Northern Lights, Southern Stars

by C. S. Johnson

  I don’t know if he would care to help me at all. Dr. Merlacur was adamant that I wasn’t going to be able to do anything, and despite Rion’s insistence, there is no power I have here, alone and by myself, that would help me now.

  I could only take a chance. I have a bleeding wound, and I am able to give him some medicinal herbs, too; perhaps that would be enough to bargain for my freedom.

  It was either that or suffer my new fate at the hands of my captors.

  “Promise me you won’t forget your power while I am gone.”

  Rion’s words steady me, allowing me to resolve myself to the risk I am about to take. It is time to prove Dr. Merlacur—and the Queen, and everyone else—that they are wrong about me.

  “Wait!”

  My scream is loud enough that I manage to get the attention of the surrounding crowds, and the men who guard me, after several moments of my obedient silence, are shocked at the sudden change.

  It’s because of this surprise I’m able to break free of them and run after the doctor.

  My breath catches as I hurry away.

  “Get her!” My captor is furious as he runs after me.

  At the pain in my knee, I suddenly stop and fall back; the man skids to a stop, but he’s off-balance; I manage to brush past him again, and grab onto the doorknob of the lady’s house.

  I yank it open with surprising ease, and then slam it shut.

  “Over there!”

  I don’t have to lean against the door to hear the screams that follow me, and I don’t have time, as I realize I have a new audience.

  The lady, a Pommierian with wide, blue eyes and graying hair, looks down at me with suspicion. “What are you doing here?” she snaps.

  “I’m here for the doctor,” I say, trying to catch my breath and ignore the throbbing pain in my leg.

  The doctor appears behind the lady. He looks angry at my interruption.

  “What is it?” he asks, his words laced with annoyance and impatience.

  “I’m here for you,” I say. “I got your messages, which is why I am here.”

  “Messages?” Dr. Bonpette frowns. “I didn’t send any messages.”

  “I have some herbs,” I say, pulling out my pockets. “Here. There’s plenty you can use.”

  “I didn’t order any—”

  “Can I talk with you in private?” I ask, stepping forward and grabbing his arm. I know I don’t have much time. “Please, it’s a matter of life and death.”

  “It always is,” he grunts, pulling his arm away from me.

  There’s a loud knocking on the door behind us, and I already know that it’s too late.

  My captors are outside, waiting for me.

  The lady looks from me to Dr. Bonpette, who nods to her. “Get the door, Louisa,” he says. “I’ll take care of her back here with your sister.”

  “Be careful,” Louisa says. “I don’t need more Maruli mad-bloods in this house.”

  “I can always leave, if you’d prefer,” Dr. Bonpette says. “I know it’d be a shame if I wasn’t able to treat your family, but I understand how honor and pride are so very important when faced with death.”

  Louisa squeaks out a profuse apology, but Dr. Bonpette ignores her as he goes back into the bedroom.

  There’s an older woman lying on the bed; her forehead glistens with sweat, her lips are dry and cracking.

  “What is it you want?” Dr. Bonpette asks, as he pulls out several instruments from his bag.

  “Please, Doctor, I need your help,” I say. “I can’t explain everything now, but I’m being chased by the Refugee Return Movement’s men.”

  “No need to explain that, then,” Dr. Bonpette scoffs. “Which bar did their hunters pull you out of?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He pulls out a rag and begins wiping lotion of some kind on it. I can smell the mixture from where I am standing, and I wrinkle my nose at its pungency.

  “That sham of a movement has been kidnapping Maruli men and women and even some children for months now,” he explains. “They’ve only gotten away with it since the Queen turns a blind eye to the whole thing.”

  I gulp. I didn’t like that I’d been right. Assuming that he was right, of course.

  “I need help escaping them,” I say, trying not to plead with him as I hear Louisa argue with the men on the other side of the door. “Can you help me?”

  “It’s not my place to mess with them,” Dr. Bonpette says. He takes the sleeping woman’s wrist and begins to take her pulse.

