To Make a King

by Kristi L Cramer

  The study of the stars gave her something to do in the long lonely hours of the night. She knew their movements, their placements during any season. She knew which star was the one called Polaris, the North Star, the axis on which the heavens turned. She knew the names of all the recorded constellations, plus a few she had made up on her own. She even knew when to expect certain star showers that occurred around the same time each year. Mari found the subject quite thrilling and looked forward to observing the sky from a different vantage than the rooftop of Dewbury Estate.

  By the time she was ready—seated in the middle of the roof on a cushion borrowed from her room—several of the brightest stars were visible. Mari trained her glass on them and found herself a little disappointed, though not surprised, to find there was no noticeable difference in star placement between Dewbury and Fair Haven. The sky seemed a little clearer, though, perhaps due to the sea air. Dewbury was located in a valley that often trapped a weather-haze, which blurred the sky.

  Time passed quickly, as it always did when she stargazed, and she smiled wryly every time she found herself listening for the sound of a bell. She was aware of a group of riders entering the courtyard below at just past ten bells, but she didn’t bother to get up and look. This was not Dewbury, and whatever comings and goings occurred were none of her affair.

  It was not surprising, then, that someone arriving on the rooftop caught her completely off guard. She turned, ready to rise, but was frozen to the spot when she recognized the prince’s shadowy figure against the torch lighting the stairway. She was not able to suppress the gasp that escaped her lips.

  ⇜⊂⊃⊂⊃⊂⊃⇝

  Sebastian heard a sound and quickly located a shadow close to the floor of the roof.

  “Who’s there?” he asked, his voice quiet but commanding.

  The shadow rose with the sound of scrambling feet and a clink of metal on stone. Sebastian dropped into a defensive crouch and moved to one side, very aware he was unarmed and silhouetted in the light at the stairway. He resisted calling for Jared, knowing the faithful guard would strike first and ask questions later. Sebastian wanted no killing or injuries on his behalf. He had not made his vow of non-violence five years ago only to have others do damage in his name.

  He was surprised, however, to hear a woman’s voice uttering a soft word of distress. He thought he recognized the voice.

  “Lady Mari?” he asked, not yet standing up straight.

  “Yes, Your Highness. I’m so sorry if I startled you....” Her voice trailed off in confusion as she tried to locate him.

  Keeping his steps soft, he approached her right side and grasped the object in her right hand. “Startled indeed, on my own rooftop with an armed lady.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise, though she did not relinquish the item to him. “I am not armed, Highness! Please, it is very fragile.”

  Sebastian realized the object was not any weapon he had ever trained with, or seen, but he still could not identify it. “What is it?”

  “A spyglass, Highness.” Her voice betrayed her struggle for composure after her apparent fright.

  “And what are you spying on from my rooftop?” he asked, not releasing his grip on the instrument.

  “Only the heavens, Highness.”

  “The heavens?” He looked skyward and saw only the stars. “You mean the stars?”

  “Even so, Highness.” She took a deep breath. “I find them quite fascinating.”

  “The stars?” he repeated, voicing doubt, though the answer was so surprising he forgot about any threat of danger.

  “Yes. There’s a star shower due to begin soon.”

  Sebastian looked down at her to see that she too was looking up, starlight shining in her eyes. He released the spyglass and she cradled it to her breast.

  “But they are only points of light in the sky,” he said, “put in the heavens to brighten the night and guide travelers.”

  Her tone of voice suggested she was smiling when she spoke next. “Your Highness has never studied astronomy?” She made it a question.

  “Isn’t that the study of the effects the stars have on a person’s life?” he asked nonchalantly, not wishing to sound ignorant though he knew very little of such things.

  “No, Highness. That is astrology. The names are too similar, I agree. Astronomy, as you know, is simply the study of the stars themselves. How they mark the seasons, how they indicate earthly direction relevant to celestial positions. That sort of thing.”

  “Yes,” Sebastian agreed, thinking only that this young lady was quite diplomatic. Her next comment confirmed that notion, and dispelled any lingering sense of danger.

