Dragonclaw (26 page)

Bacaiche shook his head. The rosy firelight slid off his chest, highlighting his powerful muscles. ‘I must head back into the mountains.'

‘But why?' she asked in frustration. ‘I ken these mountains, there are few paths through them and those are still closed with snow.'

He scowled. ‘All ye do is ask questions. Ye do no' need to ken what I do.'

‘I'm sorry,' Isabeau said indignantly. ‘I was only trying to help.'

‘I dinna cross-examine ye,' he retorted curtly.

‘I just wanted—' she began, and then stopped, unwilling to explain further. ‘Very well, then, I'll ask no more questions. However, it's freezing in the mountains, ye must have some clothes. Will ye no' take them?' Isabeau held out the bundle again.

After a moment, Bacaiche took them and limped painfully out of the clearing, his black cloak trailing behind him. When he returned he had donned only the breeches, and the shirt hung from his hand. ‘It did no' fit,' he said awkwardly, and looking again at the breadth of his shoulders, Isabeau could well believe it. He had wrapped the coarse cloth over his shoulders and around his chest, however, giving him some added protection, so Isabeau was a little easier in her mind. She had not rescued Bacaiche for him to come down with pneumonia, she told herself sternly.

As they ate, Isabeau tried to find out more about Bacaiche without actually asking. However, all her conversational gambits were repulsed by her surly companion, so that she was quite exasperated with him by the time they had finished eating. Bacaiche, who had nodded over his stew, fell asleep almost immediately, but Isabeau was too anxious to sleep, although she had chosen their camping place carefully.

It was a clear, cold night. Lying on her back, Isabeau stared up at the starry sky and the two moons hanging close to the white peaks of the mountains. She thought about all that had happened to her in the last few days. Three weeks ago, the greatest excitement in her life was watching otters teach their babies how to swim. Now she was outrunning the Red Guards and rescuing ungrateful strangers. A smile curved her lips, and she clenched her fingers about the talisman that Meghan had entrusted to her care. Isabeau was pleased with the changes in her life.

When Isabeau blinked her eyes open the next morning, she saw it would be a fresh, blue day. A thick dew had fallen, so her plaid was silvered and damp. A few stars still glimmered above the mountains, though the valley beyond the Pass was beginning to show dimly as the night faded. She stretched and yawned, then looked instinctively over at her companion to see if he was stirring yet. He was not there. There was not even a hollow in the grass to show where he had been lying. Chagrin filled her. Her unwilling companion must have slipped away during the night.

Sitting upright, she saw that he had taken the pony, and was very annoyed. Since she had been the one that had stolen the pony, the least he could do was ask her if he could take it, Isabeau thought crossly. She scrambled to her feet, then saw with dismay her pack open and its contents rifled. It took only a few minutes to realise he had taken her witch knife and the last of her supplies. Tears rushed to her eyes. She had been proud of her knife, forged in the fire of her Tests. Its loss, and her stupidity in trusting the stranger at all, saw the exultation and confidence she had felt during the lonely night dissipate in the morning light like the dew.

Since Isabeau had not undressed or taken off her boots, and she had no food to make breakfast, getting ready to move on was a simple matter of splashing her face with the icy-cold water of the stream and tightening her belt in the hope that would ease the dull ache in her stomach. The stallion was grazing the sweet meadow grass, but trotted towards her readily enough when she called. She wondered why Bacaiche had not stolen the stallion, but then thought the horse might not have let himself be caught. Crippled as he was, Bacaiche could not easily chase an untethered stallion.

Isabeau leant her head against the horse's flank for a moment, enjoying his warmth and smell. ‘Well, we're better off without him. All he did was get us into trouble and eat all our food.'

The stallion began to crop the grass again, unconcerned.

‘What are ye going to do?' Isabeau asked. ‘I have to head south if ye would fain come with me.'

The chestnut raised his head, and blew gently through his nose. He then rubbed against her again, almost knocking her off her feet. Tears of gratitude stung Isabeau's eyes. She told herself it was because she had a much better chance of escaping any Red Guards if she was on horseback, but in her heart she knew she had been dreading the long and lonely journey through the highlands. Already the stallion was as much a friend and companion as Lilanthe had been.

