The Crystal Heart Read online

  ‘How so?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ I replied. ‘But if you want to hear it …?’

  ‘Please,’ she said softly, and that was all the encouragement I needed.

  ‘It was seven years ago that I first came across it,’ I began. ‘I was twelve and on my first hunting expedition with four or five other village lads under the guidance of old Tomas and his son Jacek, the best hunters and woodsmen in our district. From them we were to learn not only the ways of the hunter but also how to survive in the wild – to find shelter, food and water. Few boys went because Tomas and Jacek’s services didn’t come cheap and many parents felt that the army would provide that kind of training for free when the time came to be called up.’

  ‘But your parents didn’t think like that?’ asked the Princess.

  I smiled at the memory. ‘Oh, Father did – he grumbled mightily about the cost, but Mother put her foot down. She said that the army trained soldiers, not hunters, and that the two were not the same at all – one obeyed orders, the other his instinct, and she knew whom she’d like to have around in a tight situation!’

  ‘Then I have the great good fortune of having been visited by a hunter, not a soldier,’ said the Princess, and her simple words made my heart skip a beat. ‘Go on, please.’

  ‘Er, where was I? Mother told Father roundly that I was going and that was that. Her grandfather had been a noted hunter in his time, you see, and she was very proud of him. Anyway, there I was, setting off with Tomas and Jacek and the other boys in Tomas’s boat, for it would take less time by water to reach the spot where we were to start our expedition. We were to be gone a week, all up.’

  ‘But it didn’t happen like that,’ the Princess put in. Her interest in my story warmed me.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘What actually happened was that I was gone nearly ten days. On the second day I somehow got separated from the others and soon realised I was lost. I walked and walked, trying to remember all the things I’d been taught. As night fell that first day, I was getting seriously worried, because not only was I lost, but I’d twisted my ankle falling over some vines.’

  I paused and looked at the Princess. In the starlight, her eyes were shining. She looked like she was hanging on my every word. Encouraged, I went on.

  ‘I came upon an abandoned house in a clearing, deep in the forest, near a little spring. It was clearly abandoned, for dust and cobwebs lay over everything, but the structure was still sound. I sheltered there that night, made a fire, and ate mushrooms and plums I’d gathered nearby.

  ‘I ended up staying two nights and a day there till my ankle had healed enough that I could walk properly again. I spent the time scouting around for useful things. I found a couple of battered old tools in the long grass near the house – an axe and a spade. I did not touch the food in my pack, for I did not know how long I might need it. Instead, I managed to shoot a rabbit and roasted it over the fire, then ate it with plum juice and herbs. I thought I’d made the grandest meal in the world.’

  ‘It does sound grand,’ said the Princess, and for the first time she chuckled. I felt absurdly pleased to have got that small bit of cheerfulness out of her.

  ‘All the while, I was trying to work out how I could get back to my comrades. After careful thought, I set off again. But to be frank, it was more by accident than design that I finally found the others. They’d been looking for me in the wrong direction. They had just about given up and were on their way back to Fish-the-Moon to break the bad news to my parents.

  ‘Tomas was so angry with me for having, as he put it, “wandered off” that he hardly gave me an occasion to tell the full story. And I just knew he wouldn’t believe me, about the cottage. So I just said I’d shot game and taken shelter up trees. After that, we went on with our training and I never told him or anyone else about the cottage, though I went back there every year after that.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I covered my tracks well. No one else knows it exists. I can guarantee you that. We’ll be safe there.’ I grinned. ‘And you’ll be glad to know, Princess, that I did listen closely to Tomas’s lessons. Over the years I’ve learned many things about the woods. I’m good with directions now. I can light a fire anywhere, even in rain. I know how to trap and how to forage. I have my pocket-knife, and I raided the pantry …’ I gestured to a small metal pan for water, two tin mugs and basic foodstuffs that wouldn’t be missed and were difficult to ruin: a small cloth bag full of buckwheat groats, strips of leathery salt meat, dried fruit and mushrooms, all of which I’d stuffed in my pockets. They’d got a bit damp when I pushed the boat out, but nothing more. ‘We won’t reach the cottage tonight,’ I added, ‘but we can camp and we’ve got food, and water from the river.’

