The Wildkin's Curse

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘I wish the ship would sail faster too,’ Liliana said, looking up at the drooping sails. She whistled softly, and at once the breeze freshened and the sails billowed out. The ship rose and plunged through the green waves, and Liliana lifted her face to the wind, smiling.

  CHAPTER 16

  Shooting the Albatross

  THAT NIGHT, MERRY LAY AND LISTENED TO THE ROPES creaking and the sails flapping, wondering about Liliana’s Gift. Clearly she had the ability to call the wind. The ship was now sailing so fast all the sails threatened to tear from their rigging.

  It was difficult to sleep, for although Zed had been given a cabin below, both Merry and Liliana had to sleep on deck with the other soldiers and servants. The wooden boards were hard beneath his body, Tom-Tit-Tot snored, and the wild plunging and rocking of the ship made him feel ill. Every half-hour, the ship’s boy struck the bell to mark away the sailor’s watch. The first half-hour the bell was struck only once, but by midnight it was struck eight times, with the sequence being repeated for the next four hour watch. It seemed to Merry that he had just drifted back into sleep each time the ship’s bell was struck again, jerking him awake. By four o’clock, as he lay listening to the eight strikes on the bell, he felt sick and angry and exhausted.

  He got up and staggered to the bucket the sailors used as their chamber-pot, the deck pitching wildly underfoot. The lantern swung as regularly as a metronome, casting swinging shadows everywhere and occasionally illuminating a wild and angry sea. Spray lashed his face, tasting of salt.

  On his way back, Merry saw Aubin the Fair, lying on his back, snoring, his sword tucked down beside him like a child’s doll. To Merry’s sleep-bemused eyes, it looked as if an immense black spider was crouched on Aubin’s lip. He squinted and rubbed his eyes, and saw, with a sudden spurt of amusement, that the old man had wrapped his moustache in some kind of snood for the night.

  Merry spent the rest of the night wrapped in his cloak, watching the white spume of the waves that rose and crashed all around the ship, Tom-Tit-Tot asleep in his lap. Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and cold squalls of rain tormented him, while all the time the sails billowed overhead, ropes creaking with the strain.

  Gradually the sky lightened, and Merry stood stiffly, tipping Tom-Tit-Tot out of his lap. He went to the rail to look out. The sky and the sea were the colour of mother-of-pearl. White foam crested each wave, and clouds were heaped high on the horizon. To the east was a high rock pinnacle rising from the grey-green waves. White birds swooped and soared all about it, and he could hear the distant sound of their calls.

  Wanderer’s Rock, Merry thought. Oh, how I wish we could see one . . .

  He stood watching until the albatrosses’ roosting place had almost disappeared behind them, then sighed and went to wake Zed and Liliana. She will be disappointed, he thought unhappily.

  He heard a high, strange, eerie call, and glanced up. Behind the ship flew a great-winged white bird, silent and motionless, hanging in the air as if suspended from an invisible wire.

  ‘An albatross,’ Merry breathed. He watched it for several long moments, then raced to wake Zed and Liliana. She was exultant, hanging over the rail, her hands stretched out to it.

  ‘You can’t reach it,’ Zed said, standing barefoot in breeches and shirt, his fair curls blowing away from his face. ‘It’s too far away. I wonder how we can get that feather?’

  ‘If we threw some fish down on the deck?’ Merry suggested.

  ‘It’s worth a try,’ Zed said. ‘Go and grab some from the galley.’

  But when Merry came back with a bucketful of fish heads and fish guts, Zakary and Priscilla and Count Zygmunt were all awake and watching the albatross too, along with the constable and half-a-dozen soldiers. Merry did not dare try to entice the bird down, in case someone wondered what he was doing. So he threw the bucketload overboard and watched the bird fold its wings and dive. Zed raised an eyebrow, and Merry muttered, ‘Too many people. I’ll try again tonight.’

  ‘Look at the length of those feathers,’ Zakary said. ‘Wouldn’t they make a simply divine fan?’

  Liliana scowled at him.

  By noon, the wind was so strong it seemed as if the ship would be torn to pieces. Waves rose high above the stern and crashed down upon the deck, and still the albatross soared above the ship, its wings motionless.

