The Starkin Crown (17 page)

Peregrine stared at him in consternation, then looked at his stallion with agony in his heart. ‘Sable! I'll come back for you, I promise!'

‘I'm not leaving Argent!' Grizelda cried.

‘Then don't. Stay here and say hello to your brother's soldiers,' Jack said, slipping down from Snapdragon's back and giving his horse a loving farewell pat. The drumming of hooves came closer and closer.

‘Halt!' the hunter commanded. ‘In the name of Queen Vernisha, I order you to halt!'

‘Quick! This way!' The man slithered back through the rushes. Peregrine was a few steps behind him. Jack swung his pack on his back and hurried after them. There were a few rough tufts of grass, making a kind of path through the rushes. Jack's foot slipped to the side and splashed into the water. It was icy cold.

‘Come on!' Peregrine shouted, looking over his shoulder. Jack glanced backwards. Grizelda was hesitating, gazing at the galloping hunter and the phalanx of soldiers running full tilt towards them.

‘Halt!' the hunter called again and raised high his bow, an arrow notched to his string.

‘Grizelda, we cannot stay,' Peregrine said. ‘Come with us now, else we must leave you'.

The hunter let loose an arrow. Jack ducked and the arrow sang over his head and straight through the fen-man's hat,
knocking it off his head. ‘Jumping Jimjinny!' The fen-man dove forward and out of sight. Jack leapt after him, seizing Peregrine's arm and dragging him away.

‘Grizelda!' he cried.

‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,' Jack said and propelled Peregrine forward. He heard another arrow being released and knocked Peregrine to the ground. The arrow whined overhead and clattered into the rushes. Together Jack and Peregrine crawled forward, seeing the fen-man beckon to them from a thicket of birches, their thin white trunks and bare branches shivering in the wind.

Grizelda dropped Argent's reins and ran to join them, slipping in the mud and falling. She scrambled to her feet and ran on, leaping from tuft to tuft, smashing aside the reeds with her hands. Oskar followed close at her heels, his tail between his legs, his ears raised anxiously.

Sable whinnied shrilly and kicked up his heels, galloping away as the hunter reached the edge of the water. The hunter did not pause but whipped his horse on. His grey gelding reared, whinnying in distress, but cruelly he forced it on, over the stretch of verdant moss and straight towards the small islet where Peregrine and Jack crouched in the long yellowish grasses. Jack's heart was hammering so hard he felt it would break free of the cage of his ribs. He kept one arm about Peregrine's back, trying to guard him as they slithered to where the fen-man crouched. He was watching the hunter with an oddly smug expression on his face.

‘Bog'll get him,' he said.

Jack looked back. The hunter's gelding took only a stride or two before it began to sink rapidly. Within seconds it was up to its withers in black mud. It screamed in terror and struggled,
but only plunged deeper into the bog. The rider cursed aloud and dragged one leg free. On the bank, his two great sleuth hounds whined and ran back and forth. The hunter managed, with a wrench, to drag his other leg free with a dreadful sucking sound. He knelt on his horse's saddle and leapt for the bank. The motion pushed his horse deeper into the bog. Only its head, its eyes rolling in terror, was still lifted above the bog. It took a few more agonising seconds for it to be sucked under.

The hunter, meanwhile, landed near the bank, his torso flat on the surface of the bog, his legs trailing behind him. He grasped frantically at the reeds, which snapped in his hands. Again and again he grasped, kicking furiously with his legs and hauling the broken reeds to his chest to give him some purchase. At last he was able to crawl out onto solid ground, caked in mud to his ears.

The fen-man slithered away through the rushes, following a faint, crooked path. More patches of velvety moss spread out on either side, edged with sedges and reeds and stretches of frost-rimed water. Jack and Peregrine crept after him on their hands and knees, their noses filled with the stench of rotting plants. Grizelda followed, her dress black with mud. She was gasping with tears. ‘Poor horse,' she whispered. ‘That poor, poor horse'.

‘Shhh,' the fen-man hissed.

The path twisted and meandered, taking them back towards the bank. They all crept as slowly and carefully as they could, trying to copy the fen-man who moved so slowly and quietly that not a reed rustled.

They could hear the hunter cursing. Jack opened his eyes wide and grinned at Peregrine. He had never heard such imprecations.

