

“Is this the Gypsy?” A bright smile broke across the prince’s face. “Forgive me, I did not see you at first. Your skin is so
brown
—not a pleasant color at all—that you blended right into the shadows. But now I know you are here. Yes, the smell is really unmistakable. The stink is even familiar to me, since so many of your kind are currently rotting in my dungeons. Now, you
must
be Petra Kronos’s Gypsy. The one who so impolitely rifled through my Cabinet of Wonders. I am very glad to find you here.”

Tomik stepped in front of Neel.

The prince tilted his head, evaluating Tomik’s glass blade. “That is a pretty toy.” He flicked a finger and a guard raised his heavy sword. It chopped through the air and struck Tomik’s knife.

The glass shattered. Blood dripped from Tomik’s hand.

“But it was nothing special,” the prince told Tomik consolingly, “and—really—so fragile.”

M
ADINIA AND
M
ARGARET
’
S
skirts rustled as they took the wide oak stairs to the ground floor and turned down a long hallway. They had seen nothing of interest during their exploration of Cotton’s
manor. Nothing, that is, until Madinia peeked around a corner and gasped.

“What is it?” Margaret whispered anxiously.

Madinia turned to her. “There are men,” she hissed. “One of them is dressed in clothes fit for a king. There are at least ten others with him, they’re armed to the teeth, and they’ve got Tomik and Neel.”

“What?”

“I just saw them marching past. Tomik’s and Neel’s hands are bound. Tomik’s bleeding.”

Margaret thought of Petra, who always seemed so fearless. What would she do? “We have to help them,” Margaret said.

“Are you crazy?” Madinia tugged at her twin’s hand, leading her back the way they had come. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

Their soft-soled shoes padded over the rugs as they raced for the bedroom stairs and the Rift.

“T
HIS WAY
,” Kit told Petra. “The library’s here, on the ground floor, but we have to go through the greenhouse first.”

How does he know that?
Petra asked Astrophil, glad for his sharp grip on her ear. She lagged behind Kit as they passed through a dining room. Ghostly cloths covered the tables and chairs.
I remember . . . when I sat in the carriage with Dee and Walsingham on the way to the river, Walsingham was rude to me. Dee told him he shouldn’t underestimate youth, and added, “What about Christopher Rhymer?” Walsingham said, “Kit has his uses.”
Has,
Astro, not
had.
As if Kit
still
works for Walsingham. What if Kit’s story about being fired by Walsingham was all a lie?

“Come on, Petra!” Kit didn’t bother to hush his voice. He stood in front of a glass wall that looked like a jeweled box, and opened a brass-handled door. “Don’t be a coward! There’s nothing but plants inside. They won’t eat you.”

Astrophil, who had bad memories of a certain Venus flytrap, shuddered under Petra’s hair.
I think we should leave. Ariel told me to save my lady, and that is you, Petra. “Never trust a poet,” she said. What does a poet do, if not rhyme? And is not Kit’s full name Christopher Rhymer?

Petra had a sick, sinking feeling. Her instincts told her that Astrophil was right, and that she should listen to him, but she didn’t want to. Her uncertainty warred against the tenderness she had held for Kit for months now.

Petra had to know who Kit really was. She walked into the greenhouse.

Panes of glass were fitted together into a peaked roof high over their heads. Petra could see the full moon. The air was hot, stifling, and humid.

“Cotton loved plants.” Kit fingered an African violet. “He was obsessed with botany, and all because his last name was the same as that of a shrub. That’s self-centered, if you ask me. Do
I
go around rhyming every other word? Now,
these
are delicious. I love them.” He turned to a low, twisted tree and plucked a fruit. “Have one, Petra.” He tossed it to her.

The fruit blurred as it spun through the air. Petra caught it. She knew, even before she opened her hand, that she held a small apple, and she didn’t need to cut it open to discover the color of its seeds. But as Kit picked another fruit and began eating, Petra pulled her dagger from her boot and sliced the apple in half.

Its flesh was rosy, and its seeds were orange.

That’s not proof,
she argued with herself. But she gripped the dagger and braced herself to use it. She turned away from Kit, and began searching among the plants.

“What are you looking for?” he asked. “Does it have something to do with the globe? Or that title page? Tell me, Petra.”

But she ignored him, pushing aside enormous flaps of green
leaves. She snagged her foot against a root, but did not fall. Ivy tangled around her arm. And all the while Kit followed at her heels, talking, talking, talking.

Her throat burned. Finally, she shouted,
“Shut up!”

He did, because they were facing a small plant with pink petals.

It was a cuckooflower.

Petra’s eyes raged at Kit as she ripped off the first petal.

“Robert Cotton!”
named the plant.

Petra tore another flower.

“Francis Walsingham!”

And again.

“Christopher Rhymer!”

B
EHIND YOU
!
Astrophil warned.

