The Shining City (45 page)

“I wish to speak to the prison warder. Have him attend me here,” she said then to Hamish, who did not dare deny her, even though it was clear he did not relish carrying that particular message.

Nina had been sitting quietly by Rhiannon‟s bedside, smoothing back her sweaty hair from her brow and smiling to see how the guards jumped at the Keybearer‟s orders.

Within a few hours, the whole prison was turned upside down with battalions of chambermaids armed with scrubbing brushes and pails of hot water working methodically through the

labyrinthine building, flinging open shutters and throwing down piles of lice-infested bedding to be burned. Little brindled terriers with shaggy coats and sharply pricked ears rushed about everywhere, barking joyously and chasing the rats, who poured away from them in a dark, scrabbling flood that slowly reduced to a trickle. The long sinuous shapes of ferrets writhed through the drains and the chimneys, dragging out more rats until, by the end of the day, a tall, black, evil pyramid of dead rats was stacked in the courtyard.

Nina stayed by Rhiannon‟s side all night, giving her agrimony water to sip every time she

moaned and stirred, and bathing her forehead with lavender water. Through the window slit she could see the dancing flames of the bonfire burning all the filth of the prison, and as the smoke rose high into the night sky, Nina felt her spirits rise also.

Three times Isabeau came back, to give Rhiannon another dose of the feverfew potion. By daybreak, Rhiannon knew who she was again, and was wearily allowing Nina to lift her up so she could sip at a cup of hot vegetable broth, and making faces over the bitter green nettle tea.

“Drink it up. It‟ll make ye well,” Nina said.

“What has happened? What is wrong with me?” Rhiannon‟s voice was hoarse and faint.

“Just a touch o‟ jail fever,” Nina said. “Do no‟ worry; ye are over the worst o‟ it.”

Rhiannon wrinkled her nose. “What is that smell? What is burning?”

“That is just the Keybearer, cleansing this place with fire,” Nina said, laying Rhiannon down again and tucking her up in a clean, sweet-smelling sheet. “I swear there is no‟ a rat or a louse left anywhere in Sorrowgate.”

“Me glad,” Rhiannon said and wearily closed her eyes.

None left except for the laird and his skeelie
, Nina thought to herself.
And I will do what I can to
sweep them into the dust pile too!

R
hiannon was weak and listless after her bout of jail fever and often disinclined to leave her bed.

Her only consolations were her growing pile of books, the little bluebird who delighted her with its song and joyous flight, and the visits of her friends, who tried to come at least once a week.

Nina and Iven had hired an attorney to represent Rhiannon at her trial, which was to take place at the dark of the moon, the day before Midsummer‟s Eve. The attorney had a stern eye, a beak of a nose, and deeply engraved lines between his heavy black brows. His eyes were black also, but his hair was silver, and he looked as if he rarely smiled.

He asked Rhiannon many questions, and all so superciliously that she wanted to grind his face into the rough stone of her walls. She managed to keep her temper, though, and was rewarded with a grunt and a muttered, “Very well. Ye‟ll do.”

As the date of her trial came ever closer, he came more often, teaching her about the judicial system and coaching her in her responses.

Otherwise, Fèlice continued to be her most faithful visitor, bringing her flowers and wine and copies of the news broadsheets to read, and enlivening the dull hours with her chatter about the court and the Theurgia.

One day, a week before her trial, Rhiannon said rather idly, “What o‟ the other prionnsa, the younger one? I have no‟ heard ye speak o‟ him for a while.”

A shadow crossed Fèlice‟s face, but she said lightly, “Och, it has all been such a whirl that I have scarce laid eyes on Prionnsa Owein! He spends most o‟ his time with Lew—with his brother and sister, ye ken, and I do no‟ move in such exalted circles.”

Rhiannon, realizing only that Fèlice had sidestepped saying Lewen‟s name, did not notice the trace of misery in Fèlice‟s voice, being too busy bearing her own pain. Since Fèlice then went on to discuss the much-remarked upon coolness that had grown between the Crown Prionnsa and his betrothed, Rhiannon did not pursue the topic, and all mention of Owein was allowed to lapse.

