The Heart of Stars

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘Bind her and gag her,’ Dide said harshly, ‘until we can escape from here.’

  He took a coil of rope from his pack and came towards Isabeau, who stared at him with widely dilated eyes. ‘It is for the best,’ he said, forcing himself to meet her eyes.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t. I’ll … it’ll drive me mad. I … I canna be still. Let me …’

  He came towards her inexorably, and with a quick flick she transformed herself into the shape of an elf-owl. One moment there was a red-headed woman standing in the gloaming, the next two small white birds were soaring away into the forest on soundless wings.

  Dide stared after them, and let his hands fall by his sides.

  Once in the shape of an owl, Isabeau felt an immediate release from Brann the Raven’s spell of compulsion. Dizzy with relief, she soared high into the sky, wheeling above the trees.

  Soar-hooh, Buba hooted joyfully. Soar-hooh high-hooh!

  Isabeau and Buba had flown the night skies together many times, snapping at insects midair, enjoying the ruffle of the night wind in their feathers, watching the scuttle of small creatures through the undergrowth with their superior owl-eyes. Isabeau had never felt such a keen edge to her enjoyment before, though. She felt as if she had broken out of a cage of red-hot iron that had pressed close about her limbs, branding her with pain.

  After a while, she came swooping back down to the hillside, to hoot reassuringly at her friends and watch the work of the gravediggers as they buried Brann the Raven in an unmarked grave at the side of the hill, like a pauper, or a plague victim, or a suicide.

  Although it was almost dark now, Isabeau could see easily. Her friends had taken refuge under the down-arching branches of one of the big hemlocks, for the soldiers were patrolling the hillside constantly, weapons at the ready.

  The soldiers wore long green surcoats, with the black raven of the MacBrann clan emblazoned upon them, and the clan’s motto, Sans Peur, embroidered in white on a black scroll. They carried tall claymores or wicked-looking pikes, and had daggers at their belts. There were archers too, guarding the road towards the castle. They had arrows cocked to the bow, and their eyes ranged over the landscape constantly, looking for movement.

  Watching the gravediggers hurriedly fill in the hole was a tall man with a very dark, frowning visage. His clothes were heavy and archaic. He wore long tight hosen under a massive striped doublet, with a strange little ruff of lace forcing up his chin. His shoes had long, narrow points at the toes and heavy jewelled buckles. His sleeves were huge and elaborate, striped in green and black, and slashed to show the white silk beneath. Many of his fingers were weighted down with rings, showing he was a talented sorcerer, and he carried no weapon, but had a silver-embossed wand of ebon tucked through his sash.

  As the last clod of earth was shovelled into place, he sighed and nodded. ‘Well done,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Did ye cut the turf as I commanded? Roll it over the grave and stamp it down well. We want no-one to ken where he is buried.’

  ‘Aye, Your Grace, we’ll do our best,’ one of the gravediggers said. ‘I brought a bucket so we can water it from the pool. In this heat, it’ll brown off fast otherwise.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ the lord said. ‘Are there some fallen branches we can toss over the top, to help conceal it until the grass begins to grow again?’

  ‘Aye, Your Grace.’

  As Isabeau watched and wondered, the gravediggers unrolled ribbons of green turf, and covered the grave site over, and watered it in thoroughly. Soon it was difficult to tell where Brann had been buried, though in broad daylight and under the full glare of the sun, the disturbance to the soil would be more obvious, she knew. When they were finished, the lord thanked them and handed them heavy bags that clinked and made the gravediggers smile in satisfaction.

  ‘Remember, ye must no’ speak o’ what ye have done to anyone,’ the lord warned. ‘No’ your wife, or your sweetheart, no’ your sons or daughters. If ye tell a soul, I shall ken, and I shall wreak vengeance. Remember, I am Brann’s son! I will ken, and I will make ye suffer!’

  ‘Aye, Your Grace, o’ course, Your Grace,’ they gabbled, and pocketed their coin bags and shouldered their shovels, then went away down the hill half running.

  ‘Ye would have done better to have slit their throats, my laird,’ the captain of the guards observed in a low voice. ‘Ye think they’ll no’ talk o’ this night’s doing?’

