The Starthorn Tree

by Kate Forsyth

  Briony had been playing cat’s cradle with her loop of string as she listened, her green-dark eyes often lifting to scan the forest all about them. Now her nimble fingers paused, and she said apprehensively, ‘Are we likely to meet with trouble?’

  Portentously the old man said, ‘Well, they don’t call this the Perilous Forest for naught, little missy. This is bandit country, this is. This stretch of river is the last port of call for the moon-cursers, for they hide their contraband in the caves in these cliffs. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re a-spying on us now, a-wondering what we do here and eyeing those pretty jewels young missy keeps a-flashing.’

  Lisandre glanced down at the rings on her fingers, then looked nervously at the forest towering high all around them. As she dragged the rings off her fingers and thrust them into the pocket of her cloak, Sedgely went on ruminatively, ‘And of course Old Tusky and his sow have their hide somewhere hereabouts. Their piglets will be just getting old enough to be mean, yet not so old that Old Tusky won’t still be feeling protective. You don’t want to arouse a gibberhog’s protective instincts, that I promise you!’ He tapped his beaky nose with one finger.

  Briony looked down at the spiderweb of string strung between her hands, her face unfathomable. Then she tucked it into her pinafore pocket and got to her feet with a sigh. ‘Well, we’d best get a-moving then, hadn’t we?’

  SEVENTEEN

  They gathered up their belongings rather hastily, all of them looking around with sudden quick fear. Thundercloud was leaping over the roots and boulders in his usual manic fashion when he unexpectedly paused, calling a challenge. Briony looked up, her ragdoll clutched to her chest, and Snowflake bleated unhappily. They heard a peculiar gibbering noise from the bushes behind them, then the crack-crack of twigs snapping and the crash-crash of branches smashing.

  ‘Jumping Jimjinny, what’s that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Briony admitted. ‘But I don’t like the sound of it.’

  ‘Old Tusky,’ Sedgely said succinctly and began to run. He moved with surprising speed and agility for such an old man. After a moment, the others ran too, but they were not fast enough. An enormous black boar charged out of the bushes, straight for them. Yellow tusks curved up from either side of a slobbery snout, their tips stained a horrible brown. His mean little piggy eyes glared red. He was as large and fast as a pony and much, much heavier, with enormous slabs of shoulders all covered in black bristles. He gibbered as he charged, dirty-looking foam spraying from his snout.

  Lisandre tripped on her voluminous skirts and fell, screaming in terror. Pedrin hesitated, then with a dreadful sinking sensation in his stomach, spun on his heel, his slingshot flying up. In a single fluid motion, he spun a pebble about his head and flung it straight for the gibberhog. Ping! It hit him right between the eyes.

  The boar did not even falter. The pebble spun harmlessly into the grass. Lisandre scrambled away, frantic with fear. Thundercloud bounded before her, his horns lowered, but the boar sent him head-over-heels into the bushes with a single swipe of his tusks. The billy-goat lay still, whimpering. Lisandre managed to regain her feet, only to trip again in her fear, hitting the ground hard. She cowered down with her hands over her head as Pedrin desperately pelted the boar with pebbles that he seemed to notice no more than the bite of a flea.

  Suddenly someone hung upside-down from the tree branch directly above Lisandre’s head, seizing her wrists and swinging her up and out of the boar’s way. The gibberhog charged right through her hanging red skirts, ripping them to shreds. For a moment he was blinded by the silken rags, and slowed, shaking his brutish head in confusion. Pedrin took advantage of his bewilderment to run and leap up into the tree himself, yelling at Durrik to follow.

  Durrik scrambled up onto the tree-roots just as the gibberhog shook away the last rags and spun on his little black hooves—incongruously dainty for such a colossal creature—looking angrily for his prey and gibbering with frustration. The boar saw Durrik and immediately charged once more, while the crippled boy struggled to climb the tree that Pedrin had scaled so quickly and easily. Pedrin reached down his hand and caught Durrik’s, trying to haul him up. Just as he thought the weight of his friend would drag him out of the tree, someone else reached down and added their strength to his. Durrik was dragged up into the branches, just as the boar slammed into the trunk of the tree.

