The Starkin Crown by Kate Forsyth
‘I am Lady Grizelda ziv Zadira,’ she said in her most aristocratic voice.
‘From Zavaria?’ the Marsh King roared.
‘Holy mackerel!’ the old lady exclaimed.
‘A starkin lady,’ the girl said, her voice sharp with surprise.
‘She is our faithful subject and our ally,’ Peregrine said sternly. ‘I bid you treat her with respect’.
‘Of course,’ Molly said, limping forward. ‘May I take your cloak, my lady?’
Grizelda let it fall from her shoulder and Molly caught it and hung it from a hook, beautifully carved in the shape of a bird with an open beak. The Marsh King glowered at Grizelda, his eyes almost hidden by his bushy brows.
‘Please forgive us our intrusion,’ Peregrine said, leaning unobtrusively on the back of a chair and wishing someone would ask him to sit down.
Molly gazed at him in wonder. ‘Please, your Highness, it is no intrusion. You are more than welcome’. Her voice was sweet and light and rather childlike. Peregrine wondered how old she was. She smiled at him and he smiled back.
Grizelda tottered forward, one hand to her forehead. ‘I am weary unto death,’ she whispered. ‘My lord, I feel faint!’
Peregrine turned and caught her as she slumped. ‘Jack, quick,’ he said. ‘Help me. She weighs a ton!’
Grizelda’s brows contracted sharply at his words but she did not open her eyes. Together the boys half-carried her to one of the chairs by the fire, a deep curved affair with a rushwork seat, its timber back softened with a patchwork cushion. Grizelda swooned into it, her hand still at her brow. ‘So cold,’ she whispered.
‘Let me build up the fire,’ Molly said and limped across to a stacked pile of peat in one corner.
‘Here, let me help you’. Jack moved swiftly to assist Molly in piling more of the peat turves upon the fire.
‘What’s wrong with the girlie then?’ the old woman said loudly. ‘She got a bit of wind? Dose her with some cod liver oil!’
A pained expression passed over Grizelda’s face but she still did not open her eyes. Peregrine swayed slightly and put out one hand to grip the back of the chair again.
‘Here, your Highness, sit down. You must be a-weary too,’ the Marsh King said gruffly. ‘Molly, put the kettle on!’
Peregrine held his fist to the back of the chair and Blitz stepped daintily off. Peregrine shook his aching arm and sat down gratefully. He swiftly removed the falcon’s hood, digging out a small morsel of raw meat from his leather pouch. Blitz accepted it eagerly, looking around him with bright, inquisitive eyes. The dog whined and Peregrine offered him a gobbet. Oskar did not take it, his lip lifting as he turned his head away.
‘What a beautiful bird,’ Molly said, coming back with a kettle she had filled from a wooden bucket in the corner. She clearly found it hard to carry the heavy kettle with her crutch, so Jack hurried to help her.
‘His name is Blitz,’ Peregrine said. ‘I’ve had him from just a fledgling and trained him myself’. He stowed the leather hood away carefully in its pouch and sat down thankfully, holding his numb hands to the blaze.
‘What sort of bird is he?’ she asked, showing Jack where to hang the kettle from a hook suspended from the ceiling.
‘He’s a peregrine falcon. They’re the fastest birds in the world’.
‘You share a name!’ Her smile lit up her narrow face and brightened her eyes to a vivid green-gold.
‘Yes, that’s why my father gave him to me’. Peregrine was about to go on and tell her some of the funny stories of Blitz as a chick, when Grizelda said in a faint voice, ‘My boots are wet through and my feet are like ice. Will you not remove them for me … what was your name?’
‘Molly,’ she replied and limped over to Grizelda. She knelt with some difficulty, wincing in pain, then carefully drew off the sodden boots, so filthy they seemed black instead of red.
‘They will need to be brushed,’ Grizelda ordered, stretching her stockinged feet to the fire.
Orange flames were beginning to lick up the turves, spreading warmth and smoke into the room. By its sombre light, Peregrine could see the spinning-wheel had been most beautifully carved with a design of oak leaves. More carvings decorated the edge of the dresser, and on the wall hung a beautiful tapestry that showed the Isle of Eels floating in a blue mist, clouds above and water below. All sorts of birds and creatures crept and clung and flew about the edges.
