Kee-kee-kee!
The scream of an eagle overhead made Merry flinch. A pebble spun sideways under his grasping fingers and tumbled down into space. He pressed himself to the lichen-silvered rock, his heart pounding so hard he could hear nothing else for a moment or two. Looking down between his feet he could see the green floor of the valley, far, far below.
‘Come on!’ Liliana whispered. ‘Just up here.’
Inch by slow inch, they crept up the last steep gradient. They heard high-pitched squeals above them and the ominous flap of wings. Merry peeked his head over the last boulder and saw below him an enormous messy nest, woven of branches and roots and bark and lined with grass. Only one eaglet squatted within, though there were two broken brown-blotched eggshells. Merry, trying not to shrink away from the frantic beats of wings, saw a dead eaglet strewn at the far end, neck twisted, blind eyes bulging. Zed was crouched behind a boulder nearby.
Then the eagle plummeted from above. Merry drew back sharply. The eagle was enormous, far bigger than he had expected. Its eye was golden and black and fierce. Its beak was made for tearing flesh. Its claws were cruel.
Down the eagle plunged, and landed with a whoosh of air. A dead rabbit dangled from its beak. At once the baby eaglet began to slash at it with its sharp, curved beak. Its parent brooded, one claw still clasped about the dead animal, its wings spread restively.
Zed reached out and plucked a feather from its wing. The eagle shrieked and turned its beak, darting at his hand. He snatched it back, and scrambled away over the rock, waving the feather in his hand. ‘Got it!’ he cried.
Liliana slithered after him, one hand held out. ‘Give it to me! Rozalina is my cousin, I should have plucked the feather!’
Zed bowed with a courtly flourish and offered the eagle feather to her. ‘With my compliments, my lady.’
Liliana snatched it from him and stowed it away in her pack. Merry, wearily creeping down behind, saw her flash Zed a quick smile, which illuminated her face with sudden triumphant beauty.
The heavy beat of wings filled their ears as the eagle took flight again, rising and circling above them, screeching in warning. Merry ducked his head, scrambling down with very little thought for the steep fall below, the fathoms of gravity that would gladly drag him down. Zed led the way, sliding and leaping, while the eagle soared and ducked and shrieked above him.
Halfway down the cliff, scraping his cheek on the rock, blood trickling from his palms, Merry suddenly began to laugh. He bit his tongue to stop himself, but Liliana responded with a high, sweet trill of laughter.
‘We have it, Merry, we have it!’ she called.
And we’re alive, he answered silently. Although for how long, I wonder?
Dusk fell long before they reached Stormfell Castle.
Filthy and exhausted, Liliana and the boys trudged back up to the hidden room in darkness. The steps were old and broken, and Merry banged his shin and stubbed his toe more than once. He wished Tom-Tit-Tot was there to guide them, but the omen-imp had still not come back. Merry wondered if he found the ruined castle as eerie and unsettling as Merry did.
‘It’d be much easier if I just opened my night-light,’ Zed complained. ‘There’s no need for us to stumble about in the darkness.’
‘Shhh,’ Liliana hissed.
‘But why? What’s your problem?’ Zed demanded.
‘You never know when the castle is being watched. It’s too great a risk.’
‘But there’s no-one for miles,’ Zed argued.
‘Unless you count spiders,’ Merry said, fighting off an unseen cobweb.
‘Shhh,’ Liliana hissed again.
‘Or ghosts.’ Merry peered along a dark corridor that showed, faintly, the shape of broken arches against the starry sky. ‘It’s just the sort of place ghosts would love.’
‘The only ghosts here are my kin, and they would not harm me,’ Liliana said. ‘Starkin soldiers will, though, so shut your mouth else I’ll have to knock you out stone-cold!’
‘As if you could,’ Zed muttered, but spoke no more.
The castle was indeed an uncanny place by night, keeping muscles and nerves tightly wound. The wind seemed to moan and sigh, and it was all too easy to imagine malevolent ghosts lurking in the corners. Merry felt keenly how hard it must have been for Liliana, growing up in this sorrow-haunted shambles. He thought how very lonely her childhood must have been, and pity pierced him, sharp as a thorn.
