The Wildkin’s Curse (10 page)

‘Don't be ridiculous,' Merry said. ‘Have you ever known a girl to hurry having a bath? Think how long your sister takes every day! She'll be hours.'

Liliana shut the door in his face.

Merry went to peer out through the deep arrow slit in the wall, looking for Tom-Tit-Tot.

‘What did she mean, that strange old woman?' he said softly. ‘Do you think she has the Sight?'

‘I think she thinks she does, poor thing,' Zed said confidently. ‘But it'd be enough to drive anyone half-crazy, living in this old ruin.'

‘It must have been so hard,' Merry said. ‘For Liliana, I mean. All alone, in this ghost-haunted place . . .

Zed raised an eyebrow. ‘A life spent at Estelliana Castle and you still have all those old hearthkin superstitions.'

Merry gazed around him uneasily and shrugged. He began to pace, brushing his hand along the tapestry so that it swung back and forth in time with his steps. A strong smell of mildew and mouse choked him.

‘You might as well be patient,' Zed told him, sliding down to sit on the floor, his long legs stretched before him. ‘Do you want to play knucklebones?'

‘In the dark?' Merry turned to face him, unable to see little more than the vague oval of white that was Zed's face.

‘It won't matter if I shed just a little light. Who's going to see us so far from anywhere? Liliana is just jumping at shadows. Come on, I'll bet you two yellow boys.'

Merry could never resist a bet. He rolled his cloak up and sat on it, his legs crossed, as Zed summoned golden light from the jewelled orb that always hung in a leather pouch about his waist. It was the size and shape of a sisika egg, enamelled sky-blue and set with four miniature portraits, all garlanded with gold and surmounted by star-cut diamonds. The portraits depicted Zed's mother Lady Lisandre, his grandfather Count Zoltan, his great-grandmother Princess Yelenza, and his great-great-grandfather King Zhigor the Fifth. The jewelled night-light had been Zed's christening gift from the present ruler, King Zabrak. Although the four medallions acknowledged Zed was one of the Ziv, it was also a reminder that he was descended through the female line and so was not eligible to inherit the throne.

Zed flicked his thumbnail against the golden loop at the top of the egg, and it sprang open to reveal a tiny feathered bluebird inside an ornate golden cage. The bird opened its beak and sang sweetly, if a little mechanically. The boys listened in silence, both all too aware of the symbolism of the bird of happiness, content in its gilded cage. It finished its song and the two halves of the jewelled egg closed together with a little snap.

Zed set the night-light on its three legs and dug out two golden coins, which he laid challengingly on the ground. Merry got out his bag of knucklebones and tipped them into his hand. There were five of them, made from the pastern bone of a goat, plus a round white stone. He then dug around in his pocket and found a small tarnished coin. ‘It's all I've got.'

‘You shouldn't spend all your money on bits of old gut,' Zed teased.

‘Well, I know your father would give me new lute strings any time I wanted, but I don't like to ask,' Merry replied. ‘Lady Oriole was such a valuable gift to begin with, and her strings break all the time, no matter how careful I am about releasing them while she's resting.'

‘Well, he wasn't going to waste her . . . I mean,
it
. . . by giving it to me,' Zed replied. ‘You know how proud he is of you and your music. But enough chitchat. Rattle those bones!'

In a moment they were both absorbed in the game. Zed's hand was much larger, which made it easier for him to catch and throw the knucklebones, but Merry was daring and quick and far more likely to take a risk. Soon he had won one of the gold coins, which pleased him immensely.

Although Zed's parents paid him the same allowance they paid their son, Merry sent most of it to his mother to be given to the poor and sick and hungry, and to help her in her desperate fight against the king's tyranny. He did not want his foster-parents to know how much he gave away, in case they felt beholden to give him more, and so he pretended to spend more upon his beloved lute than was entirely necessary.

Merry was in the middle of a tricky manoeuvre when the door opened a crack, silhouetting Liliana against the candlelight. She was dressed in a regal-looking robe of golden velvet, belted tightly about her narrow waist, and her loose hair fell in thick curls past her waist. Merry gazed up at her, catching his breath.

