The Star Shard (12 page)

"The price," said the second.

"Four moons," said the first.

"Five stars."

"And the difference."

"What difference?" Cymbril asked, looking down at herself. She had the sudden cold fear that she'd be missing a finger or a leg.

"Nothing of yours."

"Nothing you'll miss."

Cymbril wasn't satisfied. She felt angry and more than a little scared. "I have to know, or I'm not buying this. What is exacted?"

Atymnia and Fennella stood like a mass of storm clouds behind the counter.

"The worth of six half-moons," muttered one.

"Six," agreed the other.

"Nothing more," said both sisters together. "All is fair."

"Now go."

"Fair and done."

"Take what is yours."

The sisters sat back down in perfect unison.

Trembling, Cymbril watched them. The fat frog was uncomfortably close, unblinking, his sides pulsing with his breath. After a long moment, she pulled the drawstring, closing the purse that was still tied to her wrist. From the countertop, she picked up the blue bottle and the twine-bound box that held the key.

Step by step, she backed away from the tree hut, watching the old women in the purple window. When she reached the rose fence and turned away, she was sure she heard, far behind her, a faint
ith, ith, ith.

The look on Miwa's face said,
I hope you're happy.
For her own part, Cymbril was hoping the doorkeeper wouldn't demand another coin to open the door again on her way out.

The Rake opened its gate the next morning at Gallander, a settlement that sprawled around the knees of an ancient hill fort. A council hall stood where the fortress had once dominated the summit, and the steep sides of the hill were terraced into gardens. Cymbril's favorite feature of Gallander was the weathered ring of standing stones on an outthrust arm of the hill. The people—possibly giants—who had placed the stones were long vanished, and the circle was draped in a profusion of grapevines. The wine made from these grapes was the chief attraction of Gallander's midsummer festival, or so Cymbril had heard in the market.

When she'd been eight years old, Cymbril had tried to escape in Gallander. She'd slipped away from her music teacher and crawled off into a field of tall grass. Even now she could remember giggling as she rolled down a slope through the green stems, butterflies and grasshoppers dodging out of her way, while people in the marketplace shouted for her. She'd gotten no farther than the stone circle. It had seemed to call to her with a silent melody, a song she felt deep in her core rather than heard. Itchy from the grass, tired from her escape, she'd drawn up her knees and sat with her back against a rough, cool stone. She'd watched clouds drift in the dazzling blue, changing their shapes. She'd gazed at the lines of soldiers and merchants looking for her, fanned out across the fields. Finally it was one of the Knights Fountainers who had discovered her, speaking kindly as he offered her his hands, and then hoisted her into the saddle of his magnificent black horse with a white star on its forehead. Riding back with him to the market, Cymbril felt she could see the whole world from that saddle, as if it were somehow higher than the soaring decks of the Rake.

On this visit to Gallander, the sky drizzled rain all day, raising white mist from the gardens, filling the air with the smells of slick black leaves and sticks shiny with damp. At the dawn gathering in the ramp bailey, Rombol announced that the market would be held indoors. So as lightning flashed beyond the windows and rain splattered the sills, the merchants scrambled to convert their wagon procession into rows of stalls.

Amid the traffic and shouts, Cymbril skillfully disappeared before she could be given a task. She'd resolved to deliver the Nixielixir early so that she could quit worrying about it. With irony, she thought about what a relief it was to be among mundane merchants again, where no one had wings or tongues that forked.

Even after getting back to her bunk, she'd slept poorly, her mind too full of memories and questions. It still bothered her that the Eye Women had finished the sale without her agreement—and that they'd spoken of the "exacted difference" between the cost of her purchase and the money she had. They'd taken the value of six coins (so they said)—nothing of Cymbril's, nothing she'd miss.

She had examined the blue bottle again and again, holding it up to the light of her stone and pin, pulling out the stopper to sniff its contents. Was it truly safe to give Gerta and Berta an elixir she'd bought from the likes of the sisters? What if it turned them into snails? Worse, what if it was poison?

A fine time to be doubting the plan now,
she scolded herself. Loric knew what he was talking about—she would have to trust him on this. When morning had finally come, she'd stuffed her Night Market purchases into her pockets, along with her own two treasures.

