The SoulNecklace Stories Read online

  The SoulNecklace Stories

  Books 1 – 3

  R. L. Stedman

  Contents

  Map of the Kingdom

  A Necklace of Souls

  Part I

  1. Dreaming

  2. Everyday Miracles

  3. The Most Fortunate of Lands

  4. Beware the Governess

  5. The Boar and the Minstrel

  6. Only the Brave Deserve Freedom

  7. A Perpetual Fair

  8. Forest Wanderer

  9. Stormy Beginnings

  Part II

  10. No More Governesses

  11. Dreams and Realities

  12. N’tombe

  13. Dancing, Fighting

  14. Will the Teacher

  15. Military Strategy

  16. Fighting to Win

  17. Dreams Are All You See

  18. What Do I Tell Her?

  19. The Impermanence of Beauty

  Part III

  20. Drama Queen

  21. A Copper Bead

  22. Not As Easy As It Seems

  23. Lessons

  24. Crossing the Straits

  25. Dreaming

  26. Alone Again

  27. Festival

  28. A Performing Dog

  29. A Dream of Death

  30. Belle of the Ball

  Part IV

  31. A City on a Plain

  32. Frivolity and Fireworks

  33. The Stars Are Different

  34. Surrounded

  35. Soul-Breaker

  36. The Return

  37. Depart with Sorrow, Greet with Joy

  38. Calls in the Darkness

  39. Mist and Memory

  40. Unleashed

  41. Homecoming

  42. Dreaming

  A Skillful Warrior

  Part I

  1. Dreaming

  2. No Center

  3. Bread and Conversation

  4. Floating

  5. Pursuit

  6. The Dark Man

  7. Learning to Fly

  8. Sea-going Cargo

  Part II

  9. Dreams and Nightmares

  10. The Final Bead

  11. An Old Enemy

  12. The Jade Carver

  13. Following the Trail

  14. Puppets and Power

  Part III

  15. Ma Evans

  16. A Shift in the World

  17. Preparations

  18. God of the Goats

  19. Riding the Wind

  20. Storm-Rising

  Part IV

  21. Joined

  22. Dreams in the Dark

  23. The Stone

  24. The Roots of the Tree

  25. Flying Free

  26. Outface the Darkness

  27. Cold Breath Calls

  28. Dreaming

  A Memory of Fire

  I. Dreaming

  1. A Dream Within A Dream

  2. Learning To See

  3. The Silver Fountain

  4. The Glass Globe

  5. Calm Before The Storm

  6. Seeing Blind

  7. After The Earthquake

  8. Truly A Captive

  9. A Dragon In The Dark

  10. Types of Bravery

  11. A Wound In The Earth

  12. The City On The Plain

  13. Girls Do Not Fight

  14. Inside The City

  15. A Fountain Of Silver

  16. The Cave

  17. A Wooden Scaffold

  18. Waking

  19. A Place Of Sacrifice

  20. The Scaffold And The Knife

  21. Blood On The Grass

  Interlude

  22. Lessons

  II. Return

  23. Sal

  24. The Return

  25. Taking Tea

  26. What Lies Beneath

  III. The Beginning

  27. Thoughts And Actions

  28. Dreams And Visions

  29. Homeward

  30. A Shining Light

  31. A Choice

  32. The Story

  33. Ever After

  A White Bird Flies

  About the Author

  Also by R. L. Stedman

  Acknowledgments

  Bonus Excerpt - A Long, Long Life

  1. Orphaned

  A Necklace of Souls

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Dreaming

  A true dream is when the events I see in my sleep have, or will happen. It’s a talent that runs in my family. I was thirteen when I had my first true dream.

  This was my dream.

  Candles cast shadows across the roof and dripped wax on the flagstones. I knew this place – it was the throne room, used on the most ceremonial occasions: investitures, coronations, state weddings. But now it was crowded with people. Laughing, they called loudly to each other, or to the musicians, or the wine waiters. They were not ceremonial at all. What was I doing here?

  Feeling like a balloon, I bobbed against the stone roses on the ceiling. This was a most peculiar dream.

  Below, the dancers twirled and swayed. They were richly dressed, in stiff embroidered cloth and gold-threaded cloaks that gleamed in the candlelight. But for all their grandeur, their clothes seemed old-fashioned. The men wore wigs and high heels, the women sported nodding feathers. Their voices were harsh, coarse against the music. Up against the ceiling, the air was stifling and I felt hot and bored. Watching someone else’s party is rarely entertaining.