‘You idiots! Don't you know how far a light can be seen in the darkness?' Pulling the door shut behind her, she bent and cupped her hand about the night-light, trying to stop its radiance. Her hands were too small, and rays of light shot out between her fingers, which glowed red, showing the frail bones within.

Zed huffed his breath out in annoyance. ‘You can't shut it off like that. Here!' He pulled the night-light towards him and twisted the great diamond on the top. At once the light died away and they were left crouching, blind, in the sudden cold blackness.

‘Why don't you listen to me?' Liliana said fiercely. ‘I said, no lights!'

‘There's light in your room,' Merry pointed out.

‘The curtains are thick enough that not a chink can be seen from outside. Oh, how can you be so stupid?'

‘No need to be rude.' Zed scooped up the knucklebones and passed them to Merry, who put them away in his bag. ‘We were just passing the time with a quick game, no harm done.'

‘I certainly hope not,' Liliana said, as sharply as if talking to a naughty child.

‘If you didn't want us to amuse ourselves, you shouldn't have taken so long,' Zed said loftily, rising to his feet. ‘I'll take the next bath. Hope you've left me some hot water!' As he shut the door behind him, Liliana huffed out her breath in exasperation.

Merry stood in silence, not knowing what to say. He felt guilty, like a little boy caught in some misdemeanour.

‘Perhaps it's because you've grown up in Estelliana,' Liliana said after a drawn-out moment of silence. She stood looking out the window, her words so soft he could hardly hear her.

‘Why? What do you mean?'

She turned to face him, a slender dark shape against the dim starlight. He could see nothing of her features, but he could smell the clean, sweet scent of her.

‘You and Zed. You think it's all a game. You mock me because I fear the starkin soldiers, but that is because you've never seen what they can do. In Estelliana, Zed's parents have made a refuge, a place of safety for all who grow up there. Oh, I've heard the stories. There's a school for the hearthkin children and a hospital for when they get sick, and the peasants are never expected to work in the fields till they drop dead from exhaustion.'

‘Of course not,' Merry said.

‘But don't you see, it's not like that in the rest of Ziva?'

‘I know that!' Merry said, growing angry. ‘You may not know this, but my mother is the leader of the rebels. She's dedicated her life to helping the hearthkin.'

‘I did know that,' Liliana said softly. ‘Briony told me. They call her the Hag.'

‘Her name is Maglen Bellringer,' Merry said stiffly.

‘But no-one knows what the Hag really looks like,' Liliana went on dreamily. ‘That's why the starkin have never caught her. One time she'll be dressed as a little girl, another time as a weary old soldier. She's the mistress of disguises.'

‘I know what she looks like,' Merry said.

Liliana glanced at him. He must have been no more than a dark shape among shadows, but he looked away, hoping his voice had not betrayed him.

‘Yes,' Liliana said. ‘That's something.'

At once Merry was reminded her own mother had died when she was only a little girl, and he was sorry. ‘We don't really think it's all a game. That's just our way, to joke about things.'

‘It can never be a joke to me,' she said.

There was a long silence. Merry moistened his lips, trying to think of the right thing to say. ‘It is not that we don't care. We do, really, we do. It is so wrong, the way the world is. We've always been taught that one day we'll have to try and fix things, and we want to . . . it's just . . . one day never seems to come. Maybe this quest of yours is the first step for us, to make things better . . . You know I want to . . .'

In the darkness, Merry might have gone on and tried to explain just what he felt so passionately in his heart, but just then the door swung wide open, a blaze of light falling upon the two of them, and so Merry turned away, putting up one hand to shield his eyes.

‘Your turn, Merrykins,' Zed said cheerfully. ‘Great bath. I wish we had plumbing like that at Estelliana Castle. I must persuade Uncle Ziggy to look into it. Though I wonder how they get the water up from the lake? And so hot?'

‘The water doesn't come from the lake,' Liliana said. ‘There are hot springs in Stormfell. The water is piped down from there. It's meant to be healthy.'

Merry pushed past Zed, hoping no-one had seen in his face what he was feeling in his heart. Liliana put out one hand to stop him. ‘One day,' she said softly. ‘It's coming closer all the time.'