  Panting, Durrik clung to the branch, the force of the impact almost knocking him down again. Below, the boar had been knocked off his feet. He lay for a moment, disorientated, shaking his tusked head and gibbering softly in pain and bewilderment. More foul foam splattered the grass. Then he was on his feet again, his little red eyes peering up at them, his snout snuffling as he sought their scent. He gibbered in triumphant joy at the sight or smell of them, they did not know which, and rose up on his hind legs, placing his forefeet on the tree-trunk. He shook the tree. Lisandre screamed as she almost fell, and wrapped both arms and legs tightly about her branch.

  ‘Jumping Jimjinny!’ Pedrin cried. ‘He means to shake us down as if we were hazelnuts! We’re trapped up here.’

  ‘We can swing away through the trees,’ an unfamiliar voice said. Pedrin cast a glance that way as the boar determinedly shook the tree once more. All he got was an impression of a very dirty, very freckled face under a shock of tangled hair before his attention was again firmly returned to the need to hang on tight. Leaves and twigs were raining down all about the boar as he shook and shook and shook the tree. Lisandre lost one handhold and almost fell but the ragamuffin stranger swung down one dirty hand and caught her under the shoulder, allowing her to grab the branch once more.

  The gibberhog gave up shaking the tree and prowled around its bole, sniffing and snuffling. He caught a new scent and began to gibber happily as he once again charged ahead, tusks low.

  ‘Oh, no, Briony!’ Lisandre cried, terror in her voice.

  Sedgely was crouched at the edge of the clearing, beckoning Briony urgently, but the little seamstress had stopped to bend over Thundercloud, who was shaking his horned head dazedly and struggling to rise. Bearing down upon her was the enormous boar, in full gibbering cry.

  All those in the tree shouted a warning and Briony looked up. Her face blanched. The children in the tree all hunched down, sick with horror, covering their eyes, expecting to hear Briony scream. Instead, they heard the gibbering strangled into high-pitched squeals. Silence. Cautiously they looked again.

  Briony stood unmoving, one hand still flung up, Snow-flake pressed close to her side. The huge black boar lay only a few paces in front of her, struggling and grunting under a large, intricately woven net. Despite all his squirming and struggling, he could not break free of the netting, which held him captive as surely as if it was woven of steel and not of string.

  ‘By the moon and the stars, how?’ Lisandre breathed.

  ‘Is that Briony’s hammock?’ asked Durrik. ‘But . . .’

  Filled with dread for his billy-goat, Pedrin jumped down from the tree. Lisandre followed in a rush, bringing a shower of leaves and bark with her. She landed clumsily on all fours. The ragamuffin girl laughed at her, saying, ‘Leeblimey, what a lubber!’ She swung from the branch by her knees, somersaulted down and landed lightly on her feet, giving Lisandre, still on all fours, a mocking bow.

  She was not very old, probably no more than thirteen, and very grubby indeed. Her tousled brown hair was full of knots and leaves, and her clothes were so torn and grimy it was impossible to tell what colour and shape they had been originally. Her legs and feet were bare and badly grazed about the knees, and she wore a little leather scabbard thrust through the cord she wore knotted about her waist.

  Lisandre flushed crimson and held up her hand imperiously for Pedrin, who once again found himself responding automatically to help her to her feet. Lisandre shook out the red rags of her skirt, looking the little ragamuffin up and down disdainfully. ‘Heavens, what a tatterdemalion.’

  Immediately the little
girl scowled, her hands clenching up into fists. ‘Tatter-doozit yourself, frog-face!’

  Lisandre stepped away with her nose in the air. ‘Pooh! What a reek! One would think soap had not yet been invented, so few in this forest seem to employ it.’

  ‘You’re not so sweet-smelling yourself, frog-face!’ The girl darted forward and plucked a mouldy black leaf out of Lisandre’s hair. ‘You’re just as dirty and tatty as me, so what gives you the right to look down your nose at me?’

  No-one could live in the forest for weeks and climb up trees, and grapple with a gibberhog, and not show the marks of it on their clothes and person. Lisandre was indeed a far different picture from the starkin princess they had first known. Her silken skirts were badly torn and stained, her dirty hair stuck up like a porcupine’s quills and her face was scratched, bruised and smeared with mud. She drew herself up like a princess, however, saying coldly, ‘How dare you speak thus to me, you ill-mannered guttersnipe! Do you not know I am one of the Ziv?’