Quietly the fen-man crept forward, and the three companions followed. Soon their whole bodies were plastered in mud, their limbs trembling with the cold and the strain.

‘That was close,' Jack whispered, once the voices of the soldiers had dropped behind. ‘I had not realised the hunter was so hard on our heels'.

‘I knew,' Peregrine said. ‘I felt him. I thought he would come when I called'.

‘You called him?' Jack was incredulous.

‘Not on purpose,' Peregrine protested. ‘I don't know yet how to call only one thing or person. Aunty Briony is always telling me I need to learn control, but the lessons are so boring! You just sit there and try to think of only one thing at a time, and I can never do it'.

‘But wasn't it rather a risk?' Grizelda said shakily.

‘Well, yes,' Peregrine said, ‘but so was sitting there on the bank waiting for someone to notice us!'

‘Shhh,' the fen-man hissed again and they fell silent once more.

The path wound on, and at last led them to another tiny islet, crowned with birches. A long, flat-bottomed boat was pushed in among the reeds. The fen-man lay quietly for a long time, watching the sky and the shore. When he was satisfied they were unobserved, he wriggled into the punt and beckoned the others to follow. Jack did so gratefully. He was damp and cold and weary to his very bones, and one look at Peregrine's white face showed him his prince was even worse for wear.

An oddly shaped basket woven of rushes lay on the bottom of the punt, filled with sluggishly roiling eels. Jack was careful to keep away from them, sure they must bite. Grizelda made a face of disgust and clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘They stink!' she said.

‘So do you,' Jack retorted.

She cast a rueful glance down at her filthy, bedraggled clothes and then shrugged. ‘What I wouldn't give for a bath!'

‘Why did you come with us?' he demanded. ‘You could be back at your luxurious castle right now, having a bath and a decent meal!'

She bit her lip. ‘I don't know,' she said after a while. ‘I guess I wanted to see it all through'.

Jack nodded in grudging respect and sat down, drawing the hood of his cloak over his face to shield his eyes from the sun, slipping towards the horizon.

H
OURS PASSED
. P
EREGRINE SWAYED IN AND OUT OF SLEEP
, the insistent whining of innumerable tiny midges in his ears keeping him from a deeper repose. Every few seconds came the sound of a slap, or a moan of irritation.

Occasionally a long stretch of water would open up on one side or another, but their guide kept close to the shelter of the reeds, crouching in the prow and poling the boat forward.

‘Where are we going?' Peregrine asked, and some time later, ‘Are we almost there?'

‘Shhh,' was the only answer.

Then came the deep, booming cry that had so startled them earlier. Their guide sat up straight and blew on a wooden whistle that hung on a leather thong about his neck. The same eerie sound thundered out, so that Grizelda jerked and shrank down, hands over her ears.

‘A-ha', Peregrine murmured. ‘I wondered if that was it'.

‘What?' Jack whispered.

‘The secret signal,' Peregrine whispered back.

‘Shhh!' their guide hissed.

The punt slid out of the rushes and onto the hazy waters of a lake. An island floated ahead, wreathed in mist. Willows trailed their bare branches in the water, and Peregrine recognised the shape of chestnut trees, and the tall spires of poplars. The top of a round grey tower could be seen above the brown tracery of branches, and he could smell the tang of smoke in the air.

Above the island was an extraordinary panorama of clouds, mounting high into the sky in soft billows, blazing orange and gold with shadows of the most intense blue. Over the fenlands, the moon was hoisting itself above the horizon, the fattest, fullest, reddest moon Peregrine had ever seen. It looked bloated on blood, and a profound shudder ran all through him.

He gazed up at it, hardly able to breathe. It seemed the worst kind of omen. A golden pathway led to it across the water, glittering and scintillating. Peregrine felt a familiar brightness and clarity come over him, and the smell of rain on roses. ‘No,' he whispered. He tried to steady his breath, clenching his fists. The colours in the water whirled and drew together. He saw a woman looking up at him from the water's surface. Her curly hair was streaked with grey, her eyes were black and fathomless. She was weeping. He stared down at her and saw she clutched a long knife in one hand. Blood dripped from her other palm. Her eyes widened as she recognised him.
Peregrine, where are you?
she called. He could barely hear her.