  “How can you say that?” I ask. “Isn’t it better that you attempt justice in this case?”

  “What good does that do, if I am rendered useless to any just cause in return?” He rolls his grey eyes.

  “You will live your life knowing you did the right thing.”

  “For approximately three months, when I’ll die of consumption after getting stuck in the Queen’s dungeon, or even sooner, if I get shipped off to the Mopana.”

  “You’re a doctor, sir,” I say, appalled. “It’s your job to save people’s lives from illness and other terrors. I would think that includes living conditions.”

  “It is my job to attempt to save them,” Dr. Bonpette corrects me. “Some people can’t be saved. And, as for the rest, I can only help save the body. It’s up to someone else to make their lives better.”

  “What if you could help someone like that?” I clasp my hands in front of my torn dress, doing my best to maintain my regal dignity. “Please.”

  “Please what?”

  “Help me, and I can help you, too.”

  He shoots me a disinterested look. “I’m not looking for a lover.”

  “Not that,” I say, blushing furiously. “Here. You can have these herbs. Just tell the men that I’m here to assist you, and that I’m not a runaway.”

  Dr. Bonpette looks over the herbs with some interest; for the first time, I feel tangible hope that I’ve done the right thing.

  “Please,” I say, starting to feel desperate. “I’m the Princess. Princess Ebony. The Queen doesn’t know I’m alive, and it’s for the best since she was the one who wanted me dead. But once Prince Rion gets back from Marula, I’ll be able to do something more for you.”

  Dr. Bonpette scoffs. “Oh, well, now I know for sure you’re hallucinating.”

  “I’m not hallucinating. Here, I can help.” I pulled out the herbs. “She’s got a fever, right? And her heartbeat is slow.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’ll make some tea with garlic, ginger, and cayenne, and I can sprinkle in some turmeric.”

  The woman on the bed stirs as Dr. Bonpette and I move around her. “Louisa?”

  “No,” I say, taking her hand. “This is Ebony, and your doctor. We’re here to help you.”

  The woman’s eyes remain closed. “Thank you. I just want to sleep right now.”

  “We can help you with that,” I say, as Dr. Bonpette frowns at me. We stare at each other for a long moment, and then he ignores me, going back to his bag.

  I smile brightly, proud I’ve finally won a battle.

  I don’t realize it at first, but I start to hum and then sing as I pull out the necessary herbs. It’s not until I see Dr. Bonpette looking at me, this time with a strange look in his eye that I realize he’s shocked.

  “What?” I ask.

  The woman moves again. “Keep singing. I like it.”

  Dr. Bonpette says nothing to me. He’s still staring at me, and I take his silence as his permission.

  I start to sing another song, and the rooms seem to go eerily quiet.

  Well, it’s not the first time people have liked hearing me sing, or that they’re surprised at it.

  I’m grateful the packets of herbs mostly managed to survive last night as I hurry to get some hot water.

  “Wait,” Dr. Bonpette calls after me.

  Stepping out into the other room, I am staring down at the men I’d escaped.

  “Gentlemen, this is the do
ctor’s assistant,” Louisa says. “Although I didn’t catch her name.”

  “It’s Ebony,” I say, but before anyone can ask me questions, Dr. Bonpette appears beside me.

  “What is keeping you?” he asks me, and then he turns to the other men. “I do believe there is no need for you to crowd this sick lady’s house.”

  “We’re not leaving without the girl. We know you don’t have an assistant,” the one man scoffs. “She’s a runaway.”

  “Is that what she told you?” Dr. Bonpette rolls his eyes. “Well, your little slave hunters would say she is, wouldn’t they? Anything to get their money. I hope you didn’t pay them already.”

  The men bare their teeth, but none of them say anything.

  “Yes. Ebony is my assistant. I’ve taken her on in order to help my mother. You ... gentlemen ... can understand that, I’m sure.”

  The men are dumbfounded, and so am I.

  He turns to me. “Get on with it, then. You’re not going to be able to help my mother if you’re not able to do basic things.”

