Adrian by Heather Grothaus Read Free Book Online Page B

woman?”
    Adrian hesitated. “I was going to say the promise of a riddle to solve.” Maisie tried to keep her lips from pursing as she felt the tips of her ears heat.
    â€œLet’s just eat, shall we?” she suggested, pulling out her chair and sitting. “After we’ve dined, I will show you the drawings of Wyldonna Castle, and you can get right to your riddle, Brother Adrian.”
    He pulled out his chair and sat. “I should probably tell you, in case you haven’t already guessed—I’m not actually a monk. It’s best you have no illusions about who I am or what I can do for you.”
    Maisie paused, the knife in her hand poised over the pie. Then she smiled, and cut Adrian Hailsworth a very generous piece.
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    Adrian looked carefully at the sketches spread over the tabletop now that their—admittedly delicious—supper had been cleared. The drawings were amateurish, yes, but strong and remarkably detailed, with a separate page for each level of the castle. He glanced up at Maisie Lindsey, startled for a moment at how near to him she stood. He’d not noticed her moving toward him and now she leaned over the table with one slender arm holding her aright, her head cocked as she surveyed the print, her riotous hair slinking over her shoulder in springy, bold curls. She smelled like fields of heather.
    He quickly drew his gaze back to the stack of parchment, flipping up a corner of the topmost one to glance at one beneath for comparison. “Are these renderings quite complete?”
    â€œAye,” Maisie said. “Laid down by the queen’s own hand.”
    He couldn’t help but glance up at the woman again, and she answered his unasked question straightaway.
    â€œNae one else knows the castle better than she. Perhaps the king, but . . .” She shrugged.
    Adrian ran his finger along a maze of parallel lines. “Corridors?”
    â€œAye.”
    He flipped the top two sheets back and forth several times. “What of this chamber here?” He pointed to a square that seemed to jut out from the castle wall—too deep to be a garderobe—then flipped to the page beneath. “There is nothing that corresponds to the level below. What’s beneath it?”
    â€œNothing.”
    Adrian looked up at her, feeling his eyebrow raise. “Nothing?”
    She gave him something of an indulgent look while waggling her fingers back and forth. “There is air. And fifty feet below”—she abruptly swept her palm down to the tabletop—“rocks.”
    He shook his head with a sigh and then tapped circular shapes sketched at six wide angles of the perimeter. “And these?”
    â€œTowers,” Maisie supplied as she leaned closer to him, bringing a rush of her scent with her. She pointed to four in quick succession. “These have stairs.”
    He looked sideways at her. “How do you gain the top of the other two?”
    â€œYou doona.”
    Adrian glanced at the drawing again. The two towers were at opposite ends of the print. Decorative, then? Structural? It would seem likely if the towers were at right angle corners of a square construction, but this castle seemed to be hexagonal—why build two useless towers?
    He dismissed the idea for the time being. It was likely this queen’s lady was only mistaken as to the castle’s components. “Have you been in service to the queen long?”
    â€œNae,” Maisie said, obviously losing interest in the drawing and walking across the cabin to sit in an odd chair, low to the ground with long arms. The back and seat were tilted at an angle, so that its occupant seemed to recline. She stared up at the close, planked ceiling. “Only after Glayer Felsteppe left Wyldonna.”
    Adrian nodded as his suspicions were confirmed. “It seems rather a dangerous mission to put upon someone just entered into service.”
    â€œWell, I suppose