Dragonclaw

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Isabeau mumbled, feeling thoroughly ashamed. ‘I’ll clean it up.’ She began to pick up the shards of pottery, burning her hand on the hot soup as she did so. The skeelie picked up a bowl and filled it with water from the barrel in the corner, passing it to her with a cloth. Isabeau was on her hands and knees scrubbing the rug before she realised. At once she threw down the cloth. ‘Ye’ve done it again! I said I was leaving.’

  ‘Well, o’ course, dearie, ye can go whenever ye want, though I do think ye should finish cleaning up that mess afore ye do.’ The reprimand in the skeelie’s voice made Isabeau’s cheeks burn, and she quickly bent over her task again. I’ll just do this, and then I’ll go, she told herself.

  The skeelie had poured them some more soup, however, chatting away in her faded old voice. After Isabeau had cleared away the broken bowls, she felt she could not again refuse the old woman. I will no’ forget again, she vowed, spooning down the soup as fast as she could.

  ‘Gently, Isabeau, gently,’ the skeelie said. ‘Ye’ll give yourself indigestion bolting your food like that. Whatever did your guardian teach ye?’

  Immediately Isabeau was filled with panic. She had obviously told the skeelie about Meghan. How else could she know she had a guardian, not an old grandmother as the story was meant to go? She tried desperately to remember the last week but most of it was a blur.

  Before she could say another word, Manissia suddenly raised her head. ‘The gate ward has been breached,’ she said. ‘Isabeau, it be no-one I ken. Quickly, into the wall-bed!’

  Isabeau immediately baulked, gathering herself to say something that would express her contempt for the old hag; but the skeelie turned and said softly, ‘Isabeau, in the wall-bed.’

  Before Isabeau realised she was moving, she was in the bed, and the skeelie had slammed the doors so she was locked inside. Isabeau opened her mouth to cry out but found she could say nothing—her throat muscles were suddenly rigid. Then she lost all desire to protest, for through the crack in the door she could see two Red Guards standing in the doorway. They were cavalrymen, their helmets tucked under their arms, their red cloaks swaying.

  ‘Dearie me, how I can help ye?’ the skeelie was saying, in her breathless voice. ‘Are ye lost? The village is no’ hard to find …’

  ‘We have heard reports o’ sorcery from hereabouts,’ one Guard said gruffly.

  ‘Sorcery? In this poor wee village? Och, no, I think ye two fine young men must have been misled, there’s naught here but sheep and bairns. C’min, c’min, can I get ye some tea? Where can ye have heard such a tale? Wha’ would a sorcerer be doing here? Why, there be no money to be had in these here parts, and I’ll have ye ken the people o’ Quotil are good, honest folks, no’ the sort that’d rub shoulders wi’ any wickedness like sorcery—’

  ‘We heard a lass was seen round abouts here wi’ a horse,’ the other soldier managed to interpolate.

  ‘A lassie? Why, aye, a lass did drop by for some pennyroyal tea. Did she have a horse?’ The Red Guards shouldered their way into the cottage, looking about pugnaciously. The skeelie bustled about, pouring tea and finding nut cookies, talking incessantly. ‘Aye, it be hard for a poor auld woman, up here in these lonely parts. Please ye, have a cookie. I’m too auld to be worth much anymore; the villagers are kind to poor auld Manissia, and buy my pennyroyal tea …’

  ‘She be just a poor auld woman,’ one of the guards said.

  ‘And wha’ would a witch be doing up in these here lonely parts?’ the other said.

  They turned to go, grabbing a handful of cookies each on the way, but before the skeelie could do more than take a few steps towards the wall-bed, they were back, looking sheepish, a woman scornful at their backs. Peering through the crack, Isabeau saw a crimson skirt, and felt fear again.

  ‘Ye feeble-minded fools,’ the witch-sniffer said contemptuously. ‘As easy to trick as a babe just beginning to waddle …’

  The skeelie Manissia began her soft flow of words again, but the witch-sniffer ignored her, glaring around the small room.

  ‘I smell enchantments,’ Lady Glynelda said. ‘The air is thick with enchantments, like smoke.’

