The Starthorn Tree Page 4

  It did little good, however. Even though the hearthkin were cowed by the beauty and magnificence of the starkin, and unnerved and ashamed of their own rough, dirty reflections, their sullen anger still broke through in low growls and mutters of dissatisfaction.

  Twenty-one days until the summer solstice, twenty-one days in which much of the hard labour of the year was done. If the seeds were not sown before the ground was baked hard by the sun, there would be no crops to harvest in the autumn. If the vines were not tended, they would wither and die. If the livestock was not fed and watered, the animals would grow thin and sick, and be unable to pull the wagons and ploughs, or produce milk or meat or wool. If the hay was not cut, it would be ruined by rain. The whole economy of Estelliana was threatened and it was the hearthkin who would suffer, not the starkin with their jewels and silks, their treasuries and storerooms stuffed full of the hearthkin’s taxes.

  The bell-crier tried his best. He presented the hearthkin’s case with much courtesy and rational argument. He pointed to the consequences of taking every man and boy in the county away from their work and begged that the levy be reduced in some way. ‘We’re all ready and willing to labour in your service, milord, but to do as you have requested means famine come winter. May we not design a roster system where each man gives up three days in seven?’

  Lord Zavion looked bored. He ate a sweetmeat and gestured to his page to fan him with the great bunch of white sisika feathers he held.

  The bell-crier then appealed to the dowager countess to plead their cause with the Regent. Lady Ginerva’s eyes were closed, her head laid back against the velvet cushion of her chair. She did not seem to listen. Her lady-in-waiting leant forward and whispered in her ear. The dowager countess opened her eyes, wincing at the sight of the rough, brown, bearded men all crowded together at the foot of the dais. She inclined her head wearily, and closed her eyes again. The lady-in-waiting stepped back and gave a quick order to one of the servants.

  There was another flourish of trumpets. Again the great doors at the end of the hall were flung open and the hearthkin all swung round, fear and belligerence mingled on their bearded faces. No-one had missed the significance of the soldiers lined up along both sides of the hall, or that they had all been asked to surrender their eating-knives and tools before entering the castle.

  It was not more soldiers marching through the mirrored doors, however. Slowly, gravely, came a small retinue of starkin, led by the court minstrel playing a sombre tune on his lute. In their midst was a canopied litter, carried on the burly shoulders of six men. Embroidered with silver thread upon the white satin curtains and coverlet were the arms of the Estaria family, a white swan resting upon the white blossoms of the starthorn tree, an arc of seven silver stars above.

  Lying upon the litter was a boy of seventeen years, his eyes closed. His thin, high-boned face was framed by smooth fair curls. His hands were folded upon his breast, his body covered with a satin quilt. Upon his long fingers were rings of amethysts and diamonds. More jewels glittered at his throat. His skin was as white as if he had been carved from marble.

  The hearthkin all drew back, staring.

  ‘He’s so cold,’ Durrik whispered. ‘He looks as if he’s dead.’

  ‘There lies the Count of Estelliana, your lord and master,’ the herald cried. ‘For six months he has lain there, barely breathing. He has not spoken. He has not lifted a finger. He has not sighed.

  ‘Is your countess to lose both husband and son in the same season? Zygmunt ziv Estaria has lived here all his life, and his family has ruled you for two centuries. His father was a good and generous man and always treated you justly.

  ‘Is this how you repay his justice, by refusing to help build the tower of stars that is his son’s only hope of salvation? Do you condemn this young lord to death, because of your stubborn pride and recalcitrance? Better that you all die in the service of your lord!’

  The litter had been laid on the dais, so that the men and boys of Estelliana were all level with the figure of the sleeping boy, able to see the occasional twitch of his eyelid, the barely discernible rise of his chest. No-one spoke or moved.

  Lord Zavion yawned behind his ring-laden hand and then made a languid gesture. The soldiers all stepped forward, levelling their fusilliers. Involuntarily the hearthkin all huddled together, looking from side to side with fear and anger. The Regent made another wearied gesture and the soldiers cocked their weapons. For a moment it seemed as if the hearthkin would resist, despite the fusilliers ranged against them. Then there was a soft sigh, a slumping of shoulders, a fatalistic acceptance of their powerlessness. The Regent must be obeyed. The tower of stars must be built.