  “Of course, it is not a subject most gentlemen are inclined to study, as it has little practical application in daylight.”

  “True,” he allowed, though he could see how it could be useful in extended travels. “But how do you know they are more than just points of light?”

  “Look up there, at that bright star just above the stables. Do you see which one I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look at it through the spyglass, Highness, and tell me what you see.”

  The spyglass, when she handed it to him, turned out to be a metal tube about three feet long and wider at one end than the other. Putting the narrow end to his eye, it took Sebastian a moment to find the same star through the glass. Once he did, he saw an immediate difference. “It is round!” he exclaimed. “Like a tiny ball.”

  “Do all the stars look that way?” Lady Mari asked.

  Sebastian cast his gaze around the bright star, but all the other stars looked the same as always. “No, just the one.”

  “Well, five, if we had time to locate them all. But what you are looking at, there, is another planet. Like our Earth. It is our heavenly neighbor, bound by our sun. Its name is Venus.”

  “Venus,” Sebastian whispered, in some awe. “But does the sun not revolve around the Earth, as our Bishop has always maintained?”

  She paused, as though weighing her answer. When she spoke again, he understood her hesitation. “An astronomer named Galileo has published a paper disputing that notion in favor of the Copernican Theory, which states the sun is the center of the galaxy.” She paused again, then continued in a more conciliatory tone. “I have not actually seen the paper, but a trader I know told me about it. He also told me the Inquisition has this year demanded that Galileo recant his theories, on pain of excommunication. It’s all very exciting. That is, if that sort of thing interests you.”

  “I can see how one could devote a lot of time to the subject. Are all stars planets? All revolving around our sun?”

  Another pause. Then, “The current belief is that they are suns, each with their own planets.”

  Sebastian blinked. “That sounds pretty radical, my lady. But where is the proof?”

  “Out there, among the stars, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps you will find the proof here on Earth.”

  “Perhaps. Though, I would imagine any proof I might find would be hard to accept, coming from the youngest daughter of a baron on the Bonnie Isles.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself. You very nearly have me convinced and I don’t know the first thing about astronomy.”

  Her pause this time was lingering, as though she didn’t know what to say. “You flatter me, Highness.”

  “It was my intention. I was hoping to get you to offer a lesson on the stars. I could use the distraction.”

  She inhaled deeply, and he glanced down to see her face turned toward his. “Would you really like a lesson, Highness? I would happily teach you some constellations while we watch for the star shower.”

  “Excellent. Where do we start?”

  “Do you know the constellation that will lead us to the North Star?”

  “And the North Star is...?” Sebastian hinted.

  “Surely Your Highness knows which star is the only one fixed in the night sky?” she said.

  “L
et’s assume nothing. Pretend I have never even looked up before tonight and instruct me from the beginning.”

  Sebastian saw teeth glinting in the starlight as Lady Mari smiled. “Very well. Look up, then, for the first time. Notice that some stars are brighter than others? Notice how they seem to make patterns in the sky? Those patterns are called constellations. Each traditional constellation has a name. Do you see this one that looks like a kitchen ladle?” She pointed and he leaned in close to sight along her arm. She smelled very good, like some kind of fruit, he thought. “It’s called Ursa Major, or the Greater Bear. If you make a line from the last two stars of the cup, it points to the star known as the North Star, the axis on which all other stars turn....”

  The lesson went on well into the night, though Sebastian found himself more fascinated with the teacher than the subject.

  Chapter Five

  It was nearly dawn before the hooded woman’s preparations were complete, and she took a breath before proceeding.

  In a small clearing inside a copse of trees just beyond the cemetery, she had spent most of the night chanting as she carefully cleaned away all debris from the floor of the glade, removing every twig and leaf. Then, using a mixture of black powder she had spent much of the afternoon preparing, she painstakingly sprinkled it on the ground in the shape of a pentagram, chanting all the while.

