The Starkin Crown

by Kate Forsyth

  Peregrine stepped up to his parents, gripping the mistletoe so sharply its barbed leaves cut into his palm.

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ he said. ‘Please, may I not stay with you?’

  His father answered wearily, ‘I know you’d rather stay, Peregrine, but we need to know you’re safe. You’re too precious to risk. You’ll leave for the Erlrune’s just as soon as we can get you out the door’.

  ‘Out the door, what a bore!’ Tom-Tit-Tot shrieked, swinging on the chandelier so wildly half the candles blew out.

  Peregrine’s protest was drowned by Grizelda, who flung herself down on her knees before the king, her candle spraying hot wax. ‘Please, your Majesty, let me go too! I beg of you! My brother thought you would flee the castle and take me with you. If I am found here, it will prove my brother a traitor and we will both be killed. Let me flee before they arrive’.

  King Merrik bent and raised her from the ground. ‘Very well. You must ride out before dawn’.

  ‘Before dawn, what a yawn,’ the omen-imp jeered.

  ‘Go and prepare,’ Queen Liliana said to Grizelda. ‘And wrap up warmly. It’ll be a cold, hard journey through the winter forest’.

  Grizelda nodded, excitement kindling in her cerulean-blue eyes. King Merrik detained her with a gesture. ‘I must warn you, Lady Grizelda, that you will be gagged and bound. If you make any attempt to draw the attention of the starkin, any sound or sign at all, you will be killed. My men will not hesitate for a second. Do you understand?’

  Grizelda nodded, white to her lips.

  CHAPTER 4

  Child of Storm

  ‘I’M SORRY, ROBIN, YOU HAVE TO GO,’ QUEEN LILIANA SAID, methodically packing a satchel with everything she thought her son might need. She trusted no-one else with the task, even though this was not the first time Peregrine had had to flee in the middle of the night. ‘You’ll be safe with Aunt Briony’.

  ‘Oh Mam, why? Why can’t I stay with you and Father? I haven’t seen you in months’. Peregrine sat cross-legged on his bed, sharpening his dagger. His mother’s old nursemaid, Stiga, padded softly back and forth from the wardrobe, bringing his mother what she thought might be required.

  ‘It’s too dangerous,’ Queen Liliana replied.

  ‘Then why are you staying?’

  Queen Liliana sat down next to him, drawing up her knees under her skirt so she could hug them close to her chest. ‘You know why, Robin’.

  Peregrine did know why. The best defence against fusillier fire was wind, to blow it back into the shooter’s face, or a deluge of rain to snuff out the flame. ‘If I could work weather magic, would you let me stay?’ he asked sullenly.

  She drew him close, kissing his forehead. ‘I’d still want to keep you safe’.

  ‘I’m not a little boy anymore,’ he protested.

  She sighed. ‘I know, darling. But your father and I will be better able to fight if we’re not worrying about you all the time’.

  ‘But I spent all summer at the Evenlinn, studying spell craft with Aunty Briony and war craft with Uncle Pedrin and court etiquette with Aunty Lisandre. When can I actually use all the stuff I have to learn?’

  Peregrine loved his great-aunt Briony, who was the guardian of the Well of Fates, a magical pool in which could be seen visions of the past, present and future. He loved her best friends, Pedrin and Lisandre, who had lived with her ever since their home, Estelliana Castle, had been seized by Vernisha’s soldiers. Pedrin and Lisandre had raised King Merrik while his own mother Mags had been busy leading the rebel forces in the long war for freedom from the starkin, and had adopted Peregrine as their own grandchild. Peregrine also loved the Erlrune’s old house on the shores of the Evenlinn, the vast lake which glimmered quietly in a secret valley deep in the mountains. However, he felt a deep frustration that he must always be sent away whenever danger threatened, instead of helping his poor, worn-out parents like he wished.

  ‘There’s so much you need to know,’ his mother replied, looking harassed. ‘And we are in the midst of a war, Robin. Your people are suffering cruelly. They are hurt and hungry and ill. There is no justice for them, no-one to protect them or keep them and their children safe. How can you be a good king to them if all you care about is having fun?’

  ‘It’s not all I care about!’ Peregrine said. ‘I’m not asking to stay because I want fun! I want to fight! I want to help you win this war. I know I can help. Just let me stay, Mam, please’.