The quick and easy communication that had developed between Isabeau and the stallion was most unusual, for to speak the language of any beast was to understand and duplicate its subtle gradations of sound and movement and smell, and this was impossible for any human. No matter how Isabeau tried, she had no tail, no hooves, no ability to delicately shift the muscles under her skin as a horse could. Therefore, the accent of Isabeau's speech was necessarily odd and stilted, and occasionally incomprehensible. It usually took time and patience on both sides to establish understanding, which was one of the reasons why few witches ever learnt the dialects of creatures such as sabre-leopards, who were not known for their patience.

So although Isabeau spoke the language of horses fluently, she had never found it so easy to convey her meaning before. She and the horse had quickly developed a sort of pidgin language, composed of words, whickers, and body language. This shorthand usually took great familiarity to develop, but was nothing like the communication between a witch and her familiar, which operated on a much more profound level. However, the ease with which they had established a connection made Isabeau wonder whether the horse would one day become her familiar, a thought which filled her with pleasure.

Riding bareback was not the most comfortable way to travel, and Isabeau was already sore from their hard riding the day before, so she slung her plaid and pack across the stallion's back, and walked beside him down the long, green meadow. ‘I shall call ye Lasair,' she said, stroking his red shoulder. ‘Ye're as bright as a flame. Your hair is almost the same colour as mine. Maybe a wee darker.' The stallion whickered in reply, and bumped her arm with his head.

Behind them were tier upon tier of mountains, the highest edged with snow; before them, the two high cliffs that marked the narrow Pass, the only path between the mountains and the highlands. She was nervous, remembering that Bacaiche had been captured here only a few days earlier. There was no sign of anyone else, though, and it was still very early. If there were Red Guards about, perhaps they would all still be asleep.

The meadow narrowed, the slopes about grew steeper and higher, and the sky shrank to a narrow slice of pale blue between the cliffs. Isabeau's heart was hammering. There was no point in stopping, however, for she had to leave the protection of the mountains eventually. At last there was no meadow left, only a narrow chasm between the cliffs, the path winding along beside the rocky burn. When it became difficult to walk along beside the stallion, Isabeau mounted with the help of a large boulder, wincing a little as her sore bottom came into contact with his spine.

The path wound its stony way through the chasm, with nothing but the occasional raven to see her. At last she came to the far end of the Pass and stopped to observe the northern heights of Rionnagan, home country of the MacCuinns, Rìghrean of Eileanan. For miles they stretched, bare and grey, before dipping down into the more fertile valley below. There was no sign of life, not even a coney. All Isabeau could see was greygorse bushes and wild grasses, lonely outcroppings of rocks and the wide blue sky.

‘Let's go,' she said to Lasair, and the stallion obediently began to trot out from the shadow of the cliff, his ears pricking forward. They had only covered a few yards when a challenge was shouted out. Her nerves jumping, Isabeau looked round to see a sentry standing up in the grass, his red cloak whipping in the breeze.

The stallion danced a little and gathered his powerful muscles as if about to run. ‘Better no',' Isabeau said. ‘That would be suspicious.'

Obediently the stallion halted, and the sentry strode towards them, his hand not far from his claymore, though it was obvious he did not expect any trouble. ‘Who are ye?' he asked. ‘Wha' are ye doing here?'

‘Wha' I dae every spring,' Isabeau replied tartly. ‘I've been huntin' for herbs and flowers. My gran says now's the best time t'gather for the sap runs strong in spring.' She knew that here in the highlands women who understood herbs and plants were well regarded, being often the only ones who knew the secrets of healing. Every village had its skeelie, some more knowledgeable than others, though they were careful now to avoid any taint of witchcraft.

‘Wha' sort o' herbs?' the sentry asked suspiciously.

Isabeau smiled coyly. ‘Harshweed for the healing o' bruises; and juniper, awful good for indigestion; and black hellebore for auld Jento, who gets a mite queer in the spring.' As she spoke, she showed him some of the plants in her pouch, one of which still had damp earth clinging to its roots, for Isabeau was too well trained to pass the rare hellebore plant without plucking it.

‘Wha' does that do?' the sentry asked.

‘Stops the fits and madness,' Isabeau said succinctly. ‘Only a wee bit, though. Too much be worse than the fits.'

