The Scarlet Star Trilogy

by Ben Galley

  There was a small table that folded cunningly into a backpack at the back of the tent. Caol found a spot for the tray and then stood in front of her. ‘Will that be all, my Queen?’

  ‘For now, Captain,’ Sift said, eyeing him up and down as she spoke. Caol felt quite uncomfortable indeed.

  Caol bowed. ‘I will be on guard outside the door, Majesty, until told otherwise,’ he said, and then left. Sift waited until she heard the thump of his spear butt before she got up to eat.

  The food was hardly the meal of a queen, but whatever it was they had scraped together at least had some spice to it, and was not simply bland mush. Badger meat possibly. Caol had forgotten to put salt on the tray, but the cubes of meat she found turned out to be salty enough.

  When she was done, she retreated to her bedroll and listened to the guards bedding down for the night. They did not dare break out their flutes or chat the night away with their queen in earshot. Soon enough, the small hollow they had found in the wall of the Deep Tunnels was dead and silent but for the breathing of faeries, the dream-twitches of wings, and the constant rumble of the earth around them.

  ‘Caol,’ she whispered, after what felt like an hour.

  Caol came bursting through the tent-flap, spear glinting in the yellow light of the candles. ‘My Queen?’ He looked as though he had been nodding off. Sift narrowed her eyes.

  ‘Take off your armour,’ she ordered.

  Caol blinked several times.

  ‘I’m telling you to take off your armour, Captain, as your queen.’

  ‘Yes, Majesty,’ Caol muttered, before unstrapping his armour and placing its pieces on the ground. He stood with his hands behind his back, clearly uncomfortable and perhaps even scared. That was natural. His wings buzzed intermittently. It isn’t every day that your queen tells you to strip, after all.

  Sift propped herself up on her elbow and fixed him with a stare and a strange smile that Caol had never seen before, at least not on her face. Just on the faces of a few of the kitchen servants perhaps, before they had hitched up their skirts. Sift lifted a finger and jabbed it at the bed. ‘Need I make myself clearer? Or do I have to spell it out to you, Captain Cullog?’

  Caol swallowed. It was not every day that your queen demands you in her bed, either. ‘No, Your Majesty,’ he whispered. He took a breath, and moved to the bed, his head spinning in all sorts of directions. His only prayer, at the end, when the sweat dripped and his breathing was tight, was for it not to be the most glorious of death sentences.

  *

  Several thousand miles away, hidden under a pile of sackcloth and a creaky old wagon, a faerie was wrenched from slumber by odd dreams of winding tunnels and sighing winds. He cursed to himself as he clutched his left hand, pain searing through it. He was confused to the core. He swore again in his old tongue. The occasion called for it. It felt as though his hand was aflame.

  Hissing through the torture, he pushed himself out of the sackcloth and dared a little light in the night’s star-sparkled darkness. He snarled as he tensed, making his wings buzz and skin glow.

  The faerie glared in confusion at the dark bleeding spot in the centre of his grey palm. He gripped his wrist to try and hold back the blood, growling all the while. He could not help it.

  The pain began to move, finding new places to stab, and Rhin stared down at his hand as the black spot began to grow, cutting a bloody X across his palm. Rhin wanted to howl and scream, but instead he bit his arm and bellowed wordlessly, until the mark had been made, and the pain finally began to ebb away.

  Dark blood dripped in the sand as Rhin held his hand out of the shadow of the wagon, bathing it in starlight as if that might help. He stared aghast at the cross that had lacerated his left palm. A black X stared right back, mocking him with its bloody leer.

  Rhin may have been a thief, a rogue, and a reluctant murderer, but stupid he was not. He had read the Fae histories, the maps, and dialogues of the great Fae philosophers. He had even read the myths of the olden days, when the Fae Kings, not the Queens, still ruled the Fae kingdoms, and of their wars.

  So it was that Rhin Rehn’ar did not gasp and scratch his head at the bloody mark on his palm. Instead he put his head to the dusty earth, still warm from a dayful of sun, and held his breath until it hurt. He knew exactly what it meant.

