The Star Shard (7 page)

"They haven't given you a lamp," she said.

"I don't need one," answered Loric in that clear, strangely accented voice.

Oh, yes. He could see in the dark, like an owl, like the cats. That idea bothered her, too—the image of him sitting in the lightless room, perfectly calm and vigilant.

Don't gawk,
she commanded herself.
Don't be like the market crowds. Hair is hair, and skin is skin. He's just a boy.

"Cymbril," he said slowly, as if it meant more than her name. "You sing beautifully."

Her forearms tingled. He must have heard her name in the market.

Smiling, he held out his hands for the tray and bowed deeply to her as he accepted it. "You already know my name," he said. "You heard it when the Master bought me."

Cymbril felt her eyes widen. "How did you know I was there?"

"I saw you in the wagon."

"I was hooded."

"You think a hood hides you? Here?" He gave a laugh like the trill of a reed pipe, though something in his gaze convinced Cymbril he was not laughing at her but at the very idea.

She watched him uncover the dishes, the tray laid across his lap. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, you don't belong here, do you? Any more than I do."

He knew, then, that Cymbril wasn't the child of a merchant, like the brats who slapped and kicked and ordered around slaves old enough to be their parents. But she felt the strangest mixing of emotions at his words. She was thrilled to hear someone from outside the Rake say that she didn't belong to it. Yet it was the only home she'd ever had. Loric didn't know her—who was he to decide such things?

Before he ate, Loric crossed his wrists, hands flat against his chest, and murmured something in his own language—a prayer. Then he bit one of the biscuits and studied Cymbril as he chewed. "Would you like some?"

"No, thank you." She knelt in the open doorway. Probably Runa didn't stay and watch him eat. The hall was empty now, but anyone might wander past. There wasn't much time. "Don't the iron chains burn you?" Cymbril crept closer.

A mischievous twinkle came to his eyes. "There are ways of overcoming iron," he said. "Try to guess the secret for yourself."

Cymbril blinked, not sure what to make of his answer. Perhaps she'd have better luck with a different question. "How did Brigit catch you?"

He regarded her and took his time answering, finishing the biscuit first.

Cymbril fidgeted, trying to watch over her shoulder.

"The other girl doesn't ask me questions," he said at last.

"I'm a different girl."

"Yes." Again an irritating pause. "The Lady on the horse caught me because I climbed out through the wall of our world into this one, to see if the stars looked or sounded any different here. I was listening to the stars instead of the forest around me. Quite careless."

Stars—with sounds?

"Are the stars different here?"

"Not the ones you can see from these lands," he said, picking up the bowl of cream. "But we can see a lot more from Gorhyv Glyn."

Cymbril tipped her head to the side. Gorhyv Glyn. "Is that the Sidhe world?"

"Not all of it. Just the part I'm from." He drank the cream so carefully, it didn't even whiten his upper lip. "Many of the Sidhe—the Dusk Folk—live under the ground now, in deep caverns, ever since the war long ago. My people are the Star Folk. We live in the forests, under the lights of the sky. And Gorhyv Glyn is only one part of the woodland realms. The Sidhe world is very wide, just like the human one."

"You want to go back," Cymbril said, to be sure. She'd learned to take nothing for granted.

"I do, yes."

"Is your family looking for you?"

Once more Loric fell silent.

Cymbril clucked her tongue with impatience. "We haven't got all night, you know. If they find me talking to you, they won't like it."

"Really?" Loric raised his brows. "They don't know you're here?" "No."

"They didn't send you to bring my supper?"

She started to shake her head but glared at him instead, feeling her throat and cheeks starting to burn again.

"Then why
are
you here?" He looked at her keenly, as if somehow he might see answers whether she spoke them or not.

"Never mind." Cymbril backed away, brushing dust from her skirt. "I'm not here. I'm gone." She glanced at the wooden beam for bolting his door.

"Wait, Cymbril."

He said it so earnestly that she stopped, chin lowered, and watched him.

"I'm sorry to upset you. You
seem
sincere, but I have always been taught that the Second Folk are full of guile. Their words may say one thing and their hands another."

