Crown of Stars

Anna sneezed.



Buzzard Mask trotted up, clinging to the saddle like a sack about to slide off. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” he cried as he jerked on the reins, but his horse had already decided to stop, with the others, and he did slide off, starting slow and then falling hard, unable to stop himself. “Ah!” His string of curses was powerful.



Anna dismounted and offered a hand, but he brushed off his legs, tugged with a look of disgust at the short tunic that Liath had insisted he wear over his otherwise naked torso, and offered Anna a grateful smile. He was young, like Falcon Mask, healthy and attractive because of his youth. Anna blushed and backed away. She gripped the dog-headed staff as if it were the only thing holding her upright.



Falcon Mask was rigid in the saddle, fixed at an awkward angle with one hand gripping the cantle behind her and the other holding the reins wrong. “I can’t get down!” A wild grin twisted her face; unlike her cousin, she was enjoying this knife edge between triumph and disaster.



“Why are we stopped here?” Blessing brushed dark hair out of her eyes. Bruises purpled her wrists, the marks left by Hugh. Her cheek was split where his ring had gouged her, and she held one leg stiffly. But she challenged Liath with her gaze. Anna, seeing that look, hurried over to grasp Blessing’s knee as though her touch might steal the girl’s voice. “We’re in a hurry. We have to go faster!”



Anna withdrew her hand and ran back to Liath. “I pray you, my lady,” she whispered. “Princess Blessing is in pain. That makes her temper short.”



“I just want to go!”



“We must rest,” said Liath. “Water and feed the horses. It will be dark soon. We’ll take a little time to plait torches so we can light our way through the night. Will you ride with us, Wolfhere?”



They all looked at her as if she was a madwoman.



“Wolfhere?” said Anna. “My lady. Are you feeling well? Perhaps we need halt for longer, if you’re needing to sleep.”



That was when she looked around to see the empty road behind her. Wolfhere was gone. Even the hoofprints of his horses, which ought to have marked the dirt, had vanished.



“And of course,” she told Falcon Mask later, “he never answered any of my questions.”



They had found a site to rest where a hedge of dense honeysuckle—not in bloom—shielded them from the road. Blessing had fallen asleep soon after choking down a slice of dry bread and pungent cheese; the others had gathered twigs and stems and piled them in a heap. Some of these Liath had kindled into a fire beside which Anna bent studiously to her task, tongue jutting out between teeth as she plaited twigs, both green and dry, into easily-carried torches.



Buzzard Mask took the first watch. His straight silhouette paralleled a slim birch tree growing beside the road; he had a good view in either direction along the road and just enough light to keep watch by. The sky was strangely glamoured this night, the clouds so high and thin that although she could not actually see the moon’s disk, she could almost breathe in the misty glimmer of its light seeping through that translucent veil of cloud.



Falcon Mask turned the crown of stars one complete revolution, and shook her head. “Pretty ugly,” she said. “I’d take it to the fire workers and let them melt it down for something better. The gems are good, though.”



Liath laughed. “Give that back to me!”



Falcon Mask grinned and set the crown on her own head. It stuck on her topknot, and she grimaced. “Too heavy! Eh! This would give you a sore neck. Who wants it?”



“Many people want it. But how and where did Wolfhere get it, and why did he give it to me?”



Buzzard Mask hooted twice, the crude but easy signal they’d agreed on. Two for the east, three for the west, four for the woods. Liath smothered the fire. The flames died, and smoke wisped up in fading trails barely visible to Liath’s keen sight. Falcon Mask bundled the crown away and shifted from seat to crouch without a sound, knife drawn. Anna shifted back to kneel beside Blessing while Liath traced a path to a knob of cover they had identified before sunset. Buzzard Mask had retreated here. She crouched beside him.



A pair of lamps, one in front of the other, swayed along the road like will-o’-the-wisps. The walkers came without speaking, but they had horses in their train: one, two, three—probably four. As their shapes got closer, Liath traced the shadows of each creature. There were two men and, indeed, four horses. Travelers meant for reasonable speed, hoping to make better time with a spare mount and a way to travel straight through the night. Just as she hoped to do.