  ‘It is what my father would have done,’ the MacBrann agreed wearily. ‘But I refuse to be as my father was! O’ course word will get out, it canna be helped. But their minds were well befuddled with whisky, and soon they will be forgetting exactly where he was buried. Once the grass grows back, there’ll be no mark to show where his grave is, and I intend to keep this hill well guarded until all traces o’ him have rotted away and there is naught left o’ him to raise.’

  ‘But that could be years!’ The captain of the guards was startled.

  ‘Seven years or seventy, I’ll do whatever I must to make sure he stays in his grave where he belongs!’

  ‘But surely it was all just hot wind, all that talk o’ his o’ discovering the secrets o’ immortality?’

  ‘My father was close on eighty years auld, and looked no’ a day over fifty,’ the MacBrann said in a low voice. ‘I have heard tell he learnt to suck the life out o’ his acolytes, who grew sick and pale as he grew ever more vigorous.’

  ‘He sucked their blood?’

  ‘Their blood, their soul, their life-energy, who kens?’ the MacBrann answered in the same low, weary voice. ‘I do no’ ken the secret. I do ken he devoted much o’ his life to researching the secrets o’ life and death. He mocked me by promising to raise Medwenna from the dead. All I had to do was bring him a sweet young virgin to sacrifice, and hold her down while he cut her throat. I said I would rather die myself. He laughed and said that all men must die, except for him.’

  ‘He was mad!’ the captain said.

  ‘I have often thought so,’ the MacBrann said. ‘Mad, or evil, or both. A fine father to have. But do ye ken? I was tempted. For a moment, I hesitated. To have Medwenna back again, and the child still blooming in her womb! I had thought I would give anything to have such magic wrought. And my father knew I was tempted. He could see into my heart, and he knew all my disgust was half-sham, because for one moment, one second, I contemplated murdering some poor young girl just so I could have my wife alive again. So am I any less evil than my father?’

  ‘Aye, ye are,’ the captain said passionately. ‘Ye are a good man! A good, kind, just man who–’

  ‘Who today murdered his own father,’ the MacBrann said.

  ‘Aye,’ the captain said, ‘and if that was no’ a good deed, and a just one, I ken no better!’

  ‘It is a sin and a crime I shall carry forever more,’ the MacBrann replied. ‘May Eà forgive me!’

  ‘He was an evil, black-hearted snake o’ a man, and ye’ve done us all a service ridding the world o’ him,’ his captain said loyally.

  The MacBrann did not answer.

  ‘Have ye any orders for me, my laird?’ the captain said after a moment. ‘All is quiet so far.’

  ‘They will come,’ the MacBrann said quietly. ‘They will wait until they think we are gone. Tell the men to withdraw. Most o’ them may go back to the castle, but tell them to keep a close watch on the gate, and if anyone comes out, to follow them at a distance. Ask Darrell and Robin to take up positions by the road, and set a ring o’ men about the hillside, well hidden. If anyone comes they are to hoot like an owl, three times.’

  ‘Aye, my laird. What o’ me? Shall I ride with ye back to the castle, or do ye wish me to wait and watch here?’

  ‘Ye and I shall wait in the tomb, Colin.’

  ‘In the tomb?’ The captain swallowed and looked behind him at the ghostly white bulk of the crypt.

  ‘Aye. They will think him buried there. That is where they will come.’

  ‘Ye are so sure som
eone will come?’

  ‘He swore to outwit Gearradh. He swore he would live again. He had the power o’ prophecy, my father. We must do all we can to make sure his words are no true foretelling.’

  ‘A pleasant task for a midsummer’s eve,’ the captain said ironically.

  Isabeau saw the MacBrann smile briefly.

  ‘Just be glad it is no’ the dead o’ winter,’ he replied.

  Isabeau flew overhead as the bulk of the soldiers marched back to the castle, carrying flaming torches to light their way. Then she flitted silently down to the tree in which Dide, Cailean, Ghislaine, Stormstrider and Cloudshadow hid. Wrapped in their grey cloaks, they were invisible in the darkness. She told them what she had overheard in owl-language, having no desire to transform back into her spell-wracked human body.

  At dawn-hooh, we flee-hooh, she said. For now-hooh, snooze-hooh. Owl-hooh watch-hooh.

  Take care-hooh, Dide hooted back.

  You-hooh too-hooh, she replied and rubbed her beak against his cheek, before swooping away into darkness again.