  Many of the hearthkin servants looked at it askance, striking one finger against the other in the age-old sign of protection. Aubin the Fair was one of those who seemed most troubled. He yelled at it, waving his sword, trying to scare it away, but the bird was impervious, riding the winds like a winged canoe, its dark eye fixed and remote.

  ‘A storm’s blowing up,’ Count Zygmunt said, leaning on his stick and looking at the sky. ‘A bad one, by the looks of it.’

  ‘I knew that bird was an evil omen,’ Aubin said, wrapping his precious sword in an oilskin and tucking it under his coat. ‘Liah protect us!’

  By midafternoon, the wind was howling and foam flew from the tops of the waves, crashing over the side of the boat and cascading down the decks. Rain slanted down from angry black clouds, drenching them all.

  By evening, it was all hands on deck, struggling to keep the ship from being overwhelmed by the shrieking wind and crashing waves. All was confusion, the captain issuing order after order as they worked to keep the boat from capsizing. Count Zygmunt took a frightened Priscilla below deck again, and Zakary followed, tottering ludicrously from one side of the deck to another in his high heels as the ship bucked and swayed.

  One towering wave knocked Merry off his feet, almost washing him overboard. Liliana seized him and held him steady, and he said irritably, ‘I think you might have overdone it, Lili. Do you think you could rein in the wind a little?’

  She stared at him in open-mouthed surprise. ‘You . . . you know?’

  ‘I’m not blind,’ he snapped.

  Still she stared at him, then very quietly she said, ‘No, I guess not. I should have realised.’

  ‘So can you keep it under control? I really don’t want to be shipwrecked.’

  ‘I do want to get there quickly.’ She looked out at the wild sea with joy and exultation on her face, and Merry realised she had no fear of the storm at all.

  ‘Better to get there alive than not at all,’ he replied, wringing out the hem of his cloak, and she gave him a quick flash of a smile.

  ‘The thing is, I don’t really know how to make the wind go away,’ she confessed. ‘I’ve only whistled up the wind.’

  ‘Well, whistle the wind down,’ Merry suggested, staggering as the ship lurched violently. Liliana grinned, and tentatively whistled a tune of descending notes. At first nothing happened, and she whistled the tune again, louder and more forcefully, and then again for the third time.

  The wind suddenly and unexpectedly died away. Liliana looked at Merry in triumph.

  All the sailors stopped their frantic work and heaved a sigh of relief. Zed combed back his wet hair and stretched, regarding his raw palms wryly. Count Zygmunt, Zakary and Priscilla came up from their cabins, exclaiming at the sudden silence.

  A curious gloom hung over the ocean, the sky between the water and the clouds pale and radiant. Long rays of sun struck the albatross, illuminating it as it soared high above the ship, even while rain slanted down dark and straight against the turbulent sea on either side.

  ‘It’s not natural,’ Aubin said. ‘It’s a faery thing, sent to curse us and drag us down.’

  ‘Then by all means rid us of it,’ Zakary said.

  ‘No,’ Liliana cried. ‘It’s not doing any harm! Leave it alone.’

  Aubin looked at her sideways, and then, very deliberately, struck one finger along the other. Liliana gazed back at him steadily, though Merry had to stop himself from leaping at the old man’s throat.

  Suddenly Liliana screamed and pointed. ‘No! Stop!’

  Merry turned in time to see the young starkin soldier, Wilhelm, firing arrow after arrow
at the albatross. Most went astray, blown away by the wind, but one pierced the bird’s white breast and down the albatross plummeted, to land broken on the ship’s deck.

  Merry, Zed and Liliana ran, dodging through the coils of ropes and reaching the bird seconds before Wilhelm. Merry crouched over the bird, arms stretched wide. ‘To kill an albatross is to be cursed,’ he said.

  Wilhelm scowled. ‘Hearthkin nonsense.’

  ‘Are you so sure? Go down to the galley and ask old Jacob to tell you the story of what happened to the last man to kill an albatross on board this ship,’ Liliana said furiously.

  Wilhelm made a move towards the bird, as if to seize it by the neck. Merry shoved him away with one arm. ‘Who told you to kill the albatross?’

  Wilhelm’s eyes shifted sideways. Merry saw he was being observed by a crowd that had gathered quickly. Aubin the Fair stood scowling at the front, his hand on his sword hilt, sailors and soldiers clustering behind him. Zakary observed from the doorway, his eyebrows raised in exaggerated surprise.

