“Please stay out of sight, Stella,” he said as he looked back down the field. “I am supposed to be getting our carriage’s lanterns but will argue we only have enough paraffin to complete our journey, and must therefore soon be off. There be enough folk already from the nearby farms to sort this out.”
“How’s the driver, Nephril? And the horses?” at which Mirabel placed her hand on Stella’s.
“Ah, now, there be a mystery. All four of the dray are dead I am afraid, but we have yet to find any sign of the driver.”
Stella swallowed, feeling sick. “You know whose fault this is, don’t you, Nephril? Mine. I could have got us all killed today, along with the drayman who must be under that mess somewhere.”
“But mercifully thou did not, Stella. Such a prospect, however, be something of a mystery and a half in itself. Now, though, I must get back. We should not be long,” and he looked into her eyes. “We can no longer risk thou being seen. Leiyatel has clearly found thee again, mine dear, so from now on we must be extremely careful.”
He glanced at Mirabel. “Prescinda has agreed to travel on beside Henson, up top, and walk ahead with the lantern when it gets dark. I will ask him to stop at the Bluebell Inn on the way, where I am sure he can get thee and Mirabel quietly into a room for the night. I think it wise we keep thee well away from Blisteraising, to where the rest of us will carry on.”
“There’s someone coming,” Mirabel said, looking past Nephril and down the field.
He turned. “Ah, the farmer who asked after our lanterns. I must keep him from seeing thee, Stella,” at which he strode off and engaged the man before he got near, turning them both back to the wreckage.
Something from what Nephril had said now struck Stella. “Why’s Nephril asked Aunt Prescinda to travel outside?” and her brows furrowed in the half-light as she peered at Mirabel. Her delay in answering said it all.
“Oh, no. It can’t be, not this soon, surely? So that’s why she looked so worried.” Stella shuffled forward to get out of the carriage but Mirabel held her back.
“No, Stella, you can’t.”
“But look at her,” and Stella pointed at Prescinda’s forlorn figure, still standing some way from the carriage, her head bowed. “I must go and speak with...”
“She understands, Stella. She knows what’s happened, but she also knows it’s not her fault. She can’t control what Leiyatel senses through her weft and weave, but she can at least now keep away from you – for your own sake. Don’t make it any harder for her, please, Stella, my love.”
For a moment, Stella didn’t know what to do, but then threw her arms around Mirabel’s neck and quietly sobbed against her shoulder. “How could Leiyatel do this, Mirabel?” Stella forced out through her tears. “How could she threaten harm to those she’s supposed to preserve, eh? How’s that possible?”
“I think, my dear one, that’s exactly what’s worrying Nephril – his ‘mystery and a half’. That’s why he’s now so keen to get on and finish what you’ve started – before something else like this can happen.”
50 One Too Many
The sun had dipped behind the brow of Blaycow Hill when they came to set off. Enough light, however, still lit the road for Prescinda not to have to walk ahead, and so she sat up top beside Henson. Ginny soon settled into the long climb whilst an uncertain silence filled the carriage she drew behind her.
Inside, Stella tried to relax into her seat but remained unnerved. Nephril, beside her, must have sensed it for he took her hand in his own and gently squeezed, his smile almost lost to the evening’s gathering dusk. His hand, however, seemed tense and awkward, far from reassuring. She gave him, and Mirabel sitting opposite, a brave smile.
At the top of the hill, as the road levelled off, Prescinda shouted, “Hey,” and urged Henson to stop the carriage. He did, but rather abruptly, the quiet evening air briefly pressing in before Stella heard her aunt say, “It was back there, Henson, sticking out from the bracken. There, do you see?”
Stella shuffled forward to have a look, although Nephril stopped her from leaning out.
“Remember to keep out of sight,” he whispered, but as he moved to the window to see for himself, Stella looked past him to a pair of legs, jutting from the darkening growth at the back of the verge. The carriage rocked and Henson jumped down, soon pushing aside the bracken as he crouched beside a body.