The Keybearer came once also, her elf-owl perched sleepily on her shoulder. She questioned Rhiannon again about the ghost that haunted her sleep and about the night of the spring equinox when Rhiannon had watched Lord Malvern and his circle of necromancers. When she had

extracted everything Rhiannon could remember, she sat for a moment, thinking, and then said gently, “Nina told me ye had a friend, a lass named Bess Balfour, who was injured your first night in Sorrowgate.”

“Aye, injured,” Rhiannon said bitterly. “That‟s one word for it.”

“I‟ve made inquiries,” Isabeau said.

“Good o‟ ye,” Rhiannon answered. “Let me guess. There is no record o‟ a lass named Bess Balfour.”

“No, there is no‟,” Isabeau answered, “though there is a Mistress Balfour making a nuisance o‟

herself every day at the front desk, demanding to ken what has happened to her daughter.”

“Bess‟s mam?” Rhiannon sat upright, turning to stare at the Keybearer.

“I would guess so.”

“So I didna dream it all,” Rhiannon said.

“Nay, I think your Bess was real enough, as real as the thumbscrews that gave ye your scars.”

Isabeau indicated the faint bloom of discoloration that still encircled Rhiannon‟s thumbs and looked as if it would never fade.

“So where is Bess?”

Isabeau put up her hand to stroke the owl, who hooted softly, almost as if seeking to comfort or reassure.

“The Royal College o‟ Healers has difficulty in finding enough bodies for their research and teaching,” she said. “Most people do no‟ want their remains to be dissected once they die, yet the healers and their students need to know as much about the human body as possible if they are to learn to heal it. So some years ago the Rìgh passed an act allowing the bodies o‟ murderers to be given to the college instead o‟ being buried, as usual.”

“What has this to do with Bess?”

The Keybearer continued as if she had not spoken. “The corpses o‟ the destitute and homeless are meant to be buried at the city‟s expense, but, sad to say, many sheriffs do no‟ want to bear the cost, which often has to come out o‟ their own pocket. So, sometimes, if someone dies on the street and their body is no‟ claimed by their family, well, the sheriffs give the body to the College o‟ Healers.”

Rhiannon waited.

“The body o‟ a young woman was brought in a few days after ye were imprisoned in Sorrowgate Tower,” Isabeau said. “She fits your description o‟ Bess Balfour. I was particularly struck by what ye said about her crooked face. This girl had at one time broken her jaw.”

“Or had it broken for her,” Rhiannon said.

Isabeau nodded.

“The body was much gnawed by rats. There was some argument among the students as to

whether this happened before or after death. No conclusive agreement was reached.”

“So Bess was dumped on the street? Alive or dead?”

“Who is to ken?” Isabeau answered. “No autopsy was performed, just a dissection o‟ her major organs.”

Rhiannon put her hands up to cover her face.

Isabeau said gently, “I am sorry. If it is any consolation, all bodies dissected by the College o‟

Healers are given the proper funeral rites afore being cremated.”

“What do I care for your rites?” Rhiannon said, her voice muffled by her fingers. “It is the living that matter.”

“Aye,” Isabeau said. “I do agree. I can only say how very sorry I am. Ye must believe me when I say those responsible will no‟ go unpunished.”

“It was Octavia.” Rhiannon lifted her face from her hands. “She did it. She strung Bess up for the rats and then got rid o‟ her, afraid o‟ who I would tell.”

“Aye, I think so. Do no‟ worry. The city guards have gone already to arrest her.”

This gave Rhiannon some satisfaction, and she waited eagerly for news. Yet somehow Octavia escaped the net spread to capture her. When the city guards kicked down her door in the dingy guesthouse where the warder made her home, it was to find the room in disarray and Octavia gone. No one knew where. And although both Nina and Isabeau reassured Rhiannon she would be found and brought to justice, Rhiannon had little faith that this would be so. Lucescere was a labyrinth of lanes and alleys and dark, stinking passageways, of chimneys and drains and sewers, of cellars and caves and secret tunnels. Huge and heavy as Octavia was, she somehow managed to slip away into Lucescere‟s shadowy underworld and disappear.

