The Wildkin’s Curse (12 page)

Zed did not know quite what he was feeling. His emotions were in such a tumult that thought scrabbled over thought like stag-beetles in a box. One moment he thought he should apologise to her for not believing her. Yet who would ever have thought starkin soldiers would keep watch on a cobwebby old ruin so far from anywhere? The next moment he wanted to comfort her, for it could not be an easy thing to cause a man's death, no matter how much she hated his kind. He felt he needed comfort himself. Zed had never seen anyone die before. The soldier's terrified face haunted him, making him feel sick and shaky. He tried to block it from his thoughts, but his mind kept replaying the moment, over and over, so that he stumbled in a daze, barely able to breathe for the lump in his throat.

Surely he should thank her? She had saved their lives. If she had not acted, they would all have been blown to cinders. The very thought baffled Zed. He was one of the Ziv. How could his own king's soldiers have fired upon him like that, without any reason? The soldiers had not known who they were, or why they were seeking shelter in the ruined castle. They could easily have been a few friends out hiking and fishing in the forest. Did the king's soldiers really kill so easily, without waiting for explanations? For the first time Zed realised his high adventure was deadly serious.

Yet it was not gratitude Zed felt towards Liliana, but an irrational and overwhelming anger. The penalty for killing a starkin soldier was cruel. If they were caught and accused of treason, they could all be tortured before they were killed, and Zed's own family could be punished too, their castle levelled, their lands forfeit. If Liliana had not killed the soldier . . . if she had not come and asked them to help her on their quest . . . if she had only explained properly instead of just ordering him around . . .

If he had only listened . . .

Zed pushed the thought away, and kept on stumbling forward, barely aware that the sun was now high overhead and they had been walking for hours.

Suddenly Liliana fell to her knees, her hands pressed over her face. She was gasping and trembling, unable for a moment to even take a breath.

‘I didn't . . . I'm sorry . . .'

Merry dropped beside her, his arm about her shoulders, murmuring words of comfort. Zed sat abruptly, his legs suddenly giving way. He hung his head between his knees, vaguely aware Tom-Tit-Tot had come to rest on a branch beside his head.

‘We must go on . . .' Liliana said, pushing Merry away, trying to get to her feet again.

‘We're all exhausted,' Merry said. ‘We should rest awhile. Come, lie down, everything will be all right. They didn't see us, they don't know who we were. It could even have been a terrible accident. Don't cry so. You saved us, you saved our lives.'

‘I'm not crying,' Liliana cried, though she was shaking with sobs.

The rage Zed had been feeling had drained away, leaving him so weary he could barely lift his head. He did, though, saying, ‘I'm so sorry, Lili. I should've listened. It's all my fault.'

She shook her head, dashing tears from her face. ‘No, it's my fault. I should've made you understand. I know what those starkin soldiers can do. I knew they still watched the castle. The king . . . the king never forgets. He watches everyone.'

There was a long, weary silence.

‘We need to sleep,' Merry said. ‘Tom-Tit-Tot, will you stand watch for us?'

‘Watch, botch,' the omen-imp muttered crossly, but folded his wings and crouched on a branch above their heads, his slitted eyes gleaming red.

‘Here, have some bread,' Zed said and passed round the basket he had been carrying all this time. It seemed as if the effort of biting and chewing was too much, but the food brought new strength to him, so that he felt able to lay out his cloak on the ground and lie down, his satchel under his head.

The other two followed suit. Liliana lay curled like a child, her back to the boys. After a while, Zed glanced her way. She was shaking as if with cold, and he could hear tiny little gasps as if she was trying to hide tears. Even as he wondered whether he should say something, or try to comfort her, Merry got quietly to his feet and tucked his own cloak around her. After a moment, her hand crept out and clutched his cloak closer to her. Merry went back and lay down on the cold, hard ground. Zed closed his eyes, feeling worse than he ever had in his whole life.

None of them spoke very much in the days that followed. Everything that had happened seemed too big for words. They concentrated on getting through the forest as quickly and quietly as possible, the omen-imp guiding their way. They lit no fires, eating berries and nuts and fungi like wild creatures themselves. Sometimes, when they woke, it would be to find a small pile of mushrooms wrapped in leaves, or three blue-spotted eggs in a basket woven of rushes, which they had to suck from the shells like weasels. Once Zed saw a team of wood-sprites behind them, sweeping away their footsteps with birch brooms.

