The Heart of Stars, Page 3

  An elderly man put his head out the window of the coach. ‘Irving!’ he snapped. ‘Must I put the steps down for myself?’

  Rhiannon stiffened and drew back further into the gloom under the trees. Her heart raced. She had not seen Lord Malvern since he had stood over her in the dark with a knife gleaming in his hand, the night he had tried to take her from Sorrowgate Tower, the night before her trial for Connor’s murder. If she had not screamed so loudly the guards had come running, she would be the one lying bound and trussed in the other carriage, not the Banprionnsa Olwynne. Or else she’d be dead. He was a dangerous man, the lord of Fettercairn Castle, and he had the uncanny ability of the witches to sense when he was being watched. He had once been an apprentice-witch, she had been told, until he had been disgraced and expelled. Then he had used his powers for the Ensorcellor, to seek out witches and bring them to the fires to be burnt alive. Rhiannon wished she had not come so close, and tried to pretend she was snow and mist and rustling leaves.

  The lord of Fettercairn was cold and stiff and hungry, however, and much too concerned with his own comfort to be casting out his senses into the darkness in search of any pursuers. Snarling at his servants, he clambered down from the carriage and sat in a cushioned chair while Dedrie kindled the fire, and Herbert, his valet, arranged a fur cloak over his knees and another over his shoulders.

  ‘Damn this snow,’ he grumbled. ‘It’s holding us back. I do no’ ken how long the ship will wait for us. We should’ve pressed on.’

  ‘The horses were failing,’ Irving, his seneschal, said. ‘We do no’ want to be bogged down here, so many miles from anywhere. Better to let the horses rest and push on again in the morning, when we can see what lies ahead.’

  ‘What about the sacrifices? Are ye sure ye should’ve drugged them again, Dedrie? I do no’ want them to die afore we reach the graveyard.’

  ‘They’ve tried to escape once already,’ Dedrie said. ‘We wasted close on an hour catching them this morning. It’s kept them quiet all day, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Better feed them some o’ your slop,’ the lord said contemptuously. ‘Let them walk up and down a bit, afore we lock them up for the night.’

  ‘Aye, my laird,’ Dedrie said, and went over to the second carriage, which had stood still and dark all this time. She called to two of the men to come and help her, and they unsheathed their swords and held them at the ready while Dedrie cautiously unlocked the carriage door and opened it.

  Rhiannon quietly led Blackthorn some distance away down the road and remounted her. Facing away from the campsite, she urged the winged mare into a canter and then up into the air. The frosty wind stung her eyes, and she bent low over the mare’s neck as she wheeled and flew back over the forest. She still had no real plan, but Rhiannon knew she had to seize opportunity when it came.

  Horse and rider hovered above the firelit camp, the sound of Blackthorn’s wings disguised by the constant ruffle of the wind in the trees. Below them, Dedrie was leaning inside the carriage and Rhiannon heard her make some exclamation of dismay. Then the two guards were sheathing their swords and clambering up into the carriage. Rhiannon watched as they carried out a small, limp body in a nightgown. At the sight of Roden’s curly head hanging to one side, Rhiannon felt a lurch of horror in her stomach. Dark walkers, no! she thought.

  As the guard laid the little boy down beside the fire, the other was lifting out another body. It was a tall redhead in a gorgeous silver satin gown. One arm dangled and her head lolled back. She was deposited by the fire also, Dedrie kneeling beside her in sudden alarm, fingers at the pulse in her neck.

  ‘Ye better no’ have killed her,’ the lord said menacingly. ‘Where will we find another sacrifice in time? If she’s dead, Dedrie, I’ll cut your throat instead!’

  ‘She’s no’ dead,’ Dedrie said, and turned to rummage in her basket as the guards carried out another body from the carriage. ‘Happen I gave her too much o’ the poppy and nightshade syrup. Though I only gave them a wee …’

  Staggering under the weight of Prionnsa Owein, a tall muscular young man with the added weight of two great feathered wings as long as he was tall, the guards came up to the fire. At that moment Banprionnsa Olwynne rolled over and gave Dedrie a hefty kick in the backside that sent her sprawling onto her face.