CHAPTER 7
Rattle Those Bones
IT WAS WONDERFUL TO OPEN THE DOOR TO THE HIDDEN ROOM and find it warm and dancing with firelight. An old woman was boiling something in a cauldron on the fire. A curtain had been drawn back, revealing a stone hipbath steaming gently in an alcove nearby.
The woman was tiny, reaching no higher than Zed’s elbow. She wore a patched and darned brown dress, with an old shawl tied crosswise over her shoulders, its ends knotted behind. Her hair was snowy white, growing away from a distinct v-shaped point in the middle of her forehead which Merry remembered his mother calling a widow’s peak. It was a sign of a woman who would outlive her husband, Maglen had said.
The old woman’s heart-shaped face was deeply furrowed and blotched with brown spots. Her back was hunched and her hands quivered.
‘Stiga!’ Liliana held out her arms welcomingly. ‘It’s so good to see you. I didn’t think I would. I know how you hate strangers.’
Stiga stared at the boys with black, hostile eyes. ‘Sought to see them,’ the old woman muttered. ‘Sought to hear them for myself, sought to keep my owlet safe.’ She had so few teeth the words were oddly sibilant.
Zed stretched out his hand, a warm smile on his face. ‘Hello, Stiga. I’m Zed.’
She pressed closer to Liliana. ‘Starkin,’ she hissed.
‘Only half,’ Zed said, letting his hand fall. ‘My father is all hearthkin.’
Merry stepped forward next, trying to move as smoothly and lightly as Zed. ‘Starkin,’ Stiga hissed again, shrinking back. She reminded Merry of a frightened wild creature, a broken bird trembling in the gaze of a cat.
‘Even less than Zed,’ Merry said. ‘My father’s mother. I never knew her.’
‘Do not be afraid, Stiga,’ Liliana said, showing more gentleness than Merry had ever seen from her before. ‘The Erlrune trusts them, and you know she sees clearly.’
The old woman pointed one gnarled finger at Zed. ‘You fear the wrong fate. Fear those you love, not those you hate.’
Zed looked surprised. He tugged at the collar of his shirt as if it had grown suddenly too tight. Stiga moved her intense gaze to Merry’s face. He felt a cold wash of dread.
‘Three times you’ll play dice with death, and the third time you’ll yield your breath,’ she said.
‘Don’t say that, Stiga!’ Liliana cried in clear distress. ‘To speak death is to invite death. Say it’s not true!’
Stiga stared at Merry unblinkingly. ‘The only thing that can save you is the very thing that killed you.’
‘What does that mean?’ Liliana demanded. ‘It makes no sense, Stiga.’
‘When?’ Merry managed to say.
‘When there’s dawn at sunset, and frost in spring,’ Stiga said.
Liliana sighed in relief. ‘How can there be dawn at sunset? Surely that means never.’
Stiga looked sorrowful. ‘I see what I see, I tell what I see, and I tell you I see three deaths.’
‘But he can be saved? By the very thing that killed him?’
Stiga nodded slowly, than reached out to touch Liliana’s face with one age-spotted hand, so clenched and twisted with age it was like a claw. ‘Remember.’
‘I will,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
‘I have food for you, my owlet, but you must wash first. You must cleanse yourselves, you must eat and sleep in peace. It will be the last time for many moons that you shall sleep so.’
Zed cast Merry a quick conspiratorial grin. It was clear he thought the tiny old woman more than a little m
ad. Merry was not so sure. Her words had sent a chill through him that raised all the hairs on his skin. He crossed his arms about his thin body and told himself he was just cold and tired.
‘You will have to wait outside while I bathe,’ Liliana said.
The boys looked longingly around the golden room then glanced back out at the cold, black corridor. Both sighed and went outside.
‘Don’t be too long,’ Zed said with a winning smile.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Merry said. ‘Have you ever known a girl to hurry having a bath? Think how long your sister takes every day! She’ll be hours.’
Liliana shut the door in his face.
Merry went to peer out through the deep arrow slit in the wall, looking for Tom-Tit-Tot.
‘What did she mean, that strange old woman?’ he said softly. ‘Do you think she has the Sight?’
‘I think she thinks she does, poor thing,’ Zed said confidently. ‘But it’d be enough to drive anyone half-crazy, living in this old ruin.’
