Heart of Stars (26 page)

‘Stowaways on the royal ship!’ Captain Dillon cried thunderously. ‘How is this possible?’

‘They have passes, sir. I dinna ken how. They must’ve used them to get on board ship when we were getting the stores aboard. There were men everywhere, sir, and boys too, loading up the provisions and the weapons, and
helping make the ship seaworthy. They must have snuck into the store hold then, sir.’

Captain Dillon looked utterly furious. ‘Find out for me who was responsible for securing the ship’s safety while the Dowager Banrìgh was on board, and bring him here,’ he cried, over the roar of the storm. ‘Drop those ship-rats here first!’

‘Aye, sir!’ the soldiers said and let go of the two stowaways, who fell to their knees before him.

‘Who are ye, and what is your business on board this ship?’ Captain Dillon commanded.

One of the stowaways lifted a pale, grimy face. ‘Please, sir, it’s no’ Landon’s fault. It was all my idea. Ye see, I wanted
…
we wanted
…
’ The stowaway’s voice failed, and one hand came up to scrub furiously at wet eyes.

‘Fèlice?’ Nina said incredulously.

Just then another great wave broke over the prow and came rushing down the deck, knocking sailors off their feet and swirling about the masts. Captain Dillon gripped tight to the rail with both hands until the water had subsided again. Then he looked down very sternly at the two scruffy figures at his feet. They had only managed to avoid being swept away by seizing his legs with both hands.

‘Thank ye, ye can let go o’ my boots now,’ he said coldly.

‘Aye, sir, sorry, sir,’ they said and released his ankles.

‘Fèlice, Landon, is that ye?’ Nina asked, and came forward with a rush. So dirty and shabby were the two figures that she could barely recognise them, especially Fèlice whose cropped hair stuck up all over her head like a hearth brush.

‘Aye, Nina, it’s us,’ Landon said unhappily.

‘Landon?’ Rafferty cried. ‘What are ye doing here? Eà’s eyes, is that ye, Fèlice? What have ye done to your hair?’

‘Cut it,’ Fèlice answered defiantly.

‘Did ye stow away?’ Cameron demanded. ‘Gracious alive, what a lark!’

‘Such bad luck they had to come and check on the gunpowder,’ Fèlice said. ‘We’d been there for days and days and no-one was the wiser.’

The other witches had all gathered around, exclaiming in surprise and some amusement as Nina explained tersely who the miscreants were. Iseult, however, was not amused.

‘Lady Fèlice, what are ye doing here? Ye are too auld for such a silly, childish prank. This is no’ some pleasure cruise!’

As she spoke, another huge wave crashed over the prow of the ship, as if to prove the truth of her words.

‘I ken that,’ Fèlice cried, struggling to hold her feet. ‘Ye think we do no’ understand how desperate a mission this is? We ken Laird Malvern! We have seen what he is capable o’. Do ye no’ realise
…
do ye no’ see
…
we couldna just stay behind and wait! Owein is in terrible, terrible danger! Do ye think I could just sit around and do naught to try and help save him?’

‘And Olwynne,’ Iseult said softly.

Fèlice blushed so hotly the colour could be seen through all the grime. ‘Aye, o’ course. And Olwynne.’

There was a short silence, in which the tortured groaning of the ship’s timbers and the howl of the wind seemed louder than ever.

‘Would ye have just sat around and watched the clock, waiting for news?’ Fèlice demanded, tears spilling down her face.

‘Nay, I do no’ think I would,’ Iseult answered. ‘But then, I am a Scarred Warrior. Ye are a gently reared court lady. What do ye possibly think ye could do to help?’

Fèlice clenched her hands into fists and stared up at Iseult rebelliously. ‘We could lend our strength to the magic circle,’ she said. ‘We are apprentice-witches, ye ken, and quite well trained, thanks to the court sorceress at Ravenscraig. And Landon’s very strong, he’ll be a sorcerer one day. If ye pull in Rafferty and Cameron too, ye’ll have almost a full circle, that’s got to be better than only half a circle, even though they’ve got more bone between their ears than brains.’

As she spoke, she made a face at the two squires who grimaced back at her.

Iseult looked down at Fèlice with something like respect dawning in her eyes. ‘Captain Dillon, we called upon ye once afore to make up a full circle, may we do so again?’ she asked, not taking her eyes off the scruffy, crop-haired girl standing so defiantly before her.

‘As ye command, Your Highness,’ Captain Dillon replied, though it was clear from his tone of voice that he hated being asked to serve in such a way.

‘Briant, do ye think we can harness the wind if we had a full circle o’ thirteen witches?’

