Chapter Eleven

Miranda was alone, practicing her constellations. Nir was teaching them to her the elvish way, having her form them on the ground with pebbles and then look for them in the sky. Even elves had to learn constellations. They knew where every star was by instinct, but they had to learn the names and patterns.

“Miranda!” The soft voice came from the trees nearby. She looked up from her pebbles in surprise. Who would use her goblin name?

“Sable!” Miranda hurried over to the elf woman. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m bringing the elf lord another book,” said Sable, handing a bulky spell book to the girl. Then she dusted off her hands and pushed back her long black hair. Miranda found the book surprisingly heavy, so she sat down with it in her lap. Sable sat down beside her, spreading the full skirt of her silk gown out to cover her feet.

“Nir isn’t in camp right now,” Miranda told her. “He’s out hunting, and I don’t know if he’s finished with the other book.”

“I know he’s not in camp,” said Sable, looking around carefully. She switched into goblin. “The King’s worried about you.”

Miranda felt insulted by both the language and the comment. “How kind of him,” she snapped. “I think of him constantly as well. I’m not speaking goblin to you.”

“Speak what you want,” replied Sable in goblin. “But you’re a prisoner here, and the King wants to know why. You’re his subject; the elves have no right to hold you.”

“Nir took me in after Catspaw threw me out,” declared Miranda. “I would have killed myself if Nir hadn’t stopped me, and I’m not a goblin subject anymore.”

“Don’t lie to yourself,” said the black-haired elf impatiently. “The King didn’t throw you out, he released you for a little while under guard because he thought letting you have your own way would calm you down. The elf lord trapped your guard, dragged you to his camp, forced you to undergo spells, and imprisoned you here. And the question is: Why? What do you know about it?”

Miranda considered this information unhappily. She hadn’t known about the guard, but she knew the rest was true. She didn’t like to think about it. The elf lord she had fallen in love with didn’t go around attacking people. He was kind and wonderful.

“I’m important to the elves,” she said. “Nir’s magic says so, and he has to do what his magic says. I don’t know why I’m important, but I can tell he feels sorry for me. That’s all I know. He isn’t like a goblin; he doesn’t just blurt everything out. He’s an elf. He’s refined.”

“Refined.” Sable’s tone was acidic. “I can tell he’s an elf man who doesn’t drop your food on the floor. The King thinks he may have real harm in mind for you, some sort of plot or revenge.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” replied Miranda. “Nir worries about me. He thinks Catspaw abused me because he kissed me before I was eighteen. I don’t know why he was so angry over a few kisses.”

“It’s really just an elf custom, the eighteen rule,” answered Sable uneasily, sounding as if she were trying to convince herself. “Elf women have a terrible time with childbirth. If they went into labor before they were fully grown, even magic wouldn’t save them. And the elves live so closely together, sleeping in little tents, coming and going through the forest. If their society weren’t structured by the eighteen rule, there would be complete chaos. As it is, a woman’s a child one night and married the next: no stolen kisses, jealousies, dangerous friendships, or chaperones. She learns to love her fiancé over years of childhood, without the pressure to grow up too soon. I have to admit, I’m an elf,” she sighed. “It still makes sense to me.”

“I think that’s why Nir hasn’t told me anything,” said Miranda gloomily. “I know he thinks of me as a child. But I like it here. Everyone’s so nice to me, they treat me just like an elf. There’s only one difference that I can think of. I’m dressed in brown, and everyone else is dressed in green. Maybe brown is just for humans.”

“Elves wear brown in the winter, green in the summer,” said Sable matter-of-factly. She paused to study Miranda. “He had you put in brown because you’d look terrible in green,” she said cynically. “That kind of thing matters to an elf.”

Nir heard from his people that Sable had been in camp and had spoken goblin to the human girl. He was worried and suspicious about the intrusion. He learned what he could of the visit from Miranda, but he knew she didn’t tell him everything. The Seven Stars didn’t control her speech. She was free to keep her secrets.

“Sable helped me understand some things I didn’t know about elves,” volunteered Miranda as she sat on her pallet that morning. “She explained why elf women marry at eighteen and why you were so angry at Catspaw.”

Nir, coiling his belt and stowing it in the corner of the tent, didn’t glance up at this statement. He privately wondered why anything that obvious would need an explanation.

“And she explained why you had Igira make me brown clothes,” added Miranda sadly. “Because I would have looked terrible in green.”

“She said that?” murmured Nir as he settled himself on his pallet. “You should have asked me. I would have said that your clothes are brown because you look beautiful in brown. I don’t understand that woman. She’s even more horrible than that poor little goblin girl who looked like an elf. She’s an elf who acts like a goblin.”

“I don’t think that’s her fault,” Miranda pointed out. “Sable was horribly mistreated. She told me she’d never known kindness until she lived with the goblins. Marak taught her magic himself, and he made sure she learned to read and write. She didn’t even know elvish when she came. It was the goblins who taught it to her.”