‘It must have been so hard,’ Merry said. ‘For Liliana, I mean. All alone, in this ghost-haunted place . . .
Zed raised an eyebrow. ‘A life spent at Estelliana Castle and you still have all those old hearthkin superstitions.’
Merry gazed around him uneasily and shrugged. He began to pace, brushing his hand along the tapestry so that it swung back and forth in time with his steps. A strong smell of mildew and mouse choked him.
‘You might as well be patient,’ Zed told him, sliding down to sit on the floor, his long legs stretched before him. ‘Do you want to play knucklebones?’
‘In the dark?’ Merry turned to face him, unable to see little more than the vague oval of white that was Zed’s face.
‘It won’t matter if I shed just a little light. Who’s going to see us so far from anywhere? Liliana is just jumping at shadows. Come on, I’ll bet you two yellow boys.’
Merry could never resist a bet. He rolled his cloak up and sat on it, his legs crossed, as Zed summoned golden light from the jewelled orb that always hung in a leather pouch about his waist. It was the size and shape of a sisika egg, enamelled sky-blue and set with four miniature portraits, all garlanded with gold and surmounted by star-cut diamonds. The portraits depicted Zed’s mother Lady Lisandre, his grandfather Count Zoltan, his great-grandmother Princess Yelenza, and his great-great-grandfather King Zhigor the Fifth. The jewelled night-light had been Zed’s christening gift from the present ruler, King Zabrak. Although the four medallions acknowledged Zed was one of the Ziv, it was also a reminder that he was descended through the female line and so was not eligible to inherit the throne.
Zed flicked his thumbnail against the golden loop at the top of the egg, and it sprang open to reveal a tiny feathered bluebird inside an ornate golden cage. The bird opened its beak and sang sweetly, if a little mechanically. The boys listened in silence, both all too aware of the symbolism of the bird of happiness, content in its gilded cage. It finished its song and the two halves of the jewelled egg closed together with a little snap.
Zed set the night-light on its three legs and dug out two golden coins, which he laid challengingly on the ground. Merry got out his bag of knucklebones and tipped them into his hand. There were five of them, made from the pastern bone of a goat, plus a round white stone. He then dug around in his pocket and found a small tarnished coin. ‘It’s all I’ve got.’
‘You shouldn’t spend all your money on bits of old gut,’ Zed teased.
‘Well, I know your father would give me new lute strings any time I wanted, but I don’t like to ask,’ Merry replied. ‘Lady Oriole was such a valuable gift to begin with, and her strings break all the time, no matter how careful I am about releasing them while she’s resting.’
‘Well, he wasn’t going to waste her . . . I mean, it . . . by giving it to me,’ Zed replied. ‘You know how proud he is of you and your music. But enough chitchat. Rattle those bones!’
In a moment they were both absorbed in the game. Zed’s hand was much larger, which made it easier for him to catch and throw the knucklebones, but Merry was daring and quick and far more likely to take a risk. Soon he had won one of the gold coins, which pleased him immensely.
Although Zed’s parents paid him the same allowance they paid their son, Merry sent most of it to his mother to be given to the poor and sick and hungry, and to help her in her desperate fight against the king’s tyranny. He did not want his foster-parents to know how much he gave away, in case they felt beholden to give him more, and so he pretended to spend more upon his beloved lute than was entirely necessary.
Merry was in the middle of a tricky manoeuvre when the door opened a crack, silhouetting Liliana against the candlelight. She was dressed in a regal-looking robe of golden velvet, belted tightly about her narrow waist, and her loose hair fell in thick curls past her waist. Merry gazed up at her, catching his breath.
‘You idiots! Don’t you know how far a light can be seen in the darkness?’ Pulling the door shut behind her, she bent and cupped her hand about the night-light, trying to stop its radiance. Her hands were too small, and rays of light shot out between her fingers, which glowed red, showing the frail bones within.
Zed huffed his breath out in annoyance. ‘You can’t shut it off like that. Here!’ He pulled the night-light towards him and twisted the great diamond on the top. At once the light died away and they were left crouching, blind, in the sudden cold blackness.
‘Why don’t you listen to me?’ Liliana said fiercely. ‘I said, no lights!’