  FOUR

  Briony sat in the shadows, the spinning-wheel turning swiftly before her, the twisting thread held lightly between her fingers. Her foot worked the treadle rhythmically, without need for any thought on her part. She was free to watch the women sitting all around the solar and listen to their low-voiced conversations, or to gaze out the window and dream.

  Lady Ginerva sat in a cushioned chair by the fire. One long white hand hung limply, the other rested on her lap. Her eyes were closed. Beside her sat Lady Donella, her cousin and chief lady-in-waiting, working on her embroidery. Occasionally she looked sharply about the solar to make sure that no-one else was dawdling over their work. Nearby stood a young page with a tray loaded with fine crystal glasses and a decanter of wine.

  Most of the women clustered about the dowager countess’s sitting room were starkin, and so magnificently robed in rich silks and satins decorated with jewels and lace, their fair hair elaborately coiled and twisted on top of their heads. It was the task of all the court ladies to help spin and weave the cloth for the household, and to help with the mending and dressmaking. Their long pointed nails and fine clothes made it difficult for the ladies-in-waiting to give any practical help, however, and so much of the heavy work fell to the few spinners, seamstresses and weavers employed for that purpose.

  Although Briony had spun and woven the shimmering silk worn by all of the court ladies, she herself was dressed in a loose brown dress, under a drab pinafore, with a black kerchief bound tightly about her head, hiding all her hair. She felt no envy or resentment, however. She was glad to have clothes that were not in rags. She had been living in the Castle of Estelliana for almost six months and had not once been hungry or cold or frightened. She had been able to watch the snow whirling down from behind thick panes of glass, instead of floundering through it in search of shelter. She slept in a warm, soft bed instead of under a hedge or inside a hollow tree. She ate her fill twice a day, with the occasional luxury of roasted meats to vary her diet.

  Briony did not know who her parents were or where she had been born. She had been a foundling child, raised by an old hedge-witch in the shadow of the Perilous Forest. Oreal had been bent, wizened, sharp-eyed and sharp-eared, cruel and cunning as a fox. Her witchery was a patchwork of spells and simples, charms and curses. She boiled the roots of hollyhocks in wine and gave it to children to kill intestinal worms. She mixed her own urine with grave-dust and nightshade to poison those she distrusted, and her love philtres contained dead queen-bees and the sundered heart of a rose. She told new mothers not to wash their babies’ hands for a year else they would never grow rich. A double-yolked egg was just one of many omens of death, and she taught Briony to never, ever step on anyone’s shadow.

  Despite her eccentricities Oreal’s magic was strong and powerful. Many a hearthkin came tap-tapping at her door, a hood drawn close about their face, seeking some cure or potion. It was dangerous these days to seek out one of the Crafty, and Oreal and the little foundling moved house many times, often packing up in the middle of the night with the red flicker of fire coming up the lane. Oreal taught Briony to be quiet, to be fearful, to hide her true nature like a moth camouflaging itself with the grey texture of bark.

  Then, when Briony was six, Oreal died. For once the hedge-witch was not quick
enough to move before six starkin soldiers with loathing in their eyes came knocking on her door. Briony only had time to crawl under the kitchen table, the ragdoll Oreal had made her clutched in her arms. Concealed beneath the hanging folds of tablecloth she crouched, unable to see anything, able to hear everything, the ragdoll crammed in her mouth.

  The soldiers did not take long, trampling back out into the frosty night only a few scant minutes after they had smashed down the door. Briony did not move for a very long time, however, except for the occasional sharp heave of her chest and the incessant quivering of her limbs.

  It was not until a pale finger of sunlight probed under the edge of the tablecloth and touched her foot that Briony at last moved. Slowly, stiffly, carefully, she crept out from under the table, cast one quick, timorous glance at Oreal, lying askew against the wall, and then looked no more. Moving like a sleepwalker, the little girl gathered together all the food in the house and shoved it into a sack, along with Oreal’s shabby, dog-eared book of spells and recipes, and whatever charms, simples and evil-smelling potions she could find.

