StarCrossed

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  Not that I ever saw a poor monk.

  I did find one silver button beneath a bed, and a pretty glass inkwell that I just liked and was small enough to slip inside my sleeve. With a defeated sigh, I finally decided to have a go at the kitchens. In the absence of trea sure, food is a worthy alternative. Besides, I’d liked that kitchen woman, Morva. She might tell me more about this place and its people — and maybe the Decath trusted her with their household accounting.

  I headed down a wide corridor hung with tapestries of fruit and birds, trying to look purposeful and deliberate and like I belonged here. Near the end, I heard someone coming up the stairs — Raffin’s voice, turned curt and sullen, and the low, harsh tones of his father. Pox. I popped the nearest door and slipped inside, just as the argument carried past me down the hall.

  When the corridor was clear again, I launched myself toward the stairs and followed the yeasty scent of tomorrow’s bread and brewing down to the kitchens. Shoving my way in ahead of my plan, I found myself face-to-face with Morva once more.

  “Ah, pet, you’ve not gotten lost?” She grabbed my shoulders with floury hands and held me steady for her examination. “You’re shivering! Come sit down and I’ll fix you a posset.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  She gave me a surprised look. “Hot wine and curdled cream. It never fails to soothe Lady Meri.”

  It sounded horrifying, but milk was a luxury in the city; I had rarely had it before it became cheese. I followed Morva to a long, wiped-down table near the fire, where the statue of Mend-kaal leaning on his hammer guarded the hearth. The roomy kitchen was snug and warm, and the Favom farm seemed prosperous; Mend-kaal certainly seemed to be doing well by the Decath. Well enough that they could afford whatever bribes or fines let them keep such a statue on display.

  “Here. Drink up. You look half starved.”

  I tried to drink it slowly, savor the warmth of the clay cup in my hands, the warm wine, the thick rich milk. It was horrifying, but it was also hot and strangely fortifying, and all the while Morva clucked at me sympathetically, nursing a heavy mug of her own.

  “I’m no friend to Sarists, mind you, but I could teach those holy daughters a thing or two about caring for wee girls.”

  I almost smiled. I could believe her.

  “Is Du — Lord Durrel in trouble?” I asked instead.

  Morva threw up her hands, apron and all. “Ach, aye, that one. No more than usual. We got their rooms ready when we heard the news of the betrothal. Figured the young lord would turn up at Favom sooner or later, probably with Merista in tow. Those two always come here when there’s trouble.”

  “How long have you been with the Decath?”

  “Five years, ever since their lordships have been abroad. I was Lady Meri’s nurse, before Lady Amalle decided she was too old for one, and Lady Lyllace’s too, before her.”

  This was fascinating, but ultimately unhelpful. “Favom seems like a busy place,” I said. “There must be a lot of traffic in and out.”

  “You should have been here last month, pet, during the harvest! Barges stopping at our docks for grain, an army of wains rolling out for the city.”

  “How often do the barges stop?” That question was bordering on suspicious, but Morva seemed happy to talk about anything. Unfortunately all my questions about river traffic and how much travel the Decath did and how often anyone left here for somewhere besides Gerse dried up to nothing. I plunked my empty mug down on the table, and left the conversation to Morva, who was bubbling over with excitement for the arrival of the Nemair.

  “Corlesanne! Godless country! I shudder to think what they’ve been through, living among all those heathen Sarists all these years.” The wine had oiled her jaws. “It’s that Nemair’s doing, you know,” she said. “I told my lady she’d come to no good for marrying a rebel. But of course that was His Majesty’s decision, not my lady’s. She was always loyal, never one to stir up trouble, and what does she get for her pains? Exile and her children taken away.” Morva pursed her fleshy lips and looked into her mug. “Well, you’re too young, I suppose. You won’t be remembering the war.”

  Remember it? No. But I dodged its aftereffects every day. Eighteen years since Bardolph crushed the Sarist rebellion at the Battle of Kalorjn, when one of the Sarist forces had betrayed their movements to the king. The Sarists had been slaughtered as a result. Anyone still living when the smoke cleared had been thrown in prison or driven into exile, their lands and assets seized. And yet after all that, His Majesty couldn’t seem to remember he’d won.

