by Kate Forsyth
Jorge had found himself quite unable to tell the ragged, dirty children to return to the slums of Lucescere, however. He had grown up in those alleyways himself. He knew just how harsh a life it was. No matter how arduous travelling through the countryside might be, or how dangerous, the children would be safer with him than living wild on the streets of Lucescere.
After a week in the company of the League of the Healing Hand, as they now called themselves, Jorge had to admit that, rather than the children being under his protection, he was under theirs. Dillon the Bold was the leader of the League, of course, and he had deployed his troops with the ingenuity and expertise of a battle-seasoned general. Although he had lived all his life in the city’s slums, several of his gang had been brought up in the country and he had grilled them to find out everything they knew about hunting and tracking in the countryside.
False trails were laid, their tracks covered, roots and berries gathered, camping spots found, snares set for coneys and birds, and patrols ordered to scour the land ahead and behind. Only the eldest girl, Johanna, an anxious-looking waif with long plaits of mousy brown, had begged to be let off the scouting parties, content to forage for food and cook them messy meals instead.
Within days the city of Lucescere had been left far behind, the green foothills steepening into sharp cliffs and ravines filled with forest and the tinkling of waterfalls. Sharp pointed mountains rose on either side, while the river snaked through a deep gorge that forced the small band of travellers to stay on the narrow path. The main problem was that the Red Guards also had to follow the river if they did not want to force a way through the heavily forested ridges that rose on either side. Subsequently the League’s journey was a game of hide-and-seek, aided by the long sight of Jorge’s raven flying overhead and the old man’s prescient witch senses.
The biggest danger was presented by the seekers of the Awl who occasionally accompanied the patrols. Jorge could shield himself with the ease of long practice, but the other members of the gang were more difficult. Tòmas was protected by a pair of enchanted nyx-hair gloves, but the others had no way of hiding their thoughts, and some of them clearly had the potential for working magic. A seeker was trained to search out anyone who had any hint of magical ability, and there was a real danger that one of the children would inadvertently commit some act of magic that would alert a seeker to their presence.
Jorge had already had to forbid Jay the Fiddler from playing his old battered violin. The thin olive-skinned boy had played for them one night, and Jorge had been able to see the magic woven into his music as easily as a man with eyes could see the stars in the sky. He had shushed the boy quickly, afraid that what human ears could not have heard from a few hundred yards away, a seeker would be able to sense with ease.
The younger of the two girls, a lissome, mercurial child called Finn, had been quite distressed on Jay’s behalf and had tackled Jorge the next morning. ‘Dinna ye like what Jay was playing last night? Why did ye tell him to stop? He’s a flaming witch with the fiddle, I always think! Did ye no’ like it?’
‘Och, no, it was bonny, Finn, it’s just because he is a witch with the fiddle that I stopped him. His music is full o’ magic. It’s dangerous with so many witch-sniffers around.’
Jorge could feel the little girl’s bright eyes fixed on him. With a gasp Finn said, ‘Do ye mean it? Is it really magic? I always said it was!’ With a bound she was flying away, no doubt to find Jay and tell him what the seer had said.
Jay came to him later, his voice hoarse with repressed feeling, to say shyly, ‘Finn said ye think my music has magic in it …’
Jorge patted the boy’s hand. ‘Indeed I do, Jay, though I canna tell ye how powerful it is. If the Coven was still in place, I would recommend ye go to Carraig, but the Tower o’ the Sea-Singers is now just a pile o’ broken stones.’
‘So there’s no hope …’
‘I dinna say that,’ Jorge said. ‘There are still some witches left, my lad, and if all goes well, we will no longer be hunted through the countryside but building the Towers anew. Then all our futures will be different.’
