The Wildkin’s Curse (17 page)

‘I have heard,' Count Zygmunt said to Merry in a low voice, ‘that the Count of Hespera has a great deal of trouble with the rebels here. The local people hide and shelter them, and the count has to deal with constant sabotage.'

Merry looked up at once, his gaze hopeful. Count Zygmunt shrugged, saying in a low and gentle voice, ‘I do not know, Merry. None of us know where she is. We get messages smuggled in sometimes, but we have not seen her for a long time.'

Merry's shoulders slumped. He saw Aubin the Fair scrutinising him closely, and tried to hide his disappointment that once again there was no news of his mother. He knew the constable, such a stickler for rules, would not approve of Mags. Liliana surreptitiously nudged him with her arm, to show she understood, and he gave her a wan smile in return.

A crowd had gathered to watch the travellers from Estelliana pass. They did not throw flowers, or call blessings, but stood, hunched, arms wrapped about their thin bodies, their eyes hostile.

Suddenly a little girl ran forward and cried in a shrill voice, ‘Look, master! See my dolly?'

Merry's heart suddenly pounded. He looked down at the limp ragdoll thrust at him. ‘Why, she's lovely. What's her name?'

‘Lily, sir, like the lilies in the field.'

‘She's nice. Very nice. You must love her very much.'

‘Oh, I do, master, I do. Like all mamas love their babies.'

‘Thank you for showing me,' Merry said, opening his purse and taking out the gold coin he had won from Zed in their knucklebone game. He offered it to her, and she grabbed it with one grimy hand before melting away into the crowd at an incredible speed, as if afraid he would change his mind.

Priscilla was delighted. ‘See, not all the hearthkin hate us. That little girl would never have showed us her dolly if she didn't like us and want to impress us.'

‘Impress us with a filthy collection of rags like that?' Zakary said with a theatrical shudder. ‘I'm glad you didn't touch it, Merry. It was probably infested with fleas.'

‘Oh, surely not!' Priscilla cried, looking at Zakary in distress. ‘That's a horrible thing to say.'

‘It was lovely of her to share her dolly with us,' Count Zygmunt said warmly, looking around at the surly crowd. ‘We feel greatly honoured.'

The mood of the crowd seemed to lighten at the count's words. He looked out at the filthy, ragged gathering, then bent his head and had a quick word to his chamberlain, who rather unwillingly began to throw out handfuls of coins to the crowd.

‘The Count of Estelliana bids you all eat and drink well tonight, to celebrate his travels through your country,' the chamberlain shouted. ‘He wishes you well today and all your days to come. Enjoy!'

‘I wish we could do more for them,' Liliana whispered.

‘One day,' Merry whispered back, and she gave him a quick, luminous smile.

The Star and Crown Inn was, like all starkin residences, built for strength and grandeur. It had a massive gatehouse with a portcullis that was lowered at night, and guards that patrolled the battlements with fusilliers over their shoulders. Merry smiled reassuringly at Liliana as they passed under the portcullis, and she cast him a rueful glance in return.

There was a grand hall with a roaring fire laid, and chandeliers blazing with candles. Everything smelt sweet, and Merry noticed small glass oil burners filled with almond oil. The innkeeper was round and burly and brown-haired, with a bulbous nose of a peculiar red colour so deeply pitted it looked like a strange kind of diseased fruit. He bowed deeply to his starkin guests, drawing out chairs for them and pressing a plate of sugared figs upon them. He then snapped his fingers at Merry and Liliana and said unpleasantly, ‘Why are you just standing there, boys? Serve your betters some wine!'

They shared a sardonic look, but did as they were bid, realising that their new livery was not just for show now they were away from Estelliana. While they poured wine and served food, the travellers and the innkeeper talked idly of the weather and their journey to Zarissa, and then Count Zygmunt complimented the innkeeper on his hospitality.

He beamed. ‘Indeed, yes, we make sure we have all the food and wine that could possibly tempt the delicate palate of those of starkin blood, my lord. We have soft white cheeses from Danika, and sugared grapes, and milk-fed veal, and—'

‘What is the name of your inn, sir?' Merry asked.

The innkeeper was rather affronted at being interrupted by a lowly squire, but answered, ‘The Star and Crown, being loyal to the king and the court as we are.'

