The Starkin Crown
Page 12
‘Sometimes’.
‘They can track our scent?’
‘They are bred for their noses,’ she replied coolly.
Jack’s eyes moved from face to face as he began to realise what Peregrine meant. ‘You mean, those dogs belong to your brother! They’ve been tracking our scent all the way? But … it was snowing … the wind was howling …’ His voice was sharp with indignation.
‘Sleuth hounds were bred to track over snow,’ Peregrine said. ‘Whoever thought all those geography lessons would prove useful? I remember reading that they can track a scent that is a week old. Only they need to know the scent to track it’.
Jack stared at him, then looked accusingly at Grizelda. She stared back at them, wide-eyed. ‘You think I …’
Peregrine nodded. ‘I do. You may not have known it, though. I guess the hunter only needed a piece of your clothing—’
‘And my bet is she has lots to choose from!’ Jack said.
‘And maybe the hunter wouldn’t even need that. Grizelda’s dog has marked our path every step of the way’. All three looked at the yellow stain in the snow under the tree. Peregrine went on, ‘Remember how she told the dog to piddle when we got out of the secret passage? Even though she was blindfolded and gagged?’
‘She wiggled her finger,’ Jack said.
‘Oskar had not been allowed to relieve himself for hours,’ Grizelda said furiously. ‘It would have been cruel not to give him permission’.
‘He piddled against the door to the secret passage,’ Peregrine said. ‘And now I’m terribly afraid that is how the castle was taken. The secret entrance discovered and tunnelled through, my family attacked as they slept’.
‘No,’ Grizelda cried. ‘I swear—’
‘If I find out that was how the castle fell …’ Peregrine could not speak for the bitter rage that filled him.
Grizelda flung herself on her knees before him, grasping at his hand. ‘Robin, I swear it’s not true. I haven’t betrayed you. I’m sorry, I never thought that allowing Oskar to pee would endanger your family. I’m sure it has nothing to do with it!’
Peregrine frowned down at her, then looked questioningly at Jack. His squire shrugged.
‘I know you are angry and upset, but you must believe me, I had nothing to do with the attack on your parents. I risked my life to warn you!’ Grizelda’s voice rang with sincerity.
Peregrine stood up abruptly. ‘Let’s ride on. I feel we don’t have much time left to us’.
‘But don’t you believe me?’ she begged.
‘I don’t know what to believe,’ he answered wearily.
They rode on through the forest, following the long green tunnel that was all that was left of the old road. It led them down, down, down, through the slanting lines of sunlight that flickered over Peregrine’s face. Flicker, flicker, flicker. He felt his head jerk forward, a spasm in his throat. He could not breathe. He cried out involuntarily, and then the world spun. He fell.
Dizzy, winded, he lay on the ground. Sable’s velvet-soft nose nudged him questioningly. He heard Jack’s boots hit the ground and run towards him.
‘What kind of prince is he, if all he can do is fall off his horse?’ Grizelda cried angrily.
Jack knelt beside him, cradling his head. ‘The best of all princes! The kindest, the bravest …’ He bent over Peregrine. ‘It’s all right, sir. You’re just tired. You haven’t eaten. Didn’t I promise the king you’d eat? And I should’ve made sure you had your harness on. Are you hurt? Where does it hurt? Come on, let’s make camp. You need to rest and have your medicine’.
Peregrine closed his eyes and did not answer.
CHAPTER 14
Into the Bog
AS SOON AS IT WAS DUSK, JACK WOKE PEREGRINE AND Grizelda so that they could ride on.
Peregrine refused to wear the harness, no matter how much Jack begged him. ‘I will not fall again,’ he said through his teeth. Jack could do nothing but hope he was right.
They trotted as fast as they dared through the forest, following the faint glimmer of the river under a night of bright stars. His prince had said, with a wry smile, that the river would lead them straight to the marshes of Ardian.
‘To think that I complained at being made to learn the course of every river in Ziva,’ Peregrine said. ‘If I could, I’d shake Sir Medwin by the hand and thank him from the bottom of my heart’. The words made him feel terrible sorrow, remembering the way his tutor and all his bodyguards had died, and he sank into melancholy.
