The Heart of Stars

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘I canna … cough, cough … leave ye …’

  ‘Aye, ye can. Please, Maura. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened … please …’

  Maura nodded. ‘What else me do first?’

  ‘I just want my mother. Tell her to send Joey off on some other errand, so we have a chance to talk in private. Then get yourself somewhere safe, and find someone to help ye. Wait! There’s money in my bedchamber, ye ken where it is. Take a purse o’ coins, and try and get away with no-one seeing ye.’

  ‘No-one notices servants,’ Maura said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  She bent and embraced Bronwen fervently, patting her arms with her tiny, wrinkled paws. Then she hurried away, leaving Bronwen alone. Despite the warm, golden sunshine, Bronwen felt very cold.

  Was it Mirabelle who killed my uncle then? she wondered. But no. It couldna have been. Mirabelle was at the healers’ hall. She was drugged like the others. Though Gwilym did say she was the first to recover …

  Bronwen dropped her face into her hands. Was she wrong in suspecting Mirabelle of being involved in this plot to undermine the throne? What proof did she have? A tea that tasted delicious but left one with a desperate craving for more and an inability to sleep? More medicine, to help her sleep, that left her feeling as though her head was stuffed with wool and her limbs weighed down with lead. Mirabelle’s constant presence in the palace, even at night, fully dressed, with her pockets filled with potions? And the way Bronwen always felt uncomfortable around her …

  These were not proofs. Mirabelle was one of those heavy, lumpish, envious women who always made those that had been more fortunate in the lottery of life feel awkward. It was no fault of hers, and no fault of Bronwen’s. It was just the way things were. And Maura’s dreadful cough, and the sickness decimating the palace guard, they too could just be coincidences, and not an attempt to isolate Bronwen and leave her vulnerable.

  Though she did feel very vulnerable.

  Her Aunt Isabeau had once said to her, ‘Always trust your intuition. It is the witch-sense, prickling at ye. Listen to it.’

  Wishing desperately that Isabeau was here now to help and advise her, Bronwen got to her feet, holding onto the chaise longue for support. She looked up the path, wanting her mother desperately. She was all alone in the garden. This felt all wrong. Bronwen was never left alone without servants or guards of some kind. Her sense of fear almost overwhelmed her. She had to lower her head and breathe deeply, as she had been taught during her days at the Theurgia, before she could force the panic back down.

  ‘How are ye yourself, Your Majesty?’ Elfrida’s voice cut across her thoughts. Bronwen looked up. Elfrida stood before her, carrying a tray with a teapot and cup. ‘Ye look very ill,’ Elfrida said. ‘Have ye been sick again? Sit down, my dear. Shall I call Mirabelle?’

  ‘No!’

  Elfrida raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m fine, really. I stood up and got all dizzy. I’ll sit down again. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘I heard ye wanted some tea. Joey has been waylaid by your mother, to run some chores for her, so I thought I would bring it out to ye myself. Where is your little bogfaery? Ye shouldna be alone.’

  Bronwen was sending up a fervent prayer of thanks at the news her mother had got the message, and so she was stumped for an answer for a moment. ‘Oh. I … I sent her to get me a book from my room.’

  ‘Ye shouldna be out here all alone, when ye’re so sick and dizzy. Ye could faint or be sick again. Here, let me pour ye some tea.’

  ‘No, no. I’m fine. Maybe a wee drop o’ water. Thank ye. Please, no need to fuss. I’ll be right in a moment.’ Bronwen drank a mouthful of water to stop herself gabbling, then passed the glass back to Elfrida. She found her gaze riveted by Elfrida’s bare fingers. No onyx ring with the seal of the Thistle upon it. Bronwen was oddly disturbed by this. She remembered the silver tray of sliced bellfruit, and began to wonder. Elfrida sat down next to her, spreading out her black skirt, setting her feet side by side and her hands in her lap. Bronwen suddenly realised one of the weird dissonances about Elfrida today was the lack of the pastor behind her, like the thin elongated shadow of early evening. It made Elfrida seem warmer, pinker, more human.

  ‘Has it no’ grown hot today, with the Dowager Banrìgh gone and all her frost and snow with her?’ Elfrida said, fanning herself with her hand.

  ‘Aye, it’s almost like summer again,’ Bronwen said, lying back with a sigh. ‘Poor Mistress Dorcas. That’s the mistress o’ the wardrobe, ye ken. She’ll have packed away all the summer clothes and dug out all the winter clothes, and now suddenly it’s summer again. She will be in a tizz.’ A thought suddenly occurred to her. ‘What a shame I’m in mourning! My fan is all white, and I have no wish to dye it black. It’s made from the feathers o’ the white bhanais bird, ye ken, the one in the maze. It’s very rare. If it’s going to get all sultry again, I’ll have to order a new one. Made of black silk, perhaps, with sticks o’ jet.’