  Then, with a crash of guards’ spears, the doors of the antechamber opened. A soberly dressed woman and a blonde-haired boy in a ruff stood in the doorway. The boy tugged the stiff lace at his throat. This child and the woman – a servant by her dress, a nurse by the way she fussed over his hair – seemed out of place in this crowded ballroom. Threading their way through the crowd, the boy clung to his nurse’s hand, hiding his face against her skirts, as women touched his head with ringed fingers. Floating above the dancers, I followed. Their white-powdered faces, rouged cheeks and reddened lips seemed sinister.

  No one noticed me. (This is the way of true dreams. You’re a watcher only, powerless to change the events that unfold, even if you want to. Unless, unless, you have power and passion, and then, ah, then there is nothing you may not do. But that night, I had neither. And in my defense, I was young and unused to this way of dreaming.)

  At the far end of the room sat a man and woman on golden thrones. King and queen, but not the king and queen I knew. The nurse and the boy stopped in front of them and the nurse curtsied, the boy bowed. The king reached out and touched the lad gently on the hair.

  “Rise, son. What do you think of it all, eh?”

  The boy looked out at the crowd. The white-powdered faces turned toward the throne. “They look like clowns.”

  The king’s lips curled, in annoyance or amusement. The queen, sitting on the other golden chair, stared at the child. Why did she seem so familiar? Her eyes glittered in the candlelight but her thin, pale face was as immobile as a stone angel.

  The king whispered, “Fix this evening in your mind, my son. For in time to come, you too will be seated on this throne, giving your child away. You will find it easier if, like me, you learn not to care too deeply for your children. They are a duty only. Especially the girls.” He paused. “My father told me this, and at the time I hated him, as you will no doubt hate me. But he was right, and now I bless his memory for this advice.”

  Expressionless, the child stared at the man. The king turned to his aide, a tall man clothed in gray. The courtier bowed and slipped away to the orchestra.

  A sudden silence. The crowd stopped their dancing, every f
ace turned to the throne. The conductor nodded to the drummer and the throb of the bass drum resounded through the room, so deep I felt it through the stone. Trumpets blared. The oak doors behind the throne crashed open. Two sentries sprang into the room and stood to attention beside the doors.

  Candles flickered in the sudden draft and shadows swayed across the walls as people moved to watch the slim girl who entered, propelled, it seemed, by the final trumpet blast. In the sudden silence the queen gasped, a harsh intake of breath.

  The girl wore only a white robe. Her hair was loose, gleaming hazel in the dancing candlelight. Her feet were bare. Did she feel the cold of the stone floor? Dwarfed by the great stone pillars that held up the arched roof, she seemed frail as she walked to the foot of the throne. The boy smiled at her. She grinned and winked back. Her smile seemed slightly twisted.

  There was a sudden twang as a violinist dropped his instrument. The girl looked so pale I thought she’d faint.

  Two large manservants, shadow-like in black doublet and hose, entered carrying a black chair. Seated on it was the oldest woman I had ever seen. She was tiny, her spine rounded and slumped. Her hands were spotted with age. Like the young girl, she wore only a white gown and her hair was loose, but it was gray and thin and I could see her scalp.

  The old woman looked at the king with contempt. “A ball? You dare to turn the Passing into an entertainment?”

  She gestured at the guests, silent and statue-like, and the musicians, staring at her with mouths agape. They looked like snared rabbits. Uneasy, the king shifted in his chair, and the old woman seemed to grow. I hovered behind a stone buttress; those eyes seemed likely to see me.

  The old woman sighed. “Well, appropriate or no, it matters not. Now is the time.” Her voice echoed around the silent room. As she lifted up her arms, bright jewels gleamed. She wore a shining necklace. It trembled with her harsh breathing, its stones more alive than the wearer.

  The old woman looked at the girl. “It is a heavy burden, child. But there are ...” she paused, suddenly breathless, and the necklace glittered, “compensations. You will become aware of them in time.” She smiled, her teeth yellow. “Give me your hands.”

  I wanted to cry out as the girl put her hands on the old woman’s gnarled and swollen fingers, but I couldn’t speak. Unable to call out, scream or even shake my head in a “no’, I hovered by the roof as the necklace flared and sparkled around the wrinkled neck.

  The old woman turned to the weeping men behind her. “Do it now.”

  Grasping the necklace as if it were made from nettles, the men tugged the bright thing from the old one’s neck. Then, in one smooth movement, they placed it about the head of the young girl. The necklace settled, sparkling, against her chest. The girl smiled, stroking the shining gold, the red and blue stones, clustered into the shape of flowers.

  The old woman fell back in the chair, her throat open and exposed. The boy whimpered. The queen screamed. And I, unable to say anything or look away, saw that where the necklace had been, the skin had worn away, and where there should have been flesh there was only blood and bone. Through her white ribs, where the blood came welling up, was a-pulsing, a-fluttering.

