The jongleurs had gathered a great deal of interesting information during their travels in Blèssem. The children’s disappearances were being blamed on strange winged creatures that hypnotised their parents into immobility. The same grey ghosts had been seen just before the headquarters of the Ancient Guild of Fireworks Magicians had exploded with an amazing display of skyrockets, shooting stars and flaming wheels. The guild-master’s body had not been found among those in the charred ruins of the factory, and one of the town drunks swore he had seen him being carried away by the ghosts, along with many bulging sacks and barrels. Since the same winged creature had saved a uile-bheist from an angry mob some months ago, they were thought to be in league with the rebels.
Dide had frowned, whispering in his grandmother’s ear, ‘Surely we have no such creatures working with us?’ Enit had shaken her head, her eyes hooded, and Gwilym had snorted with bitter humour. ‘A grey ghost that appears silently out o’ mist and enraptures its prey? Mesmerdean for sure! That means the Thistle’s fair fingers are dabbling in this pie. I daresay she wanted the uile-bheist for her Theurgia—it must have had some magical power that she wants to harness for her own use.’
Enit had decided to head towards Arran itself, to visit a friend of Gwilym’s who might be able to help them understand the reasons behind Margrit of Arran’s bizarre activities. With the rebels’ plans in such delicate balance, Enit Silverthroat wanted no surprises.
By sunset they had reached the edge of the marsh, which rustled mysteriously with rushes, sedges, bulrushes and cattails. Blue-legged herons flew overhead, croaking their hoarse song. A thick blanket of mist hung over the road ahead, bare tree branches writhing free above it.
Morrell put Nina up on the seat beside her grandmother. He walked at the mare’s head, one hand resting on the hilt of his dagger. Mist floated towards them, the sky behind darkening to a strange green colour. Their shadows before them were long and flat. Though the sun still struck at their backs, storm clouds were ominous on all sides. They looked at the mist trailing over the road, then up at Enit. She smiled at them encouragingly, and said, ‘Fear no’, I have no intention o’ tackling the marshes at night. Let’s make camp, and we’ll push on in the morning.’
Gratefully they set up camp, the horses cropping disdainfully at the thin grass. When Lilanthe sank her roots into the soil, she found it sour and unsatisfying, quite unlike the rich loam of Blèssem.
The next morning the caravans were wreathed in mist. All of them felt uneasy, remembering the tales they had heard of Arran. Gossip said it was a brave man who dared travel into the Murkmyre without permission. Many tales were told of men who went in and never came out, or stumbled out years later with mad eyes and stuttering tongue, unable to describe the horrors or marvels they had seen.
Gwilym the Ugly was the only man they knew who had ever seen the Tower of Mists, but he was reluctant to talk about his time there and had grown moodier as the fenlands approached. He had not agreed to return to Arran easily, but Enit’s spies had told him that Margrit of Arran was travelling to Rhyssmadill for the Lammas Congress. Only then did he succumb to their arguments, although it was clear he did not relish the prospect of entering the marshes again.
Over their porridge they argued about the best course of action. Enit had to stay with her caravan, unable to walk more than a few steps without pain; Nina also should stay. ‘To keep Granddam company,’ Dide said hastily when the little girl pouted her lip. He thought Lilanthe should also stay, though he agreed with Enit that the cluricaun could prove useful, being impervious to magic and the marshes of Arran steeped in it.
Lilanthe said in a stifled voice that she wanted to go. Gwilym said harshly that she was a fool. ‘I have no wish to step one foot—or even a wooden stump—over the border o’ Arran. No’ even if Margrit NicFóghnan is away. If ye had any sense, lass, ye would no’ either.’ Lilanthe said nothing. He laughed sardonically. ‘I, curse the Spinners, have to go, being the only one to ken the paths through the marsh.’
‘Someone needs to stay behind and help guard the caravans,’ Dide argued.
Morrell snorted. ‘As if a tree-shifter is any more use than an auld women an’ a bairn. One o’ us should stay, ye ken that, lad.’ Dide hesitated, not keen to give up the chance to see Arran, and Morrell guffawed. ‘I have no desire to tickle the banprionnsa’s nose, Dide, ye can go. I shall stay and catch up on some well-deserved rest.’
