The Wildkin’s Curse (35 page)

The Count of Zaltaira was an immensely old fellow with white wispy hair, and an enormous ram's horn crammed into his ear in an attempt to hear. ‘Go on, boy, smile at her!' he shouted to his cringing grandson, a thin, fair boy with sticking-out teeth and the expression of a terrified rabbit. ‘She won't want any of those old fogeys. Smile at her, I say!'

The Count of Ardian was a tall, saturnine man whose red velvet cloak was so dark it was almost black. Although he had a wife, a fair, frail creature who cringed every time he moved, he stared at Rozalina with hungry eyes, and Zed remembered rumours that he had once tried to poison the king in a thwarted plot to seize the throne. He had protested his innocence and nothing had ever been proved, but this was his first visit to the capital city in many long years.

The Count of Zavaria was an elderly man with ice-blue eyes and a walking-stick set with a diamond as large as a hen's egg. Two enormous hound dogs lounged at his booted feet, and he fed them from his plate and murmured to them, caressing their ears, all the while ignoring his beautiful young wife. She sat with her head held high, her pale hair twisted up into a cornet of iron filigree, the tallest of the whole court. Her face was powdered the whitest of all the ladies, and her bodice was stiff with rubies, her skirt so wide it took up most of the bench seat.

The Count of Mistrala was only thirteen, a long-legged, dark-haired boy in a tunic who kept crying, ‘Mama, leave me alone! She won't want to marry me! Besides, I don't want to get married.'

The Count of Somerlad was much the same age as Zed, and dressed in a pale pink satin jacket with immense shoulders and a tight, wasp waist. He had a red rose in his hat, and kept wandering past the high table, waving his scented handkerchief and sighing as he cast Rozalina languishing glances. Zed wished there was a pig trough handy to throw him into.

Only the Count of Deneba did not seem to wish to attract Rozalina's attention, eating and drinking with noisy pleasure, his plump and pretty wife smiling beside him.

The first course was brought, a cold green soup and a salad of wild flowers and herbs mixed with hard-boiled egg, in honour of the equinox. Hot-faced squires were kept running to keep their lords' and ladies' goblets full.

‘There's a rumour going around that the Hag intends to attack the palace tonight,' Adora said, after some minutes of polite and general conversation. ‘We are all deliciously terrified. Whatever shall we do if she does?'

‘Oh, but she wouldn't!' Priscilla blurted out. ‘She'd never do anything to hurt Merry, or Zed, or any of our family.'

Zed scowled at her, but could not kick her or pinch her under the table since Adora was in the way. She turned at once to face the younger girl, her eyes wide with amazement.

‘Why, Priscilla, how can you say so? She murdered your own uncle, on the very steps of the palace.'

Priscilla looked at Zed in appeal, saying miserably, ‘Oh no! That couldn't have been Mags! She'd never have killed Uncle Ziggy. Why, she—'

‘Cilla!' Zed cried.

Priscilla stopped mid-word, flushing as pink as a peony.

‘Do I detect a mystery here?' Adora cried. ‘Oh, I do! Look at you, Priscilla, you've gone quite red. Oh, do tell.'

Priscilla stammered something, and Zed said, ‘She just means we know that the ambush was led by one of our own soldiers.'

‘Well, yes,' Adora said, ‘but of course it must have been the Hag who paid him to attack you. Did you not find a bag of gold on him?'

‘We don't know who paid him.'

‘But you don't think it's the rebels who wanted you dead?' Adora was surprised. ‘Do you suspect someone else?'

Zed shrugged and repeated that he didn't know. Priscilla sat silently, knotting the tassels of her scarf together.

‘You say you don't know who attacked you, yet you don't suspect the Hag,' Adora said, looking from one to the other. ‘Priscilla says that she'd never hurt you or any of your family. Could that be because you know her somehow?'

‘Know the Hag? Us?' Zed hoped his voice did not sound as false to Adora's ears as it did to his own.

