The Heart of Stars

by Kate Forsyth

  Elfrida stared up at the silk-hung roof of her bed. She listened.

  No voice in her ear. No sly insinuations, no threats, no nasty hints and promises, no laughing out loud in glee. No rummaging through her memories, and turning black ones blacker and gold ones to ash. No constant hissing in her ear, warning her, reviling her, deriding her, mocking her. No gloating, no looting, no lying, no sneering, no harrying, no harassing. No voice. No ghost.

  She was free.

  Elfrida gasped aloud with laughter. Then she wept, her hands over her face. She gasped and shuddered with tears for a long time, but eventually lay still, listening again, wondering what to do.

  The ghost had gone. Had she gone for good? It seemed impossible. Elfrida had been tricked before. She was not the only one Margrit haunted. Sometimes Elfrida had been free for a matter of hours, free to sleep, free to pray, free to try to think of some way out of her predicament. But always Margrit would return, bullying, threatening, deceiving and conniving, occupying every nook and cranny of Elfrida’s mind and soul until Elfrida no longer knew who she was or what she herself wanted.

  But it had been six hours of silence now, the hours from midnight to dawn. Elfrida had lain awake the whole time, waiting for the ghost to return, and slowly feeling her body begin to fill with hope as the room filled with light. Six hours of freedom.

  The bell began to toll the ending of the curfew. Elfrida rose stiffly from her bed, and bent her aching knees till she was kneeling on the floor. She closed her eyes, folded her hands and prayed.

  She stayed there, praying and weeping, for a very long time, looking for guidance, begging for forgiveness. Her god was cruel, however, and the only sign sent to her was a tall, thin man with hair as pale as a newborn baby’s, and eyes as cold as stone. Dressed all in black, he came to her with news.

  ‘Get up off the floor,’ he said, without any pretence at courtesy. ‘The time has come to close the trap.’

  Elfrida looked up, her face all blotchy and wet with tears. ‘Wh-What?’

  ‘Donncan MacCuinn has been found alive and well. He is at Rhyssmadill, with the Keybearer and the rest o’ her party. The Celestine whore is there too.’

  ‘Donncan is alive and well?’ Elfrida repeated stupidly.

  The pastor’s brows drew together and he looked down at her in scorn. ‘Aye. They arrived back this dawn, and sent a homing pigeon with the news. The whole city is celebrating. The Fairgean half-breed is all in a dither, getting herself ready to sail down the river to meet him. She must be stopped.’

  ‘But … but why?’

  ‘Do no’ be so stupid,’ he said savagely. ‘We canna allow the MacCuinn to live. Yet if he dies while she is near, she will always be suspect. No, she must be above suspicion and so must ye. We shall keep the half-breed here, and have her send Neil in her place. I will go with him, and I shall make sure Donncan dies, and the suspicion falls on someone we hate. One o’ the uile-bheistean would be best.’

  Elfrida was shaking. ‘But … but will it be safe? They may suspect Neil. I do no’ want him in danger. Canna he stay here, with me?’

  ‘What excuse could ye then make for sending me? I am no friend to the Keybearer and those other witch-whores, nor to the MacCuinn. We canna risk him returning here, with the Yeomen to watch over his every step. No, we must strike fast – and that means Neil must take me to Rhyssmadill this very day.’

  Elfrida tried to remember that she was a NicHilde, and a banprionnsa, but she was so exhausted and bewildered that she could not find any strength to draw upon.

  ‘What … what are ye going to do?’ she quavered.

  ‘No’ me. Ye,’ he smiled. ‘Now, we do no’ want to kill her, so ye must use a light hand. Drop a little o’ this into her wine or food, using the poison ring, then rinse it out well afore ye give it back to me. I’ll be using a different powder for the MacCuinn.’

  His smile stretched wider as he passed her a little fold of paper containing rough brown powder. Elfrida stared at it, then held out her trembling hand to take it. She rested it on the bedside table as she slid open the secret compartment in the big onyx ring she wore, a ring that had once belonged to Margrit, like the golden fan she had disposed of two weeks ago. Her hands were shaking so much it was difficult to tip the powder into the ring, but she dared not spill any with the pastor’s cold grey eyes watching her. At last it was done, and she snapped the secret compartment closed. All it needed now was a quick wrench sideways and the poison would spill out.