  Chapter XI

  OF LETTING

  1st July, 1867

  Merion could not keep the smile off his face. It was rather inappropriate, to tell the truth, considering that he was busy helping homesteaders out of the mud after a storm had made a mire out of the desert. The homesteaders had found themselves plunged into mud, their wagons stuck, and their belongings strewn across the muck. The wild west had greeted them in its usual manner—with shock and awe.

  But Merion was not smiling at their misfortune; that would be too cruel. He was smiling because, for the first time in ages, he was happy.

  He looked up and down the muddy line of circus folk. Devan was hauling a small cart out of the mire as if it weighed nothing at all. Nelle was leading a wild-eyed donkey back to firm land, whispering in its ear. Jacque was helping to gather the peoples’ things, being honest for once. Rahman and Hashna were working as a pair as always, escorting the older and the younger homesteaders out of the mud. Every eye he caught winked, every face had a smile. ‘Family’ was the word that kept ringing in his head, and he very much liked the sound of it. And, to top it all off, they were travelling further and further every day. Yara pushed them hard, through rain and shine. It was mostly shine, of course, except for today.

  Even Itch had nodded to him, which was a definite improvement. They had taken him in at the click of a finger. He had never been accepted so easily, nor felt so at home so quickly. Not since before his father died had he felt this safe. And it warmed him, melting away some of that lingering bitterness he had been nurturing since Fell Falls. He had let some of the magic of the circus seep in, and it was helping him to forget.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you grin this much since London,’ said Rhin, peeking out from the satchel Merion had borrowed. The faerie had been hiding for days, keeping out of sight of the circus folk. This was his first outing since the twister, and he was keen to fill it with jabbering.

  To Rhin, it was almost as though nothing had passed between them. It harked back to the days before Karrigan’s murder, when it was all much simpler. Merion granted him that, daring even to pretend it was.

  Merion flashed him a smirk. ‘You’re probably right. I haven’t felt this welcome before. I feel like these are my cousins, or distant uncles twice-removed or something. I feel I’m amongst kin. Like we did when we spent a night with the Shohari, remember?’

  ‘I remember alright.’

  Merion shrugged. ‘Call me mad, but it just feels like good fortune for a change.’

  ‘I can’t say no to that. So have you broken the news yet?’

  Merion wrinkled up his face as his boot was sucked down by the mud. ‘News? Oh, right. Yes.’ He huffed. ‘Today maybe, or tonight.’

  ‘Or tomorrow.’

  ‘Or next week.’

  ‘Merion …’

  Merion nodded. ‘I know. I will tell her tonight.’

  Rhin hummed. ‘All of it?’ he asked.

  Merion caught his breath for a moment, legs askew and boots sinking into the mud. ‘As much as I need to. Or as much as they can take: that I’m a leech and I have a faerie for a sidekick. I’ll leave the lord part out. Whoa!’ He flapped his arms as his boot slipped forward, toppling him. Lurker was swiftly at his side, yanking him back up.

  ‘Talking to yourself, Merion?’ Lurker gave him a stern look. Merion looked furtively around. None of the other circus folk were particularly close by, and none of them seemed to be looking.

  ‘No,’ Merion whispered.

  ‘Good,’ Lurker replied, sniffing. He cast a look down into the satchel, meeting a pair of purple eyes. ‘And Rhin, don’t you rile ’im up.’

  Me
rion crossed his arms. ‘He wasn’t riling me up. We were talking about our little secrets.’

  ‘I reckon she’ll just want to put him in their zoo.’

  Merion spoke up for Rhin once again. ‘Then they had better respect the fact he’s one of us, and not an animal. Well, not quite.’ There: a little sting in that defiant smile, despite the words. It showed Merion was trying.

  ‘Well, we’ll have to see. They seem alright to me though,’ Lurker replied, sniffing. It was about as close to high praise as Lurker ever offered.

  Merion ran a hand through his blonde hair and plucked his boots from the greedy mud once again. ‘Like you said, we shall see,’ he answered, flashing a grin. Lurker cuffed him gently, almost knocking his hat into the mud. Merion flashed the prospector a dangerous look and made to shove him. Lurker stepped back, and when Merion’s boots stuck fast in the mud once more, he landed flat on his face at Lurker’s feet. Rhin fell with him, curled up in the corner of the satchel, where none of the mud could reach the fresh bandage around his hand. ‘Damn it, Merion,’ he yelled.

