Stardust: Chapter 9–Epilogue

She had no companions, and no obvious occupation, apart from that of stopping each and every lone traveler and each conveyance that passed through the Dyke and passing the time of day.

Now, by temperament, Septimus was one of nature's poisoners.

Blades and blows and booby traps were well enough in their way, but a vial of clear liquid, any trace of taste or odor gone when it was admixtured with food, that was Septimus's metier.

The pain in his heel began to subside.

His heart was pounding inside his chest like a small drum, not in its usual steady march but in a wild, arrhythmic abandon.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," said the woman. "Attempting arson and violence upon the person of a poor old lady living upon her own, who would be entirely at the mercy of every passing vagabond, were it not for the kindness of her little friends."

"You should be ashamed of yourself," said the woman. "Attempting arson and violence upon the person of a poor old lady living upon her own, who would be entirely at the mercy of every passing vagabond, were it not for the kindness of her little friends."

Madame Semele noticed the soot-blackened wooden hovel beside the road and, as she approached closer, the bent old woman in her faded scarlet dress, who waved at her from beside the path.

"That," said Madame Semele, haughtily, "is none of your never-mind, and I shall thank you to keep yourself to yourself."

And even then, in the quiet darkness inside the caravan, the pretty bird chuckled and twittered and trilled, and, once, it even hooted like a little owl.

For he could no longer reconcile his old idea of giving the star to Victoria Forester with his current notion that the star was not a thing to be passed from hand to hand, but a true person in all respects and no kind of a thing at all.

"Do you really want this?" she asked Tristran. "For I have misgivings."

She looked at him, and she smiled, gently and ruefully. "Whither thou goest..." she whispered.

It has occasionally been remarked upon that it is as easy to overlook something large and obvious as it is to overlook something small and niggling, and that the large things one overlooks can often cause problems.

The men had their backs to Tristran and Yvaine, and were resolutely facing the village as if they thought it sinful to observe the preparations occurring in the meadow behind them.

Then he said, as one talks to an idiot, "And if you are Tristran Thorn—which I'm only conceding for the sake of argument here, for you look nothing like him, and you talk little enough like him either—in all the years you lived here, how many people came through the wall from the meadow side?"

Around them a hodgepodge of creatures and people erected their stalls, hung their flags and wheeled their barrows.

And it came to Tristran then, in a wave of something that resembled homesickness, but a homesickness comprised in equal parts of longing and despair, that these might as well be his own people, for he felt he had more in common with them than with the pallid folk of Wall in their worsted jackets and their hobnailed boots.

Unasked, Tristran walked over and began to help her, carrying the heavy boxes from her cart to the stall, climbing a tall stepladder to hang an assortment of streamers from a tree branch, unpacking heavy glass carafes and jugs (each one stoppered with a huge, blackened cork and sealed with silvery wax and filled with a slowly swirling colored smoke), and placing them on the shelves.

"I know what you are, and I know why the witch-woman never knew that you were there. I know who seeks you and why she needs you. Also, I know the provenance of the topaz stone you wear upon a silver chain about your waist. Knowing this, and what manner of thing you are, I know the obligation you must be under."

Tristran's hair had, obstinately, fallen across his face once more.

Tristran was woken a little after sunrise by a large badger walking upon its hind legs and wearing a threadbare heliotrope silk dressing-gown, who snuffled into his ear until Tristran sleepily opened his eyes, and then said, self-importantly, "Party name of Thorn? Tristran of that set?"

He pulled on his boots, washed his face and rinsed out his mouth in the meadow stream, and then ran pell-mell through the meadow, toward the village.

The guards on the wall this morning were the Reverend Myles, the vicar of Wall, and Mr. Bromios, the innkeeper.

"Oh, as to that, when Wystan and Mister Brown finished their shift last night they repaired to the saloon bar at the Seventh Pie, where Wystan happened to mention their meeting with a ragamuffin who claimed to be you, and how they blocked his way. Your way. When news of this reached Father's ears, he marched right up to the Pie and gave the both of them such a tongue-lashing and a telling-of-what-for that I could scarcely believe it was him."

"But none of the ones who were for making you wait are on Wall duty this morning," said Mr. Bromios. "Which took a certain amount of jiggery-pokery to organize—and on a day when I should have been seeing to the refreshment stand, I could point out. Still, it's good to see you back. Come on through."

"As if we were not all worried sick about you," she said, crossly, "what with all your gallivantings...."

It was furnished with a small chaise longue, a low table upon which was a well-thumbed leather-bound copy of the sermons of Laurence Sterne, a pianoforte, and several leather armchairs, and it was in one of these armchairs that Victoria Forester was sitting.

Madame Semele glared at her. "I thought I had long since beaten all of your insolence out of you."

But Victoria was not willing to let her new friend go that easily, and she was prattling on about banns, and marriage licenses, and special licenses which could only be issued by archbishops, and how lucky she was that Robert knew the archbishop.

"There," said the woman with the dark, curling hair, stretching like a cat, and smiling. "The terms of my servitude are fulfilled, and now you and I are done with each other."

Tristran and Yvaine sat, damp and happy, beside a campfire, in the company of a motley assortment of creatures and people.

He found his hands twining, almost of their own volition, into the star's wet hair.

She looked puzzled; then she reached inside her robe, fumbled discreetly, and produced a large topaz stone on a broken silver chain.

Tristran did so; as he touched the ends of the silver chain together they knit and mended as if they had never been broken. "It's very nice," said Tristran, dubiously.

"Well," she continued, slightly mollified, "and I think it will do you young people good to have a home of your own, and for you to have an occupation. And if it does not suit you, you may leave, you know. There is no silver chain that will be holding you to the throne of Stormhold."

"Might I have the honor of knowing what you are called?" asked Yvaine, wondering if she was laying it on a bit thickly. Tristran's mother preened, and Yvaine knew that she was not.

It galled her to give it to me, but rules are rules, and she would have lost her magic and more if she had not settled up.

Now, I plan to barter it for a palanquin to take us back to the Stormhold, for we must arrive in style.

"And your mother acceded to this?"
"In the end," he said blithely.

In the meantime, and in their absence, the Lady Una announced that she would rule the Stormhold as regent.

"And it certainly seems like it would be a nice place to end up, eventually. But there are so many places we have not yet seen. So many people still to meet. Not to mention all the wrongs to right, villains to vanquish, sights to see, all that. You know."

She smiled, wryly. "Well," she said, "at least we shall not be bored. But we had better leave your mother a note."

They were dusty and tired and dressed in rags and tatters, and were at first, and to the shame of the entire land, treated as vagabonds and rogues; it was not until the man displayed the topaz stone that hung about his neck that he was recognized as the Lady Una's only son.

The investiture and subsequent celebrations went on for almost a month, after which the young eighty-second Lord of Stormhold got on with the business of ruling.