They slid to the ground, his wings wrapping her round with silken strokes. Muttering broken words of love, his hand caressed the curve of her knee. His weight pressed her into the ground, his hand sliding up her thigh. Suddenly he leant back, trying to see her face in the shadowy moonlight. Iseult gripped his hand, and he pressed his mouth to her throat. She raised his face and kissed him. His breath caught, and he pressed against her again, mouth hungry.
She woke in the grey dawn, shivering slightly in her nakedness, and saw Lachlan was awake, watching her. He cupped his wing around her, and she shifted closer to his side. At the brush of her naked skin, he bent his head and kissed her, and they made love again, tenderly this time.
Hand in hand they made their way back to the clearing, dressed by now, their bare feet leaving a dark trail in the dew. Meghan was sitting by the fire, wilting flowers scattered everywhere about her. Their footsteps faltered a little, and they smiled self-consciously, unable to meet her eyes.
‘So, my bairns,’ Meghan said, rather sternly. ‘They say Beltane is a night for loving. I hope it were true passion and no’ just my goldensloe wine.’
They looked at each other and smiled. Iseult’s bare legs were badly scratched from Lachlan’s claws, and she examined them ruefully. ‘I mean it,’ Meghan said, with both trouble and gladness in her tone. ‘Ye have changed your destinies this night, do ye understand? Indeed the whole land’s destiny. Ye have made a choice that shall transform all our lives.’
They glanced at each other, troubled. ‘And ye wove enchantments through your song, Lachlan. It was wrong o’ ye. Ye should never spin such a compulsion.’
‘I knew too, Meghan,’ Iseult said softly. ‘Ye think I could no’ have resisted him if I wanted? It was no’ a compulsion, more o’ a way to … communicate. I knew what it was that I was doing.’
At that Lachlan gripped her fingers tight. ‘I did no’ mean to ensorcel her,’ he said abruptly. ‘I just wanted to …’ He paused, growing red.
‘Aye, ye still do no’ know what magic there is in your voice or how to use it,’ Meghan said. ‘I wish ye had managed to learn more from Enit. She knows full well the pitfalls o’ the songs o’ enchantment. Still, at least ye are coming into the use o’ it, and cannily, it seems. Och, my bairns! I canna tell ye how glad I am, or how troubled. What a babe ye shall have! Conceived at Beltane, born at Hogmanay with the birth o’ the new year! Indeed, a new thread has been strung.’
Iseult could only stare at her in dismay.
The waters of the Murkmyre lay still, reflecting the cloudy sky, the angular fretwork of rushes and cattails, and the graceful shape of a floating swan. The only sound was the rustle of the wind through the rushes.
On the shallow edges of the loch, where a few tree skeletons lifted bare branches to the sky, a long necklace of translucent eggs floated amongst the rushes. As the swan spread its crimson-tipped wings and took to the sky, the glistening eggs began to bulge and shudder. Slowly the fragile gelatinous barrier broke, and small black creatures slithered out into the mud. They had multijointed bodies encased in soft shells, six hooked legs, and their two small antennae were still pliant and slimy with the fluid of their egg cases. Although they paid no attention to each other, each shared a linked consciousness so that their bright clusters of eyes saw not only what was before them, but what each and every one of its egg-brothers saw. Quivering with hunger they crept into the mire, searching for any small insect or fish that they could grasp in their claws and slowly and delicately devour.
Deep in the marshes that stretched on either side of the loch, a brood of Mesmerdean knew the instant the egg cases broke. Clinging to the branches of massive water-oaks, their silvery wings held stiffly on either side of their bodies, they rubbed their claws together in satisfaction, and a low multitonal humming filled the air. Most were young still, their bodies hard beneath the enveloping grey robes, their eyes iridescent green. Their humming swelled and was joined by a deeper, more resonant tone. From the tangle of trees to the south darted their elder, his long abdomen quivering as he flew in swift, abrupt movements which the eye would find hard to follow. All the Mesmerdean held in their mind’s eye the face and shape and smell and emotional aura of Meghan of the Beasts, the witch who had caused their egg-brother’s death. Each and every one of the newly hatched Mesmerdean nymphs absorbed into their communal minds that shape and pattern, and with it the desire for revenge. Soon the mourning would be over. Once the nymphets had grown and undertaken their first metamorphosis, the fully grown nymphs would leave the Murkmyre and go in search of she who had tricked and killed their egg-brother. If they should die, their egg-brothers would follow and finish the chase, each successive generation inheriting the hunger for retribution.