  ‘You think of everything,’ said the Princess, her smile lighting up her lovely face, and I was glad the night hid the sudden flaming in my cheeks.

  ‘I hope the cottage won’t be too uncomfortable for you, Princess,’ I said. ‘I’ve been fixing it up slowly. It’s still pretty rough but I think it will make a fine hunting lodge one day.’ I was talking too much but I could not help it. I was trying to hide the fact that her presence affected me more than I cared to admit.

  Kasper

  If the banks of the Fish had been sparsely populated, the Moss was much more so. The forest came right down to its shore, with not even a camper’s fire to be seen. Sitting there facing each other – the Princess at the stern, me at the oars – we might as well have been the only two people in the whole world. It made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I tried not to stare at her, tried to act as if everything was normal.

  ‘You never told me exactly how you’d heard me,’ the Princess said suddenly, startling me.

  For a moment I didn’t know what she meant. And then I understood.

  ‘You mean, this afternoon?’

  She nodded.

  ‘The trouble is, I don’t know how it happened. I mean, I do. But I can’t explain it.’ I recounted my story about the rockpool, the voices and my decision to go up the Tower.

  There was a small silence when I finished. ‘Let me get this straight,’ said the Princess. ‘You had no idea who I really was. You believed I was a dangerous witch who could turn people to stone and –’

  ‘Actually, no. I didn’t really think that. They’d told us the Tower stopped all magic.’

  She smiled. ‘All right. But you still thought I was a witch. So why did you think I’d agree to help you find out who the Commander was plotting to kill?’

  I looked at her. ‘Honestly? I don’t know.’

  ‘I do. It was rash. It was reckless,’ she said severely. My dismay must have shown on my face for she went on, with an impish smile. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’

  I returned her smile. ‘Yes, Princess. I do.’

  ‘What is it?’ she said, with a quizzical glance. ‘You look like you’re bursting to say something.’

  I hesitated. ‘Well, it’s just … I have never before had anything like that happen to me – seeing visions, hearing voices. I thought you could tell me how and why I heard you.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, a little too quickly.

  ‘But you are of the blood of Night. Surely that means you understand more about such things?’

  ‘No!’ she cried, her eyes blazing. ‘My father is the Prince of Night, but my mother was human. And I was very young when I was taken. I have been shut away from my people for so long. Or have you forgotten that, Guard Bator?’

  I could feel myself flushing bright red. ‘Forgive me. I didn’t mean –’

  ‘No, of course you didn’t,’ she said ruefully. ‘You have been so kind to me and so brave, and here I am repaying you with rudeness. It is I who should be saying sorry, not you.’

  I swallowed. ‘There is nothing to forgive. I can hardly imagine how terrible it has been for you. I wish I – or someone – could have changed things for you long ago.’

 
; Our eyes met and nothing more was said. I bent to the oars with renewed strength and speed and with a heart all at once lighter than it had been all day.

  A few hours later we reached the spot where we had to continue our journey on foot. I rowed in as close as I could, then we both waded into the shallow water and pulled the boat to shore. A few scratches and curses from me later, the rowing boat was stowed away within a deep tangle of blackberry bushes. Crawling out, I met the Princess’s anxious glance.

  ‘Are you all right? Did the bush attack you?’ she cried.

  I hid a smile, remembering that the poor girl had never seen such things in her life. I was sure there were no blackberry bushes in Night and certainly none in the Tower. ‘It’s quite all right,’ I assured her. ‘Just a tough old bush – the best hiding place there could be for the boat.’

  I looked around, gathering my bearings. We had to head north, straight into the heart of the woods that began just a short distance from the bank. But it was getting towards the darkest part of the night, and it would be much too dark in the woods to even see where we were going.

