by Lari Don
The Laird tried to move his arms, but couldn’t.
“Follow me,” ordered Thomas, and walked off. The Laird moved after him, lurching from side to side as he tried to resist the boy’s command.
Pearl was suddenly glad Thomas had chosen to persuade the triplets, rather than force them, to follow him.
Thomas led the Laird in a circle back towards the Earl. “Stop,” ordered Thomas, and the Laird stopped.
The Earl laughed. “Good work! Good work indeed.”
Thomas gave a tight smile, then turned to the triplets. “Now it’s time to go to the castle.”
“They’re not going to the castle,” Pearl said firmly.
Thomas raised his eyebrows.
“You gave me your word that I would get a chance to persuade the triplets your nasty little plan isn’t their destiny. And you promised that if I persuaded them all, we could go home. Now I want my chance.”
“You promised her what?” boomed the Earl. “You promised a child who cannot even hear the land the chance to argue against my gemstones’ destiny and my rights?
“Thomas Horsburgh,” his voice fell to a threatening purr, “Thomas Horsburgh, you disappoint me.”
“I needed her help and it was an honest bargain.” Thomas’s voice was calm. “Anyway, it seems right to give the children a sporting chance, doesn’t it? Given what’s at stake.”
“What do you think is at stake, boy? My right to the crown, or your right to the Landlaw lorefast? What is at stake? What are you gambling with?”
“Actually,” Thomas said icily, “I meant what is at stake for them.”
The Earl glared at Thomas.
“Anyway,” the tall boy shrugged, “if it really is their destiny, nothing she says can change it, can it?”
The Earl nodded once, so Thomas smiled at the triplets and invited them to sit with him on the bank of the canal. Then he looked expectantly at Pearl. “The floor is yours.”
But Pearl had seen her father in the law courts and knew how to get a slim advantage in debate. “No. You’re proposing a destiny for them; I’m opposing it. You speak first.”
Thomas laughed. “A lawyer as well as a hunter!”
He leapt up, strode a few steps away and turned to face the triplets. Pearl sat down beside Emmie. The Earl stood beside the captive Laird. As Thomas took a deep breath, his grandfather snorted, “Play-acting!”
But Thomas looked very serious as he began to speak. “Emerald. Ruby. Jasper. I want to show you three things. I want to show that this is your destiny, because you were created to crown the Earl. I want to show that if you turn your back on your destiny, you risk giving the mountains to a man who will misuse their power. Finally I want to show how glorious that destiny can be. Then the choice will be yours.” He held his hands out to the triplets.
Pearl groaned softly. She’d made a dreadful mistake. She’d created the perfect platform for a boy who’d already half-enchanted each child with his charm and fancy tricks. She’d agreed to a contest stacked against her from the start: she had to persuade all three children to win; Thomas only had to persuade one. She looked at their eager faces gazing at him and groaned again.
“I call my first witness,” Thomas said, the lilt in his voice betraying how much fun he was having. “Kenneth Horsburgh, Earl of this county, will you step forward?”
“Nonsense,” harrumphed the Earl, but he looked pleased to be asked and walked forward to face Thomas.
“My lord, have you seen these children before?”
Pearl coughed to hide a nervous laugh. Would the Earl take a tiny notebook out of a pocket and consult it, like a police constable in the Sheriff Court?
“No,” answered the Earl.
“But do you know of them?”
“Oh yes. I knew of them before they were born.”
“Can you explain?”
“Well,” the Earl stood with his thumbs in his braces and leant back into the air, as if he was telling a tale by his own fireplace, “well, my daughter-in-law, your mother, Thomas, was a bit of a folklorist in her spare time. Loved to listen to the land, but also loved to listen to how the local folk tried to call on our power in their ham-fisted, half-hearted, ignorant, superstitious way. Jane knew I found them amusing, but I think she was fond of them.
