A Clock of Stars

by Francesca Gibbons

  Miro shouted for Imogen and Marie. He shouted for his uncle. He shouted until the skret gagged him and he could shout no more. They bound his hands and feet and, within a matter of seconds, Miro was as helpless as a pig trussed up for market. The skret shoved him into a sack. He closed his eyes and tried not to panic.

  The sack was lifted up. It must have been attached to something because Miro could feel himself swinging backwards and forwards. Perhaps this was the bit where he got rescued? He waited, unable to speak, unable to move, but no rescue came.

  Why hadn’t Imogen and Marie turned back when he’d cried out? Were they too afraid? Or was it that they didn’t care? He remembered their faces, looking over their shoulders as they walked ahead. They’d believed the story about his uncle. They weren’t the friends they pretended to be.

  As for Lofkinye … she was a typical lesni. She cared more for trees than for people like him. She’d be glad he was gone.

  The cut on Miro’s face throbbed and he wished the skret would remove the gag. He tried to distract himself. He thought of his parents as blood trickled down his cheek. He closed his eyes and he could see his mother’s hands and the outline of her hair, but the features … the features were fading. He scrunched his eyes tighter, willing his imagined mother to smile, but the more he forced it, the further away she seemed until she was just a woman-shaped blur on the inside of his eyelids. Miro opened his eyes. He was determined not to cry.

  The skret were grunting and panting all around him and the swinging motion of the sack made Miro feel sick. When the temperature changed, he thought he was imagining it. This was what happened before you froze to death: you felt warm. An old tutor had told him that.

  But it wasn’t just the temperature that was different. It was the light too. Through the loose weave of the sack, there was an orange glow.

  The sack hit the ground and Miro was shaken out. ‘Welcome to Klenot Mountain,’ sneered the skret with the voice like fire. Miro wriggled in his ties, desperate to get a better look at his surroundings. He was in a cave – that much he could tell – and it was warm. He hadn’t expected the skret caves to be warm.

  His kidnappers left him tied up on the ground and Miro twisted to look up. The cave was big – bigger than the feasting hall in Castle Yaroslav – bigger than the inside of the cathedral. The ceiling was supported by pillars carved into smooth, organic shapes, like the stems of enormous flowers. It was beautiful. Miro hadn’t expected the skret caves to be beautiful.

  A few minutes later, a skret returned, removed the gag and cut Miro loose. Miro moved slowly, rubbing his wrists and ankles. His whole body ached from soon-to-be bruises, but the cut on his face was the worst. He touched his cheek. It was sticky from half-dried blood and new stuff was still flowing. It made him feel funny.

  The skret gestured at him to follow. ‘That’s right,’ said the monster, ‘nice and quiet for the Maudree Král. He doesn’t like squealers. Doesn’t like ’em too fighty.’

  Miro followed the skret towards the centre of the cave where a giant fire blazed. The fire had turned the nearby pillars black and the air roared as it rushed to feed the flames. Miro’s blood roared in his ears too.

  He saw a figure inside the fire. It didn’t move, didn’t seem to be in pain. The skret led him round the fire pit and he saw that the figure was not inside the inferno, but behind it, sitting on a throne. It wasn’t anything like his uncle’s throne. It was carved into the rock, with a seam of gold running through the middle, but it was a throne nonetheless.

  So, thought Miro, this is the famous Maudree Král. His uncle would never believe that he’d got this far. From a distance, the Král looked much the same as any other skret: grey skin, long arms, hooked claws. But, as Miro drew closer, he saw that the skret king’s talons were tipped with gold and he wore a crown on his hairless head. A drop of blood ran along Miro’s jaw and hung on the end of his chin. He brushed it away.

  The Maudree Král tapped his claws on the throne.

  Miro looked to his left. The skret that had captured him stood a little distance away. There were more skret to his right. At his back, the fire roared on.

  ‘My name is Prince Miroslav Yaromeer Drahomeer Krishnov, Lord of the City of Yaroslav, Overseer of the Mountain Realms and Guardian of the Kolsaney Forests.’

