The Seventh Daughter

by Frewin Jones

  “No,” Gabriel said. “She is not here. She cannot be.” Tania let out a silent breath of relief. But then Gabriel turned to his father. “Yes. Yes, summon him. Her image burns in my mind.” He held out a grasping hand. “I almost feel that I could reach out and touch her.”

  “So be it,” said the duke. He called and a servant appeared. “Fetch Captain Ambrose,” he ordered.

  Tania backed away from the edge of the parapet. Just as she had sensed Drake’s presence, so he could sense hers. He wasn’t certain yet, but he would be once he had spoken to the captain of the guard and learned that three travelers had arrived that night. They had to leave, now. Tania pushed through the black curtain. She paused for a moment on the balcony, watching as the servant made his way across the lobby and out through a door. Then she raced down the stairs and made her way at a run back to the gatehouse cells. She pushed her way into Edric’s cell, leaning over him and shaking him awake.

  “Tania? What’s wrong?”

  “We have to get out of here,” she said. “Drake has arrived.”

  “What?”

  “There isn’t time to explain, but we have to go right now.”

  Edric threw on his clothes and it wasn’t long before Cordelia was also up and dressed and the three of them were on the landing outside the cells.

  “There’s only one gateway out of the castle,” Edric told them. “It’ll be barred and guarded. We’ll never get out that way.”

  “Then we must find weapons,” said Cordelia. “Fight our way out!”

  “Against all of them?” Tania said. “I don’t think so. Maybe we could knot our bedsheets together and climb out of a window.”

  “It’s too high,” Edric said. “But I saw something that might help. Quickly, follow me.” He led them down the stairs. On a lower landing he pushed open a door.

  “This was open when we were brought up here,” he said. “It must be some kind of storeroom. I saw rope.” Sure enough, several long coils of rope lay on the floor.

  “There are no windows here,” Cordelia said. “Come, take the rope—we will descend from above.”

  Each carrying a coil of rope, they went back up to Tania’s room. She closed the door and they got to work tying the thick ropes together. Tania tested the knots, tugging at the rope ends.

  “Will they hold?” she asked uneasily.

  “We shall find the truth of that soon enough,” said Cordelia.

  Edric tied the rope around Cordelia’s waist and she climbed onto the deep sill. She sat astride the window for a moment, then slipped out into the night. Edric and Tania took the strain, slowly letting the rope out. A long time seemed to pass before the rope loosened.

  “Check she’s okay,” Edric said. “Then go down after her.”

  “How are you going to get down?”

  “I’ll tie the end to the bed and jam it against the wall. That should hold it.”

  Tania kissed him. “Be careful,” she said.

  “And you.” He helped her onto the sill. She edged her shoulders out of the window. The drop made her head swim. She saw the brown rope snaking away from her down the shining gray stone—and there, maybe forty feet below, she could see the foreshortened figure of Cordelia looking up and beckoning. Tania slid one leg over the sill and gradually shifted her weight, holding tightly on to the rope with both hands as she climbed out of the window. She was aware of cold night air all around her and of the precipitous drop to the roadway.

  Her heart was beating so loud that it sounded like drums in her ears. She gritted her teeth and struggled to catch the rope between her feet. It took her a few moments to secure it between instep and sole. Then, her heart in her mouth, she began to edge down. She felt Cordelia’s hands helping her down the last couple of feet. They looked up in silence, holding hands. Edric’s head was showing from the window. Tania watched as he clambered out and began to descend.

  He was about fifteen feet from the ground when a new shape appeared above him at the window. A voice shouted: “Halt! Or perish!”

  Cordelia gasped. “We are discovered!”

  “Edric! Jump!” Tania called. She saw a flash of something white at the window and the very next moment the rope came loose and Edric dropped, the rope coiling over him as he landed between them.

  He hit the ground with flexed knees, absorbing the impact and just managing to keep to his feet. “Quickly,” he said. “Off the road.”

  He ran to a sheer edge of rock that cut sharp as the stroke of a knife across the mountainside. Beyond it Tania saw only plunging darkness. Edric looked back at them and Tania could see fear in his eyes. “It won’t be easy,” he warned, turning and letting himself down off the edge.

