by Kate Forsyth
‘A black winged horse,’ Olwynne echoed. A peculiar hollowness in her stomach made her voice come out too high.
Owein did not notice.
‘Aye, with two long blue horns. Reynard had his face opened by one o’ them. He was lucky no’ to lose his eye. It was great sport, seeing the Blue Guards routed by a skinny slip o’ a girl and a horse! Though I tell ye what.’ His voice sobered. ‘Captain Dillon was no’ at all pleased. I feel sorry for the girl. Lewen says –’
‘Lewen?’
‘Och, aye, dinna I say? It was Lewen who brought her in.’
‘Lewen’s here?’ Olwynne jumped to her feet.
‘Aye, he’s in his room. I’ve just come from there. That’s why I’m here, he wants to see ye.’
‘Me?’ Olwynne felt her cheeks heating, and put up a distracted hand to her hair, which was braided back tightly. She gave it a jerk and wished she dared loosen it from its ribbon. She knew it was her only real beauty, but if she shook it out, Owein would jeer at her and wonder aloud what she was doing, and she would be reprimanded by any witch who saw her.
‘Aye, he’s in a real state. Seems he’s fallen head over heels for this girl, and he’s afraid –’
Olwynne spun round to face her brother. ‘He’s what?’
‘Fallen for this girl,’ Owein said impatiently. ‘Hard, by the looks o’ it. Poor auld fellow. Anyway, he needs our help. He wants to appeal to Dai-dein, try to have her freed. The auld man’s got a soft spot for Lewen, ye ken, ’cause o’ his dai, but things look pretty black for her. I’m no’ sure if I got the story straight or no’, but apparently she killed a Yeoman.’ Owein’s voice hardened with indignation. ‘By all rights she should hang, and by the look o’ the captain, he intends to make sure she will. Lewen is just sick about it all.’
‘We’d better go and hear what he has to say then,’ Olwynne said.
With his legs still crossed, Owein flung open his wings and shot up into the air. As he stretched out his long legs, reaching out his hand to open the door, he knocked over some of her books and sent her papers flying. He did not seem to notice. In one smooth motion he was flying out the door and over the balcony rail. Olwynne picked up her books and papers with a long-suffering sigh, and followed more sedately.
The boys’ dormitories were on the far side of the garth and, in general, were out of bounds to the girls. However, rules were much more relaxed for the older apprentices and as long as everyone was back in their own rooms by lights-out, no-one much cared. As Olwynne crossed the garth, she heard the bell ring, then the sound of several hundred students packing up their books and closing their desks. She quickened her pace, having no desire to run into any of her friends, who would want to stop her for a gossip.
Both Owein and Lewen had recently been promoted to senior students and so their rooms were up on the top floor. Owein, of course, simply flew up and over the balcony, calling mockingly over his shoulder, ‘Come on, slowcoach!’ Olwynne had to go up by the stairs.
Lewen’s door stood ajar, and she knocked on it tentatively before going in. Lewen was lying on his bed, his arm flung up over his face. As Olwynne came in he dashed his hand over his eyes and sat up. He was white and haggard, his eyes red-rimmed. Shocked at the sight of him, Olwynne went swiftly to his side and put her arms about him. He gave a great sigh and slumped against her.
Lewen MacNiall of Kingarth was the twins’ greatest friend. He had first come to the Theurgia at the age of sixteen and, being only a few months younger than they were, had been put in their class. Owein and Olwynne had been at the Theurgia since the age of eight and knew everyone and everything. Lewen had never left his parents’ farm before, and had been stricken by acute homesickness, which he had done his best to hide. At first it was his misery, and the gameness with which he sought to conceal it, that touched Olwynne’s tender heart, but soon his skill at games had won Owein over completely too. The three had been inseparable ever since, particularly once Lewen was appointed squire to the Rìgh in honour of his father, who had once been one of Lachlan MacCuinn’s most trusted officers.
‘What in Eà’s name is the matter?’ Olwynne asked.
Lewen seized her hands. ‘Ye’ve got to help me, Olwynne. The captain’s got Rhiannon locked up in prison and they willna let me in to see her! I’ve got to see her, Olwynne!’
‘But why? Who’s Rhiannon?’
