The Shining City (68 page)

He nodded, the misery on his face easing. “Ye can count on me, Your Majesty. I am here to serve ye.”

“I thank ye for it. I will need your help in the days to come, Neil. But now ye must go. We must no‟ be alone again. I want no gossip.”

Neil nodded. She rose, and he rose with her, bowing his head. “Remember, though, what I said, Your Majesty. Whenever ye need me, I will be here, no matter what comes.”

She nodded her head and waited by the chaise longue until he had gone. Then she dropped down upon the velvet seat, her shoulders drooping. The Lodestar glowed softly white. She cradled it in her hands, staring into its depths.

Donncan, where are ye?

There was only silence.

Iain felt like a very old man. He and Elfrida walked slowly through the empty corridors, not speaking. A lackey carried a branched candelabra for them, lighting their way. Although dawn could not be far away, the palace halls were as black as the inside of a mine.

At the door to their suite of rooms, the pastor bowed and silently left them. His rooms were right across the hall, so Elfrida could call him at any time of day or night for spiritual succor. Iain had given up wondering what so haunted his wife that she had turned to a minister of the church she had once hated to be her prop and guide. In recent months, he had been troubled and unhappy too, with his sleep disturbed by memories he had thought long buried.

The lackey opened the door for them and bowed as they passed in. Both Iain and Elfrida stopped short on the threshold, staring in sudden affront.

Soldiers were searching their room.

At the sound of the door, a lieutenant of the Blue Guards turned abruptly. It was clear from his face that he would have preferred not to have had the room‟s inhabitants come back before he had finished his task. He bowed and apologized politely. “Captain‟s orders,” he explained. “If ye would please take a seat, we will soon be finished.”

Iain lowered himself stiffly into an armchair by the fire, Elfrida choosing a hard-backed chair nearby. They watched in silence as the soldiers methodically and painstakingly turned his quarters inside out. They emptied vases of flowers, they raked through the coals on the hearth, they slit open pillows and counterpanes, they felt through every pocket of every article of clothing in every trunk he and Elfrida had brought with them.

Iain wanted to protest. He wanted to shout at them angrily, “Do ye no‟ ken he was my greatest friend?” But he said nothing. He knew it was to be expected. After all, until recently, the countries he and his wife ruled had been Eileanan‟s greatest enemies. His own mother had sworn to destroy the MacCuinn clan, root and branch. It did not matter that Iain had laid aside the centuries-long feud between Arran and the MacCuinns, or that his wife had signed the Pact of Peace and brought Tìrsoilleir, which had once been known as the Forbidden Land, to join the rest of Eileanan under the Rìgh‟s rule.

Lachlan the Winged had been murdered, and now all friends and allies were suspect.

Iain looked over at his wife. Her hands were clenched on her fan and reticule. Although her back was as straight as ever, her feet side by side as she had been taught by her jailers as a child, she looked sick and weary. There were violet smudges under her downcast eyes.

“Will ye be much longer?” Iain asked the guard in a sudden surge of irritation. “We are both exhausted. We wish to retire.”

“I am sorry, my laird, it shall no‟ be much longer,” the lieutenant said politely. “We must be thorough, ye ken. It is no‟ just ye who we search, but all at the palace.”

Elfrida moistened her dry lips and gripped her hands more tightly together.

Iain gestured for some wine to be brought to her, worried she might faint.

Her brows drew together and she shook her head. Her pastor disapproved of alcohol, and so Elfrida no longer drank even a glass of wine with her meal. Iain was by no means a heavy imbiber, but he enjoyed the occasional glass and had no desire to drink alone. He gestured to the page now, though, and saw his wife frown in condemnation as he drank some of the rich sweet liquor.

“To keep my strength up,” he said with a wan attempt at a joke, but she did not smile or answer, just dropped her eyes.

Iain did not speak again.