  Tania heard shouting above them. It wouldn’t be long now before the gates of Caer Liel would be thrown open and soldiers would come after them. She sat on the edge of the lip of stone. She could just make out Edric’s shape as he climbed down the rock face. She turned, scrabbling for purchase with her feet. Cordelia crouched above her, ready to follow. Tania caught an outcrop of rock with one foot and lowered herself down. She found a handgrip. Then another. Cordelia turned, her foot groping as she came over the edge. Tania transferred her weight and began the perilous descent.

  XVI

  The sun rose in an eggshell blue sky, lifting above a breathtakingly beautiful landscape of rolling heather-clad hills and wide stony valleys. Tania, Edric, and Cordelia had stopped to rest by a rushing rivulet of water that tumbled down a stony gully. Tania sat with her cloak wrapped around her. The view was glorious, but the early morning was gnawingly cold. She looked nervously over her shoulder every few seconds, convinced that she would see horsemen bearing down on them, with Gabriel Drake at their head.

  The tall dark mountains of Weir were at their backs now. They had made their way through the hostile night to these tumbled foothills, afraid at every step that they would be tracked down. But the only time they had seen their pursuers was at a distance: a line of horsemen bearing red torches, moving rapidly along a ridge half a mile away.

  During the night, the storm clouds had crept away into the west, and now the sky was clear and bright. Tania looked over to where Edric was standing on a raised hump of land, his arms folded against the cool wind, staring northward where the hills became blue and indistinct. Cordelia had picked up a shard of flint sometime in the night and she was now sitting at the waterside, whetting the edge of the flint on a stone. She looked up, as though sensing Tania’s eyes on her.

  “I will not go unarmed into the wilds,” she said. She lifted the flint, gripping it like a dagger in her fist. “Let them come, sister—the first to find us will regret their impetuosity.”

  Edric walked back to where they were sitting.

  “So, Master Chanticleer,” said Cordelia, squinting up at him with her head cocked to one side. “Can you lead us true?”

  “I think so, my lady,” he said. He pointed into the north. “Do you see those two hills: the big one with the smaller one at its side? They are Great Erl and Lesser Erl. The Grantor Pass runs between them. If we go that way, we’ll come to Whitewater Fells and Skarnside Fells and the River Lych.”

  “You know this landscape well,” Cordelia remarked.

  “Actually I don’t,” Edric said. “I’m much more familiar with the countryside north of the Erls. These aren’t hills I know very well. As children we were always warned away from them.”

  “Why’s that?” Tania asked.

  “This is where the wild unicorns of Caer Liel roam, is it not, Master Chanticleer?” said Cordelia. “I have seen their tracks and traces aplenty.”

  “Wild unicorns?” Tania said. “Are they dangerous?”

  Edric nodded. “Very. They have vicious tempers and they’re totally unpredictable. They attack with hooves and teeth and horns. And their horns are like skewers—they’d go right through you.” He looked at Cordelia. “Have you seen signs that there are any nearby, my lady?”

  Cordelia smiled grim
ly. “Oh yes, they are close.”

  Tania was beginning to feel warmer. They had been walking for some time, and the sun was high in the eastern sky. The night chills had been banished and they were moving along the bottom of a wide valley, picking their way through soft banks of moss brightened by yellow and white flowers. On one side the valley wall was of limestone cliffs and rocky outcrops; the other slope rippled with purple heather. The day was warm and still and dancing clusters of white butterflies clouded the shimmering air. They were deliberately keeping to the valleys, careful to avoid the uplands and hilltops where they could be seen against the horizon. They had seen nothing to suggest that the soldiers of Weir were close on their track, but Tania was convinced that Gabriel would have emptied the castle in his desire to capture them.

  The floor of the mossy valley stooped slowly downward, leading into a deep circular glen. A pool of water lay in the glen’s center, bright as a mirror.

  “We should fill our water bottles,” Edric suggested. “There are a lot of rivers in these parts, but it’s better to be prepared.”

  They began to walk toward the silvery disk of water.

  “Our situation is not of the best,” Cordelia commented. “Ynis Maw lies many leagues from here.” She looked at Edric. “Are there no farmsteads in this region where horses could be procured?”

