Heart of Stars (16 page)

‘Back
…
’ he said, very quietly. ‘So that was it? I was dead?’

‘Aye,’ Isabeau said, wiping her face with her free hand. ‘Ye were dead, but now ye are alive again. We saved ye.’ She laid down her head on Dide’s hand. She could speak no more.

‘Can we go home now?’ Ghislaine asked with a quaver in her voice.

‘We’ll go at dawn,’ Cailean said. ‘I’ve no doubt it would be best if we all spent a week in bed first, but I’m
sure I’m no’ the only one that canna wait to shake the dust o’ this graveyard off my feet.’

‘Och, aye!’ Donncan agreed. ‘We’ll go to Rhyssmadill. It’s only a short walk to the castle from the Tomb o’ Ravens, and there’s staff there who’ll be able to feed us and look after us. I’ll be able to send a message to Lucescere right away.’

To Bronwen
, he thought.
My wife …
‘We must time it very carefully,’ Cailean said, glancing at Stormstrider who nodded gravely. ‘I guess it would be easiest to return on the night o’ the full moon, which is two weeks from the time we left. That way we can be sure we do no’ run into ourselves.’

Ghislaine shuddered. ‘That would be horrible,’ she said in a low, intense voice.

It is an impossibility
, Stormstrider said.
The universe could not endure such wrongness.

‘What would happen?’ Cailean asked, his eyes alive with interest.

Stormstrider shook his head and shrugged expressively.

The centre could not hold
, Cloudshadow said.
The universe would splinter. We would find ourselves in another world, another universe, like unto ours but not ours.

‘Another universe?’

She nodded her head.
So our songs say, and they are wise.

‘Would we ken?’ Cailean thought aloud. ‘Or would we wander around in another Eileanan, never realising we’ve caused the world to split? I wonder how many times it has happened already? Are we the original world or only the facsimile? And if so, how many worlds have me in them, living another life? I wonder how many o’ me there are? And how many Ghislaines?’

‘Dinna!’ Ghislaine cried.

‘Only one,’ Cailean said, his eyes softening. ‘There could only ever be one Ghislaine.’

They were much of a height, the young sorcerer and sorceress. Their eyes met, and colour rose in Ghislaine’s cheeks. In all the years Donncan had known her, he had never before seen the dream-walker blush.

‘All this time-travelling has worn us out,’ he said. ‘Stormstrider is right. It is a wrongness. I am glad we can go home now.’

‘All I want is a long hot bath, and a fire, and a big bed with clean sheets,’ Ghislaine said.

‘Sounds good to me,’ Cailean said, and she glanced at him and smiled in such a way that it was his turn to flush.

‘We need to hide any sign that we’ve been here,’ Donncan said with a sigh, looking down at the clutter of bones and dirt and tools. ‘We’d best get to work right away, then I’ll take the tools back to the farm, and we’ll do our best to hide the grave again. Aunty Beau, do ye think ye are strong enough to encourage the grass and weeds to grow all over the dirt again?’

‘I think so,’ Isabeau answered with a tremulous smile.

‘Excellent. Let’s get to work then.’

They simply kicked Brann’s bones back into the hole and threw his coffin down on top of him, then all set to with a will, to bury him deep under the earth again. Dobhailen once again proved immensely useful, digging the earth back into the hole joyfully.

Isabeau had got to her feet with a weary sigh, but Ghislaine stopped her with one hand on her arm. ‘Ye’re exhausted,’ she said gently. ‘These past few weeks have been utter hell. Go with Dide, lie down and rest. There are enough hands here to get the job done.’

Isabeau looked at her gratefully. ‘Thanks,’ she said, and taking Dide’s hand, they went together to lie for the last time in the shelter of the hemlock tree, where moonlight struck down through the leaves and branches and made for them a canopy of mottled silver.

‘I thought I had lost ye,’ Isabeau murmured. ‘I thought ye were dead and gone. Oh, Dide! I am so sorry, so very sorry!’

He did not speak, looking up through the formalised shape of leaf and twig.

‘Will ye ever be able to forgive me?’ she said.

‘I dinna ken,’ he said at last.

There was silence between them.

‘I ken I am no’ being fair,’ he said. ‘I ken it was my idea to stand sacrifice for ye. But
…
but
…
’

‘I am so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I did my best, Dide. I fought and fought, but the spell
…
it was so strong. It almost broke me.’

‘I think it broke me,’ Dide said quietly.

She took his hand and kissed it passionately. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Ye are the strongest o’ us all. Ye must no’ say so. Ye must no’ let Brann have any victory over us. We stood together, and we beat him, and he is dead again and in his grave, and ye are alive. Alive, Dide!’

