Dragonclaw (40 page)

Her favourite jongleur was young, with bright black eyes and a tangle of dark hair. His beard and moustache were just beginning to grow in straggles, giving him a rather raggedly look that went well with his patched sky-blue jerkin and dirty crimson trousers. He captured Lilanthe's interest primarily because of his juggling skills. The way the golden balls spun out of his hand in ever more complex patterns intrigued her, and she often followed him when he slipped away from the camp to practise in private. He juggled all the time—pots and pans when he was meant to be washing up, stones and pebbles that he carried around in his pocket, daggers and swords when he practised routines with his sister. She was a slender child, with eyes as bright and black as his, though her hair was browner, with red glints. Both of them were trained acrobats as well, and watching their somersaults and tumbling runs sometimes astounded Lilanthe, who had never seen such agility in human creatures before. They were more like cluricauns than children, particularly when they played among the tree branches, swinging and somersaulting from limb to limb.

Their father, a heavy man with blood-shot eyes, frightened Lilanthe and she often slipped away when he was in sight. He was a fire-eater and watching someone swallowing a gust of flame was more than the tree-shifter could bear. It was he who told the loudest stories, and played the fiddle in the danciest tunes, and often squeezed the bottoms of the other women in the party, hitting their men on the shoulder in a comradely way. He had no wife of his own, and did not seem to notice his pinching ways irritated the other men. His mother travelled with them, though, and she was the only one that could control his bluster, especially when the firewater ran through his veins. Unlike everyone else in the party, his mother did not sleep on the ground under the caravans, but inside, only coming out when the fires were lit and the tea made.

Lilanthe did not know why the jongleurs exerted such fascination over her, except perhaps they eased her loneliness a little. She found their antics often made her laugh, so that she had to bury her face in her hands so no sound would escape and betray her. When she was in tree form, it was easier, for her laughter expressed itself in a little shiver of her dangling branches, which could easily have been the wind. Sometimes she thought she saw the young man looking in her direction, but each time his eyes seemed to drift past her and she would let out her breath, sure he had not noticed her.

One day he slipped out of the camp early, before anyone else was awake, and Lilanthe transformed herself into her human shape to follow him. He went some distance, leaving the green road the jongleurs were following, until he found a clearing with a still pool. He leant above the water, and Lilanthe felt his mind cast out, searching. She brought her mind in very small and still, like a hunted coney frozen in the grasses. He was searching a very long way away, though, and she thought he may not have noticed her. She should have been shielding herself. It never occurred to her that one of these simple travelling entertainers could have such range or power. He must hide himself very well for her not to have recognised it straightaway. She remembered Isabeau and how completely she had been shielded, and thought she must remember humans could hide their minds as well.

She felt the young man bring his mind back into his body, and she let her bare feet press deeper into the earth. The delicious shiver that was shifting rippled over her skin and she opened her pores to the sun and the air. She was almost changed, her eyesight and hearing dimming, a mass of other perceptions taking over, more sensitive than any of her human senses, when she felt him sit back and look at her. Deep in her mind he said,
Shall we introduce ourselves?

The shock alone slowed Lilanthe's shift, and only a few panicked thoughts tumbled over each other before she reversed the change. Her feet stirred and flexed, her arms thickened and swelled back into warm flesh, and then she was looking at him with her eyes wide open in fear.

‘It's all right,' he said out loud. ‘I shall no' hurt ye, or tell anyone. I ken they hunt creatures such as ye, and kill ye for being what ye are. Ye need no' be afraid. I am Dide.'

She said nothing, wondering if she should run. Now he knew, shifting was no escape for he could damage her with fire or axe, and she would be helpless, her roots deep in the soil.

‘I have seen and felt ye watching us,' he said, and rose carefully to his feet. ‘I do no' think anyone else has, except probably my granddam and she o' all people would no' harm ye. Do no' be afraid. What is your name?'

She would not answer, and so step by slow step he approached her, as she backed deeper into the underbrush and wondered again why she did not run. Soon he was close enough for her to smell his human, meat-eating stench, and to see how bright his eyes were, like the eyes of a donbeag, liquid and black. ‘Please trust me. I am very glad to find someone like ye, truly I am. I am Dide. I am your friend.'