The sentry now seemed mollified, and though he asked her a lot more questions about where she lived and what she was doing in the wild Sithiche Mountains by herself, Isabeau was able to satisfy him. At last she was allowed to pass through unmolested, except for an overfamiliar squeeze of her knee and an offer to come and visit him if living with her gran got too boring. ‘For this be a queer uncanny place, and it gets tha' lonesome ye wouldna believe,' the sentry confided. ‘There were a whole troop o' us here till a few days ago, but there be
uile-bheistean
in the mountains and I've been left here all alone.'

Isabeau smiled sweetly again, and rode off across the moor, her confidence much restored by the successful hoodwinking of the sentry.
Bacaiche could no' manage that much
, she thought smugly.

By the time the sun was high in the sky, however, her confidence was swamped by her hunger. Several searches through her pack found nothing but a few empty calico pouches and flour dust. Isabeau always had her herbs, though, and so she cooked herself up a thin but nourishing tea while the horse cropped at the short brush. Although it renewed her strength, the tea did not fill her empty belly and Isabeau knew she had to face one of the villages, despite what Meghan had said. ‘I must eat,' she rationalised, and set about finding a village.

The moors were a high and lonely place, and so Isabeau set her back to the mountains and her face to the fall of the land. As soon as they stumbled across a little burn, Isabeau began to follow it and just as the sun was beginning to set, it lead her into a grey, dour village. A few women stood about the village pond, buckets at their feet, while thin children ran barefoot about the muddy village square. The houses were huddled together around the pond, threadbare chickens scratching at the dirt. As far as Isabeau knew, she had never been to this village before, since she and Meghan frequented the bigger towns on their excursions into the highlands, for there the villagers were less fierce and the news more plentiful. However, these highland villages were all very similar, with their grey stone walls and high-pitched thatched roofs. This one seemed very poor, for many of the walls were broken and patched with mud, and the women wore sacks over their shoulders instead of plaids. Their bare feet and legs were grey with mud to above the knees, and all had an expression of exhaustion and fatalistic acceptance. One was heavily pregnant, and she hauled the bucket up with a hand in the hollow of her back, dark smudges under her eyes and cheekbones.

As she rode in, Isabeau wondered what story could she tell and what she could trade for food. There were only her herbs, and many of these women would know as much about plant lore as she did herself. Nonetheless, she gave it her best, spreading out some of the buds and leaves on the ground, and slipping easily into the patter. ‘I also have some mother-wort, which as ye ken is excellent for calming the heart and settling the babe in the womb—'

‘If I wanted mother-wort I'd just gae and ask the skeelie,' the worn-faced mother-to-be said dismissively.

Isabeau's eyes brightened, for she might have something rare in her pouch that the skeelie would need and, in any case, one skeelie would always welcome another.

‘Where's your skeelie?' she asked, and was told that she lived in a small cottage a few minutes' walk away from the village. ‘The skeelie will help ye, lassie,' they all repeated. Isabeau thanked the women and set off down the muddy street, thinking how skinny the children were and how broken-down the houses looked. The winter here, on the edge of the highlands, must have been harsh.

The skeelie's cottage was set in a small copse of trees with a stream running through its back garden. It was small but its doorstep was scrubbed white as none in the village had been. Isabeau gingerly lowered herself to the ground, and let Lasair free to graze as he pleased. Before pushing open the gate and proceeding up the path, she cast an experienced eye over the contents of the garden and was impressed by the multitude of herbs and plants growing there. The skeelie could cure most of the village's ailments with what grew in this garden. Isabeau even recognised the pretty blue flowers of flax in one corner, a powerful plant that would have been difficult to grow in this cold climate. She laughed a little—here she had come, thinking she could give the skeelie a plant she did not have and it looked as though she would be begging her for something instead.

The door was opened before she had a chance to knock, so Isabeau was left with one hand foolishly raised in the air. ‘C'min, c'min,' the old woman said breathlessly. ‘Wha' can I be doing for ye? Are ye having trouble wi' your menses, lassie? I have some tea made wi' ploughman's spikenard which'll clear that up right away.'

‘Why no' pennyroyal?' Isabeau asked. ‘I notice ye have a good crop right by your door, while surely ye would have to travel to find ploughman's spikenard?'