  In the shape of an owl, human needs and passions dropped away and were subsumed by the needs and desires of Owl. Isabeau remembered her love for Dide, and her horror and guilt at drawing a dagger on him, and her terror at the power of the dead sorcerer to so overthrow her will. But she did not feel these emotions. She was all Owl. When a moth blundered past, she snapped at it and swallowed it with pleasure. When Buba soared ahead of her, she stretched her wings and followed him, filled with a serene joy at the coming of the night and the moon-cool, the hours when Owl ruled.

  She could see clearly in the darkness. She could see the men crouched in the shadows of the trees, watching the road from the castle. She could see the shape of the unmarked grave. When she and Buba flitted silently in through the doors of the mausoleum, she could see the two men sitting quietly in the darkness, their daggers drawn. They both jumped violently at the sudden rush of pale motion above their heads, and Isabeau hooted softly, to reassure them, before coming down to rest above their heads.

  They did not speak. Slowly the hours crept past. The tomb was cold and they huddled their plaids about their shoulders. Isabeau amused herself by flitting about the tomb, catching a mouse or two, and reading the inscriptions above the few tombs already existent in the crypt. Brann had buried two wives, four daughters, two sons and numerous servants, and there was a plaque commemorating his familiar, a raven named Nigrum. Most interesting was the centrepiece of the crypt, a great slab of stone on a raised platform, and with a sarcophagus carved from marble. It depicted Brann the Raven himself, lying with his hands crossed on a staff, and a crown on his head. Engraved on a tablet at his foot were the words ‘I will return’ which was enough to make Isabeau shudder and huddle her feathers about her.

  What man built himself a grand tomb before he had even died, and then wrote himself such an epitaph? A vain and arrogant man, certainly, but also one afraid of death, afraid of his own mortality. Or perhaps it was all just a trick. Isabeau knew, as very few did, that the tomb concealed a secret passage which led into the water-caves under Rhyssmadill. During the Bright Wars, Dughall MacBrann had led Lachlan and Dide and the rest of the Rìgh’s bodyguard down through the secret way and into Rhyssmadill, relieving a long and desperate siege that had seen many soldiers loyal to Lachlan die a slow and horrible death from starvation. Brann had built the secret way, and concealed its entrance with this spurious tomb that he certainly never expected to inhabit. It was said that he had buried all those who had helped build the hidden passageway within it, so that none but he and his kin should ever know the secret.

  The hours passed. Finding herself weary and bored, Isabeau sank her head into her feathers and snoozed for a while, confident her owl-senses would alert her if anything happened.

  A few minutes to midnight, the great bronze door to the crypt slowly eased open. Beau and Buba raised their heads and opened their eyes. In the dark grey of their night vision, they saw two dark-cloaked figures step cautiously within. They paused and looked about them, then stole silently to the tomb where the sepulchre of Brann the Raven lay.

  After a long breathless moment of listening, a globe of witch’s light sprang into being above the tomb. Isabeau blinked and swivelled her head away. When her owl-eyes had grown accustomed, she rotated her head back curiously.

  A tall woman was standing on the flagstones, her hands folded before her, while a young man knelt by the tomb, leaning his weight on the ledger.

  ‘It does no’ shift,’ he whispered.

  ‘Try harder,’ she replied. ‘Ye are young and strong, Irvin, ye should be able to move it easily enough.’

  He heaved harder, grunting with the effort. After a few moments, when all his bulging muscles had had no effect, she frowned and came to kneel beside him. She ran her hands over the crack that lay where the great slab of stone rested on the walls of the tomb, then she raised both hands high and clapped them together with a dramatic flourish, muttering a sequence of words that sounded like gibberish. Nothing happened.

  ‘Ye always work so hard for effect, Aven,’ the MacBrann said from behind her. ‘Really, there is no need for all these histrionics. The will and the word, that is all ye need.’

  The sorceress jerked and cried aloud in surprise, then spun around, one hand at her throat. ‘Ye!’ she hissed.

  ‘Aye, I’m afraid so,’ he answered. ‘I am so glad that ye did not disappoint me and stay at home as ye were bid. Did ye really think I would leave the tomb unguarded?’

  ‘I had great ease in passing by those blind fools ye had posted on the road,’ she said contemptuously. ‘They did no’ hear a thing!’