  The Maudree Král stopped tapping his claws and said, ‘Bow.’

  Miro hesitated. That was not the way one royal should talk to another. ‘I have not come all this way to bow,’ he said.

  The fire shone in the Král’s eyes. ‘Then you must have come all this way to die.’ He signalled to a big brute in a mask; a skret that was a head taller than the rest. The skret lumbered forward, carrying an axe in either hand. Miro took a step back and held up his arms.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ he cried. ‘I’ll bow!’

  The Maudree Král called his beast to heel and the audience jeered, enjoying the show. Miro hated them. He hated them all. When his uncle found out how he’d been treated … He glared at the skret king and bowed.

  ‘Tell me, human –’ the Maudree Král said the word like it was a dirty one – ‘what are you doing in my mountain?’

  ‘I’ve come to ask for your help.’

  ‘And why would I help you?’

  ‘It’s not for me,’ said Miro. ‘It’s for my friends.’

  The Maudree Král made a great show of looking around. ‘What friends?’

  Miro trembled with rage. Or was it something else? Another drop of blood ran along his chin and this time it fell to the ground. He felt dizzy.

  ‘They came here from another world,’ said Miro. ‘They came through a door in a tree, but they can’t find the door and—’

  ‘The Unseen Door is not for your kind. It cannot be opened by humans.’

  ‘My friends …’ Miro’s voice trailed off and he swayed on his feet. He had to lie down. He didn’t feel good. ‘My uncle will pay for my safe return. Whatever you want, you can have it.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said the Král, smiling with triangular teeth. ‘Anything I want?’

  ‘Yes … anything.’ More blood ran down Miro’s cheek and the edges of the world went fuzzy.

  ‘How about the Sertze Hora? I want the heart of the mountain.’

  ‘We don’t have your stupid heart! My uncle’s a good man.’

  ‘Your uncle is a thief and a traitor.’

  Miro took a few steps forward. Then a few steps back. The heat was too much. The last thing he saw before he hit the floor was a wall of fire.

  ‘I wish I could have said goodbye to the boy,’ said King Drakomor, lighting the library torches.

  ‘What good would that have done?’ said Anneshka.

  ‘I just hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly.’

  ‘You did say to send him away …’

  Drakomor ran his finger along the spines of the library books. ‘And what about the lesni poacher?’ Have the guards had any luck hunting her down?’

  ‘I haven’t heard anything,’ said Anneshka.

  The king picked up a shiny black book from the bottom shelf. He started turning the pages one by one. ‘I hate moths,’ he said, wrinkling his nose at a frilly-winged specimen that was pressed flat and sewn into the page.

  ‘I’m not asking you to like them,’ said Anneshka. ‘I’m asking you to use them. No human will make the journey and we need to deliver our wedding invite to the Maudree Král.’

  Drakomor continued to turn the book’s pages. ‘What are they like, the people Miro’s staying with?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Anneshka, keeping her eyes trained on the book. ‘They’re your family, not mine.’

  ‘I don’t have any family.’

  ‘Your family by marriage. The boy has gone to stay with his mother’s relatives, far beyond the mountains. Don’t worry, I arranged an escort.’

  ‘I see … In that case, I hope they make the crossing in time. The first snows can’t be far off.’

  ‘Aha
!’ Anneshka held down the page. Her sharp nail pointed at the wonky title: Moths as Messengers. ‘Here – it tells you how to summon a moth,’ she said. ‘When did you do it last?’

  ‘Never,’ said Drakomor. ‘It was always my brother’s job, but it didn’t look that hard.’

  Drakomor and Anneshka read the instructions, then walked out to the library’s balcony. They were high up, level with the top of the cathedral. Yaroslav’s skyline gleamed in the moonlight with rows of tiled roofs, filigree steeples and sharp towers.

  The king cleared his throat. ‘Fly with courage and speed and the will of the stars. We have a message and it needs to go far.’

  Nothing happened. Anneshka shivered.

  ‘Perhaps you should say it again?’ she suggested. ‘Perhaps the moths didn’t hear.’

  ‘They heard.’

