by Sarah Rayne
*
The Cruithin and the rescinded Bloodline. The proud loyal Cruithin, serving Ireland’s noble houses, staunchly and in secret. Protecting them. Using their gentle pure magic to surround the Grail Castle so that no one could reach it.
But I reached it, thought Grainne. I reached it.
Because you were allowed to. Because you are the Wolfqueen, the last of your line, and for you the Cruithin withdrew the spells they had spun around these creatures.
These creatures … There was an image, terrible, soulsearing, of the Cruithin, small-boned and fiercely loyal, carrying the poor unwanted things created by the sorcerers away from the prying eyes of the world. Hiding them and serving them, and summoning their own woodland spells to bind the Grail Castle with legend and myth, so that no one should ever discover its secret.
Grainne looked around and thought, These are my people as much as any creature in Ireland. They are mine, she thought fiercely, and I shall fight for them.
And when we drive out Medoc and the Dark Ireland, they must be with me.
*
It was a strange meal they took together that night, Grainne and Tybion and Fintan and Cermait, along with the creatures of the Grail Castle.
“Like something from another world,” said Fintan afterwards, but Cermait said it was as if they had been made free of a world that should not have been born. An unborn world, peopled with the creatures of a sorcerer’s nightmare …
They were made courteously welcome by the Beastline. “What we have is yours,” the badger girl said, and the others nodded and brought chairs to the table and poured wine. The man with a fox’s slanting mask and red-brown eyes brought in extra dishes of the food they had been eating: fresh lake fish with sorrel and wood parsley, and great platters of firm, crisp vegetables in some kind of sauce. There were wedges of warm fresh bread with the butter melting into them, and the honey cakes that Grainne remembered eating as a child. She smiled and ate everything they offered and watched carefully to see how they ate their own food, so that she might match them, for it was not to be thought of that the poor creatures should be made to feel themselves rough or uncouth.
But their manners were the ones that Grainne herself had been taught as a child, and their attitudes were of wary consideration for the strangers in their midst.
Grainne knew a deep gratitude to Tybion, and to Fintan and Cermait, who had accepted the inhabitants of the castle naturally and tranquilly. Tybion had helped to hand round the plates for the fish, and Cermait had wanted to know about the wine they were drinking and asked was it their own brew, because it was one that he had not come across before. Fintan, who would have found something to say even had he been cast amongst thieves and murderers and child-eaters, fell into a discussion with a small stunted creature with the jaws of a hound about the precise route they had taken to get here.
At Grainne’s side, Raynor said softly, “You perceive that we are a cultured breed, ma’am,” and Grainne looked up sharply, because he had guessed her thoughts so exactly that for a moment she believed him to possess the Samhailt.
“I do not possess it,” Raynor said. “The ancient gift of the first High Kings is not for such as we are.”
“But — forgive me — you do not seem in the least bitter,” said Grainne, and Raynor said at once, “We are very bitter, Your Majesty. But we have striven for …”
“Contentment?”
“Acceptance,” said Raynor, and he smiled at her, a pure winged smile, and Grainne stared at him and was aware, all over again, of a strength and control within him. She thought, There is a fire that has been fiercely banked down inside him. Is it passion? Or hatred? Or something entirely different?
“I have achieved acceptance, Your Majesty,” said Raynor, and turned to refill her glass.
Grainne sat sipping the wine, listening to the quiet conversation, and felt her mind tumbling and her pulses racing.
He is neither animal nor human. He is a creature of the skies. And he is the malformed result of a sorcerer’s search for an ancient, lost Enchantment. He has spent his life shut away in this dark castle.
