Crown of Stars

by Sophie Jaff

  “Momma?” he gulps, and she holds out her hand and he goes to her. “Momma.”

  “My brave boy,” she whispers. Her voice is full of warmth, her eyes full of love.

  He is crying now. “Momma, take me with you.”

  She holds him close, but shakes her head.

  “Please, Momma, why won’t you take me with you? I want to go with you!”

  “I cannot take you with me. You still have work to do.”

  He bawls, desperate.

  “Lucas, do you know what your name means?”

  He shakes his head, still crying.

  She puts her hand gently under his chin and lifts so she can look into his eyes.

  “It means ‘to illuminate, to light up.’ You are a Bringer of Light. You will light the way. You are a Prophet.”

  “But Momma, please, let me come with you.”

  She shakes her head again. “You must look after the baby. You must keep her safe. You are the Watchman and the Lantern. That is your destiny.”

  He cannot speak only gaze at her, take her in and in and in.

  “I am very proud of you. You are my joy. You are my son. Know that I will always be with you. I love you always and forever.” She leans down and kisses him on the forehead. “Now rest,” she says, “and I will hold you.”

  He doesn’t want to sleep, but he is so tired, so very tired.

  He closes his eyes.

  39

  Katherine

  As she bears down and bears down and bears down, there is no pain, only joy. Only joy, only waves and waves and waves of love.

  Her baby. Her life. Her love. Streaked with blood and covered in white, she lies on Katherine’s chest, nestled between her breasts. Katherine’s skin and her skin.

  At her faint, mewling cry, Katherine laughs because it is the most wonderful sound in the world. Time has stopped. There is nothing but Katherine and her baby together, here and now and forever. She gazes rapturously at her daughter’s tiny nose, her perfect mouth, her little eyelids, her soft, sweet curled fists. She inhales her daughter’s scent. Kisses her flushed cheek.

  She puts her child to her breast. The baby suckles a while and then sleeps.

  Katherine has never been so happy. She has never loved so much.

  It may be minutes or hours or years later when she looks up and sees a woman standing in front of her. Looking at her is like looking into a mirror, yet different. Her dark eyes are fixed upon Katherine and her baby.

  They stare at each other for a long time, and then Katherine speaks.

  “Why me?”

  “I waited for you, I waited in the ring brooch. And you released me. You are a Vessel, as I was a Vessel. No other body could hold me. It was the only way. We come from the same lineage. Our destiny written golden in the sky. We were born to carry the Child, and now we have.”

  “What do you want?” Katherine’s entire body trembles.

  “I want to live,” Margaret tells her.

  “You have already lived! Why did you come back and make me do such terrible things?” Katherine’s throat is raw. “You made me push Matthew. You destroyed Niamh’s life!”

  “You still mourn for the sodomite, for Cecily? They were weak, pathetic. You are better without them.”

  “Cecily? Who is Cecily? I am speaking of my friends.” Katherine bites at her lip in confusion; then a new surge of horror and rage breaks through and her voice swells to a ragged shout. “You tried to kill Lucas!”

  “Let me remind you that I saved your life.”

  “You saved yourself.”

  “Yes, and in doing so, I saved you and your child. Do you know what I lost? Do you know what I gave up? I had to kill my own child.”

  Katherine swallows. “How could you do it?” she whispers.

  “There must always be a sacrifice.

  Katherine stares at Margaret lost for words. Margaret continues in her numbed silence.

  “I know you think you would not be capable of such an act, but I will share my strength with you. Soon you will have my knowledge, my power. You will learn the ways of the Travelers, and then you will never know fear again.” Margaret smiles. “You see, I know you, I know you intimately, and I know the burdens that weigh upon your heart. But now there is no need to wake in the night nor give way to despair. And your child will be safe.”

  Katherine stares down at her tiny, sleeping daughter.

  “She will never feel pain. She will never know loss. She will want for nothing,” Margaret continues.

  Instinctively, Katherine tightens her arms around her baby. She is afraid, but she knows this woman speaks the truth.

