The Swan Kingdom (16 page)

I slung my leg over Mare’s back, wincing at the pull on my heavily bandaged, inner thighs, and slid to the ground. Mare’s shoulder was rock hard and her dapple-grey hide was dark with sweat despite the cold and the easy pace of the walk. I patted her gently, sending reassurances as I unloaded the saddlebags that Olwyn had slung over her withers. The packs were stuffed with all sorts of useful items that I had accepted gratefully, and they weighed comfortingly against my back as I arranged them over my own shoulders.

“This is as far as you need come with me, Will. I want you to take Mare and go home to your mother.”

“Ma said—”

“It’s all right,” I told him firmly. “I can find my own way from here. Please tell your mother that I’m very grateful for all she’s done, and that I will keep my promise. I don’t know if I’ll see her again. She’s not to worry.”

“But—”

“Go on. I want you home before nightfall. Take good care of Mare for me – she’s a fine horse.” I caressed her velvety muzzle a last time, and she managed a gentle nibble of my hair despite her discomfort.

Before he could protest again I turned away, calling on the abundant enaid present to thicken the fog behind me so that I disappeared quickly from view. I waited to hear the quiet thud of Mare’s hooves before I began walking again.

Olday Hill loomed before me, as if it had only waited for me to be alone before it showed itself. Against the shifting white of the mists it looked less like a hill and more like a small black mountain that had sprouted from this flat plain. It seemed unnaturally forbidding – so much so that I wondered if the effect was the first of the protective spells embedded in it. But its shadowy hulk could not frighten me. I had come so far to reach this place; all I had to do was penetrate the protective spells Angharad had spoken of and reach the peak.

As I came closer, I saw that the pattern of coiling ditches continued up the hill itself, curling around its conical shape and creating an effect like giant steps. Perhaps I could follow the path of enaid, circling the hill instead of trying to walk vertically. It would take longer than a straight path, but if I stayed within the ditches surely I could not succumb to any misdirection spell.

The enaid pulsing in my blood would allow no apprehension. I placed my foot in one of the ditches on the steep slope and began to climb.

The fog wreathing the hill made it difficult to choose my steps, but as I had hoped, the lay of the ground and the strong push of enaid at my back made it impossible to go astray, even when, about ten minutes later, I encountered the first of the defences. Touching it was a strange sensation. I could not see a thing, but it was solid and faintly warm beneath my hands, and impenetrable.

A childhood memory gleamed in my mind. My mother in a playful mood, rubbing soap in her hands and then circling finger and thumb to blow a fragile, iridescent bubble. It had landed on my skin, trembling for an instant before disappearing with an almost inaudible pop. That was how the barrier felt under my hands. I pushed against it, and slowly it yielded to let me through. Heady with pulsing enaid, it hardly occurred to me to feel surprise at how easily the barrier gave way, though I did wonder if the spells recognized me. I emerged unruffled on the other side and carried on. The further I travelled, the closer together the barriers came; but they did not trouble me.

Then my head broke out of the fog. Brilliant sunshine, the deep, honey gold of late autumn, flowed down to warm my scalp and face, spilling over my shoulders and arms, my hips, and then to my feet as I rose higher. My final step took me over the lip of the hill onto the plateau, between two of the towering stones.

The sky curving above me was so vivid that it hurt to look up, with clouds like wisps of carded wool scattered here and there. Below, it was as if the fog had never been; the land was not soggy brown, but covered with the amber stubble of recently harvested fields and the forests that clad the rising land were a blaze of red and orange. I wondered what time I looked on, even as I devoured the sight.

I thought of Gabriel, and how much he had wanted to see this country; how much I wanted to show it to him like this, in its glory. A great flood of love shook me to my bones as I stared out, the megaliths rising up around me in silent salute. This was the Kingdom as it should be, as Gabriel must see it. I would have it this way again, if I had to die to make it so.

I pulled off the leather sacks and let them fall. In a daze of remembrance my feet took me across to look out at the sea, as they had on my first visit to the Circle. The same sea that Gabriel and I had danced in together. Today it was a sparking silver crest on the horizon, and without even thinking, my hand came to rest on the rough surface of the stone immediately to my right.