  “There are a few farms and villages north of the Erls,” Edric said. “But even if they had horses for sale, what would we use to buy them?”

  “Our honest word that payment will be made in due time,” Cordelia replied.

  Tania gave a faint smile. “I can see that working,” she said. “We’ll pay you if we win the war against Lyonesse.” She arched an eyebrow. “Do you think they’d go for that?”

  Cordelia looked at her but didn’t say anything. Tania frowned. The princess’s expression had frozen on her face, her eyes fixed on something beyond Tania’s shoulder. It was the look of fear in those usually fearless eyes that made Tania spin on her heel.

  “I wished for steeds,” Cordelia murmured. “Steeds we shall have!”

  A herd of animals was coming over the hill, the soft thunder of their hooves filling the air as they galloped down the slope.

  “Unicorns of Caer Liel,” Edric said. “Keep absolutely still. It’s too late to run.”

  Tania gazed at the unicorns with uneasy fascination. They were the size and shape of horses, but at the same time startlingly different. They were pale gray, and the contours of their bodies were sharp-edged and angular as if they had been roughly carved from marble. Their manes and tails were very long, colored a pale mauve. Their eyes were deep purple and full of a wild, perilous intelligence.

  “Keep together,” Cordelia said in an undertone.

  The unicorns split into two racing streams that surrounded the travelers like pincers, cutting off any chance of escape. Tania shrank away as she found herself enclosed by a moving circle of unicorns. The animals came to a halt and turned, facing inward with their heads lowered. Tania’s eyes were drawn to the white horns that jutted from their foreheads; they were about eighteen inches long, slender sharp-edged spirals that ended in vicious points. Twenty of those horns were now pointed straight at them.

  “Brothers and sisters,” said Cordelia, and Tania was alarmed to hear a tremble in her sister’s voice. “We mean you no harm.”

  One of the unicorns snorted and stamped a hoof.

  “We did not know that this was your water,” Cordelia apologized. “We trespassed out of ignorance, not disrespect.”

  The unicorns stepped forward. Tania felt Edric and Cordelia pressing against her as they moved closer together. “Can’t you make friends with them?” she whispered to Cordelia.

  “They do not trust me and our death is in their eyes,” Cordelia replied under her breath. “Listen closely. I will seek to reason with them; you must use the time to try and flee. If all fails, I have my stone knife, though I am loathe to use it.”

  “You’ll be killed,” Edric said. “And they’d still take us down. That’s not a way out of this.”

  “Then I wait on your wisdom, Master Chanticleer,” Cordelia hissed. “Mayhap an angel will swoop down and pluck us from the earth.”

  She had only just spoken when a high-pitched whistle rang through the air. The long, sweet-toned notes slowly changed pitch, creating a simple melody full of a strange and wistful loneliness. The unicorns backed away from the three travelers and moved off to gather together at a watchful distance.

  “What was that?” Tania asked, astonished.

  “I know not,” Cordelia said. “But there were signals in that sound, I would swear to it.”

  A shape appeared on the hilltop, black and featureless against the sky. Someone on horseback, Tania thought at first, but as the rider came down the hillside she saw that it was a young man riding a unicorn. He brought his steed close then sprang lightly down into the grass.

  “Do you love life so little that you would risk all to drink from Einhorn Tarn?” he demanded, walking toward them with long strides.

  He was a similar age to them, very tall and slim and dressed in a simple tunic and leggings of dark brown leather. His hair was a spiky black thatch and his face long and narrow with heavy brows and dark flashing eyes.

  Cordelia stepped forward, the sharpened stone in her fist. “Come no closer,” she warned. “For, unicorn master or no, if you try to do us harm, I will slay you where you stand.”

  The young man came to an abrupt halt. A smile flickered at one corner of his mouth. “I am not the master of these beasts,” he said. “I am their friend. But they will take it ill, mistress, if you murder me without cause.”

  Cordelia dropped the knife to her side, staring hard into the young man’s face. “Who are you, unicorn-friend?”

  “It becomes the strangers to name themselves first,” the man said. “But I will do you a courtesy. I am Bryn, son of Baldon Lightfoot.”