The moons began to wane, and Rhiannon‟s anxiety grew sharper the closer her trial came. Her attorney was not an optimistic man, and all his grunts and exhortations to prepare herself for the worst preyed heavily on Rhiannon‟s peace of mind until the slightest noise or draft of cold air was enough to make her jump.

Then, the day before the quarter sessions were to be held, and all the capital cases tried, Nina came, white and edgy with news.

“The Cat and the Fiddler are here!” she burst out, as soon as she had stepped into Rhiannon‟s cell.

“Who?” Rhiannon asked, looking up from her book in surprise.

“The Cat and the Fiddler. Do ye no‟ ken? Finn the Cat and Jay the Fiddler. Finn NicRuraich is Head Sorceress o‟ the Tower o‟ Searchers in Rurach, and Jay is her husband. He is a sorcerer too, though all his music is bound up in his viola. Ye must have heard tell o‟ them.”

Still Rhiannon looked blank.

“She is one o‟ the MacRuraich clan,” Nina said impatiently. “They are Searchers. Their Talent is to search and find. The Rìgh employs them to find things he needs. He sent Finn and Jay to Ravenshaw to find what evidence they could against ye and Laird Malvern. I had hoped, when there was no sign o‟ them, that they had been unsuccessful or that they would no‟ be back in time. But I should have kent better. Finn always finds what she searches for.”

“So what has she found?” Rhiannon asked anxiously.

“I dinna ken, no‟ yet. We willna ken until the trial, for sure. It‟s just . . . I‟m afraid . . .”

“O‟ what?” Rhiannon demanded.

“Finn and Jay were both good friends o‟ Connor‟s,” Nina said. “They were all in the League o‟

the Healing Hand together.”

Rhiannon‟s heart sank. “So they hate me. They bring bad evidence against me.”

“They have certainly been very thorough,” Nina admitted. “That is why they have taken so long.

They have brought back witnesses against ye, as well as many statements and reports about the laird o‟ Fettercairn. It was quite a procession!”

Nina and Iven had gone into the city as soon as they had heard the news that the Cat and the Fiddler were approaching. Nina knew both Finn and Jay well, but they had had no chance to greet them, for the city streets had been seething with people. Thousands had turned out to watch the sorceress ride in with her escort of Yeomen, followed by a long string of packhorses.

“I do no‟ ken if it is true, but I have heard the packhorses carry many dreadful things that Finn found at Fettercairn Castle,” Nina said. “Boxes and boxes o‟ severed hands, and mummified heads, and the flayed skins o‟ faeries, and the skulls o‟ the murdered, and instruments o‟ torture stained with blood, and knives and black candles and all sorts o‟ poisons.”

Rhiannon nodded her head. “They cleaned out his library then,” she said. “I saw all those things there.”

“Ye will have to testify to that,” Nina said. “I am so pleased. I want that wicked laird found guilty, and all his henchmen too! That such evil walked abroad for so long! Ye ken, I have heard that one o‟ those packhorses carried naught but scrolls and scrolls o‟ statements by hundreds o‟

witnesses, all signed and sealed, giving testimony against him. They will have to find the laird guilty now!”

“But what o‟ me?” Rhiannon asked.

Nina hesitated, then said, “There is a lot o‟ support for ye, Rhiannon. Many in the city have taken Landon‟s ballad to heart. There have been many fights and scuffles, ye ken, between those who think ye guilty and those who think ye are no‟.”

“Are any o‟ them my judges?” Rhiannon said with heavy sarcasm. “I think no‟. So what does it matter?”

“Public opinion can sway the Rìgh,” Nina said.

“It is no‟ up to the Rìgh,” Rhiannon said. “He does no‟ try my case. It is the judges who will find me innocent or guilty.”

“Aye, but the Rìgh can call for a lighter sentence or issue a pardon,” Nina said hopefully.

“Aye, he can, but he willna, will he? The Rìgh abides by the verdict o‟ the judges, and they judge me on the evidence offered at the trial. That sour-faced lawyer has told me that over and over again, so that I can say it in my sleep. So tell me, what evidence has this Cat o‟ yours found against me? What witnesses has she brought?”

“I dinna ken who they are,” Nina said hesitantly. “There was one, a poor auld bent and scraggy man, all wild hair and beard. Apparently he has been held captive by the satyricorns for years.”