“The old goblin King was very clever,” said Nir with his eyes closed. “He knew that elf women have more children if they’re happy, so he made sure they were happy, and he knew the children would be more elvish if he developed the character of the women. It makes the elf blood last longer down in those caves.”

“Oh, you make it sound so awful!” cried Miranda in distress. “Why can’t you say anything good about the goblins? Sable loved Marak like a father, and I don’t see what’s wrong with that. Marak cared about his elves, he really did.”

“I did say something good about the goblin King, I said he was clever,” remarked Nir a little heatedly, propping himself up on an elbow. “If you’d asked him, Sika, he’d have told you what he cared about. He cared about their blood. He cared about it when he took it out to look at it, and he cared about it when he strengthened it through teaching and good breeding. We elves care about the deer, too; we put spells on the land to keep them healthy and make them bear more does. But the deer don’t thank us, and they don’t love us. We consume them, and that’s just what the goblins do to us.”

Miranda stared at him, astonished at the hostility in his voice. He studied her shocked expression. “You have to understand something,” he said. “We have always been the goblins’ prey. I signed a treaty with them, but they won’t honor it. My magic knows that already. The elves are in danger now, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Why would you be in danger?” demanded the girl. “Catspaw isn’t evil. He wouldn’t hurt innocent people.”

The elf lord continued to study her, amazed at how severely they had crippled her thinking. She herself had suffered terribly in their schemes, and she didn’t seem to blame them at all.

“We’re a temptation to the goblin King,” he replied. “A whole band of unprotected elves—that’s like putting a bag of gold before a human! Whether he’s evil or not, he won’t be able to resist. He’s either thought of the possibilities we offer, or he’s a fool.”

“The possibilities of what?” asked Miranda in confusion, and Nir gave up the attempt.

“Never mind,” he sighed. “You lived with them too long. I can’t make you understand.”

If the elf lord was worried, he kept his troubles to himself after that, and Miranda wasn’t worried at all. The man she loved couldn’t be planning harm and revenge for her. Instead, he spent lots of time teaching her things and talking to her. She was positive that he enjoyed her company.

One night she walked up to the writing desk to ask him to go on a walk. “Look at this, Sika,” he said excitedly, holding out his hand.

On the ground by her feet a wide circle of glimmering white bumps appeared, rising silently from the dark earth. When they had burgeoned to a height of four inches, plump mushroom caps formed, unfolding like tiny umbrellas.

“A dancing ring!” exclaimed Miranda, and then she blushed over such a silly statement. But the handsome lord didn’t laugh at her. He just looked a little puzzled.

“They’re not for dancing, they’re for eating,” he explained seriously, plucking one of the gleaming white mushrooms. “When I think of all the nights I went hungry! I would have loved to have known a spell like this.”

He took her to watch the crescent moon rising over a small lake. Miranda thought about food as they walked along.

“We eat bread all the time,” she pointed out. “I’ve seen sacks of flour in camp, but I didn’t think the elves farmed.”

“No, the elves don’t farm,” answered Nir, smiling at the thought. “An elf with too much hard work to do is a very unhappy elf. The First Fathers arranged our lives so that we could play and be beautiful. Beauty and hard work don’t belong together.”

This didn’t come as a surprise to Miranda, but she was more forgiving of the idea than she once had been. After all, she thought appreciatively, there was something to be said for beauty.

“We buy our bread,” said the elf lord. “I think we always have. We buy the flour from whoever mills it nearby.”

They came to the lake and sat down on an outcrop to rest. The stars shone out above them and below them as well, reflected in the calm water.

“Where would elves earn money?” Miranda wanted to know.

“We enchant a few springs and pools on the perimeter of our land, putting spells on them for health and beauty. Humans come to drink the water, or the women wash their faces in it to improve their looks. Human men don’t seem to care how awful they look,” he mused. “I don’t think they ever wash in the water. But in gratitude for the help, the humans throw in a little money.”

Miranda thought about this, gazing at the mirrored skies of stars. There was a pool near the Hall that the servant girls washed their faces in on Midsummer morning. She knew that they always threw in a penny. “I thought that was just superstition,” she said with a frown.

“It is if there aren’t elves nearby,” answered Nir. “Those enchantments don’t last forever. I renewed them on a pool the other night when I was out hunting. The water probably hadn’t been anything but plain water for at least a hundred years, but I found lots of money in it anyway. You’d think the poor humans would have noticed. It seems so sad,” he sighed. “To be so ugly or sick that you’ll keep desperately throwing money away even when it obviously isn’t helping.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” said Miranda reassuringly. “The ones I knew who threw money into a pool didn’t take it too seriously. It was just an old custom.”

“Then it’s stupidity,” countered Nir with a shrug. “That’s one way we earn our bread. And Galnar’s taken his violin to village fairs. He doesn’t do it to earn money, of course; he does it because it’s fun, but he comes away with lots of money, and he has to be careful not to take too much. Humans will pay an elf musician every penny they have. As long as he plays, they won’t stop dancing, and when he stops, they want more.”

“There’s a nursery rhyme about that,” laughed Miranda. “We say it to the children when they’re small.”