‘Alive,’ he repeated, and looked up at the vast and implacable beauty of the night sky. ‘Aye, I’m alive,’ he said, and stretched out his arms and legs, and suddenly smiled up at the sky. ‘What an adventure!’ he cried. ‘Eà’s eyes! I have died and I live again. How many other men can say that?’

‘None I ken,’ Isabeau said, and curled her body against his, suddenly so desperately weary she thought she might swoon. Lying there, his shoulder under her cheek, his arm about her waist, both of them staring into eternity,
Isabeau thought she felt the earth spin beneath her, and she was suddenly deliriously happy.

‘Alive,’ Dide whispered.

Rhiannon was flying through a cold, rough, rainy wind, her numb hands clenched in Blackthorn’s mane, when she saw something ahead that made her raise her face in wonder and a little fear.

It was a blazing line of silver light, drawn across the horizon with a sure hand. It was like a slash in the underbelly of the gloomy sky spilling out quicksilver, or like a chink under a heavy grey curtain, allowing a glimpse of a realm made purely of light. Rhiannon had never seen such a thing before. It made her heart quicken and lift, and her eyes dilate. Sensing her sudden accelerated pulse, Blackthorn raised her head and neighed loudly. Rhiannon soothed her with one hand on her neck, even while she leant forward, willing the horse to fly faster, to take her closer to that miraculous shining line of light.

They had already flown far that day. The past week had been one of constant motion, where they seemed to
fly and fly, yet never gain any ground. The forest over which they flew all looked the same, and no matter how hard Rhiannon drove herself and her horse, they were never able to catch up with the lord of Fettercairn.

He seemed to have an uncanny instinct for knowing when she was near, and Rhiannon had been taken by surprise more than once by a sudden flight of arrows out of the dense forest below her. To have so caught her unawares, the archers must have been hidden in the treetops waiting for her, and Rhiannon was forced to be more careful, terrified her beloved winged mare could be injured.

Finn and Jay had also found it hard to come anywhere near the lord of Fettercairn. Their progress had been hampered by the persistently foul weather. So concentrated was the rain and fog and hail upon their stretch of road that they were all convinced the weather was being manipulated by Lord Malvern to slow their pursuit.

‘He can whistle the wind, that’s for sure,’ Finn had said gloomily, ‘we saw that at Lucescere Loch. Why no’ mist and rain too?’

Rhiannon had told them about the unnatural storms that had plagued them in the Fetterness Valley, and how Lord Malvern had once been an apprentice-witch at the Tower of Ravens, where he would have learnt the rudiments of controlling the One Power.

‘Our only chance is to get ahead o’ him and stop him on the road,’ Jay had said. ‘Do ye think ye can outfly him, Rhiannon?’

‘O’ course,’ she had answered. ‘Blackthorn’s as fleet as the wind!’

So Rhiannon and Blackthorn had flown as fast as they could through the storm and out the far side, to find much fairer weather ahead, and signs of Lord Malvern’s lead stretching. So, armed with the Banrìgh’s letter and
precise instructions from Finn and Jay, Rhiannon had roused the men of a small mountain village called Sligsachen. They had set up a stout barrier across the road, and guarded it well with men armed with bows and arrows, pitchforks and heavy staves.

Despite all their commands to stop, Lord Malvern’s men had simply whipped up their team of six huge carthorses and ploughed straight through the barrier, knocking over one of the local men and injuring him badly. Gerard, the lord’s librarian, was shot and fell from the dray, its iron-bound wheels rolling over him and crushing him into the ground. The archers swore at least another three arrows had found a mark, though evidently not accurately enough to kill. It made no difference. The lord galloped on, and Rhiannon found the dray abandoned some miles on, with signs that the lord’s party had followed a goat track into the hills. The six carthorses had been abandoned too, without feed or water, their great shoulders and backs cruelly lacerated from the repeated lash of a whip.

Rhiannon did what she could for them, finding a stream where they could drink and she could wash their cuts and smear on some of the heal-all balm she carried in her pack. She used up the last of her oats to make a warm porridge that they all shared, and then she showed them the way back to Sligsachen. She was sure there was someone in the village who would have use for them, and feed them and care for them.

The carthorses went slowly and wearily, and she sighed, feeling the same heavy fatigue weighing down her bones. Blackthorn did not wish to fly any more, and Rhiannon was anxious not to miss any tracks that might show which way the lord of Fettercairn and his party were headed. So she led her exhausted horse up the steep
path at an easy pace, her bluebird darting on ahead of her through the overarching trees, catching bugs in its beak.