  “Together, we will give her everything. Together we will watch her grow and prosper, and when the time comes she will rule. She will rule over this world and all the worlds to come. And she will be revered, and we, as her mothers, will be revered. Only think of the power. We will be worshiped as the New and Rightful Trinity: the Mother, the Child, and the Spirit.”

  Katherine bends forward and very gently presses her lips against her child’s forehead. She looks up at Margaret. “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. She must live in the world. I want to her to have a normal life, to go to school, to make friends, to ride bikes. I want her to watch puppet shows and eat peanut butter from the jar and play in the ocean. I want her to live as a person, not be worshipped as a goddess.”

  “What kind of mother are you?” Margaret is filled with scorn. “What mother would deny her child the world?”

  “A good one, I hope.”

  Katherine’s eyes swim with tears, but she cannot waver now. She hopes this woman doesn’t see what she has just seen. Slowly she lowers one arm, the arm closest to the tree. “A mother who believes that her child has the right to choose her own life, to make her own destiny.”

  Margaret laughs. “It makes no difference if you deny me. I am here entwined within you forever and ever and ever.”

  “No.” She slides her palm across the earth until her fingers find the knife.

  “What are you doing?” Margaret has noticed the blade.

  “The only thing I can.”

  “Stop! You cannot do this!” she screeches.

  Katherine makes no move to wipe away her tears. She cannot let go of her daughter, and she cannot abandon her plan now.

  “You saved my child, and now I must save her too.” She raises the knife.

  “You will never rock her, never hold her close. You will never watch her grow. Do this, and she will never know how you loved her.”

  “There must always be a sacrifice,” Katherine repeats.

  She turns and with great deliberation thrusts the blade down hard and fast directly into the ring brooch, which still lies among the roots and dark earth.

  Margaret screams.

  There is a thunderous crack.

  Then all is still.

  40

  Sael

  Sael opens his eyes to light, soft white light. His squints; his hand drifts up slowly to caress his head; he turns toward the tree and sees Katherine half sitting, propped against the roots, holding—

  He tries to leap up, almost falls, clutches his head for a moment, bends over, takes a breath then.

  He runs toward them.

  Katherine smiles at him. “Meet your daughter.”

  His daughter. His own daughter. His child. “She’s all right?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “She’s perfect.” Sael is hushed, awed.

  “Yes, she is.”

  “You’re okay?” He stares at her. Her face is very pale, but she looks so beautiful.

  “I’m fine,” she tells him.

  But she is not fine, he can tell. “Katherine! Jesus Christ, why is there so much blood?!”

  “There’s always blood.” He could swear she sounds almost amused.

  “Yes, but . . . but Katherine, what happened?”

  “Does it matter, for now?”

  He opens his
mouth, shuts it, opens it again. “Yes. No. I guess, I guess . . . right now it doesn’t matter.” He cannot take his eyes off his daughter, cannot stop drinking in every detail.

  Then, suddenly, he realizes. “Lucas! Where is Lucas?”

  Still smiling, Katherine nods her head toward Lucas, who is curled up in the roots of the tree. “He’s sleeping.”

  “And he’s okay?”

  “Yes, he’s okay.”

  “Thank God. Poor kid.” But he is already drawn back to his daughter.

  “Do you want to hold her?” Katherine asks.

  “Really?”

  She laughs. “Of course, she’s your daughter.”

  He reaches out, and very gently he lifts her, takes her in his arms. Cradles her close. He feels as though he’s in a dream. “I have to get help,” he says.

  “There is no hurry,” Katherine reassures him. “I think I’ll go to sleep for a little bit. But do me a favor?”

  “Anything.”

  “If Lucas wakes and I’m still sleeping, tell him I love him and I’m proud of him.”

  “I will.” His heart is so full of love he thinks it will burst. “Katherine?”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  She looks at him, and in her eyes he can see she is Katherine again, the Katherine he fell in love with and loves with all his heart, the mother of his child.