  She held up one hand. ‘Don’t even try that with me, Robin. It’s not safe. You’re to go to the Erlrune’s’.

  ‘Could I go in search of the Storm King’s spear instead? Please, Mam! I’m sure I could find it. You know the Erlrune thinks I have the Gift of Finding. She has spent ever so much time teaching me how to find things that are lost, I’m sure she …’

  ‘It’s too dangerous,’ said his mother flatly.

  ‘Why? Why is it dangerous? I could go in disguise, no-one need know who I am. I could pretend to be a minstrel’. He picked up his flute, playing a few sweet notes.

  His mother took the flute away and laid it down again. ‘Vernisha thinks all minstrels are spies, and all pedlars and travelling scribes too. And you know what would happen if you played in a village square, or at a manor house. Every animal for miles would come galloping along to hear you play’.

  ‘Oh, Mam, they wouldn’t! Not anymore. I’ve got really good at calling them only when I want them’.

  ‘Really?’ His mother pointed at a corner of the room where two mice had crept out of a crack, their beady eyes fixed on him in wonder. Blitz moved restlessly on his perch, turning his hooded head towards the tiny sound their claws made on the stone.

  ‘Oh, blast it!’ Peregrine said, thumping his fist into the eiderdown. Then he grinned reluctantly. ‘I wasn’t really paying attention,’ he confessed. ‘Honestly, Mam, I can control it if I want to’.

  ‘So you say,’ she answered dryly, pointing now to a spider that had dropped down from the ceiling on a long thread and was dangling in front of Peregrine’s face. He swatted it away irritably.

  ‘Please, Mam! You know you always said I could go in search of the spear once I had come into my Gift. Well, I’m fifteen now, practically a grown man! And I could find the spear, I know I could. The prophecy says we shan’t be able to defeat the starkin until we have the spear’.

  His mother sighed and looked at him with worried eyes. Peregrine gazed back, willing her to say, ‘Yes! Of course you must go! Ride forth with my blessing, my son!’ After all, it was his mother who had sworn to find the lost spear of the Storm King when she was just his age, and who had told him so many tales about the spear that he could imagine exactly how it would feel in his hand.

  ‘A child of storm shall raise high the spear of thunder, and by the power of three, smite the throne of stars asunder,’ Stiga mumbled. She brought Queen Liliana a packet of needles, pins and coloured threads, then came to stand before Peregrine, patting his face with her tiny gnarled hands. ‘Child of storm, find the spear, it is time, do not fear’.

  ‘See, Mam, Stiga says it’s time’.

  Queen Liliana smiled wearily at the old woman who, murmuring the prophecy to herself again, went to the wardrobe and brought out Peregrine’s grey travelling cloak.

  ‘Robin, the spear was lost when your grandmother was very young. It was thrown into a bog and must’ve surely rotted away by now’. Queen Liliana took the cloak and checked its pockets, removing a handful of flints, a broken quill, some knucklebones and a wrinkled apple core that looked like it had been there for months. Holding it distastefully by the stem, she flicked it to the mice, who seized their bounty and disappeared.

  ‘But …’

  ‘No buts, Robin-boy’.

  ‘But, Mam, I have the Gift of Finding, just like your father did’. Peregrine jumped to his feet, seizing his mother’s arm pleadingly.

  ‘My father died looking for the Storm King’s spear and so did my mother, and the world is far m
ore dangerous now than it was then’. Queen Liliana gave his hand a pat and then hefted the bulging satchel in her hand. ‘It’s a bit heavy,’ she said anxiously. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to carry it?’

  ‘I’ve been carrying a travelling pack since I could crawl,’ he said impatiently, taking it from her and swinging it onto his shoulder. ‘Stop fussing, Mam’.

  ‘All right. I’m sorry. It’s just that I so hoped we’d have the winter together. I’ve hardly seen you in ages’.

  ‘That’s because you keep sending me to the Erlrune any time there’s a battle,’ Peregrine said, taking up his flute and tucking it safely inside his pocket. ‘If you’d let me stay and fight with you …’

  ‘If you were killed or captured, we’d lose everything’. Queen Liliana’s voice was drained and weary.

  Peregrine huffed out his breath. ‘All right, all right, I’ll go’. He slid his dagger into its tooled leather scabbard, and took up Blitz from his perch, the falcon’s bells chiming softly.

