Star Locket

by Natalie Jane Prior

  ‘I cannot let you do this, Richard.’ Her voice was steadier now. She had confidence in the rightness of her own actions, even if he could not forgive her for them. ‘If you rejoin the star locket, one of those girls will no longer exist. I cannot let that happen. You are talking about our children.’

  ‘No, Esther. Our child. There is, there has always been only one.’

  ‘I cannot believe that. I do not believe that.’

  ‘Then you are deluding yourself. Esther, you were there. You know what the Casimirites did. You are speaking as if you gave birth to twins.’

  ‘It is the same to me now as if I did!’ Esther cried. ‘They were here with me, Richard, not half an hour ago, in this room. Our girls. They even look like us: they have my hair, your eyes. You want me to choose between them. I cannot do it!’

  ‘There is no choice,’ Greitz shouted, and he brought his fist down on the table. The porcelain shepherdess bounced off and was instantly beheaded. ‘The choice was made sixteen years ago by that damned turncoat, Dominick Barker. You think I like this situation? You think I have enjoyed spending the last fifteen years watching my plans unravel, losing control of my patrimony when my family has held dominion over Ostermark for over a hundred and fifty years? I swear, it has been eating away at me like a canker, but it is Barker’s doing, and none of mine. I must put this matter to rights, Esther. Our child is Barker’s victim, and his alone, and you can do nothing about it, nothing.’

  ‘I already have,’ Esther screamed. ‘And I am glad of it. I, at least, am not so inhuman that I would sacrifice an unwilling child—’

  ‘And if she was willing? What if she was willing, Esther? Would that satisfy your Casimirite principles? You should listen to yourself talking. For a moment there, you sounded just like Anna van Homrigh.’

  ‘That isn’t fair!’

  ‘No. I daresay you think it isn’t. But as you know, Esther, fairness is not a principle I’ve ever subscribed to. You have given them half the star locket and let them walk away with it. You have jeopardised everything I have been trying to do for as long as I have known you. For your sake as well as theirs, let us hope I find them quickly. For I promise you, I will not be answerable for the consequences if I don’t.’

  ‘I don’t know where they are,’ said Esther, trembling a little. ‘Even if you try to make me, I won’t be able to help.’

  ‘Naturally not, my dear. I don’t expect or want you to.’ Greitz ran his hand absently through his hair, thinking aloud. ‘You will have given them money, of course. Still, they are very young, and their options for travel at this time of year will be limited. The roads are bad, and they know no one outside of Starberg. The station, then. The Merton girl has relatives in England; Sebastian’s spent the last five months trying to keep her from getting in touch with them. Well, we have at least one useful piece of leverage against her, and I for one will not hesitate to use him.’

  He had not hesitated for a moment in anything. The only marvel, Esther thought, was that she had deluded herself into thinking he might. He was what she had always known him to be, the thing she had been warned about when she was a small child. Long ago, she had rejected that teaching and made her choice; a choice which now left her in a position where she had nothing. As he started for the hidden door without a word of comfort or farewell, she spoke impulsively, and he turned around.

  ‘Richard. Will you forgive me?’

  ‘Eventually.’ To her surprise, this time it was his voice that shook. ‘You are lucky it is me you are dealing with, my dear. If it had been my father, he would have blasted you into atoms.’

  With her memories of the previous evening’s attack still fresh in her mind, Estée had half expected a troop of Greitz’s men to come rushing out of the cellars onto the embankment as soon as she and Sally left the warehouse. But their escape was seemingly unnoticed, and they were soon hurrying as fast as they could along the embankment path, heading upstream from the perfumerie in the direction of the Old City.

  ‘I still think we should go to the railway station,’ said Sally. She had not been in Starberg long enough to have developed much of a sense of direction, but she knew they were heading in the opposite direction. ‘Greitz and his men don’t know we’ve gone yet. If we can get onto a train, we might just manage to avoid them.’

  ‘It’s too risky,’ said Estée. ‘It’s what they will expect us to do. Everyone leaves Starberg by train, especially at this time of the year. With all the winter rain, most of the roads are flooded. I’m not sure what we should do, but for the moment I think we should avoid the obvious places.’