  Two skret were scaling the cathedral, crawling along a flying buttress. ‘Look,’ whispered Anneshka, pointing at the misshapen silhouettes. She could have sworn they were looking back at her. ‘Can they see us?’ she asked, a little breathless.

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Drakomor. ‘And they certainly can’t get to us.’

  ‘But they’re trying, aren’t they? They know the Sertze Hora is here.’

  Drakomor didn’t respond.

  ‘The sooner they’re dealt with, the better,’ said Anneshka. She took a sharp breath. ‘What’s that?’

  A shape fluttered towards the open window. Anneshka held out her hand and the black moth flew in a circle before landing on her palm. ‘It worked!’ she cried. ‘What now?’

  ‘Now we tell it our message,’ said Drakomor.

  It was late when Imogen, Marie and Lofkinye stood at the foot of the lightning-struck tree. The trunk was split down the middle and the remaining branches were as pale and naked as bones, but the stars were out and they hung round the tree like ghostly leaves.

  ‘Look at that,’ said Imogen. ‘Look at all those stars.’

  ‘I’ve never seen so many,’ said Marie.

  ‘They’re gathering,’ said Lofkinye.

  ‘Gathering for what?’

  ‘Perhaps they want to see what happens to the little prince.’

  Behind the dead tree, in the side of the mountain, there were two low caves hidden by bushes and protected from the worst of the elements. Lofkinye checked for vipers with a sword. No snakes appeared, but a large red centipede marched out, waving its feelers in outrage.

  The weary travellers removed their packs and boots and pushed them into the smaller of the two hollows. They crawled into the other, stringing their soggy fur coats across the entrance to keep out the wind.

  It was a far cry from the snug tree houses they had slept in before, but at least it was dry. Lofkinye lit a candle and they ate dinner: twice-baked bread and some berries they’d picked that morning. Imogen’s fingers were soon stained purple by the juice.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said, wiping her fingers on her trousers. ‘Why aren’t lesni people allowed to hunt?’

  ‘The Royal Guards say there aren’t enough wild animals,’ replied Lofkinye. ‘And they’re right, but that doesn’t make it just. It’s one rule for me and another for the město. And if I don’t hunt I don’t eat. That’s why …’ She sighed. ‘Enough of this. I’m not in the mood for storytelling tonight.’

  The girls and the huntress put dry animal skins on the ground and wrapped themselves in blankets. They lay close together with Marie wedged in the middle. She was asleep within minutes, despite the hard floor.

  Imogen was exhausted, more exhausted than she’d ever been, but she couldn’t drift off. She watched the candle burn and she thought about Miro. She wondered where he was and what had happened to draw blood.

  She propped herself up on her elbows and watched Marie’s breath rise and fall. Lofkinye was watching too. Her dark eyes shone bright as if they were gathering light from the candle.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Imogen.

  ‘You really want to know? I’m thinking we shouldn’t have let the little prince get so far behind.’

  Imogen swallowed. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. ‘He should have asked us to slow down,’ she said.

  ‘He shouldn’t have had to ask,’ said Lofkinye rather sharply. ‘You never leave people behind in the mountains.’

  The coats at the cave entrance flapped in the wind and, for a second, a star peeked in.

  ‘He saved my life, you know,’ said Lofkinye. ‘They were going to have me executed. If he hadn’t freed me from the Hladomorna Pits, I’d be dead by now.’

  Imogen didn’t know what to say. She supposed Miro had saved her life too – when she and Marie had first arrived in Yaroslav. She didn’t want to say it out loud though. It would only make things worse.

  ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have told him about his uncle,’ said the huntress. ‘Or at least, not like that. He’s just a child after all. A child with no parents.’

  ‘But he’s not a baby … And you were only telling the truth.’

  ‘The truth!’ Lofkinye laughed. ‘What good is that now? It’s like they always say: only children, fools and drunks tell the truth.’ Imogen had never heard anyone say that, but she sensed Lofkinye was not in the mood to be contradicted.

  ‘If the skret have hurt him,’ continued Lofkinye, shaking her head, ‘it will be our fault. We should have kept him close.’