‘We can but try,’ Briant answered. ‘Certainly, a wee bit o’ fire willna go astray.’ And he cast Fèlice a look of admiration as he stepped back to his position at the centre of the circle.

The other witches made up their ring of linked hands. With Dillon, Cameron, Rafferty, Landon and Fèlice joining in, there were now thirteen in the circle, the preferred number for working powerful magic. Once again Nina raised her beautiful silvery voice against the roar of the waves and the wind. The other twelve added their voices to hers. Round and round the chant wove, sucking up power into an invisible whirlwind of pure energy. They felt its tingle on their skin, felt the hairs rise on their
body and tasted its metallic tang on their tongues. It roared about them, drowning out the sound of the storm and the ship, filling their ears and eyes and mouths. They shouted the last words of the chant and flung up their arms. Fèlice saw a cone of blue-white fire spring up about them. Stormy Briant took the power they gave him and spun it into a rope of sizzling white. He seized the wind and knotted his rope about it, and then, shouting aloud in exultation, he rode the storm as if it was a living beast, with tossing mane of cloud and rain, fiery eyes of stabbing lightning, and great hooves of thunder that churned the sea behind them into a white maelstrom.

For six long heartbeats the storm fought Briant. The ship was hammered with wild seas that broke first one way, then the other. Briant was high in the sky, then smashed into the water, flung between wave crest and cloudburst, lightning zigzagging all about him. Then, suddenly, there was a long moment of pure stillness and quiet. High above the main mast, Briant rode the wind, the reins of witch-fire drawn tight in his hands. He was laughing. Everyone stared up at him, amazed and frightened.

‘A true storm-rider,’ Cristina whispered, gazing up at Briant with awe and adoration.

Then the wind shifted. It blew strong and sure, dragging their hair into their eyes. The sails filled. The ship leapt forward. With the waves rolling smoothly under the ship’s carved prow, and breaking behind them into a wide white wake, the galleon began to speed towards the Pirate Isles, the rest of the fleet racing behind them.

Darkness had fallen. Rats rustled in the straw. A single ray of moonlight pierced the narrow window and fell upon the wall. Its silvery radiance made the shadows seem impenetrable.

Olwynne sat with her hands folded on her lap, waiting.

She had gone past terror and despair to a place of stillness and acceptance. Tonight she was to die. She was utterly sure of this.

Owein had, up to half an hour ago, still gripped her hands and exhorted her not to lose faith. ‘The Yeomen will get here,’ he had said fiercely. ‘We will be freed on time.’

Then Dedrie had come and forced Olwynne to drink another of her foul potions, and given her a basin of scented water to wash in, then a loose white nightgown to wear. The skeelie had spoken little, but as she had left the cell she had said, with a meaningful look, ‘Both moons are at the full tonight. There’ll be plenty o’ light for us to see by, thank the Truth.’

After that Owein had sat slumped and silent. Olwynne could not see him in the darkness, but she could hear his harsh breathing. Rhiannon lay motionless on the far side of the cell. She had dozed off some time ago, and occasionally whimpered in her sleep, as if dreaming bad dreams.

Olwynne knew her time of dreaming was over. For months her sleep had been stalked by grim visions, of skeletons and gravestones, murder and betrayal. She had seen her father struck down countless times in her dreams, and then once, in waking life. She had seen herself die, hung by a ribbon of blood, cut down by a slashing scythe. Now it was time for these dreams to become real.

Ghislaine had once told her that to sleep in a dream was to die. So Olwynne sat awake, as if to convince herself that she could in the end avoid the death she herself had foreseen. The potion had made her feel very calm and strange, almost as if she was floating. Her feet seemed a long way away from her head. Her hands were heavy and limp and far too cold. Olwynne breathed slowly and steadily. She looked at the delicate filigree of black and silver made by the moonlight falling through straw, her heart aching with its beauty.

She wished she could have seen Lewen one more time. She wished she had not had to ensorcel him. If only his love had been true. If only he had not met Rhiannon. Olwynne could not help thinking that this calamitous turn of events was all due to the satyricorn girl. If Lewen had not met her and fallen in love with her, and gone with her to Fettercairn Castle, and thwarted Lord Malvern in his dreadful deeds, and caused him to be arrested and brought to Lucescere, would she be here now, facing her death? How complex was the tapestry of
people’s lives, she thought. Each thread interwoven with another’s, so that one thread could not be snapped and dragged out without the whole fabric unravelling. If Rhiannon was unravelled from the whole, would her own history be any different? It was impossible to tell. Yet try as she might, Olwynne could not help wishing Rhiannon had never flown into their lives. Then she might have won Lewen to love honestly, and not found herself and himself both twisted awry by her ensorcelment.