Searching for somewhere to hide in the grey light before dawn, they found a blackened and scorched ruin in which lay the charred skeletons of more than a dozen people, some no larger than children. Peregrine was so overcome with grief and anger that Jack feared he would suffer an attack of the falling sickness again. The prince galloped on, however, his face pale and set, with no sign of the dizziness that normally accompanied an attack.
Grizelda was pale, too, and unusually silent. She did not complain when Peregrine pushed on, even though the sun was rising and the smoke was beginning to uncurl from the chimneys of the cottages nearby. She did not even complain when Jack made her tuck all her hair up inside the hood of her cloak.
All she said was, ‘I cannot help it if my hair shines, Jack. Do you think I am blonde on purpose?’
‘Just keep your hood up,’ Jack responded.
Several times over the course of that day, spearheads of sisika birds flew low overhead. Each time, Jack drew the two horses in under the cover of a tree, keeping a close grip on Argent’s bridle so that she would not neigh and draw attention to them. Grizelda made no protest, nor any attempt to signal the starkin soldiers. She just watched them fly over, her face expressionless. At last they found refuge in a ruined barn, its walls blackened with fire, and then rode on again after a few hours’ sleep.
Twilight darkened into night. It was so still and quiet, Peregrine could hear clearly the soft sound of the horses’ hooves clopping. He felt an unbearable tension, sure they were still being followed. He dismounted and swaddled Sable’s hooves with cloth, and made Grizelda and Jack do the same. Blitz crouched on his perch, shifting from foot to foot. It had been days since he had last been unhooded and let fly, and he was restive and unhappy and tired of old, bloodless meat. Mounting again, Peregrine stroked his falcon’s back and tucked Blitz under his cloak, close to his heart, comforting him.
When dawn came, the world was swathed in mist. Peregrine did not search for shelter but rode on, listening for hoof beats behind him. Far away a sisika bird screeched. Peregrine’s stomach lurched.
‘Let’s hurry,’ he ordered.
‘But the fog … we cannot see where we’re going,’ Grizelda protested.
‘Follow the path!’ Peregrine spurred Sable forward, letting him have his head; Jack and Grizelda followed close behind.
By midmorning, the mist had burnt away and they saw the fenlands unrolling before them. The sky seemed huge above them, the land so flat the horizon seemed to curve slightly. As far as Peregrine could see were patches of murky water, fringed by thick beds of rushes and sedges that rustled constantly in the wind. Occasionally willows dangled their bare branches down to the water, or there was a low hill where a few disconsolate-looking trees stood, rattling their twigs.
To the right was a spread of velvety green moss, the only colour in all the grey and dun landscape. There was little snow on the ground, though frost rimed the edges of the water that lapped sluggishly at the reedy banks.
‘Now what do we do?’ Grizelda said.
‘I’ll call someone to come and guide us through,’ Peregrine said. He dismounted, leaving Sable to graze, and sat down cross-legged at the water’s edge. He listened, glad to hear birdsong again for the first time in days. After a while, Peregrine drew out his flute and began to play a haunting tune, weaving into it all the sounds of the marshes—the wind in the rushes, the slow lap of the water, the monotonous zrip, zrip, zrip of the little birds in the reeds.
From somewhere deep in the marshes came a strange, deep sound, like an ox lowing. Grizelda gave a startled cry, which sent the birds flying up and the mice scurrying away. Peregrine glanced at her quellingly and mimicked the sound. It came again, closer, and once again Peregrine answered.
The rushes parted and a man stepped out. He was skinny and long-limbed, dressed in mud-coloured clothes with a broad-brimmed hat of plaited rushes on his head. He wore a cape of some thin, sleek leather pinned at one shoulder with an unusual wooden brooch, cunningly carved in the shape of a long-beaked bird.
‘Who is it who calls?’ he asked in a low voice, looking suspiciously up and down the edge of the marshes.
‘I am Prince Peregrine of the Stormlinn,’ Peregrine replied. ‘Will you please take us to Lord Percival?’
The man stared at them in surprise. ‘Jumping Jimjinny! Are you tomfooling me?’ He pushed back his hat to scratch his bushy grey hair.