‘Yes, my lady,’ Molly said. ‘Da, could you throw me a towel?’
Her father was sitting on a stool nearby, jabbing at the fire with an ornate poker, a scowl on his face. Peregrine could not tell if this was his habitual expression or whether he was angry about something. The Marsh King reached up one brawny arm and swiped a linen towel from a hook behind the wash basin. He tossed it at Molly who used it to carefully dry Grizelda’s feet, then tried to swab away the mud on the hem of her dress.
‘It’s no use doing that!’ Grizelda cried. ‘It will have to be washed. I should like a bath too. That is, if you have one’.
‘We do,’ Molly said quietly, struggling to her feet and limping across to drop the soiled towel in a wash basket. ‘I’ll ask the men to heat some water for you’. She put her head out the door and issued a soft request, and immediately there was the sound of hobnails on cobbles and a great clattering of buckets.
‘Who’s that toffee-nosed prig a-ordering our Molly around like she were some sort of slave?’ the old lady asked indignantly. ‘Don’t she know she’s the Marsh King’s daughter?’
‘Shhh, Nan, it’s all right,’ Molly said as she came back inside. ‘The poor lady is all worn out, and not used to our ways. Don’t fuss now’.
‘Eh, bless your sweet eyes, my moppet,’ the old lady said, dabbing at her own eyes with a tiny lace-edged handkerchief. ‘You listen to your old nan now and tell that uppity young miss to wipe her own toes, else it’ll be something else she’ll be asking you to wipe all too soon, mark my words!’
At that, Grizelda sat up abruptly, saying, ‘How dare you!’
But Jack and Peregrine both laughed, and Jack cried, ‘If she hasn’t got you nailed in the first five minutes!’
‘I best warn you, young lady, that we’re all free men here, who do our level best to treat all men and women the same, regardless of how rich or how poor they be,’ the Marsh King said sternly. ‘We’ll have none of your fancy starkin ways in my house, thank you very much, else you’ll be tossed out on your backside. Got it?’
‘I’m sure I have no idea what you mean,’ Grizelda said, and turned her attention to smoothing down her crumpled dress.
Molly bit back a smile but said shyly to Grizelda, ‘It’ll take some time to boil the water. Would you like something t’eat first?’
‘Yes, please,’ Jack put in. ‘I’m fair famished!’
‘I would indeed,’ Grizelda said haughtily, giving the old woman a scorching glance.
‘I’m sorry, it won’t be very fine. Just what Da and I and Nan would usually eat,’ Molly said.
‘We’ve grown rather used to rough fare over the past week,’ Grizelda said in a bored tone. ‘Comets and stars, what I wouldn’t give for a sliver of roast venison and some sugared figs’.
‘I’m afraid all we have is eel stew,’ Molly said apologetically. Grizelda sighed.
‘I’m sure it’ll be delicious,’ Peregrine said, and Jack concurred heartily, casting a look of undisguised dislike at the starkin girl. The blacksmith had much the same expression on his face. Peregrine sighed to himself. He wished Grizelda would think before she spoke. He wondered what had caused her to behave like this, when she must surely know she should be careful. They were at the mercy of the Marsh King, who ruled the fenlands now the Count of Ardian had been overthrown. No-one came in or went out of the fenlands without Lord Percival’s approval. He regarded her closely, thinking to himself, I do not believe she’s stupid …
She sensed his gaze and threw him an angry look.
I do believe she’s fri
CHAPTER 17
Eel Stew
MOLLY LIMPED ABOUT, SPREADING THE TABLE WITH A SNOWY white cloth and setting it with round pewter spoons. From a shelf she lifted down two slender iron candlesticks, cunningly forged to look like stylised birds, and put them in the centre of the table. From another shelf she took a vase with a bunch of red berries, dried twigs and delicate hellebore flowers, which Peregrine’s mother always called the winter rose as it flowered in the dead of the year.
‘Pretty,’ Peregrine said appreciatively and she flashed him a shy smile.
‘It is so smoky in here, how can you stand it?’ Grizelda complained, holding her bare hands to the fire. Her ring caught the low glare of the flames.
‘Can’t have a fire without smoke,’ the blacksmith growled, poking the fire so violently black puffs of smoke belched up, stinging Peregrine’s eyes.