“Anyway, during the Great War she brought me information she thought I might find interesting. The wife of one of my neighbours had just lost a son in the war, and as the mother of one remaining baby daughter, she was desperate for more children. She didn’t want the little girl to grow up alone, said my daughter-in-law. She was trying everything: getting up at dawn and tying ribbons to rowan trees; throwing coins to the spirit of the river; even, in a garbled sort of way, offering the souls of her unborn children to the powers around her, if only she could have more children. Of course, she didn’t get any of the words right, she threw gold when she should have thrown silver, she faced the wrong way, and stood in the wrong place, and sneezed at just the wrong time, so we could have ignored her requests completely. But Jane knew I was laying the groundwork for my conquest of the Laird and my victory in the mountains, and thought this woman might be useful.
“We don’t have to grant the requests of those who can’t hear the land, but when it suits our own ends, we do grant wishes. Though I don’t look much like a fairy godmother, do I?”
The Earl laughed heartily at his own joke. Pearl realised her teeth were clamped together; she looked at the triplets, white-faced, gripping each other’s hands. They were all beginning to understand why Mother avoided the neighbours to the south.
The Earl slapped himself on the chest to stop his chuckles, and continued his story.
“So on midsummer morning, the woman came to the riverbank, cut a lock of her own hair, and said, ‘I’d give anything if I could bear more children.’ Jane appeared cloaked in morning mist and asked if she really meant anything. When the woman sank to her knees and begged for more children, Jane said she could have three if she would let them have a destiny far greater than her other children, and if she would free them to that destiny when it was time. She agreed. So Jane gave the foolish woman a bag of herbs to help her get pregnant one more time. As she walked away from the water, I sent powers spinning after her to wait in her belly for her children: the deepest landlore I could summon, the strongest potential links to the mountains I could forge, and the power to crown the next lord in the castle of Landlaw Hold.
“And so,” he towered over the sitting children with a hungry grin, “and so, I made you. You are mine. Because your mother gave you to me.”
He stepped back to leave the floor to Thomas, but Emmie asked quickly, “Did you send the power of flight spinning into her belly?”
He frowned at her and shook his head.
“So who did?”
The Laird cleared his throat, and they all turned to look at him. He smirked.
“Perhaps you didn’t create us all by yourself, and have no claim over us,” Emmie said to the Earl with a charming smile.
“Whatever unnatural powers you had grafted onto you, you were my idea. If I hadn’t needed you, your mother would never have had you. Without me, you would not exist!” He walked off triumphantly.
Pearl patted Emmie on the shoulder, but they didn’t look at each other. They were staring at Thomas, who thanked his grandfather, then announced, “I call my second witness, the Laird of Swanhaugh.”
The Laird walked nonchalantly towards the children, as if he’d chosen to step forward.
Thomas spoke softly. “There are three possibilities for the mountains: first, no one takes responsibility for them and they fade away into silence; second, you crown my grandfather so he can use his power and their music to care for them; or finally, this Laird uses you to crown himself, then he takes control. But what would the Laird do with that power?
“Swanhaugh.” He coughed the name up as if it tasted foul. “Swanhaugh, tell us about bloodlore.”
The Laird spoke
very quietly, but no one, not even the horses, moved as he spoke, so they heard every word.
“As you know, Tommy boy, bloodlore adds the power of the living creature to the power of the land. You cut open a vein and let the blood sink in. And as the creature dies, the land lives. The hot wet red blood calls back memories of molten rock more vividly than your waltzes and polkas. Land watered with blood resists the nasty fingers of weathering. Land fed with blood seeks more blood.”
“Do you use bloodlore?” asked Thomas.
“Yes I do,” leered the Laird.
“Does anyone else in this county?”
“No. Your weak-willed branch of the family called it barbaric and declared it taboo. So you perch on top of the land, singing little ditties to it, and you never reach to the heights nor dive to the depths of the power our ancestors had. You never feel the earth in your veins, nor breathe the sky into your lungs. You’re too bothered about rules and responsibility to enjoy landlore.”
Thomas shook his head. “But you’re so addicted to bloodletting and flying that you forget simple responsibilities like sheep shearing and grass cutting. You’re not fit to care for the land if you just care about your own pleasures.”