Mesmerdean never forgot.
Rubbing their claws together in anticipation, their song of hate caused a flock of snow geese to rise from the trees and circle, trumpeting in alarm. In her tower, built on an island in the centre of the Murkmyre, Margrit NicFóghnan looked up from her study of an ancient spell book, and frowned with pleasure.
Isabeau lay listlessly against her pillows, staring out of her narrow window at the wall opposite. She cradled her left hand close to her breast in a protective gesture. She felt no pain there now, only a dull ache that came and went and a chill in the fingers that were no longer there.
The room she lay in was hung with shabby tapestries, with a thick rug on the floor and a fire burning on the hearth. It seemed almost sinful to Isabeau, who had lived all her life in a house built in the trunk of a tree. At another time she would have revelled in it. Now, however, a deep blackness lay on her spirits that she could not shrug off, not at the commands of Latifa the Cook, nor the teasing and laughter of the flock of maids she commanded.
All Isabeau could think about was how close she had come to delivering Meghan’s precious talisman into the Awl’s hands. Her guardian had trusted her to carry the talisman from their secret mountain hideaway to the Rìgh’s palace, yet she had made blunder after blunder. First she had rescued the surly hunchback from imprisonment by the Awl, then she had stolen the Grand-Seeker’s own stallion and ridden it into the largest town in the highlands—a town where the Grand-Seeker Glynelda ruled. There she had been tortured and condemned to death. Her dreams were haunted by the Grand-Questioner’s gaunt face and by the dark, drowning waters of Tuathan Loch where she had been thrown to the loch-serpent. The maimed hand with its missing fingers reproached her, and so she cradled it close to her body and resisted all attempts to bring her into the life of the royal court at Rhyssmadill. The mysterious talisman, hidden in its muffling bag of nyx-hair, had been taken by Latifa, Meghan’s contact in the palace, and Isabeau had not seen or heard of it since, though she felt its absence as a constant ache and desire.
There was a sharp knock on the door. Without waiting for an answer—which was just as well since Isabeau gave none—it opened and a middle-aged woman came bustling in, carrying a bowl wreathed in steam. She was very short and very fat and had a face like a toasted muffin, with two little raisin eyes and a little cherry mouth and a nose that was a mere bump. She came in talking and kept talking the entire time she was there.
‘So now, still lying there and staring at the wall and feeling sorry for ourselves, are we? Feeling sorry never did anybody any guid, as far as I ken. It’s time ye were up and about, for idleness is something I’ve never been able to bear, and I see no reason to be starting now. Idleness causes talk, especially idleness favoured by me, and talk is something we canna be encouraging, for there’s far too much o’ it already. Seems ye’ve become a romantic figure to the lamb-brained lassies here, and that I canna be allowing. The only way to stop them wondering about ye is to have ye down there, living and working among them. Besides, I canna be teaching ye anything with ye lying up here like a little misery. So I want ye to eat your broth, then get up and put on the dress I found for ye and come on down to the kitchen. I’ll send one of those silly lasses along to show y
e the way, so be sure and be ready for her when she comes for I have no’ got time to be wasting, like ye seem to.’
Isabeau said nothing, turning her face to the wall and cradling her hand closer to her body. As Latifa spoke, she placed the bowl of soup on the side table, took a grey dress from the cupboard, shook it out and laid it over the chair. She cast Isabeau a shrewd glance from her tiny eyes, then continued, seemingly without breath, ‘Fretting is no’ going to do ye any guid, my dear, and much longer in that bed and you’ll lose the use o’ your legs. No slug-a-beds allowed in my service! So if ye want any more supper, ye’ll have to be coming down and getting it. I haven’t time to be bringing ye trays and neither do any o’ my lasses.’
The door shut smartly behind her, and Isabeau pressed her cheek deeper into the pillow. If only they would leave me alone. She was conscious again of a strange ringing in her head and thought she could hear faint cross-currents of talk. But that was impossible, for the stone walls were so thick no sound could penetrate them.