  ‘Run, Roden!’ Olwynne screamed, and seized a stick from the pile of firewood, brandishing it in the face of the lord as he attempted to leap to his feet.

  The little boy was up and running at once. The guards shouted and dropped the prionnsa, trying desperately to catch Roden as he bolted past. The prionnsa’s wings and arms were bound tightly to his body, but his legs were free. He managed to kick the legs of one of the guards from under him, so that he fell back to the ground with a thud. The other caught the edge of Roden’s nightgown and hauled him back, but Olwynne whacked him hard across the head with the stick and he let go with a cry of pain, both hands flying up to protect himself.

  Irving slapped the banprionnsa hard across the face and she fell to her knees with a cry; just then the other men came surging back in from the forest, dropping their bundles of firewood. One ran to intercept the little boy, but Roden dodged him and ran on. For a minute there was a ridiculous game of hide-and-seek as he dodged and scrambled through the circle of men, then the seeking hands closed in upon him. Just as Roden was about to be caught, the black winged mare came swooping out of the sky and Rhiannon bent and seized him, dragging him up and into her arms. Blackthorn beat her great wings and soared away.

  ‘Shoot them down!’ the lord screamed, beside himself with rage. ‘Fools! Idiots! Shoot them down!’

  The men scrambled for their bows and arrows. Irving drew his dagger and would have sent it spinning after Blackthorn had Olwynne not kicked out with her high-heeled silver shoe and gouged him so sharply in the shin that he cried out and jerked, and the knife spun away harmlessly into the snow. He turned and slapped her again, knocking her back down to the ground. She did not seem to care, she was laughing and crying at once, and Owein was cheering and calling Rhiannon’s name. It was the last thing she heard as she and Roden flew up and away into the dark, storm-tossed sky.

  Bronwen the Bonny, the new Banrìgh of Eileanan, came quietly into the bedchamber.

  ‘How is she?’ she whispered to the healer.

  ‘The Stargazer is very weak still, Your Majesty, but there is naught wrong with her that time and rest willna fix,’ the healer replied in a low voice. Named Mirabelle, she was a gaunt, pock-faced woman of middle age, with greying hair coiled neatly at the back of her head and dark shadows under her eyes. Like her patient, Mirabelle was fighting the after-effects of the drugged wine she had drunk on Midsummer’s Eve. The wine had been laced with poppy syrup, nightshade, henbane and powdered valerian root, a toxic mixture designed to induce almost instant unconsciousness.

  ‘May I speak with her now?’ Bronwen asked.

  ‘Aye, Your Majesty. She is awake and coherent now, and very distressed about her daughter.’

  Bronwen nodded and picked up the sombre folds of her black satin gown in one hand as she followed the healer around the screen to the Stargazer’s bedside. She always felt rather awkward in Mirabelle’s company, remembering how much she and her friends had teased the healer when she had been one of their teachers at the Theurgia. Bronwen remembered one particular day, when she had given in to the impulse to mock Mirabelle for her pox-ravaged face, just to make the class giggle. Mirabelle had not seemed to mind, using the jibe to issue a smiling warning about the importance of taking care when nursing highly infectious diseases, yet Bronwen felt rather ashamed of her cruelty and as a consequence was always very sweet and charming to Mirabelle when they met.

  Cloudshadow was lying against a mound of pillows, her snow-white hair rippling down to stream across the green satin coverlet. She looked more frail and ethereal than ever. Her skin was so white it looked bloodless, and there were violet shadows under the strange, colourless eyes.
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br />   Bronwen bowed low. Greetings, honourable one, she hummed deep in her throat.

  Greetings, the Stargazer hummed back.

  Ye ken your daughter was dear to me, Bronwen thought. I am as devastated by her loss as ye. My husband too is missing, and our land is plunged into chaos. Can ye help me find them?

  The Stargazer reached out her long, four-jointed finger and placed it between Bronwen’s brows.

  I cannot see my daughter, the Stargazer said. Her mind-voice was filled with anguish. I cannot sense her.

  Is she … are they … dead?

  I do not know. The Celestine’s hand fell away.

  Bronwen was puzzled. The mind-ability of the Celestines was legendary. It was said they could see into every man and woman’s heart and read what was written there, and that they could cast their senses far across the land.