  Lurker tugged the boy upright yet again, and Merion began to brush himself down. He had borrowed a pale shirt and a tan waistcoat from one of the circus boys, and with his wild blonde hair escaping his hat, he looked quite the westerner—though a muddy one.

  There came a rattle of laughter from a few of the nearby circus folk. Follust’s guffaw was clear, even over the breeze and the sound of work and toil. Even Lurker was stifling a snort or two.

  ‘Go on, laugh, you buffoon. You’re worse than Spetzig,’ hissed Merion, as he wiped the mud from his eyes and flicked it at Lurker.

  The prospector laughed long and hard all the way back to where the circus had called it a day.

  ‘Have you been at the flask again?’

  Lurker cleared his throat. ‘Absolutely,’ he answered, and tipped his hat. ‘Seems to be the done thing in these parts.’ Merion snorted and said no more. Lurker was in good company: half the circus folk spent their days drinking the miles away. Now the sun was beginning its descent to the horizon, and the fire-pits were being dug, the drinks were starting to pour. They could hear the tuning of a fiddle, somewhere amidst the tents and wagons.

  Yara was wisely waiting for the mud to harden up, and so tonight, the circus would entertain their captive audience—the weary homesteaders who, conveniently enough, had a need for some cheering up. So Yara had opened up a few stalls and a handful of the larger tents, so that they could put on a show.

  She was clever alright. Out of all the creatures in the desert, homesteaders exhibited a very unique trait: they just so happened to carry their life savings around with them. It was shrewd and Merion found himself liking it. Then again, it could have just been genuine kindness. Yara charged nothing for the show, and even shared some of their food.

  Lurker and Merion walked on to their tent, where the boy managed to peel off his clothes, comb the dry mud from his hair, and find some fresh clothes. He did it all muttering at Lurker, who was rolling up a cigarette borrowed from Mr Jacque. Rhin rolled out of the satchel and shook himself off, grumbling as well.

  ‘What a pair you two make,’ Lurker rumbled. ‘It’s been a while.’

  Merion and Rhin traded glances, slightly unsure of how the other was going to react. ‘Yes it has,’ was all the boy said. The faerie just nodded.

  ‘If’n you need me, I’ll be outside,’ Lurker grunted, smiled a crooked smile, and left the two of them in peace.

  ‘So you like it here? With the circus folk, as you call them?’ Rhin asked casually, lingering by the bedroll in case he had to hide.

  Merion scratched his head. He knew what he felt but the words did not capture it quite right. ‘They’re good people, and that seems hard to come by in these parts. So I suppose that yes, I like it. They seem pleased to have us.’

  ‘Maybe you, but not me,’ Rhin wagged a finger, hiding his other bandaged hand behind his back.

  Merion tutted. ‘We don’t know that yet.’

  ‘We’ll see. Even your aunt wanted to bleed me, at first.’

  ‘The Shohari welcomed you. These people are as wild as them, magick like them. They’ll understand.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ came the reply, as the faerie shuffled some of the pillows around. ‘Little steps at a time,’ he added.

  Merion was almost finished buttoning his shirt. Rhin was casting him curious glances. ‘What?’ Merion asked, pausing on a button, eyebrow raised.

  ‘You just don’t look like a boy any more,’ Rhin said, grimacing. ‘It sounds weird to say it, but this desert’s changed you. You’ve got the look of a man in a boy’s skin. Got muscle where you didn’t have it before. You’re growing up, and I only just noticed,’ the faerie explained, shrugging. He was not good with words either, especially when it came to emotion. As Rhin had told the boy many times, most of that had been beaten out of him by the Fae army.

  Merion looked down his almost-buttoned shirt and hummed. ‘I don’t see it yet,’ he replied. ‘But I know what you mean.’ He tapped his head. ‘Mostly up here.’

  ‘You’ve had some hard times,’ was all Rhin said. He did not dare to poke deeper.

  ‘That I have,’ Merion said as he manoeuvred the last button around his Adam’s apple. ‘But these are better times, and I don’t dare waste them.’ He stood straight and tall and checked himself in a long mirror that had been put in their tent. Not a travelling essential by any means, but this was a circus, after all.