  ‘Perhaps we could go to a hotel,’ suggested Sally. ‘Do you think they’d mind if we arrived without proper luggage?’

  ‘I don’t know. Whenever I’ve stayed in one, my father made all the arrangements.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got to go somewhere,’ said Sally. ‘Either we hide, or we leave Starberg some other way. Is there really only one railway station? When I came from Paris, I seem to remember changing trains just before we got here.’

  ‘That would have been at Soderling,’ said Estée. ‘It’s about twenty miles downstream from Starberg—mostly railway junction. All the Ostermarkan branch lines pass through it, and a lot of the foreign expresses. But we’d still have to get there, and that means catching a train from Starberg. We’d never get there by road. We’d be caught in no time.’

  Sally abruptly stopped walking. They were going nowhere, and it seemed pointless to continue. ‘What about by river? You said it was downstream. Are there any passenger vessels that could take us?’

  ‘Not this far upstream. The river’s silted up; it’s too shallow for big boats—’ Estée began, and then broke off. Sally had grabbed her arm. She pointed over the edge of the embankment to a small boy, messing about in a rowboat on the grey, rain-pocked water. There were two oars in the oarlocks, and what looked like a dismantled mast and a quantity of brown canvas in the bottom.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Sally. ‘Do you know how to sail?’

  In the underground room where he had been questioned by the procurator, Stephen was by now feeling very ill. It was the star locket that was doing it to him; he knew that, for the discomfort had come upon him, and been growing, since Estée had given it to him over an hour before. The effect, which had begun as a sense of spiritual oppression, had grown and gathered strength until it was now overwhelming, like a kind of slow suffocation. An unnatural coldness, not merely due to the chill in the underground rooms, had seized his body. He felt vitiated, and so weak that even to lift his hand from the table was an effort. Once, Stephen had tried to put it in his pocket and draw the pendant out, but Sebastian, whom Greitz had left as guard, had intervened before he could cast it away, and he had been powerless to resist.

  Since then, he had not moved from the chair where Greitz had left him, and he was not sure whether he would be able to if he tried. Where it would end, Stephen did not know, nor, in the semi-darkness, was there any way of telling how much time had passed when Greitz finally reappeared. He was in control of himself, as ever, but his face was pale, and something had clearly happened to ruffle his composure. Stephen thought he looked very angry.

  ‘Bring him with us,’ he said curtly to Sebastian. The guardsman seized Stephen by the collar and hauled him out of the chair.

  ‘It’s making him ill, Excellency.’

  ‘I don’t care, provided he can walk.’ As Greitz spoke, Stephen’s legs twisted under him. He saw a vibrating cloud of pinkish-red spots and felt a rising pressure behind his nose. Bitter bile flooded his mouth and he reeled and hit the table with a jarring thud. Only Sebastian’s hand yanking his collar prevented him from crashing to the floor.

  ‘Excellency, he can’t go far. You must take the locket. Leaving it on him is killing him.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think he’ll die quite yet.’ Greitz seized a handful of Stephen’s curls and pulled his head up, not altogether roughly. He scrutinised him carefully, the
n began to speak, almost conversationally, in a language Stephen could not identify, though he was sure it was not Ostermarkan. The words curled around him like smoke, and he felt a lessening of the black oppression that had so far afflicted him. If nothing else, at least he no longer felt as if he was going to faint.

  ‘He’ll do,’ said Greitz curtly. ‘I’ve drawn off some of the power from the locket. I can’t do more. Until the pieces are joined together, they’re still linked to the two girls. This is Sally Taverner’s piece, and Estella Merton has been wearing it. It’s become unstable; I daren’t touch it until we have both pieces back.’

  Greitz opened the drawer of the desk and took out the revolver Stephen had seen earlier. He gave it to Sebastian, and the three of them left the room. Stephen’s eyes were blurring and he could not see well, but he managed to keep up without too much assistance from Sebastian, who kept the gun pointed uncomfortably at his back. They went together along several corridors and up two flights of a spiral staircase, emerging at length into a panelled passageway at what was obviously street level. Greitz unlocked a door and they stepped out into Quay Street, right next to Esther Trier’s perfumerie.