  Finally, she picked up Oreal’s grey shawl and wrapped it close about her shivering body. The shawl smelt sharply of smoke and rosemary and wood-betony, which the hedge-witch had mixed with mead for her wheezy chest, and cut through Briony’s daze like scissors through paper. She had to sit, her face buried in the shawl, trying hard not to cry. Once she began to cry, Briony knew, she would find it hard to stop.

  At last she managed to swallow the burning ember that seemed to have lodged in her throat, and got up again, tucking her ragdoll under her arm and shouldering the heavy sack. She still could not look at Oreal but she managed to straighten the old witch’s dress without touching her cold, grey skin. She waited until she was sure the forest outside was free of watchers, before slowly creeping out the door and down the path, being careful to put her small feet in the big, deep footprints left by the soldiers, so that no-one could follow her trail.

  Briony spent the next six years wandering about the countryside, spinning or sewing for anyone who would toss her a hunk of bread or a copper coin. In the woods and hedgerows that were her usual bed, she came to know the ways of all the other spinning creatures, spiders and silkworms, moths and butterflies. She gathered their silks and delicate filaments of wild flax and dandelion seeds, and wove them into shimmering cloth. She learnt which flowers and berries yielded lasting colour and dyed her fabrics in all the shades of the rainbow. She learnt to make lace, taking her designs from snowflakes and cobwebs and frost-flowers.

  Gradually Briony’s fame had spread. The great cloth-merchants began to seek her out in the marketplaces. At last Lady Donella, who loved luxury in all its forms, sent a messenger to find her and bring her to the Castle of Estelliana. Briony had been there ever since.

  At first she had been content. Since Count Zoltan had died, however, the castle had been an unhappy place, full of whispers and sideways glances and the distant sound of sobbing. No-one knew what had happened. The count had ridden out gaily one crisp winter’s morning, with his huntsmen and hounds, his grey destrier and his falcon, his young son and heir by his side. The sky had been clear, no storm clouds or rumbling of thunder to presage disaster.

  They had ridden out in search of gibberhog, one having been sighted near the edge of the Perilous Forest some days earlier. No-one expected the hunt to be easy, gibberhogs being fierce and cunning prey, and so it had been several days before the first shadow of anxiety had touched the countess’s beautiful face.

  At last a search party had been sent out, all riding upon the swift, white-winged sisikas. Able to soar high into the skies, the sisikas had reached the forest quickly. The hunting party’s camp was found a few days later, the searchers led to the camp by the mournful howling of the count’s great mastiff.

  They were all dead, the count, his knights, his squire, the falconer and huntsmen, the dog-boys and the trackers. Their bodies lay in the snow about the ashes of a great fire, the remains of a feast scattered about them, their goblets fallen from their lifeless hands. The count’s mastiff lay at the feet of the dead lord, savage with grief and hunger. The searchers had had to shoot him before they could approach the grim scene. Only the count’s young son was still alive, though he was so cold and still all thought he was dead too, until one noticed the faint flicker of his eyelids.

  At first the dowager countess had been maddened with her grief. Lady Ginerva no longer wept or raged or smashed vases, however. These last few months, she roused only long enough to drink more of the cordial the chief lady-in-waiting had distilled to help deaden her grief. Sometimes she seemed no more alive than her son.

  The door swung open, crashing into the wall behind. Everyone looked up, frowning in disapproval, as Lady Lisandre hurried in, the smooth pale ripples of her hair disordered, her skirt caught up in one hand to show red shoes with very high heels. It was hard to hurry in trailing skirts and high heels and so Lisandre stumbled and almost fell, before flinging herself down at her mother’s feet and seizing the limply hanging hand. ‘Mama!’ she cried. ‘The tower is finally finished! They have just brought the news. Oh, do you think it will work? Will Lord Zavion really be able to awaken Ziggy?’ She shook her mother’s hand vigorously. The dowager countess’s swollen lids did not open.

  Lady Donella rose gracefully to her feet. ‘Lisandre, your mother is resting! You should not run and shout in her ear like some wild hoyden.’

  Lisandre ignored her. ‘Mama! Do you not hear me?’

  Again Lady Donella reproved her, bending to take her arm and draw her away. Lisandre shook her off, calling her mother loudly and shaking her shoulder. Lady Ginerva’s eyes opened and she looked at her daughter dazedly. ‘Lisandre? Did you speak? What is it?’

