The Tower of Ravens (39 page)

“Well, that at least is a relief,” Nina said. “I am no healer, as ye ken and I’d begun to imagine us wandering the countryside looking for succour while gangrene ate away poor Maisie’s leg. I suppose, if we must be marooned somewhere, it may as well be at a castle! Come, lads and lassies, let’s pack up our things and make ready. I wish we could have a bath and scrub ourselves clean afore we need meet this laird. I feel damp and itchy and slovenly indeed, even with a quick wash and a change o‘ clothes.”

“Ye look most bonny,” Iven said. She seized his nose and tugged it. “Why, thank ye, sir! I could say the same about ye.”

Iven twirled his moustache. “Aye, indeed ye could,” he answered complacently, so even Rhiannon had to smile.

* * *

Fettercairn Castle loomed high behind its battlemented walls, a great grey fortress with narrow slitted windows and two round towers, one looking into the Fetterness Valley, the other down into the lowlands of Ravenshaw, many hundreds of feet below. It had stopped raining, though the sky still looked ominously dark and the wind was strong enough to drag the girls’ skirts sideways and blow their hair wildly.

The gatehouse led into the inner ward, a large square courtyard surrounded on all sides by lofty walls. To the south were the kitchens, staff quarters and workshops, all built no more than one storey high so that the sun could strike in over the peaked roof and fall upon the garden built in the centre of the yard.

A long, green rectangle of lawn with an apple tree at one end and a greengage tree at the other, the garden was surrounded by low hedges and bushes sculpted into balls and spirals. Narrow beds ran the length of the garden, filled with white roses underplanted with blue lavender and thyme. An old lady bent over the storm-ruined roses, tying them up with some twine. She turned her soft, crumpled face towards them as they made their awkward progression round the courtyard, all of them carrying bags and bundles, and craning their necks to look up at the crenellated towers looming over them.

“A garden planted for peace,” Maisie murmured, gazing at the sweetly scented flower beds with pleasure. She was lying on a makeshift stretcher carried by two footmen, and had been much more comfortable since drinking a pain-killing elixir given to Iven by the laird’s old nurse. In fact, since swallowing the elixir, Maisie had had a strange, dreamy smile on her face and had even hummed a few bars of an old folksong as she was carried along. Only the feverish glitter of her eyes and her scarlet cheeks showed the insidious advance of the poison through her bloodstream.

“There’s another garden behind the kitchen,” Iven told her, walking along beside her, holding her hand. “When ye are better I’ll take ye there and show ye. Ye’ll like it. It’s full of herbs as well as vegetables, for the laird’s nurse is as skilled a skeelie as any I’ve seen. She has hyssop and sage and pennyroyal planted there, and comfrey and feverfew, and many others I do no‘ ken.”

“Hyssop, sage, pennyroyal, feverfew,” Maisie repeated vaguely. “A garden for healing. Will I ever walk there? Will I ever walk again?”

As she hummed a few more bars of music, Iven said uncomfortably, “O‘ course ye will,” and exchanged a glance with Nina, who walked on the other side of the stretcher, Roden skipping along beside her.

“Can I go play in the garden, Mam? Please?” he asked, pulling against her hand. The old lady was regarding them with great interest, the twine falling from her hand, and he smiled at her brilliantly, for she looked like the sort of old lady that kept a box of sweetmeats in her pocket.

“No‘ now,” Nina said absently. “Remember we are guests here, Roden.”

“Aye, Mam,” he answered in a long-suffering tone.

The procession rounded the garden and came into the paved area before the main part of the castle. Surrounded by a square of chains was a pyramid of rocks, a little higher than Rhiannon’s knee. A raven perched on top of the cairn, head tilted, regarding them all with one bright black eye. The deep, plaintive cry of ravens echoed all round the courtyard and, glancing up, Rhiannon could see black-winged birds circling the towers far above.

“Have ye heard the tale o‘ the ravens o’ Fettercairn?” a deep, melodious voice said at her elbow.

Rhiannon turned. An elderly man stood beside her, dressed in a black kilt under a black velvet jacket. Under the skirt he wore long black hose and black brogues with silver buckles. Only his stiff white collar and the crisscross of fine white and grey lines in the kilt broke the severity of his dress. He was clean-shaven, an unusual trait in a country where men were proud of their beards, and his short dark hair glinted with silver.

“Nay, I have no‘,” she answered warily.

