A piteous mew answered her, and she saw the elven cat crouched on a high shelf, its slanted eyes gleaming turquoise in the firelight. Its tufted ears were laid back against its skull and its sharp little fangs gleamed.
‘Mmm, fish,’ Finn whispered. The elven cat’s tail lashed from side to side. Moving very slowly, she dipped her fingers in, then held out her fingers for the kitten to smell. Immediately the black cat spat, scratching Finn’s hand. Finn was unable to prevent a cry, snatching her hand back to suck the welling droplets of blood. Behind her Dillon and Artair jeered, but she ignored them.
‘I be your friend,’ she said to the kitten reproachfully, trying to project feelings of warmth and security. ‘I be your friend. I brought fish for ye.’ Slowly she reached out her fingers again, and again the kitten scratched her.
She sat for a time in silence, subduing her impatience and letting the kitten get used to her presence. The elven cat’s natural curiosity asserted itself and, although its ears were still laid back, it crept forward a little, staring at her with bright eyes. Again she dipped her fingers in the fish and held them up for the kitten to see and smell, and this time, although it snarled, it did not strike. She could see its little black nose quivering at the smell of the trout, and so she lifted the bowl and set it close to its paw. This time it thrust its face hungrily into the bowl. Once it was empty, the kitten sat and washed itself while, exhausted, Finn curled up where she sat and slept.
The children were too frightened to venture out of the cave the next morning, having been woken just before dawn by Artair, who reported nervously that a large company of soldiers had just gone crashing past.
Jorge said kindly, ‘We shall have another quiet day, my bairns, just to make sure we are all fully recovered from the spring rites.’ He sighed, and Jesyah the raven hopped onto his knee so the blind beggar could scratch his neck. ‘I am anxious indeed to be home, but a day o’ rest shall do none o’ us any harm.’
Finn spent the long day trying to tame the wild kitten, which had lost its weakness and was full of spite and spunk. Finn’s hands were disfigured with innumerable scratches and bites, and even her face and neck were marked. Most of the other children were happy to keep well away and mocked Finn for her foolishness in trying to tame an elven cat.
‘They will no’ be tamed,’ Johanna said for the umpteenth time. ‘Elven cats would rather die than be handled by a human. Give it a rest, Finn.’
Instead Finn sat silently as a shadow, staring at the elven cat and trying to emanate love and protection. Every now and again she offered the little cat some more to eat or drink, but mostly she remained still, using every Skill of Silent Communication that Jorge had managed to teach her. The cat occasionally arched its back and hissed, but was demonstrably more accepting of Finn’s presence than the day before.
The next evening, after another day of silent communication, the elven cat at last took food from Finn’s fingers without trying to scratch her. That night, as Finn slept in her self-exile at the back of the cave, she woke to find the kitten curled against her neck, purring so loudly she thought it must wake the others.
The garden of the Celestines blossomed with all the delicacy of spring. Birds flew with flashes of bright wings, baby donbeags clung to their mothers’ backs and, in the clearings, clouds of butterflies danced out their brief, ecstatic lives. Where the summerbourne wound through the green forest, a ribbon of flowers trailed.
As the days grew longer and warmer, Lachlan grew restless, but Meghan merely said, ‘We shall have to move on soon, so enjoy the serenity while ye can.’
‘Where shall we go?’ Iseult looked up from The Book of Shadows.
‘Well, the next step is to start gathering our forces. We have rebel camps scattered everywhere, all over Eileanan. Some are tiny, others quite large, as large as a village. We want to start bringing them under our hand and training them up. Lachlan already has his own force, the Blue Guards …’
Lachlan’s eyes glowed. ‘They were my father’s own bodyguard, but the Banrìgh disbanded them, saying there was no longer any need for them. I ran into one o’ their former captains, Duncan Ironfist, who turned rebel with me, and he’s been scouting for likely lads and training them up for four years now. He’s one o’ the few who kens who I really am.’
‘We need to find somewhere to build a proper base, easy to defend, hard to find, preferably near where the Whitelock and Sithiche Mountains meet,’ Meghan mused. ‘That way we can come down from both the west and the north. I wonder … I know Jorge has a hideaway near the foot o’ the Fang … I wonder if that would be suitable? I wish he’d answer my call but he must think it too dangerous to scry. I hope he’s safe.’