  “My name is Edwin Poladore,” Edric broke in. “These are my sisters, Brosie and Dorimar. We were on our way to visit our cousins in Lud, but our wagon broke a wheel and our horses bolted.”

  Bryn gave him a long, thoughtful look. “No,” he said at last. “You are not.” He looked at Tania and his brown-eyed gaze pierced her. “You are Princess Tania and the knife-maiden is one of your Royal sisters, I would guess, although which Princess I am threatened by I cannot say.” His eyes turned to Edric. “And you are the treacherous servant to our lord Gabriel Drake.” He smiled. “You three are hunted throughout the land. I am told a bag of precious jewels awaits he who brings you to the gates of Caer Liel, living or otherwise.”

  “Seek to earn those jewels, and you will not live to count them,” Cordelia warned, lifting the stone knife again. “We will not be taken.”

  “Then it is good that I have no desire for such gewgaws,” Bryn said without concern. “You are lucky that you stumbled into these houseless hills. Horsemen search for you to the west and north and south, but where the wild unicorns roam, they are less apt to stray, unless they come to hunt them, and then they will only venture here in large and well-armed parties.”

  Hearing the cold anger in his voice as he spoke of the unicorn hunts, Tania remembered the mounted animal heads in the castle. She was aware of the unicorns coming closer now, warily circling them, their eyes bright and curious.

  “How do you know about us?” she asked.

  “In these regions not a kestrel moves across the sky nor a hare through the heather but I know of it,” Bryn replied. “I have spoken this morning with ravens and goshawks and with skylarks, and all tell me that a great hunt is afoot—that Gabriel Drake has returned to Weir and seeks Princess Tania and her companions who fled Caer Liel by night and are on foot in the hills.” He smiled wryly again. “I fear he means them no good if he should find them.” He paused, looking carefully at each of them in turn. “I can offer refuge, if you wish it,” he said.

  “Are you not loyal to the House of Weir?” Co
rdelia asked.

  “I am loyal to the Earldom of Weir, my lady,” he said. “I am loyal to the birds and the beasts and the hills and the streams. These things would I defend with my life. But I am not loyal to those who slaughter unicorns for pleasure, and I am not loyal to those whom our good King Oberon would have banished from the land, most especially when they return as a cat’s-paw to the monster of Lyonesse.” As he spoke one of the unicorns came up beside him. He lifted his hand to stroke the long white neck. Tania saw a protective glint in the animal’s eyes as it stared at her.

  “Can you help us get away from here?” she said. “We’re trying to get to Ynis Maw. King Oberon is a prisoner there; we’re going to try and free him.”

  Cordelia looked sharply at her.

  “We have to trust him, Cordelia,” Tania said. “Who else is there?”

  Bryn’s dark eyes widened. “Princess Cordelia?” he said with wonder in his voice. “I have heard of your kinship with animals, my lady. They say that you can speak with all things that walk or crawl or swim or fly.”

  “All save the wild unicorns, it would seem, Master Lightfoot,” she said. “That is an art I would fain learn.”

  “In what small time we have together, I would gladly teach you something of the skill,” Bryn replied. He looked at the others. “Come, I have a modest home nearby. We shall go there, if you would have my aid. There is food and drink, and we will speak of how to send you safe away from this place and speed you on your journey.”

  Bryn’s home nestled under a limestone crag, its dry-stone walls seeming to grow out of the cliff face. The roof was covered in thick green turfs, so that from a distance the house almost looked like part of the rugged landscape.

  They had to duck under the low lintel of the wooden, bark-covered door, but once inside they found themselves in a single deep and spacious room lit by rushlights. Woven reed mats covered the stone floor and hung from the walls.

  A small fire flickered in a stone hearth, a brown clay cauldron hanging over it, bubbling with a thick stew. Tania breathed in the delicious smell of herbs and cooked vegetables. The dwelling was sparsely furnished: A narrow bed covered with woolen blankets lay against one wall, and flat-topped rocks held a few simple oddments such as knives and bowls and rushlight lamps. A hollowed-out rock held food: fruit and dried fish and meat, and on one side stone jars brimmed with clear dark water.