Jay the Fiddler was not the only one who seemed bright with potential to the old seer. Finn herself seemed to shine with magical power, and Jorge found himself wondering about her. He asked her about her background, but she was a foundling with little memory of her past. In Lucescere she had been apprenticed to a thief and bounty-hunter named Kersey, a brutal man who had beaten her often and set her to stealing for him. The only possession she had which might hold a clue to her past was a tarnished and battered medallion which she wore around her neck on a string. She gave it to Jorge to feel and immediately he felt the tingle of enchantment. He ran his fingers over it and felt the raised form of some animal, a dog perhaps, or a horse. Although he questioned her closely, she had no memory of how she came by the charm or what it meant; she only knew it must not pass out of her hands.
‘Why did your master no’ take it from ye? He must have known it had magic.’
‘He was a bloody stupid man,’ Finn answered. ‘He was not a true witch-sniffer, no’ like the Grand-Seeker Glynelda.’ She gave a little shiver.
‘Ye have meet the Grand-Seeker Glynelda?’ Jorge asked curiously, knowing that it was impossible that the head of the Awl should not have sensed the power in the little girl as he had done.
She nodded, then realising the old man could not see her, said in a muffled tone. ‘Mmm-mmm.’
‘She knew ye?’
‘Mmm-mmm.’
‘Ye saw her often?’
‘No’ often. Maybe every couple o’ months. Any time she was in Lucescere she would call for Kersey and he would take me up to the palace and she would examine me.’
‘Examine ye how?’
‘She’d ask me questions and test me—ask me to find things for her.’
‘Find things for her?’
Jay interrupted with a laugh. ‘Our Finn the Grand-Sniffer! She can find anything that’s been lost, Master. Auld Kersey made a fortune out o’ her! People would come to him and ask him to find all sorts o’ things-lost dogs or jewellery, lovers that had run away! He’d pretend to go off in a trance, then charge them some ridiculous amount to find it, while all the time it was Finn who’d be doing the sniffing. He’d be spending it all on whisky though, and he were no’ a nice man on the drink.’
Jorge ran his fingers over the medallion again and wondered at the raised shape. A dog, or a wolf? He wondered if it would be safe to try and reach Meghan, then decided it was too dangerous when there might be seekers in the vicinity. When we get home, I’ll try, he thought. Meghan will want to know about a protégé o’ Glynelda’s … particularly one with the Talent o’ Searching.
‘He was a horrible man,’ Jay said. ‘He used to beat Finn if she dinna do what he told her. We were all glad when he died.’
Finn had not waited around for the Grand-Seeker Glynelda to bond her to someone else. She had simply gathered her things together and slipped out to join her friends on the street. No-one had seemed to miss her. Her only fear was being tracked down by the Grand-Seeker. ‘But why would she want to?’ Jorge asked, which sent Dillon and Jay off into howls of laughter.
‘That’s what we always say!’ Dillon chortled.
Finn said crossly, ‘Flaming dragon balls! Say what ye like, I ken! The Grand-Seeker had plans for me, she said so! She frightened me but I never dared no’ do what she told me. I know she was training me up to do terrible things, why else did she have me taught all those things?’
‘What things?’ the blind old man asked gently.
‘Like how to pick locks, or follow someone without them knowing. She even had me taught how to read! Why would she have me read if it was no’ to do something bad for her?’
Jorge had almost laughed, though it would have been a bitter laugh. Instead, he managed to say something soothing, as Finn continued rebelliously, ‘I could no’ see why I could no’ just hang around with Dillon and Jay�
��no-one cared what they did, why should anyone care what I did?’
Worried about their vulnerability, the old seer had begun to teach the children how to shield their thoughts, and by the time of the spring equinox had had some success. They were all wildly enthusiastic about the idea of celebrating the turn of the tides. Having found a well-hidden glade in one of the heavily forested gorges, Jorge allowed them to have an afternoon’s rest, which was spent cooking a feast of sorts and making thick garlands of leaves. He was surprised at their excitement and wondered how many chances they would have had to have fun in Lucescere.
The spring equinox was usually preceded by an Ordeal that lasted from sunset to midnight, but Jorge thought it was too much to expect of his young companions, so he tried to make the children sleep, promising he would wake them at the turn of the tide. They could not sleep, though, lying by the fire and whispering and giggling instead, while Jorge sat as comfortably as his old body would allow, thinking of Eà and emptying himself to the cloud-strung night. He knew the moment the tide turned, he could feel it within him, and so he roused the sleepy children.