  Caught between the crowd and the stone roof, I watched as the heart of the old woman ceased to beat.

  I woke, screaming, my feet tangled in sheets. I tried to get out of bed, but was so hobbled that I fell on the floor in an undignified heap. My head was full of the sight of blood, and my body had a strange feeling of lightness, as though I might take off again and float against the roof. Nurse stood in the doorway, hand cupped around her candle. “Lady? Are you all right, Miss?”

  I couldn’t answer. Where was I? What had I just seen? Untangling myself from my sheets, I stood up. Daddy. He’d know.

  It’s not a wise idea to run barefoot down spiral staircases in the dark. They’re designed to be difficult to navigate, useful in a fortress; not so good when you’re in a hurry and don’t have a candle.

  I ran across the courtyard in my nightshirt. The stone was cold under my feet but I hardly noticed. On another night this would have been funny: a girl in her nightshirt, her face tearstained, a nurse behind her, holding a smoking candlestick with one hand and her nightcap with the other, behind her another servant. Following them all came the guard, clattering down from his watch. It was like a circus.

  The sentry stopped my companions at the base of the west tower but let me through. I left them arguing while I followed the wall-torches to my parents’ chambers.

  Up the stairs, into my father’s room. He wasn’t in bed, but his lamp was on. His bedclothes were all higgledy-piggledy too. It must have been a rough night for both of us. I ran across the landing to my mother’s chamber. Her dressing room was open, but the door to her bedchamber was closed, and through the thick oak I could hear voices.

  “I was on a plain,” said my father. His voice was thick, as though he’d just woken.

  “Hist! Lady Dana!” Nurse had pushed her way past the sentry and hovered at the bottom of the stairs, too scared to enter the royal apartments. Good. I put my ear to the door.

  “The air was dry and still, the sky deep purple, as though it was going to thunder. I’ve never seen such an arid place.”

  “It was just a dream, dear.” My mother’s voice was sleepy.

  “Of course. But it’s more than that, Cyrilla. You know I have these dreams? Where things come true? This is one.”

  My mother sounded more interested. “What happened next?”

  “I heard a low drumming noise. Da dum, da dum. Like a heartbeat. Then I turned and I saw her.”

  “Her?”

  “You know. Her.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said, ‘Hello’.”

  “Well, that was polite.” My mother yawned. “Sorry, my love. You woke me.”

  “She wore a gray shift. Her feet were bare. She floated over the plain. Her hair was long.” Daddy sounded sad. “She used to have lovely, thick brown hair. Now it’s thin and gray. She looked like a hag. She wore the necklace.”

  “What did it look like?”

  You know. You’ve seen the portraits.”

  “I’ve never seen the real thing, though.” I imagined my mother licking her lips. She loved jewelry.

  “You know. Gold, rubies, emeralds and diamonds. Set in the shapes of flowers. It seemed to move on her chest as she spoke.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a true dream, Leo. Might be something you ate.”

  “Cyrilla, listen. Dreamspeaking runs in my family. And the Guardian is the most proficient. She can bend dreams. Rosa has always been strong-willed.”

  “What does Rosa want, then?”

  “It’s about Dana.”

  I pushed my head closer to the door. If it was about me, I wanted to hear.

  My father sighed. “It’s tearing me up, Cyrilla. I want the child to have some time in the sun. Before.”

  “You know what your father said.”

  “He was wrong.”

  “What did Rosa say?”

  “She said: ‘Give her freedom, Leo. She has talent, but she will need more than that, much more. The world is changing. I can see a long way from my tower. Birds bring me news, the wind sighs of new things. Still distant, but coming nearer is a change. Dana must be strong if we are to weather this, our doom.’”

  “What does that mean?” My mother’s voice was sharp.

  Daddy laughed. “You expect a clear answer in a dream? You should have seen her, Cyrilla. So old. Worn out.”

  “Of course she looks older, Leovane. She is older. We all look older.”

  “You don’t, my love,” said my father. I could hear them kissing and wished they’d stop so I could hear more about my father’s dream.

  There was a sigh. “Leovane. Go to sleep, my love. We’ll worry about this in the morning.”

  My father chuckled. “At least it’s warm in here.” Then there was silence.

  I sat
on the other side of the doorway, my hand on the wood. What was I to do? My nightmare was fading. I suddenly felt embarrassed, aware of the draft pouring up the stairwell and the cold stones under my feet. I didn’t want to get caught here.

  For once, Nurse didn’t say anything when I went back down the stairs, just threw her cloak around me. She sent the servant and the sentry back to their posts and I forgot that I was thirteen and supposed to be independent. I leant into her, grateful for her warmth.