  ‘That would be my whortleberry pie ye’d be smelling,’ the skeelie said. ‘Smell is thick, is it no’? Some find the whortleberry a trifle sweet but personally I think—’

  ‘Shut up, auld woman,’ the seeker said nastily, and breathed deeply through her nose, frowning a little. ‘There’s witchery here, no doubt, and we’ll find it too.’ She began to instruct the guards to search the little cottage, and Isabeau could hear the sound of crashing and banging as they opened cupboards and emptied tins and canisters on the floor. Manissia kept up a flow of small talk, exclamations and pleas for gentleness, and offers of food and tea which seemed to irritate the witch-sniffer greatly. Pressing her eye to the crack, Isabeau could see little but her crimson skirt, as the witch-hunter stood waiting by the door, sipping the tea Manissia had pressed into her hand.

  Suddenly there was a loud commotion and a thin wail from Manissia. ‘My valerian roots! Quick, they be burning! They be burning! That be all my stock. Wha’ will I do when the villagers come asking?’

  Plumes of sweet-scented smoke were pouring out of the fireplace, and Isabeau buried her face in her hands as it penetrated even through the closed door of the cupboard. She heard the witch-sniffer giving quick orders and the sound of boots clumping and metal rattling, then the commotion gradually faded away into silence. Suddenly the door was pulled open and Isabeau looked up with a start. She felt strangely dazed, and blinked for a moment in the bright light without making any move to escape. Only Manissia stood there however and, scrambling out of the cupboard, Isabeau saw to her amazement that the Red Guards were both slumped in the chairs by the fire, snoring heavily and looking very comfortable. The seeker Glynelda was lying on the small settee by the front door, her arms crossed neatly over her breast, her red skirt decorously arranged.

  ‘What happened?’ Isabeau said stupidly, and ground the heels of her hands into her eyes, which felt gritty and tired.

  ‘I gave ’em relaxing tea,’ Manissia said, quickly gathering together a loaf of barley bread and some cheese in a white cloth, and stuffing them in Isabeau’s knapsack. ‘Then, silly clumsy auld me, I knocked my bundle o’ valerian roots on to the fire, and dear me, it be the rare person who can stay awake after choking on a mouthful o’ valerian root smoke.’

  ‘How come ye’re still awake?’ Isabeau asked, trying not to yawn.

  ‘Och, I threw my apron o’er my head, o’ course,’ Manissia said. ‘Now ye must go, and fast, Isabeau. I do no’ ken why the Red Guards are on your track, but I do ken I wouldna want any lassie o’ mine to fall into that bitch’s hands.’ She prodded the witch-sniffer’s leg with one slippered foot. ‘As hard a face as I seen on anyone.’

  ‘What about ye?’

  ‘Och, they canna hurt a skeelie,’ Manissia said cheerfully. ‘Now they’ve got a tummy full o’ my tea, they be like spring lambs to the slaughter. They’ll be down in the Quotil inn tonight, chatting to the locals about the simple auld lady that bides up in the copse. Poor auld thing, they’ll say, a penny short o’ a pound, but harmless.’

  ‘How do ye do it?’ Isabeau asked, pulling her pack over her shoulder.

  ‘Why, it’s the Will and the Word,’ the skeelie answered, looking up at Isabeau with sparkling eyes. ‘Have ye been taught nothing?’

  ‘Do ye mean … compulsion? I thought compulsion was no’ allowed?’

  ‘Och, so it be one o’ the Tower witches ye’re apprenticed to,’ Manissia said. ‘Very interesting. I thought they were all dead.’ Isabeau shut her mouth tight, wondering if she’d been indiscreet yet again. Manissia chortled. ‘Even the Tower witches are no’ above imposing their will on others when it suits them, my dear. Besides, the Towers are gone now, and times are troubled. A poor auld skeelie has to use every trick she can to stay happy and healthy in these times. Now go!’

&nbs
p; Already the witch-sniffer was stirring, although the Red Guards lay like the dead. ‘The trick now,’ Manissia mused as Isabeau slipped out the back door, ‘is to keep them from realising they been asleep at all. Good wishes to ye, lassie, and come visit me again some time …’

  Lasair was cantering anxiously back and forth on the high green hill behind the cottage. Isabeau raced towards him, afraid they might be seen from one of the windows. She vaulted easily onto the stallion’s back and they galloped away from the village of Quotil as if evil spirits were pursuing them. Lasair was very disturbed by the sight of his old mistress, afraid he would be caught again and subjected to the humiliation of bridle and saddle, spur and whip. So he ran like the wind, needing no urging from Isabeau who was very glad to have the breeze of the moors again blowing in her face.