‘If I remember rightly, the Hag is the daughter of that old bandit chief, Diamond Joe, who lived in the Perilous Forest. And as we all know, Estelliana is more than half taken up by that very same forest . . .'

‘It's a big forest,' Zed said.

‘Of course, you're right. What am I thinking? As if you could possibly know a filthy, thieving, murdering traitor . . .'

‘She's not!' Priscilla burst out. ‘I mean—'

‘We don't—' Brother and sister spoke together, and then fell silent together, cheeks burning, teeth clenched together. Zed cast Priscilla a reproachful look, and she looked down at her hands, tears in her eyes.

Fear those you love, not those you hate,
Stiga had warned him. He had never suspected that it would be his own sister who would betray them.

‘There's no need to worry,' Adora said softly. ‘Aren't I your cousin? I won't tell anyone. I must admit I'm afire with curiosity, though. How on earth could you have come to know the Hag? Could it, by any chance, have anything to do with your mother's mysterious escapade all those years ago?'

Both Zed and Priscilla made small involuntary movements, and Adora smiled. ‘I see. She went into the Perilous Forest, didn't she? The lair of Diamond Joe. And if I remember rightly, she came back to Estelliana Castle with a handful of hearthkins who helped her wake her brother from his enchanted sleep.'

‘That's right,' Zed said. ‘That was how she met our father. Have you ever heard the story? It's really very romantic.'

For a moment he thought he had successfully deflected Adora, because she said, ‘Oh, yes, I've heard the story. It was the scandal of the season! I was only a girl, but I remember it well. I wondered how she dared. But now . . . well, if only I'd had the courage to marry where I wanted, and not be sold off to a fat, sick, old man just because he was a prince. I believe they've been very happy.'

‘They are,' Zed said curtly.

‘I remember envying you all when I came to visit that time. Estelliana seemed idyllic. Except for that pale, thin boy your parents were fostering. He was as miserable a child as I'd ever seen. What was his name?'

‘Merrik,' Zed muttered. He wondered desperately how Merry was doing. Was he lying hurt somewhere? Had Liliana found him? He wished he could get up and go and search, but he knew the eyes of everyone at court were upon him. He forced himself to sip at his apple-ale, a false smile pinned to his mouth.

‘Merrik, of course. That's the name of your squire, isn't it, the dreamy dark one with the lute. Merry, you call him, don't you?'

Both Zed and Priscilla nodded mechanically. A plate of roast dormice was offered to them by a squire, all curled up pink and naked amid a bed of spring lettuce. Priscilla rejected them with a little cry of distress.

‘Merry . . . who you say the Hag would never harm.'

Zed moistened his dry lips and tried to think what to say, but Adora went on inexorably. ‘Merry, your foster-brother, left at the castle by his mother after his father died. I remember the story now. Your parents were deeply grieved because his father had been drowned, hadn't he? Drowned by starkin soldiers. Accused of being a sorcerer and drowned. And so the boy came to live with you. But tell me, what happened to Merry's mother?'

‘She . . . she . . .'

‘Did she turn rebel, by any chance? Is the reason she would never harm him because she is his mother?'

Both Zed and Priscilla jumped as if stuck by a pin. Adora smiled in satisfaction, and although Zed immediately laughed the idea to scorn, and teased Adora for all her odd notions, and tried to act as if it were all a very big joke, he had a dreadful sinking feeling in his stomach that Adora did not believe a word of it.

Zed swallowed, his mouth dry with fear. Would Adora tell anyone? She was looking at the astronomer, signalling to him with her fan, and Zed's stomach cramped.

What would the king do to them if he discovered they were all in league with the Hag?

L
ILIANA CREPT ALONG THE DARK PASSAGEWAY, HOLDING A FLICKERING
candle in her small brass candle-holder. Tom-Tit-Tot scurried along before her, leading her deeper and deeper into the maze of cellars under the palace.

She heard voices and hurriedly ducked behind a pillar, blowing out her candle. Two guards went past, grumbling to each other, each carrying a lantern on a pole. They did not notice her slight form, wrapped in the Erlrune's cloak, almost invisible in the shadows.

