The Heart of Stars

by Kate Forsyth

  Behind their ship came sixteen other galleons and carracks, all propelled by a full set of sails which strained to hold the power of the wind. They had lost four in the storm, and could only hope the ships had been swept off course and would be able to make their way back to Dùn Gorm.

  Ahead of them was sunshine; behind them storm. Basking in the sunshine were the six islands that made up the Pirate Isles. Their coasts were rough and rocky, and far too dangerous to approach. Instead the fleet tacked, to sail round to the mouth of a wide lagoon. As they sailed in through the heads, cannons on either headland began to fire, and the royal fleet fired back. Although some damage was sustained, the ships were all travelling too fast to be easy targets, and none were sunk.

  ‘Great Eà!’ Cameron said, his mouth hanging open. ‘Will ye look at that!’

  Sailing out to greet them was a fleet of more than twenty large ships, all flying the black and red flag of the pirates. Already the ships were firing at them. They could see the white puffs of smoke, and then hear a huge bang, and minutes later everyone dived to the deck as a cannonball whizzed through one of the sails, bringing rigging crashing down onto the deck.

  ‘They were ready and waiting for us!’ Rafferty cried.

  ‘Lads, get below deck!’ Iseult ordered, striding up the deck towards them, her helmet on her head and her hand on her weapons belt. She was very white, and her eyes were red-rimmed. Looking at her face, Fèlice’s heart sank like lead.

  ‘But Your Highness!’ Rafferty protested.

  ‘Get your skates and be ready to go,’ Iseult continued.

  ‘Our ice-skates?’

  Iseult flashed him a look. ‘Aye! Did ye think they were purely for decoration? Go!’

  Rafferty, Cameron and Landon ran to obey, but Fèlice lingered.

  Iseult glared at her. ‘Ye are no’ at court now, lassie, but a soldier on my ship! Do as ye are told!’

  ‘Aye, Your Highness,’ Fèlice said. ‘It’s just … I wanted to ask …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are we too late?’

  Iseult stood stock-still, her hands clenched on her belt. Then she jerked her head, just once. ‘Too late for Olwynne,’ she answered, her voice shaking. ‘She was murdered last night, at midnight. Finn felt her go. I wish … I should’ve …’ Her voice trailed away. ‘We are no’ too late for Owein, though,’ she said, after a long moment in which Fèlice fought to hide her tears of shock and horror. ‘And we are no’ too late to make them pay for what they’ve done.’

  ‘No, Your Highness,’ Fèlice whispered.

  Iseult turned and looked at her. ‘Do ye love my son?’ she asked quietly.

  Fèlice nodded. It was not a time for lying.

  ‘I wondered what he saw in ye, apart from your pretty face,’ Iseult said. ‘I think I’m beginning to see. Do ye wish to help?’

  ‘Aye, Your Highness,’ Fèlice said, very subdued.

  ‘Good. Wait a moment. I just need to …’

  Iseult’s voice trailed away. Her gaze grew unfocused. Fèlice felt the temperature drop sharply, and shuddered, hugging herself as snow began to spin down from the sky. Iseult raised her hand. Lightning leapt out of the dark-bellied clouds that chased them. The snow whirled more thickly. The shadow of the cloud fell over the sparkling blue waters of the lagoon, turning it all to grey. It grew colder and colder. The water shivered and then lay still, turning paler and paler. The ship slowed precipitately, jerking everyone on board forward.

  Fèlice suddenly realised what she was seeing. The water of the lagoon was freezing over, turning into ice.

  ‘I come from the Spine o’ the World, ye ken,’ Iseult said to her, a rueful smile lifting her lips. ‘It is all ice and snow up there. I grew up knowing naught else.’

  The ice met the pirate ships and slammed into them like a white fist. Some, hit side on, foundered and began to sink, before being seized in the ice, which stove their boards in and broke the ships apart. Others crashed into it head-first, and were frozen there, immobile for long moments, before the ice began to slowly squeeze and a great whining, groaning noise rose.

  The Royal Stag pushed on. Frightened and amazed, Fèlice looked back at the other ships and saw they too were pushing slowly forward into the ice, seemingly unaffected by the dramatic change in the medium on which they floated.

  ‘All the royal fleet has been fitted out for sailing in the northern seas,’ Iseult said. ‘Our first great sailing journey was up to Carraig during the last war with the Fairgean. We were sailing in seas which were often so cold they froze over, so all our ships were built to withstand it. I dinna think the pirate ships would be so reinforced, considering they normally sail in the warm seas o’ the south.’