Lewen got up and went to the window. After a moment, he said, ‘She’s from Dubhglais. She’s half-satyricorn. She was raised in the mountains by her mother’s herd, but they despised her for being so human-looking. When her horns dinna grow, she thought they’d kill her and so she tamed a winged horse and flew it down out of the mountains. I found her and the poor exhausted mare, and took them back to Kingarth. We thought … Mam and Dai-dein and I … that she had best come back with me to Lucescere. She has Talent, ye see, strong Talent.’
‘But Owein says she was a prisoner … that she was bound and tied to the horse.’
Lewen nodded, not turning round.
‘But why? What has she done?’
‘She killed Connor the Just,’ Lewen said, very low.
Owein had been floating up near the ceiling but, at this, he exclaimed aloud and dropped down lightly to his feet. ‘Connor the Just! No’ our Connor? Johanna’s brother?’
Lewen nodded and leant his head against the window-frame.
‘Eà’s green blood!’ Owein exclaimed.
Olwynne was distressed. ‘But why? How?’
‘No wonder the captain was so grim,’ Owein said, marvelling. ‘Damn! He’ll be out for her blood. And Dai-dein too. Och, she’s gallows-apples for sure.’
‘Owein!’ Olwynne said softly. Obligingly he shut up and she went over to Lewen, tentatively putting her hand on his shoulder. ‘Tell me what happened,’ she said.
He would not look at her. ‘Connor was captured by the herd, riding through their territory. Rhiannon helped him escape, but he was captured again by Rhiannon’s mother, who is First-Horn o’ the herd. He tried to fight free. Rhiannon shot him to save her mother.’
‘Did they no’ ken he rode in the Rìgh’s service?’ Owein demanded, scandalised.
‘Dubhglais is deep in the mountains, a million miles from anywhere,’ Lewen said wearily. ‘The satyricorns are wild there. They ken naught.’
‘Ignorance is no defence,’ Owein said. ‘The satyricorns have signed the Pact o’ Peace, they had no right to hinder a Yeoman, let alone murder him!’
‘I doubt these satyricorns have even heard o’ the Pact o’ Peace,’ Lewen said. He shrugged off Olwynne’s hand and went to sit on his bed again, his face in his hands. ‘Anyway, none o’ it should matter,’ he said in a muffled tone. ‘Rhiannon is naught but a lass, and she shot him to save her mother’s life. Besides, she’s shown herself brave and true. She rescued Roden on the way here, and saved his life. That has to count for something.’
‘Ye mean Nina’s little boy?’ Olwynne asked. ‘The heir to Caerlaverock?’
‘Aye. He was kidnapped, and Rhiannon rescued him. Nina and Iven promised they would speak up for her, tell the Rìgh what happened. And now she’s rotting in some foul dungeon and Laird Malvern is being waited on hand and foot in one o’ the tower’s best rooms!’
‘Who?’ Owein and Olwynne asked together.
‘The laird o’ Fettercairn,’ Lewen said impatiently. ‘He was the one who kidnapped Roden. He’s a murderer and a traitor and a foul necromancer, and if it wasna for Rhiannon, we’d all probably be dead!’
Even Olwynne was beginning to be bewildered by the complexity of Lewen’s tale. ‘I’m sure it willna be for long,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Dai-dein will get to the bottom o’ it all, I’m sure.’
‘But she hates being confined,’ Lewen said miserably. ‘When I first found her, she’d never even seen a house afore. It’ll send her half-mad, being locked up in a dungeon.’
‘I’m sure it’s no’ that bad,’ Olwynne said.
‘Ye dinna see
the captain’s face,’ Lewen retorted.
‘He was pretty angry,’ Owein agreed.
‘I’ve got to get in to see her!’ Lewen cried, lifting his face to look at his friends. ‘I’ve got to reassure her. Please, ye’ve got to help me.’
‘O’ course we’ll help ye,’ Owein cried. ‘I’ll bang the guard on the head and we’ll steal his keys and then –’
‘Dinna be such a gowk!’ Olwynne said crossly. ‘We canna do that.’
‘At least I’m no’ a namby-pamby muffin-faced prig,’ Owein retorted, firing up.
‘Ye’ll get yourself and Lewen into dreadful trouble, and only make things worse for this Rhiannon girl,’ Olwynne said.
‘Aye, happen we’d be best slipping something into his wine,’ Owein said thoughtfully. ‘Then he’ll just think he dozed off.’
‘And the captain will order him put to the lash,’ Olwynne snapped back. ‘That hardly seems fair.’