“It is said the first laird o‘ Fettercairn was a page in the service of Brann o’ Ravenshaw. One day, during the building of the Tower o‘ Ravens, Brann and his retinue came to oversee its progress. As always, Brann had his familiar with him, a large raven he called Nigrum. He had brought the raven with him in the journey from the Other World, and so it was a very auld bird but still went everywhere with Brann, sitting on his shoulder and whispering cruel nothings in his ear. Or so they said, those who served him. They also said Brann loved this bird more than his own children and indeed, as ye ken, his eldest son did in time rebel against him, and so their saying may be true.”

Rhiannon did not know, but said nothing, regarding the old man gravely.

“The raven Nigrum flew from Brann’s shoulder, whether because he was hungry and wished to find food, or because he was bored, who kens? Anyway, a screech o‘ gravenings nested nearby and saw the auld bird and came flying out to attack. My ancestor, who was then a lad o’ sixteen, picked up a large rock and flung it at the gravenings, striking and killing the one which had seized the raven in its claws. Rock after rock he threw, until the gravenings fled and Brann’s raven fluttered back to Brann, injured but alive.”

Everyone was listening now, and the old man moved his piercing black eyes, set deeply under strong black brows, from face to face, smiling a little as he noted their interest.

“The sorcerer was most impressed with his page’s quick thinking and strong arm, and knighted him then and there, naming him Sir Ferris, which means ‘rock’. He then promised the lad a nestling from the raven’s next breeding which, given the bird’s age, was to be his last. ”Ye shall stand guard over my witches’ tower as ye stood guard over my raven,“ Brann said then, and ordered that a great castle be built to defend the approach to the tower, and that Sir Ferris be its laird and protector. The rocks Sir Ferris had thrown were gathered together and made into a cairn to mark the spot where the castle was to be built.” He indicated the little pile of mossy rocks with a graceful gesture and everyone turned to gaze at it.

“Brann always had a wry sense of humour, and so he decreed the castle be named Fettercairn, for Sir Ferris and his heirs would be bound here for always, guarding the pass. Then he made a prophecy, as Brann was wont to do. He said, ”As long as ravens on Fettercairn dwell, tower and castle shall never be felled.“ So we let the ravens nest on our towers and feed them and protect them, so that Fettercairn Castle shall always stand. They are quite tame. Look.”

The old man held out his arm and whistled, and the raven on the cairn spread its wings and flew across to land on his outstretched wrist. It was an enormous, glossy black bird, with a cruel curved beak and knowing eyes. Felice gave a little shriek and jumped back, and everyone else exclaimed in surprise. The old man smiled and stroked the raven’s back.

“But the tower did fall,” Rhiannon said abruptly. She was frowning, for while the old man spoke the air had seemed to thin about her so she could hardly breathe. She had heard faint cries and screams and the clash of arms, and the sound of a woman wailing in such terrible and profound grief that every hair on Rhiannon’s body had sprung erect and she had shivered with sudden acute cold. She was shivering still.

The smile faded from the old man’s face. After a moment he said, rather curtly, “Aye, that is true, but then Brann the Raven also prophesied that he would outwit she who cuts the thread and live again, and that is most manifestly untrue.”

He was quiet for a moment, preoccupied with thoughts that caused his thick dark brows to draw down and his mouth to twist, and then he looked at Rhiannon again and smiled. “Besides, the tower did no‘ really fall. It was built too well. Despite all the efforts o’ the Red Guards, and close on forty years o‘ neglect, most o’ it still stands. Happen one day it will be rebuilt and witches will study their craft there once again. If ye listen to village gossip, which I urge that ye do no‘, they will tell ye the witches have never really left, that one still lives somewhere in the ruins. They say they have seen lights and smelt smoke, and even seen a mysterious hooded figure in the forest, gathering herbs and mushrooms.”

“Is that true?” Nina asked, raising one brow in quick interest.

The old man sighed. “We o‘ the Dubhslain are said to be more superstitious than most, and those o’ the Fetterness Valley more superstitious than any. Ye really canna believe aught that is said in the town or valley. The winters are long, and the auld folk tell tales to amuse and frighten the young, and seek to outdo the tale that was told afore. It is all fables and fabrications, nothing more.”

“The dead that walk are no‘ mere fabrications,” Nina said. “We all saw them, and I myself went down and walked among them and tried to speak with them. And we have all heard the tales o’ the lads that disappear from their beds at night. We met one who had lost her son that way and her grief was real enough.”