‘Very well,’ Dide replied and began to prepare himself for the trip into the marshes. He did not dress with his customary gaudiness, wearing instead a grey tunic over breeches and hose of a soft brown. Gwilym thrust two daggers through his belt and a sgian dubh into his boot. He held over his lap a tall staff he had spent the last few weeks carving and polishing.
With a set expression on her face, Lilanthe also prepared herself, packing food, a warm plaid and a dagger. After a moment’s hesitation, Dide dug out one of his golden balls and gave it to Lilanthe. ‘In case something goes wrong,’ he said. ‘Call me through the sphere. I will find ye.’
She nodded and smiled, feeling an odd stiffness in her cheeks. With a subdued Brun trotting at their heels, they bid the others a quiet goodbye and followed Gwilym down the track.
On either side the mist swirled over mud and rushes, smelling of decay. Noises were muffled in the fog, and they all turned their heads, straining to hear. Soon they came to a fork, and Gwilym silently headed to the left. For the next three hours they tramped through the fens, trees looming out of the haze.
At last they stopped to rest, eating the food they had packed, washed down with well-watered greengage wine. They saw a swamp-rat, large as a cat, swimming through a patch of water. It bared its notched fangs at them, and Lilanthe shrank back, unable to suppress a cry.
Soon after the track petered away and they had to pick their way through squelching mud and floating islands of grass and soil. Gwilym led the way, prodding the ground before him with his staff, finding it difficult to keep his wooden peg from slipping in the mud.
After an hour of such slow walking, the smell of peat smoke mingled with the stench of the bogs. Gwilym quickened his pace, leading the way to a hut built into a low mound. If he had not pointed it out, Dide and Lilanthe would have walked straight past it, for the hut’s roof was thatched with peat and grew as thickly with sedge and mosses as the bank behind it. The door was only four feet high and made of weathered driftwood the same grey as the marshes. Gwilym rapped upon it, and a gruff voice called out, ‘Aiieee?’
Quirking his mouth into a smile, Gwilym nodded at his companions and pushed the door open. They all bent their backs and entered, only the cluricaun short enough to stand without stooping in the dark, smoky room within.
It was a tiny room, furnished roughly with benches and a table made from driftwood and decorated with frail marsh-flowers. A small creature was stirring a pot over the peat fire. She turned as they came in and bared her fangs in a smile. Her purplish-black skin rippled with dark fur, and she wore a brown dress with a shawl wrapped round her sloping shoulders. She had only four fingers and four toes, and large black eyes of great lustre.
She was a bogfaery and her name was Aya. She spoke very little of the common dialect, but her wizened face and the sounds she made were amazingly expressive. Aya had been nanny to the banprionnsa’s son and heir most of her life. At last she had got so old the many stairs were too much for her, and Iain MacFóghnan had arranged for her to return to the bogs, as she so fervently wished.
She threw up her dark wrinkled paws and moaned when Gwilym said he had need of information from her. Each time Gwilym tried to speak, she covered her ear-holes with her paws, rocking back and forth. ‘Bad man ban no’ like,’ she moaned. ‘Bad man go, bad man no’ say goodbye, no’ even to my little man, ban very mad, my man sad.’
He grasped her paws and pulled them down, saying harshly, ‘Aya, I am sorry indeed I had to go the way I did, without any farewells, but what else could I do? Iain knew I had to g
o.’
‘Ee-an want go bad.’
Gwilym turned away, his wooden stump dragging on the floor. ‘The Mesmerdean would no’ have let her only son pass unchallenged.’ He made an impatient gesture, and turned back. ‘Aya, tell me what has been happening since I left?’
‘Bright men.’
‘Bright men?’
‘Sun shine on arms, legs.’ She struggled to express herself, waving her paws over her limbs, then pointing to the silver daggers at Dide’s waist. ‘Bright. Shine. In sun. Clank.’
‘Silver men?’ She nodded vigorously, and they stared at each other blankly. Brun repeated softly, ‘Bright men, silver men, bright in the sun they shine.’
The bogfairy nodded enthusiastically, and Gwilym asked, ‘I’m sorry, Aya, I do no’ understand. What else can ye tell me?’
‘My man, little man, married man.’
‘Iain?’
‘Ee-an.’