  ‘Excellent,’ the pastor said. ‘Now, we must be quick. The half-breed is breaking her fast afore heading down the river. We must no’ let her leave Lucescere!’

  Bronwen could hardly catch her breath, she was so filled with tumultuous emotions. Foremost was utter joy and relief that Donncan was alive and unhurt, and they would soon be together again. But almost as intense was her trepidation. Would Donncan ever forgive her for seizing the Lodestar? Would he demand she give it to him? Would they be able to share it, and raise it together, as they had done as children, or would it demand to be held by one and one alone? She did not know the answers to these questions, and so she paced up and down the breakfast room, drinking cup after cup of angelica tea, and giving terse and distracted answers to all the questions her servants and councillors hurled at her.

  ‘How long will I be gone! Eà’s eyes, how should I ken? Pack enough for several weeks, I suppose. Donncan may be hurt … he’ll need to rest …’ Her voice quavered.

  ‘Please, Your Majesty, sit down,’ Neil said, and drew out a chair for her. ‘Ye must eat. I havena seen ye eat in days.’ He pressed her down into the chair gently, and waved at one of the servants to serve her some griddle-cakes. Bronwen grimaced. The very sight of food made her feel sick. She waved them away, and gulped down more of the tea.

  ‘Porridge,’ Neil said. ‘Try some porridge.’

  The lackey put a bowl before her, and she stirred the gluey mess with her spoon, not wanting to hurt Neil’s feelings.

  The room was full of people, rushing in and out, shouting to one another, everyone smiling and looking happy for the first time in days. The bells were ringing loudly.

  ‘Will I pack your court dresses, Your Majesty?’ the mistress of the wardrobe cried, looking very harassed.

  ‘No! No! We are still in mourning, and Donncan’s note said only that they were all exhausted and needed to rest,’ Bronwen cried back, and pushed her bowl away. ‘I’ll no’ be needing much really, just a few plain dresses.’

  I never thought I’d hear those words out of my mouth, she thought to herself, and laughed out loud.

  ‘Perhaps Her Majesty would prefer a little fruit,’ Elfrida said, suddenly appearing at Bronwen’s shoulder with a silver platter of peeled bellfruit. ‘I ken it’s your favourite.’

  ‘Thank ye, I would,’ Bronwen said, surprised but pleased, and ate one, while her squire poured her another cup of tea. Someone else was at her shoulder with a sheaf of papers to sign before she left, and Elfrida disappeared back into the crowd as Bronwen absentmindedly popped another morsel of fruit into her mouth, and scrawled her name where directed. The fruit was not as sweet as usual, and looked a little bruised, but after the ravages of the snowstorm, fruit had been in short supply, and Bronwen had missed it. She felt her feelings towards Elfrida warming. It had been kind of her to think of it.

  She ate a few more slices, her thoughts on Donncan and their coming meeting. She would be so sweet to him, she decided, that he would not think to mind her taking the throne. What else could she have done? She would show him that it had not been hungry ambition that had driven her, but a care for the country. She would tend him so sweetly, smile at him so lovingly, indeed she would …

  Bronwen put one hand up to her head. She was feeling very sick and faint. ‘Neil,’ she said.

  He was by her side in an instant. ‘Your Majesty?’

  ‘I feel …’

  ‘Is something wrong, Bronny?’

  ‘I think I’m goin
g to be sick,’ she said, and was, inelegantly, all over the sleeve of his doublet and the half-empty plate of browning bellfruit.

  There was a flurry of dismay and disgust. Bronwen pressed her hand over her mouth. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and was sick again. Her head was swimming. Her stomach heaved. Someone thrust a silver wine bucket at her, and she grasped it and used it gratefully. It was Elfrida, she noticed, and Elfrida who helped her out the door and up the stairs, and up the stairs, and up the stairs, till at last she reached her own floor, retching every step of the way.

  ‘Could she be … ye ken …’ she heard someone say, and shut her eyes in utter misery. No! she wanted to scream, but her voice was all taken up with gagging. Then Elfrida was laying her down on her own bed, and taking off her shoes, and placing a damp, lavender-scented cloth on her forehead, and giving her water to rinse out her mouth. Bronwen could have wept with gratitude.

  A very unpleasant hour passed, and when at last the paroxysm had worn itself out, Bronwen was so weak and miserable that all she wanted to do was sleep. Mirabelle had been called, and she had given Bronwen something that calmed her stomach but made her very drowsy.