‘I am Lilanthe.'

He stood still. ‘Good morrow to ye, Lilanthe,' he said. ‘Are ye hungry?'

She nodded her head, for indeed her human stomach did feel empty and she had had little time to forage the last few days. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a withered apple for her. When Lilanthe would not take it from his hand, he laid it on the ground and stepped back. Quickly Lilanthe snatched it up, and smelt it before tentatively nibbling on its sweet rubbery flesh.

‘Let us talk,' he said, and slowly crouched on the ground. ‘Quietly, though, for soon the camp will wake and then Nina shall come looking for me.'

The morning talk was the first of many for, despite being discovered, Lilanthe continued to follow the caravans deeper into Aslinn. Twice a day, and sometimes more, Dide slipped away so they could meet. He talked more than her at first, for he was trying to win her trust. He told her about his childhood, travelling the lands of Eileanan in a caravan, performing tricks and acrobatics for thrown pennies or a free night in an inn. He tried to reassure her that her secret was safe with him.

‘No' all humans agree with the Faery Decree.' Dide was perched on the end of a log, while Lilanthe sat a good seven steps away, her cheek resting on her knees, her arms wrapped close about her. ‘It's a travesty o' the Pact o' Aedan, killing faery creatures, and the Rìgh should ken it. Since the Lodestar was lost, nothing has gone right in this country. That's why we have to find the Lodestar again. The Rìgh is dying, everyone kens it. Some dreadful disease is sucking the life out o' him, and the mind and soul with it. Why, we saw him a few months ago when we played in Rhyssmadill, and he was grey as ashes, with a foolish grin on his face like a bairn. Enit said then he would die within the year, and she is never wrong.' Enit was Dide's grandmother and she was never far from his conversation, being Dide's greatest friend, along with his sister Nina.

‘If the Rìgh dies without an heir, there'll be civil war again, for sure. That is why the Fairgean are slowly building a position in the north and east, for once Rìgh Jaspar dies, there'll be no-one to take the crown and, besides, without the Lodestar, we have no true defence against the Fairgean. All the Yedda are gone—' Seeing the incomprehension on Lilanthe's face, he regained the track of his conversation. ‘What I'm trying to say is, there's no need for ye to be afraid o' me. I dinna agree with the Rìgh's decree; in fact, I hate it, I'm fighting to stop him …' He paused again, then said in a rush, ‘I'll tell ye all about it, for then you'll see I'm no enemy, but your friend. I love the faery, I canna believe the Rìgh wants to exterminate them, or why. Ye were here long afore the Great Crossing, when we humans came to this land.'

‘Well, I do no' think I was,' Lilanthe said cheekily. ‘I'm only eighteen years auld.'

Dide was delighted at the flash of personality. ‘I mean the faery …'

‘I'm half human, ye ken. My father was like ye, it is only my mother who was a tree-changer.'

‘I think most o' us have a twist o' faery in us somewhere.' Dide sounded uncertain.

Lilanthe's face was sullen again. ‘Most wouldna admit it.'

‘Once they did. Why, they say the MacAislins were more than half nisse and tree-changer, for these forests were once thick with them, and the children o' Aislinna have lived here for more than a thousand years. The family is mostly gone now, o' course, but that was why they adopted the Summer Tree as their emblem. That's why I'm here actually—my master has sent me to make contact with someone at the MacAislins' Tower, for he has had word the tower is occupied again, and he hopes it'll be one o' the family, or maybe one o' the Dream-Walkers returned.'

The warmth and life had returned to Lilanthe's face, and she leant forward, her leafy hair streaming over her shoulders. ‘Who are the Dream-Walkers?'

‘Aislinna's tower is the Tower o' Dreamers. It was ruined at the Time o' Betrayal, o' course, though rumour has had it for years that many o' the dreamers slipped away in the night and so escaped the massacre. Some can travel the dream road forward, ye see, and so may have had forewarning. Our hope is the story is true, and now that the Tower has been forgotten, one or even more may have returned. My master saw someone, ye see. He went to the Tower o' Ravens and used the Scrying Pool there, trying to contact each Tower in turn. He surprised someone at the Tower o' Dreamers, but frightened them away. He was no' able to make contact again.'

‘How do ye ken all this?'

