The Starthorn Tree

by Kate Forsyth

  Pedrin cast him a quick look of sympathy. ‘I s ’pose she’s not so bad, as far as mothers go. Come help me settle the goats, then we can be on our way—at last!’

  He seized hold of Thundercloud’s collar, dragging his narrow black head up from the herbs growing along the path. Thundercloud swung his head, trying to take a bite out of Pedrin’s leg, but the goatherd skipped nimbly out of reach, dragging the reluctant billy-goat down the path towards the little shed behind the cottage.

  Durrik leant down and rubbed Snowflake affectionately between her two back-curving horns. She bleated and rubbed her head against him, and he caught hold of her collar. She was far too well-mannered to need a tussle, following Durrik willingly as he swung forward on his crutch, her bell ringing.

  As Pedrin carried heavy buckets of water from the river to fill the goats’ trough, Durrik stirred a delicious-smelling mixture of oats, molasses and lucerne chaff for the nanny-goat to eat. He then hung up a bundle of chaff for Thundercloud to nibble, while Pedrin swiftly and expertly milked the nanny-goat. The black billy-goat rolled his golden eyes angrily and tried to take a bite out of Durrik’s leg. He could smell Snowflake’s molasses and wanted some for himself, but such treats were reserved for the nanny-goat, to keep her milk rich and sweet. Durrik had to scramble back quickly to avoid the billy-goat’s sharp yellow teeth, almost losing his footing in the straw. He retreated to the safety of the garden, where the cicadas were beginning to whine.

  By the time the milking was done, the sun was almost gone. Pedrin grinned at Durrik. ‘Let’s get moving! I can already smell fried fish for supper.’

  He grabbed his rod and basket from the bench and the two friends set off through the long grass, Durrik swinging along nimbly with his crutch tucked under one arm.

  It was early summer and the days were growing longer and warmer, much to the relief of everyone in the valley. In summer, the twilight lasted for hours, giving the hearthkin time to toil in their own little gardens or see to a few jobs of carpentry about their homes. In the cruel cold of winter, they left their cottages in the dark and returned in the dark, and there was no time for anything before bedtime but a hasty meal huddled by the fire.

  The path led them along the banks of the Evenlode. All was quiet. On the far side of the river the young green corn rustled together in the breeze.

  ‘What has a thousand ears but cannot hear?’ asked Durrik impishly.

  ‘I don’t know. A hobhenky?’

  ‘Nah, of course not.’

  ‘Some kind of gibgoblin?’

  Durrik snorted with laughter, shaking his head.

  ‘Jumping Jimjinny, I don’t know then. What?’

  Giggling, Durrik pointed across the river. ‘A field of corn!’

  ‘Oh!’ Pedrin tried not to look foolish. ‘Ha-ha. Very funny.’

  ‘What goes in one ear and out t’other?’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘A bug in a cornfield.’

  Both boys sniggered and Pedrin gave Durrik a little shove that almost unbalanced him. ‘Cabbage-head!’

  They came round the curve of the river and saw the arches of the Levanna Bridge ahead of them. Along this stretch of riverbank the cottages were clustered close together and the path was smooth and wide, so Pedrin did not need to hold back the long briars of blackberry brambles for his friend.

  Over the quaint dusk-song of the frogs, they heard the sound of bitter weeping. Pedrin and Durrik glanced at each other uncomfortably, then looked away, the fair boy digging miserably at the mud with the tip of his crutch. The man who lived in one of these cottages had been killed the day before by a falling sheet of glass. He had been married less than a year and his wife had only recently given birth to a baby. Even that tragedy had not seen work on the crystal tower halted. The men of Estelliana, though shocked and horrified, had all been forced to keep on working while the body had been unceremoniously carted home to his young wife. It would now be laid out in the cottage’s one room, all washed and neatly dressed, waiting to be burnt on the funeral pyre in the morning. Durrik’s father would lead the funeral procession, ringing his largest, most sombre-sounding bell.

  As the town bell-crier, Durrik’s father Johan was one of the most respected men in all of Levanna-On-The-Lake. He rang in weddings and funerals, drove away ghosts, boo-bogeys and other mischievous spirits, celebrated the harvest and read all proclamations from the castle and royal court. Every day he rang the change of hours, so that everyone knew when the day began and ended, and he was thus beloved by Marithos, the god of time and numbers.