She was thinking of this, and trying to ignore the wry voice that pointed out Lewen had never once looked at her with the eyes of a lover, when the door was slammed open. Lamplight fell in, turning the delicate construction of moonlight and shadow back into a horrible, damp, rat-ridden cell. Olwynne looked up, her head feeling as if it was filled with too much oxygen, like a pig’s-bladder balloon that might float up to nudge the ceiling.

Lord Malvern stood in the doorway, his raven perched on his shoulder. Jem stood to one side, bleary-eyed, unshaven and stinking of whisky. Piers stood to the other side, holding high the lantern.

‘Get the sacrifice,’ Lord Malvern ordered.

‘The red one?’

‘Aye. I’m looking forward to seeing MacCuinn blood on my knife.’

‘But dinna the ghost want the black-haired one? She marked her out in the prison.’

‘Do ye think she really cares who dies, as long as she gets to live again? No, if I have to cut someone’s throat, it may as well be the MacCuinn’s daughter, and then I’ll truly feel my revenge is complete.’

‘Och, aye, the red one then,’ Jem said and shambled forward, seizing Olwynne by the arm.

She shuddered. Owein roused and turned, his wings
rustling the straw. She felt the moment when he came awake and realised the time had come. In an instant he was on his feet, rushing the men in the door, frantic with grief and rage. Jem was waiting for him. He had a heavy iron pike in one hand, and he brought it crashing down on Owein’s head. The prionnsa fell and lay still.

Olwynne went down on her knees by his side, and cradled his head with her hands. He was unconscious. She bent and kissed his brow. ‘Goodbye, Owein,’ she whispered, and let a tear fall on his cheek, smearing it away with her thumb. She wondered, not for the first time, if he would feel her death. They had a close, uncanny kinship, as so many twins do, and had often felt inexplicable pangs or twinges that were later explained by news the other had been hurt. Since Olwynne had been a quiet, studious child, and Owein a noisy, adventurous one, it was she who had most often felt the phantom pains. It had never been pleasant. It troubled her that Owein would feel her pain as she died, and perhaps more than pain. What did it feel like to be dead? she wondered.

‘Look at them, aren’t they sweet?’ Jem mocked.

Lord Malvern ignored him. He was listening to Piers who was speaking in a low, urgent undertone. After a moment Lord Malvern waved a negligent hand. ‘Very well, if it’s that important, ye can have her if ye wish,’ he said.

For a brief dizzying moment, Olwynne thought Piers was pleading for her life, but then, as Lord Malvern continued speaking, she realised with a plunge of her heart that Piers was asking for Rhiannon. He wanted to sacrifice her, to raise his mother from the dead.

‘We must raise Falkner and Rory first,’ Lord Malvern was saying, ‘but then, certainly, Piers, if ye wish to use the
dark one to raise your mother, that would be fine. She’s been a thorn in our side from the very beginning, and I’ll be glad to be rid o’ her. Indeed, if it was no’ so fitting that I should sacrifice the MacCuinn’s daughter first, I’d use her now, as payback for all the bother she’s caused us.’

Piers spoke again in the same low voice.

‘Aye, I promise,’ Lord Malvern said angrily. ‘I gave my word to your father that your mother would be the very next to be resurrected years ago. How was I to ken it would take this long to learn the secret?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ Piers said. ‘It need be no trouble for ye, my laird. If ye will give me the spell, and the girl, I will go and do it myself.’ He added hastily, at the frown on Lord Malvern’s face, ‘After we have raised your brother and nephew, o’ course, my laird.’

‘And have ye setting up a circle o’ necromancers yourself? I do no’ think so,’ the lord answered with heavy sarcasm. ‘No, the spell stays with me and me alone.’

‘We need a circle o’ necromancers to do the deed?’ Piers said after a moment. ‘But
…
how, my laird? We have lost
…
we’ve lost a third o’ our circle.’

Olwynne turned and looked up at him. She had wondered how he had felt about the callous abandoning of his ill and elderly father by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. He had hardly spoken since that moment, and she had harboured a hope that he might feel rebellious anger at the lord of Fettercairn, which could, perhaps, be used to turn him against the others. There was nothing in his voice to indicate any such rebellion, however, or even any grief for the loss of his father. This seemed quite horrible to Olwynne.

‘I left that up to Ballard,’ Lord Malvern said, smiling nastily. ‘He’s had a day in Pirate Town. I’m sure he’s found someone willing to help slit a throat for a few gold
coins, even if they have to don a red cloak and chant a few verses to do it.’

It was her throat that was to be slit, Olwynne knew.

‘But
…
is that wise, my laird? We were to keep this business quiet, very quiet.’

