The Starkin Crown

by Kate Forsyth

  Lord Goldwin frowned and gestured to a servant, who brought forward a platter of marchpane, formed into fanciful shapes and gilded.

  She selected a piece shaped like a fire-breathing grogoyle and crammed it into her mouth. ‘Mmmm-mmm,’ she mumbled. ‘Delicious!’ She swallowed it down and licked her fingers.

  ‘Look, our guests have arrived! Don’t they look fine? Not so high and mighty now’. She sniggered, and the crowd all laughed. They were as richly and extravagantly dressed as the pretender-queen, so perfumed and painted and jewelled it was hard to tell what their real faces would look like.

  ‘Well, tomorrow is Twelfth Night and the end of that ridiculous, outdated period of peace. I must thank my darling Lord Goldwin, though, for really it’s been much more entertaining keeping you alive a few more days. I’ve had time to refine my plans too. Burning you at the stake was much too quick!’

  She selected another piece of marchpane, this time shaped like a jester with donkey’s ears. She broke off the head and offered it to the pug dog, who wolfed it down, the stump of his tail wagging happily.

  ‘Now, I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. I know you must all be dying to know what I’ve got planned’. She sniggered again and the crowd tittered.

  ‘Firstly, our not-so-lovely ladies. Both of them witches as well as traitors. The one who kills our brave men by the merest touch of her finger will have both her hands hacked off and the stumps left to bleed freely. If she still lives after seven days, she’ll be weighted with stones and flung in the moat for the pikes to chew on’.

  Despite herself, Liliana’s breath caught. She tried to clench her fists but was unable to move her numb hands inside the heavy iron gauntlets.

  ‘Now, what can I do to you, my dearest Rozalina? I’ve thought about this long and hard, I promise you. I don’t mind you cursing my poor uncle so much. After all, I’d long wanted him dead. And if you hadn’t cursed him, I wouldn’t be queen now, would I? But my poor, dear daughter. You told her all her children would die, and now I haven’t a single grandchild to dandle on my knee and comfort me in my old age. That I find hard to forgive’.

  Vernisha’s hand reached out, hovered over the bowl of sweetmeats and selected a lump of marchpane that had been shaped into the figure of a queen with a wreath of flowers on her head. Vernisha contemplated the marchpane figure through narrowed eyes, then swiftly bit off its head. She munched with evident enjoyment, then licked her lips.

  ‘So, Rozalina, you’ll have your tongue nailed to the pillory for six days and six nights, one for each of my dead grandchildren, and then it’ll be torn from your mouth. If you survive, you’ll be put to work cleaning out the cesspits at my palace. After all, you are my step-granddaughter, people might talk if I was to have you killed’.

  Rozalina’s eyes were filled with horror, but she lifted her shorn head proudly.

  ‘Vernisha, what law gives you the right to pass judgement on the Erlqueen of the Stormlinn, or on my queen-consort?’ King Merrik asked. ‘You have no right to sit on that throne or wear that crown. You are a tyrant and a dictator. Are there no laws in this land to stop such unjust cruelty? By the truth, I swear—’ The hilt of a halberd slammed into the pit of his stomach, and King Merrik bent over, gasping and choking with pain.

  ‘As for you, Merrik Bellringer, son of the brigand and rebel leader known as the Hag, you will be hanged by the neck until you are almost dead, then you will be cut down and disembowelled, and your guts burnt on a brazier before your very eyes. Then a horse shall be tied to each of your four limbs and whipped till they tear you in quarters. Your head will be impaled above the palace gates for the crows to peck at, and the rest of you tossed to the city dogs. The same shall be done to you, Zedrin ziv Estaria, for you have betrayed those of your kind’.

  Liliana felt the ground swaying beneath her feet. Her legs trembled and gave way. She fell to her knees, bile rising sharply in her throat. Rozalina knelt beside her, supporting her.

  King Merrik was very white but he kept his gaze on Vernisha’s bloated face. ‘I warn you, Vernisha, that all you do in this life shall be returned to you threefold. By the power of three, let it be’.

  Vernisha’s face turned purple as a plum. ‘Take them away! The sentences shall be carried out tomorrow, at sunset, when the twelve days of Yuletide are finally over! And, somebody, bring me some more marchpane! Pugsie-Wugsie and I are hungry!’

