The Star Shard (3 page)

Cymbril held the hairpin between her fingers. The tiny jewel at its top absorbed and magnified whatever light was present—just now, the flickering pink of the Pushpull lanterns. In harmonious contrast, the smooth, flat, palm-size stone from her father always glowed with the blue-green fire of marsh lights, of cats' eyes, of the moon on a midnight sea. "Urrt," Cymbril said suddenly, trilling the
r
with practiced ease, "tell me again."

Urrt chuckled, the sound of rocks tumbling. "Never fear, little nightingale. You've heard it so often, you'll never forget." The thick oar lever passed back and forth over her head.

"Please tell me again. I like hearing it from you."

"Well, well," said Urrt, his voice hushed so as not to disturb the Strongarms' song—but the song echoed everywhere and could no more be disturbed than the earth's bones or oceans' tides. The song was not loud in the way that a crowd's roar was loud; it was more like the washing of waves on a sea coast, and quite conducive to sleep. "It is in the songs of the Urrmsh," Urrt said. "The stone is from your father and is the color of his eyes. The pin is from your mother and once adorned her hair. She was the most beautiful woman in the Misty Vales, and the sweetest singer, too. You, Cymbril, have her face and her voice." He glanced sideways at her with a full-moon eye. "Someday, little thrush, you must learn to sing in Urrmsh."

Cymbril smiled. The Urrmsh traveled everywhere. There were many others besides those on the Rake. In woods and swamps, on grassy hills, they gathered to exchange their songs. The music wove together news and wisdom in ways that made the important things hard to forget. Cymbril carefully let the treasures slip back and forth in the lap of her skirt—a bright circle, a pink spark. If she squinted, they looked like a firefly and the moon.

She was just beginning to feel drowsy when a long, braying tone resounded through the chamber, shattering the song. Wiltwain's horn again.

"Hooooo!" called the Strongarms together, and leaned back on their oars. Behind the walls, winches shuddered. Out in the night, the Rake's wheels ground to a halt. The steel claws plunged into the ground and rested.

Wiltwain the Overseer, Rombol's second in command, had blown the signal on his seashell trumpet. He appeared from the stairway, thrusting his sharp nose and chin through the moss curtain. "Just for a short bit, lads," he said, his glittering eyes sweeping the ranks of rowers. "We've got company coming aboard."

Company after sundown, and with the Rake only just having gotten under way. What could this mean? Cymbril stowed the treasures in her pocket, and when Wiltwain had gone, she sprang to her feet.

"See what it is, songbird," Urrt said. "But don't get stepped on."

Cymbril laid a hand on his enormous knuckle, smiled at him and his bench-mate, and dashed from the chamber. She sprinted up one quick turn of the spiral stairs to the high-arching avenue called Wagonhall, where the rolling tents and shops stood ready to stream down into Highcircle at daybreak. As she ran between the double row of waiting carts, her slippers pattering, she heard the measured rattle of the ramp's chains. It was most unusual for Rombol to lower the ramp after dark. The lands outside towns were haunted by robbers, wolves, and worse things—things that the old cooks whispered of in the scullery on winter nights, especially when they wanted to keep the younger girls from giggling around the banked hearth fires.

Hurrying forward with a shivery lightness in her chest, Cymbril wondered who—or what—might come up the ramp out of the night.

Lantern light flared in the lofty hold ahead. There came a murmur of voices, the
thump
of the jointed ramp unfolding and striking the ground, and the neighing of horses. Rombol called a greeting to someone. On the first balcony, Cymbril worked her way forward among the silent carts, their wheels braced with wedges. Three more levels soared above, but Rombol and his party—a few merchants and a squad of armored guards—stood on the chamber's floor one story below, where the ramp slanted down into the dark outside the Rake. Cymbril eased into the driver's seat of the front wagon, its yoke set against the balcony rail.

Peeking over the footrest, she could see Rombol's group, but they weren't likely to see her ... unless her hair glimmered. Its gold did that in the glow of fires. After quickly gathering her hair, she jammed it down her collar and pulled the hood close around her face. Cymbril had learned to hide her head in order to avoid attention. People tended to stare at her startling blue eyes, her olive-golden skin, and, most of all, her shining hair—she simply didn't look like anyone else aboard the Rake.