  “I love you too,” she replies.

  “What do you want to call her?”

  She’s already drifting off. “I was thinking . . . Mia.”

  “Mia?” He likes it. “What does it mean?”

  “It means ‘mine.’ It means ‘wanted child.’”

  Then she smiles and closes her eyes.

  Epilogue

  Thomas

  Thomas sits on the small bench, staring at nothing. Father Martin is talking to the abbot, so he, Thomas, must wait. A month or two ago he would have gone mad with impatience, itching to explore the monastery and bursting with questions.

  Things are different now.

  Some priests pass by. He feels their eyes upon him, hears their whispers. He cannot make out their exact words, but he knows of what they speak. The story has swept through the abbey like fire.

  Fire. Thomas shudders. If it had been anyone but Father Martin who told the tale, Thomas would not have believed it. But it had been Father Martin who awoke to find a huge white bird in his cell. He was startled but not frightened, not at first. He had risen from his bed and followed the bird away from his cell and away from the monastery to the castle, where black smoke coiled against the orange sky. Father Martin did not say much more about what he saw that night. He does not have to. Thomas remembers more than he wants to. Some nights it is so vivid, more than he can bear.

  He had emerged from the Great Hall into the castle courtyard, his head reeling from the splendid sights, his ears ringing with music, and had almost tripped over Warin the Baker, who was splayed senseless on the ground. Thomas was readying to sprint for help, but he spied a wooden cup still clutched in the man’s hand. Thomas crouched low to peer into Warin’s face. The baker was alive, his mouth stained purple, exhaling breath sweet and sour and pickled. This surprised Thomas, for he had not thought his friend the kind of man who drinks himself into oblivion.

  But it was not just Warin. For the first time, Thomas looked around the courtyard with dawning unease noting body after body lying upon the cobbles. Rank had been forgotten, for in their unguarded state they were all equal: guard, scullion, cobbler, wife, child. Their limbs splayed at awkward angles, some in states of undress, others with vomit crusting their chins. He had broken into a run and almost careened into a woman bent over yet another body. It was Dyl’s wife, bent over her husband, pleading and scolding by turns but to no avail.

  “What happened here?”

  Sobbing, she told him. Lord de Villias had been in a generous mood. He had gifted a cask of the banquet ale to his people, and the guards had somehow got their hands on a second, determined that everyone should share in the good fortune.

  Margaret had not let Thomas drink the ale. And he knew. He knew what she was capable of.

  He stared down at Dyl’s wife’s tear-streaked face, asking only one question: “My brother? Have you seen my brother?”

  But even before she shook her head, he knew the answer.

  And so he ran on and on, past the fallen. It looked like the bandit camp that night.

  “Rudd! Rudd!” he called.

  No one replied. The silence was deafening. The ale must have worked upon the guests too, but Thomas did not care. He cared for no one but “Rudd! Rudd!”

  He found Rudd curled up like a child near the steps leading down to the kitchen. Thomas could tell by the rise and fall of his massive chest that he was alive, but as much as he shook Rudd’s arm or slapped his face, Rudd would not wake.

  On the night Margaret had helped him rescue Rudd from the bandits’ camp, Rudd had only tasted a little of the tainted stew, but even so it had been a struggle getting him to safety. Thomas groaned. There was nothing to do but hold his brother’s hand, to wait for the effects to wear off. For all Rudd’s strength, he was utterly defenseless, as gentle and as helpless as a kitten, and Thomas loved him for it. He drifted into sleep, his head upon his brother’s enormous chest.

  Thomas was caught in a nest of snakes hissing, their scales crackling and sparking as they writhed. He woke from his dream to a living nightmare.

  The castle was on fire. Flames licked around the timber beams of the courtyard stables, devouring the hay while the trapped horses whinnied and kicked in desperation. Fire flowered into red and white blooms that consumed the castle from the inside, bursting through its windows to light up the night.

  “Rudd, please!” he had pleaded. “Please wake.” He sobbed and yanked and sobbed, but they were too late.

