The Forbidden Land (4 page)

She sat back on her heels, and smoothed the cloth out over her knees. A rather odd-looking yellow hand was sewn clumsily onto the sky-blue cloth, with broad yellow stripes angling out from it, meant to signify rays. It was the original flag of the League of the Healing Hand and it brought a sting of tears to Finn’s eyes. After a long moment, she folded it up again and thrust it into the pillowcase with the spikes and pulleys and her little hammer.

Eventually Finn’s temper died and she was left feeling very low and dispirited. She sat in her chair in front of the fire, moodily jabbing the logs with the poker. The sound of a key in the door brought her flying upright but it was only her maid-in-waiting, Raina, with a tray of food. Accompanying her were two stern-faced guards. Finn stood silently, her chin up, her hands clenched before her, as Raina put the tray on the table before the fire and retreated with a mocking glance that said, more clearly than words, ‘Serve ye right, ye muffin-faced brat.’

At first Finn decided she would not touch any of the food but after a while the smell of the mutton stew broke down her defences and she ate hungrily, telling herself she needed to keep her strength up if she was to escape the castle. She wrapped up the bread, cheese and fruit in one of her pillowcases, and wished that she had not been so hasty in drawing her knife, since she would surely need one on her travels. Despite her isolation all afternoon, Finn had not lost her resolve to quit the home of her forebears.

The next morning dawned bright and clear. Finn hung out the window, smelling the wind and cursing fluently. Here it was, as still and warm as summer, and she was locked up like a criminal in her own castle!

Suddenly her eyes lit with excitement. A procession of caravans was winding up the steep road to the castle, their parrot-bright colours vivid in the sunshine.

‘Jongleurs!’ she cried. ‘Happen they’ll have news o’ the court!’

The little cat perched on her shoulder gave a plaintive miaow. Only then did Finn remember her incarceration and her smile faded. ‘Surely mam will let me out to see the jongleurs?’ she said to the elven cat, who only slitted her aquamarine eyes in response. With a sinking heart, Finn watched the jongleurs’ brightly painted caravans cross the drawbridge and disappear within the thick walls of the castle.

All day Finn paced her rooms, waiting for her mother to relent and send someone to let her out. When Raina brought her a tray of black bread and cheese, she begged the maid to tell her when she would be set free. Raina shrugged, lifted an eyebrow and went away without a word, and Finn suddenly wished she had been nicer to her maid. She had thought of her maid as the front line of her gaolers, however, and had often spied on her to gain information that she could use as leverage to stop Raina reporting her movements to her mother. Now Finn was paying for her underhand ways—and the debt was high.

She watched the guards shut her bedroom door with mingled fury, frustration and misery choking her throat. It seemed Gwyneth’s determination was as great as her own. Unable to help feeling a new sense of respect for her mother, Finn sat and toyed with her meagre rations, making and discarding one plan after another.

Without a reliable rope or climbing equipment, Finn was loath to attempt the perilous descent from her window. She was more determined than ever not to apologise for thumping Brangaine, yet she longed to escape the confines of her room and enjoy the rare entertainment the jongleurs offered. There had been six caravans in the procession, which promised a wide variety of performers. There would be music and singing without a doubt, and juggling and acrobatics, and maybe even a performing bear, like Finn had seen in Lucescere. The jongleurs would bring news as well, which Finn was hungry to hear. She could escape her rooms by trickery but that would only make her mother angry and she would be locked up again as soon as she was found—and how could she watch the jongleurs and listen to their tales of the court and the countryside if she was being chased all over the castle? Unless, of course, they could not see her …

Finn whiled away the long, dreary afternoon as best she could, waiting until it was time for Raina to bring her dinner. At last the sun sank down behind the mountains and darkness fell over the rank upon rank of serried pine trees. Finn flung open the window so that the evening breeze swept into the room, sending the heavy curtains swaying and riffling the pages of her books upon the table. She knotted the rope about the post of her bed and threw it out the window, then drew out the little square of silk she always carried with her in her pocket. Finn shook it out into the long black cloak and wrapped it about her, pulling the hood over her head. A little snap of static, a shudder of cold, ran over her. She rubbed her arms, moving her shoulders uneasily. Goblin miaowed, and she bent and picked up the little cat, sliding her into the cloak’s deep pocket.

At last Finn heard the bolt sliding back and the grate of the key in the lock. She stood silently in the shadows, trying to breathe as shallowly as she could. Then the door swung open and a ray of light struck into the dark, cold room. Raina’s portly form was silhouetted against the lantern flare. She stepped forward hesitantly, a tray in her hands. ‘My lady?’ she called. When there was no response, she called again. At the note of alarm in Raina’s voice the guards stepped forward, one holding up the lamp. Its flame leapt and guttered in the wind.