‘Well, got any better ideas?’ her twin jeered.
‘Aye, I do, as a matter o’ fact.’
‘O’ course ye do, Miss Perfect,’ Owein muttered.
‘Let’s just go and see Dai,’ Olwynne said. ‘Surely if we just explain to him how important it is that Lewen gets in to see her …’ Her voice faltered. She could not look at Lewen as she asked, ‘Just why is it so important, Lewen? I mean, Dai-dein will be in conference …’
Lewen raised his face from his hands, and gazed at Olwynne imploringly. If anyone could intercede with the Rìgh, it was Olwynne, for Lachlan adored his only daughter and often declared she was the only one with any sense in the whole family.
‘I’m in love with her,’ he said haltingly, a hot rush of colour burning his cheeks. ‘Wait till ye meet her, Olwynne. There’s never been a girl like her. She can ride like a thigearn, and fight like a man, and she’s clever as a bag full o’ elven cats. I … I want to jump the fire with her. One day, I mean.’
Olwynne looked away, biting back angry words.
Owein grinned. ‘Lewen’s in lo-o-ove,’ he sang.
Lewen flushed again. ‘Well, I am,’ he said doggedly. ‘And she loves me. And I promised I’d look out for her and make sure all was well. I canna let her be hanged.’
‘But how can ye stop it? If she’s found guilty, I mean?’ Olwynne asked.
Lewen looked stubborn, an expression Olwynne knew only too well. ‘I dinna ken how, but I will if I have to, I swear it. Ye’ve got to help me, Olwynne. Ye’ll love her too, when ye meet her, I ken ye will.’
Somehow Olwynne doubted that.
Johanna the Mild sat listlessly in the cushioned window seat of her room. Outside she could hear the students talking and giggling, and the gruff voice of the sorcerer Jock Crofter as he ordered them in to their supper. It was growing late and, as head of the Royal College of Healers, Johanna should have been doing her rounds at the hospital, and preparing for the evening lectures. But today she could not even find the energy to rise and put on her long green healer’s robe, let alone face a room full of rowdy students.
Her brother was dead. She had heard of his death more than a month ago, after Lewen had used the Scrying Pool at the haunted Tower of Ravens to contact the Rìgh, but the news that his murderer had been brought to Lucescere to face trial had torn the wounds wide open again.
Johanna had no-one else. Connor had been her only family. Orphaned when they were very small, they had spent their childhood begging on the streets of Lucescere, scrounging through rubbish and stealing whatever they could lay their hands on, just to stay alive. Then they had met the blind seer Jorge and his apprentice Tòmas the Healer, a little boy with the miraculous ability to heal any wound or illness with the mere touch of his hands. Johanna and Connor had helped them escape the witch-sniffers, and had had to flee Lucescere to avoid being captured themselves. Along with the rest of their gang of street kids, they had formed the famous League of the Healing Hand, sworn to help and protect Tòmas, and help bring back the Coven of Witches so all with magical powers would be safe.
Tòmas and Connor had been only seven years old. Johanna had been sister and mother to them both. For the next few years, the League of the Healing Hand had worked to help Lachlan the Winged overthrow Maya and her Anti-Witchcraft League, then beat back the Bright Soldiers of Tìrsoilleir, then win the war against the Fairgean so that Eileanan was finally at peace. Along the way, most of the League of the Healing Hand had lost their lives, including Tòmas himself. He had then been just twelve years old, and Johanna had been heartbroken with grief. It had seemed so cruel, so unfair, that the little boy who had saved so many thousands of lives, including that of the Rìgh, should not live to see the peace he had helped bring about.
Twenty years of peace and prosperity had numbed Johanna’s grief. She still thought of Tòmas often, but her own busy, happy life as the head of the Royal College of Healers had filled the void his death had left, and she had still had her brother, tall, handsome, accomplished Connor, who had risen through the ranks of the Yeomen of the Guard to be one of Lachlan the Winged’s most trusted lieutenants.
But now Connor was dead.
Her grief was a barbed and spiky creature with bloody jaws, chewing ravenously away at her entrails. She did not think she could survive the pain. Nothing helped her. Even drinking a vial of poppy syrup did nothing except plunge her into swelteringly hot, garishly coloured nightmares where she saw Connor’s grey decaying body rise up out of filthy foam, holding up beseeching crippled hands, his beautiful mouth a bloody and empty ruin where that satyricorn had hacked out his teeth, his eye sockets gaping where fish had fed on his laughing blue eyes, a crimson and black hole plunging through to his heart. It was better not to sleep.