  We think they have travelled the Auld Way. We found Donncan’s sash at the entrance o’ the maze, and evidence that Johanna seeks to go back a thousand years in time, to the days o’ the First Coven.

  The Celestine closed her eyes. To Bronwen’s dismay, tears began to slide down from under her closed lids. She had never seen a Celestine cry before. She had not imagined they could, let alone ordinary tears of water like a human.

  Forgive me, honourable one, but is this indeed possible? Can one travel the Auld Way so far back in time?

  So far, and further, came the reply. It is a perilous journey, and forbidden to us. Even when our kind was being hunted down and burnt alive by your mother’s soldiers, we did not take refuge in other times, as some among us argued we should. To do so would have been to break one of the most sacred taboos of our kind. To bend time is to remake history, and to remake history is to remake the world.

  There was a long silence.

  Did Thunderlily know the secret o’ travelling back in time? Bronwen asked.

  The Celestine lifted one hand and wiped away her tears. Thunderlily has learnt the tree-language and the star-language, as any child of the Stargazers must, she said very quietly. These are the most sacred secrets of my kind, and never to be disclosed to one not of her blood. Even the man whom she shall sacrifice to the Summer Tree may not know all the songs.

  So she does know how to do it? Would she do so? Bronwen asked.

  The Stargazer opened her eyes and stared straight into Bronwen’s. It was like being stabbed with a bright pin. Bronwen found it impossible to maintain her gaze, despite all her majesty and authority as the banrìgh of all Eileanan and the Far Islands. She dropped her eyes, colour staining her cheeks.

  I would not have thought so, came the answer. But if a knife was held to the winged one’s throat … perhaps she would rather brave the dangers of the Old Ways and do as she was bid, than sully the perfection of the Heart of Stars with the blood of a murdered king. I cannot tell. I have been too long away from my daughter. I no longer know what is in her heart. She has folded secrets away inside her, and closed her eye to me so I cannot read them.

  The Celestine sounded unutterably weary and sad. Bronwen felt her own eyes sting in sudden sympathy, and a guilt she told herself was entirely irrational. It is no’ my fault Thunderlily grew so fascinated with us humans, she told herself. It was your decision to send your daughter to the Theurgia to study our ways. You canna blame her for taking advantage of her freedom, and learning to drink and dance and flirt. You canna blame me.

  Impaled upon the Celestine’s crystal-clear gaze, she found this was a fiction she could not sustain. She shifted her weight, the silk of her heavy skirts rustling, and said with a frown, We must go after them, we must get them back. Will ye show us the way?

  There was a long silence, during which the Stargazer did not move a muscle. She did not blink, she did not drop her gaze, she hardly seemed to breathe.

  I know it is forbidden, Bronwen said desperately, but if we do no’ go after them, Johanna will kill Donncan and use his lifeblood to resurrect a cruel and evil sorcerer. Have ye no’ heard the stories about Brann the Raven? How he lusted after Medwenna, his own son’s young wife, and stole her for his own? How he drowned her when she tried to escape, and cut off her head and had it delivered to his son on a silver tray? Ye say it is forbidden to go back in time because it could remake history. Just imagine a world where such a man has a second chance o’ life! What would happen to all o’ us? Would the world we ken now be here at all? Would ye and I exist at all? What would happen to us? Would we just turn into dust and blow away? Or would we be what our history had made us, a darker, crueller, bloodier history than the one we have had because Brann died? Or would Brann disdain the life and world he knew, and compel Thunderlily to bring him back here, to our time, to a time when the witches’ power is still being mended and there are only a few sorcerers to withstand him. What would that mean to us? To me? Widowed afore I was even a wife, and banrìgh to a world gone mad?

  Bronwen found she was weeping. She stopped and took a deep, ragged breath, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes. Still the Celestine was silent and motionless.

  Please, Bronwen said. Ye are the only one.

  The only Stargazer left … Cloudshadow said, very low.

  Aye … Bronwen said sadly. Now Thunderlily is lost …

  What would be the greater wrong, to abide by the laws of my kind and respect the taboo against bending time, and thus allow great evil to be done, or to knowingly breach the most strict and revered of laws and attempt to avert the doing of evil?