I go in search of the Storm King's spear
, he answered silently and lifted one hand to point to the island drifting closer and closer.

Where?
the Erlrune cried.
Where are you?

‘Where are we?' Peregrine whispered.

‘That's the Isle of Eels,' their guide answered in a soft, reverent voice. ‘That's where our king be'.

Peregrine could not speak. He gazed down at the Erlrune's face and saw her nod and raise her hand in a gesture of blessing and farewell. Then the vision blurred and dissolved away. Peregrine clenched his fists on the side of the boat, holding himself steady as the water and sky swung wildly around him. He tasted blood as he bit his tongue. For a moment he heard nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing. Then the whirl of colour steadied. He bent his head down onto his knees.

‘Are you all right?' Jack asked, leaning forward.

Peregrine nodded, trying to calm his breathing.

‘You're tired,' Jack said. ‘We haven't slept properly in hours. You'll be fine once you've slept'.

‘Yes,' Peregrine said.

‘I'm looking forward to thawing out by a fire,' Grizelda said, sitting up. ‘I'm completely frozen! My feet are like blocks of ice'.

‘I'm starving,' Jack said. ‘Let's hope they'll give us some grub!'

‘There'll be eel stew,' their guide said, patting his basket of writhing eels. ‘We'll just toss these beauties in a pot of water with some salt, and we'll be a-gobbling them down in no time'.

‘Delicious,' Grizelda replied.

‘Mighty good,' the fen-man agreed, not understanding she was being sarcastic.

Gradually Peregrine returned to himself. His temples pounded and he felt a little sick, but no-one had noticed and that made him feel better. He gazed up at the darkening sky. The moon was shrinking and fading as it rose. Outside it had been eerily quiet. Inside all was noise and activity. By the light of lanterns strung overhead, men chopped wood. Peregrine
was comforted that the Erlrune knew where he was and what he was doing.

He could see no sign of Blitz's distinctive sickle-shaped wings outlined against the clouds. He pulled out his flute and blew his falcon's call note. Far away he heard a responding cry and put his flute away, smiling.

As the punt approached the island, they heard the deep, eerie boom of the secret signal ring out, and their guide at once responded, blowing on his own whistle. He poled the punt up to a muddy beach and leapt out. A few men came down to help him pull the punt up higher. Like the fen-man, they wore plain, rough clothes of brown and grey wool, with eelskin capes pinned at their shoulders with a carved wooden brooch. With their shaggy hair, bristling beards and broad shoulders, they all looked exactly alike, all except for their fenman who was as skinny as a rake.

Peregrine was so stiff and weary he could hardly walk, but he made his bow and said, ‘Thank you, sir, for your timely assistance. If you would be so kind as to take us to Lord Percival?'

‘Liah's eyes, Fred, who's this babbling babe?' one of the men said.

‘Says he be the prince, Ged,' the fen-man responded laconically. ‘Had starkin scum on his tail, orright'.

The man's heavy eyebrows shot up. ‘Prince, he say? Leeblimey!'

Jack stood at Peregrine's side, his hand close to the hilt of his sword. Peregrine shook his head slightly and Jack reluctantly fell back. Grizelda had drawn the cloak about her, its hood hiding her fair hair, and kept her hand on Oskar's head, keeping him still.

‘Don't look much like a prince,' another man said, looking Peregrine over.

Peregrine straightened his back, lifted his chin, fixed the men with a proud glance and held out his right arm. Blitz came hurtling down and landed on his wrist with a thump.

The men all stared, speechless.

‘I can assure you I am truly Prince Peregrine, son of King Merrik and heir to the Stormlinn,' he said. He lifted Blitz so they all might see the peregrine falcon, which only princes of royal blood were permitted to carry. ‘Will you take me to your lord now, or must we remind you of the penalties of defying the expressed command of the prince royal?'

‘Leeblimey,' one of the men breathed.

‘Liah's legs!'

‘Best take him to the king, eh, Fred?'

‘Reckon so'. The fen-man they had met first pushed his hat to the back of his head and led the way up a rough track through willow trees. Small round boats, made of hide stretched over a lattice of willow twigs, were hidden here and there in the tangled undergrowth