And he has the face of a gentle hawk and his arms would be stronger than any human arms, and he would have the sinews of a bird of prey, and once in his power it would be impossible to escape, only that you would not want to escape, because he would be powerful and strong and exciting …
And, thought Grainne, seated next to this strange disturbing creature, and I should like to feel about me those arms which are not quite arms and not quite wings, and I should like to feel myself sink against the skin that is not quite skin, and I should like to feel the hard narrow thighs pressing against me … Oh, Fergus, my one and only love, forgive me …
It did not then occur to her that the thin trickle of wolf blood had woken in her more strongly than it had ever done before, and that for her to be physically drawn towards another creature with half-human-half-beast blood was no more than her inheritance. Her ancestors had been wild and amoral; they had lain with the Wolves, so that their issue should have the mixed magical blood …
If Raynor sensed Grainne’s thoughts, he gave no sign. He continued to talk to her, quietly and courteously; telling her a little of the history of the Grail Castle, listening with deep interest to her own tales of Tara, the Shining Palace, which he might so easily have shared. He was gentle and attentive and rather remote.
When they rose from the table, he stood before her and said, “And will you come with us now, ma’am?”
“To the Cruithin?”
“Yes.”
It was a strange experience to be taken in procession through the dark halls of the old castle to meet the people who some said were the first and only Irish race.
The Cruithin. The ancient kindred, who had once ruled Ireland, who had all of the gentle pure magic and the wood-lore and the knowledge of the Old Ireland. They had been driven out and driven back many centuries ago; they had been sent underground by the greedy, land-hungry traders from the east who had coveted the blue and green misty Isle of the Northern Seas, and who had fought to possess it.
But they had returned with the first ascent of the Wolfline. “To serve,” they had said. “For it is the Wolfkings who will make Ireland truly great. It is the enchanted Wolfline that will bring our country to a Golden Age.”
And when the Golden Age became threatened, when the Enchantment dimmed, they had again vanished, still serving but doing so quietly and unobtrusively now, going by night into the darkness of the Grail Castle, protecting the travesties created by the sorcerers in their attempts to reweave the lost spell.
Unswervingly loyal to the Wolfline still. Grainne felt her throat closing with emotion, and when Raynor said, “Are you ready, ma’am?” it was a moment before she could speak.
Without Fintan and Cermait and Tybion, she would have been uneasy walking openly through the castle. It was not that the passages were long and draughty — although they were. And it was not that the torches they carried flickered wildly and cast huge fantastical shadows everywhere — although they did. It was certainly not the presence of Raynor and the others.
There are pockets, thought Grainne, staring about her, deep and unexpected pockets of despair, and of sadness and pain. She thought that all manner of creatures had dwelled here, and she wanted to know about them, and in the same breathspace wanted to know nothing of them.
“But there is no evil here,” Raynor said softly, and Grainne looked up. “Your heart flinched for a moment, ma’am,” he said, and smiled, and Grainne stared, and knew a great wish to hear her name on his lips instead of her title … No. Oh, no, for it would be pain and torment and delight, and I must quench the thought. He is not for me, nor I for him, and that way surely lies heartache.
But when Raynor touched her arm to steer her across an especially uneven section of floor, delight ran all over her. Oh, no — quench the thought and douse the longing, for a thought, once formed, has too much reality, and a lo
nging, once admitted to, has too much power.
The Cruithin were waiting in a small low-ceilinged chamber — Grainne thought it might be some kind of communal room where they might forgather and spend their evenings, and drink and talk and smoke their pipes. There was firelight here, also, but a different, stronger glow that cast shadows on the faces of the Cruithin. There was the warm woodsy scent of clay pipes, properly seasoned, and of clean wool, and apples roasting before the fire in autumn. An immense longing for the Old Ireland, the True Ireland, the Ireland of the Ancient Kindred and the Lost Enchantment of the Beastline, filled Grainne, and she wanted to fling wide her arms and embrace the lost land of her ancestors, and she wanted to summon every ounce of strength to conjure up and bring back all of the marvellous wild magic. For a moment, it was with her, that ancient misty land, where men had lain with beasts, and where beasts had sometimes walked upright like men. Where the magical eerie sidh and their King, the elven Aillen mac Midha, had served the Royal House, and where the courtiers of Tara had possessed three-cornered slant-eyed smiles that you would never quite trust.