  I nod and hurry away, looking for some hot water. Louisa follows me into her small kitchen, where a large pot is boiling.

  “Begging your pardon for earlier,” she says, her voice a little hard. “I’ve been worried for Drusilla for days now, and she just fainted on me.”

  “No need to apologize,” I tell her, scooping up the water into a broken teapot. Through the door, I can see Dr. Bonpette hand the men a small pouch, and, brusquely, they turn and leave the house.

  What was that all about?

  I don’t have the courage to ask as we spend the next several hours checking over Drusilla and tending to her needs.

  It’s only as Dr. Bonpette packs up his stuff that he turns to me.

  “Here.” He hands me a wet rag and a swath of bandages. “For your leg.”

  “Oh.” I’d forgotten about that while I was tending to Drusilla. “Thank you.”

  I work on bandaging my knee up, as carefully and quickly as possible. Dr. Bonpette sits beside me, watching me as I wash my knee and then wrap it. I feel a little immodest with my leg out from underneath my skirt, but I know he is a doctor; he wants to make sure I am well.

  He probably also wants to make sure I know what I am doing, and that’s fair. If he’s going to give me the bandages, I should know how to use them on myself as well as other people.

  “What happened to your family?” he asks as I finish up.

  “I told you,” I say. “I’m Princess Ebony.”

  His face falls into a grimace. “I’d appreciate it if you kept the crazy to a minimum.”

  I don’t know if it’s wise for me to reveal myself as the princess anyway, since Rion is unable to help me now. So I fold my hands together in front of me.

  “Both my parents are dead,” I say. “And, right now, I have no one else in Pommier. But I can promise you I’m not a runaway, no matter what those men said.”

  “It’s not what they say that matters,” Dr. Bonpette says. “It’s the money that matters to them.”

  I look down, recalling the pouch I’d seen him give to the men. “I don’t have any to give them—or you.”

  “There’s no need to worry about them now. They’re gone, and they won’t come back, if they know what’s good for them,” he says, nodding toward the door where the Return’s men had left hours before. “I told them I was grateful for them finding my servant, who’d apparently gotten lost on her way back from gathering medical supplies for me.”

  I give him a small smile and a small curtsey. “Thank you for protecting me, Dr. Bonpette.”

  “Since you apparently have nowhere else to go, you can come with me today. I will take you to my mother.”

  “Your mother?” I repeat.

  He nods. “Yes. She is an older lady, and she needs a companion. If you have no place to go, and no family who can take you in, you can help me take care of her until you are ... ”

  His voice trails off and he frowns, struggling to find the right descriptor.

  “Until we decide otherwise,” I suggest, and he nods in approval.

  “Yes, until we decide otherwise.”

  It’s only fair.

  There’s an unspoken agreement between us, almost as if he’s reminding me that I could be sold to the Refugee Return Movement and taken to Mopana as a slave.

  I nod. “Yes. Thank you, Dr. Bonpette.”

  “My name is Ruston,” he says. There’s a slight catch in his voice, as if he’s unsure of how to proceed. “And yours is?”

  “Ebony.”

  He arches a brow, clearly irritated. “You know, you can drop the princess act now that you’re safe.”

  “My name is Ebony,” I assure him. “I—”

  “Fine.” He grunts. “I’ll call you Ebony, but I’m not going to indulge your childish fantasies about being a princess.”

  I feel a painful twang inside my heart. He has a point, and a painful one. Was my life as a princess ever anything more than a just a fantasy?

  “Well?” Ruston asks. “Are we agreed?”

  I bow, letting my head rest on my chest. “We are agreed.”

  *20*

  Rion

  THE MEN IN FRONT OF me drone on and on, and all I can think of is how unbelievably useless this whole interrogation feels.

  Caryo sits next to me, fiddling with his sleeves. It’s a hotter day here down in Marula, and with the new bandage on his wrist, he’s more than a little uncomfortable.

  I might not share in his pain regarding his wrist, but there’s plenty we do share when it comes to this meeting.