  “They’re coming back just in time, if you ask me,” Morva continued. “I don’t like the sound of things at all, these days. But now my Meri and my Lyll will be tucked up safe at Caerellis, right where they should be.”

  “Caerellis?” Merista had mentioned that earlier, but it hadn’t meant anything to me.

  “My lady’s home. The most beautiful land Celys gave this island. Two days northwest of here, and it’s a different world. The rose gardens alone . . .”

  I seized on this. “Northwest? Along the Yerin road?” Two days would get me practically to the city. I could make the rest on foot. Could I hold out this masquerade that long? I rubbed at my knee, which was starting to throb again. Every muscle in my body felt heavy, and the wavering firelight made me feel like I was still rocking away in the boat.

  “Oh, pet, now look at you. Asleep on your feet, just as his lordship said, and I’ve kept you up with my nattering. Come, let’s get you to bed with my lady.”

  I flinched awake at that. Sleep — with Merista Nemair? With the thickness of her magic wafting off of her and sparking up against me every time she breathed or stirred? “I —”

  “No arguing, lass. You’ve been through an awful day, and you need a fair rest now.”

  She had no idea. Finally I let her lead me back upstairs to Merista’s room, driven by one clear thought: I had to get them to take me to Caerellis.

  By all rights, I should have fallen dead asleep the moment I slipped into bed beside Merista. (Phandre, it seemed, had braved Lord Taradyce’s wrath and gone off in search of Raffin.) But the strange air around Merista was distracting; I kept opening my eyes to brush it out of my sight, like a fog of imaginary gnats. And I couldn’t shake my whirling thoughts out into any kind of order; they just kept twisting in on one another, until I saw a plate of peacock flash by Hron Taradyce’s golden head, a laughing Merista slipping into the roiling Oss beside Tegen’s bloody body.

  Oh, gods. How had I ended up here? I pressed my face into my pillow, but the picture of Tegen’s dark, bearded face would not leave me — his hooded eyes wide with surprise, his beautiful mouth gaped open on my name. I sniffed, catching the scent of lavender and linen. He’d have loved this — thought it a great game, a lark on the river and a night in some nob’s bed. It was all too much, and suddenly I wanted to scream into that too-soft pillow, until the walls of Favom came crashing down around me.

  Merista’s eyes opened, a flutter of glitter in the darkness, and I started, pulling away from her.

  “What?” I whispered, my voice sounding raw and harsh.

  A little furrow creased her forehead, and she reached out her pale fingers to touch my cheek. “You were crying,” she said, turning her fingertips to show droplets of water, now sparkling with silver in the moonslight.

  I cuffed her hand away from my face. “Good night,” I snapped, and turned over in the bed, taking the blankets with me.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I spent the next strange day as Merista’s shadow. Durrel had gone off with Lord Decath on rounds of the Favom farmsteads, and the Taradyce had departed without ceremony, leaving Merista and Phandre and me to skulk about Favom together. “Like a merry band of sisters,” Merista said, over which Phandre and I exchanged a look.

  The manor by day was no more interesting than it had been overnight, but Merista showed us every thing anyway. Apparently she was personal friends with every one of th
e Favom horses (which were quite valuable, it turned out — making me briefly consider the beasts in a new light), and on speaking terms with the geese and the dogs and all of the servants. Finally, when I began to think taking my chances with Taradyce would have been preferable, she planted us in the kitchens with Morva, who tied us up in aprons and set us to work preparing the feast to welcome Merista’s parents. I tried to explain that I didn’t cook, but Morva thrust a rolling pin into my hands anyway.

  “Didn’t you learn anything at that convent of yours?” she said, as a mountain of pastry dough was dropped in front of me.

  “I worked in the manuscript room!” I squeaked, ducking back from the spray of flour, but nobody was listening.

  Merista and Morva chattered happily through meat pies and dressed geese, the kitchen woman once more expounding on her favorite subject: Lady Nemair. I listened intently, hoping to learn something useful, but Morva was all sauce and no meat: heavy on the praise but light on specifics. Lady Lyllace was the kindest lady. Lady Lyllace was the very picture of Meri. Lady Lyllace could shoot out the eye of a sparrow at five hundred paces, blindfolded, with her back turned.

