The Skull of the World (28 page)

They nodded, looking very small and dirty in their crumpled, blood-stained nightclothes. "Ye will no' leave us though, will ye, Aunty Beau?"

"No' if I can help it, dearling. They search for me though, all through the fort they search, and soon they will realize ye are gone too. We must be very, very careful."

Hearts hammering, they crept through the dark corridors till they came to the stairs. Light flickered up the stairwell and Isabeau held the boys back, looking cautiously over the rail. Men carrying lanterns were climbing up from a lower floor, the flickering orange light illuminating their cruel faces and sharp cutlasses. Some wore eyepatches, others had hooks for hands, or leaned on crutches, or limped along on wooden legs like Stumpy. It was clear they had lived a rough, bloodthirsty life. Isabeau could not help a shiver of dread. She drew back, chewing her nail indecisively. Then she crept forward once more, beckoning to Neil.

"I'm going to create a diversion. When the men look away, ye must run up the stairs as fast and quiet as a wee mouse. Do no' look back, just run! Promise?"

He nodded and Isabeau hugged him close. "Be careful, Cuckoo."

She peered over the rail again and when the men reached the landing below them, used her powers to cause a clatter from down the corridor. All the men whipped around. As they shouted and pointed, Neil went running up the stairs, his bare feet making very little sound on the wooden steps. As he reached the top, one of the boards squeaked and a few of the men turned around, though too late to see him.

"Ye next, Donncan, my mousekin. Are ye ready? Be careful o' that step."

He nodded, and she repeated the clatter, so that more of the men went charging down the corridor, calling and waving their weapons. Donncan spread his wings and flew up the stairs. The breeze caused by his wings caused the lantern-flames to waver and one of the men glanced up, just in time to see the white flutter of the little boy's nightshirt. "Up there!" he cried, pointing.

The men began to charge up the stairs and Isabeau leaped back, spun on her heel, and ran down the corridor, trying to make as much noise as possible. As she had hoped, the men followed her instead of climbing up the stairs to investigate. She led them far away from the staircase, having to stop to fight once or twice as they caught up with her. None was expecting a lassie with a crippled hand to be able to fight, so the first few times she was able to escape them easily. As they grew warier it became more difficult, for they came at her from all sides with weapons drawn, but she somersaulted over their heads and ran on, searching for some way to escape them. If she could only have a few moments to herself she could transform into a mouse again, but they were too quick and too many and Isabeau was already dangerously overwrought by all the magic she had been using.

She ran on, her breath sharp in her side, then turned to look back over her shoulder. Suddenly she collided with someone very large. With all the breath knocked out of her, Isabeau could not react quickly enough to escape the hard hands that seized her. She had a brief impression of an ugly face all bristling with black hair under a tricorne hat, a grinning mouth of stained, broken teeth and an enormous crooked nose before a huge, hard fist slammed into her temple. She fell into a roaring darkness.

She woke to a crippling headache, lights scorching her eyes. She turned her face away, lifting her hand to cover her eyes.

"The sorceress-babe has woken," Margrit's silken voice emerged from the clamor in Isabeau's ears. "I'm glad o' that, I was afraid ye had killed her, Hammerhead."

"Ah," Isabeau said, not lifting her hand. "So at last I meet Hammerhand, the man who beats laddies black and blue. I wish I could say it was a pleasure."

There was an inarticulate growl and then Margrit said, "No, no, Hammerhead, do no' hit her again. I want to talk to her and she canna answer if she's unconscious."

Isabeau spread her fingers and looked through. "Can ye please move that light so it is no' shining right in my eyes?" Her voice was plaintive.

"Ye must admit she has impudence," Margrit said, grudging admiration in her voice. "We will soon break her o' that, however." The light was moved so it stabbed more cruelly into Isabeau's eyes. "So ye are a sorceress," she purred, and Isabeau saw a flash of golden fire as the dragoneye ring was turned in Margrit's long white fingers.