  Liliana managed to stand up. Exerting all her strength of will, she straightened her back and lifted her head high. She could not see the seething crowd of courtiers for the tears in her eyes, but she walked out, her arms linked with those of her cousin and her husband.

  If only I knew that Robin was safe, she thought. Please, let him be safe!

  CHAPTER 23

  Blind Boy

  PEREGRINE CROUCHED IN THE DARKNESS, UNABLE TO HEAR anything except the uneven pant of his own breath and a strange, unsteady whooshing in his ears. He groped with his hands, trying to orientate himself.

  ‘Jack?’ he cried again. Nobody answered.

  From behind him came the sound of splashing, like someone running towards him through the water. Peregrine drew his dagger. The hiss of metal on metal seemed very loud. He kept the dagger close to his side and turned towards the sound, trying to judge what was racing towards him.

  ‘Your Highness, what happened?’ Molly’s voice cried. ‘Oh, leeblimey! Your face … Oh, no, Jack!’ Uneven footsteps ran past him and he heard Molly fling herself down on her knees, her breath catching on a sob.

  ‘Molly,’ he said rapidly. ‘What’s happened? Where’s Grizelda?’ He stumbled towards the sound of her voice and almost fell over something in his path. He reached down and felt fur, bone, blood. He snatched his hand away.

  ‘Wait, your Highness. Jack! The dog attacked him. He killed it. Leeblimey, I’ve never seen so much blood’. Her voice shook.

  Peregrine crawled past the dog and bumped into Molly, who was on her knees. He squatted down beside her. Reaching out, he felt Jack lying huddled on the ground. The skin of his face was slick and sticky. Peregrine’s stomach twisted. It was hard to breathe. Then Jack moaned and moved slightly.

  ‘He’s still alive,’ Peregrine said in a hoarse and shaky voice.

  ‘I have my shawl over the wound in his neck’. Molly’s voice was not much stronger.

  ‘How … how bad is it?’

  ‘It won’t stop a-bleeding’. Molly sounded close to tears.

  ‘What … what happened?’

  ‘Grizelda tried to poison me’. Peregrine’s voice gave out. He bent and laid his face against Jack’s. ‘I wasn’t going to drink it, you idiot! How could you think I’d be so stupid?’ Tears dampened his skin.

  ‘We have to help him’.

  ‘I can’t see,’ Peregrine said. ‘The poison splashed in my eyes, I’m blind’.

  ‘Here, put your hands here. Push down on my shawl, try to stop the bleeding. I’ll fetch water to wash your eyes with’.

  Peregrine did as he was told, pushing down on the sodden mess of her shawl, listening to her as she hurried, limping, to the well. She flung down her crutch and lowered the pot on its rope and then dragged it up again, the iron scraping against stone. She limped back, water splashing as she stumbled on the shingle. It was strange how clear all her movements were to him, when he could not see, only hear.

  ‘Bend your head back,’ she whispered. He felt cold water flowing over his face, wetting his hair and his collar. The pain in his eyes lessened. She gently wiped his face with her sleeve. ‘Is that better?’

  He opened his eyes, but all was a blur. ‘I still can’t see! I’m blind’. The words of Queen Rozalina’s prophecy came back to him: Only when a blind boy can see …

  He cried out in anguish.

  ‘It’s all right, it’ll pass,’ Molly said rapidly. ‘We’ll keep on washing your eyes, it’ll be all right. Just stay there, keep your hands on Jack. I need to do what I can for him’.

  He heard her une
ven footsteps running this way and that, and then the sound of her petticoats being torn. Then she came and took hold of his hands, lifting them gently while she eased the sodden shawl away. She drew in her breath in a gasp, but was quick to replace the shawl with a pad of petticoat which she bound tight to the wound.

  ‘I’ve made him a bed of your cloaks,’ she whispered. ‘Help me lift him’.

  Together they managed to lift Jack. He moaned in pain. Peregrine felt in his pocket for the sprig of mistletoe and tucked it into Jack’s pocket. ‘It may help,’ he said. ‘It’s meant to help heal wounds’.

  ‘It’s a very bad wound’. Molly’s voice trembled.

  ‘Do you think—?’

