The Fathomless Caves (11 page)

‘If that is the sort o’ compliment ye normally pay, I can just imagine the sort o’ havoc ye’d cause,’ she replied. ‘It’s a wonder that guitar o’ yours has no’ been broken over your head afore now.’

‘A few people have tried,’ he admitted, ‘but never a lady. Always their husbands, I fear.’

Isabeau screwed up her face at him. ‘To hear ye speak, anyone would think ye were a libertine o’ the worst sort, but I ken it be all talk and no truth.’

‘Is that so?’ he asked. ‘And how do ye be kenning?’

Isabeau looked him over consideringly. ‘I be a sorceress now and can see into the hearts o’ men,’ she said with great solemnity.

Colour rushed into Dide’s cheeks. ‘Is that so? What am I thinking now then?’ he challenged.

Isabeau let a small smile grow on her lips. ‘I may be a sorceress, but I am also a banprionnsa and far too finely bred to give such thoughts expression,’ she said piously.

He was startled into a shout of laughter. ‘Wha’ a drayload o’ dragon dung!’

This time it was Isabeau who was startled. ‘What did you say?’

‘That’s another o’ our young Finn’s sayings. Believe me, a few months in her company and we have all extended our vocabulary remarkably. She be a banprionnsa too, and the foulest-mouthed lass I’ve ever kent. If ye take her as your model, ye need have no hesitation in saying what’s on
my
mind.’

At that moment he brought Isabeau to where Lachlan stood waiting with his courtiers. The laughter still lingering in her eyes, Isabeau swept the Rìgh a graceful curtsey. He acknowledged her with a rather curt nod of the head, then came forward to offer Meghan his arm. The old sorceress had been talking with her old friend Enit Silverthroat, who was sitting on a padded chair with long poles that enabled her to be carried about. At Lachlan’s gesture, though, the sorceress allowed her great-great-great-grand-nephew to lead her forward and into the feasting hall. Iain and Elfrida followed, then the Duke of Killiegarrie offered Isabeau his arm. Isabeau accepted, unable to help feeling snubbed by Lachlan’s curtness.

Isabeau’s moment of pique soon faded. Lachlan’s men competed avidly for her attentions, flattering her shamelessly and being quick to fill up her goblet and
offer her the tastiest tidbits of roast swan. Since Isabeau ate no meat, this gambit failed to win her approval, but she blushed and laughed at all their compliments, her eyes shining brilliantly blue with excitement.

All of the soldiers were filled with high spirits. They boasted of their victories in Tìrsoilleir, recounting this battle or that charge, describing with many gestures and explanations how the heroes of that campaign had fought and won the day. Even though Lachlan figured strongly in their stories, he alone did not join in the laughter and storytelling, his dark face remaining sombre. Isabeau was uncomfortably aware of how often his regard turned to rest upon her face. His brooding gaze reminded her of the first time they had met, when he had sat by her fire and eaten her porridge and stared at her with that exact same intense, inscrutable awareness. It made her restive, bringing blood to pound at her temples and tingle in her fingertips. She did her best to ignore him, though it seemed to her a current of awareness ran between them, palpable as a flash of lightning.

Certainly Dide noticed, for he often glanced from one to the other. He leaned a little closer to Isabeau as a consequence, often laying his hand on her arm or touching her shoulder to gain her attention.

As usual the young earl kept the table in a stir of merriment, bringing the characters of his tales to life with such deft mimicry that it seemed they thronged at his shoulder, speaking and acting for themselves. Dide was a gifted storyteller. Every tale he told, no matter how exciting or amusing, had a prick of pathos and a
twist of terror, so that everyone gathered at the high table was torn between horror, sympathy, amusement and anticipation, breathlessly awaiting his next word. As riveted as anyone else there, Isabeau nonetheless could not help but notice how deliberately Dide played upon his audience’s emotions, and how ready the lairds were to be diverted. It was clear much of the cheerful confidence about the upcoming confrontation with the Fairgean was mere bravado.

When the plates had all been cleared away and platters of fruits and sweetmeats brought out, Enit’s chair was carried to the centre of the room. Dide was brought his guitar and Jay the Fiddler his viola by the dark-skinned bogfaeries who had served the meal. Brun bounded forward excitedly, his little silver flute in his hands. Isabeau leant forward eagerly. She had heard Jay and Dide play together at the May Day feast and was eager indeed to hear them again. She had never heard Enit sing, but knew she had a rare power. It was a privilege indeed to hear her for the old woman was now so badly crippled that she rarely performed.

Music spilled across the grand hall and the loud hum of conversation slowly died. It was a most haunting tune, plaintive and sweet. Then Enit leant forward a little in her chair, opening her mouth to sing. Her voice soared up towards the vaulted ceiling, as silvery pure and melodious as a nightingale’s.

Enit’s voice quavered and broke. Isabeau found tears were stinging her eyes, a shiver running all over her skin. Enit sang with such pathos quivering in every note, it was impossible to believe she was not a young girl, abandoned by her lover, longing for death.

There was a long silence when she had finished and then riotous applause. Isabeau pressed her fingers against her wet eyes, not wanting anyone to know how much the song had stirred her. She looked up and met Lachlan’s intense golden gaze and felt the colour surge up under her fair skin.