  The activity had no other purpose than to focus her mind for the upcoming summoning. Removing physical debris was akin to removing distracting thoughts from her consciousness. Shaping the pentagram helped lay the thought patterns of the task she meant to bend the Ley energy to.

  Now, her intention sharp as a blade, she was ready to proceed.

  She lifted her arms and said, “Come to me, O agent of darkness.”

  Such simple words after so much preparation, but the results were immediate. The pentagram burst into flames that flickered steadily two inches off the ground long after the black powder should have burned away.

  A large black raven dropped out of the night and landed in the center of the burning sign, folding its wings and cocking its head to look at the hooded woman.

  It didn’t keep its raven shape for long, though. The woman watched as its shape blurred, stretching and elongating, growing until it stood every bit as tall as the hooded woman, then taller still.

  Dark arms stretched skyward—human arms—reaching out and down, as though sloughing off one shape for the next. Within moments, a woman stood in the center of the pentagram, head tipped back, lips parted.

  She stood there in glorious darkness; the hooded woman could not tell where this dark one ended and the night began.

  Then she brought her chin down and looked at the hooded woman with eyes black in black, nearly impossible to look at directly.

  “I am Maudette,” the dark one said in a conversational tone. “I remember you. Tawnia, would-be queen of the Bonnie Isles.”

  “I have need of you again,” Tawnia said, a slight trace of acid in her tone. “To finish the job you started the last time I called on you.”

  Maudette laughed. “Do not seek to lay blame at my feet, woman. I would have killed the boy outright had you asked. But you wanted him off the islands, so I put him on a boat, and exacted my payment from the captain. The boy should have died in that storm with the rest of them. If he did not, it was beyond my power to bring him down.”

  “Beyond your power?” Tawnia scoffed. “Is your power so small, then?”

  Maudette lifted her arms and brought them snapping down. All fire in the copse extinguished as a great breeze blew through, bending the trees nearly double. Some crashed to the ground under the force of it. Then the wind died as quickly as it sprang up, and Tawnia straightened, tugging her hood back into place.

  “What I meant,” Maudette said, again in a conversational tone, “is that the spell protecting him was too subtle for me to discern.”

  “Very well,” Tawnia said. “I hope subtlety is in your repertoire now, Maudette. The task I have for you now is quite different from the last.”

  “Speak it, and it shall be done,” Maudette said. She raised her hands and with a flick of her wrists, the white ash from the pentagram gathered itself and flowed up her body, settling over her shoulders in the form of a cape—a cape made of white wolf fur.

  “Fair Haven crowns a new king in less than a week’s time, and I will have it be my son, not the foundling brat. This is what I want from you.”

  ⇜⊂⊃⊂⊃⊂⊃⇝

  As the sun peeked over the horizon, Prince Sebastian stirred from the attitude he had assumed to watch it come up and turned to Mari. “I’m sorry, my lady. You must be tired, and I have kept you from your sleep.”

  “Not at all, Highness,” she said. “I slept some yesterday afternoon. But you cannot have slept at all.”

  The prince sighed and turned to sit with his back against the parapet. Mari sat beside him, mindful that she should not put herself above him by standing while her prince sat.

  “Not since Father died,” he said. “Is that not strange?”

  Mari silently counted back. Four days? “Grief can have a very unsettling effect, Highness.”

  “I am weary to my bones, but whenever I close my eyes to sleep, demons fly around me, snatching at me, coming to pluck me out of this life and into the next.”

  Not knowing what to say, Mari took his hand, even knowing he could have her flogged for such impertinence.

  “Will you stay, Lady?” He looked up to meet her eyes briefly.

  “As you wish,” she replied softly.

  “I...,” he began, but there was a clatter of footsteps on the stairs. Instead, they both rose to their feet, Mari releasing his hand.

  “You were right,” Adam said when he and Aslynn saw Sebastian.