  “Margaret!”

  Her name echoed through the courtyard, rose above the roar of flame. Thomas peered up through the smoke and sparks at a figure standing high above them.

  Lord August, disheveled, his handsome face smeared with soot but otherwise unharmed. The ring brooch pinning his cloak glinted and gleamed. “Margaret! Margaret! Bring her back to me!”

  Lord August had gone mad. Thomas turned away, prepared himself to die. “Rudd, I love you,” he whispered. “Margaret, I loved you too.”

  As his lids lowered, swollen from the thick black smoke, he thought he saw a huge white bird gliding toward him. Then he was coughing and coughing and coughing.

  “Good, my son, good,” urged a familiar voice. “Bring the foulness forth.”

  Thomas hurt; he was in pain. He reached for Rudd, but there was no one, nothing. Only darkness.

  And when he finally came to in the sanatorium, many nights and days had passed. Father Martin comes now to sit by his side, tend to his wounds. At least those wounds that can be seen. There is an ache cleaving his heart that will never ease, a sorrow that will never cease. Still, the days here are pleasant, quiet enough.

  It is night when she comes to him. The dream is always the same.

  He stands upon a sheer cliff, watching the sea as it breaks against the rocks below. Only it cannot be the sea, for the water is a deep and dark red.

  “It is blood.” Margaret appears beside him. She speaks calmly, without passion. “It is the blood of all mankind.”

  “How did this happen?”

  “War, Plague, Famine, Death.” She is dreamy, as if what she says is of little consequence. “Man brought this upon himself.”

  Thomas turns away from her terrible beauty, past the spiky cliff line down to the uneven shore below. There, where the red waves crash upon the stones, he sees a small figure facing out to sea. “Who is that?”

  “The one who could save them, or damn them. She could lead the armies of hell or unite the hosts of heaven.”

  Then Margaret turns to Thomas. The sky behind her is ablaze with stars against whirling clouds of impossible
colors. Her eyes are black pools; her voice is a buzz, a hum, both less and more than human. “You must tell the story.”

  “What story?”

  “My story. You must warn them of what is coming.”

  “But,” he quavers, “how can I do this?”

  “War is coming. The War to end all Wars. Do you know where you stand?”

  And in the starlight, he sees that her face crawls with bees.

  He blinks, sees Father Martin’s anxious face peering into his own. “I am sorry, Father. I must have fallen asleep.”

  “The fault is mine. I have left you too long. However”—Father Martin grins with delight—“I hope it will have been worth the wait. I have wonderful news! Father Abbot has given his permission that you may stay!”

  “Stay?”

  “And more than this,” he says. “You will be taught Latin with the sons who are sent to learn here. You will be taught to read and write.”

  Thomas cannot speak.

  “Yes, it is even more than I dared hope for!” the priest continues, beaming. “You are to be a scribe, to help transcribe our most holy works. Is that not good news?”

  You must tell the story. War is coming. Do you know where you stand?

  He does his best to smile. “Yes,” Thomas answers, “that is good news.”

  And he tries, with all his heart, to believe it.

  Acknowledgments

  No writer is an island and, as usual, there are a multitude of people I need to thank for their endless help and support. To my stellar agent Alexandra Machinist; our lunches are a thing of beauty, and I truly value your razor-sharp instincts, advice, and encouragement. Massive thanks are due to my newly-wedded editor Hannah Wood, whose tireless passion, drive, and dedication know no limits; and to the amazing team at HarperCollins who always has my back, especially hard-working copy editor Mary Beth Constant. I also want to give a shout-out to Avi Burstein, for his creation and maintenance of my beautiful website. Thanks to Venetia Strangwayes-Booth for your invaluable advice regarding midwives in the UK and traveling in Wales; and to Joanna and Dermot Strangwayes-Booth for setting me straight regarding medieval England and the proper use of titles. I also want to say that Ian Mortimer’s book The Time Traveler’s Guild to Medieval England was a real godsend.