  ‘They are mere men, no’ sorcerers,’ the MacBrann said softly. ‘I kent ye could walk right through them without them seeing a thing. Although ye are in many ways a fool, ye are a true witch with a true Talent. Ye canna deceive my eyes, though, Aven. I ken ye too well.’

  She nodded, and looked away. ‘Aye, we were bairns together, were we no’?’ she said. ‘Practically brother and sister.’

  Suddenly her fingers flicked out sideways and lightning flashed across the tomb towards the MacBrann with the sizzling speed and ferocity of a viper. It hit an invisible wall before him and fizzled away, leaving only a faint drift of smoke and the dazzling imprint of its shape upon the retina.

  ‘Aye, raised together as close as brother and sister,’ he said in his low, weary voice, waving one hand to disperse the smoke, ‘which surely makes your relationship with my father akin to incest, does it no’?’

  Beside him, Colin had his sword drawn, his body crouched in the warrior’s stance, ready to lunge. The young man Irvin was crouched behind the sorceress, his face white and frightened, listening with incredulity to the bitter exchange of words.

  ‘Your father may have been the same age as my own father, but where my father grew bent and frail, and at last senile and drooling afore he died, your father was as strong and lusty as a much younger man. Lustier even,’ she snapped back, her lip curled in a sneer.

  ‘Yet he is dead now, and in his grave where he belongs,’ the MacBrann answered quietly.

  ‘Aye, murdered in his own bed, by his own son’s hand!’ she flashed. ‘Ye call him evil, but what are ye but a traitor and a murderer? A fine son ye turned out to be.’

  ‘Three times I struck him,’ the MacBrann said. ‘Once for my mother, once for my wife, and once for the wee babe that died in her womb.’

  ‘How did ye get in?’ she demanded. ‘The gates were closed to ye, and all my laird’s men warned to watch for ye!’ Her breast was rising and falling sharply, and her eyes glittered in the pale witch’s light.

  ‘I see ye do no’ ken all my father’s secrets,’ he said contemptuously. ‘I suppose I should be grateful to ye. It is hard to catch my father unawares. He never seems to sleep. I was lucky to find him at the moment o’ rapture, his senses closed to my approach. Else I do no’ think my dagger would have found its mark.’
/>   ‘How dare ye!’ she hissed. ‘Ye are contemptible!’

  ‘I am contemptible? What then are ye, Aven?’

  ‘I at least am loyal to my laird and master,’ she cried, clenching her hands into fists. ‘Ye are naught but a treacherous, murdering dog!’

  ‘At least I do no’ murder in cold blood, as ye have done in your master’s service,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘I do no’ bathe in the blood o’ my victims, and drink it like wine. I have right and justice on my side …’

  She laughed out loud. ‘Oh, so very noble,’ she mocked. ‘Ye play your part well, Dugald. The poor wronged son, intent on revenge, and wrapping it up in the guise o’ what is right and just. Oh, the bards will write songs o’ this night’s work!’

  ‘I am glad it was ye in his bed and no’ some poor innocent lass who may have been shocked at the sight o’ so much blood,’ the MacBrann retorted angrily. ‘Though I must admit I was very surprised. I did not expect to find ye in his bed.’

  She flushed an ugly crimson. ‘And why no’?’ she demanded.

  ‘I thought my father had grown tired o’ ye long ago,’ the MacBrann said. ‘After all, ye are no longer in the first flush o’ your youth, Aven. I had heard ye had become his procuress, bringing him ever younger and choicer tidbits for his bed. Are there no young virgins left in Ravenshaw, that he was willing to spend his seed in ye?’

  Her mouth worked, and the ugly flush deepened.

  ‘Let me guess? Ye were determined to win your place in his bed again, and he acquiesced, having nothing better on offer, and no’ wanting to offend his most faithful acolyte.’

  ‘I am no acolyte,’ she flashed, caught on the raw. ‘I am the Second Sorceress in Brann’s circle, his most trusted and–’

  ‘Brann is dead,’ his son said cruelly, ‘and his circle no more.’

  She smiled. ‘Do ye no’ ken? Brann swore he would live again. If he says something shall be so, so it shall be. Ye may have stabbed your father a thousand times, for the thousand ills he has done ye, and it would be to no avail. He will live again!’