  ‘I don’t know! I hope not! Oh, if only we were home, we could call the Crafty to come and heal him’.

  ‘If only my mam were here, she’d heal him in a trice’. Peregrine pressed both hands to his hot, throbbing eyes, tears choking him.

  ‘We can’t even take him back to the Isle of Eels—Grizelda took the boat’.

  ‘Grizelda took the boat?’ Peregrine repeated, unable even now to understand all that had happened.

  ‘I was a-coming back from the boat with the scraw-cutter when she ran past. She just about shoved me over. I heard her pull the anchor up but I was a-coming as fast as I could to see what had happened to you and Jack. I should’ve tried to stop her’.

  ‘She might’ve tried to kill you too’. Just saying the words shook Peregrine again. He gulped a breath.

  ‘But why? Why did she try to poison you?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Peregrine dropped his head into his hands. His eyes felt sore and hot and inflamed. His head ached, and he felt dazed and bewildered. Everything had happened so fast. ‘I need my eyes! I can’t find the spear if I’m blind. If I had the spear, I could heal Jack and I could find some way to get us away from here. But I’m blind, I’m blind!’

  ‘Shh,’ Molly said. ‘Let me wash your eyes again. There’s nothing more we can do for Jack now’.

  She brought more water and sat behind him, drawing him back to lean against her legs and gently pouring water over his eyes. He submitted gratefully, the icy water easing his pain. For a long time they were silent. The only noise Peregrine could hear was the lap, lap, lap of the water on the shale, the rattle of branches in the cold wind, the chime of the falcon’s bells, Molly’s soft breathing, and the occasional low moan from Jack.

  ‘She wanted me to marry her,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ Molly jerked, slopping the water.

  ‘I think that’s what she meant. She kept hinting about alliances, and how a marriage with a starkin would appease the starkin lords, that sort of thing’.

  Molly muttered something under her breath.

  ‘I basically told her that I wasn’t interested and that was when she brought out the mead. I mean, how odd was that? She had fine goblets with her, in her saddle pack, and a bottle of your mead!’

  ‘So the mead was poisoned?’ Molly’s voice was indignant.

  ‘It must’ve been. Except she drank it. She drank half a glass while trying to make me drink’.

  ‘Maybe she just put the poison in your cup’.

  ‘But we searched her and all her luggage at Stormlinn Castle. I mean, Stiga said … Stiga said she had venom in her hand and venom in her heart …’ Peregrine could not go on, his eyes burning now with tears.

  Molly stroked his hair from his brow, waiting for his breath to steady. After a moment she said, ‘When we took over the Castle of Ardian, we found a collection of curious things in the count’s dressing-room. One of them was a ring that unlatched to show a secret compartment. It had some kind of powder in it’.

  ‘A poison ring! Of course, I’ve read about them. She was always twisting that big ring of hers on her finger. She must’ve added the poison while I wasn’t looking’. Peregrine was disgusted with himself.

  ‘It’d only take a second,’ Molly consoled him.

  ‘But why? I still can’t understand why. She was the one who warned us about the ambush, she fled the castle with us, we’ve been travelling together for almost two weeks …’

  ‘Perhaps she was playing a double game,’ Molly said.

  Peregrine nodded his head thoughtfully. His shock and distress was beginning to ebb, and the cold water was soothing his burning eyes. ‘Yes. That makes sense. Really, she had nothing to lose from warning us of the ambush but she gained a lot’.

  ‘She got into the castle, learnt all your plans, earned your trust,’ Molly said.

  ‘She was able to mark the entrance to the secret passage so the soldiers could creep in at night and take my parents by surprise,’ he said bitterly. ‘And then once we fled the castle, she made sure we left a trail so her hunter friend could follow her the whole way. She must have intended to lead him straight to the Erlrune’.

  ‘She must’ve been furious when you went the other way,’ Molly said with a faint smile.

  ‘She was! She had a full-blown temper tantrum’.

  ‘So why did she stick with you?’

  ‘She was still playing her double game. What would happen if I did find the spear and my father won back his throne? Vernisha would be out of power, and all her supporters with her. But Grizelda and her brother would be the only ones with a foot in our camp. We’d be grateful, we’d reward them. Yet if I failed, they’d lose nothing because her brother was still with Vernisha, no doubt feeding her all the information that Grizelda managed to winkle out of me’.