At last the soldiers abandoned their search and allowed the chambermaids in to straighten the room. Elfrida did not rise from her chair until the last maid had withdrawn, and then she moved so stiffly that Iain came to her side in alarm and took her arm. She allowed him to help her up, and then went to her dressing table and laid down her fan and reticule. Iain had changed out of his wedding finery into his nightshirt and dressing gown, but Elfrida was still dressed in her simple grey gown. She fumbled at the buttons, and Iain came to help her, saying irritably, “Why did ye dismiss your maid afore ye were changed, my dear? Ye ken I am all thumbs.”

She did not answer. He undid the tight, plain cuffs and then laboriously unbuttoned the back. She stepped out of it, and he saw with distaste that she wore a hair shirt beneath it. It had rubbed her fine skin red and raw.

“Elfrida . . .” he protested, but she ignored him. He saw her blue eyes were shining strangely, as if with excitement or pleasure. She sat down and began to unpin her hair, which she wore coiled neatly at the base of her head.

Iain stood by her for a moment, trying to find a way to tell her he disliked her new pastor and thought him an evil influence upon her. But he could not find the courage. He turned to leave and accidentally knocked the fan and reticule to the floor. He bent to pick them up, but Elfrida was before him, stooping with a cry and snatching them up from the ground.

“Why, that is my mother‟s fan,” Iain said in surprise.

“Is it?” Elfrida said. “I had no‟ realized. Does it matter?”

“No,” he answered. “I suppose no‟.”

“I kent it would be hot,” Elfrida said, “and I had heard that fans were all the rage again in Lucescere. This one is very pretty.”

“I wouldna have thought it was in your style,” Iain said. “It‟s so very heavy and ornate.” He reached and took it from her, turning it over in his hand. It was very large, with a frame made of thick embossed sticks, and gilded pigskin painted with stylized purple thistles.

“Oh, ye think no‟?” she said and took it back again. “Well, I shall no‟ carry it again then.” She opened the drawer of her dressing table and dropped the fan within, shutting it away.

Feeling vaguely troubled, Iain went to the door that led to his room. He turned to say good night to his wife but stopped in surprise. Elfrida had quietly locked the drawer of the dressing table and was hiding the key inside the jet brooch she used to pin her collar. Iain had not even known the brooch had a concealed compartment. Elfrida tucked the brooch inside her jewelry case and began to brush out her long fair hair. She was smiling to herself.

Iain dropped his hand and went through to his own bedchamber without saying a word.

L
ewen sat in his cupboard of a room in the Theurgia, watching intently as his knife curled one shaving after another away from the wood he held in his hand. His knife was growing blunt. He stopped to whet it against his sharpening stone, and then resumed his whittling. He was not making anything. For once no shape was emerging from the wood as if it had always been imprisoned inside, waiting for him to release it. He was just whittling the wood away to nothing.

He did not know how much time had passed since he had returned from his search through the snowstorm. It had been at least an hour, maybe more. Lewen had made no attempt to undress or to sleep. It felt like he was in a kaleidoscope that had been turned upside down and shaken, all the known pattern of his life jumbled up and changed into a new and quite terrifying shape.

He heard a sharp rap on the glass of his window, and then a flurry of wingbeats. The rap came again. Lewen got up and went to the window. It was still dark outside. He could see nothing. He unlatched the clasp and opened the window.

A tiny bluebird flew in, its wings whirring desperately. It flitted about Lewen‟s head, uttering shrill cries of distress. Lewen put up his hand and caught it, and it lay quiescent in his palm. He could feel its heart pounding away.

“Rhiannon?” Lewen said. “What has happened to Rhiannon?”

The bird panted, its beak open. He bent over it, and suddenly, unexpectedly, it pecked him sharply just under the eye. Lewen jerked back, then put the fingers of his other hand up to touch the bead of blood welling up from the tiny wound.

“But why?” Lewen asked aloud.

The bird spread its iridescent wings and gave a loud cry. Lewen found himself unexpectedly short of breath, his eyes smarting with grief.

Folding the fingers of both hands over the bird, he got up and blundered out of his room. The corridors were mostly dark and empty, with only the occasional knot of students standing about and discussing all that had happened that night. Lewen paid them no heed. He went clattering down the stairs with no clear idea of where he was going or why.