Over the next few days Iseult sparred with Lachlan more fiercely than ever before, trying unsuccessfully to make him use his wings. Even when she knocked his legs out from under him, he kept his wings stubbornly clamped to his side. Biting her lip thoughtfully, Iseult began to teach Lachlan a different set of exercises, one that taught him about the reach and balance of his own body.
She also decided to make use of the great strength of his arms and shoulders, and taught him to use her crossbow. She was not surprised to find he had a natural affinity for the weapon. She returned one day from the Celestines’ fabulous garden with a long branch of ash which she whittled into a longbow and strung with one of Cloudshadow’s long, wiry hairs. To her surprise, Lachlan not only learnt to bend the bow but grew quite accurate with the arrows she showed him how to make.
One afternoon she suggested they walk to the nearby hills so they could watch the birds of prey that nested in the cliffs. Iseult wanted to show Lachlan how they used their wings and claws, in the hope he would start using his.
They wrapped cheese and bread in a napkin and walked through the Veiled Forest’s green avenues. Drifts of white butterflies danced in the rays of light streaming through the tree trunks, and a red dappled deer leapt across their path. Far away a tree swallow warbled its sweet song to a counterpoint of thrushes and wagtails. Lachlan began to sing too, his carolling ringing through the overarching branches, so that birds darted through the air ahead of them, answering his song with their own.
When at last his blackbird tune died away, Iseult began to lecture him on strategy and tactics, keeping her tone as dry as she could. With his dark face alight with the joy of the song, Lachlan had the power to disturb her peace, and Iseult wanted no disturbance.
Together they watched a crested falcon hunt down a coney, its powerful talons snatching the petrified animal off the ground, Iseult explaining and expounding all the while. ‘If ye have no knife or sword to hand, ye can always disembowel your enemy with your talons,’ she instructed, surprised how pale Lachlan turned.
They ate their picnic in the forest and afterwards lay silent under the trees. Iseult returned from a dream of the snows to find Lachlan’s topaz-yellow eyes fixed on her face. He was lying on his side, supporting his curly black head with his hand, his face and shoulders framed by one glossy black wing. She returned his gaze steadily and saw his lean cheek flush. Iseult’s stomach clenched, her blood heating. She forced herself to glance away nonchalantly.
‘I would ask ye my question now.’ Lachlan’s voice was low and rough.
She met his intent gaze. ‘If ye wish,’ she answered coolly.
‘Why did ye leave Tìrlethan … I mean, were you free to … Did ye have no-one to keep ye there?’ He stumbled into silence.
She sat upright fluidly, bringing her hands to rest palm upwards on her thighs. ‘No thought o’ leaving the Spine o’ the World had crossed my mind afore I met Meghan. I knew, o’ course, that one day I would have to leave the Pride and cross the mountains in search o’ a mate. Such is the duty o’ a Firemaker …’
Lachlan glanced at her. Her heart pounding, she continued in a constricted voice, ‘He must be strong and wise and kind, with blue eyes like those o’ all the Firemaker’s get and hair with red in it. Only then will the People be sure a
true Firemaker will be born to them.’
Lachlan turned his face away again, resting his forehead on his arms so she could not see his face. ‘I knew, therefore, that I must cross the mountains one day. I did no’ think this would happen for many years, however, for I have only just reached my sixteenth year. But then Meghan came and said I should travel with her. My grandmother had had dreams of my going, and said I was to find my shadow and my destiny, so it seemed fitting that I should go.’
She paused and let her posture relax. She brought her eyes back to Lachlan’s face and saw he was scowling, pulling grass to pieces with his brown fingers. He got to his feet and hobbled away, leaning on his club. ‘A very full and complete answer,’ was all he said.
