‘I know it’s not much. But will it do?’ The tone of Kasper’s voice was tentative, and I realised he’d seen my expression and misinterpreted it.
‘It’s – of course, it will do,’ I said lamely. ‘I am very glad to be here.’
He seemed relieved. ‘Good. Shall we go in? You can have a look around.’
‘Oh, yes. I’m sure it will be fine, just fine,’ I gabbled, following him into the house.
‘Careful of your head,’ he said, and opened the creaking door. ‘The domevoy here can be a bit of a grumpy one. He’s given me quite a crack before.’
From stories I’d read in my long imprisonment, I knew that domevoys were the elusive house-spirits of Krainos. There is one in each and every house, jealously guarding his or her territory. They rarely allow themselves to be seen by humans except in fleeting glimpses. And they choose where they live. Tellingly, there had been no domevoy in the Tower, though I’d longed for one to set up camp, just for the company. As I ducked my head under the low lintel and came into the main room, I thought happily that I’d be glad to share quarters with the domevoy of this place, grumpy or not.
I glanced around the room, taking in the rough-cut timber walls, the dusty floors and the basic furniture. There was a table, a bench, a small brick stove that needed whitewashing, some battered pots and pans and chipped dishes. In one corner, a tattered blanket partitioned off a corner of the room, which housed a narrow wooden bed with a faded patchwork quilt thrown over the mattress. The only decoration was an arrangement of dried flowers on another wall.
‘It’s not much to look at, I know. But I promise you that, over the next few days, I will try to make it as cosy as a rough woodsman’s cottage can possibly be. Meanwhile, tonight I’ll make sure we have a roaring fire, a good dinner and that the bed will be made as comfortable as possible for you to sleep in.’
I glanced at him.
‘As to me, I’ll sleep in front of the stove,’ he went on, hurriedly. ‘Now, what else … We’ll use water from the spring for washing and drinking – the best I’ve ever had – and there’s an outhouse behind the cottage. Tomorrow I’ll make some traps so that we can have fresh meat.’
‘Kasper, please don’t worry,’ I said quietly. ‘I may be a princess, but I’ve not lived in a palace for a long time. This house – I know we can make it cosy, and outside … outside is lovely. I like it here very much.’
His eyes lit up. ‘Really?’
‘Really,’ I echoed. ‘So what would you say was the first task we have to tackle?’
A flicker of surprise crossed his face. ‘Gathering wood. But you don’t have to do anything. You’re high-born, so –’
‘Stop right there or you’ll make me very cross,’ I said firmly. ‘High-born or not high-born, if we are to stay here, I refuse to be idle. You know how to do a lot of things, and I do not, but I can learn if you’ll teach me. Will you?’
His handsome face was alive with laughter, his brown eyes sparkling. ‘Yes, of course. Whatever you like, Izolda.’
‘Good,’ I said sharply, trying to hide the fact that my heart was going so fast it felt like at any moment it might leap out of my chest.
Kasper
Sitting over our simple dinner that night, with the only light in the room being the flames of the crackling fire, I felt content. We had escaped. We were safe. There was food in our bellies and shelter over our heads. We talked a lot; at least, I talked a lot at first and she talked a little. By common unspoken consent, we left aside any mention of the island or what had happened there. Instead, I told stories about the woods, Fish-the-Moon and my family, and funny things that had happened to me as a boy.
‘Being the only boy with two bossy older sisters wasn’t the easiest thing in the world,’ I said, ‘but they always told me I had it the wrong way round. Being older sister to a painful little brother who had to be taken everywhere – because Mother and Father were so busy in the restaurant – was, they said, by far the greater hardship, especially when that little brother eavesdrops on their conversations and thinks it’s hilarious to put snails in their beds!’
Izolda clapped a hand over her mouth in mock horror. ‘You didn’t really do that, did you?’
‘Well, only once, not the many times they always claimed,’ I confessed. ‘And it was a very small snail. Plus, it had almost reached the floor by the time they found it.’