‘And so we shall,’ Lord Malvern answered, and the raven cawed aloud in mocking laughter.

‘Are we to stand here gum-flapping all damned night?’ Jem snarled. ‘Do ye no’ want me to grab the girl?’

‘Aye, Jem, grab the girl,’ Lord Malvern said sardonically. ‘Then send Dedrie to look over the boy. We do no’ want him to die because ye’re a wee heavy-handed with your pike. The other girl needs to be tended too. Piers wants her, and so we need to keep her alive long enough to get home to Fettercairn.’

‘Fine,’ Jem responded, and dragged Olwynne to her feet. She did not resist. She took one last look at her brother, lying unconscious in the filthy straw with blood matting his fiery curls, and then let herself be escorted from the cell. The last thing she saw was Rhiannon’s eyes, watching silently from the shadows. There was pity and anguish and a desperate regret in the satyricorn girl’s eyes, and it broke Olwynne’s resolve so she stumbled, tears flowing down her cheeks.

It was a cool, windy night outside, and clouds raced across the faces of the moons. Both were rising out of the sea, and were large and round and golden as new coins, and strangely smooth, as if the pits and hollows on their surface had been wiped away. Olwynne stared up at them as she was hauled across a dark empty courtyard.
This is the last time I will see the moons
, she thought.

They came through a shadowy garden filled with dead trees and a dry husk of a hedge. Weeds flourished where once herbs and vegetables had grown. Olwynne felt
thorns snagging her nightgown. Beyond the garden was a graveyard. It was lit by nine tall candles in iron lanterns. Their flames danced and bowed in the wind, and cast distorted orange shapes upon the grey stones. They cast very little light. The moons did a far better job of illuminating the graveyard. By their cool, remote light Olwynne could see crooked crosses and angels and tilted slabs of stone covered with worn incisions. To one side was a great gaping hole where a grave had been dug up. The earth was mounded high beside. Laid out on a grave nearby was a skeleton.

Only then did Olwynne begin to sob and fight and beg for mercy. It was no use. Hands dragged her forward, closer and closer to that pale fretwork of bones. The white nightgown was torn from her. Shears snapped at her head, cutting off the great mass of her hair. She was forced to lie upon the skeleton, feeling its sharp bones grinding into her hip, her breast, her throat. Straining every muscle in her body, she sought to tear herself away, but inexorably she was bound to the skeleton with ropes made of her own hair. She was screaming, but it was like a dream. She made no noise, and all her most desperate effort resulted in no effect, no motion.
It is just a dream
, she thought in relief.
Nothing but a dream
.

But then, in the corner of her eye she saw the flash of a silver knife. All around her were figures clad all in red, chanting out words that had no meaning. The one with the knife reached forward and seized her chin, forcing her head back. The knife slashed down. Olwynne screamed. But there was no sound. She had no throat left to scream with. A moment of redness, of darkness. Then Olwynne was dead.

Lewen woke with a jerk.

He had fallen asleep in his chair, shoved in a corner of his tiny bedroom at the Theurgia. His knife lay on the table before him, amidst a pile of shavings. It was late, and his candle had burnt itself out. He could see clearly, though, for moonlight streamed in through the tall, narrow window.

His heart was slamming in his chest. He could hear its echo in his ears. Dazed, uncertain, Lewen got up and went to stand at the window, staring out at the round moons hanging over the witches’ wood.

‘Rhiannon,’ he whispered.

His hands were trembling. He pressed them together and tried to control his ragged breathing.

Something had happened. He had the confused impression of a nightmare. Darkness, mist rising from a grave, figures grabbing, a woman laughing aloud in glee. Yet it was not the aftermath of the dream which made his heart race and his hands shake.

It was as if he had been crouched in a gilded cage, its bars pressing close about him, and after weeks and weeks of straining every muscle to break the cage asunder, the bars had suddenly cracked and burst open, and he could stand up and stretch and breathe deeply and, if he wanted, run.

‘Rhiannon,’ Lewen whispered again.

It seemed suddenly unbearable that he did not know where Rhiannon was, or whether she was in danger. He thought again about his nightmare. Lord Malvern had been in it, looming over the dream like the shadow of a black scarecrow. He remembered falling. What if it was Rhiannon who had fallen? What if she was hurt or, even worse, dead?

Lewen could not bear it any more. He had to follow
her, he had to find her. He had to make sure she was safe, because, he realised at last, a life without Rhiannon would be one without joy, adventure, laughter or passion. It would be a barren field, the soil poisoned, the furrows sown only with thistles.

There was no time for thought, no time to hesitate and lose all on the crux of indecision and utter impossibility. The idea came to him like oil igniting with the touch of a spark. It was an instant conflagration of the brain.