Johanna had forced herself to keep working, filling her days and nights by easing the pain of others. This at least meant that her body was so weary that when she laid herself down on her bed at night, sometimes she did manage to sleep, for a few hours at least.
But today her brother’s murderer had ridden into the city. Johanna had heard the news almost straightaway, for Captain Dillon had been the one to form the League of the Healing Hand so many years ago. He was one of her oldest friends and her occasional lover, and he had come to tell her the moment the prison doors had clanged shut behind the satyricorn. Like Johanna, he was filled with a bitter corrosive hatred of the girl who had snuffed out Connor’s bright life so heedlessly. All the while Johanna wept, he had stood still, caressing the hilt of his sword with obsessive tenderness, his eyes fixed on nothing. He had made no attempt to comfort Johanna. He knew there was no consolation, except perhaps the justice of seeing the satyricorn hang. That might ease Johanna’s pain.
Johanna pressed her fingers against her throbbing eyes. She was filled with a heavy lassitude that weighed down her bones and made every movement an effort. Her head ached.
There was a knock on the door. Johanna sighed. When it came again, she said wearily, ‘Yes?’
‘May I come in?’ asked an unfamiliar voice.
‘Who is it?’
‘I’m a visitor here to the tower, ma’am. I’m interested indeed in herbs and healing, and was told ye were the one who kens more than any other living soul. May I come in and introduce myself?’
‘It is no’ a good time,’ Johanna said with an effort.
‘I ken, ma’am. I ken all about your trouble. I am so sorry. I think perhaps I can help.’
Johanna covered her eyes with her hand, saying nothing.
‘I come from Ravenshaw,’ the voice went on. It was the voice of an older woman, brisk and warm. ‘I ken this girl, the one who shot your brother.’
Johanna sat up as abruptly as if a thorn had been driven in under her fingernails. ‘What?’
‘Aye. I met her at Fettercairn Castle. I may be able to help ye, ma’am.’
Johanna hesitated, then stood and went to the door, unlocking it.
The woman on the other side smiled at her sympathetically. She was at least fifty years of age, with rosy
cheeks all withered like a winter apple, and brown eyes. Her figure was plump and soft, and her eyes and skin glowed with health.
‘I am sorry to disturb ye, ma’am,’ she said. ‘I was told I could find ye here.’
‘Who told ye? What do ye want?’ Johanna was too distressed to be polite.
The woman smiled at her, and stepped inside so that Johanna was forced to take a step back. Putting down her basket on the table, the visitor shut the door behind her and ushered Johanna back to her chair with one broad hand, saying warmly, ‘I am so sorry to intrude upon ye like this. I do feel for ye so much. Please, sit down again. Ye must be worn to pieces. Let me get ye a cushion. Your poor head must be aching so much.’
Rather dazed, Johanna let the stranger put a soft cushion behind her head, which was indeed aching most unpleasantly. The woman then went to her basket and pulled out a bottle, dampening her handkerchief with lavender water and bringing it back to press against Johanna’s brow. Johanna shut her eyes, tears stinging her lids.
‘There now, that’ll help a little. Let me put your feet up. Ye look worn out.’
‘Who are ye?’ Johanna asked, even as she submitted to being made comfortable.
The woman clicked her tongue. ‘There now, how rude o’ me. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Dedrie and I’m the laird o’ Fettercairn’s skeelie.’
Johanna’s eyes flew open, and she tried to sit up.
Gently Dedrie pressed her back down again. ‘I see ye’ve heard o’ my master, and naught good, I’d warrant. Indeed, that satyricorn girl has done naught but evil, as far as I can see. She murdered your brother in cold blood, and blackened my poor master’s name, and had him thrown in prison, and all because he wouldna be taken in by her tricks. All he did was try to stop her from escaping.’
‘Really?’ Johanna gripped her hands together.
Dedrie dabbed at Johanna’s forehead with the cool, damp cloth. ‘Aye, indeed. It makes my blood boil just thinking about her. Och, she’s a wicked one, cold-blooded and cruel. Just look at the way she murdered your brother! And pulled out all his teeth to make a necklace for herself, I heard.’