As Raina and the guards searched her rooms, Finn slipped silently out the door and down the corridor. A deep thrill of gratification ran through her veins.
They thought to keep Finn the Cat locked up but I’ve shown them now
, she thought.

As she hurried down the back staircase, Finn could hear the sound of music and laughter from the grand hall. She slipped soundlessly along one of the side passages and in through the servants’ door at the back. She hid herself behind the heavy velvet curtains hanging down from the gallery and peeped out through the crack.

Down three sides of the great vaulted room ran long tables where the men and women of the castle sat, the boards before them loaded with platters of meat and bread and roasted vegetables and jugs of ale and spiced wine.

Gwyneth sat at the high table with her niece and son and the principal gentlemen and ladies-in-waiting, while at the two long side tables sat the bard and the harper, the seneschal, the sennachie, the purse-bearer and cup-bearer, and the other men and ladies-in-waiting, all sitting according to their rank and position. Behind most of the nobility stood their personal servants, all wearing their master’s livery and expressions of the utmost superciliousness. As the kitchen staff brought in the heavy trays and dumped them on a side table, the squires would all leap forward and squabble over the choicest pieces of meat or game, which they would then present to their master or mistress with bent knee.

At the tables at the far end of the room sat the highest-ranking servants. They did not usually eat in the grand hall but had been admitted so they too could watch the jongleurs. They did not eat from gilt-edged porcelain plates like those at the high tables, but used trenchers of black bread instead, piling them high with mutton and potato stew and any scraps of roast stag or pheasant or honeyed pork that the nobility scorned to eat or throw to the dogs squabbling under the tables. When the juices of the stew had soaked the bread so it was too soft to use as a plate, they ssozate it or threw it down to the dogs, seizing another from the wooden platter in the centre of their table.

While the crowd feasted, they were entertained by the jongleurs who performed in the centre of the room. Finn craned her neck to see, but her view was obscured by the castle cook’s massive form. All she could see was a juggler’s swiftly rising circle of golden balls, then a sudden whirl of colour as an acrobat somersaulted high into the rafters.

The hall was bright with firelight and candlelight so that even the lofty vaulted ceiling was clearly illuminated. Finn hesitated, then bit her lip, pulled the hood even closer about her face, and slipped out from the shelter of the curtains. Having to dodge and sidestep to avoid the hurrying servants, she made her way up the length of the hall until she could step up onto the dais where the high table was set.

Many of the tall ornately carved chairs at the high table were empty, since Finn’s father Anghus and most of his men were still absent. Finn slowly eased out one of the chairs, wincing a little as the wooden foot scraped on the floor. Waiting until everyone’s attention was transfixed by the fire-eater swallowing a flaming torch, Finn slipped into the chair and sat down on the soft leather seat, leaning her elbows on the table.

She watched in delight as the fire-eater bent backwards till his long ponytail was brushing the floor, then thrust the flaming torch down his throat, closing his mouth over the blaze so his cheeks glowed red. Slowly, theatrically, he withdrew the torch, now black and smoking, then pulled himself upright, his cheeks still bulging and glowing with that weird red light. From his pursed lips curled a tendril of smoke, then he spat out a long blast of flame that scorched her face. Finn leant back instinctively, trying not to scream with the others.

The fire-eater juggled six blazing torches, swallowed them one by one, then used his fiery breath to ignite a hoop of paper. A black-eyed girl around Finn’s age somersaulted through the ring of flame, then cartwheeled away down the hall as the fire-eater began to juggle daggers and swords back and forth with a young man in a sky-blue jerkin and a crimson velvet cap with a bhanais bird’s feather. A cluricaun in a green satin doublet skipped in to dance a jig between them, the bells on his toes and around his neck chiming as he whirled and pranced amidst the vortex of spinning knives.

Further down the hall Finn could see two boys stalking about on high stilts, their ridiculous hats brushing against the rafters. A man with a forked beard the colour of flax was entertaining the servants’ table with card tricks and a fast-paced patter of jokes, while a woman leant nearby, strumming a guitar. Other musicians wandered about, playing fiddles or flutes, or rattling tambourines tied up with many-coloured ribbons.

The black-eyed girl was now doing a series of elegant back flips that took her right across the hall, then did a handspring that took her up into the rafters where she swung upside down like a brightly coloured arak. Then she somersaulted down, landing on the shoulders of the crimson-capped man, who had the same bright eyes as she did, black as pools of ink. She leapt down lightly and they bowed to tumultuous applause.