The old man’s piercing black eyes went from her face to her son’s. Roden was standing quietly for once, holding on to Nina’s hand and listening with great interest.

“Aye,” the old man said slowly. “That at least is true.”

The old lady had come out of the garden to join them and now she reached out a gentle hand to ruffle Roden’s chestnut curls and stroke his cheek. “What a bonny lad,” she said.

Roden submitted to the caress, though reluctantly.

The old man drew the old lady to him, tucking his arm through hers. “But I have been most remiss,” he said. “What are we doing, standing here and telling dusty auld tales? Please, come in and be welcome. I am Malvern MacFerris, laird o‘ Fettercairn, and this is my sister-in-law Lady Evaline NicKinney, who was married to my brother who was laird afore me, and is now chatelaine o’ my castle.”

“Ye are most welcome,” Lady Evaline said sweetly, smiling round at them all. “We do no‘ get visitors very often, I am afraid. I hope ye will be comfortable, and that the ghosts do no’ disturb ye too much.”

Everyone had begun to murmur an answer, and move towards the door, but at Lady Evaline’s last words every head swivelled to look at her.

“Ghosts?” a chorus of voices repeated.

Lord Malvern looked uncomfortable. “I am sorry. My sister-in-law is getting elderly now. She was always rather a day-dreamer, but in recent years I’m afraid…” He paused, searching for a kind way to say what he meant.

Lady Evaline turned to him reproachfully. “But Malvern, ye hear the ghosts too, I ken ye do!”

He shrugged a little and smiled. “Come in out o‘ the wind, my dear, and let me call Harriet for ye. Please, everyone, come in, come in. Harriet!”

At his call a big-boned, red-faced woman came bustling along the hall and took the old lady by the arm. “Time for your nap, Lady Evaline,” she said firmly.

“But our guests! I must see them to their rooms and make sure all is comfortable.”

“The maids can do that,” Harriet said.

“But that would hardly be very hospitable.” Lady Evaline looked distressed.

“Ye will see all our guests again at dinner, my dear,” Lord Malvern said. “Ye must rest, else ye will be too tired to preside over the table tonight.”

Lady Evaline resisted for a moment longer, her face looking more crumpled than ever, then submitted unhappily, allowing Harriet to lead her away towards the stairs.

The entrance hall was a vast, shadowy room, with large doors leading off on either side, and another set at the far end, under the stairs. The walls were hung with ancient shields and spears, stag heads, and a tarnished genealogical table adorned with swathes of black and grey tartan. A big man with greying hair and beard stood to attention a few steps away from the lord, wearing a metal breastplate and shin-guards, and a claymore strapped to his back. As Lord Malvern led the way down the hall, he fell into place a few steps behind him, his face impassive.

Footmen stood against the walls, staring straight ahead, and another man stood before the stairs, his head bowed, waiting for his orders. He was dressed in immaculate, dark livery, and his very large, very white hands were folded before him.

“Could our guests be shown to their rooms, Irving? I am sure they would like to wash and rest awhile.”

“Certainly, my laird,” Irving replied in a very smooth, unctuous voice. He made a gesture with one hand, and at once a skinny young woman came scurrying forward to make an awkward curtsy.

“Wilma is the chambermaid assigned to care for your needs, sir, madam,” Irving said without actually looking at Nina and Iven. “If ye should require aught, please just ring the bell and she shall come to assist ye. Wilma.” He jerked his head. At once Wilma bobbed another curtsy and said rather breathlessly, “If ye could come this way. Please. Sir and madam. Ladies and gentlemen.”

“I hope ye will find your rooms comfortable,” Lord Malvern said and, with a nod and a smile, he walked through into the next room, the armed man following silently behind.

“A laird o‘ the auld school,” Iven said to Lewen in a low voice, as they followed the maid up the stairs. “It is usually only the prionnsachan that still keep a gillie-coise at their heels.”

“What’s that?” Rhiannon asked, not recognizing the word.

“A bodyguard, I suppose. Once upon a time all the lairds had one, for times were dangerous, but we have been at peace now for years and most dinna see the need for them. I ken the MacSeinn has one still, and the NicBride, for their lands are troubled still, but the MacThanach never does. I bet the laird has a cup-bearer too. Even the Rìgh does no‘ use one nowadays.”