  ‘I see,’ Fèlice said. ‘How clever!’

  ‘Thank ye,’ Iseult replied. ‘I canna use my powers for much, no’ having been properly trained, but turning water to ice is something I can manage. We always have to work with what we’ve got.’

  ‘True,’ Fèlice nodded.

  ‘Did ye bring ice-skates?’

  Fèlice nodded her head, unable to help smiling.

  ‘And can ye use them?’

  Fèlice nodded again. ‘I come from Ravenshaw too,’ she said smugly.

  ‘What about a bow and arrow? Can ye shoot while ye skate?’

  Fèlice’s smile faded. She shook her head.

  ‘Never mind. Ye can carry a flaming torch. Try no’ to get too near the pirate ships, or they’ll shoot ye. Skate in fast, throw your torch, and get out o’ there again. Are ye any good at throwing?’

  Fèlice was silent, then shook her head miserably.

  ‘At least you’re honest. Well, I do no’ want ye being shot. Owein would never forgive me. How about ye help arm the catapults? That way ye’ll still be helping, but no’ getting too close to the main fighting.’

  Fèlice nodded. ‘Thank ye,’ she managed to say.

  ‘No’ your fault ye were never taught to throw properly,’ Iseult said rather caustically. ‘That has to be laid at your father’s door, along with no’ teaching ye to shoot.’

  ‘My father’s rather auld-fashioned,’ Fèlice said meekly.

  ‘It’s amazing ye turned out so well. Come on, lass! Get your skates on! It’s time to go and hunt down some pirates!’

  Then Iseult was clambering over the side of the ship and down a ladder to the ice, her skates bumping against her back.

  The rest of the day passed in a haze of smoke as the pirates desperately shot cannonball after cannonball from their flaming and disintegrating ships. All about the trapped galleons, swift skaters swooped and circled, firing flaming arrows into the rigging or hurling torches into the pitch-soaked boards. The royal fleet had managed to advance into a rough semicircle about the trapped pirate fleet before they could go no further. From the catapults on their decks they hurled fireballs at the pirates, while their cannons boomed, boomed, boomed ceaselessly. By sundown, the enemy fleet was demolished and the skaters were hunting down those pirates who tried to flee, slipping and sliding all over the ice.

  Those left in the pirate town had not been idle all through the long, bloody day. They had busied themselves fortifying their barricades, and bombarding any skater who came too close. Their fire had broken up the ice all along the shore, so no-one could approach the town on their skates. The royal forces had to retreat to their ships to regroup and rest, to tend their wounded, take some sustenance, and plan the assault on the town. It was decided to attack again in the early hours of the morning, silently, under the cover of darkness, when hopefully the ice near the shore had had a chance to freeze hard again.

  Filthy, exhausted and coughing from the smoke, Fèlice, Landon, Rafferty and Cameron all found themselves a spot on the deck, and gulped down some water gratefully.

  ‘Her Highness says the Banprionnsa Olwynne is dead,’ Fèlice told them hoarsely. ‘They killed her last night.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Landon cried.

  ‘What o’ the witch they want
ed to raise?’ Rafferty asked.

  ‘I guess she’s alive and up there somewhere,’ Fèlice said, looking up at the old fort which, high on its hill, was still touched by the last of the sunlight. ‘She’s a powerful sorceress by all accounts. I dread to think what she plans.’

  ‘And the prionnsa?’ Cameron asked, coughing.

  ‘Alive still, though who kens for how long?’

  ‘What o’ Rhiannon?’ Landon asked, his hands clasped together before his chest. ‘Any news at all?’

  ‘None,’ Fèlice replied, and suddenly began to cry. She had never seen a battle before.

  Rafferty and Cameron both put their arms about her, banging each other by mistake, and scowling at one another over her head. Fèlice wiped her eyes.

  ‘I just hope she and Blackthorn are all right,’ she said. ‘I wish I kent where they were!’

  Both Rhiannon and Owein were still locked in their damp, smelly, unpleasant little cell. Dedrie had come at one point, to bring them more water and some food, and to look at their wounds, but she had been distracted and in a hurry, and well guarded by a surly-faced Jem and Ballard, so it was impossible to try to escape.