It wasn’t long before he barked a laugh and turned them a broad grin. “It’s the driver, and he’s at least three sheets to the wind.” Stella then heard what she assumed to be Henson slapping the man’s face, but it elicited no more than a slurred snore and a phlegm-filled grumble.
“I’ve never known a drayman unable to hold his ale,” Henson said once they’d all gathered around, staring down at what could now barely be seen of the drayman’s foolish, lopsided grin. He let out a long and noisome fart, a satisfied sigh following on from the other end.
“He’s obviously not badly hurt,” Prescinda said, stepping back, “although he probably wouldn’t feel it if he were, the state he’s in.”
“How unusual,” Nephril quietly said. “Thou art quite right, Henson, Draymen tend to be pickled sober from one day’s end to the other, what with all the gratuities they get,” and his eyes narrowed as he peered closer at the man.
“We can’t leave him here, though, however drunk he is,” Stella said, and they had to agree.
They laid him across the driver’s footboard, turned and delivered him the short distance to the bottom of the hill and into the hands of the farmers they’d left behind. Prescinda now had to walk ahead of Ginny, heading west once again, lighting the way with a lantern. The rise of a partial moon and the good state of the Cambray Road did later give her leave to sit back with Henson, but progress still remained slow.
Stella’s voice eventually displaced the regular creak and clopping of their passage between the now darkened fields and wooded stretches. “I don’t understand how Leiyatel could do it, Nephril.”
He didn’t respond for a moment, not until he’d sighed and, by the sound of it, rubbed his hand over the stubble of his chin. “I have been pondering such mine self, Stella,” and again he paused. “I suspect Leiyatel hath taken to splitting hairs.”
“What?”
“The drayman was unhurt. So, despite undoubtedly being responsible for his fall from the wagon, she still preserved his life.”
“And by it set the wagon itself into our path. With him not aboard to apply the brake, it was bound to run out of control down the hill, and what about those poor horses? She didn’t preserve them, now did she?”
Two glints of faintly reflected moonlight blinked back, suggesting Nephril now peered at her, his voice, when it came, firm yet soft. “Her responsibility be primarily to thee humans, Stella.”
“Three of whom stood in the wagon’s path, remember. I can understand her not recognising me, but what about my aunt and Henson. What about their safety, eh?”
“What I meant by ‘splitting hairs’, Stella. Her hand only removed the human driver, safely mind, but what then happened to the wagon was of its own accord.”
“Eh? You mean she would have turned a blind eye to the carnage it was bound to inflict, just because she’d not driven it down the hill herself?” and Stella’s voice was now almost shrill.
“Remember thy neighbour, Stella. It could well be argued he was already at his natural end, but what about his daughter?”
“Tabatha?” and Stella frowned. “But that proves my point. Leiyatel managed to bring about her death.”
Nephril again patted her hand. “Not if we split hairs, mine dear, as I believe Leiyatel has now found a way to do. Thou thyself brought about Tabatha’s death, Stella, not Leiyatel. Thee it was who fell upon her,” at which Stella swallowed.
Nephril squeezed her hand this time. “’Tis its implications, though, that worry me now, Stella. In extremis, it would appear Leiyatel has reasoned herself into becoming a most deadly agent. Provided
her own hand be not directly at fault, she is now free to bring death down upon any in the realm – in order to destroy thee and Nature’s agent she somehow knows be within thee.”
Stella stared at the vague outline of Nephril’s face, a lighter shadow against the blackness within the carriage. Another hand joined Nephril’s, it too reassuring her own.
“That’s why,” Mirabel carefully said, “it’s even more important we keep you away from wefts and weaves that can give you away. You’ve now become a threat to all Dicans, my dearest Stella, both artefact and human.” She paused, Stella almost hearing her bite her lip. “I was beginning to have my doubts about your plan, I really was, but now I’m sure you’re right, that Leiyatel has become something other than what my line was charged to preserve.”
Guilt welled in Stella’s stomach. “Oh, Mirabel, my dear friend, but I haven’t been wholly...”
“Shush, my dear. Tell me later if you must. At the moment, I don’t want to hear.”