Enit sang another song, this time a merry lilting tune, and then retired, while Dide sang a stirring war song, Brun the cluricaun exchanging his flute for a little round drum. The table began to break up, people moving around to speak to others or withdrawing to the terrace to drink whisky, smoke their pipes and talk.

Meghan rose to speak with Enit before she was
carried back up to her room, and Elfrida went to give her compliments to her chef. For a moment Isabeau was left alone at the high table with Lachlan.

There was a long silence. Isabeau said rather shyly, ‘I have never heard Enit sing before. Is she no’ wonderful?’

Lachlan nodded. ‘Aye, I have never heard her equal.’

Isabeau tried to think of something else to say. It occurred to her that she had never really been alone with Lachlan since that first meeting so many years ago. When they had met again, he had been Iseult’s husband, and crowned Rìgh soon after. She looked up at him through her lashes. He was staring moodily into his wine goblet. Obviously the silence did not bother him at all.

Suddenly he looked up, staring at her again. Hot and uncomfortable, Isabeau dropped her gaze, staring at her lily-and rose-strewn lap. ‘Do ye like my dress?’ she asked, rather at random. ‘Elfrida gave it to me. Is it no’ bonny?’

‘Very bonny,’ he answered with an odd inflection in his voice.

Conscious of that fierce unwavering gaze, she glanced up again, then away. With the fingers of her good hand she twisted her napkin about.

‘Ye look like ye did when we first met,’ Lachlan suddenly said, very low. ‘Your hair has grown long again. It was very long that first time, in the woods.’

Isabeau put a hand up to her hair self-consciously. ‘Aye, it was down to my knees back then. They cut it all off when I had the fever, after …’ She faltered.

‘After ye lost your fingers?’

Isabeau’s cheeks burnt. Unconsciously she tugged at
the tapering cuff of her dress, pulling it lower so that her maimed hand was hidden. Lachlan held out his hand.

‘May I see?’

Isabeau hesitated, then slowly, reluctantly, held out her left hand. He took it in his, turned it over so the light of the candles fell full upon it. Where the two smallest fingers should have been were two deep, ugly pits of white scar tissue. The other two fingers and the thumb were bent and misshapen, though since Isabeau had swum in the Pool of Two Moons, she had regained the use of them.

Lachlan rubbed his thumb over the scars. ‘I am very sorry,’ he said with difficulty. ‘That is the fate ye saved me from, when ye rescued me that time. It should have been me that was tortured.’

Isabeau pulled her hand away. ‘I canna say that I’m glad to have taken your place,’ she said frankly, ‘but I am glad that ye were spared. Ye had already suffered enough.’

Lachlan nodded a little. ‘I am sorry though. I do no’ think I ever told ye so.’

‘Ye said ye’d never asked me to rescue ye.’ Remembered indignation brought the sparkle back to Isabeau’s eyes and she looked at him fully for the first time.

He smiled at her ruefully. ‘I was full o’ bitter rage at everyone and everything in those days,’ he said. ‘All I kent was that I had to escape the Awl, find Meghan, try to overthrow the Ensorcellor. It did no’ matter who was crushed on the way.’

‘But what about later?’ Isabeau said hotly. ‘Ye’ve always been very quick to fraitch wi’ me!’

Lachlan scowled and dropped his eyes. ‘I suppose I was angry wi’ ye for putting me in the wrong.’ Then he looked up, saying with an ironical smile, ‘Besides, ye must realise it was very confusing for me. Ye look just like Iseult. When I first met her, I thought it was ye, and when I met ye again, ye could have been her.’

‘I can imagine that must have been a wee bit confusing,’ Isabeau said, her laugh rather forced, her cheeks hot. ‘Hopefully ye can tell us apart by now though.’

His smile died. ‘Aye, o’ course.’

Isabeau looked at him hesitantly. Even as she was searching for the right words or gesture, she became aware of Dide coming up to the table, his guitar hanging from his hand, his black eyes turning from one to the other. She sat back, suddenly aware that she and Lachlan had leant close together in their conversation. Her cheeks heated again.

Frowning a little, Dide said to Lachlan, ‘Any requests for me, master?’

Lachlan’s expression was very sombre. ‘Play for me the song ye wrote about my brothers.’

Dide hesitated. ‘Master—’

‘Play it for me, Dide.’

The young earl nodded and went back to his seat, his face troubled. The melancholy tune crept out and filled the room, then Dide began to sing. His face dark with remembered grief, Lachlan signalled for the servants to fill his goblet once more.

Isabeau listened in silence, little shivers running down her spine. The song was so very beautiful and so very sad, and she could not help an upwelling of sympathy and compassion for the young Rìgh, who had had his life destroyed by Maya and her sorcerous schemes. No wonder Lachlan hated the Fairgean, when they had killed his father and all three of his brothers.

When the song had finished, she rose and said,
without looking at Lachlan, ‘It grows late, Your Highness. I think I shall go to bed.’

Lachlan nodded, glancing up from the dregs of his wine to say very softly, ‘Sleep well, Isabeau.’

‘Thank you,’ she answered and went swiftly out of the room, once again feeling as if tears would choke her. She did not know what it was that had moved her so powerfully, whether it was just because she had been so emotionally wrought up since her Sorceress Test, or whether this new warmth of Lachlan’s pierced all the armour she had constructed against him. All she knew was that her emotions were in turmoil.