"I have no' yet sat my sorceress Test," Isabeau replied in a neutral tone. She sat up gingerly, trying not to flinch as her movement brought her rather too close to the black-bearded pirate. She rubbed her temple ruefully. "I do feel rather like I was hit by a hammer," she remarked to no one in particular. "I do no' suppose I could have some powdered willowbark?"

"But ye have a sorceress ring? Two, in fact, for as well as a dragoneye jewel ye also have a ruby. A very large, very beautiful ruby."

"The ruby belonged to my ancestor, Faodhagan the Red. As I already have a dragoneye for my sorceress ring, I wear his ruby for passing my Test o' Fire."

"And I see here ye have rings for all o' the elements except for water. Ye are very young to have passed so many o' the Tests o' Elements. In my day ye had to be twenty-four before ye were even admitted into the coven, let alone allowed to sit your Tests o' Elements."

"Times change. There are few enough with power these days to be quibbling over birthdays."

"Mmmmm, interesting. I should have been more careful, but the dirty face and rough clothes deceived me. I thought ye some foolish peasant bairn who did no' ken any better."

Suddenly the lantern was snuffed so it no longer blazed directly into Isabeau's face. She gave a little sigh of relief and rubbed her temples, looking about her. It was dim in the room without the lantern, but Isabeau could see she was in a grand room beautifully decorated with heavy dark furniture and huge tapestries, an intricately woven carpet on the floor. The only light came from candelabra on the sideboard behind Margrit, so the sorceress's face was cast in shadow while Isabeau's was clearly illuminated.

The pirate with the crooked nose was standing grinning at her nastily, his enormous red hands thrust through a wide belt. He was dressed in a filthy velvet doublet, breeches and long black boots, with an enormous beard and greasy black hair sticking out from under a tricorne hat. An emerald flashed in one ear.

The young pageboy was kneeling at Margrit's feet, a golden tray in his hands. His face was downturned but Isabeau could see by the droop of his shoulders that he was desperately unhappy. She looked away, embarrassed, and saw with some surprise a fat toad squatting on a purple velvet cushion. Sudden recognition made her mouth quirk upward but she said nothing, and the little smile died as she saw the nyx hair pouch lying on the table before them, all her belongings strewn about carelessly. She tried hard not to let her consternation show but Margrit was watching her closely and frowned with pleasure at the little quiver of Isabeau's lip.

"So where are the lads?" Margrit asked suavely. "That was clever o' ye to release them again so quickly. I wonder how ye managed to hide there in the room without us finding ye."

Isabeau said nothing.

Margrit tapped her teeth with one purple fingernail, as long as a knife. "I have decided no' to kill ye, at least no' yet," she said pleasantly. "It is clear ye have power, exceptional power, to so trick and deceive me. I have decided that such power will be o' use to me. Ye will stay here and work as my apprentice."

Isabeau was watching her closely. "I thank ye for the honor ye show me," she answered with a little inflection of irony. She saw the dimples in Margrit's cheek deepen and her fear intensified.

The sorceress sat with a graceful spread of her silken skirts. "Ye may pour us some wine, my sweet boy, and then ye may go."

"Aye, my lady," the pageboy answered, pouring wine from an ornate gold jug into two crystal glasses. The wine shone with the same golden fire as Isa-beau's sorceress ring. Isabeau's eyes widened a little, for crystal glasses were rare and expensive indeed.

"I can see there will be some advantages to being your apprentice, my lady," she said sweetly. "I have heard wine drunk from crystal tastes finer than any other wine."

"Aye, it does indeed," Margrit agreed. "And this wine, my wee sorceress, has been sweetened with the honey o' the golden goddess flower. I promise ye it will awaken in ye a lust that is no' easily satiated." She laughed and caressed the pageboy's cheek, before sliding her hand down his body and inside his breeches to fondle him lewdly. Isabeau's color rose and so did the pageboy's, who cast her a quick, furtive glance.