  The little girl stuck out her tongue rudely. ‘And what if you are? Starkin scum! You lot should go back where you came from. Snooty stuck-up tyrants, you think you rule the whole leeblimey world!’

  ‘What’s all this?’ Briony said quietly, coming up beside them. ‘Where did she spring from?’

  ‘Out of the trees,’ Pedrin said, rather bemused. ‘I don’t know what she is, some sort of wildkin, I suppose? She swings about in the trees as nimbly as any wood-sprite.’

  ‘Wood-sprite!’ The ragamuffin stared at him furiously, then swung a punch that Pedrin only managed to avoid by scrambling backwards quickly. ‘I’ll sprite you, hayhead! I’m no wildkin, I’m a girl.’

  Pedrin was disappointed. ‘Oh, what a shame! I thought we might’ve found our second wildkin. For the prophecy, you know.’

  ‘Well, I’m no wildkin and I’ll thank you to remember it,’ the little girl said belligerently.

  Briony smiled at her. ‘What’s your name then?’

  ‘Maglen,’ she answered, her fists relaxing a little. ‘Though they call me Mags.’

  ‘A good name,’ Lisandre said disdainfully. ‘Mags-in-Rags, we’ll call you.’

  ‘And we’ll call you “frog-face”, frog-face,’ Mags flashed back, her hands doubling up into fists again.

  Pedrin remembered his billy-goat. ‘Thundercloud?’ he cried in alarm, scrambling across the tree-roots.

  ‘He’s got a nasty gash and is a bit shaken up,’ Briony said. ‘He should be all right, though, thank Imala. He’s a tough old goat.’

  Durrik flashed her a smile, appreciating the pun, but then his face suddenly changed as he perceived the gibberhog, still thrashing and jabbering under the net. ‘Liah’s eyes!’ he breathed. ‘Look at the size of that thing! Briony, where on earth did that net come from? ’Tis not your hammock—the weave is much tighter.’

  ‘’Tis me cat’s cradle,’ she answered.

  ‘But it was naught but a loop of string that you tangled about your fingers,’ Lisandre said in amazement. ‘How on earth?’

  ‘’Tis a little trick I know,’ Briony said. ‘It can be rather useful. Like the rope I made for you to climb down out of the castle, milady. I would’ve needed a room full of hemp to make a rope long enough to reach the ground from your room, but all I had was a little bobbin of thread. I had t’spin it very long and strong to support our weight, and I must admit I was worried it wouldn’t last until we had both set foot on the ground.’

  Lisandre looked at her indignantly. ‘You mean I climbed down from the castle on a rope spun out of just a bobbin of thread and you only tell me now?’

  ‘Well, you did insist I spin a rope for you,’ Briony said.

  ‘What about the hammock?’ Pedrin demanded. ‘Was that your cat’s cradle too?’

  She nodded, colouring and dropping her eyes.

  ‘You mean we slept all night in a hammock made from naught but an old bit of string?’ Pedrin was just as incensed as Lisandre had been.

  ‘I made it as strong as I could,’ she answered rather pleadingly. ‘And I wound the end tight around me finger. Me magic always lasts longer if I’m still touching it.’

  The word ‘magic’ dropped into the silence like a stone into a still pool. All the children stared at her in amazement and fear, though Sedgely was as placid as ever, taking out a long clay pipe and puffing away at something that smelt truly horrible. Lisandre took an involuntary step away, but the alarm on her face was not, this time, touched with revulsion. Pedrin felt a difference in his emotions too. His apprehension was not a little tempered by respect. As uncomfortable as he was with Briony’s strange powers, he had to admit they were very useful.

  Briony gave a troubled little sigh and bent to pick up her ragdoll, which she had dropped in the grass. ‘Come, let’s get a-moving while we can,’ she said. ‘That gibberhog doesn’t look happy, and I don’t know how long ‘twill be until me net turns back into just an old loop of string.’

  They stared down at the big black boar, rolling a red eye full of inarticulate rage.

  ‘I bet his piglets don’t pay much attention to him,’ Durrik said rather shakily.