  ‘She was clever,’ Molly said begrudgingly.

  ‘What am I to do, what am I to do?’ Peregrine beat his forehead with his hands.

  Molly caught his hands, holding them both in hers. ‘You need to find the spear’.

  ‘But I’m blind! How can I find it when I can’t see?’ Even as he spoke, Peregrine heard the echo of words in his mind. He remembered the prophecy, spoken long ago by his own grandfather, Durrik the Seer, when he had been a boy much the same age as Peregrine was now.

  Though he must be lost before he can find,

  though, before he sees, he must be blind,

  if he can find and if he can see,

  the true king of all he shall be.

  Peregrine drew in a deep, slow breath. He had often puzzled over those words, asking his mother, ‘What does it mean?’ Each time she had shrugged and said, ‘The words of a Teller seem obscure but they always tell truth. Perhaps it just means that the third child of the prophecy will not understand the nature of his destiny for a long time. Perhaps it means he will grow from a blind, newborn babe to a man before he finds his way. Maybe it means that he will be blinded by love or by fear, and must learn to see clearly. I don’t know what it means, Robin, but I’m sure we will understand it one day. And you know we are always looking out for blind boys, for one appears in Rozalina’s prophecy too, as you know’.

  ‘But aren’t I the third child of the prophecy?’ Peregrine had demanded. ‘You and Aunty Rozie always say I am’.

  Liliana had paused a while before answering. ‘I think you are, Robin,’ she said. ‘I wish that you weren’t, I fear what it might mean. But you are the only one who has wildkin and starkin and hearthkin blood in him, at least that we know about’.

  Peregrine had not been afraid. He had been eager to be the one to smite the throne of stars asunder, to win back the throne. His mother had drawn him against her knee, ruffled his hair and said, ‘You should be afraid, Robin. It’s a terrible thing to have the weight of destiny bearing down on you’.

  But Peregrine had only laughed.

  ‘I’m the blind boy,’ he said to Molly now, in a strange, choked voice. ‘I’ve known the prophecy all my life but not once did it occur to me that I’d be the blind boy’.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, sounding frightened.

  He sat up and twisted around as if to look at Molly, but then remembered he was blind and slumped back against her bent legs. She stroked his wet hair back from his forehead with
her hands.

  ‘Long, long ago, my grandfather spoke a prophecy. He said:

  Three times a babe shall be born,

  between star-crowned and iron-bound.

  First, the sower of seeds, the soothsayer,

  though lame, he must travel far.

  Next shall be the king-breaker, the king-maker,

  though broken himself he shall be.

  Last, the smallest and the greatest—

  in him, the blood of wise and wild,

  farseeing ones and starseeing ones.

  Though he must be lost before he can find,

  though, before he sees, he must be blind,

  if he can find and if he can see,

  the true king of all he shall be.

  ‘My grandfather was the first child, the sower of seeds, the soothsayer. Then came my Uncle Zed, who fell from the tower while rescuing Aunty Rozalina and broke his back and his legs. And then came me. The prophecy says I had to be lost before I can find—well, I was lost in the forest and now I’m lost again in the marshes. And it said I must be blind before I can see. Well, now I am blind and I can see nothing, nothing!’ He groaned and flung one arm over his eyes.

  ‘Is that why you asked me if there was a blind boy at the castle?’ Molly asked. Her voice was soft and low.

  Peregrine nodded. ‘I saw that you were lame …’ Somehow it was easier to talk to her of her affliction when he could not see her. ‘Aunty Rozalina said peace would not come until a blind boy could see and a lame girl walk on water’.

  ‘And I have walked on water, so now, if peace is to come, you must see’.

  ‘But how?’ Peregrine stretched his eyes wide but could see nothing but a dim red haze where the fire was.

  ‘I don’t know. Washing your eyes has not helped?’

  ‘A little. They feel better. I still can’t see, though!’

  ‘If you find the spear, you’ll be able to heal your eyes too’.

  Peregrine sat up. ‘Yes! Of course!’ Then he subsided. ‘But how can I find the spear when I can’t see?’

  ‘Is there not some other way? Like … when I see what shape is trapped inside the wood, I see it in my mind’s eye, not in my real eye’.