‘What has that cursehag been doing to him?’ Gwilym dug at the mud floor with his stump. They stared at him, and he clenched his hands and said, ‘It’s no use, I have to speak to Iain. He’s the only one who will know anything o’ any use.’
‘But … are ye no’ talking about the prionnsa? The Thistle’s son?’
Gwilym nodded and sat down with a jerk on one of the sedge-strewn beds cut into the bank. ‘Iain hates the cursehag as much as I do,’ he replied heavily. ‘We have to get a message to him somehow. It will be dangerous indeed. I’d bet a half-crown that Margrit has no’ taken her blaygird Khan’cohban with her—he’ll be lurking around somewhere, no’ to mention the Mesmerdean and bogfaeries and wisps, all o’ which report all they see. Ugly, ye fool, what are ye doing here?’
‘Ugly is here because he knows it is the best and truest thing to do,’ Dide said firmly. ‘Ugly is here because he is at heart a good man, if a trifle jaundiced. Ugly is here because he wants to help his friend the juggler.’
‘Ugly’s here because he is a fool,’ Gwilym replied, smiling into his beard.
‘I go my man, I go ask my man,’ Aya said, her anxious, seagrape-black face upturned to theirs.
‘Aye, take a message to Iain,’ he agreed. ‘We shall have to try and meet with him, if at all possible. The Mesmerdean elders may all be with Margrit—though it is turning cooler and soon they will be growing their winter husk and looking for mud in which to lie … Iain will ken. Somehow we must arrange a safe meeting.’
Iain bent down and hugged his old nanny with delight. ‘More bog-cookies, Aya! For my pretty wife? Come and give them to her yourself, she was hoping ye would come and visit soon.’ He did not miss the imploring glance the bogfaery cast him from her huge black eyes or the tentative point of her knobbly finger. Tucked beneath the cookies was a note, and with a quickening of his pulse Iain thought he recognised the scrawl.
Ten minutes later he was heading towards the Theurgia’s Tower, trying hard to hide his excitement. He could feel his eyes shining and his cheeks burning, but he relaxed his shoulders as much as he could, feeling the Khan’cohban’s eyes on him.
‘Truly the Spinners are w-w-with us!’ Iain whispered as soon as the clatter of the other children getting their tea rose around them. ‘I have a m-m-message from a friend—he wants to m-m-meet with us and t-t-talk. Douglas, this is our chance! It canna be coincidence that Gwilym the Ugly should return to Arran at just this t-t-time. He always said we would one day escape from here—he must have returned for me! And M-M-Mother away and the M-M-Mesmerdean sulking because o’ the massacre o’ their egg-brothers—it’s the Spinners watching over us, for sure.’
Douglas’s eyes were gleaming bright. ‘At last! I felt I would run stark staring mad if I could no’ warn Papa somehow about the invasion. I could no’ stand it any more! Knowing they were threatening to strike into Eileanan and no-one but us knowing anything! We have to get out and warn them!’
‘This m-m-may be our only chance. It is time to put our plan into action!’
That night, as Khan’tirell served him his evening meal, Iain said casually to his wife, ‘Elf, ye are l-l-looking a wee pale. How are ye feeling yourself?’
‘I am feeling a wee pale too, I must admit.’
‘Ye are spending too much t-t-time within, why do ye no’ go and sit in the garden tomorrow? Ye need some sunshine and fresh air, and ye ken M-M-Mother wishes ye to keep well for the babe.’
‘O’ course, Iain. It is just that it is so hot in the garden.’
‘I should t-t-take ye rowing on the loch,’ Iain cried. ‘It is always cool on the loch—we could take a p-p-picnic.’
‘Could we?’ Elfrida cried, clapping her hands.
‘Khan’tirell, would ye order a p-p-punt for tomorrow?’
‘Very well, my laird. Where do ye plan to row?’
‘Perhaps we’ll go n-n-north to the forest. My lady will like to see the g-g-golden g-g-goddess blooming.’
‘Oh, yes!’ Elfrida said.
‘I think perhaps too dangerous for …’
‘Nonsense!’ she cried. ‘Am I no’ a NicHilde?’
‘Yes, my lady,’ he bowed, eyeing her slim form speculatively. Iain wished she had not reminded him that she came from a long line of warrior-witches, but she drooped a little and toyed with her food, sighing, ‘Besides, it is no’ as if I wish to go too close, what with the babe and all. I would like to see them though, I have heard they are bonny indeed.’