Cloaked riders rumbled up into the hold, night mist swirling around the horses' hooves. Spurs glinted on muddy boots. Some riders had long bows across their backs. Sheathed swords were tucked beneath their knees, and their eyes shone watchfully in the shadows of their cowls. Cymbril counted seven strangers. They stayed in their saddles but guided their horses to the sides, making way for the eighth newcomer, a woman on a pale chestnut steed. She flung back her hood and shook her flowing hair.

Cymbril drew in her breath. The woman was not particularly tall, but she carried herself in a way that made her seem somehow larger than the rough men around her. A faint scar ran down her left cheek to the jaw. Her wide-set eyes fixed on Rombol. She did not smile.

It was more than her appearance, though, that held Cymbril transfixed. The silvery scar, the hard line of her mouth, her eyes—she seemed familiar in a haunting, inexplicable way. Surely Cymbril would have remembered meeting such a person. The strange thought that leaped into her mind was:
Maybe I dreamed her.

"Brigit!" Rombol spread his arms as if greeting a close friend, but he kept his distance. "Welcome! The riders of the Lady honor us with their presence."

The woman—Brigit—gave a slow, imperious nod. "My Lady of the Wild has received your tribute and grants you favor for another year. You may come and go through her lands."

Rombol puffed out his chest and grinned in a way that showed no warmth. "That is good," he said.

Cymbril could hardly believe what she was hearing. She'd seen Rombol fawn before nobles, but never defer to a mud-booted woman who would not even get off her horse to speak to him. Cymbril sat completely still, trying to catch every word.

"But my visit now," Brigit continued, "does not concern my Lady Wildhair. It is an errand of my own. I bring news of your great good fortune."

Wildhair.
Eyes wide, Cymbril nodded to herself. She'd heard of Wildhair, the fierce Huntress—Queen of the Witching Wild.

Rombol chuckled, hands on his barrel-like waist. "You hear news of me that I have not. What good fortune is mine?"

"The fortune of the purchase you are about to make." Brigit signaled one of her riders, who prodded his black horse forward. Cymbril had thought the rider was a fat man, but when he shrugged open his cloak, she saw that he'd been concealing a small, slender person on the saddle before him.

Cymbril stared. It was a boy unlike any she'd ever seen. He had a long, beautiful face, a tiny mouth, and shoulder-length hair precisely the color of the moon. He wore a gray tunic that rippled like the swirling patterns of a stream.

Rombol had begun to laugh at Brigit's words, but the sound snagged in his throat. For a full count of five, he gawked at the boy.

At last Brigit showed the hint of a smile. "Yes. It's a Fey child. A Sidhe. They're not at all easy to catch. But he'll be worth the price."

Rombol blinked. Like a man waking from a daydream, he glanced at his fellow merchants. "Worth it? How?"

Brigit's horse snorted, almost as if expressing scorn at Rombol's ignorance.

"They can see in the dark, for one thing," Brigit said. "With these eyes on your prow, you'll be able to run the Rake from Fencet to Ardle, straight through the Groag Swamp. A single night, open for business in the dawn. I believe you tried it once before and broke two wheels."

One of her riders snickered.

A gray-haired merchant spoke up—old Crenlaw, who seemed not to care if he offended the riders. "Do you take us for fools, Brigit? It's impossible to keep one of the Elder folk as a prisoner for very long. The birds of the air are all spies for the Sidhe. This boy's people will come to get him. We've no mind to make enemies of elfin enchanters."

Brigit's eyes shone in the torch fire like those of a fox. Again something flashed in Cymbril's memory, beyond her reach—a dark mirror deep in her mind that reflected the light of those eyes, then was dark once more.

"Master Rombol's not worried about that," Brigit said. "The old spells of protection guarding this Rake are still strong, though the hand that cast them is gone. Your rolling city is safe from Fey magic." Craftily, she added, "Only numbers and skill at arms could overwhelm you."

Some of Rombol's group bristled. Cymbril understood Brigit was reminding them that only Wildhair deserved their fear. If Brigit were a mere message-bearer for the Lady, what must the Huntress herself be like—she who ruled the deepest woods where the King's soldiers seldom passed?

Rombol licked his lips. "'For one thing,' you said. What else can this boy do?"

Brigit nudged her horse forward. When she was looming above the Rake's Master, she leaned closer with an elbow on her knee. "I think I need say no more except this: a thousand pieces of gold."

Rombol's lip curled. "Seven hundred. He looks sickly."

"A Sidhe child is worth a thousand and a half. I'm being generous."

"You're never generous. Eight."