  ‘Your Majesty?’

  Half-dozing, feeling clean and comfortable again, but very sore and worn out, Bronwen forced open her eyes.

  ‘Aye?’

  It was Gwilym the Ugly. Bronwen smiled weakly at him. She had known him since she was little more than a baby.

  ‘Your Majesty, we have decided it would be best to send a delegation to Rhyssmadill as soon as possible, to welcome the Keybearer and the Rìgh home and to hear their story.’

  Donncan … Bronwen thought, and a tear rolled out of the corner of her eye.

  ‘The healers say ye must no’ travel, so I thought I would go,’ Gwilym continued, looking sorry for her, ‘and His Grace Neil MacFóghnan o’ Arran as well. We’ll explain to His Majesty all that has happened in his absence, and how very sick ye’ve been. I’m sure in a day or two he will be well enough to come home to Lucescere.’

  Two more tears slipped down her cheeks.

  ‘Try and rest, my dear. Ye’ve been driving yourself too hard. Mirabelle says ye are utterly exhausted. We’ll send news as soon as we have it, never ye fear.’

  She nodded. He bowed and patted her hand, then stumped from the room, making a thump-tap-thump-tap sound as first his boot, and then his wooden leg, hit the floor. She closed her eyes. Then Neil was leaning over her, pressing her hand between both of his own.

  ‘Oh, Bronny! Ye poor darling! Ye rest up now, and I’ll make your excuses to Donn. He’ll understand, I ken, once he hears how sick ye’ve been.’

  ‘Cuckoo …’ Bronwen said faintly.

  Neil turned back to her. ‘Aye?’

  She shook her head. ‘Naught. It’s naught.’

  ‘All right. Go to sleep now. I’ll see ye soon.’

  As Neil hurried out of the room, Bronwen turned her cheek into the pillow and felt the tears flow faster. It would not have been kind, she thought, to charge a man who loved her with words of love for another man, but Eà’s eyes, she wished she could have sent Donncan some message, some token of how she felt. Their coldness to each other at their wedding hurt her like whip cuts. She wished she had not been so proud. She wished they had wed, and parted, in loving joyfulness. Bronwen closed her eyes, and after a while the tears stopped and she was asleep.

  Margrit of Arran lay on her bed in a welter of silks and satins, laughing.

  ‘I want more!’ she cried. ‘And bring me wine, and roast lamb with baby peas, and oysters, and lobster, and fresh bellfruit and strawberries. And hot water with rose oil in it. And a hipbath. And someone to wash my hair for me, and scrub my feet. And bring me a man. Ye! Ye will do for now!’

  She pointed at Piers, who took a step backwards, startled.

  ‘Ye are the only one who doesna stink or have one foot in the grave,’ she said. ‘Why did I have to be raised by a coterie o’ necromancers all auld enough to be my father? Come on! Dinna goggle at me like that. Have ye spent so much time up to your elbows in the bodies o’ the dead that ye’ve forgotten what a real live woman feels like?’

  She laughed and rolled about. ‘Live! A real live woman! Golden goddess, I had forgotten how good it feels to be alive!’

  The lord of Fettercairn stood leaning on his cane, scowling, and the others all looked scared and bothered in equal measure. This was not what they had expected.

  The spell of resurrection had gone as planned, with the substance of the NicCuinn girl’s body going to rebuild that of Margrit of Arran’s. Dedrie had ready the antidote to the poison that had killed the sorceress so many years earlier, and had administered it quickly. They had then expected the long-dead sorceress to fall on her knees before them in abject gratitude for them to accept her thanks gracefully and then get on their way at once, back to Fettercairn Castle and the bones of their own long-dead beloveds. Everyone knew that they must move quickly, for any hesitation and the hounds of vengeance would be upon them.

  Margrit of Arran had different plans, however. As far as she was concerned, they were her servants and must do as she bid. She laughed at Lord Malvern for thinking he could outrun the royal navy, and predicted they would see sails upon the horizon by dawn, despite all his weather-witchery. Rather to Lord Malvern’s chagrin, she had been right. Despite the tempest which had swept upon them, rattling the rickety stones of the old fort, the white sails of the royal navy had approached swiftly and inexorably, making any quick escape impossible. Margrit had ordered the pirate town to take up arms and, to Lord Malvern’s mortification, the pirates had obeyed instantly.