As the light faded away into an early dusk, Rhiannon found a dead man lying on the side of the goat track, and recognised the lord’s valet, Herbert. They had not even taken the time to lay him out neatly, or cover his face. He lay tumbled on the side of the track, an arrow still protruding from his back. Rhiannon did not like dead people. She left him as he lay, telling herself the imploring voice she heard in her ears was just her imagination.

She had found plenty of evidence of Owein and Olwynne along the way – a discarded silver shoe, some long red feathers from the prionnsa’s wings caught in the bushes, scraps of their fine satin clothes, a bloody footprint on a stepping stone across a stream. She was relieved to know they still lived, having feared the lord of Fettercairn would grow weary of their dogged pursuit and kill them out of hand.

Two days later, the track led her out onto another road, a wider thoroughfare with waystones engraved with a large ‘R’ marking out the miles. Here she found further proof of the lord’s utter ruthlessness. Evidently the villains had come across a peddler, for Rhiannon found his body thrown down by the side of the road amidst a clutter of pots and pans, spades, bolts of cloth, unravelling coils of ribbon, and the poor, pathetic corpse of a little black-and-white dog.

Her stomach twisting with revulsion, Rhiannon straightened the peddler’s limbs and covered him with a length of fine red twill, tucking the little dog up beside him. It was all she had time to do. She was now even more determined to catch up with her enemy and bring him to some kind of justice. The death of the little dog had angered her the most. It was so unnecessary.

On she flew, catching up with the lord by that afternoon. The peddler’s stolen caravan was being pulled by a fat, spotted pony who had never felt the lash of the whip in her life. Now she was galloping for dear life, Kennard laying about her ears with the whip, the caravan bouncing madly behind them. Dedrie and Piers both sat up on the seat beside Kennard, clutching on as tightly as they could, while Jem and Ballard hung off the back. Of the others, there was no sign. Rhiannon could only guess they were all inside the caravan.

Careful not to be seen, Rhiannon wheeled away and urged Blackthorn on to greater speed. Weary as she was, the mare responded magnificently and Rhiannon came that evening into a fairly large town, called Mullrannoch, an hour or two ahead of Lord Malvern. She sent her bluebird with a note to Finn and Jay, telling them where she was, then went to find the town reeve. He agreed to barricade the road and find men willing to arm it. It took much of the afternoon, Rhiannon determined that this time it would be stout enough to withstand any assault, and then they all waited in the rainy darkness, straining their ears for any sound of hooves. The night plodded past with no sign of any peddler’s caravan, or any other traveller. The men were all understandably angry and sarcastic, having spent the night shivering in a nasty wet wind, but Rhiannon begged them to continue standing guard. In the thin, grey dawn, they at last heard hooves approaching fast. The reeve raised his pistol, calling out fiercely, ‘Halt! Halt, I say, in the name o’ the Banrìgh!’

The hooves clattered to a halt and then, to her dismay, Rhiannon heard her name being called. It was Finn and Jay and their soldiers they had bailed up, all wet through, exhausted and in as foul a temper as the reeve. Somehow the lord had escaped in the night.

Everyone was so frustrated and weary, they retired to the village inn for hot porridge laced with whisky, and mugs of steaming tea by the fire. Finn the Cat was clearly unwell; she spent ten minutes or more loudly throwing up in the privy, then sat morosely nursing her cup, and snarling at her husband every time he opened his mouth. Wet through, the black elven cat sat on the hearth, its tufted ears laid flat on its skull, licking itself dry and glaring with slitted eyes at anyone foolhardy enough to try to warm themselves by the hastily stoked-up fire. Rhiannon was careful to keep her bluebird on her shoulder. The evil-tempered elven cat had already stalked the little bird as it fluttered about the common room, and had managed to snatch a mouthful of blue tail feathers.

Rhiannon had hardly slept in three days, and the floor was rolling strangely under her feet. Jay quietly paid for a room each for her and his wife, who swore at him when he insisted on taking her up to bed, but nonetheless went willingly enough in the end. Rhiannon did not blame her. The idea of cuddling up in a warm bed and listening to the rain streaming down the windows sounded like bliss to her too. Blackthorn was snug enough in the stable, with two young grooms overwhelmed with the privilege of caring for her, and Rhiannon was simply too tired and dispirited to even think of trying to find out how Lord Malvern had got past them.

The reeve came in the miserable dusk of that evening to tell them. Rhiannon and Finn had both slept most of the day and were breaking their fast by the warmth of a fire in the common room. It continued nasty outside, with hail battering the old inn and clouds hanging close about the village. The reeve was flushed with self-importance, standing dripping on the hearth with his legs apart and his hand on his sword. The miscreants had apparently
abandoned the horse and caravan at the first sight of the town lights, he said portentously, and circled round the village on foot. They were long gone now.