  ‘In a couple of hours it will be dawn,’ I said. ‘We will camp here till then.’

  ‘Is it far to the cottage?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, another few hours, Princess. But –’

  ‘Please, don’t call me Princess anymore,’ she said softly. ‘It feels too … not right. My name is Izolda, and I’d be glad if you might call me that.’

  My palms prickled as my pulse quickened. ‘Then I’d be very honoured if you might consider, er, my name – it is Kasper.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the Princess, with another of those beautiful smiles. ‘Kasper. It is a good name.’

  ‘Thank you, Pr– I mean, Izolda,’ I stammered, like a fool. ‘Your name – it is also very nice. Er, you were asking about how far it was? We will be there well before dark falls again. But we must first find a place to camp.’

  ‘I see.’

  I caught her glancing at the blackberry bush, and laughed. ‘Don’t worry. We certainly are not going to hide in that! We’ll find a good spot, you’ll see.’

  It didn’t take long. A little way down the bank, there was a deep hollow near a fallen tree, with moss growing in it like soft carpet in a forest spirit’s bedchamber. We shared a simple snack of dried fruit and a long drink of water, then settled ourselves into the hollow. After a short argument, Izolda reluctantly agreed to take the lion’s share of the moss and try to sleep, while I sat half in and half out of the hollow, keeping watch.

  Izolda

  It’s not that I wasn’t tired. I was exhausted. But every time I tried to close my eyes, a babble of voices spoke in my ears. Why didn’t you tell him about seeing him in your dreams? Why didn’t you tell him that somehow you must be connected, soul to soul, and that is most likely the reason why he heard what he did?

  I sat up and looked at the entrance to the hollow, where Kasper sat unmoving. He was hunched into his coat, with the collar turned up against the cold of the night. I crept closer to him and saw that his head had dropped onto his chest and his eyes were closed. At least one of us can sleep, I thought, smiling to myself.

  Perhaps this was a sign. Perhaps I should flee. If I left, there might still be time for him to go back to the island without anyone connecting him to my disappearance. He could go back to his old life, safe in the knowledge that he’d helped me escape, and he wouldn’t have to suffer for it. For suffer he would. If the situation were reversed, I knew precisely what my people would do to one of us who helped an enemy in any way. And that was what I was, really. I was regarded as an enemy of his people, as he was of mine. Any connection between us was not only impossible, it was wrong.

  And yet it was neither. And that was what made it so hard to walk away. Because if I did, if I disappeared into the night, I knew he wouldn’t seize the opportunity to go back to the island unsuspected. He would come looking for me, afraid I’d get lost in that trackless wilderness. I knew that as clearly as if he’d said the words.

  I knew, too, that it would be no good telling him that I wouldn’t get lost, that I had enough of my father’s blood in me to have that understanding of nature that is inborn in the children of Night. I could survive in the forest on my own if need be. Perhaps not as well as he could, with his learned knowledge, but enough to get by. Yet that wouldn’t make any difference to what he’d do. After all, he hadn’t let his fear of evil magic, nor the threat of getting caught doing the forbidden, stop him from entering the Tower. Reckless, I thought to myself, smiling a little, doesn’t even begin to describe it.

  I lay down on the moss again and closed my eyes. This time it wasn’t voices but images that crowded in on me – Kasper straining at the oars, the two of us fleeing the Tower, the first moment I saw him, his hair black as a raven’s wing, lips red as blood, skin pale as snow …

  A tremble crept up my spine as I remembered my dream. It had foretold his coming. It had foretold I would not be alone. It had foretold the joy I would feel in his company – a joy that, even in the midst of the danger we were in, I could not help feeling.

  So I stayed.

  When Kasper gently shook me awake, the pink and gold of dawn had cracked open the darkness, and dew lay upon the grass. ‘Good morning, Izolda,’ he said with a shy smile.

  I smiled and returned his greeting.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes. And you?’

  ‘Like a log.’