Cymbril frowned, working out his meaning. She put her fists on her hips. "You think I'm asking these questions for Rombol?"

Loric smiled wanly. "I know he is your Master, as he is mine. I know you have many privileges that other slaves do not. And I wonder why one who sings all day is delivering supper."

Cymbril was speechless. It had been bad enough when she thought Loric supposed her to be a merchant's daughter. The truth was that he believed her to be a slave who
spied
for the Master. She wished she'd changed out of the yellow dress with its golden cape and belt—she looked like a bauble, something that belonged on the head of Rombol's cane.

"If Rombol wanted to know your secrets," she said, "he would twist your arms or beat you with a rod until you told him everything." She stepped out through the door. "I'll send Runa after the tray. She's more to your liking—a proper slave who asks no questions."

Cymbril closed the door with a crash. Struggling with the heavy beam, she shoved it through its brackets. A splinter sank into the heel of her hand. With a cry more of ire than pain, she dug the wood sliver out and stamped back to the kitchens.

Privileges.

What gave Loric the right to judge her, this boy without a scar or a callus on his hands, who had the leisure to crawl about in the forest listening to the voices of the stars? Wearing an iron collar for a while might do him some good.

 

When Rombol's dining party had returned, the Rake rolled again, beginning the overnight journey to Corin's Corners. It was good to sit by Urrt's feet in the Pushpull Chamber and listen to a new song the Urrmsh had woven together during their time in the mossy wood. To Cymbril, though, it sounded exactly like all their other songs—and their tales, for that matter, since she could rarely tell what was spoken and what was sung. Urrt's bench-mate, Arrbha, explained that the makings for this song had come from the birds, who brought news when no local Urrmsh were present. As they sang, some of the Armfolk clicked their toenails in a rhythm on the planks—not for every song, but for this one, which was lively. Those rowers who sat near puddles would sometimes bring down a foot to make a mighty splash.

Having lost so much sleep the night before, Cymbril had nodded off repeatedly during the singing, her stomach full and her day's energy more than spent. But when Arrbha spoke of birds, Cymbril opened her eyes.

"Isn't it true that the birds talk with the Sidhe?"

"True it is, little thrush," said Urrt. "Birds talk with any who will listen." One of the lanterns just above Urrt's head swung gently, sending his huge, warty shadow to and fro.

Cymbril watched the play of pinkish light and darkness over the glistening boards. "Then couldn't the birds tell Loric's family where he is?"

"Oh, his people know where he is, songbird," Arrbha said. "The birds have never stopped watching where his steps have led."

"Will they come for him, then? His family?" She imagined a host of gray-cloaked riders thundering out of the night, climbing the Rake's sides on silver ropes. Would they do battle with Rombol's soldiers—or would there be negotiations in the ramp chamber, the Sidhe paying a ransom with gold or bright jewels? Cymbril gazed at her stone and hairpin, her heart fluttering. She longed for a chance to see them, the Fey who would come to take Loric home.

But Urrt's answer disappointed her.

"They will not come," said Urrt. "The doors of the Rake are closed to the Sidhe. There is powerful magic here, of a different sort from theirs."

Cymbril remembered—Brigit had spoken of protective spells upon the wagon city. She took a long breath. So Loric was alone, then, beyond the help of his people.

"Rivers flow and the sky turns," Arrbha said helpfully. "All things in time. These walls are good at keeping things out, but not nearly so good at keeping things in. You needn't worry much about the Fey boy."

"I'm not worried about him," Cymbril said quickly. "He's rather arrogant, if you ask me." To change the subject, she told them what had happened the night before and about the hallway Rombol had never seen before.

"The books in that storeroom are marked with an
R,
" she finished, scooting over to avoid a new drip from the ceiling. "I always thought it stood for Rombol, but now I don't think so."

Urrt's bumpy forehead wrinkled, and he conversed with Arrbha in the language of the Urrmsh. At last he turned the full moons of his eyes back to Cymbril. "Nightingale," he said seriously, "in the time of the Rake's first Master, there was a sorcerer onboard. He advised Master Tycho in many ways. They built this place together, and enchantments are twined through every board and nail like the roots of ivy. For a while, the sorcerer had a tower on the aft castle, where the horse barns are now. But it had a way of attracting bolts of lightning—even out of a clear sky. He tore it down and built his quarters deep in the hold, on a secret half-deck."