Dodging among people with armloads of goods, she hopped up onto a barrel and spied, near one end of the gallery, the cloth dyers' booth.
Perfect.
Berta and her mother were busily arranging the bolts and racks of cloth while Gerta drove their now-empty wagon away toward the ramp that led up to the Hall of Wagons. As Gerta waited in the queue, holding the reins of her swaybacked horse, Cymbril would have all the time she needed. Before moving forward, Cymbril studied the twins' mother, her face careworn and sad beneath her wayward gray hair. What must it be like for her, watching her daughters lose their minds? Unquestionably, the girls were growing more empty-headed all the time. Berta stood with a basket, daydreaming, until her mother scolded her. Gerta dropped the reins and sat counting her fingers. Fortunately, the old horse knew which direction to pull the wagon and where to line up.

One hand gripping the Nixielixir, Cymbril came very close to giving up her plan. Watching the girls and their mother at a distance, something suddenly became clear to her. All this time she'd tried to imagine what the girls
wanted,
supposing that would make them happier. What they
needed
was healing for their minds. Cymbril supposed being beautiful wouldn't hurt the sisters, and maybe happiness would help to restore them. But she couldn't shake off the feeling that she'd bought the wrong thing for them at the Night Market.

Cymbril kept to the shadows until at least twenty carts had moved into line behind Gerta's, screening it from the view of Berta and their mother. Then she sidled past wheels and horses, waving and smiling up at the occasional drivers who greeted her. Coming alongside Gerta's wagon, she seized the handgrip and swung herself into the seat beside Gerta as if she belonged there.

"Good morning, Gerta," she said cheerily.

The taller girl recoiled as if a wild animal had pounced onto the wagon seat.
At least she remembers me,
Cymbril thought. As a deeper color flooded the girl's face and she began to quiver with outrage, Cymbril clutched Gerta's forearm.

"I'm here to apologize," Cymbril said. "I never meant you or your sister any harm, and I'm sorry for all that's happened."

"You—" Gerta spluttered. "You—!"

"I want to give you a present—a good one this time. Then will we be even?"

Since Cymbril had a grip on her right wrist, Gerta swung with her left. Cymbril barely caught the fist in her free hand. They struggled in the seat, and the wagon creaked. The horse lifted its head and swished its tail.

"Girls, girls!" warned the driver behind them, a man in a slouch hat. Two extremely old brothers in the wagon ahead turned shakily to look over their shoulders.

"Don't mind us," Cymbril called as casually as possible. "We're just talking." Gerta had hold of Cymbril's face now, one finger jammed into her nostril. Growling, Gerta forced her to the seat's edge, trying to hurl her to the ground.

"
Mmmf!
Mlet ngo!" Cymbril struggled to pry Gerta's hand loose from her jaw.

Gerta muttered a string of threats as they both nearly toppled from the seat.

"Girls!" called the man in the slouch hat. "Do I hafta douse you with a bucket o' water?"

"We're f-f-f-fine!" Cymbril grated through clenched teeth. With a heave, she flung Gerta's hand off her face, and the girl's knuckles crashed against the wooden seat back. Gerta yowled.

"Listen to me!" Cymbril seized the hand again before it punched her. "I'm here about your hair!"

Gerta glared, but she held still. "What about my hair?"

The two old men peered owl-eyed from one girl to the other.

"There's a way to make it grow full and shiny." Cymbril rushed to get the words out. "Your sister's, too. And your skin. I have an elixir that will make you both beautiful as the princesses in old stories."

"Little squawking liar!"

"No! No! It's right here." Cymbril dipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out the bottle.

She scooted away, gasping for breath, as Gerta snatched the Nixielixir and stared at it.

Gerta grabbed Cymbril by the collar. "It's nothing but Moonpine dye. What do you take me for?"

"No, it's Nixielixir—I promise!" Cymbril winced as Gerta tightened her grip. "Smell it! Rub a little on your finger! I only want to set things right between us. I never meant to turn you blue. I'm sorry."

Gerta held on tightly but looked again at the bottle.

"'Nixie liquor'?"

Cymbril nodded emphatically. "It's magical."

