The Fire Star

by A. L. Tait

  I want to step back, away from his looming presence and the faint, sour smell of ale on his breath, but I do not. Instead, I draw once again on years of Mama’s training to instil as much insolence as I can into my blank face.

  ‘I see,’ I say, keeping my tone measured. ‘And yet I am not of this castle. Not yet. As a visitor to Rennart, I answer to my Lady Cassandra and to no one else.’

  He says nothing for a long moment. ‘Very well, but I would speak with you. It is about the wedding tomorrow.’

  I am wary, but I remember looking down from my lady’s rooms and wondering about the view from Lorimer’s lair. This is one way to get inside again to take note of exactly what can be seen from there.

  ‘Very well,’ I say, echoing his tone, ‘but my lady is expecting me, so we must be brief.’

  I follow him along the hallway, down the stairs, past the kitchen and into his parlour, realising as I enter that we have seen no one along the way. Even the kitchen is silent, as though every inhabitant of the castle went out to the courtyard to watch Lord Mallor depart.

  The air in Lorimer’s room is stuffy as he takes his seat behind his desk, leaving me to stand, like a naughty child, on the rug before him. I look around the room, trying to make it seem as though I’m interested in his trove of second-hand treasures.

  When my glance reaches the window, however, I have to suppress a groan. I can see nothing but my own face reflected back at me and a halo of light beyond. It is too dark in this corner of the courtyard, bar one solitary lamp, to get a sense of the view.

  I will need to press my nose to the glass to see if my instincts are correct.

  ‘What is it you wish to discuss with me?’ I prompt, trying to think how I can unobtrusively sidle over to the window.

  Lorimer picks up a quill, tapping it against his fingers as he considers me. His chair creaks beneath him, and I can hear the ticking of the large wooden clock hanging just beside the door. It occurs to me how very thick the stone walls are down here.

  ‘I know what you did,’ Lorimer says, placing the quill on the desk before him and lacing his fingers together.

  My thoughts begin to buzz, remembering Lorimer’s web of informants within these walls. But I hold my expression still. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I say, looking over his head once again at the painting.

  Lorimer jumps to his feet and moves around the desk to grab my arm. ‘I know what you did. I know what you had planned.’

  ‘Unhand me, steward!’ I say, keeping my voice even. ‘You have no rights over my person. My Lady Cassandra will not be pleased that you are manhandling her companion.’

  ‘Bah!’ Lorimer says, his face twisted with derision. ‘Companion! You are a servant, girl, just like me. No better. Not any more.’

  ‘No,’ I say, and I pull out my haughtiest tone. ‘You saw to that.’

  ‘Ha!’ he laughs. ‘Your father was stupid enough to do that all by himself.’

  ‘By himself? I think not. Who was it that hid his debts until they consumed him? Who was it that ensured he got to those games on time? Why, his faithful steward, of course. His faithful steward who had his own gambling problem. Does the Airl know?’

  Lorimer freezes at my question. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  I turn my head to look at him. ‘Don’t I? I may have been a child, but I was the only one in the household who put two and two together.’

  Lorimer pauses. ‘You’ve heard too many fairytales. You’re making it up . . .’

  I can almost hear Lorimer’s mind working. ‘There’s no proof of that,’ he continues, sounding surer. ‘No one would ever believe such a thing.’

  The words Lorimer speaks so closely echo those of my mother that I have to close my eyes. At ten years of age, I had begged and pleaded with her to listen to me, but now, five years later and much wiser in the ways of the world, I say nothing. He is right. No one will ever believe me. Not even my own mother.

  ‘You can never prove it, girl,’ Lorimer repeats, and now he is exultant in the way that only a scoundrel can be when he’s got away with his con.

  ‘I cannot,’ I concede, unable to look at him. ‘But I know it’s true.’

  ‘You always were too damn clever for your own good,’ Lorimer snarls. I look into his twisted face and see no sign of the smooth servant. ‘But, so help me, you will learn your place. As will that harlot Cassandra. Now, give me the Fire Star.’