  Phandre sulked on a stool, picking feathers from the skirts of her gown. “Can’t imagine why they’d come back here,” she said. “At least in Gerse there’s something to do.”

  “Plenty to do around here, young miss,” Morva said, handing Phandre a bowl of dismembered goose parts. “And you’d best learn that, if you know what’s good for you.”

  I punched my fists into my fifth batch of dough. This was madness. How was pie crust getting me any closer to Yeris Volbann and safety? I told myself to be patient — it was one more day. All I had to do was hang back in the shadows and hold my tongue, and the Nemair would come and I could slip easily into their party heading north.

  I just wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to do that, yet.

  The Nemair stormed Favom Court the next day, at an ungodly hour of the morning with a godless clatter of carts and horses and appallingly jolly voices. We tumbled out of bed, Phandre and I more subdued than Merista, who was bouncing out of her skin.

  Clutching my too-large borrowed smock to my shoulders, I joined them at the window. Below us, wagons and horses and a jumble of bodies swarmed the courtyard like happy flies on a pudding. In among the crowd, two figures stood out like the matching Royals on a chessboard: a massive bearded nob in a black fur mantle, booming his greetings to everyone within earshot; and a tall, plump woman in deep bronze silk, who turned her face to the window and beamed up at us.

  Phandre, nearly naked in just her smock, climbed half out the window to wave back. “Lady Lyll!” she shrieked.

  Really, I needn’t have worried about my manners.

  Merista shrank back from the window, but I lingered, gazing down at the people from whom without question Merista Nemair had sprung forth. I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to attach myself to the party bound for Caerellis, and looking at them now, I was having second thoughts. They kept hugging everyone. Maybe there was a village somewhere near Favom. I could learn about pigs.

  “I should go,” I said, moving vaguely toward the door. Never mind that I wasn’t dressed. That was my mistake last time, I decided. I should have forgone clothing and escaped with just my skin.

  Merista’s hand darted out and grabbed mine like a viper taking down an unsuspecting toad. “No, you can’t!” she said. Her eyes were wide and desperate. Phandre shrugged into a peacock-colored dress, deftly pulling her laces taut with one hand snaked up her back, while Merista just stood there like a mousy waiting maid.

  “Hurry up, you two dullards!” Phandre bent to scoop her bosom into place, flipping curl into her hair as she rose. Her cheeks were pink from the exertion, and I watched the color drain from Merista’s face as Phandre flitted out the door.

  “Don’t do that,” I said. “They’ve come to see you. You.” But I guessed how she felt; Lord and Lady Nemair seemed every bit as grand as Morva had promised, and five years was a long time to build up a picture in your head. I pulled Merista’s red velvet dress from the heap of clothes at the foot of the bed and gave it two brutal shakes. “Here.”

  In the end I helped her into it; she was not so flexible as Phandre or I (and I did not want to know what Phandre had been up to, to work those shoulder joints so easily), and Morva never showed up to do the job properly. Touching Merista was not so bad as I’d feared that first night I climbed beside her into bed. The magic running in currents across her skin merely swirled around my fingers and behaved itself. Eventually she was dressed, her silver necklaces and bracelet firmly in place.

  “Now you,” Merista said.

  “No, wait. Did Phandre take her blue sleeves?” I said, hardly believing the words came out of my mouth. “You look — unfinished.”

  Slipping the beaded silk over Merista’s arm, I had the sudden sensation of Tiboran kicking me in the head. I gripped the sleeve laces hard.

  We’ll say she’s Phandre’s maid.

  Oh, gods. But in its own insane way, it was brilliant.

  “Lady Merista, will you have a maid at Caerellis?”

  She didn’t let me finish tying on the sleeve. She spun on me. “Oh, Celyn, that’s perfect!”

  And when thirteen-year-old, puppy-eyed nobs and fickle trickster gods are in accord, what can you do?

  “What about your parents?”

  “I know they’ll say yes. They have to.”

  “I have no training,” I warned.