‘Oh,' Merry said. ‘I thought it was called the Lilies in the Field . . .'

The innkeeper looked scandalised. ‘That lowdown hovel! Why, that's a hearthkin place, near the west gate. No-one could ever mistake our fine establishment for that rundown old place!'

‘My apologies, sir, I must have misunderstood,' Merry said, and poured Zed some more wine, his friend grimacing at him in apology.

Zakary did not partake of any of the sweet honey-cakes, saying, ‘Oh no, my dear, they're simply deadly for the waistline! Priscilla, I do not see how you can! You do not wish to lose your figure before you have hooked a husband, do you?'

Priscilla looked at the little cake doubtfully and put it back down on the plate. Liliana at once caught it up and ate it with a defiant look at Zakary, which he did not even notice as he was fussing about the mud on his high, crystal heel. ‘This is the consequence of walking,' he sighed. ‘I
knew
I should have ordered a litter.'

‘For heaven's sake, it was about twenty steps from the wharf to the inn!' Zed said.

‘Your point?' Zakary raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘So, I believe you're a gambling man,' Merry said to Zakary. ‘Fancy a game of bones?'

Zak's expression brightened at once. ‘Well, my dear, I must admit I am used to playing far more sophisticated games of chance, but since the alternative is to listen to slack jaws drone on about the weather all afternoon, I think I shall lower myself to such a simple, rustic game. I warn you, though, I play high.'

Merry grinned in anticipation.

A
N HOUR OR SO LATER, WITH A HEAVY BAG OF COINS IN HIS POCKET,
Merry bid farewell to his fellow travellers, telling them he was going in search of a luthier to buy himself some new strings.

It was dusk, and the town bells were ringing to signal the closing of the gates. A long line of weary, dusty hearthkin shuffled past, on their way home after their day in the fields, hoes and spades over their shoulders.

The luthier's shop was a dirty cubbyhole off the main street. Merry bought himself some strings, and some rolls of songs he did not know, and enjoyed a chat with the luthier who marvelled at his lute and wondered where such an instrument had come from. Merry did not, of course, want to say it had been a gift to his foster father from the Erlrune of the Evenlinn, but did tell the luthier that his grandfather had once been a musician at the royal court. The luthier gave him back his lute rather reluctantly, saying, ‘Well, if you ever want to sell, I'll do my best to raise the money. It's a rare beauty, it is.'

He got up and went to open the door for Merry, but

Tom-Tit-Tot stood in the way, his body outstretched, every whisker quivering with warning.

‘If you don't mind,' Merry said, his heart suddenly hammering hard, ‘I might just go out the back door.'

The luthier looked at him in surprise. Merry shrugged and said something about gambling debts and, looking very displeased, the luthier let Merry out into the back yard. With Tom-Tit-Tot riding on his shoulder, Merry went to peer around the corner. All he could see was the shape of a man waiting in a doorway opposite the luthier's shop. When the watcher shifted his weight, the light caught the silver of his armour.

Merry slowly backed away, and went as quietly as he could in the opposite direction. His heart banged painfully against his ribs. Who could it have been, hiding in the shadows, waiting for him? Was he only watching, or had he meant to waylay him? A quick dagger thrust, a swipe of his wallet, and everyone would think he had fallen victim to a cutpurse. Except cutpurses did not wear armour.

Merry found the Lilies in the Field easily enough, a low wattle-and-daub building with a roof thatched with rushes. It was squashed in between two other buildings, with the town wall pressing in close behind. There were no cobblestones outside, only a stretch of mud where a thin, dirty-looking goat was tied. Wooden shutters stood open to the street, and a row of hearthkin men stood outside, drinking from horn cups and leaning on the wooden bench. They stared at Merry in open curiosity as he went through the half-open door.

‘Thirsty, are we?' the innkeeper said, looking Merry over suspiciously. Merry had changed before he came, and was now sorry that he was wearing his best linen shirt and a clean pair of breeches. He would have stood out even in his old clothes in this poor hovel of an inn.

‘Yes, indeed!' Merry said. ‘I could drink the whole Evenlode dry.'