  Even as he grabs both my arms, hard, twisting them together as he pulls me towards him, my mind is turning over. Lorimer knows about our plans but does not have the stone! My instincts were correct: someone saw – Lorimer saw – but Sully did not have the Fire Star on his person when he was left on the side of the road!

  But there is no time to think of this now, with Lorimer’s fingers bruising my skin, and his grasp on my wrists ensuring I cannot dig into my pocket for my knife.

  This is the man beneath the bland face of the superior servant, and he is without reason or thought. I pull hard, but I cannot loosen his grip, so I clench my hands and strike up hard with both arms, driving my fists under his chin. He swears as he reels back, letting go of me.

  Even as I duck away, however, he is raising his hand and I am not quick enough. He catches the side of my head with his fist, leaving my ears ringing and my balance swirling.

  ‘I don’t have it!’ I shout, shaking my head, stumbling backwards as I try to clear the fog that blurs my vision, fumbling for the knife in the hidden pocket in my skirt. And then he raises his fist again, and the world goes black.

  His voice comes into focus first.

  ‘Wake up, you stupid girl,’ Lorimer says, patting me roughly on the cheek. ‘Wake up! I didn’t hit you that hard.’

  I groan as I haul myself to a sitting position. How long have I been lying here? Long enough to feel stiff and sore.

  ‘You should not have hit me at all,’ I say, and my voice sounds muffled to my own ears.

  In answer, Lorimer grabs hold of my hair and yanks upwards, giving me no choice but to scramble to my feet. As I do so, he grasps each hand, pulling them together behind my back before holding both my wrists securely in one hand.

  ‘You know where it is! He gave it back to you,’ Lorimer snarls, and I feel his other hand pull on my braid, wrenching my head back so hard I cannot look anywhere but upward – and cannot fight him. ‘I know he did. I need that stone.’

  He. Sully. I no longer need to press my face to any window to confirm that it was Lorimer who saw Sully catch the stone. And I do not need him to tell me that he followed Sully and killed him. Or why.

  ‘You have debts,’ I say faintly, feeling sick from the pressure on my neck. Still holding both my wrists in one hand, he bends my elbows, forcing my hands upwards between my shoulder blades.

  ‘Not for long,’ Lorimer says. ‘I’ll take the stone, pay them off and disappear to Talleben with no one any the wiser.’

  As he speaks, I can feel him wrapping my braid over my hands, tighter and tighter, contorting me into a painfully restricted position. I cannot lift my head, I cannot lower my hands, and my neck and shoulders are screaming in agony.

  A sick sensation floods my stomach. He has killed a man for the stone and will not hesitate to kill me, as well.

  ‘You killed Sully,’ I croak, stalling for time as I try to think through an escape route. But I can barely breathe and I am so very tired. Surely, someone must come back to the kitchens soon?

  ‘Was that his name?’ Lorimer asks, sounding bored as he pulls the end of my braid harder and begins to drag me towards the window. ‘Your tame servant? What a buffoon. To have the most precious stone in the kingdom in his hands and then to simply hand it back like a lamb. I know you have it, because he did not.’

  Oh, Sully. Poor, loyal man.

  ‘How do you know he did not sell it himself?’ I rasp, wanting desperately to kick out at him or . . . something. But I cannot. My neck is aching and my chin stretched at
such an unnatural angle that I must breathe shallow and fast while my chest screams for air and my arms cramp in their uncomfortable position.

  Lorimer jerks my braid, pulling me even further backwards, and I watch from the corner of my eye as he takes the tasselled cord from the curtains with his free hand, trying to form a loop, and I realise he is going to put that cord around my neck.

  I fight my horror as I grasp the fact that this is my chance. My one chance.

  Even if he can loop the cord over my head, he will not be able to keep hold of my hair and my hands and pull it tight at the same time.

  I force myself to stay calm, but I keep moving my feet, trying to cheat him of a still target for his wicked noose.

  ‘Because it has not turned up in any of the usual places,’ Lorimer says casually, reminding me that I had asked a question about the Fire Star’s whereabouts, something that seems so unimportant to me right at this moment as I feel Lorimer fumbling about, trying to tie the cord around my neck, slowly coming to the same conclusion about my hair as I did. ‘I checked after I . . . followed him.’