  All day they rode, heading due south and staying away from the occasional village nestled into the side of a steep hill.

  By sunset, they came over a high hill to see the wide loop of the Rhyllster shining between dark trees. Starting as a small spring deep in the Sithiche Mountains, the Rhyllster wound its way through the green valleys of Rionnagan to the sea, strung with lochan like diamonds. It was the lifeblood of the country, allowing produce from the farms to be ferried down to the towns and cities of the lower country, and metals, tools and city-made goods to be distributed in the highlands.

  Below the hill where Isabeau stood, the river swelled out into a loch where pale mist drifted, concealing the dark waters. On the shore a large town spread out, just beginning to prick with lights as the dusk fell. Isabeau sighed with relief at the sight. It had taken her a month to make the journey out of the Sithiche Mountains to Caeryla, much longer than she had expected, thanks to the ensorcelment of Skeelie Manissia. Though Isabeau would not admit it even to herself, the talisman she carried in her pack was weighing her down with responsibility, and she would be glad of the chance of shifting some of that weight to older and wiser shoulders. For the last day it had been burning and tingling against her, and the closer she came to the loch, the more it hurt her. Now it was so hot to the touch that she had had to wrap it in layers of cloth before she could carry it. Even then it seemed to throb against her hip, and she looked forward to handing it over to Meghan’s friend. She wondered whether she would still be waiting for her at Tulachna Celeste, more than a moon after Meghan had sent the message. She would have to worry about that when she got there, though, for first she had to make her way past Caeryla.

  The sight of the town, piled inside its stone walls like children’s wooden blocks tumbled in play, made Isabeau think of the last time she had been here, eight years earlier. She remembered it as a bright, cheerful town, hung with lanterns and streamers, its streets thronged with people, its loch perpetually drifting with mist. Clapping her heels to Lasair’s side, she trotted down the slope of the hill towards the water, thinking of soft beds, hot stew and company.

  It was a sharp disappointment, then, to ride up to the gates and find the streets beyond dirty and deserted. She hesitated a little before entering, having expected to lose herself in crowds. However, the lure of food and a bed was too much and she let Lasair trot under the overhang of the gate. At once a guard stepped out of the shadows, holding up a hand for her to stop. Isabeau’s pulse quickened as she pulled the stallion up.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Mari Collene, sirrah,’ Isabeau answered.

  ‘Business?’

  ‘Herb lore, sirrah. My granddam is a skeelie, and she sent me down to buy rare powders for th’ healing.’

  ‘Is that so, lassie? And what village be ye from?’

  ‘Byllars,’ Isabeau answered, as Meghan always had.

  ‘Byllars, hey? Ye’ve travelled a long way.’ The sentry stepped forward and peered at Isabeau’s face. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, showing a mouth missing most of its teeth. ‘Well, ah, I s’pose it be fine …’

  Just as she was about to spur the stallion forward, he reached up a hand and caught her knee. ‘Just a moment, lassie, where’d ye get the horse? Wha’ is the granddaughter o’ a simple skeelie doing wi’ a horse like this?’

  ‘The stallion belongs to my da,’ she improvised quickly. ‘He did the local laird a great service and when asked wha’ boon he would like, asked for a colt bred from the laird’s own stable.’

  For a moment she thought the story would hold, then the sentry suddenly stepped forward. ‘Let me see your hair.’ Before she could think of something to say, he had dragged her plaid away from her head, and her red plait fell down from under her tam-o’-shanter.

  ‘Och, so I thought,’ the sentry said. ‘A red-head, just as she said.’

  Isabeau tried to yank her knee from his grasp, kicking Lasair in the ribs, but the sentry raised one ham-sized fist and hit her on the side of the head. Isabeau fell downwards into a roaring darkness.