A drumming sound came from behind them. Sable lifted his head and whickered softly. Peregrine glanced back and saw the grey hunter galloping towards them, his two great hounds loping at his heels. Behind him ran a whole battalion of soldiers, halberds thrust out.
‘This is no trick! Please, we need to go now!’ Peregrine unhooded Blitz and flung him up into the air, and the falcon soared high, uttering his sharp call. One of the soldiers fired an arrow at him, but Blitz wheeled and soared away over the marshes.
The man beckoned them urgently. ‘Quick, now! You’ll have to leave the horses, we can’t take them in the marsh’.
Peregrine stared at him in consternation, then looked at his stallion with agony in his heart. ‘Sable! I’ll come back for you, I promise!’
‘I’m not leaving Argent!’ Grizelda cried.
‘Then don’t. Stay here and say hello to your brother’s soldiers,’ Jack said, slipping down from Snapdragon’s back and giving his horse a loving farewell pat. The drumming of hooves came closer and closer.
‘Halt!’ the hunter commanded. ‘In the name of Queen Vernisha, I order you to halt!’
‘Quick! This way!’ The man slithered back through the rushes. Peregrine was a few steps behind him. Jack swung his pack on his back and hurried after them. There were a few rough tufts of grass, making a kind of path through the rushes. Jack’s foot slipped to the side and splashed into the water. It was icy cold.
‘Come on!’ Peregrine shouted, looking over his shoulder. Jack glanced backwards. Grizelda was hesitating, gazing at the galloping hunter and the phalanx of soldiers running full tilt towards them.
‘Halt!’ the hunter called again and raised high his bow, an arrow notched to his string.
‘Grizelda, we cannot stay,’ Peregrine said. ‘Come with us now, else we must leave you’.
The hunter let loose an arrow. Jack ducked and the arrow sang over his head and straight through the fen-man’s hat, knocking it off his head. ‘Jumping Jimjinny!’ The fen-man dove forward and out of sight. Jack leapt after him, seizing Peregrine’s arm and dragging him away.
‘Grizelda!’ he cried.
‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ Jack said and propelled Peregrine forward. He heard another arrow being released and knocked Peregrine to the ground. The arrow whined overhead and clattered into the rushes. Together Jack and Peregrine crawled forward, seeing the fen-man beckon to them from a thicket of birches, their thin white trunks and bare branches shivering in the wind.
Grizelda dropped Argent’s reins and ran to join them, slipping in the mud and falling. She scrambled to her feet and ran on, leaping from tuft to tuft, smashing aside the reeds with her hands. Oskar followed close at her heels, his tail between his legs, his ears raised anxiously.
Sable whinnied shrilly and kicked up his heels, galloping away as the hunter reached the edge of the water. The hunter did not pause but whipped his horse on. His grey gelding reared, whinnying in distress, but cruelly he forced it on, over the stretch of verdant moss and straight towards the small islet where Peregrine and Jack crouched in the long yellowish grasses. Jack’s heart was hammering so hard he felt it would break free of the cage of his ribs. He kept one arm about Peregrine’s back, trying to guard him as they slithered to where the fen-man crouched. He was watching the hunter with an oddly smug expression on his face.
‘Bog’ll get him,’ he said.
Jack looked back. The hunter’s gelding took only a stride or two before it began to sink rapidly. Within seconds it was up to its withers in black mud. It screamed in terror and struggled, but only plunged deeper into the bog. The rider cursed aloud and dragged one leg free. On the bank, his two great sleuth hounds whined and ran back and forth. The hunter managed, with a wrench, to drag his other leg free with a dreadful sucking sound. He knelt on his horse’s saddle and leapt for the bank. The motion pushed his horse deeper into the bog. Only its head, its eyes rolling in terror, was still lifted above the bog. It took a few more agonising seconds for it to be sucked under.
The hunter, meanwhile, landed near the bank, his torso flat on the surface of the bog, his legs trailing behind him. He grasped frantically at the reeds, which snapped in his hands. Again and again he grasped, kicking furiously with his legs and hauling the broken reeds to his chest to give him some purchase. At last he was able to crawl out onto solid ground, caked in mud to his ears.