‘True, true,' the old woman said, shooting Isabeau a shrewd glance from sparkling black eyes. ‘But I have no' made the pennyroyal tea, while I have plenty o' ploughman's spikenard left from a batch o' tea I made a few years ago. But I dinna think ye've come to see me to discuss pennyroyal and ploughman's spikenard. Ye hungry? It looks like it's been a few days since ye've had a good meal. I've some stew on the stove.' Relief made Isabeau's knees weak, and she staggered forward with no hesitation.

‘Will your horse no' stray, left loose like that?' the skeelie asked.

Isabeau shook her head. ‘Och, no, he's very well trained,' she responded, and sat down in one of the cushion-laden chairs before the fire, holding her chilly hands out to the comforting blaze.

The skeelie moved briskly about the tiny kitchen, swinging the kettle over the fire, getting out cups and bowls, polishing spoons with a tiny cloth. As she worked she chattered away in her breathless voice, about the unseasonable cold, the hard winter, the difficulty in finding rare roots and flowers.

Isabeau let her body relax, suddenly realising how very tired and hungry she was. When the skeelie passed her a cup of tea, she took it and sipped, frowning a little at the unfamiliar taste. The warmth of the fire and the comfort of the chair together made her bones as soft as butter. Then the skeelie passed her a bowl filled with fragrant stew, carrots and potatoes bobbing about in a rich, dark sauce. Isabeau ate ravenously.

‘So what's a bonny young lassie like yersel' doin' wandering the moors?' the skeelie asked, the firelight playing over her wrinkled face.

‘Going south,' Isabeau mumbled through the stew.

‘Goin' south? So many young people seem to want to go south, though really there's nothing there, just a dirty city and the blaygird sea and pirates. Lookin' for work, I s'pose, in the city?' Isabeau nodded. ‘Just ye and your horse, heading south.' Isabeau nodded again, cleaning out her bowl with a piece of unleavened bread and trying not to look hopefully at the pot still steaming at the side of the fire. ‘And have ye no family to worry about their bonny daughter all alone on the moors?' the skeelie asked, taking Isabeau's empty bowl and filling it again.

Now was the time for Isabeau to bring out the story about her elderly grandmother who lived on the moors, and sent her out in search of healing herbs. She opened her mouth to say it, and was surprised to hear herself say, ‘No, I never knew my real family.'

‘They died when ye were young?'

‘No, at least, I do no' ken. I was found.' Isabeau was surprised that she had spoken so freely. She glanced up at the skeelie, and saw her old face was calm, the black eyes vague and more interested in locating the rare pieces of carrot in her bowl than in watching Isabeau. Her uneasiness died.

‘Ye were found! That's an interesting story. Most rare. I do no' think I ever met anyone who was found before. Who found ye?'

‘My guardian. I call her my grandmother, but she's no' really.'

‘An' where does your guardian bide? Wha' is her name?'

‘M … M … M … ' Isabeau tried to answer but found her tongue tangled in knots. She tried again. ‘She bides … ' Again she found she could not speak, and her hand, which had risen from her lap to gesture towards the mountains, froze in the air. Isabeau tried again, but somehow her mouth could not enunciate the word ‘Dragonclaw'. After a moment, her hand dropped, and she kept on eating, shaking her head a little as if to dispel the buzz of an insect in her ear.

‘Ye live on the moors?'

Isabeau opened her mouth to say ‘Aye', but heard herself say, ‘No, in the mountains', and now felt real panic that she was answering so freely.

‘In the mountains!' the skeelie exclaimed. ‘Ye must have had a hard winter—we were snowed in and many died. Mainly the auld, o' course, and the very young. There was no' much I could do, wi' my garden frozen solid and the snow piling up around the windows. It must be much worse in the mountains.'

‘We never really feel the cold,' Isabeau said, remembering how snow only ever lay in patches on the slopes of her valley home. Even at the height of winter, the valley remained only thinly veiled with snow. For the first time, she realised how strange this was, and remembered how she had had to fight her way through snow on the other side of Dragonclaw when she had left.

‘Ye must live in a sheltered spot,' the skeelie said, and took Isabeau's empty bowl away.

‘Aye,' Isabeau agreed.

‘Yet I hear the mountains be harsh. It must be a hard life for a young lassie.'

‘I do no' ken really … ' Isabeau said slowly, wondering. Her life had never seemed hard; all she ever did was spin and sew, search for herbs, and listen to Meghan's teachings. Remembering the thin children and the tired women in the village, she thought her life was probably much easier than theirs. She had never gone hungry or lacked warm clothes or boots.