  Sebastian put the revolver back into his pocket, though Stephen noticed he kept his hand there.

  ‘Shall I hail a cab?’

  ‘No. There’s only one way they can have gone. If we follow on foot we’re less likely to miss them.’ Barefoot and bareheaded, the procurator strode off along the street in the direction of the bridge. Sebastian prodded Stephen in the back and they set off after him, the diamond star in Stephen’s coat pocket banging against his leg as they went along.

  To Estée’s surprise, it proved relatively straightforward to persuade the boy with the boat to sell his craft. At first suspicious, he brightened up immediately she showed him her money. After that, it had been a mere matter of haggling, and they came out of the negotiations far better than they might have expected to had they been dealing with an adult. It was only at the last moment, as Estée was handing him the cash, that it occurred to her to wonder whether the boat was actually the boy’s to sell. But there was no time to worry about niceties. Sally was already climbing into their purchase and seizing the oars with enthusiasm, if not expertise. Estée gathered up her long cloak and scrambled in beside her.

  ‘Once we’re out of Starberg, we’ll be reasonably safe.’

  Sally nodded. Estée saw that her face was tense, and for the first time it occurred to her that taking this step must be far harder for Sally than it was for her. She had adoptive parents whom she presumably cared for, and every material reason to want to stay. Estée had already lost these things, and the fact that she had no ties meant she now felt a curious liberation at the thought of leaving.

  At least I don’t have that to worry about, thought Estée as they pushed off from the embankment. I shall go back to New Zealand, or perhaps to Australia; either of those places is about as far from here as you can get. If she wants to, I suppose Sally can come with me, but it might be safer if we separate. If we’re careful, what we raise from Esther’s jewels should keep us comfortably for quite a while. There’s the money from Stephen, too…Suddenly Estée’s eyes filled with tears and she had to dash them away. She had not expected the thought of Stephen, abandoned in the darkness of the Undercroft, to cause her such distress. Evidently she had ties to Starberg after all.

  ‘Do you think we should put up the mast?’ she asked, to make conversation. They were making heavy going in the choppy water, and though she did not know much about boats, it seemed to her that Sally was having difficulty with the current. Sally glanced over her shoulder at the approaching bridge.

  ‘Not until we’re through that.’ Across from her she saw Estée look up, assess the risk and turn a frightened pale. Now they were out in mid-current, it was hard for Sally to blame her. Standing on the embankment it had not occurred to either of them to wonder why there were no other small craft on the water; nor had they appreciated just how quickly the swollen river was moving. Four weeks of almost continuous rain had had their usual effect, and the river, having caught their tiny craft, was carrying it along so swiftly it was impossible to properly steer or manoeuvre it. Sally, whose experience of sailing was limited to a lakeside holiday where there had been a certain amount of messing about in boats, began feeling frightened herself. She could hoist a sail and tack back and forth on a placid lake, but she was not at all confident of her ability to navigate a boat through the narrow arches of the decaying eighteenth-century bridge ahead. For the first time she noticed that there was a flash of white water, and a drop as the river flowed between the piers.

  This is a mistake, thought Sally. I shouldn’t be running away. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t even swim: what was I thinking of? Her eyes fell on the gold pendant hanging around Estée’s neck, and she hauled suddenly on the oars, as if her efforts might somehow turn the boat against the current. Instead, the oars kicked violently back against the rush of water and were wrenched from her hands. One flew up and smacked her on the cheek, and she cried out and let go.