“But...”
“I trust you, Stella ... implicitly, so let that be an end to it, eh? Let me help keep you safe ... and everyone who can’t be kept from crossing your path.”
This time, when she tried, Stella found it just too hard to swallow.
51 A Family Likeness
Prescinda yet again walked ahead, lighting the way for Ginny and Henson, the close press of trees along this stretch of the Cambray Road denying it the moon’s light. Stella watched her aunt’s lantern cast eerie shadows about their arching passage, chasing fiendish shapes across its cloistered tracery. A gap appeared, a direction sign for the hamlet of Chop Gate marking a turn and the imminent end to Stella and Mirabel’s journey.
The narrow lane led out between open fields, across which Stella could now see a welcoming glow of lamp lit windows. Despite the late hour, the Bluebell Inn had clearly not as yet called time.
“I have asked Henson to get thee both a room well out of the way,” Nephril told Stella and Mirabel, “and to take thee in at the back if at all possible, to keep thee away from inquisitive eyes.”
The carriage stopped at the entrance to the inn’s rear yard. Henson quietly hurried in, past a few wagons parked there and to a porch from which light briefly slanted as he vanished inside. Prescinda stood by Ginny, holding her bridle and talking softly to her as they waited.
Nephril quietly asked, “Are thee known here, Stella?”
“I’ve drunk here on occasions, but not often.”
“Well, just in case, make sure thou keep thy cap well down ... and say nothing. Thy voice be not convincing enough for that of a young man.”
Light again slanted from the porch and Henson soon stood at the carriage window. “Gayder says you can use their own spare room. It’ll keep you from bumping in to any of the other guests. It’s a bit plain I’m afraid, but it’s got a bed and a nearby privy.”
Once a homebound patron had weaved his way past and into his silvery stagger along the lane, stopping to urinate against the inn’s rear wall, Nephril pecked Stella on the cheek and hurried her from the carriage.
“Keep to thy selves, and wait in the stable at Blisteraising as soon as thou can after first light,” he told her. “I will make sure thy folks remain indoors until we have joined thee and gone on our way.” This time he hugged her, a brief kiss to her lips, before Henson ushered Mirabel and herself through the yard and into the rear of the inn.
They came into a short, wood-panelled vestibule, a door directly ahead oozing the babble of ale-sodden opinion. An opening off to one side led to what smelt like a kitchen, a steep, narrow, dark flight of stairs rising opposite its entrance.
No one was about.
Henson led them up the steps with an easy familiarity, the boards creaking noisily beneath their feet. At the top, they came before a closed door, a passage to one side running above the public rooms below. Stella glimpsed a moonlit view through a window at its far end, out across fields towards the Cambray Road.
“In here,” Henson said, stepping aside and blocking the view through the window, his arm outstretched to another but this time open doorway, looking out along the passage.
The room beyond seemed chill and dank, its window’s small panes reflecting the glare of a single candle standing on its deep sill, blackening any prospect out onto the rear yard below. A three-quarter size bed took up most of the space, a single upright chair crammed in beside.
“Next door’s the privy,” Henson told them, his voice losing its colour against the whitewashed walls. “Gayder said she’d bring up a warming pan; to take the chill off the sheets,” the mention of which seemed to brighten his eyes. “Best be off,” he said, and the squeak and creak of treads soon accompanied his diminishing wishes they both have a good night.
“It could be worse, I suppose,” Mirabel soon said, pressing her fingers into the mattress as the silence became oppressive. She sat down gingerly on the bed and looked up at Stella. “Are you hungry?”
“Hmm? Hungry? Oh, I suppose I ought to be, but I can’t say I am.”
“You should eat something you know. You’ll probably feel more like it when you do. I’ll see if...”
A brief tap on the doorjamb heralded the arrival of a hot warming pan, carried ahead of a pretty young thing; dulled hair slipping from its knots and bundles, ample cleavage glistening in the candlelight, mouth forced to a smile.
“Watch out ma’am, sir, it’s a bit hot to be touching.”