They sat around the fire, wreaths on their heads, fiery brands in their hands, as he drew the magic circle around them with his witch’s dagger. He thrust his staff into the soil at the closing of the circle and began to chant the rites. Obediently they chanted with him:
‘Darksome night and shining light,
Open your secrets to our sight,
Find in us the depths and height,
Find in us surrender and fight,
Find in us jet black, snow white,
Darksome light and shining night.’
Silence fell again. Jorge threw a handful of fragrant leaves and roots on the fire so the flames hissed green and yellow. He gestured to the children to begin their dance, their slow step and slide and stamp, as softly he chanted, ‘Ever-changing life and death, transform us in your sight, open your secrets, open the door. In ye we shall be free o’ slavery. In ye we shall be free o’ pain. In ye we shall be free o’ darkness without light, and in ye we shall be free o’ light without darkness. For both shadow and radiance are yours, as both life and death are yours. And as all seasons are yours, so shall we dance and feast and have joy, for the tides o’ darkness have turned and the green times be upon us, the time for the making o’ love and harvest, the time o’ nature’s transformations, the time to be man and woman, the time to be child and crone, the time o’ grace and redemption, the time o’ loss and sacrifice, for ye are our mother and our father and our child, ye are the rocks and trees and stars and the deep, deep swell o’ the sea, ye are the Spinner and Weaver and the Cutter o’ the Thread, ye are birth and life and death, ye are shadow and brightness, ye are night and day, dusk and dawn, ye are ever-changing life and death …’
The smoke swirled about them, and Jorge began to feel his perception stretching, widening, thin and huge as a wind-stretched cloud. He had not dared open himself to the forces since leaving Lucescere, and he felt a flood of impressions rush through him, dangerously strong.
Sparks fled into the darkness from the leaping flames and he followed them, flying through the night. He saw the river as a tangle of energies, the bright flames of night creatures stalking through the undergrowth, the smaller sparks of the hunted, crouching in the bracken. He saw another camp fire only a few ridges away and heard the bored ruminations of soldiers and felt the malevolent presence of a seeker. Panic seized his heart—he had not realised anyone was so close!
He tried to turn, to flow back into his body, but the powers had him. Visions flooded through him—red clouds that raced in from the south, rolling with thunder; the glint of swords and chain mail through mist; a tidal wave seething with scales and fins, which rose and swept the plains of Clachan; a white hind running through a tangle of forest, trying to escape a wolf that raced behind, blood-lust red in its eyes.
Meghan is in danger, he thought, then he was whirled away again. He saw Finn wrapped in darkness; a winged man wielding a bow of fire, shooting flames; a girl that reached out a hand to a mirror, only to have her reflection come alive and grip her wrist. As he fell back towards his frail body, slumped by the side of a dying fire, he saw again the vision which had most troubled him—the eating of the moons, the devouring of light.
Jorge drifted back to consciousness, feeling in his veins the coming of dawn and hearing the pounding of the children’s feet as they stumbled around the fire still. He did not know how many hours he had been away. He was tired, so tired he could not lift his hands from his lap nor force his voice to speak. At last he croaked, ‘Dawn comes, the morning is here and darkness flees.’ He felt the children collapse as if his words had freed them from the dance, and he felt from them all the same tiredness, the daze of the smoke, the emptiness of the night.
‘Let us eat o’ the flesh of our mother and drink the water o’ her body, and let us rejoice, for the seasons have turned and the green months are upon us,’ Jorge said, and the children began to laugh and eat the small feast they had so excitedly prepared the night before. The old man knew that for the first time, the bread and water and fruit was more than just food to them; it was the flesh and blood of the earth, filled with power. He knew a tide had turned in them as well.
After they had eaten, Jorge carefully opened the magic circle and doused the fire, then said in a trembling voice, ‘My bairns, we must find shelter. I need to sleep. Soldiers are close … We must hide. Ye must watch over me, my spirit has travelled far tonight and I am tired. Very tired.’
