The Wildkin’s Curse (32 page)

For a moment the only sound was the knife against the parchment. Then Palila continued in a soft voice, as if speaking to herself, ‘The years passed. Queen Shoshanna had begged me to make sure she did not conceive a child, not wanting to condemn one of her blood to a life spent in prison and degradation. Then one day she changed her mind. A message came . . . a prophecy had been uttered . . .'

‘
Three times a babe shall be born, between star-crowned and iron-bound
,' Merry said.

She stopped and stared at him. ‘Yes,' she whispered.

‘
First the sower of seeds, the soothsayer, though lame, he must travel afar. Next shall be the king-breaker, the king-maker, though broken himself he shall be. Last, the smallest and the greatest—in him, the blood of wise and wild, farseeing ones and starseeing ones. Though he must be lost before he can find, though, before he sees, he must be blind, if he can find and if he can see, the true king of all he shall be.'

‘How do you know of this?' Her voice was tense and urgent.

‘It was my father who spoke it,' Merry said.

She sat still a long moment, then began to sharpen the point of her quill, her old hands trembling. ‘Your father . . .'

‘Yes. He died. He was killed.'

‘I'm not surprised,' she murmured, beginning to write carefully on the parchment. ‘You know then why Shoshanna decided to have a child. A child that had in him the blood of wise and wild, farseeing ones and starseeing ones . . . I helped her make sure she conceived, and then I helped her give birth. She had never been strong, and all those years held captive had broken her health. She died.'

‘Poor queen,' Merry said inadequately. ‘And poor little princess.'

‘Yes,' Palila replied, very low. She stood up, folded the parchment in two, and beckoned to Horace, who waddled towards her, opening wide his beak. She concealed the message in his pouch, bent and whispered close to his head, and then watched as he waddled out the cave mouth and took off into the air. Her old face looked weary and sad.

‘At least she had you,' Merry said, trying to comfort her.

Palila smiled briefly. ‘I was never enough for her. She longed for her mother, and wished for Shoshanna so hard she called her ghost out of its grave. And now she has wished for a hero, and it looks as if he has come.'

Merry sighed. He pressed his hand to his heart, feeling the shiny triangle of skin where he had been stabbed and where Liliana had healed him. It seemed as if Zed would win the princess's heart and hand, and with it the throne, while Merry had lost everything.

It was like the romance of Zed's parents, which had ended in peace and prosperity in Estelliana Castle, contrasting so cruelly against the tragedy of Merry's parents, which had ended in the death of his father and the endless fight of his mother for justice and freedom.

For the first time, Merry felt a little stirring of rebelliousness.
I am the true heir
, he thought to himself.
I am the one who should be named crown prince
.
Why should I not have what is rightfully mine? Maybe if I could win the throne, I could offer it to Liliana, and she could be queen as she deserves to be.

He sighed again, so deeply Palila looked at him in surprise.

‘Come, are you feeling better? It is time to go.'

He nodded and got slowly to his feet, handing her the small wooden bowl, which he had scraped clean. She rinsed it and put it back on the shelf, then lit a small oil lamp that smelt sickeningly of fish. Holding it in one hand, she lifted a curtain of pelican skins at the back of the cave, revealing a steep and narrow staircase winding up through the rock. It was so low that Merry would have to duck his head.

He paused for a moment, fighting down an irrational surge of fear. She beckoned him forward impatiently, and he heaved up his pack and his lute bag and followed, thinking:
Lili, Lili, where are you?

Liliana trudged back through the forest, scratched and bruised and hot and tired and feeling the low spirits that come after a fit of temper has ebbed away. Every now and again she looked up at the palace, seen only in glimpses through the overhanging canopy, but coming closer and closer with every step.

She would be polite to Merry when she saw him, she decided. Polite and pleasant, but decidedly cool. She would help mend the cloak of feathers, help rescue Rozalina, and then she would go back to her own castle, and do what she could to build it again from its ruin.

Tears rose once more in her eyes, but Liliana blinked them back and trudged resolutely on.

Zed sat on the end of his bed, thinking and worrying, then rose to his feet and went to the door. Four bodyguards stood, two on either side, staring ahead at nothing, the strap of their helmets pressing against their hard, clean-shaven chins. He beckoned one.

‘My squires seem to have gone missing. Can you run to the kitchens and make sure they are not there, raiding the cupboards?'

The soldier grunted and looked displeased, but went away down the corridor towards the kitchens.

Zed beckoned another. ‘And can you go and make sure they are not at target practice in the outer bailey?'

‘My lord, we are not hired to run errands for you,' he answered, looking irritable.

‘No, I know, my squires are, but how can they run errands for me if they are not here? If you find them for me you won't need to run errands anymore.'

The soldier went to do Zed's bidding, scratching at his head in puzzlement as he went.

Then Zed said to the third, ‘Now I come to think of it, they might have gone to the armoury, looking at the swords. They're very interested in swords.'

‘But, my lord,' the soldier said, ‘who will guard you if we're all gone?'