‘We are just so glad to be here in the warmth,’ Peregrine said. ‘We’ve slept rough the last week, and I swear I felt I would never be warm again’.
‘But why?’ Molly said. ‘What are you doing here? Has something happened?’
‘Let his Highness eat in peace,’ the blacksmith said gruffly. ‘We shall call a council meeting in an hour and his Highness can tell us then what ill wind has brought him to us’.
‘I’m sorry,’ Molly said contritely and began to ladle bowlfuls of a rich, brown, delicious-smelling stew. There were chunks of meat in it, strong tasting and rather rubbery, but they all ate greedily. It had been so long since they had eaten a hot meal. Molly had fresh baked bread as well, round and golden-brown, and some pickled green beans, and she brought out a black leather bottle filled with mead, the most delicious drink Peregrine had ever tasted. He complimented her on it and she flushed with pleasure, saying, ‘I make it with honey from our own beehive. I’m glad you like it’.
‘It tastes like summer,’ Peregrine said, smiling and holding out his horn cup for more.
‘I think so too,’ Molly said. ‘At this time of year, summer seems so far away. I just need to smell the mead and it makes me think of the orchard in summer, buzzing with bees and fragrant with flowers’.
‘The stew’s good too,’ Jack said through a mouthful. ‘I was so hungry! Can I have more?’
As Molly ladled out another generous helping, Oskar whined softly, looking hopefully at the pot.
‘Quiet, boy,’ Grizelda said. Immediately the dog stopped whining.
‘Is he hungry?’ Molly asked and half-rose, as if to fetch him some food.
‘He will not eat from your hand,’ Grizelda said disdainfully. She snapped her fingers at Oskar and at once he crept forward, tail wagging hopefully. She held up one hand and he sat at attention, and she took a lump of meat from her bowl and held it to his mouth. The dog’s nostrils flared and he salivated, but he did not snatch the meat. Grizelda held it so close to his mouth he had to turn his head away to avoid it touching his lip. Then she said casually, ‘Eat, boy,’ and gratefully he took the lump of meat and swallowed it whole.
‘Poor dog,’ Molly said and went to the stove and ladled a generous serve of eel stew into a bowl. She put it down before him and said to Grizelda, ‘Let him eat. We have plenty’.
Grizelda shrugged. ‘Very well then. Eat, boy’.
The dog fell on the bowl as if he was starving.
The old lady had wheeled her chair to the table and was eating heartily. ‘It’s a wonder the dog doesn’t bite her,’ she said to Molly, in what she obviously thought was an undertone. ‘I know I would!’ Then she turned to the Marsh King, who was steadily shovelling down a truly extraordinary amount of food. ‘Elbows off the table, Percykins! Wipe your mouth! Do try not to chew with your mouth open, dear’.
‘Sorry, Ma,’ the Marsh King answered, hastily removing his elbows.
‘Lady Molly,’ Peregrine began, but she blushed and said, ‘Please, your Highness, just call me Molly’.
‘If you will call me Robin,’ he said, grinning.
She smiled but said, ‘I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know you well enough, and I’m sure your parents wouldn’t approve’.
Peregrine sighed. ‘Very well, then, Lady Molly, can you tell me … is there a blind boy here in this village?’
It was not a question she had been expecting. She stared in surprise, then answered, ‘No, sir’.
He sighed in disappointment.
‘Why, sir?’
‘Oh, nothing. Just an old prophecy’.
Only when a blind boy can see and a lame girl walk on water shall peace come again to the land, and the rightful king win back the throne … Peregrine could not help being disappointed. As soon as he had seen Molly struggle to her feet with the help of the crutch, bright hope had flared in him. What if she was the lame girl of the prophecy? What if, somehow, she was fated to help his father win the throne?
A bell rang out and the Marsh King rose, cramming one last slice of bread into his mouth. ‘The bell’s a-calling us all to council. You eat and rest and when we’re ready we’ll send for you’.
He went out, bending his head automatically to avoid banging it on the low lintel.
‘Don’t you worry,’ Molly said. ‘Plenty of time to eat and rest, they’ll be hours yet’.
Peregrine sopped up the last of his stew with the heel of his bread, something he would never have done at the castle, under the eyes of his mother and Queen Rozalina.
‘That’s my boy,’ the old woman said affectionately. ‘You’re not so dwizzen-faced now, poor thing that you are’.