She burst out laughing. ‘I’m sure that made it a whole lot better!’
‘It was kind of me, I agree,’ I said, thrilled that my silly story had made her laugh so much, ‘because after all, it was only payback for them telling Mother and Father I’d kicked my ball through the scullery window!’
Izolda laughed again. ‘Oh, Kasper, you must have been a real terror of a little boy!’
‘I hope I was. Being good makes for a dull childhood, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose it does,’ said Izolda, sobering suddenly, the haunted expression back in her eyes. I could have kicked myself for being so foolish. She’d not had the luxury of being naughty. Her childhood had been taken from her.
‘I’m sorry, Izolda. I didn’t mean …’
‘I know you didn’t,’ she said. ‘It’s quite all right. I – I love hearing about these things. Please tell me more.’
So I did, and so the evening passed. I’d left a little scrap of dinner in the darkest corner of the room to placate the domevoy, who I knew would be watching us from his hidey-hole. It’s important, with domevoys, to make friends with them as soon as you move into a house. Otherwise, there could be all sorts of trouble, as they are famously prickly and easily take offence. But they’re also very greedy and can be wooed in that way. I told Izolda about how I’d brought the resident domevoy a gift of fresh honey-cake the last time I’d visited the cottage.
‘What does the domevoy look like?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. Never seen it – domevoys very, very rarely show themselves. Our family has lived in our house for five generations, but our domevoy has been seen only twice in all that time. The first time was by my great-grandmother, when she was a little girl. And the second was by me.’
‘What happened?’
‘I was about five at the time. My sisters were fast asleep in the room we shared. I was dozing when, suddenly, in the corner of the room, I caught a glimpse of a wizened, hard-eyed dark face. Almost instantly it was gone, and there was only the flick of a long, thin rat-like tail, whisking out of sight, behind the stove. My sisters and Father said that I’d been dreaming. Or that I had merely seen a rat. But Mother believed me. And I’ve never forgotten it.’
‘Of course, you wouldn’t!’ said Izolda. ‘I hope we’ll see our one here.’
Our one. It gave me a tingle of pleasure. ‘I’m sure we will, if we play our cards right,’ I said lightly. ‘But tell me, are there any domevoys in Night?’
‘Not exactly. At least, they’re not the benign sort you have here. We have cave goblins – and you certainly wouldn’t want them in your house!’
‘What are they like?’
‘They’re carnivorous carrion-eaters who lurk in the shadows, in fissures in the rocks and caves too small and unpleasant to be used by any feyin,’ she said. ‘They’re small and stunted and grey-skinned, with a single fang that holds enough poison to paralyse a creature the size of a small cat. On their own, they are cowards dependent on the remains of creatures that fall from the upper world into their caves. They also catch bats or other small animals that have blundered too close to a goblin den. Cave goblins occasionally hunt in packs. And then they are really dangerous – until the pack can be tracked down and destroyed by the Marshals, everyone has to take great care,’ Izolda went on, her eyes alight. ‘When they are in a pack, they lose their fear and come out of hiding to hunt feyin at the very gates of my father’s realm, hoping to grab those too weak or unwary to fight them.’
‘Let’s hope these Marshals of yours do their job properly, then,’ I said.
/> ‘Oh, they do,’ said Izolda. ‘They always find the pack. Always.’
I knew who the Night Marshals were, of course. The memory of the crack troops of the Prince of Night lived on in war stories, even though they hadn’t been seen for ten years. But I had only ever thought of them in terms of enemy soldiers, not as Izolda saw them – as protectors of their people. And that led me on to an intriguing thought. All the time that Izolda had been imprisoned, the Marshals had not waged war. What had they been doing all this time? ‘Izolda, how many realms are there underground?’
She looked at me in some surprise. ‘My father’s realm is really the only one. There’s the Outlands, with a few small villages and outstations which are semi-independent, but they are of no significance.’