  After that, no-one had come near them. They had spent all day listening to the distant boom of the cannons, and agonising over what was happening.

  ‘It’s the Yeomen! They’ve finally come!’ Owein cried. ‘But too late for Olwynne.’ Impatiently he passed his hand over his eyes.

  ‘It’s a miracle they are here at all,’ Rhiannon said. ‘Ye dinna see the storm they had to face to get here.’

  ‘What’s happening? What’s going on?’

  ‘I dinna ken,’ Rhiannon answered irritably. ‘Stop pacing up and down, ye’re stirring up all the dust and sneezing really hurts my shoulder.’

  ‘Eà’s eyes, I wish I kent what was going on!’

  Just then there was a high, joyful trill, and a tiny bluebird swooped down through the bars of the cage. Rhiannon was overjoyed. ‘Bluey!’ she cried. ‘Where have ye been? I thought ye must’ve been hurt or killed when they shot me down! Where’s Blackthorn? Is she all right?’

  The bluebird answered with another trill, and both Owein and Rhiannon looked at each other in relief as they heard, in the simple language of birds, that Blackthorn was alive and unhurt, hiding out in the forest behind the old fort.

  ‘We have some chance o’ escape then,’ Owein said, beginning to pace again. ‘Oh, Rhiannon, please ask your wee birdie to go and see what is happening. I’ll go mad shut up in here and no’ knowing what is going on!’

  So the bluebird flittered in and out, giving the two captives a very vague and imprecise idea of what was going on. One piece of news cheered Owein up immensely.

  ‘Snow and ice,’ he cried. ‘That’s my mama! Thank Eà she’s here. It’ll no’ be long now, Rhiannon, and we’ll be free!’

  Rhiannon did not have the same high opinion of the Dowager Banrìgh as Owein, but she nodded her head and smiled, and then bent her head to the bird. ‘Find Lewen,’ she whispered. ‘Find Lewen and bring him here.’

  Lewen was flying through the twilight, the sky ahead of him filled with long lines of grey rain like battalions of soldiers. He had his hood up over his head and his shoulders hunched against the sharp wind, but he was gladder than he had been for weeks. Beneath him, the stallion’s great shoulder muscles moved rhythmically, as the magnificent wings shaped the wind and bade it serve him. Lewen could not believe how swiftly the land rolled by beneath them, like a dark green eiderdown stitched together with thin shining rills of water. Already they had traversed half the distance to the sea. Tomorrow he would be flying over water. The day after that, if all went well, he would see the sharp peaks of the Pirate Isles rising out of the ocean.

  Keep safe, Rhiannon, he thought. I’m coming …

  Bronwen lay on a chaise longue in the sunshine, feeling as limp as a scullery maid’s rag. They had carried her out here at her urgent request, as she could not stand being incarcerated in her stuffy room any longer. They had brought her to one of her favourite spots, a deep green pool in the forest, just far enough beyond the hedges of the garden that she could see nothing but the curve of one golden dome above the trees. Here she could lie, and listen to the birds and the wind in the trees, and soak up the warmth of the sunshine.

  They had set up a little table nearby, with a jug of iced water and a glass, some smelling salts, a pile of the latest broadsheets that made Bronwen’s head ache to look at, and a plate of fruit and sweetmeats for which she had absolutely no appetite. Joey stood beside her, holding a parasol to shade her face from the brightness of the sun, and Maura crouched in a chair next to her, for once sitting idle, and looking very ill and wretched. Her breath wheezed in her chest, and every few breaths she coughed, a deep guttural cough that sounded as if her lungs were full of mud.

  ‘Oh, Maura, please go to bed,’ Bronwen said faintly. ‘Your coughing is making my head ache!’

  ‘I dinna … cough, cough … want to … cough … leave ye.’

  ‘Ye’re sick. Go to bed. I’ll send Mirabelle to tend ye.’

  ‘Nay, thank ye!’

  Bronwen raised herself on one elbow. ‘Why no’? She is the head healer now. It is her job.’

  ‘Bogfaeries have own remedies,’ Maura said, her voice hoarse with coughing. ‘Besides, me no like that one, with her poxy face. She never smiles.’

  ‘It’s no’ her fault she’s pockmarked,’ Bronwen said. ‘I’m sure she’s a very good healer, else she’d no’ be head o’ the Healers’ Guild.’

  ‘Like that other one? Who took our Donn? She mighty fine.’ Maura paused to cough throatily into her handkerchief.