  Rapidly Lisandre repeated her words. Lady Ginerva’s mouth twisted, tears welling up in her eyes. ‘Oh, by the stars, let Lord Zavion prevail!’ she whispered. ‘If Ziggy should die . . . oh, I could not bear it!’

  Lady Donella drew Lisandre away. ‘If anyone can wake Count Zygmunt from this unnatural slumber, it is Lord Zavion. Is he not one of the starborn himself, and trained at the university of Zarissa? Come, Lisandre, you should not grieve your mother with doubts or disturb her with such impetuous and indelicate behaviour. The sister of the Count of Estelliana should always behave with grace and dignity.’

  She was a graceful figure herself, Lady Donella. Although not one of the starborn herself, her patrician beauty had, like her cousin Ginerva, won her a marriage with one of the offshoots of the royal family. Lady Ginerva had been lucky enough to marry a lord in the prime of his youth and strength, although one that lived a long way away from the royal court at Zarissa. Lady Donella’s husband had been old and fat and stricken with gout, however, with five children from an earlier marriage. Upon his death seven months earlier, his great castle and expansive lands had been inherited by the eldest son who, being twelve years older than his stepmother, had never felt anything but dislike for her. Lady Donella had been forced to seek a home among her relatives and had gratefully accepted her cousin’s invitation to become her chief lady-in-waiting. She showed no chagrin at her abrupt change in status, being always sweet-voiced and charming, but Briony, watching from the shadows, thought she must have found it difficult.

  Lisandre had submitted to Lady Donella’s firm guiding hand, though she cast an unhappy glance back at the drooping figure of her mother. The lady-in-waiting pulled Lisandre’s embroidery frame forward, saying with a rueful laugh, ‘Oh, Lisandre, look at the size of your stitches! Come, this must all be unpicked and done again. A lady’s stitches should be invisible!’

  Sulkily Lisandre did as she was told, as Lady Donella beckoned the pageboy forward and poured a glass of deep red liquid from a small bottle she carried in her reticule. She then bent over the dowager countess, coaxing her to drink a little. Listlessly Lady Ginerva sipped from the goblet. The cordial brought no colour to her cheeks, however. She was as limp as Briony’s r
agdoll.

  There was a discreet knock on the door.

  ‘Enter!’ Lady Donella called.

  Lord Zavion came in, smiling. At the sight of him the ladies-in-waiting all fluttered and preened like songbirds in a cage. Even the head weaver, Brianna, a large, plain hearthkin woman of immense commonsense, was unable to help putting up one hand to make sure her black kerchief was tied neatly. Only Briony shrank further back into the shadows, her eyes dropping to her spinning-wheel.

  Lord Zavion bowed low over the dowager countess’s hand. She smiled at him, showing the most life she had all evening. ‘My daughter tells me your tower is finished at last, my lord. That is joyful tidings indeed.’

  Lord Zavion cast Lisandre a look of dislike, which she returned in full measure. ‘I was hoping to please you with the news myself, gentle lady,’ he said, ‘but I see that privilege has been denied me.’

  The dowager countess smiled faintly and he sat down opposite her, gesturing to the page to pour him some wine. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror opposite and rearranged his long blond curls before sipping his wine, his eyes still fixed upon himself.

  ‘Yes, all is done and just in time,’ he said. ‘Indeed those hearthkin are slow and stupid! We have had to whip them to make them work fast enough, and two precious panes of glass were broken just this week! If they were not so bovine, I would swear it was done to vex me.

  ‘Even oxen would be tired and clumsy after twenty-one days without sleep,’ Lisandre said. Briony smiled to herself. Even though she knew Lisandre spoke more from a desire to irritate Lord Zavion than from any real concern for the hearthkin, Briony always loved to see any evidence of sympathy in her, for such awareness was so rare among the starkin. She always secretly enjoyed Lisandre’s audacity too. Briony wished she had the courage to talk back to the Regent, to challenge his authority and undermine his complacency, but she would never have dared, even if she had been a starkin princess herself. And Lisandre was as much within the Regent’s power as Briony was, for in the starkin culture, women had no rights whatsoever, no matter how nobly born.