‘Your guardian must be a very wise woman, to live in the mountains wi' the cold and the storms, and no' suffer.'

‘Aye, she be the wisest woman. She ken everything about plants and beasts and the weather,' Isabeau babbled. ‘She can tell if snow is coming by the smell o' the wind, and she—' Suddenly she found she could not speak again. Her thoughts seemed to unravel so she could not remember what she was about to say. ‘She's a very wise woman,' she finished lamely.

‘Wha' was her name again?' the skeelie asked, but again Isabeau was unable to answer, Meghan's name choking in her throat. She sat back in her chair, and found she could not even lift her finger to rub at her aching forehead. The shadows in the cottage were heavy now, rising over the two chairs by the fire so they looked alive. She was beginning to feel frightened, although even that emotion was very remote. Her tongue felt very thick and furry, and there was an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

The skeelie leant forward. ‘I want ye to tell me about your childhood,' she commanded, her voice strong and clear.

To her dismay, Isabeau did. All sorts of details poured out—what Meghan made her for her ninth birthday, how she had to spin wool for hours in the winter, how bored she got with Meghan's endless lessons. Again and again, however, the strange confusion came over her so she could not remember what she was trying to say. The shadows got thicker and more solid, the room beyond the circle of firelight vaguer and more insubstantial, and the skeelie more impatient, urging her for more information so at last Isabeau began to try and resist, and found to her horror she could not.

She told the strange old woman many things she would never tell anyone, but not one word about magic or witchcraft did she utter, nor could she say Meghan's name. Somehow she managed to resist revealing the more dangerous secrets of her and Meghan's life, and as she resisted, the skeelie became more direct in her questioning. Soon it became clear to Isabeau that the old woman herself must know something of witchcraft. This compulsion to talk must be the result of some spell that Isabeau had not even noticed being cast. Once Isabeau knew this, she let herself babble, talking about the everyday mundanities of their life, until at last the skeelie leant forward in her chair, and fixed her piercing black eye on Isabeau's face. She said something in a strange tongue and Isabeau felt herself being drawn forward, her mouth working as she tried to speak but her tongue refusing to respond, as thick as a plank of wood. For almost a minute, words raced back and forth in her mind, damning words that could have had her and her guardian dragged before the Awl and condemned to a horrible death. But not one word did she utter. At last the skeelie sat back.

‘I see,' she said. ‘A very powerful ward.'

For quite a long time she stared into the fire, her gnarled fingers twisting in her lap, then she sat back and said in her breathless voice, ‘Dearie me, wha' kind o' hostess have I been, bothering ye wi' questions when anyone can see ye're dropping off to sleep where ye sit. Ye must forgive me, such a lonely life sometimes, biding here on the moors, it's no' often I have such a bonny, bright lassie to while away the time wi'. Come, come, let's tuck ye up in a bed for the night, an' tomorrow it'll all look different.'

Isabeau could only obey. She was so tired her bones refused to move in unison and she stumbled as she followed the skeelie to a bed made up in one corner of the room, in what looked like a cupboard set into the wall. The bed was hard but warm, and she could see the shadows of the flames dancing over the rough ceiling. She crawled in, and almost immediately was asleep.

When she woke the next morning to the sound of rain hammering on the roof, she had only the vaguest recollection of the previous evening. She remembered the delicious stew, she remembered talking about her childhood like she never had before, and she remembered the feeling of being asleep while she was awake. It was hard to distinguish her dreams from what had really happened. A vague sense of uneasiness remained, though, and so her immediate thought was to barter for some food and maybe a knife, and then be on her way. The skeelie had other plans however.

‘Bide a wee, lassie, and I shall get ye some porridge and cream for breakfast. I'm baking some bread this morning; shall I pop in an extra loaf for ye?' Then she needed Isabeau's help in distilling some pure essences, and Isabeau found it hard to refuse. The skeelie was right, she should wait for the weather to warm, for the storm to pass, for the skeelie to have time to bake her some nut cookies. It was so comfortable in the little cottage, and she had never eaten such delicious food. The skeelie was a delightful woman, she showed such interest in Isabeau and all her thoughts and feelings. True, Isabeau sometimes felt uneasy or uncomfortable at her questions, but these feelings soon passed, and the skeelie could teach her things about plants even Meghan could not know.