  As Lorimer says the last words, he releases my braid and my hands in order to drop his noose around my neck. The split second is enough.

  With my head spinning and little feeling in the hands still tied up behind my back, I spin around, raising my knee as I do so, barely aware that the parlour’s door has crashed open against the wall. With little to guide me but instinct, I drive my knee upward with all of my might.

  Lorimer groans, dropping to the floor like a dead weight, landing at my feet as, fighting the pain from cramped arms and the lack of feeling in my fingers, I disentangle my hands from the knot of my braid and reach into my pocket for my knife.

  As Lorimer rolls in agony across the green rug, the curtain cord still grasped in one of his hands, I press my foot across his neck and hold the knife above him.

  ‘Don’t move,’ I gasp, though the room still spins and my shoulders pain me. ‘Not so much as a hair.’

  ‘Maven!’ I can barely hear Reeve’s voice above the roar of sound in my own head as I try to slow my breathing. ‘Maven, are you all right?’

  With one last sharp exhalation to bring myself back under control, I manage to turn towards Reeve, careful not to move my foot.

  ‘I am,’ I say. ‘But also glad to see you.’

  Reeve looks at the man on the floor. ‘You seem to have everything under control.’

  And I laugh. And laugh. Like a lunatic.

  Like someone who knows she has cheated death.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Saturday

  Spies in skirts. Reeve could not help but recall Neale’s words as he watched the Lady Cassandra enter the Great Hall, a vision in cream velvet, her long dark hair lying in curls across her shoulders like a cape. Around her neck, where the Fire Star should have sparkled like a glittering heart, she once again wore her simple silver locket.

  A step behind her, protectively hovering even as she marched in time to the music provided by the harpist in the corner, came Maven, her usual simple brown dress discarded in favour of a russet gown that brought a flush to her cheeks.

  Or perhaps she was blushing, Reeve thought with a smirk. One as private as Maven would not welcome the eyes of the entire castle community – plus hundreds of guests – upon her.

  A gentle nudge brought Reeve’s attention back to the man standing beside him. Sir Garrick’s face was almost as pale as his bride’s cream gown, but he was calm and focused, with none of the unhappy nerves he had displayed only a few days before.

  ‘She is here?’ Sir Garrick murmured, facing the clergyman who would perform the marriage service. Custom dictated that the groom not turn his head until the bride was standing beside him, and Sir Garrick would not break protocol, even if he was leaning heavily on a walking stick just to keep himself upright for the service.

  ‘Sire, she is,’ Reeve answered. He felt, rather than heard, the knight’s sigh of relief.

  ‘This pleases you?’ Reeve ventured.

  Sir Garrick hesitated. ‘It pleases my Airl Buckthorn,’ he began, before adding so that only Reeve could hear, ‘And it pleases me.’

  Reeve grinned. Negotiations regarding the marriage had continued long into the previous night. The Airl had wanted to hold off, awaiting the return of the Fire Star, his promised dowry. But Sir Garrick had held firm, and Reeve had been impressed by the articulate way the knight had argued his case. It seemed that the Lady Cassandra had made quite an impression on Sir Garrick, and he was determined to have her as his bride.

  Eventually, he had played his trump card – if and when the Fire Star did turn up, it was better that Lady Cassandra be safely married into Rennart Castle to ensure there was no question of the stone’s ownership. Secretly, Reeve wondered if Sir Garrick had caught wind of Cassandra’s plans to flee with the stone, but perhaps he was truly just dedicated to ensuring she become his wife.

  Either way, the wedding was upon them, and, within a few short minutes, the Lady Cassandra would wed Sir Garrick, Knight Protector of Rennart Castle.

  The sound of giggling from the front row behind him caught Reeve’s attention, and he turned slightly. The Lady Anice, resplendent in a bejewelled golden gown that looked gaudy beside the understated elegance of both the bride and her companion, was whispering behind her hand to the girl beside her. As Reeve watched, the two girls turned towards the aisle, pulling faces at Maven, who glided past as though they did not exist.