‘This fine young man,' Zed said, clapping the fourth soldier on the shoulder and then wishing he hadn't because the metal armour was very hard.

The third soldier went away down the corridor, and Zed looked at the fourth soldier who looked back at him with shrewd blue eyes. ‘I could go and get you a mug of hot milk,' the soldier suggested. ‘Or look for your squires in the garderobe. But I'd really rather not, because it'd be my hide that would be flayed if something should happen to you whilst I was on duty.'

Zed grinned in response and pulled a gold coin out of his pocket, tossing it up and down nonchalantly. ‘What about if I locked you in my room? There's a nice jug of wine in there, and a comfortable chair.'

‘Do you plan to have yourself assassinated?'

‘Not today.'

The soldier sighed. ‘It'd be much easier if I just came with you.'

‘Easier than a comfortable chair and a jug of wine?' Zed pulled out another gold coin, and then another, and amused himself by seeing if he could juggle them. He couldn't.

‘I guess not,' the soldier sighed, bending down to scoop up the three fallen coins and sliding them into his pocket. He then followed Zed into his bedroom.

‘Don't worry,' Zed said as he slipped out the door with the key in his hand. ‘I can look after myself.'

‘I hope so,' the soldier said, pouring himself a goblet of wine and sitting down by the fire. ‘I really hope so.'

Zed locked the door behind him and then set off as quickly as he could to the postern gate. The guards there remembered Merry and Liliana going out late last night, but said they had not come back in. Zed gave them a few more of his gold coins, thinking that his uncle's chest of money was coming in very useful, then set off at a jog around the path towards the road. The sun was shining and birds were singing, and he had a magnificent view across the forest to the city and the busy harbour beyond. His confidence rose. Surely he would find the other two, who had probably decided to get the last feather before returning to the palace. No doubt he would meet them coming back from the harbour.

It was a long walk down the road to the city gates, and then through the busy streets to the harbour. Zed was glad of his dagger and his concealing cloak, which seemed to stop people from noticing him much, because the city was filled with rough-looking men with scarred faces and gangs of skinny children who ran through the marketplace snatching at bread rolls and old turnips and people's purses.

He walked along the harbour, asking anyone who did not look too scary if they had seen a boy with a lute, or a boy with bow and arrows.

‘I saw a boy with a lute,' one barefoot boy said. ‘Crazy loon, he was! Kept jumping into the harbour trying to catch pelicans.'

‘Did he catch one?' Zed asked in excitement.

‘Not he!' The boy laughed. ‘But he went off to search for the pelican lady, the tomfool. Maybe she's ground up his bones for one of her magic potions.'

‘The pelican lady, where is she?' Zed demanded.

The boy pointed up at the massive headland, with the glittering crown of the palace at the very top. Looking up, Zed saw that the sun was now high in the sky. He remembered the spring equinox feast with a sudden lurch of his heart. He could not be late to the feast, not when he had to sit at the king's right hand. People had been thrown into the dungeon for lesser affronts than that. Zed turned and hurried away from the wharves.

He was able to hire a horse from the stables outside the customs house, paying extra for it to be picked up from the palace later in the day, and then trotted as quickly as he could through the seething crowds. His cloak flared out behind him, revealing his red velvet jacket and fine leather boots, and beggars at once converged on him, seizing hold of his stirrups, hands reaching up for him on all sides. Zed hoisted up his purse and threw it over their heads, gold coins raining down onto the ground. As the beggars scrambled to reach the coins, Zed spurred his horse into a canter, almost running down a skinny hen that ran squawking away with a burst of lost feathers.

Merry will be fine,
he thought.
He's just gone to get the pelican feather.

‘Have you always had a pelican for a pet?'

Palila glanced back at Merry. ‘Horace is not my pet. Pelicans are not like kittens! Believe me, Horace would much rather be back with his flock, fishing and swimming and flying together. They're very sociable birds, you know. It is almost as if they share a single consciousness. They fly south for the winter in formation, and nest together and share the raising of their young. Some say pelicans pierce their breasts with their beak and feed their young on their own blood, when fish is scarce, even if it means their death. I've never seen it, but I'd never be so cruel as to willingly deprive Horace of his squadron.'

‘So, why . . .' Merry prompted.

‘He was caught in a fishing line. His wing was broken and his pouch torn open by a hook. He would never survive in the wild. But shush now. We're near the cellars.'

Merry came quietly up behind her. Palila was probing at a low wooden door with her long fingers. A click sounded and the door sprang open.

Palila held it open for him. Merry walked through and found himself in the cellars under the Tower of Stars. He recognised the low vaulted ceiling, the cobwebbed corners, and the herring-bone pattern of old red bricks on the floor. One thing was different. Last night there had been only a few old barrels and boxes. Now row after row of gleaming glass containers were stacked against the outer wall, each filled to the brim with the strange blue liquid of fusillier fuel. Merry could smell the stench in the air. It stung his eyes and burnt the fine hairs in his nostrils.