  ‘Ye shouldna judge Mirabelle just because she was Johanna’s assistant,’ Bronwen said, and then a terrible thought occurred to her. So terrible was it, and yet so obvious, that she sat utterly frozen for a moment, looking back over the past few days and seeing its pattern tumble into an entirely new configuration.

  ‘Joey,’ she said after a long moment.

  ‘Aye, Your Majesty?’

  ‘I have a fancy for some o’ Mirabelle’s special angelica tea. Could ye please go and ask the butler to make me a pot, and bring it out to me here?’

  Joey hesitated. ‘I was told I shouldna leave ye alone,’ he said.

  ‘I’m no’ alone. Maura is here. She can look after me. Please. I do think it will make me feel better.’

  ‘Aye, Your Majesty. I’ll go now.’ He propped the parasol against the chair, carefully wedging it with a stone so it would not fall and subject Bronwen to the harsh glare of the sunlight, and then he went running back towards the palace at top speed.

  ‘Maura,’ Bronwen said. Her voice was slow and thick and difficult to force out through her numb lips. ‘When did ye start feeling sick?’

  The bogfaery coughed violently before answering, and then stared for a moment at her handkerchief. ‘Day or two ago. Maybe more. I been so sad and heartsick since winged one die, it’s hard to tell.’

  ‘Have ye eaten anything unusual?’ Bronwen asked.

  Maura was surprised. ‘No, no. I eat as usual. In kitchen with other maids mostly. That boy o’ yours, he been kind, he bring me soup and bread at night, when I sit up a-waiting for ye. I do get tired these days. No’ as young as I was.’

  ‘Joey’s been bringing ye soup?’

  ‘Aye, soup and a nice drop o’ hot elderberry wine. I done changed my mind about that boy. Me thought him very quick and sly when first Cuckoo brought him, but he been kind, and saves my legs.’

  The bogfaery’s voice was broken continually by coughs and the clearing of her throat.

  ‘Maura, will ye please go to bed? For me?’

  The bogfaery protested, and Bronwen said, her voice strengthening with the urgency of her emotions, ‘Maura! Ye are making me feel ill listening to ye. Go … to … bed! And on your way, will ye send Dolan to me?’

  ‘Och, Dolan no’ feeling too good either,’ Maura said. ‘Did ye no’ hea
r? Half the palace guard are down with the same thing as ye. Sick as cats, they are.’

  ‘Barlow too?’

  ‘Och, aye. They think some kind o’ rot got into the grain, perhaps, because o’ the weather. They been up all night, coughing up their guts, poor boys.’

  Some kind o’ rot, all right, Bronwen thought grimly. She wondered what to do. She was so weak she could barely walk. Her breath shortened in her chest. She found it hard to breathe. It’s all just coincidence. Just my stupid suspicious imaginings. Mirabelle taught me when I was just a lass. She couldna possibly be a traitor. She couldna possibly be poisoning me …

  ‘Your Majesty, how do ye feel?’ Mirabelle’s shadow fell upon her.

  Bronwen jumped violently. She put one hand to her heart. ‘Terrible,’ she said in a whining voice. ‘Like I’ve been beaten with clubs.’

  ‘Let me give ye some more medicine,’ Mirabelle said, measuring out a dose from one of her big brown bottles. ‘Joey says ye’ve asked for some more tea. It’ll be here in just a moment. I’m so glad ye’ve been enjoying my special brew. I made it up just for ye.’

  I bet ye did, Bronwen thought as she accepted the cup of medicine. She held it to her lips, and noticed how fixedly Mirabelle watched her until she had drunk down the medicine and given her back the empty cup.

  ‘Ye’ll have a nice sleep now, and when ye wake ye’ll feel much better, I promise,’ Mirabelle said, and went quietly away, her green healer’s robe almost invisible among the shifting hues of the garden.

  Bronwen leant over, thrust her fingers as far as she could down her throat, and vomited up the sickly sweet medicine. Maura watched her in dismay. ‘Ye sick again! I get healer!’

  ‘Dinna be a fool,’ Bronwen said savagely. ‘Get me my mother! And then, Maura, I want ye to get away from here. Go find yourself a nice inn in the city. The Nisse and Nixie would be best. Get a faery healer and get them to purge ye. Do ye hear me?’

  Maura stared at her, then turned and looked with frightened eyes up the path, where Mirabelle had gone.