‘It's because of Liliana,' Merry said in a low voice. ‘They're helping us because she's one of the Stormlinn.'

Zed nodded, remembering their journey to the Evenlinn six months earlier, and how the wood-sprites had jeered at them from the treetops, pelting them with acorns. He looked at Liliana with new respect. If it had not been for her forest-lore, they would surely have been caught, or got lost, or come close to starving.

After a few days, with no sign of any soldiers on their trail, the three companions began to relax a little. Liliana lit campfires each night, and took more time to hunt for food, gathering wild greens, digging up bulbous yellow roots that were surprisingly delicious baked in the coals, and catching wild birds in ingenious traps she set up with string and twigs.

Merry brought out his lute and played softly in the dusk. Sometimes he'd play an old love song, or a sweet serenade; other times he would play music of his own, which sounded like birds calling in the dawn.

One night, as Merry played an old lullaby, Zed was surprised to see tears glistening on Liliana's cheek. She hid them behind the tumult of her hair, and frowned at him so fiercely he thought he must have imagined them.

A week later they came to the edge of the Perilous Forest. Rather than pushing on and sleeping out in the open, Zed and Merry set up camp early so the light of their fire would still be concealed by the dark tangle of trees and giant ferns and dangling vines. Liliana set up her nets and caught them an exaltation of larks, much to Merry's dismay. He loved the sweet song of the little birds and hated the thought of eating them. The smell of the larks roasting on sticks over the fire soon overwhelmed his scruples, and he ate as hungrily as the other two. The birds were so tiny, though, that it seemed to take only a few bites to devour them, and Zed could only wish Liliana had caught a whole lot more.

‘We need to make some sort of plan,' Merry said, cradling his lute in his lap but not daring to play her here, so close to the edge of the forest.

It was dusk, and the trees were silhouetted against a red rim of sky. Firelight danced over their faces, and glinted red from the eyes of the omen-imp as he crouched in the branches above their head.

‘What for?' Zed asked, morosely sucking on a tiny drumstick.

‘Are we just going to roll up to the castle, with Lili dressed like this?' Merry gestured towards Liliana.

‘What's wrong with me?' she flared at once.

‘Girls don't wear breeches and carry longbows at the royal court,' Merry said patiently. ‘We'll have to find you a dress somewhere, and a cap too. I think it's best we pretend you're a serving-girl—'

‘I will not pretend to be a serving-girl! As if I'd agree to be subservient to a starkin!'

‘But you're too conspicuous,' Merry argued. ‘It's going to be hard enough to smuggle you into Zarissa Castle as it is.'

‘You mean because of her pointy ears?' Zed asked, tossing the drumstick into the fire and looking around wistfully for more.

‘If she wears a cap, like serving-girls do, no-one will ever notice,' Merry said.

‘I'm not pretending to be a serving-girl.' Liliana scowled.

‘We cannot introduce you at court as Liliana Vendavala, Princess of the Stormlinn!' Merry cried, quite exasperated. ‘Try to be sensible.'

‘I do not like to lie,' she replied. ‘It is cowardly and false.'

Merry and Zed stared at her with a familiar sense of helpless amazement.

‘Well, we don't like to lie either, but how are we to rescue your cousin otherwise?' Merry said at last.

‘Words have weight, and we should use them wisely,' she replied stubbornly.

‘Exactly! And telling everyone that you're a wildkin princess is not what I'd call wise,' Merry flashed back.

‘I will not pretend to be a serving-girl! I will not bow and scrape and fawn to you or to any other starkin. What would you have me do? Empty your chamber-pot for you? Pick up your smelly socks? Bring you apple-ale and let you pinch my bottom? No! I will not.'

She had jumped to her feet, and in his anger Merry scrambled to his feet too. They stood, scowling at each other, fists clenched.

‘Stop being such an idiot,' he said furiously. ‘Can't you see we must all act some kind of role, like tomfools in a play, if we are to rescue your cousin and get out of Zarissa alive? You cannot be such a cabbage-head as to think anything else—'

She drew her dagger from her belt, startling him into silence.