Nothing happened. I frowned. I should have known better than to think it would be that easy. Had I wasted my time coming here?

A gentle sigh rose from the stones, as if in response. And then Angharad was there.

She said nothing, just reached up with one weathered hand and cupped my check. Her expression as she studied my face was one of inexpressible sadness; she squeezed her lids shut briefly, then heaved a deep sigh and looked at me again.

“Well,” she muttered. “You’ve grown.” She patted my check and then dropped her hand.

I sucked in a shuddering breath and pulled away from her. Her hair, which had been deep glossy red when I saw her that first time, was now streaked with silver, and her face was deeply lined, the skin almost translucent. Her proud bearing could not hide the stoop of age. She had aged thirty years.

“Yes,” she said, as if she had heard my shocked thoughts. “This is a different Angharad. And I see before me a new Alexandra.”

I nodded, speechless.

A small smile tugged at her lips. “Though in some ways you are still the same, I see. You’re still far too good at listening, and not good enough at talking. I know why you’ve come … but I don’t think I can help you, my dear.”

I frowned, torn between happiness at seeing her again and disappointment at her words. “Do you know everything that’s happened?”

“As much as the enaid could whisper to me, yes. I know what evil has overtaken the Kingdom, and what you have suffered by it. And I know the question that you need to ask. So ask it, my dear.”

I was puzzled by her manner, but went ahead. “I suppose … I wanted to ask about my brothers. Where they are. If they’re all right.”

Angharad sighed. “Oh, child… Can’t you see them?”

I stared at her. “What are you talking about? They were banished from the Kingdom. There’s no one here but us.”

As I spoke I looked around me: the Circle was empty. Then something made me look up. Far above, so far that they were little more than pale specks in the sky, a trio of swans circled and wheeled on the wind.
My dream…

I blinked, and they were gone. The sky was empty.

Suddenly I saw myself lying on the floor of Zella’s chamber, paralysed and blinded – and in my mind the images of my brothers, screaming with agony, their bodies twisted and tormented by that woman’s foul spell. But it had been a nightmare.
Only a nightmare
…

“Angharad!” I gasped. “What did Zella do to my brothers? What happened?”

“You know what happened; you saw it yourself,” she said gravely. “Now it’s up to you to repair the damage.”

“But … but you have to help me!” I stammered.

“Please.”

“No, Alexandra,” she said firmly. “You don’t need my help.” She hesitated. “Your brothers’ souls are trapped between this world and the next. You have to free them. Once that is done, everything else – the wicked creature Zella, the Kingdom’s dying enaid – will be set right. That is all I can tell you; for this is a tangle beyond anything I’ve ever known, and you are the only one with the skills to fix it. Any help I might try to give could only harm them – and you – more, believe me.”

I felt my knees buckle and fell in a heap at her feet. “I don’t … I can’t…” I whispered. My head spun. They’re not dead. They can’t be dead. They wouldn’t leave me…

She crouched to take my hands, squeezing my fingers gently. “Listen to me, Alexandra. Your poor, foolish mother may have kept you from exploring your gift, but it is there, nonetheless. You are a wise woman, and what’s more, I think you’re one of the most skilled cunning women this land has ever seen. So use your gift, and your knowledge. Trust yourself. You know what to do, if you will trust yourself to do it.”

She released me. A moment later, I heard a sigh rise up from the stones, and knew that Angharad was gone.

I sat for a long time in the Circle, struggling to understand what Angharad had said. My brothers were not in exile; they had been with me all along. I had seen the great, pale birds so often in my dreams, and even at other times, yet I had never thought, never realized… Were they aware of who they were? Or who I was? Oh my poor dears – do you suffer?

Eventually I wiped my wet face on my cloak, took a deep breath and forced myself to do what I knew I must. Mentally I reached for my mother’s book and began to turn the pages. I remembered spells of healing, of binding, making and unmaking, calling and returning. What charm or enchantment could possibly fit such a situation as this?

After considering and discarding a dozen ideas, I finally remembered a powerful work near the back of the book – one Mother had never had to use. The working’s purpose was to capture stray souls and return them to their bodies. The book said that the working was usually required when a person had been ill for so long that they lost the will to survive, and their soul drifted into the ether between this world and the next while their body still lived. It was the only thing I could think of which might reclaim my brothers’ souls from where they were lost.