  The two men before me are the ambassadors to the Mopana and the Baobabi rulers, and both of them are squabbling over their nations’ wants and desires and all the usual justification for their recent violence against each other, even the incidents which include the Maruli.

  And the one that didn’t make sense.

  After all these weeks, from all my work, moving across the Maruli nation, seeking out answers from different tribe members, and interviewing different parties, I am still not able to understand why the Pommierian ship was attacked. It was a slave ship, too, which didn’t seem quite right to me.

  Pommier didn’t have a slave trade any more. We had outlawed it, long before even Mother and King Maru were married. There were still some tensions between our two nations—that was to be expected, given our different cultural values and history—but no Pommierian would agree that the Maruli deserved to be slaves; there were plenty who would say they were meant to be social inferiors, but that was still only a minority of Pommierians.

  Beside me, Caryo is listening intently, while I turn back to staring at the blank sheet of paper in front of me.

  Just like last time, I am not sure I want to write to Ebony. I didn’t want to confess my feelings for her over a letter, terrifying her and ruining our goodwill toward each other. Now that I know she loves me, I am happy to write to her of how much I miss her and how I long to see her again soon.

  But I don’t want to tell her that there are slave ships running from Pommier’s port, and I don’t want to tell her that the Mopana have been using our people against the Baobabi.

  And those are only the things I don’t want to explain. There are many other things I can’t explain—such as how a slave ship, a big Pommierian ship—managed to get attacked by the very people buying the slaves on the ship.

  Of course, Caryo had said the ship was empty by the time the palace guard had gotten to it.

  Why attack an empty ship, though? That made even less sense than the ship being attacked in the first place, now that we knew there was a trade deal connecting the Mopana and the Pommierians.

  I blot some ink onto the paper, distressed. All these weeks away from Pommier, from Ebony, and I have nothing to show for it.

  I am just about to give up and offer the ambassadors a break for luncheon when I hear a familiar name.

  “Dr. Merlacur wrote to my King, and told him not to
concern himself with the cost of our boat, although we would see a rise in price for the slaves,” the representative from Mopana says, and the familiar name catches my attention.

  “Dr. Merlacur?” I ask.

  “Yes. He’s one of the many foreign councilors for my King,” the man replied, before he continued on with how they were not going to stop getting slaves, even if it cost them more.

  At the familiar name, everything comes together neatly.

  The Pommierian ship was a Refugee Return Movement ship. They were becoming more frequent traders with the Mopana—bringing them slaves that they’d round up under the guise of a “refugee” movement—and Dr. Merlacur has been using it to profit off the racial tension in Pommier.

  I nod to my other staff members as I call for a break. They escort the ambassadors from Mopana and the Baobabi—as despicable and hateful as they may be—to another royal feast, and I am free of them at last.

  “What is it, Prince Rion?” Caryo asks. He knows me well enough to see I am starting to understand what is going on.

  “Dr. Merlacur is behind this,” I say to Caryo.

  “Do I know the fellow?”

  I shook my head. “No, and you should be grateful you don’t. He’s a Maruli man, and he’s selling his own to the Mopana people as slaves. And he destroyed his own ship from Pommier, although I am not sure why he ordered it.”

  “Perhaps he was offered money,” Caryo suggested.

  “What amount of money could buy someone’s honor like that?” I clench my fist. “He was selling his own people a lie, and one that benefited the Mopana, and threatened lives of our people.”

  Caryo pats my arm companionably. “You’ve forgotten, Prince Rion, that our people have lived with slavery longer than the Pommierians have been around. When you outlawed it, such a thing had never been done before. Slavery goes back to the ancient days for us and several of our neighbors. And even today, you say that sin has enslaved those that allow it.”

  “I know,” I say. “But I can’t believe he would do that. It’s so evil, and so wrong.”

  “You might not believe it, but it’s almost certainly true.” Caryo sighs. “Where there is freedom, we have a lot of chance to run into evil. But it is the only way we can truly see good, too. Perhaps that is why your god would allow for it.”