  Marie mumbled something in her sleep and turned over. Her wild hair hadn’t been brushed in days. It was beginning to resemble a bird’s nest at the back. Imogen pulled the blankets up round her sister’s chin and lay down.

  ‘Where do you think the skret will take Miro?’ she asked.

  ‘To their caves in Klenot Mountain,’ said Lofkinye. ‘If he’s still alive, that is.’

  ‘If he’s still alive,’ whispered Imogen.

  She thought Lofkinye might have some words of comfort to make that feeling go away – that gnawing in the pit of her belly – but Lofkinye’s talk just made the feeling worse and Imogen knew its name: guilt.

  The monster received the black moth in his mountaintop cave. ‘Do you bring news for Zuby?’

  The moth landed on the stone floor and began crawling in a zigzag pattern, opening and closing its wings as if doing a dance. ‘You bring a crustacean,’ said the skret, scratching his bald head. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  The moth flew back to its starting point and began again. The skret got on to all fours so that his great circular eyes were just centimetres from the insect.

  ‘Aha!’ he cried. ‘Invitation, not crustacean! You bring an invitation. Keep going. You have my full attention.’

  The moth traced an elaborate pattern on the cave floor. Swirling shapes were followed by straight lines and a frantic opening and closing of wings.

  ‘From the string to his threading … no … from the wing to his heading …’ The skret sprang to his feet. ‘I’ve got it!’ he cried. ‘You bring an invitation from the king to his wedding! Well, this is unusual. I must go and tell the Král right away.’

  Meanwhile, back in Yaroslav, preparations for the royal wedding were well under way. Every serving girl was to get a new dress. Rolls of cotton and silk were carried into the castle, followed by an army of serious-looking seamstresses.

  The head cook was making the biggest feast the kingdom had ever seen. She worked day and night. She chopped long lines of green and purple vegetables and tended to pots with lids that danced and rattled on the steam. She hired people that could bake, people that could gut, people that could skin things and turn them on spits.

  There would be carp soup, stuffed swans, candied fruit and heart-shaped cherry tarts. A giant sugar sculpture of the happy couple was on order from the baker’s, with gold-leaf eyes and marzipan faces. It would be the triumph of the table.

  The pantry was filled with bread and cheese. The buttery was crammed with wine and ale. The cellars overflowed with buckets of wriggling eels.

  In the evening
s, the head cook sat with the butler and steward. The point of these meetings was for the cook, who couldn’t write, to dictate her letters. She’d darn her boys’ clothes while the two men scrawled.

  ‘Do me one for the butcher down Misha Street,’ said the cook. ‘I’ll need twenty oxen and fifty piglets slaughtered.’

  ‘Twenty ox and fifty piggies,’ repeated the butler.

  Snip went the cook’s scissors on the thread.

  ‘Make sure they’re young ones,’ she said. ‘I don’t want any big, tough porkers.’

  ‘Must be sucklings …’

  Scribble scribble scribble. Stitch stitch stitch.

  ‘And that huntsman.’

  ‘Blazen?’

  ‘Yes, write me one for him. We’ll need him to catch pheasants, partridges, starlings and storks.’

  The torchlight cast their shadows in awkward shapes. The cook pulled a length of thread, held up her scissors and, for a moment, they were like the three blind fates, not servants at all.

  ‘Did you hear the rumour about old Yeedarsh?’ said the steward.

  ‘No. I don’t listen to gossip,’ said the cook, but she leaned in all the same.

  ‘They say it wasn’t the skret that killed him.’

  ‘But he was cut into pieces,’ said the cook. ‘That’s what skret do.’

  ‘Apparently, Anneshka Mazanar got someone to do it. She wanted it to look like a skret attack, but it was a human that did the slicing and dicing.’

  ‘What!’ cried the cook. ‘Our new queen, a murderess?’

  ‘Yeedarsh never thought she was good enough for the king,’ said the steward. ‘Now the old man’s bear has stopped eating. Perhaps it’s a sign – a bad sign – for the wedding. Perhaps we should make something to tempt the beast.’

  ‘You want me to cook for a bear?’