The innkeeper grunted and filled a horn cup from a large barrel resting on the top of the bar. Propping one elbow on the bar, and keeping his other hand close to the hilt of his dagger, Merry looked about him curiously. The room was small and grimy, with stinking old rushes on the floor. A sullen fire flickered on the hearth, and an old blind woman sat hunched in a chair before it, a walking stick leaning against her knee.

Merry drank down his cup and laid it on the bar.

‘You
were
thirsty,' the innkeeper said. ‘It is good, though, our apple-ale. Secret recipe, handed down from my mam there.' He jerked his head towards the blind woman. ‘Interested in buying a hogshead?'

‘Sure,' Merry said, though his heart sank. He had no desire to spend his hard-won coins on apple-ale.

‘Mam,' the innkeeper shouted. ‘Boy here wants to buy a barrel. Can you take him up and show him what we've got?' As the old woman slowly looked round, the innkeeper said in a lower voice, ‘She's a bit deaf too, poor old thing.'

The old woman groped for her stick and rose, sighing, with one hand to her back. Feeling her way forward with her stick, she hobbled to a low doorway. Merry followed quietly behind, his heart banging in his chest, his breath constricted. He cast a quick glance around, but no-one was paying him any attention, their eyes on their horn cups. Tom-Tit-Tot bounced after him, and Merry bent and tucked him under his arm, glad of his company. If he was being led into some kind of ambush, at least he would have the omen-imp's help to escape.

A steep stairway led up to a loft where barrels of apple-ale stood shoulder to shoulder in the darkness. Somewhere nearby, pigeons cooed and fluttered. Merry peered around, but could see no-one but the old woman, who stood waiting quietly, her back bent. Disappointment filled him. Maybe the little girl with her doll had not been a message from his mother after all.

‘Do yer want some ale or not?' the old woman asked, in a cracked and whining voice, showing a mouth full of crooked, rotting teeth.

‘Yes, of course,' Merry said with an effort.

‘That's a shame,' she answered. ‘I thought you'd come to see me, my boy.'

As she spoke, she straightened and smiled at him, her voice losing its croaky timbre.

‘Mam!' Merry cried, and dropped Tom-Tit-Tot on a barrel so he could fling his arms around her. ‘Where have you been?'

‘Doing my work,' his mother whispered in his ear. ‘A crutch for the crippled, a shield for the meek, a voice for the speechless, a sword for the weak . . .'

Merry nodded, pressing his face into his mother's bony shoulder. She patted him gently. ‘How are you, my boy? You seem too thin. Have you been sick again?'

‘No, I'm fine,' he answered. ‘You're the one who's too thin!'

‘Oh, well, we've been on the run. It's hard to put on flesh when you're on the move all the time.'

She gave him another pat and then pulled away. He perched on one barrel and his mother hopped up onto another. Merry examined her closely in the gloom. Her hair was grey and stringy, her skin was wrinkled, and there was a large wart on her chin which sprouted grey hairs. Her eyes were milky-blue and seemed to stare sightlessly. He could have walked right past her in the marketplace and never guessed it was his own mother.

She grinned at him, then deftly removed two small discs of milky-coloured glass from her eyes, revealing her own dark brown irises which gazed at him lovingly. ‘That better?'

Tom-Tit-Tot stood up on his hind legs, chittering in surprise, his head bent comically to one side.

‘It'd be better if you got rid of the wart too,' Merry said. ‘And the teeth are horrible.'

She grinned and spat out a set of false teeth, showing her own, which were nearly as crooked but at least whole and clean. ‘Can't take off the wart,' she said. ‘It takes forever to stick it on again.'

‘But how . . . and what are you doing here?' Merry had so many questions, he could barely frame a sentence.

‘I've come to see you, of course. I heard you were coming down the river on a barge, on your way to Zarissa. I thought you were safe with the Erlrune, Merry. What in blazes are you doing going to the king's court?'

Quickly he told her all about Liliana and her quest to free her cousin from the king. His mother was most interested in the killing of the starkin soldier at Stormfell Castle.

‘We heard about that, of course. I didn't even know any of the Stormlinn had survived. Apart from the wildkin princess, of course. So she has magic of her own, this wildkin girl? You say she raised a wind and blew the fusillier's flame back into his face?'

‘Yes. At least, I think that's what she did.'

‘What else can she do?'

‘I don't know. She covered our footsteps in the dust.'