  ‘Why? What do you mean?’ Mags said, poking the gibberhog with one grubby foot. He snorted, spraying yellow foam, and thrashed about furiously.

  ‘’Cause he’s a real boar,’ Durrik answered, grinning weakly.

  Mags stared at him and then went off into peals of delighted laughter. Her amusement was infectious and the others all laughed too, partly in heady relief at the danger being past. The gibberhog grunted angrily and heaved with all his strength against the confines of the net.

  ‘You’re such a ham, Durrik,’ Pedrin said with a grin. ‘I don’t think that pig much appreciates your sense of humour. Let’s get a-moving before he manages to get free.’

  ‘Yeah, I can’t see him giving up the chase easily. He looks real pig-headed, don’t he?’

  Again Mags laughed delightedly. Surprised, Durrik smiled back at her. He was not used to such warm-hearted appreciation of his puns. He picked up his little bundle and said to her, ‘So where did you spring from, anyway, Mags? What are you a-doing here in the heart of the Perilous Forest?’

  ‘I live here,’ she said. ‘What are you a-doing here?’

  ‘We’re a-heading up the cliffs right now,’ he answered gravely. ‘Hopefully old pig-face is as bad at climbing cliffs as he is at climbing trees. I’d be getting as far away from here as you can right now, before that net turns back into string.’

  ‘I might just climb up the cliffs too,’ she said. ‘I’ve always wanted to see what’s up there. I might as well go the whole hog . . .’ —she flashed him a wide, gap-toothed grin— ‘. . . and go on up. Me pa won’t think to follow me up there!’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ Lisandre said, rolling her eyes. ‘A runaway. Do you not think you should go home, little girl? I’m sure your family must be concerned for you.’ The cool ironic tone of her voice expressed, ever so subtly, her actual disbelief in her words.

  Mags fired up immediately. With clenched fists, she said, ‘Go home yourself, frog-face. I do what I want, I do, and no stuck-up starkin scum is a-going to tell me different.’

  ‘Well,’ said Lisandre, gathering up the torn rags of her skirt in one hand, ‘if you must tag along behind us, do, please, try and stay downwind?’

  EIGHTEEN

  If it had not been for the goats, the children might never have been able to clamber up the cliffs. Thundercloud led the way, leaping from boulder to boulder with incredible ease and assurance. He always managed to find a path, even when Pedrin himself was clinging to the cliff with all his fingers and toes, unable to see which way to move.

  The little nanny-goat, meanwhile, ran close by Durrik so that he could grip her collar when the way grew too hard and let her drag him higher. He found the climb very difficult, and had to stop often, clinging to the rocks, his breath wheezing in his throat, his face white under the grime.

  Of them all, Sedgely s
eemed to find the climb the easiest, though he leant heavily on his walking stick and complained often that he was far too old for such foolhardy exercise. When they finally reached the top of the cliff, though, it was the children who threw themselves on the ground, panting and groaning, and the old man who stood calmly, leaning on his stick and waiting for them.

  It was a different landscape above the cliffs. All about reared high hills, clothed in the dark green of tall trees and hanging vines, and wreathed with thin wisps of mist. The Evenlode pelted forward in white rushes of foam and spume, its progress hampered by ugly great boulders that thrust out of its midst, sending gushes of spray high into the air. Their ears were filled with the clamour of the river as it leapt out over the cliff and poured down to the valley below.

  Once they had recovered their breath, the children all rushed into excited speech, reviewing the climb and arguing about the best course of action now they were safe on the bluff.

  ‘Looks like rain,’ Sedgely said despondently. ‘If I were you, I’d be a-looking for somewhere dry to shelter. Unless, of course, you don’t mind a-getting wet.’

  This time the children believed him. Looking up at the sky in consternation, they saw dark clouds pouring down over the shoulders of the grim grey mountains. There was a low rumble of thunder.

  ‘But it was so bright and sunny this morning,’ Lisandre cried. ‘Who would’ve believed a storm could roll in so quickly?’

  Sedgely shook his head. ‘I did warn you,’ he said sadly.

  ‘We’d better try to find a cave or summat,’ Pedrin said uncertainly, looking around.

  ‘No caves hereabouts,’ Sedgely said. ‘Plenty of caves in the cliff we could’ve sheltered in, but you wouldn’t listen to me.’