The fen-man slithered away through the rushes, following a faint, crooked path. More patches of velvety moss spread out on either side, edged with sedges and reeds and stretches of frost-rimed water. Jack and Peregrine crept after him on their hands and knees, their noses filled with the stench of rotting plants. Grizelda followed, her dress black with mud. She was gasping with tears. ‘Poor horse,’ she whispered. ‘That poor, poor horse’.
‘Shhh,’ the fen-man hissed.
The path twisted and meandered, taking them back towards the bank. They all crept as slowly and carefully as they could, trying to copy the fen-man who moved so slowly and quietly that not a reed rustled.
They could hear the hunter cursing. Jack opened his eyes wide and grinned at Peregrine. He had never heard such imprecations.
Quietly the fen-man crept forward, and the three companions followed. Soon their whole bodies were plastered in mud, their limbs trembling with the cold and the strain.
‘That was close,’ Jack whispered, once the voices of the soldiers had dropped behind. ‘I had not realised the hunter was so hard on our heels’.
‘I knew,’ Peregrine said. ‘I felt him. I thought he would come when I called’.
‘You called him?’ Jack was incredulous.
‘Not on purpose,’ Peregrine protested. ‘I don’t know yet how to call only one thing or person. Aunty Briony is always telling me I need to learn control, but the lessons are so boring! You just sit there and try to think of only one thing at a time, and I can never do it’.
‘But wasn’t it rather a risk?’ Grizelda said shakily.
‘Well, yes,’ Peregrine said, ‘but so was sitting there on the bank waiting for someone to notice us!’
‘Shhh,’ the fen-man hissed again and they fell silent once more.
The path wound on, and at last led them to another tiny islet, crowned with birches. A long, flat-bottomed boat was pushed in among the reeds. The fen-man lay quietly for a long time, watching the sky and the shore. When he was satisfied they were unobserved, he wriggled into the punt and beckoned the others to follow. Jack did so gratefully. He was damp and cold and weary to his very bones, and one look at Peregrine’s white face showed him his prince was even worse for wear.
An oddly shaped basket woven of rushes lay on the bottom of the punt, filled with sluggish
ly roiling eels. Jack was careful to keep away from them, sure they must bite. Grizelda made a face of disgust and clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘They stink!’ she said.
‘So do you,’ Jack retorted.
She cast a rueful glance down at her filthy, bedraggled clothes and then shrugged. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a bath!’
‘Why did you come with us?’ he demanded. ‘You could be back at your luxurious castle right now, having a bath and a decent meal!’
She bit her lip. ‘I don’t know,’ she said after a while. ‘I guess I wanted to see it all through’.
Jack nodded in grudging respect and sat down, drawing the hood of his cloak over his face to shield his eyes from the sun, slipping towards the horizon.
CHAPTER 15
The Marsh King
HOURS PASSED. PEREGRINE SWAYED IN AND OUT OF SLEEP, the insistent whining of innumerable tiny midges in his ears keeping him from a deeper repose. Every few seconds came the sound of a slap, or a moan of irritation.
Occasionally a long stretch of water would open up on one side or another, but their guide kept close to the shelter of the reeds, crouching in the prow and poling the boat forward.
‘Where are we going?’ Peregrine asked, and some time later, ‘Are we almost there?’
‘Shhh,’ was the only answer.
Then came the deep, booming cry that had so startled them earlier. Their guide sat up straight and blew on a wooden whistle that hung on a leather thong about his neck. The same eerie sound thundered out, so that Grizelda jerked and shrank down, hands over her ears.
‘A-ha’, Peregrine murmured. ‘I wondered if that was it’.
‘What?’ Jack whispered.
‘The secret signal,’ Peregrine whispered back.
‘Shhh!’ their guide hissed.
The punt slid out of the rushes and onto the hazy waters of a lake. An island floated ahead, wreathed in mist. Willows trailed their bare branches in the water, and Peregrine recognised the shape of chestnut trees, and the tall spires of poplars. The top of a round grey tower could be seen above the brown tracery of branches, and he could smell the tang of smoke in the air.