‘The cygnets will all b-b-be swimming, ye will like them, Elf.’
‘Oh, how lovely! Iain, why do we no’ take the children with us? They will love the cygnets too, and we can make a feast day o’ it!’
They could feel Khan’tirell weighing up the idea. Elfrida said cooingly, ‘I find I love the sound o’ children’s laughter about me at this time.’
Iain flashed her a warning glance but the horned man made up his mind and nodded. ‘Very well, my laird, I will order boats for ye all and bogfaeries to row and two Mesmerdean to scout the way for ye.’
‘Oh, do we have to have those awful blaygird creatures!’ Elfrida gave a not entirely artificial shudder.
Iain said casually, ‘Surely, Kh-Kh-Khan’tirell, that is no’ necessary? I do no’ need M-M-Mesmerdean to scout the path to the glade of the golden g-g-goddess. I have been m-m-many times, and it is a simple matter o’ sculling up the river.’
Khan’tirell said nothing, just snapped his fingers at the servants to pour more wine, and they knew he had not changed his mind.
The next morning they set off in the pearly hour after dawn. One of the six long punts was loaded with hampers and blankets. Elfrida sat propped in silken cushions in the prow of another, with Iain facing her, and the other children were crammed in the other punts, a warlock in every stern. Little Jock, the crofter’s boy, was crammed in with the wicker baskets and the bogfaeries.
Khan’tirell himself jumped lithely into Iain’s punt and the prionnsa’s spirits sank. He had hoped the Scarred Warrior would not feel it necessary to accompany them, and had even chanted a goodwish upon it as he dropped off to sleep. It had not worked, and now their escape would be much more difficult.
By eight o’ clock the mist had burnt away and a bright summer sky stretched overhead. Sunlight danced on the water of the loch behind them, but under the overarching water-oaks it was cool. The bogfaeries poled slowly, so the passengers had plenty of time to exclaim over the wildlife. Fluffy pink cygnets played in the shallows, the swans drifting nearby. An iridescent green snake coiled on a low branch; birds rose crying from the rushes, while the black wrinkled paws of bogfaeries bent aside the bulrushes to peer at them. Occasionally one called to the bogfaeries poling the punts and was answered in the same high wailing ‘Aiieee!’
By noon they had rounded a corner to see a low hill crowned with tall trees rising to their left, while before them stretched the glittering waters of the Murkfane. A rich, exotic scent was beginning to drift through the air. Elfrida lifted her face, sniffing luxuriously. Iain leant forward to touch her knee:
‘Try no’ to breathe in the smell, Elf—it is the lure o’ the g-g-golden g-g-goddess and will cause ye to become d-d-drowsy.’
Khan’tirell directed the bogfaeries to pole the boats in close to the shore. As they scrambled onto solid ground Iain pulled aside the hanging branches of a willow, and all the children cried aloud in astonishment. Before them a flower rested on the ground, taller than their heads, lily-shaped and yellow as summer sunshine. Its outward-curling petals surrounded long stamens bending under the weight of thick pollen. Purple-red spots scattered the lower petal, like a path leading to the crimson bed of the pistil. Deep within was a round globule of golden honey. The air was heavy with the delicious smell.
The great green stem, covered in sharp bristles, writhed out from the same source as a hundred more. Each stem, as thick as a man’s body, carried one of the drooping yellow flowers, while huge green leaves thrust up overhead.
‘They’re beautiful!’ Elfrida cried.
‘And d-d-deadly,’ Iain replied grimly. ‘She’s carnivorous—her b-b-beauty and scent are designed to lure the unwary in. She is most dangerous in the late afternoon—the potency o’ her perfume increases t-t-towards sunset, as she likes to d-d-digest overnight.’
Elfrida recoiled. ‘It eats meat? Would it eat us?’
‘If she could,’ Iain responded. ‘My ancestors used to f-f-feed anyone who disagreed with them to the g-g-golden goddess.’
He picked up a handful of pebbles from the ground. ‘Watch!’ he called. ‘The g-g-golden goddess will sn-sn-snap shut if she feels more than two or three t-t-touches in quick succession—like something walking down her spotted path.’