  When she woke, it was dark and she was lying on a pile of straw that stank of urine and mould. Panic rising in her throat, she tried to twist upright, but her hands were bound tightly behind her back so she could hardly move. She took several deep breaths and tried to locate where she was. It was cold and dank, and there was a stone wall behind her, slick with moisture. After a moment her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she could see, far overhead, a square where a few stars glimmered between straight lines that could only be bars. So, she was in some sort of prison. Isabeau ground her teeth. To be caught so quickly! She should have realised an alert would be out for the witch-sniffer’s horse! The penalty for horse stealing was death by hanging, she remembered, and felt terror foul-tasting in her mouth.

  After a few moments of writhing in anger and fear against her ropes, she fell back against the straw with a muffled groan. Dressed only in her breeches and a thin shirt, the cold of the stone floor struck up through the stinking straw. She strained against the ropes again and tried to unravel the knots by thought alone. However, without being able to see the knots it was impossible to undo them, and at last Isabeau wept in pure frustration. Once her tears were spent, however, she was able to think more clearly and she considered her situation carefully. Concerned as she was about the perilousness of her situation, it was the loss of the magic talisman and the betrayal of Meghan’s trust that worried her the most. If she could only manage to escape and retrieve the talisman! All night Isabeau tested her strength against the ropes and turned over several plans, each more improbable than the last, and at last slipped off into an uneasy doze.

  A few hours before dawn, she woke abruptly and lay rigid in the straw, straining to hear again the small noise that had disturbed her. At first there was only silence and then Isabeau heard again the scuffle and patter of paws that meant her cell had been invaded by rats. Most other girls would have screamed, but Isabeau felt relief fill her. Tentatively she opened her mind and sent out a simple thought-image of greeting.

  There was an answering scuffle and she felt something warm against her legs. Isabeau shuddered despite herself but kept up the slow trickle of mind-pictures that she hoped would be understood. The rodents did not have the sort of language that was easy for humans to speak, primarily because they relied on instinct, body language and smell, and try as much as she liked, Isabeau was simply unable to communicate the niceties of her meaning by the angle of her whiskers or a twitch of her tail.

  Chew rope! she imaged over and over again, but it took a long time before they even listened, for the rats were consumed by a ravenous hunger that left little room for any other thought. At last, though, a rat began to nibble at the ropes, drawn by the smell of blood from her chafed wrists. Soon Isabeau was able to wrench her wrists apart with a small cry of pain, and then undoing her ankles was easy.

  The small seed of hope which had flared up soon died though, for Isabeau could find no way out of her cell. After the circulation had returned to her numb limbs, she struggled to her feet and began to explore the room. She seemed to scrabble around in the darkness for hours, without any benefit but the warm
ing of her limbs, and the discovery that her cell was exactly eight steps long and four steps wide. There was a barred door in one corner, and the window set about fifteen feet off the floor, and that was it.

  Isabeau had never before encountered a door bound by iron, and she found the metal was unresponsive to her magic. If it had simply been barred, like all the doors Isabeau had seen before, she would probably have escaped straightaway. However, the door was locked and the key removed, and Isabeau had no idea how a lock even worked. She probed it with her mind for a long time, but was unable to shift it. At last, exhausted, she slumped back into the straw and fell asleep once more.

  When she woke the third time, the tiny square high in the wall was beginning to lighten, and footsteps were coming down the corridor outside. Isabeau quickly wound the rope back round her wrists to give the illusion that she was still tied up. However, the deception was unnecessary for no-one came in. A tiny grate in the bottom of the door was opened and a wooden platter containing mouldy bread and a jug of water was shoved through. Examining the unappetising meal and remembering her daydreams of hot stew made Isabeau wince, but she had not had a good meal since she had left the skeelie’s cottage and she was starving. Consequently she fell onto the mouldy loaf like a ravenous wolf, throwing a few crumbs towards the rats who were glaring at her from the straw. After her hunger and thirst were appeased, she re-examined the door in the light of day. It was a massive door of oak, bound with iron, and fitted snugly into the doorframe. Isabeau was able to move the bolts back by stint of much concentration, but she still could not open the lock. She had just switched her attention to the rusty hinges when she heard footsteps marching down the corridor again. By the time her door was being opened she was back in the straw pretending to be asleep.

  ‘Who forgot to shoot the bolts!’ she heard someone say. ‘Lady Glynelda would have your heads if she knew!’