Wishing that she was an acrobat instead of a banprionnsa, Finn waited until everyone was watching the young jongleur, who was demonstrating her incredible flexibility. Finn then slowly reached out her hand and slid a slice of roast pheasant from the platter in front of her. Glancing about to make sure no-one was watching, she slipped it into the shelter of the cloak and shared it with the elven cat. Both of them had had nothing but prisoner’s rations to eat for two days now and they were starving. Finn was glad to eat, for the comfort as well as the sustenance. Somehow the cloak of invisibility always made her feel uncomfortable, as if it were made of some prickly material rather than the silkiest of fabrics. It rubbed her up the wrong way, causing her hair to snap with static and her flesh to rise in goosebumps. It was like wrapping herself in the cold and deadness of a winter night, rather than in something to keep her warm. She was always rather glad to hide it away in her pocket once more, though she was never able to leave it in her chest of drawers or in her cupboard, always needing to have it where her fingers could brush it at a whim.

Finn was just stealing a little meat pie from the plate of the man next to her when she felt a little prickle of unease. She glanced about and saw her brother Aindrew was staring her way with an open mouth and an expression of the utmost bewilderment. She looked down and realised it must look as if the meat pie was floating through the air. With a chuckle she concealed it within her sleeve then ate it quickly, trying not to let any flakes of pastry fall out of her mouth. She was tempted to pour wine into a goblet just so he could see a jug lift and pour out a stream of red liquid all by itself. She resisted the temptation and was glad she had when she saw Brangaine was also gazing at her apparently empty chair with some amazement. A meat pie falling from the edge of a plate could be put down to natural causes; a pouring jug could not.

The next time Finn took one of the delicious meat pies she was careful to drop a fold of the cloak over it before lifting it so it too would be concealed by the magic of the garment. After a while Aindrew stopped glancing her way every few minutes, too entranced by the jongleurs to bother about a floating meat pie. Brangaine was not so easily distracted. Finn felt her gaze often and was careful not to draw any more attention to herself, invisible or not.

No-one at the castle knew about the magical cloak. Finn had guarded its secret carefully.

She had first found the cloak in the relics room at the Tower of Two Moons during the Samhain rebellion that had overthrown Maya the Ensorcellor and given Lachlan the throne. In gratitude for their help, he had allowed each of the eight members of the League of the Healing Hand to choose one treasure to have for their own. Finn had chosen an ancient hunting horn embossed with the shape of a running wolf, because the same emblem was on the medallion she wore around her neck. She had not then known that the wolf was the badge of the MacRuraich clan and that the horn had the power to call up the ghosts of the clan’s long-dead warriors. She had only discovered the horn’s magic later, when she had blown the horn in a desperate call for help and had received assistance of the most unexpected kind.

The older boys had chosen swords or daggers, except for Jay the Fiddler, who had taken a beautiful old viola, and Parlan, who had chosen a silver goblet with a crystal in the stem. Johanna the Mild had chosen a jewelled bracelet while her baby brother Connor had wanted a music box.

Chance had caused Finn to pick up the cloak as well. At the time she had told herself that since she had been the one to face all the danger in climbing the wall, she should have something more than the others. She had kept the cloak secret, without really knowing why.

Like the horn, the cloak had proved to be magical, hiding anyone who wore it under a guise of invisibility that not even the most powerful sorcerer could penetrate. Finn had used it to escape the Awl, then Lachlan had hidden himself in it while he confronted his dying brother. Later, Maya the Ensorcellor had stolen the cloak to escape Lachlan’s wrath. Most thought she must have the magical cloak still, for it had not been found during the clean-up after the Samhain victory. Only Finn knew that she had used her own clairvoyant talents to search for it through the maze, finding it at last under a hedge near the Pool of Two Moons where Maya and Lachlan had had their last confrontation. She had folded it up and hidden it in her pocket and told no-one, not even when Meghan had instigated a frantic search for it during the ensuing days. She had brought the cloak of invisibility back with her to Castle Rurach and used it often to escape the scrutiny of her attendants or to eavesdrop on the conversations of the servants.

Just then Finn saw her maid Raina speaking in a low voice to her mother’s chief lady-in-waiting, Lady Anne Montgomery. Her fat old face was distressed. Finn tensed. She watched as Lady Anne allowed Raina to approach the high table. She curtsied respectfully, then bent down low to speak to the banprionnsa. Gwyneth’s face whitened until she looked as though she might faint. She gave a few quick orders then leant back in her chair, sipping at her wine, trying to hide her distress. Raina hurried away and Finn watched as various officers were called away from the tables. They went with worried faces and Finn could not help feeling a certain satisfaction. She sat back to enjoy the show, knowing that half the castle guard would now be searching for her. Not one could possibly guess that she sat in their very midst, under the blaze of the chandelier, and only a few chairs down from her mother.