Again the frightening feeling that she was going mad slid through Isabeau’s mind. She clenched the fingers of her one good hand, shutting her mind resolutely. That fear had been with her often since she had arrived in Rhyssmadill. Waking from her fever in a state of strange clarity, she had thought she could hear the thoughts of all around her. Feeling as frail as a bellfruit seed, she had lain back on her pillows and stared straight into the deepest recesses of the minds of those who tended her—their secret longings and jealousies, their petty spites and preoccupations.
Later, the sense of clarity wore off and she had thought the feeling merely the effects of fever. It returned, though, in undulations of sound and meaning that washed over her, so that she had trouble concentrating on what others were saying. Sometimes it was like two layers of conversation at once—what the person was saying and what they were thinking.
These brief moments of clarity were usually followed by a crippling migraine in which words, images, ideas and memories, both hers and not hers, tumbled through her mind in whirls of dizzying pain. Then all Isabeau could do was lie and try to remember silence—the silence of the secret valley where she had grown up; the silence of the ruined Tower where she had met the Celestine. At these times she pressed her fingers to her forehead, trying to ease the ache and tumult that seemed centred between her brows.
There was a tap on the door and one of the maids put her head around the edge, her eyes bright with curiosity. A pretty, apple-cheeked blonde called Sukey, she had tied the ribbons of her linen cap under one ear, giving her a jaunty look.
‘Obh obh!’ she cried. ‘Wha’ do ye be doing still in bed! Is your head aching still? Mistress Latifa can give ye some o’ her posset for it, but I wouldna make her come back up here again! Do ye need some help in dressing, with your puir, sore hand? The stable-lads say ye must be a right fool to lose your hand rescuing a silly coney, but me and the lassies think ye be very brave …’
Talking as constantly as Latifa and with as little apparent need for breath, the maid pulled back the bedclothes, swung Isabeau’s legs out and pulled her into a sitting position. She washed Isabeau’s face roughly with a damp cloth and undid the buttons of her nightgown. Isabeau seemed to be as powerless to resist as she had been powerless to obey. She looked down at her body as the maid washed her, realising with a shock just how thin she had become. Her legs were little blue sticks and all her ribs stuck out over a sunken stomach. As clearly as if the maid had spoken, she heard her think, Puir feeble thing, look at her, no more flesh on her than a string o’ auld bones …
Within a few minutes Isabeau was up and dressed in the same outfit as the maid—a grey bodice with a wide skirt over voluminous petticoats, a white pinafore tied over the top. Used as she was to breeches, Isabeau felt like a swaddled babe. Jerking her chin round with one rough, chapped hand, Sukey swiftly tied the white cap on over her shorn head and under her chin. Isabeau put her hand up to her head and felt another pang of grief.
Before she came to Rhyssmadill, her hair had been a mass of fiery ringlets that fell all the way to her feet. However, Latifa had cut it all off in an attempt to bring down her fever. Without the weight and mass of her hair, Isabeau’s fever had broken, but she found it hard to forgive the old cook for the loss of her only real beauty. She looked at herself in the mirror and could not see herself in the thin, hunched figure with the pinched face and white cap.
Still talking, Sukey led the way down stone corridors and stairs until they reached the kitchen, which was built in a long low wing away from the main structure of the palace. The massive kitchen took up most of the first floor, surrounded by storerooms, larders, the buttery, the brewery, the curing room, the wine cellar, the cheese room, the herbary where flowers and seeds were hung to dry, and the ice room where jellies and sherbets were made and fresh meat hung. Scullery maids hurried through the corridors, carrying piles of clean linen or steaming pails, and two men staggered past with a great barrel of ale.
Sukey led Isabeau inexorably to the kitchen, which was filled with people tending smoke-blackened ovens, stirring steaming cauldrons on the fires, washing dirty dishes or slicing up vegetables. One was energetically plucking a bhanais bird, the long iridescent tail feathers stretching across the table.
Isabeau’s legs were shaking and she was glad to sink down onto a stool in a corner. She was aware of curious glances from the servants working near her, but all were too busy to pay her much heed, and soon their thoughts returned to the task in hand. Her cheeks stung red at some of their thoughts, but they were no worse than what she had thought herself at the sight of her reflection in the mirror. She leant her head against the warm stone and closed her eyes.