"None of us knew exactly where," Arrbha said. "We could hear the echoes of pounding and crackling, or a rushing like wind—and sometimes that wild laughter of his—but I never figured out the location."

Cymbril rose to her knees, clutching a pillar leg of the rowing bench as she looked from Urrt to Arrbha.

"That talking skull you showed us," said Arrbha, lowering his voice and checking first to see if Wiltwain was in the chamber—"that was his work. The books would be his, too. I wasn't sorry to see him go. But, truth be told, I'm sorrier now to have those who replaced him."

"His name," said Urrt in a burbly whisper, "was Ranunculus."

Cymbril leaned forward. "What happened to him?"

Urrt shook his head. "No tale of men or song of birds has the answer. We were in the witching country when he disappeared, out at the edge of the Groag Swamp. Some say a spell of his went wrong and consumed him. Some believe he perished in battle with an enemy more terrible than himself. Or perhaps he simply felt the end of his long life to be near and went into the swamp to find his grave."

Cymbril sat back on her heels, trying to understand. "But why have I always seen that hallway? Why me, and no one else?"

The bench-mates could only shrug. Finally Urrt said, "I think you have very good eyes, skylark."

Corin's Corners was no more than a scattering of huts, shops, and a granary around a crossroads. Rombol stopped there mostly because the village was a night's journey from Highcircle, a point halfway to the city of Panoply—and the chance to sell a bag of salt, a copper kettle or two, to the farm wives was better than nothing. So few people lived at the Corners that the Rake's merchants didn't bother to take their wares outdoors. Instead, the ramp was lowered, and the villagers came aboard to a market set up in the grand bailey of the Rake's entrance chamber.

For such indoor markets, Jonas the carpenter had built Cymbril a perch on the second-level balcony, a semicircular projection of the floor with its own ornate railing. She stood there to sing, her voice soaring into the lantern-hung heights above, while vendors and buyers conducted business on the wide floor below. The high place was a welcome change. Here Cymbril was away from those who stared and prodded. A rare customer might be admitted up to the second floor, strictly by arrangement—some traveling noble who wished to be shown the delicate dining sets from the Isles, the silks, tapestries, rugs, and vases that cost more than common folk earned in a year.

The bad part of indoor markets was that the bejeweled ladies from the teabunks tended the extravagant second-level booths. Having nothing to do all day, they gossiped and brewed exotic tea in silver pots. They played horses-and-spindles, a game on a polished board. And always they murmured catty things about Cymbril as if she weren't there listening. Cymbril never felt comfortable turning her back to them, especially not at the balcony rail. Even when she sang, she tried to keep her ears open for the pad of slippers.

Scattered applause followed Cymbril's rendition of "Blue Were Her Eyes." Leaning on the rail to rest and study the crowds, she started at a whispery thump just behind her. She whirled with a gasp. Back in the shadows under the loggia, two ancient women were crossing the balcony, hobbling on their gnarled walking sticks—and hopping just ahead of them was the fat frog, which they treated as a pet. When the frog wasn't lurking in dim corners and staring as if delivering an accusation, he was hurrying as with some purpose. Cymbril wondered if he did errands for the old women.

The crones sold charms and medicines from a tent that always seemed murky, even outdoors at noon. The women—sisters, Cymbril guessed—had three eyes between the two of them, and she could have sworn that the missing eye switched at times from one woman to the other. For that reason, she thought of them as the Eye Women. It was rare to see them outside the gloom of their shop, indoors or out.

Cymbril looked quickly away, but the two had stopped and were gazing at her. One pointed with her stick. They wore scarves of an ugly yellow, the color of dead stalks in autumn. Though they were far away and conversing in their husky voices, Cymbril was sure she heard one of the women say, "She's the one as found it."

A chill spread through Cymbril.
I'm the one? What did I find?
She glanced around, but there was no one else the pair might be talking about. Beyond the rail was only the market bailey itself, one story below.