  ‘Tell me who told you to do it, and I’ll make sure you aren’t punished too harshly,’ Zed said.

  ‘No-one told me to . . . though Lord Zakary said he’d like a fan made of its feathers, and I thought he’d probably pay well for them,’ Wilhelm said hurriedly. ‘And Aubin said it was bad luck. Besides, it looked like good eating. I’m sick to death of salt pork.’

  ‘I just hope you haven’t killed it,’ Merry said, and turned his attention to the bird. Its size was startling close up. It was as big as a swan or a goose, but its narrow, black-tipped wings were far longer. The wings were open and straining to catch the wind again, but the bird did not have the strength to fly, for the arrow protruded from its breast close under the wing socket. Merry whipped off his cloak and carefully wrapped the bird, tucking the head with its long hooked beak under a fold of the cloak. He then held the bird close and, with the point of his dagger, carefully worked the arrow free. It came out with a gush of dark blood, and he tossed it aside, staunching the flow with the hem of his cloak. ‘I need to bind it somehow. Help me tear my shirt.’

  Liliana ignored him, pressing both hands against the wound, sobbing with distress. Zed pulled out his sharp dagger and used it to tear a broad strip from Merry’s shirt.

  ‘Lili,’ Merry said in a low voice. ‘I need to bind the wound.’

  She nodded and lifted away her bloodstained hands, wiping her face on her sleeve. Merry stared in amazement. The deep, ragged wound was gone. All that was left was a small cut, weeping a little blood.

  He met Liliana’s eyes. The shock and fear on her face was clear. She was as astonished as he was.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I just didn’t want it to die.’

  Zed leant forward, saying in surprise, ‘Not so bad after all. The arrow can’t have gone in very deep. Shall we see if it can fly?’

  Most of the crowd had by now dispersed. Only Aubin stood by, watching still, his craggy white eyebrows bent down over his hooked nose. His eyes lingered on Liliana. Merry’s heart sank, and he wondered how much the constable had seen. Tom-Tit-Tot watched too, his eyes slitted hungrily as if he, too, was sick of salt pork.

  They all stood back and the bird launched itself into the wind once more. It was astonishing to see how it took off, without once flapping its wings. In moments it was wheeling far above the boat again, white and taut against the dark rain.

  ‘Look, it’s fine, it’s flying again,’ Liliana cried, craning her neck to see. ‘Oh, look, isn’t it beautiful?’

  ‘And I’ve got the albatross feather,’ Merry said in a low voice, briefly opening his cloak to show one long white feather, tipped with black, held hidden against his body. ‘That’s three we have now.’

  She rewarded him with a radiant smile.

  THE

  Royal

  PALACE

  CHAPTER 17

  Death Bells

  THE ROYAL PALACE OF ZARISSA SOARED AGAINST THE SKY, built high on an immense headland surrounded on three sides by wild seas. The palace seemed to be made of pure crystal that glittered and shone in the sunset, reflecting the flaming colours of the streaming clouds.

  Merry stood on the ship’s deck, the ferret clinging to his shoulder, staring up at the palace in utter amazement. His companions clustered around him, all with the same astonished expressions on their faces.

  Zakary yawned ostentatiously. ‘Zed, darling, do try not to look such a rustic. One should always endeavour to look bored.’

  Zed ignored him. ‘Look at how it shines! How on earth did they ever build it? You’d think all that glass would break.’

  ‘It’s built with foundations of stone and a framework of steel,’ Zakary said, inspecting his nails. ‘An engineering marvel, I believe.’

  ‘Is that the wildkin’s tower, that tall one there? How high is it?’ Liliana asked.

  ‘Twelve storeys high, I believe,’ Zakary replied. ‘The tallest building in all of Ziva. When a strong wind blows, it sways. I’d not like to be up there today. This wind is such a bother! I cannot put my parasol up.’

  ‘The wind got us here nice and quick,’ Liliana pointed out, rather smugly. ‘It’s been a record trip! More than a thousand miles in only eleven days.’

  The ship came round the headland, which rose more than nine hundred feet into the air, a massive jumble of rocks at its base. The mouth of the harbour was only narrow, guarded on the far side by another tall headland, with steep stone cliffs rising high all around in a half-circle, the sharp peaks of the mountains behind wrapped in gloomy clouds.