"If ye please me, Isabeau NicFaghan, I may send ye my sweet boy as your reward. I can promise ye
he
shall please
ye."

Isabeau said nothing, averting her eyes, wishing her color would not rise so readily and betray her.

Margrit laughed. "Have I embarrassed ye?" She laughed again and pushed the pageboy away with a little pat to his silk-clad posterior. "Go, go! I shall call ye when I want ye."

"Aye, my lady," he replied, putting the tray on the little side table and bowing as he left.

"Ye can go too, Hammerhead. I expect the fleet to be ready to sail with the dawn tide."

"But my lady—"

"Go, go! Do ye think I can no' manage this wee lassie who blushes at the thought o' coupling with a lad?"

"Very well then, my lady, as ye please." The pirate gave the sorceress a perfunctory bow and strode from the room.

"So, Isabeau NicFaghan, if ye are to be my apprentice, happen we should begin our relationship with a toast?" Margrit pushed the glass of wine across the table to Isabeau, who smiled and bowed and took the finely cut crystal glass in her hand.

"To the future?"

"Aye, to the future," Isabeau agreed and lifted the glass to her mouth. She drank a little, the honeyed wine warming her skin and quickening her blood. She put the glass back down on the table and faced the sorceress, who was smiling at her with the same self-satisfaction of a cat toying with a mouse. Isabeau breathed deeply and calmly, her eyes fixed on Mar-grit's face, her body deceptively relaxed.

"So tell me, my dear apprentice, how it is ye escaped me before, in a puff o' smoke like a firework magician? What is your Talent, for it is clear to me that ye do indeed have a Talent o' a sorcerous strength." As she spoke, Margrit played with the many rings on her fingers, twisting them with her long, curved nails. She smiled sweetly. "Come, my dear. Drink up, enjoy. Be frank with me. I am sure ye do no' wish to make me angry."

"No, indeed," Isabeau agreed, pretending to sip her wine again. Her sharp eyesight had not missed the surreptitious twisting aside of one of Margrit's rings, nor the subtle change of the sorceress's expression. All her senses warned her of danger and she dared not drink the wine the sorceress pressed upon her so assiduously. "It is no great Talent though, I am afraid. I merely brought fire and smoke, and then crawled away under the bed while ye were coughing and choking. I do hope ye are no' disappointed."

Margrit's dimples deepened. She reached out and topped up Isabeau's glass, smiling into her eyes. "Nay, o' course I am no' disappointed, my dear. Please, ye are no' drinking."

Isabeau did not pick up the glass, gesturing across the table to the toad, who sat impassively on his velvet cushion, watching them with black lustrous eyes. "Do please forgive my curiosity, my lady, but can that by any chance be the Scarred Warrior who once served ye?"

Margrit looked at her swiftly, unable to contain her surprise. Then her brows lowered in a little frown of mingled satisfaction and amusement, and she bent and stroked the toad's ugly, warty head. "Aye, indeed he is. Maya transformed him into a toad and sent him back to me with a most impudent message. I have no' forgotten. If the Spinners ever bring our threads to cross again, I shall make her regret her words." She glanced back up at Isabeau, who was regarding her impassively, her hand cupped around her glass. "But now I ken who ye are. Ye are Isabeau the Red, the witchling that stole the NicCuinn brat. It was your braid that Maya brought to me and ye I saw through my Scrying Pool, up on the Spine o' the World. That is how ye come to fight so cannily. And that is the explanation o' the scars on your face. I should've guessed."

Isabeau nodded. "Aye, I be the one."

"And so ye are the one who stole the wee Fairge babe and threw us all into such confusion?"

"Aye, I be the one," she answered again. All her pulses were hammering so hard it was a wonder Margrit did not hear.

