Stardust

“He sounds a most dangerous man,” said Tristran.

“He is the most dangerous man you will ever meet.”Tristran peered silently into the rain, and the gathering darkness. It was becoming harder to see the road. Primus spoke again, saying, “If you ask me, there is something unnatural about this storm.”

“Unnatural?”

“Or more-than-natural; super-natural, if you will. I hope there is an inn along the way. The horses need a rest, and I could do with a dry bed and a warm fire. And a good meal.” Tristran shouted his agreement. They sat together, getting wetter. Tristran thought about the star and the unicorn. She would be cold by now, and wet. He worried about her broken leg and thought about how saddle sore she must be. It was all his fault. He felt wretched.

“I am the most miserable person who ever lived,” he said to the Lord Primus, when they stopped to feed the horses feedbags of damp oats.

“You are young, and in love,” said Primus. “Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived.”Tristran wondered how Lord Primus could have divined the existence of Victoria Forester. He imagined himself recounting his adventures to her, back at Wall, in front of a blazing parlor fire; but somehow all of his tales seemed a little flat.

Dusk seemed to have started at dawn that day, and now the sky was almost black. Their path continued to climb. The rain would let up for moments and then redouble, falling harder than ever.

“Is that a light over there?” asked Tristran.

“I cannot see anything. Maybe it was fool’s fire, or lightning . . .” said Primus. And then they gained a bend in the road, and he said, “I was wrong. That is a light. Well-spotted, young ’un. But there are bad things in these mountains. We must only hope that they are friendly.”The horses put on a fresh burst of speed, now that their destination was in sight. A flash of lightning revealed the mountains, rising steeply up on either side of them.

“We’re in luck!” said Primus, his bass voice booming like thunder. “It’s an inn!”

Chapter Seven

“At the Sign of the Chariot”

The star had been soaked to the skin when she arrived at the pass, sad and shivering. She was worried about the unicorn; they had found no food for it on the last day’s journey, as the grasses and ferns of the forest had been replaced by grey rocks and stunted thorn bushes. The unicorn’s unshod hooves were not meant for the rocky road, nor was its back meant to carry riders, and its pace became slower and slower.

As they traveled, the star cursed the day she had fallen to this wet, unfriendly world. It had seemed so gentle and welcoming when seen from high in the sky. That was before. Now, she hated everything about it, except the unicorn; and, saddle sore and uncomfortable, she would have even happily spent time away from the unicorn.

After a day of pelting rain, the lights of the inn were the most welcoming sight she had seen in her time on the Earth. “Watch your step, watch your step,” pattered the raindrops on the stone. The unicorn stopped fifty yards from the inn and would approach no closer. The door to the inn was opened, flooding the grey world with warm yellow light.

“Hello there, dearie,” called a welcoming voice from the open doorway.

The star stroked the unicorn’s wet neck and spoke softly to the animal, but it made no move, stood there frozen in the light of the inn like a pale ghost.

“Will you be coming in, dearie? Or will you be stopping out there in the rain?” The woman’s friendly voice warmed the star, soothed her: just the right mixture of practicality and concern. “We can get you food, if it’s food you’re after. There’s a fire blazing in the hearth and enough hot water for a tub that’ll melt the chill from your bones.”

“I . . . I will need help coming in . . .” said the star. “My leg . . .”

“Ach, poor mite,” said the woman. “I’ll have my husband Billy carry you inside. There’s hay and fresh water in the stables, for your beast.”The unicorn looked about wildly as the woman approached. “There, there, dearie. I won’t be coming too close. After all, it’s been many a long year since I was maiden enough to touch a unicorn, and many a long year since such a one was seen in these parts . . .”Nervously, the unicorn followed the woman into the stables, keeping its distance from her. It walked along the stable to the furthest stall, where it lay down in the dry straw, and the star scrambled off its back, dripping and miserable.

Billy turned out to be a white-bearded, gruff sort of fellow. He said little, but carried the star into the inn and put her down on a three-legged stool in front of a crackling log fire.

“Poor dear,” said the innkeeper’s wife, who had followed them inside. “Look at you, wet as a water-nixie, look at the puddle under you, and your lovely dress, oh the state of it, you must be soaked to the bone...” And, sending her husband away, she helped the star remove her dripping wet dress, which she placed on a hook near the fire, where each drip hissed and fizzed when it fell to the hot bricks of the hearth.

There was a tin tub in front of the fire, and the innkeeper’s wife put up a paper screen around it. “How d’you like your baths?” she asked, solicitously, “warm, hot, or boil-a-lobster?”

“I do not know,” said the star, na**d but for the topaz-stone on the silver chain about her waist, her head all in a whirl at the strange turn that events had taken, “for I have never had a bath before.”

“Never had one?” The innkeeper’s wife looked astonished. “Why, you poor duck; well, we won’t make it too hot, then. Call me if you need another copperful of water, I’ve got some going over the kitchen fire; and when you’re done with the bath, I’ll bring you some mulled wine, and some sweet-roasted turnips.”And, before the star could protest that she neither ate nor drank, the woman had bustled off, leaving the star sitting in the tin tub, her broken leg in its splints sticking out of the water and resting on the three-legged stool. Initially the water was indeed too hot, but as she became used to the heat she relaxed, and was, for the first time since she had tumbled from the sky, utterly happy.

“There’s a love,” said the innkeeper’s wife, returning. “How are you feeling now?”

“Much, much better, thank you,” said the star.

“And your heart? How does your heart feel?” asked the woman.

“My heart?” It was a strange question, but the woman seemed genuinely concerned. “It feels happier. More easy. Less troubled.”