Nir smiled to see her laugh. He wondered if she had ever laughed for the goblins. “I’m not surprised,” he commented. “It would be an experience never to be forgotten for a human to dance to elf music, and certainly something to tell the children. Why haven’t I seen you dancing? You’ve probably hurt Galnar’s feelings.”

“Oh, I don’t know how to dance,” said Miranda carelessly.

The elf lord stared at her, speechless from shock, but Miranda didn’t even notice. Telling an elf that she didn’t dance was like telling a dwarf that she thought precious stones were ugly. Nir could hardly believe it. To be almost a woman, and never to have danced! He blamed the goblins, of course. They’d raised her so carefully to be that monster’s wife, but they’d never given her the chance to laugh or dance.

The next night, Miranda was lying on her stomach, making grass whistles with little Bar, when the elf lord appeared beside her.

“Come along, Sika,” he said, reaching down a hand. Miranda climbed to her feet and dusted off her dress.

“Are we going for a walk?” she wanted to know. “I’d like to go back to the lake again; it was so pretty to see the stars twice.”

“No,” said the elf, “we’re not going for a walk. Tonight we’re going to dance.”

Miranda was alarmed at the thought, and the stars flashed out their light for the first time in weeks. Nir eyed the stars critically as they walked along together. Sometimes, he decided, the spell was a good thing.

“But… I don’t know how to dance,” faltered Miranda in distress.

“I don’t know what you mean,” replied the elf lord. “No one knows how to dance any more than they know how to breathe. You just breathe, and you just dance.”

They reached the meadow and joined the dancers, and the astounded girl learned that this was perfectly true. She danced immediately—she danced the whole night—without knowing how. Perhaps it was because of the Seven Stars, or perhaps it was because of some charm in the music. Perhaps it was simply because she was out with the elves, the changeling girl lured into their play. Miranda’s feet flew. She held hands, broke, whirled, and grasped hands again. All around her were faces alight, eyes shining with joy, and her face was a mirror of theirs.

Miranda forgot the darkness, her dignity, and her uncertain future. She forgot who she was, where, and when. She could have been a dancer in any age of the world, on any grassy field in any land. She faded away from herself and took her place in something greater, a beautiful, harmonious plan. She was a part in a pattern still whole and unbroken, before it had broken apart. It should have stayed whole. The pieces should have stayed in their dance. They didn’t even have to know how to stay. They had had to be taught how to break.

As the two of them walked back to the forest for the morning meal, Nir wondered what she was thinking. That was fun or I liked it? Or, a little better, I didn’t want to stop? He knew she could never be an elf, but how much of her could feel like an elf? How much of her could belong to that world that wasn’t really her own?

Miranda looked up, her brown eyes very thoughtful, to meet his attentive gaze. “I never knew dancing was so important,” she said. And while she watched, startled, the elf lord laughed, completely happy—happy for the first time in months.

Marak Catspaw was strolling with Arianna in the ornamental gardens of the palace. They passed the lamplit fountains and flower beds filled with creations that the dwarves had made from precious stones.

The elf girl gazed at the colored rocks carved to look like living plants, their stiff, cold forms a travesty of nature. “Oh, I don’t like it here,” she sighed.

“I know,” said Catspaw sympathetically. “What would you change if you could?”

A little color came into Arianna’s thin cheeks as she thought about this. “I’d open up the cave so that the stars could shine in,” she declared. “I’d throw away these rocks and grow real flowers. I’d bring in rain and wind and snow, and foxes and deer.”

The goblin King contemplated this untidy wilderness in his pleasant, orderly kingdom. It made him feel a bit gloomy. “And you’d change me for that elf lord, I suppose.”

Arianna considered the suggestion. “I don’t know,” she murmured.

“You don’t?” asked the astonished King.

“You’re ugly, and he’s not,” she pointed out in justice. “But you don’t scare me anymore, and he still does.”

That blackguard, thought Catspaw grimly to himself. Of course. I should have known. “What did he do to you?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” answered the elf girl. “Nir was always very kind.” She stopped, hoping that he would change the subject, but he didn’t. “It’s just that he wasn’t like us,” she went on slowly. “He was always so worried and sad. He didn’t control his magic; it controlled him. We never knew what it would tell him to do—even he didn’t know.

“He was kind, but his magic wasn’t,” she confessed in a low voice. “I was afraid about marrying him. They said that he actually killed his own wife.”

The goblin King held his peace and smiled reassuringly at her, but that evening he broke the news to his lieutenants.

“Richard,” he said, “Miranda is definitely in danger. We have to get her away from that madman. Ask Sable to risk contacting her again to tell her about the goblin spies near camp who can help her. The dwarves have been modifying the old elf prison; she can stay there until she’s free of the stars.”

“Until?” asked Seylin sharply. “The end of the stars means the death of the elf lord. You know how important he is!”

“I think, adviser,” said Catspaw in an even tone, “that you should know how important Miranda is. She meant the world to my father, and she means a great deal to me. When that vindictive elf enchanted the goblin King’s ward, he placed his life in balance with hers. Which life do you think I value more?”