Stardust

“You’re the star,” said Tristran, comprehension dawning.

“And you’re a clodpoll,” said the girl, bitterly, “and a ninny, a numbskull, a lackwit and a coxcomb!”

“Yes,” said Tristran. “I suppose I am at that.” And with that he unwound one end of the silver chain and slipped it around the girl’s slim wrist. He felt the loop of the chain tighten about his own.

She stared up at him, bitterly. “What,” she asked, in a voice that was suddenly beyond outrage, beyond hate, “do you think you are doing?”

“Taking you home with me,” said Tristran. “I made an oath.”And at that the candle-stub guttered, violently, the last of the wick afloat in the pool of wax. For a moment the candle flame flared high, illuminating the glen, and the girl, and the chain, unbreakable, that ran from her wrist to his.

Then the candle went out.

Tristran stared at the star — at the girl — and, with all his might, managed to say nothing at all.

Can I get there by candlelight? he thought. There, and back again. But the candlelight was gone, and the village of Wall was six months’ hard travel from here.

“I just want you to know,” said the girl, coldly, “that whoever you are, and whatever you intend with me, I shall give you no aid of any kind, nor shall I assist you, and I shall do whatever is in my power to frustrate your plans and devices.” And then she added, with feeling, “Idiot.”

“Mm,” said Tristran. “Can you walk?”

“No,” she said. “My leg’s broken. Are you deaf, as well as stupid?”

“Do your kind sleep?” he asked her.

“Of course. But not at night. At night, we shine.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m going to try to get some sleep. I can’t think of anything else to do. It’s been a long day for me, what with everything. And maybe you should try to sleep, too. We’ve got a long way to go.”The sky was beginning to lighten. Tristran put his head on his leather bag in the glen and did his best to ignore the insults and imprecations that came his way from the girl in the blue dress at the end of the chain.

He wondered what the little hairy man would do when Tristran did not return.

He wondered what Victoria Forester was doing at the moment and decided that she was probably asleep, in her bed, in her bedroom, in her father’s farmhouse.

He wondered whether six months was a long walk, and what they would eat on the way.

He wondered what stars ate.

And then he was asleep.

“Dunderhead. Bumpkin. Dolt,” said the star.

And then she sighed and made herself as comfortable as she could under the circumstances.

The pain from her leg was dull but continual. She tested the chain about her wrist, but it was tight and fast, and she could neither slip from it nor break it. “Cretinous, verminous oaf,” she muttered.

And then she, too, slept.

Chapter Five

In Which There is Much Fighting for the Crown

In the morning’s bright light the young lady seemed more human and less ethereal. She had said nothing since Tristran had woken.

He took his knife and cut a fallen treebranch into a Y-shaped crutch while she sat beneath a sycamore tree and glared at him and glowered at him and scowled at him from her place on the ground. He peeled the bark from a green branch and wound it around the upper fork of the Y.

They had had no breakfast yet, and Tristran was ravenous; his stomach rumbled as he worked. The star had said nothing about being hungry. Then again, she had done nothing at all but look at him, first reproachfully, and then with undisguised hatred.

He pulled the bark tight, then looped it under itself and tugged on it once more. “This is honestly nothing personal,” he said, to the woman and to the grove .

With the full sunlight shining down she scarcely glittered at all, save for where the darkest shadows touched her.

The star ran one pale forefinger up and down the silver chain that went between them, tracing the line of it about her slim wrist, and made no reply.

“I did it for love,” he continued. “And you really are my only hope. Her name — that is, the name of my love — is Victoria. Victoria Forester. And she is the prettiest, wisest, sweetest girl in the whole wide world.” The girl broke her silence with a snort of derision. “And this wise, sweet creature sent you here to torture me?” she said.

“Well, not exactly. You see, she promised me anything I desired — be it her hand in marriage or her lips to kiss — were I to bring her the star that we saw fall the night before last. I had thought,” he confessed, “that a fallen star would probably look like a diamond or a rock. I certainly wasn’t expecting a lady.”

“So, having found a lady, could you not have come to her aid, or left her alone? Why drag her into your foolishness?”

“Love,” he explained.

She looked at him with eyes the blue of the sky. “I hope you choke on it,” she said, flatly.

“I won’t,” said Tristran, with more confidence and good cheer than he actually felt. “Here. Try this.” He passed her the crutch and, reaching down, tried to help her to her feet. His hands tingled, not unpleasantly, where his skin touched hers. She sat on the ground like a tree stump, making no effort to get up.

“I told you,” she said, “that I would do everything in my power to frustrate your plans and devices.” She looked around the grove. “How very bland this world does look by day. And how dull.”

“Just put your weight on me, and the rest on the crutch,” he said. “You’ll have to move sometime.” He tugged on the chain and, reluctantly, the star began to get to her feet, leaning first against Tristran, and then, as if proximity to him disgusted her, on the crutch.

She gasped, then, in a hard intake of breath, and tumbled to the grass, where she lay with her face contorted, making small noises of pain. Tristran knelt down beside her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Her blue eyes flashed, but they were swimming with tears. “My leg. I can’t stand on it. It must really be broken.” Her skin had gone as white as a cloud, and she was shivering.

“I’m sorry,” said Tristran, uselessly. “I can make you a splint. I’ve done it for sheep. It’ll be all right.” He squeezed her hand, and then he went to the brook and dipped his handkerchief in it and gave it to the star to wipe her forehead.

He split more fallen wood with his knife. Then he removed his jerkin, and took off his shirt, which he proceeded to tear into strips which he used to bind the sticks, as firmly as he could, about her injured leg. The star made no sounds while he did this, although, when he pulled the last knot tight, he thought he heard her whimper to herself.