  Consequently the bell-crier was a prosperous man, with a tall house in the main square of Levanna-On-The-Lake, with real glass in its windows and separate rooms for sleeping, eating, cooking, sitting and reading. Pedrin found this quite wonderful, if rather odd. He was always eager to see the bell-crier’s treasures—the precious lute that Johan Bell-Crier sometimes let him play; the starkin dancers in a glass globe that swung and bowed to the delicate strains of music when a small silver key was turned; the goblets of violet glass all embossed with silver; the striped spinning top that sang as it spun; the fat silk coverlets and rose-embroidered bed-curtains; Durrik’s three pairs of shoes and two long-tailed coats with brass buttons; the row of gleaming bells, hanging by their handles in the sitting room; and finally, the shelves of books, their pages as fragile as an old woman’s skin, all marked with strange runes and symbols that Pedrin longed to understand.

  The boys’ footsteps quickened past the sound of weeping. They came to the bridge, and climbed up to sit on its railing, their legs dangling into the shadowy air beneath as they cast their lines into the water. For a long moment there was silence.

  TWO

  The first fish to leap and fight at the end of Pedrin’s line broke the strain that had grown up between them. At last the silverback lay gasping and flapping in their basket and, before they had time to remember the baby left without its father, the widow left penniless, Durrik’s line went taut with strain.

  He reeled in a huge, dark gaper-mouth and, although he had to throw him back, the murky-green fish being both unpleasant to eat and mildly poisonous, he soon caught another fat silverback.

  By the time it was fully dark, they had five firm-fleshed fish in their basket, more than enough for their suppers. Durrik had caught three of them but he said rather diffidently, ‘Papa and I can’t eat them all tonight and it seems a shame not t’eat them when they’re fresh. Would you and your ma like one?’

  Pedrin was not too proud to accept, knowing that Durrik would have plenty to eat that night even without the fish, while his own supper would be a mere crust of bread and slice of cheese otherwise. He nodded and hefted up the rods and basket, saying, ‘I’ll come say good-even to your pa, since I’m so close.’

  This time Durrik was the one to be grateful. Apart from the difficulty he would have in trying to carry home his fish, weighed down as he was by his crutch, he was often waylaid and bullied by the rough boys of the town. Although they rarely hurt him badly these days, they humiliated and frightened him, tripping him over, jeering at him, and taking any small coins he had on him. Durrik endured these attacks stoically, rarely responding other than to protect his face with his hands as they stood over him, nudging him with their grubby bare feet and calling him ‘Pretty Polly’ or ‘Hop-Along Hamlin’, or whatever other insult they could dream up out of their murky, muddled, unimaginative minds.

  ‘You’ll have to be quick if you want to get out before they close the gates,’ he said.

  Pedrin cast a look up at the sky. The river shone still between its stands of rushes, but the first stars were beginning to prick the sky with light. ‘We’ll run,’ he said. ‘I don’t want me ma to get in a fret.’

  Durrik nodded. That was one of the things he liked about Pedrin. It never occurred to the goatherd that Durrik could not go where he went or keep up with whatever pace he set. Since making friends with Pedrin, the crippled boy had climbed trees, pushed his
way through hedges, climbed up to the very top of High Tor and, much to Durrik’s alarm, been capsized in the river when their homemade raft fell apart.

  The boys had been friends from the very first moment they had met, six years earlier when Johan Bell-Crier had first moved to Levanna-On-The-Lake from Zarissa, the capital city of the land the starkin called Ziva and the hearthkin still, in whispers, called Adalheit.