Joggled in his hands, the bird gave a little cry of distress. Lewen opened his jacket and went to tuck the bird inside his breast pocket. Olwynne‟s nosegay was inside it, withered and brown and smelling of rot. Lewen pulled it out and let it fall, tucking the bird inside the pocket instead and drawing the jacket protectively over it. His pace lengthened. He felt a rush of new energy, as if he had been climbing a ladder out of a dark hole and at last seen sunlight above him.

Nina,
he thought.
Nina will ken what to do. . . .

The sorceress was not with the other witches, working desperately to rouse the drugged healers and the Celestines. It was a scene of chaos. Apprentice-witches trudged up and down the hall with their shoulders under the armpits of drowsy men and women, forcing them to keep on walking. Many were so lethargic they could not take a step themselves, and the young exhausted apprentices had to slap their faces or shake them to keep them awake.

Others held basins and buckets for those forced to vomit up the drugged wine. More hurried about with steaming kettles, making restorative teas that had to be held to the slack mouths of those afflicted, forcing them to sip.

Gwilym came limping down the hall, scowling ferociously. “Has anyone seen the Keybearer?

Where‟s that foolish lad I sent to find her? We need her! The Stargazer is ill indeed.”

“H-h-h-here I am, sir,” the boy piped up. “I c-c-canna find her, sir. Her room is all locked up, sir.”

“Where can she be? Ghislaine! The healer we‟ve managed to wake says boiling the root o‟

devil‟s bit in wine and honey may help. It‟ll bring on the sweats and help drive out the poison through the skin. Can ye send someone to the simples room to make us up some as soon as can be? Ye! Lass! I need more o‟ that tea!”

The sorcerer saw Lewen and said sternly, “I thought I told ye to get to bed, Lewen, and get some rest! The last thing I need is ye coming down with fever.”

“Please, sir, have ye seen Nina?”

“Nina is still at the palace,” Gwilym said. “She is utterly distraught. What a dreadful night this has been.”

He did not pause to wonder why Lewen was asking for Nina but stumped away, calling for Ghislaine to come and help him at once. Then suddenly he turned. “Lewen, since ye‟re up, can ye run a message to the palace for me? Tell the Banrìgh the Stargazer is ill indeed, and she canna be seeing her tonight. There‟s a horse outside waiting.”

“Aye, sir,” Lewen said gladly and ran out the door and into the bitter dark. It had stopped snowing, but a black frost had set in, and the wind was cruel. Lewen grabbed the horse, which was being walked up and down by a shivering, miserable lad, and unbuckled its blanket. He did not wait for the saddle to be set on its back but leaped up and urged the horse into a gallop.

It was a mad ride through the darkness, the road slippery with ice. It was so cold the bones behind Lewen‟s ears ached, and each breath pierced his lungs. The wind was driving away the clouds, showing a black frosty sky overhead where the stars were beginning to pale along the eastern horizon.

Lewen passed on his message to the sentries at the gate, who at once sent a page running for the Banrìgh‟s bedchamber, and then he went in search of Nina. Her door was opened by a servant who scanned Lewen‟s face suspiciously and demanded his business.

“I need to see Nina,” Lewen stammered.

“I am sorry, Lady Ninon is no‟ receiving visitors,” the servant replied and went to shut the door.

“Wait!” Lewen cried. “She will want to see me, she will!”

“Lewen?” Iven‟s voice called. “Is that Lewen?”

“Aye,” he said gladly, and pushed past the servant and into the chamber beyond.

The room was dim and very quiet. Iven was sitting at a table, his fair hair ruffled, his shirt unbuttoned and crumpled, writing letters by the light of a three-branched candelabra. He looked up as Lewen came in and greeted him in a low voice, indicating he could go through to the bedchamber beyond. As Lewen went past, he saw Brun the cluricaun was sitting disconsolately by the fire, a pot of ale before him. Dide sat with him, occupying his hands with six golden balls that he rolled over his knuckles or poured from one hand to another in a glittering stream. He looked tired and sad, but he made an effort to smile at Lewen, rising to accompany him into the bedchamber.