When they moved out of sight, they took their light with them. Liliana was left in an impenetrable darkness. She waited, listening with all her being, but everything was silent. After a long while, she lit her candle again, her hands shaking so much it was difficult to get the scraps of bark and moss in her tinderbox alight. There was no sign of Tom-Tit-Tot. Liliana hurried down the passageway, looking for him everywhere, feeling sick and shaky with anxiety.

Where are you, Merry? Are you hurt? What has happened?

She checked door after door. They all opened to show sacks and barrels and tubs, piled high in musty, unlit rooms. There was no sign of the omen-imp and no sign of Merry.

If I find you, I swear I will never let you go again,
she told Merry in her mind.
I'll love you so hard you'll never wish to be free of me . . .

At the moment when the sun reached the zenith of the sky, the astronomer stood and raised high his arms, and called to everyone to celebrate the coming of spring and the days of warmer weather.

‘The time for new growth is upon us. It is a symbol of new beginnings. The king wishes all of his loving and loyal subjects to lay aside their grief and anger, at least for this one day, and rejoice in the return of the glory and power of the sun.'

People cheered and shouted, and drank toasts, which got progressively rowdier as the speeches continued. Gifts were exchanged, mostly small bundles of fragrant incense sticks, or sweetly scented candles, or soaps carved in the shape of flowers and rabbits and birds. Zed smiled mechanically, all the time sick with worry and fear.

Adora rose, smiled prettily, and said, ‘If you'll please excuse me, I must visit the garderobe.'

‘Oh, I'll come too,' Priscilla said, bouncing to her feet. ‘I can assist you and you can assist me! These dresses are so awkward, aren't they?'

Zed gazed at his sister in admiration as she linked her arm in her cousin's and led her away. Ambrozius glared at him, and said something under his breath to Zakary, who yawned behind his fan and waved his hand for more wine. Lady Vernisha said irritably, ‘Stop muttering, you long-faced fellow. Speak up when you are in the presence of the Ziv! Really, I don't understand what Zabrak sees in you!'

The musicians began to play and people got up to dance or to play the games that had been set out around the fountain. There was a parade of beribboned and flowered hats, a hopping race, and egg-balancing competitions, since the spring and autumn equinoxes were meant to be the only days that one could balance an egg on its end.

Priscilla and Adora came back, arm in arm, and at once the astronomer came to ask Adora for a dance.

Zed tittered, in his best imitation of Zakary, and said loftily, ‘My dear man, you can see my beautiful cousin every day. I haven't seen her in years! Surely you can let me enjoy a few hours with her. We return to the country all too soon.'

The astronomer could do nothing but bow, smile with stiff lips, and retire. Adora smiled sweetly, and fluttered her fan with agitated fingers.

Another course was brought, and Zed ate without knowing what was on his plate, and talked and laughed without knowing what he said. Adora talked and laughed too, while Priscilla sat, miserable and silent, knowing the danger she had brought upon their heads.

At last the course was taken away, and the musicians struck up another dance.

‘Will you excuse me?' Adora said sweetly and rose to her feet. Zed rose too, and bowed, watching her with an uneasy feeling of anxiety. She walked along the back of the high table, bent and whispered a word in the astronomer's ear, then went down into the milling crowd of laughing, gossiping courtiers.

Zed followed her, glad to be away from the high table. Priscilla came with him, clinging to his arm.

‘You know, Zed, I don't think I like court after all,' she said as soon as they were out of earshot of the king and Lady Vernisha, still stolidly eating her way through a platter of eel pie. ‘Do you think we could go home soon?'

Zed nodded, making a quick decision. ‘Yes, Cilla. I think we should go just as soon as we can. Do you think you could slip away now? Put on some travelling clothes. Pack yourself a few necessities. Money, your jewels, some tinder and flint, that sort of thing. Then go down to the harbour and tell our captain I want the
Wind Dancer
provisioned and made ready to sail at once. Wait for me until sunset, and then if we haven't come and there's no message, I want you to go, just as fast as you can.'