He felt their anxiety but could do nothing to help them; he rested his aching head on his hand, trying to control the surging of his heart which beat so loud he thought they all must hear it. Through the pounding he heard Dillon giving orders and the sound of the children’s feet as they ran to obey him.
Finn’s high voice said, ‘There’s a cave only a few ridges ahead, I be sure o’ it … Can we support him?’
Then he felt hands under his armpits and he was being supported on all sides by small, loving hands. Letting them lead him, he stumbled along, still clutching the dagger in his hand, the raven croaking with concern as he flew overhead.
Lilanthe lay on the grass, staring up at the dawn-streaked sky. Soon the camp of jongleurs would be waking and she would have to hide. Now, however, she was free to enjoy the first stirring of the morning. The forests and glades of Aslinn were home to many birds and animals that hopped and scampered about her, quite unafraid. They knew the tree-shifter was as much a creature of the forest as they were.
‘Lilanthe!’ The sound of the jongleur’s voice startled the animals, who scurried away into the underbrush. Dide the Juggler slipped into the glade, carrying a steaming wooden bowl. ‘It’s hot …’ he tempted.
She tensed, toes curling. Her feet were broad, brown and knotty, and she tried to hide them whenever Dide came near. After a moment he laid the bowl down and backed off a few paces. She only ventured to pick up the bowl when he was a full six feet away, and then she ate frantically, spooning the food into her mouth without pause.
‘Ye’ll burn your tongue,’ he said.
She did not answer, only hunching her form closer around the bowl. He lay on his back and began to juggle six golden balls into the air. She watched the balls in fascination as they spun in patterns of ever-increasing complexity. ‘We’ll be splitting from the other carts soon,’ he said conversationally. ‘Ye’ll be able to come with us then if ye want.’ She scraped the bowl clean and put it down with a sigh. The golden balls began to chase each other in a high-rising circle. ‘Would ye like that? Joining our caravan, I mean?’
She did not answer for a long time and he concentrated on juggling. Then she said slowly, ‘I do no’ like your father.’
‘Neither do I much, sometimes,’ Dide replied cheerfully. ‘There’s no need to fret yourself, though, it’s all bluster. If he likes ye—and I canna see any reason why he should no’—he’ll treat ye like a banrìgh.’ Lilanthe said not
hing, twisting the hem of her grubby smock around in her thin, twiggy fingers. ‘Enit will no’ let anything happen to ye. She keeps Da in good order, do no’ worry about that.’
He got to his feet, rubbing the sparse beard that itched his chin. ‘Lilanthe, I have to go. Will ye think about travelling more closely with us? These forests are no’ really safe, ye ken.’ Lilanthe smiled at the thought she might not be safe in the forest, but nodded.
As darkness fell that night, the jongleurs boiled up a side of salted pork, broached the barrel of whisky, then sang the evening away. Lilanthe crouched beneath one of the caravans, watching and listening in delight. The music got into her blood and made her want to sing and dance too, especially when Dide played his guitar. Perched on a fallen log, playing like a demon, his music was irresistible. One by one the other jongleurs began to dance, twirling in the firelit darkness until Lilanthe could barely lie still. Even the youngest of the children bobbed up and down on the spot and clapped his plump hands, while his grandmother delighted everyone by dancing a high-spirited jig, bony knees flashing under a flurry of skirts.
Only Dide’s grandmother did not join in, crouching in her customary spot by the fire, beads of amber glinting in the firelight. Later she sang, and her voice was so strange and sweet, shivers ran over Lilanthe’s body and a knot formed in her throat. She was not surprised to see tears shining on the cheeks of the old woman, for the song had quavered with the intensity of feeling behind it.
After Enit Silverthroat’s song, the merry group quietened, the children falling asleep in piles by the fire. The adults stayed up, drinking deeply from the barrel of whisky and singing ballads. At midnight they began to dance again, but this time their movements were slow and stately and had a ritualistic air to them. Wriggling closer, Lilanthe could hear them chanting softly, and the chorus struck a chord.