  It made Bronwen feel much better to be sitting in the garden, chatting about fashion, even though she knew it was only a diversion to stop Elfrida suspecting anything was wrong. Any moment now, Maya would come, and Bronwen could make some excuse to get rid of Elfrida. Bronwen wanted her mother desperately. Maya had the sharpest, most cunning mind of anyone she knew. She would know what to do.

  Elfrida moved back her chair so she was not sitting in direct sunlight, and waved her hand up and down again. It was warm. Bronwen noticed small beads of sweat along Elfrida’s upper lip.

  ‘Where is your fan?’ she asked idly, having another sip of cool water. ‘I remember admiring it at the wedding. It was heavy gold, and very ornate. Some kind o’ antique, was it?’

  She glanced up at Elfrida, and was surprised to find her pasty-white and breathing heavily. ‘Och, aye, my fan,’ she said. ‘Mmm, it broke. I threw it out.’

  ‘But surely it must have been very valuable! It was gold!’

  ‘Happen so, but … it was broken. Couldna be fixed.’

  ‘What a shame. It was lovely, if ye like that heavy, ornate style. No’ your usual thing, though, I would have thought. What a shame it broke. How did it happen? It looked sturdy enough.’

  Bronwen was talking more to keep the conversational ball rolling than for any other reason, but she found herself in a strange position of gradually revealing something to herself while she spoke, as if her words were heavy sheets over a shrieking creature in a cage, and with each word, another cover was whisked away, until at last Bronwen could see the ugly, terrible thing that lay beneath. Her voice faltered. Her breath stopped in her throat. She took a long sip of water, gazing out at the garden, carefully not looking at Elfrida.

  ‘It was nothing special,’ Elfrida was saying. ‘It belonged to my mother-in-law. Ye’re right, it’s no’ really my style to carry a gaudy thing like that. I’ll have another made, something lighter to carry.’

  ‘We’ll all need new fans if it gets much hotter,’ Bronwen managed to say. She still could not look at Elfrida. Incredulity was burning through her veins. Surely it was impossible! Elfrida the murderer? Elfrida the secret assassin? Cuckoo’s mother!

  This sickness has affected my brain, she thought. I’m imagining vile things, horrible things, about people I’ve kent for years. It’s no’ true, none o’ it is true.

  Yet her mind continued to worry at the problem, turning little jigsaw pieces of oddness around and finding they were making a shape. Elfrida and Mirabelle in the corridors in the dark hours of the night. Mirabelle saying to the banprionnsa, ‘Now is no’ the time to be giving in to doubts and weaknesses.’ What had she meant by that? Why not now? The angelica tea. Elfrida giving her the bellfruit. The dreadful sickness that had followed. The golden fan, with its thick embossed sticks, that Elfrida had clutched so tightly all through that long, terrible night that Lachlan was murdered, and then tossed aside so carelessly later. The fan’s sticks had been wide enough to conceal a thin blowpipe and some barbs. It
had belonged to Margrit of Arran, who by all accounts had had no hesitation in poisoning her enemies. Margrit of Arran, whose ghost had haunted the lord of Fettercairn, and led him to the spell of resurrection. Margrit of Arran, whose ring Elfrida had been wearing, and was no longer. Margrit of Arran, who the lord of Fettercairn sought to raise from the dead, using the blood of Bronwen’s cousin, Olwynne. Margrit of Arran, called the Thistle.

  ‘Where is your ring?’ Bronwen asked abruptly. She saw the ugly flush that suddenly rose up Elfrida’s face.

  ‘My … my ring?’

  ‘Aye, the black one.’

  ‘Why, I … I dinna ken. It’ll be somewhere. In my jewellery case, no doubt.’

  ‘But ye have worn it every day o’ late. Why no’ now?’

  Elfrida was seriously discomposed. ‘I dinna ken … I dinna like it any more … it is too heavy …’

  Bronwen saw the sudden hunching of Elfrida’s shoulders, the flash of suspicion in her eyes. She tried to think of something innocuous to say, something that would deflect Elfrida, but she could think of nothing. Her breath was coming fast in her throat, and she clutched the arms of her chaise longue desperately. Cuckoo’s mother!