"Let's go!" shouted the man in the slouch hat, pointing ahead. The wagon line had advanced. The two old brothers shifted back around on their high seat, and Gerta picked up her reins, the bottle clamped between her knees. The horse heaved a sigh and clopped onto the ramp. Now Gerta had to keep her other hand on the brake to prevent the wagon from rolling backward, and Cymbril let out a relieved breath, straightening her clothes.

"Why should I believe you?" said Gerta with a sniff.

"That's up to you." Cymbril's pride was returning now that she'd handed the bottle over. "I went to a lot of trouble to get it. And just so you know, I use Nixielixir myself." She ran her fingers through her hair, letting it swish across her shoulders.

That was a bald-faced lie, but something told her it was the way to get Gerta and Berta to drink the elixir. "Look," she added, "you can go on hating me until the elixir works. What have you got to lose?"

As the horse labored to pull the wagon up the incline, Gerta rode the brake lever. The iron shoes screeched against the axles.

"If it's a trick," Gerta said, "you'll be very sorry."

"And if it's not, will we be squared away?"

After a long, dark glance, Gerta nodded.

"Give me your hand on it."

Reluctantly, Gerta shook Cymbril's hand.

"Have a good market day," Cymbril said, and jumped down from the wagon.

But as she passed the wagon's bed, the glitter of round eyes startled her. There, hidden among a pile of empty sacks, was the fat frog. Cymbril frowned, gazing from the frog to Gerta.

"Oh, that thing's always following us," Gerta said with an air of disgust, glancing over her shoulder. "We're so sick of chasing it away that now we usually just ignore it."

This new fact puzzled Cymbril, but she had too much else to think about. At least it was nice to know the frog sometimes followed around people other than her.

She caught a tongue-lashing from Wiltwain for going missing—and because the right sleeve of her dress was ripped half off. The Overseer turned livid when she said she'd gone to find Gerta. But when Cymbril told him she thought the trouble with the sisters would be over now, Wiltwain looked at her curiously.

"You didn't
hurt
Gerta, did you?" he asked.

"Of course not."

"And you didn't cast a spell and turn her into something nonhuman?"

By the moon and stars, I hope not,
she thought. Wiltwain's conjectures often struck uncomfortably close to the truth. "How would I have done that?"

The corner of his mouth twisted. "With you, Cymbril, all things are possible."

"She's fine."

"Well, then, if you've mended the fence, that dress is a small price to pay. Go and change. Since we're indoors, brown is too drab, anyway. Wear the red-and-gold. And comb that hair."

 

Again Rombol did not keep Loric on display for much of the day. Before noon the Master withdrew him from the market to rest him for the night's journey. From her balcony, Cymbril watched them go, and she was sure Loric glanced up at her with a smile. She envied him. After the mostly sleepless night, she would have liked nothing better than to find her own bed and crawl under the covers.

Rain sluiced down on the ramp outside, making a mire of the fields and roads. The folk of Gallander came in stamping and dripping in sodden cloaks. Cymbril sang them "Blue Were Her Eyes," which had a beautiful melody and was one of the songs that crowds everywhere requested the most. Cymbril had worked her performance of it into a high art. She knew when to pause, when to increase the sound, when to fade—she knew how to shape and color the notes, drawing the deepest shades of meaning from the words. Usually by the end of it, many listeners' eyes were full of tears.

 

Green were the lane and the leaves above;
Red were the roses around my love.
Black was her hair, her skin like the dew;
Her heart was a fire that warmed me through.
Bright was the sky and golden the land,
Soft was her breath as she clasped my hand,
And blue as the ocean, blue were her eyes.

Red were the banners and crimson the morn;
To arms we rose at the long, loud horn.
Dark was my heart as I went to sea,
Golden the locket she gave to me.
Black was her hair in a scarlet band,
Silver her tears as she clasped my hand,
And blue as the ocean, blue were her eyes.

Fierce was the battle for land and crown,
Bloody the day when the walls came down.
Black were the ravens that followed the fight;
Deep was the prison still as night.
Hope was the ember her image fanned;
In every dream she clasped my hand,
And blue as the ocean, blue were her eyes.