  To stand by and let Donncan be murdered so some horrible man can live again would be by far the greater wrong! Bronwen said fiercely. How can ye even ask such a question?

  And my daughter …

  Aye, Thunderlily! What would Brann do to her?

  I must think on it …

  No! There is no time! Already two days and two nights have passed since my husband was stolen from me. Aunty Beau says the best time to travel the Auld Ways is at dawn or sunset. It will be dawn in a few hours. Please. We may already be too late.

  Once again tears unexpectedly started to Cloudshadow’s eyes. Thunderlily, Thunderlily, she murmured. Oh, my beautiful daughter, where are ye?

  Will ye go and try to find her? Bronwen pleaded.

  The Celestine nodded. Yes. I must. Call together my people. We must make ready.

  Thank ye, thank ye, Bronwen gabbled. We will do all we can to aid ye. Tell me what must be done.

  I have all I need here, the Stargazer said, lifting her hand to touch first her heart, then the pulse at her throat, and then her third eye which opened under her finger, as dark and fathomless as a well.

  The little boy was shivering. Rhiannon drew him close to her and wrapped her cloak about him.

  ‘How are ye yourself?’ she whispered.

  ‘Rhiannon, Rhiannon,’ he wept, and clutched her wrist with one icy-cold little hand.

  ‘I’ve got ye now, ye’re safe,’ she whispered. He shuddered and she pressed him closer, shocked at how cold he was.

  ‘What were ye thinking, running off into the snow with naught on but a nightgown?’ she admonished him.

  ‘They were going to kill us,’ he whispered.

  ‘Well, I’ve got ye now, ye’re safe, no-one’s going to kill ye.’

  ‘What about Owein … Olwynne?’

  ‘I’ll get ye to safety too, and then I’ll go back and get them,’ she promised. He sighed and laid back against her, and soon his breathing steadied. She glanced down at him and found he was asleep.

  Rhiannon flew on into the icy darkness. She had nothing to guide her but her own internal compass. The Banrìgh had sent soldiers to pursue the lord of Fettercairn, and Rhiannon guessed they were somewhere on the road behind. She bent over Blackthorn’s neck and strained her eyes to see through the blackness, following the thin line of white that she hoped was the snow-covered road.

  After an hour or so, she saw the red eye of a campfire gleaming through the ranks of dark trees. Rhiannon was not taking any chances and so she brought the
mare down on an outcrop of stone some way above. It was too difficult to dismount with the sleeping child in her arms, so she merely sat there quietly and surveyed the scene, while Blackthorn drooped her head down, her flanks heaving with exhaustion.

  The camp below her was a neat and orderly one. The horses wore heavy blankets and each had a nosebag of warm mash. They were tied to a single line that could be released in a moment if need be. A fire pit had been dug and surrounded by stones to protect the fire from the snow. A small pot hung above it, and a man was stirring it with a long ladle. More men sat on a fallen log that had been drawn up close to the flames. Some were eating from small bowls; others were taking off their boots and setting them to dry near the fire, stuffing them with spare socks first to keep their shape.

  Guards had been set. Rhiannon would not have seen them if she had not waited and watched for so long, for they sat very still, despite the bitter cold, and their cloaks were grey as the night. Still Rhiannon did not approach. She dared not take any chances.

  It was not until one of the men sitting about the fire reached out and pulled a viola case out from a bundle of blankets, opening it and checking the instrument inside as tenderly as if it were a child, that Rhiannon was sure that she had found, if not exactly friends, at least allies. She knew Jay the Fiddler carried his viola with him everywhere he went. Rhiannon gave a little sigh and pulled Roden closer. Carefully she slipped down from the mare’s back and, leaving Blackthorn in the safety of the darkness, began to make her way down the slope towards the camp.

  ‘Halt! Who goes there?’ came the cry.

  ‘It is I, Rhiannon o’ the Dubhslain, upon the Banrìgh’s business,’ Rhiannon answered. To her surprise her voice was no more than a croak.

  The guard came towards her with his sword drawn.

  ‘Careful,’ she said. ‘I have the laddie here.’

  ‘The laddie?’ the guard said incredulously, and seized her arm, drawing her roughly towards the fire so he could see more clearly. She shook him off.