Iseult went to bathe her hot cheeks in the clear waters of the burn which tumbled down out of the great granite rocks of the mountains. It was cold, and she rested her wrists in its sparkling iciness, shaken by an unbearable longing for the Spine of the World. She gazed down into the rippling crystal heart, still fascinated by this element of liquidity, so alien to her frozen world. Suddenly she put down her fingers and caught what looked like a tiny snowball. When she pulled her hand out, it held within a strange stone, all pale glimmer like moonshine on snow. She showed Lachlan. He turned a look of dislike and envy upon her, then limped away quickly, slashing at the undergrowth with his club.
She followed him, turning the stone in her hand. It was encrusted here and there with basalt, but everywhere else was milky smooth. After a while she tucked it into her pocket and crept after Lachlan, ambushing him as he moodily stumped along. She did not understand him, and what Iseult did not understand she always wanted to subdue.
Later, when Iseult showed Meghan the stone, the witch turned a piercing look upon it, murmured, ‘Ah, a moonstone,’ and tucked it away in the pouch. Both she and Lachlan were quiet all evening, and in the morning Meghan intensified Iseult’s lessons in scrying and mind-speaking. To Lachlan’s disgust, he was not given the same acceleration, and Meghan would not let him be more than a spectator in their dawn scrying lesson. He complained bitterly, pacing restlessly up and down by the fire, fretting about his fellow rebels.
At last Meghan said gruffly, ‘Calm down Lachlan. Ye’re like a hen on a hot griddle! I have been in contact with Enit, and she has given the Underground orders to set things in motion. Ye ken she holds all the strings in her fingers—she can manage to tweak them without ye, ye can be sure o’ that!’
Most of their time was spent studying, for Meghan was determined Lachlan should know everything he would need to win the Lodestar and the throne. Apart from geography, politics and history, they learnt astronomy, alchemy, mathematics, and the old and new languages, with any spare moments spent reading one of Meghan’s many spell books and scrolls.
Of these, the most interesting was The Book of Shadows. So large and heavy that Iseult had difficulty lifting it, its pages were filled with coloured maps and drawings, spells, incantations, faery stories, and accounts of battles and crownings, births and burials.
The powers of the ancient book were difficult to penetrate. Its pages seemed to move around, so no matter how carefully Iseult marked a page of interest, when she next picked up the book it would open at a completely different page. Try as she might, Iseult could never return to a page at her own will. It seemed The Book of Shadows decided for itself what she should read. Often she wanted to slam it shut in impatience, particularly when it insisted on taking her to embarrassing pages such as love spells or ointments to fade freckles. Lachlan threw it down with a curse every time he read it, causing Meghan to raise her brows, saying, ‘Dear me, Isabeau worked out how to use the Book when she was a mere toddler.’
This made Iseult even more determined to pierce its veil of mystery. Meghan had said one must open the Book with a clear and empty mind, thinking only of what one wished to know. No matter how Iseult emptied her mind, however, she could not seem to control the Book, and she slammed the heavy, embossed covers shut. ‘Why will it no’ answer me?’ she cried.
‘Ye are asking it the wrong questions,’ Meghan answered.
‘Will ye no’ just tell me the answer?’ Iseult wheedled.
‘Nay,’ the sorceress replied.
Iseult felt anger tighten the muscles of her neck. ‘It’s no’ fair, ye never answer my questions yet ye ask me them all the time. Asking a question means that ye owe one!’
‘In that case, Meghan owes thousands o’ questions,’ Lachlan said laconically.
Meghan frowned. ‘I am no’ here to answer your questions, Iseult. Ye have The Book o’ Shadows—ye must learn to use it. The Book o’ Shadows is a magical book, it will take ye places sometimes that ye never expected. Learning is a journey, Iseult, and ye must always travel it alone.’
That night, as they watched the moons rise over the far-distant forests of Aslinn, Meghan said, ‘Tell me, Iseult, do your people have any old tales or fables about dark stars or constellations?’
‘Dark stars … I do no’ think so.’
‘Cloudshadow says I must watch the dark constellations, that they hold the secrets.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘If I knew, foolish lass, I would no’ be asking ye.’
Iseult gazed up at the stars that clustered thickly from horizon to horizon, forming shapes and patterns that Meghan gave names to—the Fire-Eater, the Child with the Urn, the Centaur and His Beard, the Fiery Eagle.