  ‘Ye’ve guessed it, haven’t ye?’ Elfrida said. She sat up and pressed her hands over her face for a moment. ‘It was Margrit speaking through me the other day, wasn’t it? Telling that young fool to take care when touching the Thistle. She was angry. I tried to hold her back, but she will never take care. He is lucky she did not kill him there and then. If he had been drinking or eating, she would’ve, I’m sure.’

  ‘The ring …’

  ‘Aye. Like the fan, it’s got a trick to it. A little twist and out falls the poison, into your cup or your plate …’

  ‘The bellfruit …’

  ‘Aye.’

  Bronwen was silent, sick with horror.

  Elfrida sighed. ‘I did try to withstand her, ye ken,’ she said conversationally. ‘But she was in my ear all the time, whispering dreadful things about me, and my past, telling me that Iain cared more for his rìgh than for me, and now his son Donncan was doing the same, stealing Neil away from me. It never stopped. I heard her voice everywhere in the Tower of Mists, telling me I was ugly, stupid, powerless, a dupe. She said she would make sure Neil was hurt or crippled in some way if I did no’ do what she said. For years and years she burrowed her way inside me, and took up residence there, waiting, waiting, for her chance. Sometimes she seemed to sleep, or she went somewhere else, I do no’ ken where. She wanted me to find the spell o’ resurrection for her, but I resisted, really I did. I would no’ come here to Lucescere, I stayed in Arran and tried to keep her hidden.’

  She took a ragged breath. ‘I thought … I thought Father Francis would help me. Drive her spirit away, somehow. I prayed every day, seven times a day, I begged him for help. But he is the Fealde’s creature. He saw how Margrit’s hunger for revenge would help the Fealde’s dreams o’ conquering and converting the western lands. He said we must do what she said, and made me come here to Lucescere, bringing her with me like some foul foetus in my belly …’

  Slowly the tide of horror within Bronwen subsided, and she was able to speak. ‘Ye killed Uncle Lachlan? Ye spat the poisoned barb at him?’

  ‘Aye. It was the work o’ only a moment. No-one saw. By the time they thought to search the room, I had the blowpipe and barbs safely concealed inside the sticks o’ the fan again. I sat there all night, holding the fan, while they searched my room and all my luggage.’ She laughed.

  ‘Is she … is she in ye now?’

  ‘No. She’s gone. I’d say she’s got her way and lives again. She has no need o’ me any more. Or at least, no need o’ my body, to be hers, my arms and legs, my mouth …’

  Bronwen swallowed. ‘So … Olwynne …’

  ‘Dead, would be my guess.’

  Tears welled up in Bronwen’s eyes. She and Olwynne had never been close, but she was still her cousin, and it seemed a dreadful way to die.

  Elfrida had been unscrewing the lid of a small brown bottle she had taken from her pocket. She got to her feet and stood, looking down at Bronwen. ‘I’m sorry about this. It’ll wreck all our plans to have ye dead. It would have been much easier to keep ye alive and marry ye to Neil, and win the throne without war. But ye do see I canna let ye live now, don’t ye?’

  Bronwen stared at her, then suddenly heaved herself up, seeking to escape. But Elfrida put her knee into her chest, and her free hand on Bronwen’s forehead, forcing the bottle between her teeth. Bronwen fought desperately, but she was weak and dizzy still from her illness, and Elfrida was surprisingly strong. Inexorably the contents of the bottle were poured into her mouth, while Elfrida held her hand clamped down over Bronwen’s nose, cutting off her airways so she could not breathe. Try as she might, she could not free herself. Involuntarily she swallowed, gasping for air.

  Bronwen recognised the heavy, sickly sweet taste of Mirabelle’s poppy tincture. Two fingers, no more, the healer had said, and Bronwen had just swallowed an entire bottle full.

  She gagged, but Elfrida had her face tilted up and her jaw clamped shut. Choking, unable to breathe, Bronwen struggled weakly, but the banprionnsa was too strong for her. ‘It will no’ take long,’ Elfrida said in a tone of regret.

  Then she disappeared.

  One moment she was looming over Bronwen, forcing her back into the chaise longue, suffocating her, poisoning her. The next she was gone. Bronwen coughed and coughed, and struggled to sit up. Then she screamed and shrank back. A black rat was sitting on her chest, squeaking in dismay, its red eyes bulging. Bronwen swept it away with her arm, and it fell and twisted midair before scurrying into the undergrowth.

  Bronwen heaved a great breath and then rolled over, and once again forced herself to vomit. Again and again she retched weakly into the grass.

  Someone sat down beside her and passed her a glass of water. Thankfully Bronwen rinsed out her mouth, and then drank a mouthful. Her throat was exceedingly sore.