  There had been a lot of curiosity about the new bell-crier and his crippled son. None of the hearthkin had ever seen one of their kind so richly dressed, with so many strange and precious belongings. The former bell-crier had been a rough, uneducated man with only one bell. He had died alone and sodden with drink in his one-room lodging above the stables at Levanna-On-The-Lake’s only inn, leaving nothing but his tarnished bell, a pile of unpaid bills and a rather mangy cat. Bell-crying was an art passed from father to son and so the town had been worried and apprehensive when their bell-crier had died without any issue. Without a bell-crier, the rites of everyday life could not be properly observed. The unrung dead would be displeased that all honour was not given them at their passing and, without the sound of the death-bell to guide him, Tallis the moon god would not know where to come to shine his radiance and light their path to the afterlife. Angry ghosts would hang about the town, disrupting the peace, breaking crockery, unsettling the hens so they did not lay, curdling the milk, stopping the bread from rising, poisoning the well, bringing nightmares and foul odours, and generally making everyone uncomfortable.

  Without a bell-crier to bless the fields, the harvest would be devoured by locusts or lost to root-rot. The apples would be worm-eaten, the grapes would wither on the vine, the corn would not ripen, the soil would turn sour. Marriages would fail, babies would fret and grow sick, businesses would falter and, without the bells being rung in their honour every feast-day, the gods would grow angry and send flood, fire, disease and disaster.

  So Levanna-On-The-Lake was most relieved when Johan and his poor, pale, twisted little son came quietly into town and took up residence in the grandest house on the square. For weeks the gossips speculated about why they had come, and what misfortune had caused the crippling of the boy, and where Johan’s wife was, and how much money the bell-crier really had. The young women put on clean aprons and found excuses to linger in the square outside his house. The merchants brought their finest wares to show him, tripling their cost as a matter of course, thinking he was used to city prices. The merchants’ wives came to visit, looking about with avid eyes and asking as many questions as they dared. To them all Johan was polite, quiet, reserved, intractable. No-one found out anything. After a few months the young women stopped lingering outside the door, the merchants’ wives gave up visiting and the merchants accepted with good-natured shrugs that Johan Bell-Crier was no fool.

  Seven-year-old Durrik was as polite and reserved as his father. It was to be expected that the children of the town would make him a butt of their mockery, for he spoke in genteel tones, was always neat and clean and well-dressed, and never made any attempt to stand up for himself.

  Seven-year-old Pedrin, on the other hand, rarely came to town. Since his father had died the previous summer, he had taken over the job of goatherd and so spent all his days out in the high meadows, climbing the rocks with his friends the goats or lying in the grass, watching the clouds shift shape, and dreaming. Pedrin was happy out in the meadows. He did not have to endure the compassion of their neighbours, or see his mother’s strained, anxious eyes. He did not have to think about his father at all if he did not want to.

  The only time Pedrin came to town was on market-day, once a month, when he would bring in their cheeses to sell. He and the town kids were enemies as a matter of course. In winter, when the children played ice-hockey on the frozen lake, it was always the townies against the fieldies, and in summer, when the town kids came out into the meadows looking for birds’ eggs or flowers, the children who lived along the riverbank would always ambush them, slinging clods of mud at them, or shoving them into the thistles. It had always been so. Even the grown-ups still acknowledged the natural rivalry, pitting townies against fieldies in contests of skill and strength on feast-days, or taking sides in any dispute over money or women.

  Keegan, the leader of the town bullies, was a particular enemy of Pedrin’s. He took delight in taunting the goatherd over his father’s death, a subject most people found far too delicate to even mention. Mortemer Goatherd had died so horribly that the very thought of him was enough to make most people wince and change colour and look away. Keegan was the sort of boy who liked to make people flinch and blench and, best of all, break down in tears. So Pedrin had spent most of the weeks before market-day practising with his slingshot, determined he was going to get that bastard.

  He knew Keegan would not taunt him in the marketplace, in full view of the adults. Keegan liked plenty of space and time for his torments. It would happen in one of the dark, smelly back alleys, or down by the river where the cesspits were. So Pedrin kept his slingshot and heavy bag of stones in his pocket, close to hand, and took care never to be too far away from the sunlit square, filled with laughing, talking crowds and long trestle tables loaded with goods of all kinds.

  At last, though, he could not avoid being sent to deliver the cheeses to the homes of those who had bought them. It was late afternoon, and the houses were all casting long shadows. With his arms piled high with round, white cheeses, Pedrin felt very vulnerable indeed. There was no help to it, though, so he made his way along the narrow, twisty streets as cautiously as he could. There was no sign of the bullies and Pedrin began to hope they were all having such a good time torturing some small animal that they had forgotten about him. He hurried back down towards the square, turned a corner, and then came to an abrupt halt.