‘I do know a story about the moons,’ she said. ‘See Sister Moon’s hand-prints clear on Brother Moon’s flank tonight?’
‘Hand-prints?’ Meghan asked.
Iseult sat upright in one fluid movement, crossing her legs. In measured cadences, she told how a woman of the prides, longing to know who her secret lover was, had pressed her hands into the ashes of the fire and then looked to see whose skin showed the marks. There, on her own brother’s flank, she saw her smudged hand-prints. Realising her lover was her own brother, she flung herself from the cliff.
‘The Gods, accepting her sacrifice, turned her into the beautiful blue moon that sails our night skies, bringing us light in the darkness. Her brother, mad with grief and remorse, flung himself after and was transformed into the red moon that forever chases his Sister Moon across the sky. They say that once in every five thousand moons, the Gods o’ White take pity on Sister Moon and Brother Moon and let them love again, though always under the cover o’ darkness.’
‘That is an interesting story indeed,’ Meghan replied slowly. ‘It’s no’ dissimilar to the tale we tell our children about the cursed love between Gladrielle and Magnysson. They too were turned into moons, but the Celestines tempered the cruelty o’ the curse and allowed them to meet again once every four hundred years.’ Suddenly Meghan’s dark narrow face flushed with excitement. Then she said in a charged voice, ‘Two moons that reach out to kiss or to bite. O’ course! There is to be an eclipse o’ the moons!’
‘An eclipse? How do ye ken?’
‘I remember now. When I was naught but a bairn, my father took Mairead and me through the maze to the Pool o’ Two Moons to watch the eclipse. My father was always fascinated by the stars and planets, and I remember him discussing it with Mairead. I was more interested in a dormouse I had found in the garden and carried through the maze in my pocket.’
Both Iseult and Lachlan grinned as the wood witch continued. ‘He bade us watch the moons, and slowly, ever so slowly, they crossed and went black. All the stars sprang out bright, then a great halo of light slowly grew around the merged moons. It was then that my father wrought the Lodestar, in the waters o’ the pool that was all lit up with the magic o’ the moons and the stars. Look!’ She pointed at the two moons, hanging close together above their heads. ‘See how a dark halo is growing around the moons? See how four rays o’ darkness are radiating out from them, as if black beacons were sweeping the stars apart? The dark cross, my father called it. That is what Cloudshadow meant when she said to watch for the dark constellations.
She means the spaces between the stars!’
‘So what does this mean to us?’ Lachlan asked. ‘Is it a good omen or bad?’
‘When Magnysson at last holds Gladrielle in his arms, all will be healed or broken, saved or surrendered …’ Meghan murmured.
‘What does that mean?’
‘I will think on it,’ Meghan replied. ‘I do ken my head is swarming with ideas. We will see what, if anything, comes o’ them. At least we know now the meaning o’ Jorge’s dreams. An eclipse o’ the moons is a time o’ great magical significance. There will be power abroad that night.’
‘When will it happen?’
‘My father wrought the Lodestar on my eighth birthday, at Samhain, the night when the veils between the worlds are at their thinnest. That will be the night. If we can rescue the Lodestar on the night o’ the eclipse and bathe it in the enchanted waters, then we can restore its powers. That is what Cloudshadow meant when she said Samhain was the time.’
For two more weeks the League of the Healing Hand hurried through the Whitelock Mountains, managing to avoid the soldiers scouring the hills. Jesyah the raven was invaluable, flying high over the heavily wooded valleys and warning them of any encampments ahead.
The Sithiche and the Whitelock Mountains met just below the great triangular peak called the Fang, but the mountains were so steep, paths through them were rare. One of the few ways to cross from one range to another was a high ridge of bare rock. Called the Goat Bridge because only wild goats would make the crossing, it arched far above the green valleys of Rionnagan.
When Dillon realised that his Master intended them to traverse that narrow bridge, his step faltered. ‘Mercy me! Ye canna be thinking o’ crossing that?’
Jorge looked round. ‘Ah, ye can see it now, can ye? Good, good. Jesyah, fly for me?’ With a hoarse caw, the raven launched himself into the air, scanning the ground with his bright, beady eyes. ‘Now, Dillon, my lad, lead me forward.’