  ‘Blood is blood and duty is duty,’ his mother said. ‘Right now it’s your duty to keep yourself safe. Never forget that you are heir to two thrones, and so our only hope to bring peace to this poor land of ours’.

  ‘I said all right!’ A moment later he was sorry. He laid his cheek briefly against her shoulder, keeping his right arm still so as not to disturb the hooded bird. ‘I do understand, Mam. It’s just I wish—’

  ‘Don’t wish!’ Queen Liliana threw up her hand.

  ‘You’re afraid it’ll come true? That’s Aunty Rozalina’s Gift, not mine’.

  ‘Robin, we don’t yet know what Gifts you have. You’re always talking people into doing what you want, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all to know you’ve inherited the Tongue of Flame from her’.

  ‘Oh, that’s no Gift, Mam, that’s just my natural charm,’ he said cheekily.

  She sighed. ‘You know how much grief Rozalina’s Gift has brought. I just wish you to take care’.

  ‘Take care, child of storm, do you dare?’ Stiga said. ‘Find the spear, be of good cheer’. She brought Peregrine his longbow and quiver of arrows, and stared into his face intently.

  He thanked her absently, shouldering his bow and saying to his mother, ‘But Aunty Rozalina herself said the spear of thunder would be found, and so surely that means—’

  ‘Robin, my boy, please, can we just get through this battle? You’ll be safe with the Erlrune, she can teach you to control your Gifts, and then, maybe, when you’re older—’

  ‘Yeah, when I’m ninety’.

  ‘Please, Peregrine, don’t argue with me’.

  Peregrine, startled by the use of his real name, glanced at his mother in surprise. She had always called him Robin, ever since he was a newborn baby and far too small, she said, for a grand name like Peregrine.

  Queen Liliana looked close to tears. At once he was sorry again. He said so contritely, and she ruffled his hair and kissed him and said, ‘You’re the last of the Stormlinn, Robin. If you should die, the wildkin throne will be left without an heir, and all our hopes would perish. Remember, you alone carry “the blood of wise and wild, farseeing ones and starseeing ones”’.

  ‘I know, I know’.

  She said nothing more, going out the door in a rush and banging it shut behind her. Peregrine sighed.

  ‘She fears the lightning in your head,’ Stiga said.

  He frowned in response, staring at the still-quivering door.

  ‘No need to fear’.

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ he assured her, and he wasn’t. A secret escape through the dead of midwinter was far more exciting than having to study geography and cartography, and he loved galloping through snow. He only wished the quiet house of the Erlrune was not his destination.

  Peregrine pulled on his thick leather coat, lined with beaver fur, and caught up his heavy gloves and his beaver-fur hat. He already wore so many layers he felt like a swaddled baby, but he knew he would be glad of them once he was outside. Stiga brought him his travelling cloak, woven for him by the Erlrune, and then he followed her down the stairs, his falcon perched on his wrist.

  Peregrine thought about what his mother had said about his Gifts. What would it be like to have the Gift of Telling, like Queen Rozalina, so that every word he spoke had power beyond the ordinary weight of language? To have every wish, every curse, every prophecy he spoke come true? Queen Rozalina had told her stepmother, Princess Adora, that no child of hers would ever live to sit on the starkin throne, and that had come true. She had told her father, Prince Zander, that he would die by his own hand, and that had come true. She had told her grandfather, King Zabrak, that he would die on the day she was set free, and that also had come true. Peregrine felt a little superstitious shiver. No wonder Queen Rozalina was so quiet now. No wonder she was afraid to speak.

  It was Queen Rozalina’s wildkin mother, Shoshanna, who had first foretold that the throne of stars would be broken by the spear of thunder. To prove her wrong, and to assert his power over her, Prince Zander had taken the spear and thrown it in a bog, and taken Shoshanna in chains to the royal palace, where he had made her his concubine. Shoshanna had died there, giving birth to Rozalina, who had, in time, inherited her mother’s Gift of Telling and pronounced her own dire prediction.

  ‘This palace shall fall into desolation and none shall dwell here but owls and bats. The spear of thunder will be found and your throne shall be smote asunder. The rivers will run red and the sun shall turn black. Only when a blind boy can see and a lame girl walk on water shall peace come again to the land, and the rightful king win back the throne’.