The horse swished its tail. Brigit raised her eyebrows, using the power of her pale stare, her mounted height, and silence. Cymbril had never seen anyone bargain so impertinently with Rombol—and in the porch of the Rake itself, at night. She couldn't help admiring this woman for whom the city had stopped in its tracks.

"I'll wait for a lower price," said Rombol. "Who else would you sell him to? Only the King himself could pay what you ask."

Brigit blinked languidly. "I could find other buyers—less worthy of the purchase, but with gold just as good as yours. But you can afford nine hundred."

Rombol looked around his group and then again at the boy, who stared back, his mouth getting even smaller.

"Eight-fifty, fair and done," said Rombol. "But first, we see him walk and hear him talk." He sent his vault keeper for the gold.

The man on the black horse lowered his light-haired charge to the deck. Cymbril thought the boy looked about her age—twelve, no more than thirteen—if the Sidhe aged like humans. His dust-colored trousers were torn and muddy, his long, rippling shirt bound at the waist with a silver rope. His boots seemed stitched of leaves and made no sound as he walked slowly toward Rombol. Shoulders square, he gazed up at the merchant. If the boy was afraid, he didn't show it.

Brigit watched without expression, but Cymbril noticed one hand near her sword hilt.

Cymbril held her breath. Did Brigit expect treachery from the Rake's merchants? No—the woman was focused on the boy.
She's afraid of him,
Cymbril thought.
She doesn't like even letting him walk a few steps free.

The boy looked so slight and fragile, especially standing before Rombol—a candlestick before a bear.

"What are you called?" Rombol demanded.

"I am Loric, New Master." The boy spoke with a lilting accent, as if the words of humans felt strange in his mouth.

"'New Master'?" Rombol gripped the boy's shoulder and shook him jovially. "Well said, Loric. Remember that, and you'll do splendidly here. Forget it, and you'll be sorry."

The money was brought and counted, piece by piece, from one bag to another. Loric's eyes followed the flash of each gold coin. When Rombol glared at him suspiciously, the boy returned his New Master's gaze with rapt attention. "Do not stare," growled Rombol. "Do not look me or anyone in the eye. And do not look at what is not yours."

Loric closed his eyes tightly and stood still as a tree.

"What are you doing, boy?"

"Nothing around me is mine, New Master. I cannot look at anything."

Rombol's thick hand twitched, and Cymbril was sure he was about to strike the boy for impertinence. But instead the Master leaned close to Loric's face. "Don't be a fool," he rumbled quietly. "Open your eyes."

Loric did so, looking confused, and bowed from the neck. "I will try to learn your ways quickly," he said.

"Hmm," said Rombol, gnawing his lip as he straightened to watch the Fey through squinted eyes.

"In another day," said Brigit, wheeling her horse around, "you'll wonder how you managed without him." She lingered at the top of the ramp, surveying the group a final time. "Tread lightly in Wolfhome, in the lonely places. My Lady is watching. Until we meet again." She charged away, leading her party into the dark. Loric raised a hand in farewell, but none of the riders looked at him.

Old Crenlaw peered down from the ramp's top. When the hoofbeats had faded, he made a show of coughing up phlegm and spitting it noisily after them.

A merchant turned Loric around. "Do you sleep, Fey boy?"

"Yes," said Loric. "I'm very tired now."

They ushered him away, fingering his hair and shirt, exclaiming how rare he was. Soon the doors were shut, and silence returned to the hold.

The Rake shuddered and began again to roll.

Cymbril sat for a long time on the wagon's footboards, hugging her knees, restless. If only the red-scarfed woman long ago had sold her to Wildhair instead of Rombol, she could be galloping away now with the riders, the night wind in her hair. In her mind she wove a dream in which Brigit was her cousin, teaching her to shoot arrows from the saddle.

Cymbril usually awoke at the sound of Wiltwain's horn signaling the Armfolk—or if not then, nearly always when the Rake stopped moving. But the morning of the arrival in Highcircle, she sat up with a start at the shouting of merchants. The Rake sat motionless, and beyond the walls of her cramped bunk, she could hear people hauling sacks and wheeling carts in the wooden avenues. It must be nearly sunrise! Snatching her hairbrush, she scrambled from beneath her frayed cover and tumbled barefoot into the hall, the floorboards cool with early summer. A few of the other maidservants were still at the kettles, where coals burned in an iron pit and steam rose through the ceiling hatch into a rosy sky.