‘These Outlands, are they ever attacked?’
‘Attacked? By who?’
‘By M– I mean, goblins.’
‘If they were, the Marshals would help them.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they pay tribute to my father, so they are protected too.’
I changed the subject then, for I could see she was becoming troubled by my questions. We talked instead of what we were going to do the next day, and how we’d set about making the house a little more comfortable.
‘I’m so tired, Kasper,’ Izolda finally said, yawning. ‘Do you mind if I turn in for the night?’
‘Of course not,’ I said, jumping up. ‘I’m sorry – I’ve kept you up far too late.’
‘Not at all,’ she said, smiling. ‘I have enjoyed this evening so much. Thank you – thank you for everything.’
‘There is no need to thank me,’ I said. ‘I am honoured that I have been able to help you, and that you did not find my stories too ridiculous.’
‘I loved them,’ she said simply, meeting my eyes. A heartbeat of silence before she said, ‘Good night, Kasper.’
‘Good night, Izolda,’ I echoed. ‘See you in the morning.’
‘Yes. Sleep well.’ She disappeared behind the tattered screen, and after a few moments, I heard her soft, even breathing.
But I could not settle. As I sat by the fire, feeding it from time to time with extra wood, I kept turning over everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours that had turned my life and my world upside down. And I did not regret one moment of them.
What I did regret was how I had blindly accepted the official story of the prisoner in the Tower. I’d never thought to question why the Prince would have simply ended the war there and then, just because a helpful witch had been captured. It made no real sense when you came to look at it. But losing his beloved daughter – being afraid for her safety – that was quite another thing. That did make sense, in a terrible kind of way.
But why would the Supreme Council risk putting to death such a valuable prisoner – an action that would surely have brought the Prince out against us again? And why would Commander Los, a hero admired and loved by all of Krainos, be part of such a monstrous plot – the lie that had kept us in ignorance for ten long years?
Kasper
Every morning, after a simple breakfast, we set out into the woods so I could teach Izolda its ways. The first few days she was anxious and wary, and we only went a short distance from the house. I never left her side, for I knew she needed to be gently eased into her new-found freedom. She started at the slightest sound. Once, when we were gathering mushrooms, she froze in utter fear when a hedgehog scuttled out from under some leaf litter and hurried past.
‘It’s all right, Izolda,’ I said, wanting to put a comforting arm around her but not daring to. ‘It’s just a little hedgehog. He’s harmless – unless, of course, you’re a beetle.’
She gave a tentative smile. ‘I’m sorry, Kasper. I feel ashamed. I’m such a fool. I’ve only ever seen them in books, you see – and he came out so suddenly …’
‘They do that,’ I agreed. ‘One of them startled me just like that once – only I was just about to take a pot shot at a deer, and I missed. I cursed that little walking pincushion, I can tell you!’
‘I can imagine,’ she said, no longer looking anxious, and continued to gather the mushrooms.
After that I tried to anticipate anything that might frighten her. I taught her how to recognise the tracks of wild animals, to find edible roots and herbs, and to identify the plants that are useful in other ways: the soap herb that grows under hazel trees, the bark and leaves that can be boiled up for medicine. Nettles were plentiful in the area, so I taught Izolda how to pick them without getting stung. I showed her how to extract honey from a hive, how to recognise the right sorts of mushrooms and avoid the bad ones. I taught her how to make a simple trap, too. But on the seventh day, when she found a pigeon caught in one of her traps, she insisted on taking it back to the cottage and nursing it to health. I had no choice but to agree, though at first I could not help thinking what a nice roast that plump little bird would have made.
I would have spared her the skinning and gutting of the rabbits my traps caught, but she insisted on helping and valiantly carried through with it, despite the unpleasantness. She would not be spared anything; not the work in the woods and not the work in the house, however menial. In the Tower, she had never had to wash her clothes or cook or clean her room – the latter being solely the job of the blind cleaner – so that, too, she had to learn. She was a quick study for everything and made no complaint, even insisting on chopping kindling for the fire with the battered old axe.