Finn wept to think how worn out the poor prionnsa and banprionnsa must be, soaked to the skin, squelching through the mud of the fields after the punishing pace the lord of Fettercairn had set those past few days.

‘Oh, Eà grant them strength,’ she cried, ‘and forgive me for failing them!’

‘Finn,’ Jay said placatingly.

Finn crossed her arms over her stomach, her hazel eyes bright with angry tears. ‘O’ all the bad timing!’ she cried.

‘Dinna say that, dearling. No time is bad timing for us, and it is no fault o’ the babe’s that the weather has been so bad, and Lord Malvern’s plans so well laid.’

Rhiannon looked from one to the other.

Finn looked cross. ‘Still they elude us though! I should’ve caught them by now. It’s ridiculous! More than a week in the chase and still they keep giving me the slip. It’s no’ good enough.’

‘We will catch up with them, never ye fear, my darling,’ Jay said. ‘It is better that we stop and rest and think about our next move than we keep running around the countryside in circles. Ye were exhausted and so was Rhiannon. Let’s take another night to rest up, and in the morning, when we are all fresh, we’ll think about what to do next.’

Finn gave a harsh, ironic laugh. ‘Fresh? In the morning? Me?’

Jay smiled at her. ‘Go to bed, Finn. Ye’ll feel better after a good night’s rest, I promise ye. They canna have gone far in this blaygird weather. In the morning we’ll have fresh horses and locals to advise us on the roads, and Rhiannon to fly ahead and scout. We’ll catch up with them tomorrow, I promise.’

Yet when they rose in the morning, refreshed and eager to set off, it was only to find that someone had spent the night stealing or slaughtering every horse in the village, including Finn and Jay’s own weary mounts. Only Blackthorn had escaped the massacre, by knocking down her midnight assailant and escaping on wing. Lord Malvern’s coachman, Kennard, was found unconscious in the straw of her stall, the two young grooms lying nearby in spreading pools of blood, their throats slit.

Rhiannon was distraught. She had been so weary that she had slept heavily, waking in the late morn in exactly the same position she had fallen asleep. She remembered nothing of the night, not a dream, not a sound, not a feeling of disquiet. All the soldiers had slept as heavily, and Finn and Jay, and the innkeeper and his wife too, and no-one could help suspecting their food or drink had been doctored. They had all eaten from the same pot of vegetable stew, but who would have had the audacity to slip into the inn’s kitchen and drug the stew with so many people bustling about?

‘Dedrie,’ Rhiannon said darkly.

‘So bold,’ Finn said, half-admiringly. ‘What a risk to run! What if ye had seen her?’

‘She would probably have slit my throat like those poor lads,’ Rhiannon answered.

‘Aye, why did they have to kill them?’ Finn asked, her mouth twisting. ‘A quick knock on the head
…
’

‘They seem to like killing,’ Rhiannon said.

Jay was white with anger. ‘This laird o’ Fettercairn has much to answer for,’ he said quietly. ‘We must stop him! There is no point us trying to catch up with him now, I think. He has horses and we do no’. We come close to the sea now. He will have a ship waiting for him, probably in one o’ the hundreds o’ little coves on the Ravenshaw
coast. Finn, ye and I will backtrack to the river and get ourselves to Dùn Gorm. The Banrìgh will have made sure
The Royal Stag
is armed and provisioned and ready to go. We’ll see if we canna catch him on the open sea.’

‘Wonderful,’ Finn said with a groan. ‘A good dose o’ seasickness is just what I need.’

‘Ye can stay in Dùn Gorm,’ Jay said, looking troubled.

‘Stay behind? No, thank ye! I’ll be just fine. The sea air will do me good.’

‘Well, then, if ye’re sure
…
’

‘Sure I’m sure. I’ll scry to Nina right now and let her ken our plans,’ Finn said. ‘She will get a message to the palace for us.’

‘What o’ me?’ Rhiannon asked. ‘Should I no’ fly after them, see where they go?’

‘Aye, that would be best,’ Jay said. ‘Do no’ put yourself in danger, though, Rhiannon. These are cruel, ruthless men, they’d have no hesitation in shooting ye out o’ the sky.’

‘They could never catch me,’ Rhiannon said scornfully, and was rewarded by Finn’s quick nod.

‘That’s the spirit, lass,’ the sorceress said. ‘I wish I had the time to teach ye to scry, though. It’d be good if ye could send us word o’ where the blaygird laird is heading.’