The working required the gathering of the stalks of a blistering nettle, sometimes called wanton’s needle. The stalks had to be crushed and dried by hand, and stripped into flax. The flax could then be knotted, woven or knitted into a tunic – three, in this case – for the lost spirit. Once it was complete, a further, master charm would call the spirit to its tunic and bind it into the nettles, and when the tunic was placed on the body of the afflicted person, their soul would return to its proper place. And there was something else. From the moment the first nettle was harvested, the weaver must remain utterly silent. Not a sound, neither of joy nor of pain, must pass their lips, or the spell would be ruined.

If I did have a Great gift it should be within my power to complete the working. There were two problems. The first was that the nettle’s sting caused dreadful pain and swelling to the flesh; but that problem I believed I could overcome or endure. The second was more difficult. With my new memories about that awful night in Zella’s room, I realized it was possible that my brothers had no bodies to return to. Once I had recalled their spirits, what would I do?

Angharad said that I must set them free in order to make things right. Yet how could I bear to let them go?

I stood, picking up my packs and feeling the weight of me choice settle over my like a heavy mantle. I did not look back at the tall stone – Angharad’s stone – that stood proudly on the far side of the Circle, looking out to the sea. Instead I walked forward, through the Circle and onto the narrow outer rim of the plateau. The next step saw my feet disappear into a moist, curling fog; then the darkness of the mists closed over my head like a damp blanket. I stood in the stream of enaid, absorbing the energy, as before; but this time it was different. Something was wrong.

There was a taste in the wind, coppery and thick, that clogged sourly in the back of my throat. Beneath the lazy-bee hum of the Circle’s power I could sense something else – the mad drone of swarming wasps. The two kinds of energy mixed oddly, seeming to warp and swirl against each other like the patterns oil makes in water.

I knew the smell; I knew the sound. There was danger here. Something waited for me at the base of the hill. Zella.

I took shallow, quick gulps of the sour air, my hands clenching into fists. I was not afraid, I realized dimly. I was angry. After everything she had done – everything she had taken from me – she dared intrude, in the sacred place of the Ancestors.

Let her come, I thought grimly.

Stiff with tension, I followed the circuitous path of the energy river to the foot of the hill. This time the defence bubbles let me through with no resistance, perhaps because I was travelling away from the Circle, and my progress was much faster. Even so, by the time the glossy green of the hillside turned to the greyish mud of the field, I was scintillating with a dangerous combination of borrowed strength and anger.

There was a stir in the mists. Tiny whirlwinds rose up before me, sucking away the cover of the fog until there was a small, smooth aisle of clear space leading from my feet. Into the patch of clarity stepped Zella.

She presented the sort of picture that should instantly have made me feel grubby and unworthy in every way. She was wrapped in a voluminous cape of dull gold lined with luxurious white ermine. Topazes the size of the top joint of my thumb dangled from her ear lobes. Her long honey-coloured hair was dressed coiled smoothly in intricate knots; thick chestnut streaks were visible around her hairline. The sight of that colour sent a razor thrill of hatred shooting up into my brain.

I drew myself up and met the darkness of her gaze with all the force I could muster, feeling a hot flash of triumph when her eyes instinctively flickered away before returning to meet mine. Surprise and annoyance tightened her mouth, and then dropped away into a smile.

“So…” She drew the word out, her rich voice edged with malicious humour. “You’ve finally crawled back.”

“Why didn’t you kill me?” I asked abruptly.

She broke into a gurgle of low laughter that grated across my nerves. “Oh, I tried. I would have enjoyed nothing better than to bite out your throat; but despite my charms those bovine household people still retained their affection for you. They insisted on staying with and caring for you and I couldn’t risk an open killing so soon. It might have damaged my hold over them. So I poured you full of enough poison to drop a whole village of snivelling humans.
You wouldn’t die
. Since I was still drained by our little altercation over your brothers, I only had enough strength for trifling spells, and I was forced to think of another plan to get you out of my way. Your father was most obliging. He never did care for you overly much, did he? By now I imagine he’s forgotten you ever existed.”