  ‘I always thought Elfrida was a bit o’ a rat,’ Maya said thoughtfully, stroking back Bronwen’s damp hair. ‘The way she was always scurrying about, spying on people, sniffing out foul smells. I never liked her.’

  ‘Ye did that? Ye … changed her?’

  Maya nodded. ‘O’ course. What else was I meant to do? She was killing ye.’

  There was no remorse in Maya’s voice. Bronwen shivered. She had always found this Talent of her mother’s the most frightening thing about her. Any story about the days of Maya’s rule were full of the people she had transformed. Lachlan and his two elder brothers had been turned into blackbirds, and Maya had set her hawk to hunt them down. Isabeau and Iseult’s father had been changed into a horse, and Maya had ridden him for years. Tabithas the Keybearer had been turned into a wolf, and Margrit of Arran’s chamberlain had been turned into a toad. It had been Maya’s most secret and devastating weapon, and quite possibly her cruellest. Bronwen did not like to be reminded about this aspect of her mother’s character. She preferred to think of Maya as the mute and scarred witch’s servant who had once been the most beautiful and powerful woman in the land. Yet it was impossible to pretend ignorance when someone you had known all your life was transformed into a rat right before your eyes.

  ‘What … what will happen to her?’

  ‘Plenty o’ cats about,’ Maya said indifferently. She examined Bronwen closely. ‘Ye look terrible. How do ye feel? Did ye get all the poison out?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘It’d be better if we could purge ye,’ Maya said. ‘Only, for obvious reasons, we do no’ want to go to the healers’ college asking for a purge. Did they teach ye anything at that school o’ yours about how to rid the body o’ poison?’

  ‘It was no’ really on the curriculum,’ Bronwen said shakily, ‘at least no’ for me. I was never going to be a healer. Oh, I wish Aunty Beau was here.’

  ‘So do I,’ Maya said. ‘If only to change into a terrier and h
unt down that rat for me. I dislike loose ends.’

  ‘Canna ye do that?’

  ‘I canna change myself, only others,’ Maya said. ‘I could turn ye into a cat or a dog, if ye want to do the deed.’

  Bronwen realised incredulously that her mother was not joking. ‘No, thanks,’ she said with a shudder.

  ‘Come, let’s get ye mopped up and ye can tell me the whole story. Maura told me only that ye suspected Mirabelle o’ dosing everyone with something, and making them sick. I take it that ye discovered that Elfrida was in on the plot too?’

  Bronwen told her mother the whole story while Maya quickly and efficiently cleaned her and the chair up, and washed away any sign of vomit on the grass with the tea in the teapot.

  ‘She meant to marry me off to Neil,’ Bronwen said. ‘As if I would ever marry Cuckoo!’

  ‘Ye might o’,’ Maya said. ‘If Donncan was dead, and ye were all alone, and Neil there to support ye and comfort ye. He was doing a pretty good job o’ it already.’

  ‘Donncan,’ Bronwen breathed. ‘That pastor o’ Elfrida’s is on his way to meet him. He must be planning to kill him!’

  ‘I’d say so,’ Maya said, using the last of the water to dab away any marks on Bronwen’s gown. ‘Elfrida probably gave the poison ring to Neil so that he could tip something foul into Donncan’s wine.’

  ‘No! No’ Neil!’

  ‘Why no’? There’s no doubt he wanted ye, and he’d be a fool no’ to want the crown too.’

  ‘But … but Donncan was his best friend! They grew up together, almost like brothers.’

  ‘Naught like a woman to come between friends,’ Maya said. ‘Or brothers, for that matter.’

  Bronwen leapt to her feet, and had to grip tight to the chair as her vision disappeared in a sparkling haze. ‘I have to … I have to warn him … I have to stop Neil …’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ll send a message … I’ll …’ She stopped as she realised the difficulties. There was no-one she could trust. If Mirabelle was one of the conspirators, who else could be? Bronwen’s secretary, recommended to her by Neil? Her page Joey? The new Lord Steward? All of them Neil’s men. And if she went to the pigeon loft by herself, to send a homing pigeon to Rhyssmadill, what guarantee would she have that the pigeon made it in time? She had no way of knowing how far the tentacles of conspiracy had writhed through the palace. Any of the servants or guards could be in Elfrida’s pay. And if Bronwen did anything at all out of the ordinary, she would mark herself out and put herself in danger. Maya had bought her time and safety by transforming Elfrida into a rat, but not for long. The banprionnsa would soon be missed, and Mirabelle was by nature suspicious.