And the Enchantment, the precious ancient Enchantment that had created and kept alive the mystical Beastline, was lost. If the sorcerers did not succeed, then the land of the Wolves would die, and the Dark Ireland would come flooding in, and Ireland, the real Ireland, would be lost.
She would not let it happen. Somehow, in some way, she would find the spell again, she would discover the lost magic and restore it to her people.
It had to be done. Standing at the centre of the grim terrible Grail Castle, with the secrets of countless ages, and with the sufferings of numberless exiles weighing on her heart, with these strange pitiful half humans, and with the Cruithin, Grainne knew it had to be done.
For Ireland.
And for Dierdriu, and for all the long-ago Wolfkings and Queens.
For Fergus, and for the Lost Prince, for Tara’s heir, who had never existed, and who might never exist.
A slow sweet smile spread across her face as she looked at the Cruithin waiting for her and sensed, at her back, Fintan and Cermait and Tybion, with Raynor and the others close by.
These are my people.
Grainne held out her hands, and the Wolflight, muted and glowing and luminescent, and infinitely loving, shone from her eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
As Fergus and Taliesin and Fribble stepped across the threshold of the House of Calatin, the shadows receded.
“Empty,” said Fribble, looking round. “That’s interesting. Do you suppose we imagined that voice and those sounds?”
They looked about them. The light was draining, so that purple and grey shadows were stealing across the floor, and Taliesin thought he caught the faintest of movements, so that for a moment he could have believed that something did lurk there, something that was misshapen and shuffling, but that could melt and dissolve and change into something huge and rearing, with claws and talons and teeth …
“We should search the house before anything else,” said Fergus, standing in the centre of the empty hall, and Taliesin heard with relief the incisive voice of the Fiana s leader again. He’s himself again, thought Taliesin. I think it will be all right. But he found that he was still listening for the cold beckoning music that might herald the Lad of the Skins …
Fergus had already started in the direction of the stair, and Taliesin and Fribble followed more slowly.
“The house is empty,” said Fergus, but he sounded uncertain, and Taliesin, following more slowly, thought that the house was not empty at all; there was no one here, and yet they all knew there was someone here. They could feel it. Something very terrible has happened here, thought Taliesin. Do the others feel it? I believe Fergus does, just a little.
The corridors on the upper floors were long and winding, and there were unexpected mirrors set at odd angles, so that you rounded a corner and caught sight of yourself and jumped. And there were huge ornate bedchambers, richly furnished.
“Sorcery is a profitable business,” observed Taliesin. “Almost as profitable as money lending.”
“I thought you were all beggars and paupers,” rejoined Fergus, and Taliesin eyed him, and thought, The sense of humour is back as well now. I believe we have somehow driven back whatever it was that was shadowing us through the forest. I believe that Fergus is safe. Aloud he said, “Money lending is only profitable because there has to be a reward for the way in which we are mocked and scorned, my friend. We make money purely as a revenge, I assure you.
“And that carpet is rather frayed, and if you do not watch your footing, you will fall down the stairway.”
Fergus, leading them through the great shadowy house, thought that for all his assurances, they were certainly not alone. There was something here, watching them, perhaps grinning, rubbing its hands together, licking its lips …
Someone who served Crom Croich and Medoc, and who walked abroad with a dripping sack? Someone who prowled the world by night, and peered through latches and chinks in curtains, and stole away the first-born sons to offer up to its terrible Master …
Were the Conablaiche and the Lad of the Skins walking tonight?
Fergus found himself constantly looking over his shoulder, searching the shadows, listening for a soft footfall. At his side, Fribble said softly, “I believe we are approaching the heart of the house now.”
“Yes,” said Fergus. “Yes, I know.” And looked at the other two. “The Chamber of the Looms,” he said, and Taliesin looked back and saw, reflected in Fergus’s eyes, the shared memory.