‘There’s light in your room,’ Merry pointed out.
‘The curtains are thick enough that not a chink can be seen from outside. Oh, how can you be so stupid?’
‘No need to be rude.’ Zed scooped up the knucklebones and passed them to Merry, who put them away in his bag. ‘We were just passing the time with a quick game, no harm done.’
‘I certainly hope not,’ Liliana said, as sharply as if talking to a naughty child.
‘If you didn’t want us to amuse ourselves, you shouldn’t have taken so long,’ Zed said loftily, rising to his feet. ‘I’ll take the next bath. Hope you’ve left me some hot water!’ As he shut the door behind him, Liliana huffed out her breath in exasperation.
Merry stood in silence, not knowing what to say. He felt guilty, like a little boy caught in some misdemeanour.
‘Perhaps it’s because you’ve grown up in Estelliana,’ Liliana said after a drawn-out moment of silence. She stood looking out the window, her words so soft he could hardly hear her.
‘Why? What do you mean?’
She turned to face him, a slender dark shape against the dim starlight. He could see nothing of her features, but he could smell the clean, sweet scent of her.
‘You and Zed. You think it’s all a game. You mock me because I fear the starkin soldiers, but that is because you’ve never seen what they can do. In Estelliana, Zed’s parents have made a refuge, a place of safety for all who grow up there. Oh, I’ve heard the stories. There’s a school for the hearthkin children and a hospital for when they get sick, and the peasants are never expected to work in the fields till they drop dead from exhaustion.’
‘Of course not,’ Merry said.
‘But don’t you see, it’s not like that in the rest of Ziva?’
‘I know that!’ Merry said, growing angry. ‘You may not know this, but my mother is the leader of the rebels. She’s dedicated her life to helping the hearthkin.’
‘I did know that,’ Liliana said softly. ‘Briony told me. They call her the Hag.’
‘Her name is Maglen Bellringer,’ Merry said stiffly.
‘But no-one knows what the Hag really looks like,’ Liliana went on dreamily. ‘That’s why the starkin have never caught her. One time she’ll be dressed as a little girl, another time as a weary old soldier. She’s the mistress of disguises.’
‘I know what she looks like,’ Merry said.
Liliana glanced at him. He must have been n
o more than a dark shape among shadows, but he looked away, hoping his voice had not betrayed him.
‘Yes,’ Liliana said. ‘That’s something.’
At once Merry was reminded her own mother had died when she was only a little girl, and he was sorry. ‘We don’t really think it’s all a game. That’s just our way, to joke about things.’
‘It can never be a joke to me,’ she said.
There was a long silence. Merry moistened his lips, trying to think of the right thing to say. ‘It is not that we don’t care. We do, really, we do. It is so wrong, the way the world is. We’ve always been taught that one day we’ll have to try and fix things, and we want to . . . it’s just . . . one day never seems to come. Maybe this quest of yours is the first step for us, to make things better . . . You know I want to . . .’
In the darkness, Merry might have gone on and tried to explain just what he felt so passionately in his heart, but just then the door swung wide open, a blaze of light falling upon the two of them, and so Merry turned away, putting up one hand to shield his eyes.
‘Your turn, Merrykins,’ Zed said cheerfully. ‘Great bath. I wish we had plumbing like that at Estelliana Castle. I must persuade Uncle Ziggy to look into it. Though I wonder how they get the water up from the lake? And so hot?’
‘The water doesn’t come from the lake,’ Liliana said. ‘There are hot springs in Stormfell. The water is piped down from there. It’s meant to be healthy.’
Merry pushed past Zed, hoping no-one had seen in his face what he was feeling in his heart. Liliana put out one hand to stop him. ‘One day,’ she said softly. ‘It’s coming closer all the time.’
He met her eyes then and nodded, and she gave him one of her rare, quick smiles, and let her hand drop. He went past Zed and shut the door behind him.
The bath was filled with steaming water, deep enough for him to sink his chin into. At one end of the bath was an ornate golden tap, forged in the shape of an eagle. When Merry tugged on the eagle’s head, the wings rose and steaming hot water came gushing out of the tap. When he pushed the head back down, the wings lowered again, and a round piece of the bath rose up, so that the water began to drain away.