  Merion leant forwards to pick at a clump of mud in his blonde hair. In the reflection, he caught a glimpse of the faerie checking his bandages again. ‘What is that?’ Merion enquired, curious.

  Rhin shook his head. ‘Nothing you want to know about,’ he replied, hating how suspicious that sounded. ‘Nothing you need to worry about, rather. Just cut myself whilst cleaning my sword.’

  Merion put his hands on his hips. ‘The last time you said something like that, you were planning a train robbery so you could appease a gang of thirteen murderous Fae. Correct me if I’m wrong.’

  Rhin visibly squirmed. ‘Well …’

  ‘Please, Rhin,’ Merion urged him. ‘No more secrets. Not now.’

  After a moment of frowning, Rhin held out his hand, and Merion saw the faint shadows of blood around the edges of the bandage. ‘I’ll tell you what this is, but you have to …’

  Rhin was cut off by a rapping on the taut tent fabric, fingers flicking the cloth.

  ‘Master Harlequin?’ It was Yara, still insisting on ceremony. ‘Are you in?’

  ‘Yes,’ Merion waved his hand at the faerie, who was already fading out of sight. ‘Come in,’ he said, and went to stand in the middle of the tent, between the door and the bedroll. Between Yara and the faerie.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked, already smiling wide. Her long red hair was tied up around her head.

  ‘Apart from falling in that mud out there, I’m absolutely fine,’ Merion replied, nodding at the mud-soaked clothes he had left by the doorway.

  Yara stifled a snigger. ‘Itch told me. He said it was quite funny.’

  Merion rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, I’m sure he found it hilarious.’

  Yara cocked her head on one side. ‘He likes you, in his own way. Itch Magrey is just a quiet fellow,’ she explained.

  ‘Well,’ Merion hummed,’ I’m sure I shall come to understand it, then.’

  The circus master waved a hand towards the door. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘I think it is about time you met our letters. We’ll get you restocked. I will not have a rusher in my circus going without his scarlet.’

  Merion stepped forward, talking to keep Yara’s eyes on him, which were now roving about the tent.

  ‘That’s something I think my aunt would be interested in,’ he suggested. ‘If it’s alright for her to come too.’

  Yara let a hand rest on his shoulder as she led him out of the tent and back into the late afternoon sunlight. A few brave stars were already poking out of the chalky blue s
ky, which was slowly bruising as night crept into the world. It was still far too hot; the final hurrah before the stars robbed all the heat from the desert. ‘Of course, Master Harlequin, she is with our farrier, Hemzi, an Ottoman. He does wonders with iron and steel.’

  ‘Is he a rusher?’

  Yara shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not Hemzi. He is just a friend we picked up on the fringes of his empire, before it all started to crumble. He will talk to you for hours about the Ottomans, about his country. That is if you let him. Like any of us, we all like to boast of our roots. It is your turn, at the fire-pits tonight, to tell a story. You have been listening far too much and talking far too little for our tastes.’

  Merion took a breath. ‘I suppose it is about time I told you everything.’

  Yara stopped in her tracks, a curious spark in her emerald eyes. ‘Have you been holding back from us, Master Harlequin?’

  Merion searched for the right answer. It was like grabbing at a slippery fish. ‘I prefer to call it being cautious. I’ve been honest, but it’s time to tell you more. I agree.’

  ‘Then I look forward to hearing it,’ Yara replied, squinting at him. If she had not worn her smirk, he might have thought her disappointed, angry even. He could never tell with her. Her stubborn Rosiyan accent seemed back-to-front to him, and her grasp of the common was strangely formal even for him. Merion just smiled and nodded, and then let her lead him off, to the other side of the circus.

  They found Aunt Lilain along the way, chatting idly with Hemzi, who was busy showing a pile of horseshoes who was boss. Half of them sat in the fire, glowing away, whilst the rest either drowned in buckets or were getting the proverbial excrement beaten out of them with his stubby hammer.

  ‘Nephew, there you are. Had a little trouble in the mud, did we?’ Lilain suppressed a grin as Merion scowled.

  ‘Gossip travels fast in the circus.’

  ‘We do love a good story,’ Yara chuckled.

  ‘If we could find one that isn’t at my expense?’ Merion suggested, and the others laughed. Hemzi beamed between his wiry grey beard and dark mahogany eyes.