  ‘Watch out!’ Estée grabbed the oar and stopped it dragging through the oarlock into the water. They fumbled together and the boat rocked on the choppy waves. Ahead of them, they could hear the sound of rushing water as the river poured through the arches. By now they had given up all pretence of steering. They would crash into the stonework, or capsize in the rapids and drown as the boat went through. The boat was simply being carried along with no chance whatsoever of either of them regaining control.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The New Bridge had always been a problem to the citizens of Starberg. For a hundred and seventy years, it had spanned the River Ling at the heart of the city in precisely the wrong place. It was too narrow for traffic, it caused silting in the river, and impeded the passage of boats. It had endured several major collapses. On each occasion there had been many fatalities, but the authorities had patched it up and put it back into service. Only in the last eighteen months had they finally built a modern replacement. The New Bridge, with its elegant pointed arches and crumbling stonework, now stood abandoned to the demolition crews of the public works department, while two hundred yards downstream the traffic rumbled thankfully over the metal girders and macadamised surface of its successor.

  A huge wrecker’s crane was being erected at the Quay Street end of New Bridge, and the raucous voices of the workmen could be heard above the more distant sounds of traffic as the party from the Undercroft approached it. Across the water came the rumble and strident whistle of an approaching train. Greitz, who had been walking ahead, suddenly stopped and turned, as if scenting something afloat on the expanse of rain-pocked water.

  ‘The star locket. Show it to me.’ He waited while Stephen fished in his coat pocket with sweaty fingers, clumsy as sausages. At last he found Sally’s star and brought it out. Greitz did not touch it, but he scrutinised the pendant intently for at least half a minute. Stephen could almost have sworn he was talking to it, though by now he was feeling so light-headed, he would not have been surprised to learn he was hallucinating the entire experience.

  ‘They’re here,’ Greitz said at last. ‘Somewhere nearby. Put it away and follow me.’

  He went up to the makeshift barricade, which had been erected to keep traffic off the abandoned bridge, and pushed it casually aside. Sebastian gave Stephen a shove to get him moving, and he followed, haltingly at first, for he had not put back on his gloves and the touch of the diamond star against his naked palm had left him feeling sick and faint again. Greitz stepped past the barricade and walked onto the deserted bridge. Though he was in plain view of the workmen on the crane, they did not appear to notice him.

  He walked quickly, looking first this way and then that. His pace was too fast for Stephen to keep up with, even with Sebastian prodding him impatiently from behind, but about a third of the way across the bridge, where the balustrade was particularly battered-looking,
Greitz stopped. He leaned on the railing and looked upstream, in the direction of Quay Street and the perfumerie. As they caught up, Sebastian gave Stephen another impatient shove, and he stumbled and fell heavily onto his hands and knees.

  There seemed no point in standing up again, so he rolled back painfully into a crouching position and stayed there. Through the pointed arches in the balusters, he could see the object that was claiming Greitz’s attention: a small boat on the river below them, with two people in it, heavily muffled by thick dark cloaks. If it had not been for the intensity of the procurator’s interest, Stephen would not have identified them as Estée and Sally, but clearly it could be no one else. The girls were trying to steer the boat between the piers of the bridge, but the current was strong and fast, and it was obvious that whichever of the two was rowing had very little control over her craft.

  ‘They must be mad, trying to take a boat like that out in winter,’ said Sebastian. He spoke in English, so that Stephen realised he was meant to hear. ‘They’ll kill themselves.’

  ‘Not if I can help it.’ Greitz jumped lightly up onto the flat-topped handrail and leaned dangerously out over the water. His bare toes dug into the stonework and his coat-tails gusted behind him in the wind from the river. For a moment he stood, surveying the scene below. Then he began to speak. His voice, Stephen thought, was curiously matter-of-fact given the urgency of the situation. Nor was it particularly loud, so that it took some time for him to realise that the procurator was once more speaking neither Ostermarkan nor English, but some unknown language, full of sibilants and harsh-sounding words that glided each into the other and lingered in the air after the utterance. Below them, the boat started veering sharply in the water, across the current and away from the direction in which it had been travelling.

  One of the girls seemed to realise what was happening. She gave a warning shout, and the other one, at the oars, looked up and started frantically trying to turn the rowboat around. Greitz leaned out even further, until he was almost cantilevered over the water. It was an impossible position, unnatural, and frightening. Stephen felt a chill inadequacy spread through his body. Unable to do anything else, he prayed: for himself, for Estée and Sally, for anyone and anything that came into his head; above all, that by some miracle they might get out of this grotesque situation alive.