‘Nan, why don’t you go and sit by the fire and I’ll bring you a posset?’ Molly said. ‘Lady Grizelda, the men will have filled the bath by now. I heard them go up the stairs with the buckets from the smithy. Would you like to go and wash?’
‘Thank heavens!’ Grizelda cried, rising to her feet. ‘I do hope it’s a hip-bath. Too much to hope for? Believe me, an old bucket will do!’
‘Indeed it is a hip-bath, made by my father’s own hands,’ Molly said. ‘Just up those stairs, my lady’.
Grizelda hurried out of the room, her dog raising his head and gazing after her anxiously, ears pricked. After a moment he laid his head on his paws again. Jack pushed his plate away with a sigh. ‘That was just grand, my lady’.
‘Oh, please, call me Molly,’ she said. ‘No-one calls my father lord except for his Highness’.
‘Robin,’ Peregrine said.
They both ignored him. ‘Well, thanks then, Molly. Best meal I’ve had in days’. Standing up, Jack sketched her a brief bow, then asked, rather diffidently, ‘May I have permission to go and look around outside? I’d like to make sure we haven’t been followed’.
‘My father will have men a-looking out, don’t you worry,’ she answered. ‘But of course, feel free. I know you must feel responsible for his Highness’s safety’.
Jack smiled in relief and nodded. Catching up his coat, he went out into the cold, grey night. Molly began to clear the dishes and Peregrine rather clumsily helped. Without a word she passed him a linen tea towel and began to wash up in the tub. Meanwhile, Blitz the falcon, Oskar the dog and the old lady all began to snore quietly.
‘I was wondering if you could tell me what creature it is that makes that deep booming noise? The one that signals to your scouts that a friend is near?’ Peregrine asked.
She glanced at him in surprise. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘It is how we gained access to the marshes,’ he explained. ‘I listened and mimicked all the noises that I heard, and when I made that noise, the fen-man came, and just in time too’.
Molly was silent for a moment, her hands stilling in the water. ‘It is the call of the bittern. It frightens those who hear it, for it’s so loud and strange. It’s unbelievable that you should be a-mimicking it! It’s a hard noise to make. I carve whistles for all the men to wear about their necks’.
Peregrine pulled out his long white flute. ‘I can make any n
‘Oh, please don’t! It’s a warning signal! We’ll have all the men of the town rushing upon us’.
‘Hal and Hank, and Fred and Frank,’ Peregrine said.
She laughed in delight. ‘You have a good memory!’
Peregrine did not tell her he had been trained so. Instead he said, grinning, ‘Bill and Bob, and Will and Wat, and … can I remember? Ged and Ted. But that’s not right’.
‘Almost,’ she told him. ‘We’re not very imaginative with names here. Nothing like Peregrine!’
‘Except for your father. Percival’. His voice rose at the end in a subtle interrogation.
Molly smiled and sighed. ‘Yes. Poor Da. Nan was always determined he wouldn’t be a run-of-the-mill Bill’.
‘Is that why he rose up against the Count of Ardian? That can’t have been easy’.
‘It was, in fact. The old count was never here, and on the rare occasions when he did come back, to try to squeeze a bit more out of his tenants, he had no notion of any path through the marsh except the old causeway. All Da had to do was dismantle the causeway, take over the castle, set up the count’s own mangonels against him and blow up the starkin’s marsh-gas mines’.
‘Easy,’ Peregrine teased.
She smiled. ‘It was a long time coming, believe me’.
He played a few sweet notes on his flute, mimicking the zrip, zrip, zrip of the little birds he had heard.
‘Reed buntings,’ she said. ‘Amazing!’
Ping, ping, ping, he played.
‘Bearded tits!’
Kekekekeke! He mimicked the high, shrill cry he had heard just before the hunter had galloped down upon them.
‘A marsh harrier, calling the alarm,’ she said.
‘So what was the name of that other bird, the one that sounds like some immense and terrible monster?’
‘A bittern’. She laughed. ‘It’s really a very shy bird. It keeps to itself, just like the men of the marshes. It’s hard to spot, for its feathers are the same colour as the mud and the brown reeds. It has long legs, and can walk delicately over the tops of the marsh plants, leaving no trail. It hunts with great stealth, able to stand still for hours without moving, yet when attacked will fight to the death’.