“Thank you,” Mirabel said as she pressed herself out of the way and Stella turned to peer fruitlessly through the window, the brim of her cap pulled down.
Mirabel coughed. “Are you...”
“Gayder, ma’am, yes,” but she didn’t enquire after their own names, only lifted the bedclothes and slid the pan beneath. “If there’s nowt else, I’ll ‘ave to get back to m’customers. Only me on tonight you see,” and before they knew it, she’d gone, hurrying downstairs.
When the stairwell briefly filled with the bar’s hubbub, Mirabel tutted. “Damn. I forgot to ask about some food. I’ll slip down and see if she can do anything for us. Won’t be long.”
Stella still stared out at the candle’s reflection in the window glass as she mumbled something back, not really noticing she was now alone. The whites of the dray horses’ eyes kept haunting her, fuelling the memory of her panicked scrabble at the gate’s fastening rope.
“If we’d still been there when they’d...” but her eyes now flicked to the candle’s flame, her finger toying nervously with its bordering crown of soft wax, pushing the malleable ring into the liquid lake about its blackened wick. Stella shuddered and turned her back on it, staring out through the room’s open doorway, freeing butterflies in her stomach.
Her eyes widened. “Where’s Mirabel?” and the room pressed in chillier somehow, the black window at the far end of the dim passage now sporting a distant speck of wavering lantern light. A shiver ran down her spine, a hollow loneliness chasing out the butterflies, letting demons in to spur her legs.
She nearly fell on the steep steps as she flew down, aiming for the outer door and the lane behind the carriage. At the bottom, she stumbled into an empty kitchen opposite, its welcoming warmth stemming some of her panic. She drew a few deep breaths and held the last, hearing Mirabel’s voice beyond the closed door now behind her.
Stella didn’t think twice and half opened it, staring through the gap, straight into the face of a man sitting on the far side of the bar between them. His eyes steadily narrowed as he put down his ale and stared into hers.
“...but only a brief call, Jaker, just to see how they’re faring,” Mirabel was now saying before she took a sharp intake of breath and stepped between Stella and the man, obscuring the deep creasing of his now furrowed brow.
“I’ll be right with you, Stephan. I still need to see about some food,” she said as she urgently waved Stella away behind her back. The door pulled shut, muffling Mirabel’s faltering uptake of her conversation.
Stella
turned, and for a moment, stared at the door to the yard, images of her chasing down the moonlit lane after the carriage still enticing her thoughts. She jolted at Mirabel’s voice, raised a little but still muffled through the door.
“Yes, there is a likeness,” she was saying. “My dear departed friend’s cousin. It’s hit him hard, poor lad.”
A vaguely familiar man’s voice clearly asked, “On thee way up there were thee?”
“Err, yes, yes we were, but we were a bit late setting off,” Mirabel said after a slight pause. “When we saw the lights from here, we thought, what the heck, we’d only be breaking our necks carrying on.”
“Excuse me. Can I just get past,” came Gayder’s voice, a touch of impatience in it, and Stella, now with her wits more about her, hurried back up to their room. A wave of beery conversation then splashed through the opened door below as Stella quietly closed her own.
“Jaker?” she asked herself as she sat on the edge of the bed, her hand feeling the heat of the warming pan through the bedding. “Where’ve I heard that name before?” and she tried to settle her mind and remember.
The door to the bar could be heard opening again, staying so for a short while, the steps creaking before the bedroom door swung open and Mirabel came in.
“What were you doing coming down like that?” she whispered as she closed the door behind her, her eyes wide, mouth stern.
“I’m sorry, Mirabel. I don’t know what came over me, I honestly don’t.” She sniffed, her voice now thin. “Who ... who were you talking with ... at the bar?”
“Probably the only person in there likely to recognise you. What were you thinking of?” but her face softened at the look on Stella’s own. “Are you alright? You’re as white as a sheet.”
Stella couldn’t seem to prise her lips apart, locked as they were to a thin line. She looked up into Mirabel’s eyes, her jaw beginning to quiver.
Starmaker Stella (Dica Series Book 6) Page 22