  The roots of the cliffs were buried in an ancient forest, as dark and mysterious-looking as the Perilous Forest, so many miles behind them. A tall stone wall divided the city from the forest, which lapped at the base of the escarpment on which the palace was built. A road climbed out of the forest and zigzagged up the steep slope to an immense gatehouse at the top.

  A breakwater had been built out from the base of the smaller headland, creating a large harbour protected from the rough waves of the wild sea beyond. The harbour was another forest, this time of bristling masts, some flowering with white sails that billowed with the force of the wind. Ships of all shapes and sizes sheltered within the stone arms of the harbour, rocking on the whitecaps that raced under their hulls.

  Behind the rows of wharves were warehouses and shops and marketplaces and houses all built higgledy-piggledy on top of each other, spires and turrets and steep gables jutting in all directions and hazed with smoke from the thousands of tall chimneys. Merry wondered how many people lived in there, and where they grew their crops and grazed their animals, for on the eastern side of the wall there was not a hint of greenery, only grimy stone walls and tiled roofs, while on the western side the forest grew dense and wild, looped with vines and flowering creepers.

  ‘Look at all the pelicans,’ Merry said, nudging Liliana with his elbow. They looked across the harbour where a line of pelicans floated serenely, their bills tucked down into their chests, their feathers ruffled by the cold wind.

  ‘They’re always in a crowd,’ Liliana said. ‘I wonder if that’s a family or just a group of friends.’

  ‘How on earth are we meant to get a feather from them?’ Zed murmured. ‘They’ll fly away as soon as we get near.’

  ‘We need to contact that friend of Briony’s,’ Merry replied, keeping his voice low and his words cryptic, in case anyone should be listening. It was hard to have a private conversation with so many people crowded all around them.

  ‘We’ve got almost a week until the spring equinox,’ Liliana replied. ‘Lucky, that.’

  ‘Fancy the wind blowing in just the right direction all that time,’ Merry mocked.

  ‘Fancy!’

  ‘Look at all the flags fluttering in the wind,’ Priscilla said.

  ‘Why are they all at half-mast?’ Count Zygmunt wondered.

  ‘And I can hear bells,’ Priscilla said.

&nbs
p; They all fell silent and listened. Across the water came a great clamour of bells, peal after peal after peal, never ceasing.

  ‘It’s chain ringing,’ Merry said, his heart beginning to sink. ‘In reverse. The bells are announcing a death.’ He had lived with his grandfather, the bellringer of Levanna-On-The-Lake, until Johan’s death when Merry was nine. He knew all too well the sombre pattern of the peals, one stroke on each of the eight great bells, from smallest to largest, till the finale, when all the bells were rung together. Again and again the pattern was repeated, and would be until sunset on the day of the funeral.

  ‘Who? Who has died? Can you tell?’ Everyone spoke at once.

  ‘The city bells would only be rung so for someone important,’ Merry said, his chest hurting. He pressed both fists against his heart. Tom-Tit-Tot wrapped himself more tightly about Merry’s neck, trembling with fear.

  ‘The king?’ Zakary demanded. ‘Could it be for the king?’

  Merry nodded, and watched with interest how Zakary had to fight to hide his smile.

  As the Wind Dancer glided in to the jetty, the clanging of the bells became unbearable. Merry saw that people were standing everywhere in groups, their faces shocked and afraid. Most were dressed in vivid ruby-red, the starkin colour of mourning. The hearthkin serfs, labouring among the wharves and warehouses, all had red cloths binding their arms.

  ‘And I have no red clothes packed!’ Zakary said. ‘Whatever shall we do? We must visit my tailor at once!’

  ‘I wonder what this means for us?’ Zed said in a low voice to Merry and Liliana. ‘Is this good news or bad news?’

  ‘Let us find out first exactly what the news is,’ Merry said grimly.

  The ship came in to the wharf and was securely tied by thick ropes at bow and stern. Immediately people began to shout and wave, holding up baskets of bruised-looking fruit, or trays of cheap trinkets, or thin, wailing babies. Ribs showed through the rents in their rags, and their bare knees and elbows were sharp and knobbly. The whites of their eyes looked yellow, and their mouths showed black gaps instead of teeth.