But Kit’s dagger was already at Petra’s throat. With his other hand, he reached for her wrist and pinched a nerve against the bone until she cried out and dropped her knife. He kicked it across the floor.

“I swore no hurt would come to you,” Kit breathed, “and I don’t want to break my promise, but let’s admit that my word might not be worth much right now. Take that title page out of your pocket. Master Walsingham thinks that you know something that we don’t. Prove it to me. We’re going to the library, and you will find the Celestial Globe.”

Petra swallowed against the blade. She bowed her head, then reached into her pocket, pulled out the wadded paper, and pressed it into Kit’s free hand.

“Thank you,” he said, and relaxed the knife.

Then Petra jerked her head back, slamming it into Kit’s face. She heard a cracking sound. Kit staggered and swore. Petra ducked down, away from the knife. She sprinted across the greenhouse, scraped past thorny rosebushes, and snatched up her fallen dagger. Good. She had put some distance between herself and Kit. Now she wheeled around to confront him.

His nose was broken, and he was spitting blood, but he had drawn his sword, which was broader and heavier than Petra’s. Kit held a weapon in each hand now—his sword in his right hand, and his dagger in his left, just as Petra had practiced for months.

But he had been doing this for
years
. “Petra, you’re fierce, and that’s one of the things I like about you, but there’s a difference between stubborn and
stupid
. What can you hope to do with that dagger? I’ll tell you, because I know better than anybody: nothing. Even on your best day, you couldn’t do anything against my two blades except prolong the inevitable.
Slightly
prolong it. Drop the knife. This isn’t a game or a lesson, and my sword is not blunt.”

Petra shifted the dagger to her left hand, and drew the invisible rapier with her right.

Kit recognized the harsh song of a sword being pulled from its scabbard. “What’s this?” he murmured, watching Petra crouch into a position he had taught her, one that could just as easily attack or defend. Her right hand was empty, but it acted as if it were not.

With four quick strides, Kit was in front of her. He made the first move, feinting toward her right hip. She didn’t take the bait. When his feint turned into a true thrust, she twisted her right wrist. Kit heard and felt (even if he did not
see
) her parry the blow.

And that was precisely what he wanted. He stepped forward and pressed his blade against the air, which couldn’t be just air. Kit raked his sword upward, testing the length of whatever Petra held in her right hand. When his blade reached the tip of her sword—and she had one, oh, she did—he swiftly fell back, on guard for an invisible attack.

“That,” he declared, “is
cheating
.”

“C
AN
’
T YOU DO SOMETHING
?” Tomik hissed at Neel in Romany as the prince’s men dragged them through Cotton’s dining room. Prince Rodolfo led the way.

“Like what, exactly?”

“Like use those ghost fingers you’re always bragging about.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, my hands are tied.”

“Stretch your fingertips, I know you can. Untie my hands if you’re too scared to untie your own.”

Neel gave him a disdainful glance. “Fat lot of good that’ll do. There are eleven more of them than us. I’ll take my chances when I have one.”

“Hey, what’re they talking about?” a Czech guard said to the man walking at his side.

“Can’t tell. They’re talking Gypsy, I’ll bet. They sound just like the dogs they are.”

“Woof,”
said a third guard.

“Arooo,”
howled another.

“Crawl for us, doggie.” One of them shoved Neel in the back, and he fell to his knees.

“And you”—a guard yanked Tomik by his hair—“aren’t you Bohemian? Why are you babbling dog-speak? What’s wrong with Czech? Go on, then, bark and crawl like your brown friend.”

“Silence!” ordered the prince. He was staring straight ahead. Suddenly, everyone could hear metal ringing against metal: the unmistakable sounds of a swordfight. He turned to the guards. “You can play with the prisoners later. Haul the Gypsy to his feet. Draw your weapons. Step quickly, and
quietly
, or I’ll have your tongues torn out to teach you how.”

K
IT PRESSED HIS ADVANTAGE,
lunging forward. Petra blocked him with the dagger. He pulled back a fraction of an inch, just enough to throw her off balance. Then he beat against her dagger with a savage twist of his blade. Pain jolted up Petra’s arm. For the second time, she lost her knife. It clattered against the floor.

What happens if your dagger is knocked away?
Petra remembered
her father’s words to her in the Okno forest.
There’s room enough for your left hand as well as your right on this hilt. That will give your blows more force.

Petra joined her hands on the rapier’s hilt. She dodged Kit’s steel and thrust toward his shoulder, putting her weight behind it.

He ducked, and she propelled forward, stumbling until she regained her feet. “No, Petra,” he instructed. “Thrusts are supposed to be precise. A two-handed grip is only really useful for side-cuts. Like
this
, and
this
.” His blows were deliberately easy for Petra to block. He could have been mocking her, or he could have forgotten that they weren’t in Dee’s practice room, and that he wasn’t her friend or anything else but a traitor.