  ⇜⊂⊃⊂⊃⊂⊃⇝

  Aslynn didn’t respond to her husband’s statement of the obvious. When she went looking and did not find her brother in his room, she knew he would be on the roof. Jared’s presence at the bottom of the stairs confirmed that. She was mostly surprised that he was keeping company.

  “Sebastian,” she said by way of greeting. “Lady Mari.” The young lady curtsied deeply, and Aslynn bowed her head in acknowledgement, noting the young lady’s flushed face. “Brother, are you well?”

  “Well enough,” he said, but he didn’t sound like himself at all. “What do you want?”

  The question was rudely stated—in fact, Sebastian had never spoken to her in that way before. It was a moment before she could speak. “Will you come down for breakfast then?”

  “Must I?” he said, with an exaggerated sigh.

  “Well,” she said, finding herself responding to his sarcastic tone, “it is part of the celebration in your honor.”

  “Oh, in that case,” he said and, crossing the roof, brushed past Aslynn and Adam without pausing. They stared after him in shock.

  “What’s gotten into him?” Adam asked.

  “I don’t know,” Aslynn replied, turned toward Mari. “Do you?”

  “No, Princess, I do not. He seemed fine just moments ago.”

  “I don’t mean to pry, Lady Mari, but what were you two doing up here?”

  “Talking. About the stars, mostly. We were watching for a star shower.”

  “And you said nothing to upset him?”

  The young woman straightened her shoulders even further than her natural posture. “I do not believe so. He was just asking me to stay as you were coming up.”

  Aslynn was glad to see the girl had more spine than she had given her credit for. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to imply anything. I’m just concerned for my brother.”

  “He is very tired, Princess Aslynn. He told me he has not slept in four days.”

  “Four days?” Aslynn repeated, astounded.

  “Since King Isaiah’s death.”

  “No wonder he acts so unlike himself,” said Adam. “Sleep deprivation has been used as a form of torture in the past. It can drive a m
an insane.”

  “Don’t say that,” Aslynn said, touching Adam’s arm. “Don’t even think it, please.”

  “I just meant...maybe he needs to be sedated. Or something.”

  Aslynn sighed, at a loss. “I’ll ask him. But whatever is to be done or not done will be his decision. Lady Mari, will you be attending breakfast?”

  Lady Mari blushed. “I would, but...I don’t know what I’d wear. I had expected to be on my way home by now. Oh! The driver!”

  “Don’t fret, my lady. I’ll go find the man and tell him he won’t be needed today,” said Adam.

  “But...the fee....”

  “I’ll take care of it, Lady Mari,” he repeated. He took her hand and kissed it briefly, then turned and kissed Aslynn’s cheek. “I’ll see you down at breakfast, my love.”

  “Thank you, Lord Wingfield,” Mari called as he jogged to the stairway.

  “My pleasure,” he said with a wave, and disappeared down the steps.

  “Come, Lady Mari,” Aslynn said. “I’ve still a bit of a wardrobe here in Fair Haven. Your size looks close enough to mine that something ought to fit.” She took the young lady’s elbow as they headed for the stairs.

  “You’re too kind, Princess.”

  “Not at all, my lady. If my brother has asked you to stay, then we mustn’t fail him. And I would not let you swim with the sharks down there in clothes they have already seen you in.”

  Aslynn offered her help out of more than just kindness: she wanted to see if this young lady measured up to all the high praise her husband had heaped upon her.

  ⇜⊂⊃⊂⊃⊂⊃⇝

  Edward lounged in his chair at the high table, watching as the breakfast guests began to arrive. Specifically, he watched the young ladies enter. Their demeanor this morning amused him. They had been so hopeful yesterday, but after Sebastian’s absence all afternoon and evening, they appeared demoralized and pouty.

  At that moment, Edward was the only one seated at the high table. He watched each and every hopeful look and crushing realization: Prince Sebastian might not attend breakfast either. Edward had a smile for all of them, however, and more than a few returned his smile with a new hope. His smile reminded them that though he was not the crown prince, he was still the next in line for the throne, and therefore not a poor catch at all.