  Sitting up, I saw that Kasper had been busy. He had made a fire, heated water in the pan he’d got from the pantry, and made buckwheat porridge, sweetened with dried fruit. And while I washed my face and hands in the stream to chase the drowsiness away, he brewed tea with the rest of the warm water and some fragrant leaves. But that was not the only surprise in store for me. When I came back from the stream, he bade me to sit down, handed me a mug of tea, put the food in front of me – a clean piece of bark serving as a dish – and took something out from his pocket: a rough but vivid carving of a squirrel, whittled on a piece of birchwood. ‘Happy birthday,’ he said, handing it to me.

  It was only then that I remembered it was the morning of my eighteenth birthday. The morning that was to have been my last on this earth, but was now the first of my new life. I struggled to control the tremble in my voice and the tears in my eyes. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much, Kasper.’

  ‘You are very welcome, Izolda,’ he said quietly. Our eyes met for a moment and then, turning away, he added cheerfully, ‘Now, I know it isn’t much of a birthday breakfast, but it will certainly get cold if we don’t hurry up and eat it.’

  I nodded and smiled, hurriedly taking a swig of tea to hide my emotion.

  During my time in the Tower I had not been mistreated. I had been well fed, well dressed, cared for by a doctor when I was sick. I was given books, drawing materials, whatever I asked for. My room was warm, dry and well appointed. I hadn’t even been deprived of beauty; from the Tower window I could see the sea in all its changing moods, and the little gardens on the island.

  But what had that mattered when set against the bitterness of exile, the pain of understanding, over years of growing up in the Tower, that I’d never see anyone or anything I loved ever again? That all I had to look forward to was only more of the same lonely existence – until I learned that even that was to be denied me. To know, on the morning of my eighteenth birthday, that everything was now different – how could I ever repay him?

  Izolda

  Straight after breakfast, we tamped down the fire and set off again. The path through the woods was narrow and we had to walk in single file. At first it was still rather dim but, as the day advanced, the light, filtering through the canopy of leaves, turned a soft gold-green.

  It was quiet and still but every so often we heard the skittering of small animals. Once, a deer bounded across our path before crashing into the undergrowth on the other side. Kasper made us hurry along then. ‘In case something
was chasing it and decides we are easier prey,’ he explained. ‘A wolf or a bear, I mean, not a man,’ he added, seeing my expression.

  Wolf or bear – they didn’t worry me as much as the thought of a human hunter, who might be tempted by the bounty Krainos was certain to put on our heads. Don’t be foolish, I told myself as we kept going. Even if we did come across someone in the woods, the news of my disappearance would not have spread so fast. We were safe for the moment.

  Touching the crystal heart with one hand, and with my other hand on the carving in my pocket, I murmured words that had not come to my mind for a very long time. Words that came from my deepest childhood – an ancient prayer of my people, asking for the protection of the Lady of the Rock. I hadn’t prayed for such a long time, for all my prayers had seemed to go unanswered. The words welled up inside me, and as I spoke them, I felt the crystal begin to warm against my hand.

  When the sun was high in the sky, we stopped for a rest and a drink beside a stream, and ate some more dried fruit. Then on we went, stopping only to gather some herbs Kasper found growing not far from the path.

  ‘I can make a meat stew with mushrooms and herbs tonight,’ he said brightly. ‘And with dried fruit for dessert, we can have ourselves a feast. What do you say?’

  I smiled. ‘I say it sounds perfect.’

  He was in his element, that was plain. And when, in the late afternoon, we finally reached the place that was to be our refuge, the last of my doubts faded away.

  The cottage itself was modest, even shabby, though it had a good roof. Though they were made of hotchpotch bits of wood, the walls looked strong. But what really made me catch my breath was the beauty of the spot where it stood, in a clearing by the side of a murmuring spring that gushed out from the rocks. The grass of the clearing was green and soft, with daisies and other little spring flowers dotted through it, and the great trees of the forest stood all around like giant benevolent guards, while a gnarled old plum tree leaning up near one wall of the cottage was covered in white blossom. The whole place had an air of peaceful, homely calm.