‘Lili . . .' Zed began, getting up too, his hands held high in appeasement.

Liliana seized her long plait in her other hand and swiftly hacked it off. It dangled from her hand like a long, limp snake. Her shorn hair, released from its bonds, sprang up around her face in a halo of dark curls. ‘I'll be a boy,' she said breathlessly.

‘A coy boy, a decoy boy,' Tom-Tit-Tot jeered, throwing nuts at her head. ‘Annoy boy.'

The others stared at her in dismay.

‘I will not pretend to be a serving-girl,' Liliana said, staring at them challengingly. ‘It would be an affront to the Stormlinn to lower myself so. I'll be a boy. Boys can go anywhere and do anything. No-one will notice me.'

‘I guess you can't see her ears now.' Zed cast a quick look of amusement at Merry, who shrugged and threw up his hands.

‘What are we to call you now?' he asked. ‘Certainly not Lili.'

‘Jack?' Zed suggested. ‘We need a good, strong, manly name.'

‘Buster?' Merry suggested.

Liliana cast him a cutting glance. ‘Something that sounds a little like Lili, so that it's not so obvious if you call me by the wrong name.'

‘Leigh? Lenny? Lincoln?' Zed suggested.

‘How about Laurie?' Merry said.

Liliana considered this. ‘Laurie. It is short for Laurence, which means “victory”. It seems a good choice.'

‘Laurie it is then,' Zed said. ‘To victory!' He raised high his water bottle.

Merry's brain was working fast. ‘It could be useful,' he admitted. ‘Having you as a boy, I mean. If you were to pretend to be some kind of pageboy . . . servants are invisible, they can go anywhere.'

‘I will not serve you on bended knee,' she warned Zed.

‘How about pretending to be my squire?' Zed asked. ‘You would have to bow to me, I'm afraid, and to anyone else we met, but there's no helping that.'

‘I will not bow to one of the Ziv,' Liliana repeated.

‘You'll have to,' Zed replied. ‘If you wish to come to court, then you must learn court manners. Else you'll endanger us all.'

She set her jaw stubbornly.

‘Being a squire is not so bad,' Merry said. ‘Both Zed and I were taught how, acting as his uncle's squires. It's how they train you for life at court. You know, how deep to bow, and how many times to wave your hat before pressing it to your heart . . .'

‘We both had to learn how to carve up all different kinds of joints,' Zed said. ‘And how to polish a sword without cutting off a finger. '

‘How about I act as Zed's squire too?' Merry said. ‘I'd never be permitted to treat him as I do at home anyway. Etiquette is very strict at court. Wars have been started over who gets to sit closer to the salt. And you've got to realise everyone always knows everyone else's family tree. It'd be seen as the worst kind of insult to have some nameless boy refuse to bow to you. They'd whip you at the very least.'

‘Kill you, probably,' Zed said.

‘And all you'd do is draw attention to us. We have to act like everything is normal, else we'll never succeed.'

Liliana looked sulky and cross. ‘What exactly does a squire have to do?'

‘Not much, really,' Merry assured her. ‘Hold Zed's horse for him if he goes hunting, and bring him his cloak if he gets cold. Run messages, and guard his sleep, and serve him his food. There'll be other servants to do most of the waiting on hand and foot. We'll take it in turns to serve him at dinner, and the other one can go off and scout around.'

‘Very well,' Liliana said after a moment. ‘I will act the part of a squire, as long as Merry does too. But I will not empty any chamber-pots!' She flashed them a sudden smile.

‘Or pick up any of Zed's stinky socks. That's a task far beyond the call of duty,' Merry said, grinning back.

Liliana looked down at the plait in her hand, then tossed it on the fire. The flames caught it and flared higher, turning the braid of hair into molten gold before it shrivelled away into ash with a sharp, unpleasant smell.

L
EAVING THE
P
ERILOUS
F
OREST BEHIND THEM, THE THREE
travellers came down a steep and mountainous path known to only a few.

It was early evening. Estelliana Castle soared into the sunset sky, its towers and spires gleaming golden. Far below, its reflection floated on the dark waters of the lake, with only the serene gliding of the swans to ripple its perfection.