The Laird laughed. “Bloodlore isn’t just about pleasure, Thomas. It’s about power too. Power and death. Don’t forget that.”
Pearl noticed dozens of swans circling far behind the Laird. But they came no nearer than the edge of the parklands.
Thomas spoke slowly. “I haven’t forgotten that. Did you use bloodlore three summers ago?”
“You remember that, little Tommy?” The Laird’s voice flowed like warm grease. “I killed a whole herd of deer that summer, and drenched the land at the north side of the Keystone Peak. The flood of blood sliced off a whole cliff. I heard the mountain scream and I heard you scream too, boy, when you found your mother. I got the Horsburgh hind that day, but not the calf. I was aiming for you then, and I know my swans nearly got you earlier today. Keep looking around you, above and below. I’ll get you eventually. If I don’t, one of my kin in the bloodlore will.”
Thomas was very pale by the end of the Laird’s answer, but his voice was still steady. “Did you use bloodlore this morning?”
“I hardly needed to. Your gutless horses fled at the first sight of my swans. Those children’s toys were split from each other with no more than a few drops of mousy blood in the woods. And the white mare’s hooves were persuaded onto the path towards my lands with nothing but a couple of bones bent into horseshoes and a bit of smoke from the top of the Anvil. Then I covered her tracks and my own with a breath of rain.
“But I admit, I did bleed a few hares dry round the rocks above my Towers, just in case anyone came sneaking and spying. I forced the rocks to twist and turn to my tune, and you very nearly joined in the dance, little girl, didn’t you?” He leant towards Pearl, his tongue poking at the gaps in his rotting teeth. “Perhaps I’ll get you next time.”
“You won’t get her,” Thomas said sharply. “You won’t get anyone ever again. Not if these children accept their destiny.”
He faced the triplets and opened his arms. “If you choose not to crown my grandfather, do you think the Laird will give you a choice about whether you crown him? Do you want to let him feed the land with death rather than life? Do you want to let him use his power to force the land to do his bidding? Do you want to let a man like him, and a lore like that, loose on the mountains?”
“It’s not that simple,” broke in the Laird. “You call bloodlore taboo, but there are ways of hurting living things without spilling blood.” He whirled round to face the triplets. “Ask him how their ritual …”
But Thomas flicked his staff at the green rope round Swanhaugh’s chest and it tightened so fast the Laird couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Thank you for your testimony. Return to your place.” The Laird walked stiffly back to the Earl.
“My third witness is … the land.”
Thomas crouched down in front of his audience. “I want you to feel the rhythm of the rocks, the pulse of the earth, and I want you to know you’ll lose that music forever if you don’t follow me up to the castle tonight.”
Pearl saw the triplets’ eyes fixed eagerly on Thomas as he stood up. “Grandfather, I’m sure you agree I will demonstrate our skills and power far more effectively with the Landlaw lorefast.” He walked towards his grandfather. “After all, I have delivered everything I promised you.”
He held out his hand.
The Earl hesitated.
Thomas said in a slow melodic voice, “With the lorefast, I can give them to you as willing participants. You know what that’s worth.”
“Clever,” whispered Emmie to Pearl. “He is very clever, isn’t he?”
“I gave him the perfect excuse to ask,” muttered Pearl. “Sorry.”
The Earl nodded his decision. “Of course, of course, dear boy. You’ve exceeded my expectations, and I’m sure you’re worthy of it.”
The Earl took from his jacket pocket, not a little notebook, but a wooden box the size of his fist. He opened it and offered it to Thomas, whose long fingers prised out a crescent-shaped black shell. After a quiet moment holding the shell on his palm, Thomas lifted it up high so the dull black flickered with stripes as wrinkles on its surface caught the light.
Pearl recognised it as a freshwater mussel from the pebbly beds of one of the local rivers, held closed with a thin piece of faded twine. When Thomas shook it gently, there was a soft rolling sound.
“There’s a pearl in there,” murmured Emmie.