But when I suggested clearing some ground for a garden, Izolda looked troubled. ‘They take a long time to grow, don’t they?’
I knew the question that was in the back of her mind. Just how long are we going to have to stay here? It was not a question I could answer. I did not know the answer, for a start. And increasingly I found I did not want to know it.
We planted some of the buckwheat for it’s a fast-growing grain, which would be easy to harvest. We pulled up some wild strawberry plants I found in the woods, too, and bedded them down along with wild sorrel and parsley. The plum-tree blossom was almost over and the fruit would soon bud up. Our little clearing was sheltered from the wind and any lingering frost, and the soil was rich and dark. With the water we ferried from the spring, our garden was sure to thrive.
After a couple of weeks, a faint flush of green showed where we’d planted the buckwheat, and the herbs and strawberries had taken well to their new home. Sometimes, Fela, the pigeon Izolda had nursed back to health, would follow us into the garden, cooing, waiting for the grass seeds we’d turn up in the soft earth.
If we were out all morning, we’d often stop to have a lunch of cold leftovers from the previous night’s roast or stew. If we were around the house, we’d eat on the grass. We would mainly talk of what we’d done that day, but sometimes Izolda would speak of the Tower and of how she passed her time there, reading, playing card games against herself, drawing.
She often asked me to tell stories about my home. She had only snatches of stories and images from her own, but they were always so vivid – about the wonders of her father’s realm, a marvel unlike any in the world above. She painted such a glorious picture of the feyin world of the deep caves below the Lake that was its portal. Of a world lit by the golden glow of lamps that never went out, a towering city of salt stone and gold, of crystal and opal. A rich city where giant greenhouses grew crops that fed the entire population. Where a soaring crystal cathedral was dedicated to the Lady of the Rock, founder of Night itself. It was a city far in advance of anything we could imagine in Krainos, and whose people lived well beyond human years. Izolda had been only eight when she was taken, yet it was sharper and brighter in her memory than the ten grey years she had passed in the Tower.
When Izolda spoke of home, her voice took on a yearning note, she’d finger the crystal pendant on the chain around her neck, and my heart would constrict. For it was in these moments that I was put starkly in front of one simple fact: Izolda was in my wo
rld, but she was not of it. It was easy to forget that, in this green and peaceful place where we’d found a haven. Easy to forget, sharing the long sunny days with her, and nights spent by the fire. Easy to forget, as her skin lost its pallor and turned to honey-gold, as she relaxed and lost her fear of the woods, as, her sleeves rolled up, her bright hair held back with a makeshift band, she concentrated on her tasks. She could almost have been a girl from my village then, and not a feyin princess from an enemy realm. Almost …
She trusted me. And for that I was glad. We were becoming real friends. And for that I was even gladder. But I wanted more, and I knew she did not. For she never forgot – I could see that in her eyes. She never forgot who she was. And that meant she never forgot who I was, either.
Most evenings we sat around the fire after dinner before retiring for the night. I would show Izolda such things as using charcoal to draw on bark, our makeshift paper. She had begun to sketch again – quick studies of Fela, of flowers, of trees; while I sat whittling pieces of birch. It was on one of these evenings, towards the end of the second week, that Izolda broached a subject that had clearly been troubling her.
‘Kasper, don’t you ever wonder what’s going on out there?’
‘No,’ I lied. I didn’t want to say that sometimes I thought of my family and what they must be going through. ‘We’re safe, we’ve covered our tracks well and that’s all that matters.’
‘Aren’t you afraid that one day –’
‘I don’t think about one day,’ I countered. ‘I think about each day as it comes. Wondering and fearing is the way mistakes are made.’
‘Yes,’ Izolda said quietly, looking down at the sketch in her lap. ‘But you know … you know they must be looking for us.’
The Crystal Heart Page 5