Margrit laughed and sipped her wine. "Indeed I was right to fear ye," she said. "Ye are the wild card in our game o' poque. It is because o' ye and your sister that so many o' my schemes have failed. Ah, well, as Ea wills so will it be. Let us drink to forgetting our differences." She raised her glass high.

Isabeau smiled, clinked her glass to Margrit's and drained it dry, though her head spun from the heady brew and her loins warmed. Margrit also drained her goblet, then flung it on the ground with a shattering of glass. "It is a shame I could no' let ye live, wild card," she purred. "But indeed ye were too dangerous to me, and besides, revenge is sweet, sweeter even than honeyed wine."

Isabeau looked at her rather sadly. "Is it?"

Margrit's smile suddenly twisted awry. She put her hand up to her throat, glaring at Isabeau wildly. "No!" she screamed. "Noooooooooo!"

The scream gargled away to nothing as the sorceress's face grew infused with choleric color. She choked, her hands frantically clutching her throat, then suddenly she toppled from her chair. For a time she thrashed about on the ground, her face a mottled purple, gray spittle frothing from her stiff lips. Isabeau looked away, shocked and sickened. So Margrit had dropped poison of some kind into Isabeau's glass. She had not been sure until now, distracting Margrit's attention and swapping the wine on little more than a hunch.

At last the drumming of the sorceress's heels died away and she lay still, engorged eyes staring. Isabeau hurriedly gathered up her belongings and thrust them back into her nyx hair pouch, her heart slamming in her breast. If it had not been for her unnaturally keen eyesight, it would have been Isabeau lying on the ground, her back arched with the agony of her death. It would have been Isabeau who had drunk the poisoned wine.

She gave a little shudder of horror and, without looking at Margrit's purple, foam-flecked face, bent and examined the dead sorceress's hands, frozen into claws. She soon found what she was looking for— one of the rings had a secret compartment that could be unlatched with a slight push of a finger. Within the compartment there was still a residue of white powder. Isabeau worked the carved turquoise ring off the stiff finger and tucked it into the pouch with her own rings. She then covered up Margrit's horrid staring eyes with a cloth and left the room as silently as she could.

Her luck ran out on the stairs. She was creeping along as fast as she could when suddenly a group of pirates emerged from the gloom of the landing, talking and laughing together. They shouted at the sight of her, and Isabeau seized the railing and somersaulted over their heads, landing on the stairs above them.

She leapt up the steps, ignoring the stitch in her side, slammed open the door onto the battlements, swung it shut and heaved a pile of old crates against it. Already she could hear the pounding of fists against the wood and knew the pirates were close behind her.

Hands trembling, she unbarred the cages of the swans, who flapped their wings and hissed at each other as they struggled to get out. The two boys were hiding inside and she pulled them out, saying urgently, "Throw the cages up against the door, laddies, as fast as ye can!"

As they obeyed she hustled the swans to the sleigh, hissing at them to get into position. Once they were all in harness she gathered together her powers and began to cut through the enchanted chains that bound them. It was difficult to keep her mind focused with such precision when she could hear the splintering of wood as ihe pirates bashed through the door. Every nerve in her body was screaming at her to hurry but she forced herself to remain calm. Even the slightest wavering of her concentration could see the razor-sharp ray of witch-fire slicing through one of the swans' necks instead of their necklace.

Isabeau heard Neil scream just as she released the last of the swans. She spun around, thrusting her staff into the nyx hair pouch. The first of the pirates had broken through and had seized the little boy by the arm. She called to the swans to take flight, then ran to grapple with the pirate. Bugling loudly in triumph, the swans soared into the air, dragging the sleigh behind them.

"Donncan, seize the reins!" she screamed. The little prionnsa flew up to the sleigh, grabbed the trailing reins, and turned the swans around, just as Isabeau kicked the pirate in the head. He fell, taking Neil down with him. Isabeau dragged the little boy free, then turned and flung him up into the air with all her strength, both natural and magical. He shot straight up, as swift as an arrow, and landed in the sleigh with a resounding bump.