  Was it a curse or a prophecy? Not even the Erlqueen knew. In the twenty-five years since, the royal palace had indeed fallen into ruin and the rivers of Ziva had run red with blood. Vernisha, Prince Zander’s cousin, had seized control and proved to be the most ruthless sovereign in starkin history.

  Seeing the devastation her words had caused, the Erlqueen had sworn never to curse again. She had become a quiet, gentle woman who spent her free time writing songs and stories that were sung and told in secret all over the land.

  Meanwhile, Peregrine’s parents searched out blind boys and lame girls in an attempt to help the final part of the prophecy come true. Some Queen Liliana had been able to heal; others were beyond help. Many had become healers themselves, or scribes in the library, or spinners and seamstresses in the royal service. One had been Jack’s father, his sense of smell and taste so acute after a lifetime without the ability to see that he was able to detect poison with a single sniff. Until someone had found an odourless, tasteless poison …

  Jack was waiting for them in the great hall, dressed for the bitter cold, a short sword and two daggers strapped to his waist. His pack was far larger and heavier than Peregrine’s, and he carried a shuttered lantern in one hand.

  King Merrik was standing before the fire, Queen Liliana beside him, her head against his shoulder. He looped an arm about her waist.

  ‘Why couldn’t they just let us have the winter to rest?’ she said bitterly. ‘Fight, fight, it’s all we ever do’.

  ‘It’s fight or die,’ King Merrik replied gently. ‘And we have achieved a lot in these past twenty-five years, you know we have. Don’t lose heart now, darling’.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ she whispered. ‘Do you think it’s wise to let this starkin girl ride out with Robin? What if it’s a trap?’

  ‘What could she do?’ Peregrine demanded. ‘She’s only a girl. I have my bow and arrows, and my dagger and my flute. And we’re safe here in the Perilous Forest, the wildkin would never let harm come to me’.

  ‘Stiga does not trust her,’ Queen Liliana said.

  ‘It took Stiga a long time to trust me too,’ King Merrik reminded her. ‘You know Stiga fears all those with starkin blood’.

  ‘Yes …’ Queen Liliana drew out the word, her dark brows knotted. She looked at Peregrine. ‘Be wary of her, Robin. We know nothing of what is in her heart. I fear she means
you harm’.

  ‘I’ll have the Merry Men to guard me, and Jack, and Blitz,’ Peregrine said buoyantly. ‘And we only have to get to the Erlrune’s. What could one slip of a girl do between here and the Evenlinn?’

  CHAPTER 5

  The Door to the Underworld

  GRIZELDA STARED HAUGHTILY AT THE HEALER. ‘I WILL NOT wear that ugly old thing. Take it away!’

  Palila stood resolutely, a heavy grey cloak draped over her arm. ‘You must wear it, my lady. It has spells of concealment and camouflage woven through it by the Erlrune. It will help hide you from watching eyes’.

  ‘It’s magic? You want me to wear a thing of magic? I shall not!’ Grizelda shuddered at the thought.

  ‘If you will not wear it, you cannot ride with the prince’.

  Grizelda eyed the old woman speculatively. She was only small, with a hunched back and hands so crooked and swollen she could not button Grizelda’s mantle. She had told Grizelda to button it herself, but when Grizelda refused she had had to call a serving-maid. She walked with such evident pain that Grizelda wondered she did not take to her bed and stay there.

  Yet there was strength there. Grizelda had no doubt Palila meant what she said. She bit her lip. Her skin crawled at the thought of allowing a thing of wildkin design to come anywhere near her body, but she had no intention of staying here at Stormlinn Castle, soon to be reduced to ashes and rubble. She had to stay with the prince.

  ‘Very well’. Palila turned to go.

  Grizelda flung up a hand. ‘Wait! I’m sorry. Of course I will wear it. I do not wish to bring danger to Prince Peregrine’.

  Palila turned back, her eyes steady on Grizelda’s face as she held out the cloak. The material shimmered slightly in the candlelight, like water in the grey light before sunrise.

  Grizelda took the proffered cloak, glad she was wearing her gauntlets so she did not have to actually touch the material with her bare hands. She draped it about her shoulders as gingerly as if it were a snake. ‘There. Satisfied?’ she said tartly.