“I can hear the Looms now,” Fergus said softly, his head tilted, his eyes brilliant. “Listen …” As they stood silently, each of them was aware of a low-pitched resonance, a steady thrumming. And then Fergus moved on again, and they rounded a gallery where several staircases ended, and there, ahead of them —
“The silver door,” said Taliesin softly.
“The Chamber of the Looms,” said Fergus, staring.
“And it’s solid silver,” added Fribble. “My word, that will have cost somebody a pretty penny.”
Fergus approached the silver door cautiously and reached out to trace the carvings. The Tree of Amaranth, and the Nine Hazels of Wisdom. Writhing sidh creatures, and here and there the wolf emblem. Yes, almost exactly as those in the Tyrian sorcerers’ house. It brought back sharply the strange exotic house and the bizarre pact he had made with Taliesin’s people.
Taliesin said, “The Looms are not spinning now, I think?”
“I don’t think they can be,” said Fribble. “We should never stand it if they were,” and Fergus and Taliesin both remembered how they had fallen back under the great gusts of solid heat below the Street of Money Lenders.
“It’s all very interesting, isn’t it?” said Fribble. He stepped forward and laid his hand against the massive silver door, and when he brought it away, the flesh was scarlet as if it had been dipped in boiling water. “Very interesting,” he said. “I am glad I came.” He eyed the door again. “I’d like to go in there,” he said. “Wouldn’t it make Dorrainge angry if I told him I’d seen a spell being spun? He wouldn’t speak for a week, the fat fool.”
Fergus said hesitantly, “They say there are ways of protecting oneself from the heat —” and Fribble turned round and said at once, “Oh, yes, I believe there are. But I’ve never seen it done, and it’s quite dreadfully risky. I think we ought to finish our search, don’t you? I’d like to see a spell being spun — well, who wouldn’t — but they say that the power is so tremendous that it would burn out your eyes.”
“A fate I think we ought to avoid,” said Taliesin.
“Quite right,” said Fribble. “For a Tyrian, you show common sense. I told Fergus not to bring you,” he said, as they retraced their steps, “but I’m glad you came now. I’m very glad you brought the wine as well.”
“Will you have a drop more, sir?”
“That’s very kind,” said Fribble.
T
hey continued to search the house, and now, in every room they looked into, a fire burned merrily in the hearth.
“The stoves are warm,” said Fergus as they stood in the scullery. “And look at this.”
“What is it?”
“The kettle is singing on the hob,” said Fergus.
An empty house, where fires burned and stoves were warm, and where kettles hissed … In silence, they retraced their steps and passed beneath a great stone archway.
“The banqueting hall,” said Fergus. “The only place we have not yet searched.” But Taliesin thought that Fergus hesitated, and he certainly caught a ripple of uncertainty from him. Because Fergus sensed that there was something ahead of them that was waiting for Fergus alone? I am probably being absurd, thought Taliesin, but still the feeling that Fergus was listening and waiting for something persisted, and the fear that some kind of darkness had been cast over Fergus became more firmly entrenched.
The shadows clustered more thickly in the ancient banqueting hall, and the quiet was in some way different here. Hushed. Dead. A place outside of Time.
The long oak table was laid as if for a meal. There were great platters of fruit and cheese; a steaming tureen of some savoury soup; crocks of butter and wedges of newly baked bread, warm from the oven. In the huge silver tureen, the soup was steaming, as if it had just been taken off the stove …
As if at any minute, the occupants of the house would return, or as if at any minute, the figure at the far end would open its eye and sit up and start eating …
At the far end of the table, still and silent and unseeing, slept a massive figure.
As Fergus and Taliesin stood motionless, Fribble said, “Calatin, the Sorcerer.”
“Is he — dead?” said Fergus.
“No,” said Fribble, moving forward carefully. “No, he is not dead.” He stood looking at the slumped silent shape, and something crept into his expression that sent fingers of ice down Fergus and Taliesin’s spines.