He met her eyes then and nodded, and she gave him one of her rare, quick smiles, and let her hand drop. He went past Zed and shut the door behind him.

The bath was filled with steaming water, deep enough for him to sink his chin into. At one end of the bath was an ornate golden tap, forged in the shape of an eagle. When Merry tugged on the eagle's head, the wings rose and steaming hot water came gushing out of the tap. When he pushed the head back down, the wings lowered again, and a round piece of the bath rose up, so that the water began to drain away.

Merry was fascinated by this, and would normally have pushed and prodded the eagle's head several times to watch the water gush and flow, but he was too conscious of Zed and Liliana out in the darkness together. He washed all over quickly, leapt up, dried himself on a length of old linen laid ready for him, and dressed in a clean shirt and drawers, before pulling on his breeches again. He pressed the eagle's head until the water had all drained silently away, and then, barefoot, he let the other two in.

‘At last!' Zed said. ‘I thought you were going to take all night. I'm starving. Let's eat.'

Another simple meal waited for them on the table—bean and vegetable soup, rough brown bread, and a salad of wild greens and flowers. They ate hungrily, speaking only when asking for the salt or more bread.

‘You two can sleep over there,' Liliana said when she had finished, waving a hand at two pallets on the floor, made up with patchwork counterpanes. ‘I warn you, I sleep lightly, and Stiga watches over me.'

She drew her dagger out of her belt and jumped quickly into bed, sliding the knife under her pillow as she drew the coverlet up around her neck.

‘No need for that,' Zed said, affronted. ‘We're gentlemen of honour.'

‘You think I fear you two boys?' Liliana snorted. ‘I could whip you two with one hand tied behind my back. No, the dagger's not for you.'

Merry did not like to ask who—or what—she feared. He stuffed his belongings back into his satchel, then sat down on one of the pallets, looking away from her towards the fire, dreamily playing a few notes on his lute. The Erlrune's words still haunted him. The
Gift of wishing and cursing, of prayer and prophecy, of storytelling and true-telling . . .
He thought he would like to twist the words into a song.

‘Sound travels at night,' Liliana said.

Merry sighed and packed his lute away again carefully. Sitting on the pallet, he drew off his woollen breeches, tossed them on the floor, and lay down, pulling the coverlet over him.

Zed made sure all his belongings were neatly packed away, slid his dagger under his pillow, then lay down. He was so tall his bare feet stuck out over the end of the pallet, exposed to the chilly air. He sighed and pulled the counterpane down again, tucking it securely around his feet. This bared most of the upper part of his torso. He sighed again, and curled into a ball, his knees hanging over the edge of the pallet.

‘This bed is made for midgets,' he said. ‘Comfortable, squirt?'

‘Very,' Merry replied, stretching wide his arms and legs.

Liliana hissed in exasperation, and blew out the candle.

M
ERRY WAS RUNNING
. T
ORCHES FLARED RED AND SMOKY
through the castle, wavering over the sweaty, contorted faces of men striking, stabbing, slashing. Women and children cowered away, and screams shrilled through the smoke. Merry saw a woman try to shield a little girl with her arms. Both were cut down with a single blow. In the wild play of flame and shadow, their blood sprayed black.

Merry's breath sobbed in his throat. He ran on, leaping over fallen bodies. Vast monstrous shadows pursued him, swords and daggers like teeth and talons. Up the stairs he leapt, and raced down a shadowy corridor, hearing the pound of footsteps coming ever close behind him. His boot slipped in something slick, and he sprawled heavily on the ground. Panting, he rolled but could not get up, for something heavy crouched on his chest . . .

An owl screeched nearby.

Merry's eyes sprang open. He sat up, still feeling the choke and weight of something crouching on his chest. His hair was damp and ruffled and stank sourly of sweat. Merry pressed his hands against his heart, trying to drag in a mouthful of air. Such a terrible dream.

The owl screeched again, an eerie and unnerving sound. It was as loud as if the bird hovered right over his head. Merry glanced towards the window. His mother had always told him that the cry of an owl was a sign that death was near. Old-fashioned superstition, Zed would have mocked, but Merry believed in signs and portents, dreams and omens. Had not his own father been a famous prophet, someone who heard the future in puzzling riddles?