  “Don’t be silly. You know how to get dressed, and you’ve had a whole day’s practice being my companion already.”

  I wasn’t sure whether the painful twist to my mouth was a smile or a grimace, but Merista gabbled on as she finished dressing me. I didn’t need the looking glass to tell me I looked a lot more polished than she did. As we were turning to leave, she caught my hand.

  “Celyn, here.” She was holding out the silver bracelet.

  Every dazed instinct in me froze up. “I don’t need that.” Of all the things to say! “I mean, you don’t need to do that.”

  She gave me an odd little smile. “It’s a present. To seal our arrangement.” She held it out, looking so hopeful. Merciful gods — did I really look like a stray dog? But I took Merista Nemair’s silver, magic-binding bracelet, wondering what in Sar’s name I was getting into.

  Downstairs, in the unnaturally tidy Favom courtyard, the entire household had spilled out to greet the returning dignitaries. I spotted Durrel beside his father, smiling easily as he spoke with Merista’s father. He turned and saw us, and lifted a hand to wave at Meri. She barely twitched her fingers in response.

  Lady Nemair had her hands on Phandre’s shoulders, while a stocky woman in a satin kirtle pulled tight across her broad chest looked on disapprovingly. It took me a moment to realize it was Morva, all tarted up like a lady. Someone pushed or pulled Merista forward, and her parents bundled her to them in a fierce embrace. After a moment, she freed her arms and flung them about her mother’s neck, squeezing back just as earnestly.

  I did not belong here.

  I looked up past the courtyard wall. Tiboran’s moon was obscured by a brilliant autumn sunrise, and there was a hint of chill in the morning that we hadn’t felt in Gerse. The world felt huge and distant, and something was pressing in on my chest, making it hard to breathe. A lady’s maid! In some house somewhere I’d never even heard of? Stealing one of those fine Favom horses — even if it ate me — was looking better and better.

  “Who’s this, then?” a deep, jovial voice rumbled. I’d been bustled to the front of the fold.

  “Mother, Father, this is my new friend, Celyn. We met in the city.” Two days ago, but who was counting? Merista seemed to have lost her shyness; she pulled close to her mother and murmured something in her ear. Lady Nemair’s warm brown eyes sharpened slightly, and she looked me over. What did Merista say to her?

  I sank low in an affected curtsy. “Lord and Lady Nemair.”
/>
  “It’s good to meet you, Celyn,” Lady Nemair said in a voice as warm as her eyes. “We rarely hear about Merista’s friends.” She took my hands, and I had to stop myself from pulling them away.

  “Mother, I want to bring her to Caerellis. As my maid.”

  Lady Nemair looked from me to her daughter, then back again. “Well, daughter, you will be an adult soon, and you’ll need to start building your own household. What say you, milord?”

  Lord Nemair regarded me solemnly, fists perched on his wide hips. “I say I know better than to argue with my womenfolk. Come, Lady Celyn, Phandre, Lady Merista, let’s all get reacquainted, shall we? Ragn!” The word flung out like a thunderclap. “Have you a feast of welcome prepared for your old friends, or what?”

  There was a feast, and it lasted all day. It took ages to untangle the knot of welcome, but everyone finally settled into the Favom hall around noon. I was seated beside Merista, who couldn’t keep her rapt eyes off her parents, through course after course of food and drink — which at first was entertaining, but after a few hours of it, I got restless. I wasn’t used to sitting still this long. If something didn’t happen, I was going to have to kick somebody.

  The conversation revolved around the Nemair, amusing stories from life at the Corles court, every thing they’d missed of their daughter’s last five years. After the story about Merista falling into the Favom duck pond when she was ten, and a detailed account of her learning to make eel soup, I let my mind wander. Occasionally Durrel would glance my way, catch my eye, and give me an encouraging nod, which I found completely unsettling.

  “What do they say in Corlesanne, then?” Lord Decath asked. “Do things look as tense from afar as they seem here?”

  Lady Nemair was solemn. “They are tense. Bardolph is aging, he’s sick, and if he doesn’t name an heir before he dies, there will be war. I don’t see how that can be avoided. And if there’s a war . . .”