  A small, thin boy was huddled into the side of the alley, clutching a crutch close to his chest. His collar was awry, the knees of his breeches were muddy, and there was a nasty bruise on his cheekbone. Blood trickled from his nose. All round him mobbed the gang of bullies, taunting him, pushing him, trying to kick the crutch away.

  Pedrin could probably have sidled away unnoticed, but a sudden surge of hot red anger swept over him. He dropped the last of the cheeses, which rolled away into the gutter, and dragged out his slingshot. Pedrin had got so accurate he could knock a bird out of a tree. He found the thick skulls of the bullies such easy targets they were soon howling and ducking for cover, their arms over their heads. Durrik had ducked down too, dropping his crutch so he could protect his face with both hands. He soon realised none of the stones landed on him, though, and so had looked up rather apprehensively, to see a sturdy boy with tousled brown curls and a freckled snub-nose handing him his crutch.

  ‘You got to stand up to them,’ the rather grubby, barefoot boy had advised. ‘They like it if you cower.’ He had hesitated, looking him over candidly. ‘Mebbe I can teach you t’use me slingshot?’ he had offered.

  Durrik never did master the slingshot, but he and Pedrin were the best of friends from that day on. Pedrin taught him to fish, to climb trees, to build a hide from broken branches so they could watch badgers, and to drink milk straight from a goat’s teat. In return, Durrik told him stories of the gods and the starkin, taught him new songs, and kept him in a quiver of laughter with his tomfoolery. To the rest of the hearthkin, Durrik was a quiet, colourless boy without much gumption and they could not understand Pedrin’s attraction. They did not know how quick and funny Durrik really was, nor how much the boys had in common with their love of music and tales of monsters and marvels. When they were alone together by the river or in the high meadows, there was a constant sparkle of talk and laughter between them that was dimmed and shielded into a quiet, complicit glow of glance and grin when they were with others. Only Maegeth really understood the depth of their friendship. She welcomed Durrik to their dark little cottage, fed him milk and stale bread without any embarrassment, and teased him as affectionately as she did
her own two tousle-haired, scabby-kneed children.

  Now Durrik struggled to his feet, crying, ‘Race you then!’ He set off as fast as he could along the dark path, his crutch swinging back and forth, back and forth.

  ‘Oy! Give me some warning!’ Pedrin shouted, breaking into a run, dust flying up from his bare feet.

  As he rounded the last curve of the river, panting, he saw the township prickling with lights, the dark castle looming behind. Once the castle would have been bright with lights too, Count Zoltan having been a cheerful and generous man. No golden light streamed from its tall glass windows now, though, and there was no sound of music or laughter.

  Pedrin put on an extra burst of speed and raced past Durrik to slap his hand on the dark wood of the gate. ‘Beat you! Nah nah de nah nah!’

  ‘Only just.’ Durrik bent over, trying to catch his breath. ‘You didn’t drop the fish, did you?’

  Pedrin hastily checked his basket but the five fish still lay within their cool nest of rushes, their pale spotted sides gleaming. ‘Nah, thank Liah! That big one’s a beauty, aren’t he? Almost got away about three times but I managed to reel him in.’

  The two boys made their way through the eastern gate and along the main road to the marketplace. With the gloaming shut out by the tall, thin, crowded houses, the streets were dark, only a few homes hanging lanterns out front to illuminate the way. Pedrin and Durrik passed the gang of bully-boys, lounging about in a dark doorway. Although they called out a few cheerful insults, they did not waylay the pair, being far too wary of Pedrin’s slingshot.

  Both boys relaxed as they came near the town square, for a warm orange light was cast by lanterns strung high all along the square and the area was filled with people gathered at the inn to drink apple-ale. The mood was grim. Women clustered on the corners, talking in low voices, while the men glowered into their ale-mugs, too exhausted to talk much. Many a surly glance was cast across to the astronomer’s tower on its island in the centre of the lake. The crystal tower still glimmered as if it had caught the light of the day within its crystal heart and held it captive there.