‘I ken my master well. He lived with us for many years. I can contact him and he can contact me, as long as we each are near water. Each dawn I try and reach him, but lately he has been silent. It troubles my heart.'

‘Who is your master?'

‘Have ye heard o' the Cripple?'

‘No.'

‘Well, I am surprised. Though ye are a creature o' the forest, I s'pose, and so happen may no' have heard o' him. He is the leader … o' the rebels. He's the one who masterminds any move against the evil Banrìgh and her Red Guards; who rescues captured
uile-bheistean
, or witches, even silly auld skeelies or cunning men who have made too much trouble and are accused o' witchcraft because o' it. Slowly we gather strength, slowly our plans mature; soon a new weft shall be threaded.'

‘And then what will happen?'

‘That is the question, indeed. If things go to plan, we shall depose the evil Banrìgh, and go in search o' the Lodestar. Once that is in our hands, we shall drive the Fairgean away from our shores, and humans and faery can live in harmony again.'

‘But are the Fairgean no'
uile-bheistean
too? They were here long afore the Great Crossing, surely, just like the tree-changers and the nisses.'

Dide's olive skin slowly coloured until even the tips of his ears were red. ‘I suppose that be true. The Fairgean never signed the Pact o' Aedan, though, did they? And they've tried to overthrow us for a thousand years.'

‘But Carraig was their land, was it no'? Originally, I mean. At least, that is what I remember being taught, by both my ma and pa. All that north coast, Siantan too. They need to come to land to give birth and raise their bairns, and those rocky shores were their birthing-place.'

‘They're brutal, though, Lilanthe. They have never agreed to any pact. They just keep fighting until one or the other o' us are all dead. We beat them off, and years later they come again, hordes o' them.'

‘I wonder where they give birth to their babes now?' Lilanthe mused.

‘On the shores o' Carraig, no doubt, after killing all the Yedda, and virtually wiping out the entire MacSeinn clan! They say there is only the laird himself left, and his son and a handful of retainers. And did ye never think it was rather suspicious, the way the Rìgh's Decree Against Witchcraft wiped out the Yedda, which made it
so
easy for the Fairgean to invade Carraig?'

‘No,' Lilanthe said.

There was a pause, Dide's colour high, his black eyes sparkling. Then his temper dropped a little, and he said, a little gruffly, ‘Anyway, the point is, there's a new thread being woven into the tapestry. I am no' your enemy, I'm your friend. I want to help ye.'

‘How?'

Again Dide was a little disconcerted. ‘I … do no' ken. I suppose I mean, help all
uile-bheistean
, free them from the Faery Decree, renew the Pact o' Aedan.'

‘That's what Isabeau wanted to do too,' Lilanthe murmured under her breath.

The effect of her words was electrifying. Dide sat bolt upright, and said, ‘Ye ken Isabeau? Red hair, blue eyes? Always laughing?'

‘Aye! Ye ken her too?'

‘I did many years ago, when we were bairns. I thought I saw her again, recently, in Caeryla. I hope it wasna her.'

‘Isabeau was heading towards Caeryla. She was meant to meet someone there—'

‘Well, I hope it wasna Isabeau! Though when I called her, she looked round …' Dide's face was suddenly shadowed.

‘Why? What happened? Is she all right?'

‘Well, if it was Isabeau, she's no' all right at all. She was on trial for witchcraft. They were going to feed her to the
uile-bheist
o' the loch. We rode out just afore sunset, and all anyone in Caeryla could talk about was the red-headed witch. Her execution was going to be the spectacle o' the month. Everyone was going!'

Lilanthe scrambled to her feet. ‘Och, no! No! She canna have been caught. Why did ye no' help her? Why did ye no' do something?'

‘What could I do?' Dide asked. ‘There was only me, and she was being escorted by a whole troop o' soldiers, no' to mention most o' the townsfolk o' Caeryla. I wasna even sure it was her, I just saw the red hair—'

The tree-shifter burst into an agony of crying, and turned and ran into the forest. Rather alarmed, and feeling a little teary himself, Dide ran after her, but Lilanthe had disappeared. That night, he helped pack up the caravan with a heavy heart, and though he cast out his mind anxiously, there was no trace of Lilanthe.