Thomas strode over to the children and knelt down beside Pearl. With a smile like he had eaten all the jam in the pantry and found someone else to blame, he whispered so only Pearl could hear.
“Thank you, quiet girl, quiet Pearl. You and your petty little debate about destiny have given me what I always wanted. And you said your name meant nothing!”
Chapter 25
Thomas lashed the delicate shell to his staff with one of Jasper’s reeds. He moved a few paces away and turned on the spot, looking first at the grass under his feet, then at the water snaking around them, and finally looking up to the mountains.
He laughed, then pointed his finger straight at the Laird. The Laird flinched; the Earl moved slightly away.
“Swanhaugh, you spend so much time flapping in air and splashing in blood that you’ve neglected your own garden. Let’s tidy it up for you.”
Thomas began to move his wooden staff. Pearl recognised the twisting motion of his wrist, but this time it was slower, gentler, and the pearl inside the shell was rattling and rolling softly, playing a high watery note. Thomas drew growing circles with the staff, and the shell’s music got louder.
He spoke clearly above it. “You’ve seen us use the power of the land in anger and fear, now let me show you how to use it with love and respect.”
He flicked the lorefast at the canal beside them. As the familiar boom reached her, Pearl jerked, ready to wrap her arms round her head. But the wave of sound wasn’t violent this time, it was warm and resonating, and it was joined by the light music of the shell. As they vibrated in unison, Thomas added his voice, flowing round the percussion of the staff.
As he sang, the weed-choked water began to flow in circles, in time with the twisting of the staff. As it moved, the clumps of leaves and algae sank to the bottom and vanished. The dark water cleared, until it was reflecting the pure blue of the late evening sky.
Thomas held out his free hand. “Jasper, will you help me?”
Jasper leapt to his feet, ran to grab Thomas’s hand, and joined his higher voice to the song. Thomas lifted his staff and drew in the air the shape of all the waterways in the meadow. Soon the sweet smell of clean water spread over the whole haugh.
“Ruby, would you like to …” Before he finished, Ruby jumped up and grabbed Jasper’s hand. Thomas changed the notes of his song and twisted his staff at the nearest canal again.
S
tunted grey fish, so pale they were almost see-through, leapt out of the water. They flew in an arc through the air, growing longer and plumper, their scales shining with silvery rainbows. Then they dived back into the sparkling water, splashing Pearl, who was still sitting on the bank.
But there was no one beside Pearl to share her soaking. Emmie had already joined her brother and sister.
As Thomas, Ruby and Jasper sang colours and health into all the fish in the canals, Emmie called over the music, “I don’t like that,” pointing to the Laird’s castle.
“I don’t either,” laughed Thomas. “What shall we do with it?”
“Hide it,” said Emmie.
So Thomas thrust his staff into the grass and sang a different song, joined by all three Chayne triplets. He used both hands to draw branches growing from the lorefast, and a line of dark green appeared in front of Swanhaugh Towers. A hedge of pine trees grew up round the castle, sprouting as fast as the children could sing, hiding all but the tallest towers from view.
Thomas pulled the staff out, and dug his heel into the tangled grass. “Shall we make the grass dance?” he asked. “Yes!” cried the triplets.
Now the beat of the staff and the notes from the shell played faster, more cheerfully, like a military march. Pearl thought it just needed bagpipes to sound like the local regiment recruiting farm boys at the Highland Games. Then the Earl stood behind Thomas and played skirling notes on the bull’s horn. Pearl snorted in amusement.
When they started to sing this new tune, the triplets didn’t wait for Thomas. They all knew the song, or they made it up together.
As Pearl crouched by the side of the newly fresh canal, she saw the grass start to move, ripples flickering across it like tiny waves on a loch. At first she thought the grass was blowing in a sudden breeze, then she realised the grass was rippling because the ground underneath was crawling and jumping.
Pearl remembered the terror of the shifting rocks on the Keystone Peak, and how Emmie had saved her there. Pearl watched Emmie now, her mouth a perfect circle, working with Thomas to move the earth. Who would save her this time?