  ‘Oh, but we are auld friends,’ Margrit had purred, seeing the expression on all their faces. ‘Did ye no’ ken?’

  Her ghost, it seemed, had been haunting quite a few inhabitants of Pirate Town, many of whom had served her when she had lived in the old fort, during her exile from Arran. When Lord Malvern had sent his bodyguard into the town to hire cutthroats to assist them in the spell of necromancy, he had in fact been hiring men already worked upon and subjugated by Margrit. So when Lord Malvern had given the signal for his men to fall upon the pirates and kill them, to stop any word of what they had done leaking out, they had found themselves instead outnumbered and surrounded.

  Bemused and aghast, Lord Fettercairn could do nothing but acquiesce to all Margrit’s demands, even though he found his heavy purse of gold being rapidly emptied.

  ‘Out! Out!’ Margrit screamed. ‘Go get me my wine and my oysters! Bring me the richest perfumes, the finest silks! Go on. Else I’ll order my pirates to slit ye from ear to ear!’

  The huge, hairy, scarred, tattooed and gap-toothed pirates standing about the room grinned and nudged each other with their elbows, fingering their knives. As the lord of Fettercairn’s servants all filed out, looking very despondent, Margrit laughed in joy. She loved it when she outwitted someone, even an impotent old fool like Lord Malvern. His face, when he had realised the graveyard was full of her bullyboys, their weapons concealed in the weeds! It was almost worth having to put up with him now. Lucky he was rich, else she might have grown bored of his blustering hours ago and had him fed to the sharks.

  The cream of the jest, she thought, was that all Lord Malvern had required to raise her from the dead was a living soul and a sharp knife. Apart from knowledge of the spell, of course. So he need not have risked employing pirates from the town to make up his circle of nine necromancers. Yet it had suited her purposes to let him think he needed a full circle to enact the spell, and so she had kept him awake night after night, hissing ‘Make sure ye have the nine’ in his ear until he had done just as she wanted.

  Margrit smiled and stretched her arms above her head. It was then she noticed that the youngest of the lord’s servants had not left the room with the others, but stood waiting, deliciously unsure.

  She nodded to him. ‘Take off your shirt. Slowly. Mmmm, not bad. Turn around. What is your name?’

  ‘
Piers, my lady. Piers Harper.’

  ‘A harper are ye? I guess that’s why your arms are so delightfully well muscled. Come, harper. Let us see if ye can make me sing.’

  Fèlice gripped the ship’s rail with both hands and watched as the Pirate Isles slowly grew from a grey smudge on the horizon to a collection of tall hills, rising steeply from deep frills of white foam.

  ‘I hope we’re in time,’ she whispered. ‘It’s taken us so long to get here!’

  ‘It was the full moon last night,’ Landon said, sounding as dispirited as she felt. ‘If they were planning to do anything, it would’ve been done last night.’

  ‘We couldna have gone any faster,’ Rafferty said. ‘The sailors canna believe the speed we’ve made already. We’ve covered almost six hundred miles in less than two days!’

  Rafferty had spent the last forty-eight hours making himself thoroughly at home on the ship, climbing the rigging like an arak even in the worst of weathers, hauling on the ropes and coiling them like an old hand, and sharing his cup of rum and a melancholy song at the day’s end with the other sailors. He could not understand why everyone else had been so sick, particularly Cameron, with whom he had always shared a friendly rivalry. Being a year older and a little taller and heavier, Cameron had nearly always bested him, and so Rafferty took great pleasure in asking after him solicitously, and offering to bring him soup, the very mention of which was enough to make Cameron lurch for the bucket, which he was sharing with a very sick and miserable Finn.

  It had been a wild, rough journey. Spitting ice and sleet, the spell-wind had stayed at their backs, without swerving or dropping, for two whole days, driving them over the sea at a breakneck pace. Stormy Briant had not dared sleep in case he lost control, and had ordered his former apprentices to lash him to the mast to stop him dozing off. There he stood, facing towards the Pirate Isles, a length of rope knotted about his hands like reins. Occasionally Fèlice could hear him shout or laugh like a madman. He ate nothing, but took a dram of whisky every hour or so, and urinated over the side once or twice a day.