‘Och, guid, ye’re up and about.’ Latifa stopped by Isabeau’s corner. ‘Come, ye can stir a sauce for me and watch to make sure the spit-dogs run smoothly.’
Isabeau had never seen anything like the little dogs which trotted incessantly forward in their wooden wheels, turning the great roasts on their spits. She was unused to dogs, having seen only the rare shaggy sheepdog in the mountain villages. These two dogs were not much bigger than cats, with floppy ears and motley hides. One had a wiry coat, all brindled, with a black patch over one eye, giving him rather a rakish look. The other was mainly white, with silky ears and short spotted legs. Latifa passed her a thin supple cane and told her she was to whip them if they slowed or stopped to scratch or salivated too eagerly at the ever-present smell of meat. Isabeau took it reluctantly and tucked it out of sight as she approached them. Heads hanging, they trotted forward, never varying their pace; their thin flanks were cut and scarred all over.
As Isabeau came near, the little dogs cowered away from her, and she put the switch down. ‘What are your names, laddies?’ she whispered. They cast a glance at her out of dim eyes, and she patted them gently on the head, anger mixing with her pity when they cringed away. Conscious of the other servants watching her, she took up her place on the stool and slowly stirred the creamy sauce in a large, flat pan tucked on the side of the massive fireplace. The heat and the smell of the cooking meat sickened her—it was all she could do not to retch—but Latifa was right, Isabeau had already drawn too much attention to herself with her delirium and her crippled hand. Isabeau was meant to be masquerading as a simple country lass, sent to the city by her grandmother to take up service. The sooner she started acting the part the better. Still, as she stirred and the dogs ran on, heads hanging, a tear slipped out from under her lashes and trickled down her cheek.
The smell of burning penetrated her dazed senses just seconds before a sharp slap across her ear brought her back to earth with a snap. Tears stinging her eyes, Isabeau jerked upright to see one of the lackeys standing over her. Beside her, the sauce had caught, and one side of the great boar was smoking, the black-patched terrier having taken the opportunity for a vigorous scratch.
‘Ye simple-minded fool!’ the lackey shouted. He went to strike her again, though Isabeau escaped the blow,
tumbling off her stool and to her feet in ungainly haste. The other servants gathered round, exclaiming and commiserating, and one of the maids went running to fetch Latifa. Isabeau slipped away, holding her hand to her cheek, the other clenched to her breast. As she escaped out through massive arch and into the herb garden, she heard the dogs whimpering as the lackey whipped them.
The long, walled garden was empty of all but a hunched old man tending the beehives lined against the far wall. Isabeau was able to hurry unseen to the shelter of the apple trees espaliered along the wall’s length, all budding with new leaves. She crouched on the muddy path behind the hedge of rosemary, her hand to her burning cheek, her head pressed against her knees. They were trembling. After a while, the sun on her back, the contented hum of bees in the flowers, the familiar and comforting smell of earth and crushed herbs, all combined to soothe her. She wiped her wet cheeks on her apron and sat back against the trunk of an apple tree.
‘Ye’ve got your skirt all muddied, lassie. Latifa will no’ be liking that at all.’
Startled, Isabeau looked up and saw the bow-legged old man leaning on his spade in the herb bed a few squares away. Then she looked down and saw that he was right. Her grey skirt, so fresh and clean only an hour ago, was now bedraggled with mud.
‘Ye’ve got mud on your cheek too, lassie.’ Involuntarily, tears sprang up in Isabeau’s eyes again. ‘Now, now, lassie, no need to be greetin’. Come and wash your face, and I’ll lend ye my clothes brush.’
He led her through the garden and out through the arched gateway into a wide paved courtyard. She had dim memories of coming this way when she had first arrived at Rhyssmadill, but the fever had had her in its claws and all she could remember was the endless stone walkway she had had to traverse to get to the kitchen from the bridge over the chasm.
From the left came the sounds of the stables and kennels—laughter, shouts, the whinnying of horses, the sound of a blacksmith hammering steel, the clang of buckets, the barking of hounds. Just as Isabeau shrank back, the old man took her hand kindly. They passed through a narrow doorway onto a little suite of rooms, quiet and dim. He had once been head groom at Lucescere, he explained to Isabeau. He had come to Rhyssmadill with the young Rìgh, and had been given this wee corner of the stables to himself, so he could potter around as he pleased.