  Frowning, Reeve shifted his attention to the altar, admiring the way the morning light shone through the red, green and blue panels of the huge stained-glass window behind it. The rain of the previous evening was but a memory, and Reeve could hear shouts from the courtyard outside as the castle’s servants put the final touches to preparations for the feast that would soon take place.

  As soon as Lady Cassandra stepped beside Sir Garrick, the cleric began, rolling through the ceremony in his singsong voice. Reeve tuned out, thinking about the events of the night before. Neale and his father would be almost home to their manor in Broadfield, he supposed, assuming they hadn’t stopped to rest en route. Or gone straight to the King.

  Neale may have needed a good, long sleep, Reeve conceded, thinking of the last time he’d seen him, staggering towards his father on the road outside Rennart Castle, bruised and battered and covered in geese feathers and worse.

  To say that Reeve and Myra had been surprised to meet not only Lord Mallor and his five knights on the road, but the Airl of Buckthorn himself, was an understatement. Reeve suppressed a grin as he thought on the conversation between Myra and Airl Buckthorn.

  ‘We found something you lost, out in the forest,’ Myra had said, indicating Neale. The former squire was slung between Myra and Reeve, one arm around each, as they’d half-carried him from Myra’s house to the castle.

  ‘In the forest?’ the Airl had responded, looking Neale over, taking in his dishevelled state and dazed expression.

  ‘Wandered into my geese pen,’ Myra had said. ‘Got himself into a spot of bother.’

  ‘Enough, witch!’ Lord Mallor had roared. ‘What have you done to my son?’

  Reeve had heard Myra’s sharp intake of breath, and had felt the atmosphere around them suddenly become tense.

  ‘Myra saved your son’s life,’ Reeve had said, trying to keep the wobble of nerves from his voice. Lord Mallor was a powerful man, far more so than Reeve’s own father, and Reeve had known he was taking a risk in speaking out this way. ‘As she saved the life of Sir Garrick after your son attacked him! Without her, Airl Buckthorn would have every right to denounce Neale as a murderer.’

  ‘Garrick is all right?’ the Airl had affirmed while Lord Mallor glowered at Reeve.

  ‘A little weakened by his loss of blood, but well enough to travel by carriage back to his own bed if you’d like to collect him,’ Myra had responded equably.

  With a flick of his head, the Airl had sent one of his own soldiers scrambli
ng back to the castle to fetch transport for the Knight Protector.

  ‘What happened here?’ the Airl had asked, at last.

  ‘Let us not discuss this on the road,’ Lord Mallor had said, dismounting his horse and moving towards his son.

  ‘Neale needs attention. We should return to the castle.’

  Lord Mallor had pushed Reeve aside, putting one arm around Neale’s waist, and had taken Reeve’s place beneath Neale’s left arm.

  ‘I think not,’ said the Airl with a grim smile. ‘He may not have succeeded in killing my best knight, but the fact that he tried to do so is enough for me. Neale will not return to Rennart Castle and neither will you.’

  For a moment, the only sound had been the jingling of horses’ bridles as Lord Mallor’s men awaited their lord’s command. Lord Mallor did not flinch from Airl Buckthorn, who had loomed over him from his horse, soldiers arrayed behind him.

  ‘We have much to speak about,’ Lord Mallor had ground out, barely moving his lips. ‘I know what you have done. The King will not be impressed by your lack of hospitality to me and mine.’

  The Airl had remained stone-faced in the flickering torchlight. ‘What you think you know is nothing to me,’ he said. ‘If the King has problems with my fiefdom, he must come and tell me himself.’

  Lord Mallor had spat on the road. ‘You know not what you do.’

  ‘I know that I have no time for talking in tongues,’ the Airl had responded as a cart rumbled down the road behind him. ‘You, Reeve, take this cart and the wyld woman, and fetch Sir Garrick home.’

  Then, without awaiting a response from anyone, he’d turned his horse and galloped away, flicking mud all over a speechless Lord Mallor and his men as he went.

  ‘You will need to get your boy some help,’ Myra had said, ducking out from under Neale’s other arm so that all of the former squire’s weight rested upon his father’s shoulder. ‘His mind seems to be wandering.’