When he was kidnapped by Turkic corsairs, Owain Brecca Morwenna was made to use his powers over the element of Air in their service. Now he has the chance to escape and return to his family, which leads the Raven clan of the land of Ytir - and he finds that his troubles are only just beginning....
Raven's Heirs
by
Lesley Arrowsmith
50,750 words
Copyright 2012 Lesley Arrowsmith
The Island
The pigeon fluttered through the open door, onto the floor of the pigeon loft, closely pursued by two others. Owain looked up from the feeding tray he was re-filling as one of the pursuers darted in to the attack. The fugitive already had spots of blood on her breast, and a bald patch on her shoulders where the feathers had been torn out.
Owain knew every bird in the loft by its markings – this bird was strange to him. He put down the sack of grain carefully and crouched down. The two attacking birds ignored him. The newcomer backed up against the wall. "Leave her alone," Owain murmured. "Two against one – not fair."
One of the birds puffed up his chest and made indignant cooing noises, but they both backed off. Gently but quickly, Owain scooped up the strange bird and held her up, his hands pinning her wings. She shrugged her shoulders once, trying to get free, then lay still, allowing Owain to check her injuries.
"Nothing bad," he murmured encouragingly. "You'll be all right."
He could tell, now he held her, that she'd come from a far distance, and a faint flicker of hope stirred in him. Maybe she would know the way.
"Do you know this place?" he whispered. He formed a picture in his mind of a tall tower perched almost on the edge of a cliff. It was a picture formed of greys and black and white; grey stone, black ravens, white seagulls whirling round the tower like fragments of ash from a fire, just as he last remembered seeing it.
The pigeon, quite calm now, cocked her head at him and told him, silently, that she did.
Owain's hands shook with suppressed excitement. "Can you go there for me? With a message?" He gave the pigeon another picture, of an old woman, her white hair coiled in long plaits on top of her head like a coronet. She was tiny and ancient, and looked out of the open window of the tower with dignified hauteur. A raven perched by her side. It was Owain's abiding memory of his grandmother. "Tell her that Owain Brecca still lives," he murmured. "Tell her where I am. Ask her to send someone for me."
The pigeon cooed confidently. This was a simple task, she seemed to say. She would do it.
Owain carried her to the door and released her into the air. She flew up, circled the pigeon loft once, and then set off towards the east.
Owain leaned back against the wall of the pigeon loft, just inside the door, and watched her go. Maybe this time it would work – if Morwenna still lived; if the pigeon wasn't killed by a hawk or a wildfowler on the way. There were so many things that could go wrong. Even if Morwenna got the message, there was no telling if she would want to risk someone's life to bring him home.
He limped back to where he had left the sack of grain. His leg was aching again, right along the scar.
He glanced back over his shoulder, to catch one final glimpse of the pigeon. She was only a black speck against the clouds now – and all his fragile hopes hung on her. He began to tremble, not sure now if he was more terrified by the thought of failure, or success. This was the fifth time that he had attempted to send a message off the island. He didn't know if any of the others had got through, or even if it was worth trying again. Morwenna had been over eighty when he'd last seen her; she was probably dead by now. Even if she was alive, he doubted whether his family would really want him back as he was now – and sooner or later his masters here would find out that he had been trying to contact them. He wiped suddenly sweaty palms against the soft wool of his tunic.
He didn't want to die here.
Morwenna sat in the window seat with her back to the sea view, a pigeon lying quietly in her lap. Her raven was eyeing it as if might just be a tasty morsel later, Gwalchmai thought. He kissed Morwenna's hand and went to sit at the table next to Porec and Aidan, Morwenna's grandsons, carefully positioning his chair so it wasn't directly under a beam. Gwalchmai Morgan knew what these private conferences of Morwenna's were like – if you weren't careful, you came down from the tower covered in bird lime. Birds, mostly seagulls, roosted above their heads, and came and went through the open windows. None of them had any sense of responsibility, as far as Gwalchmai was concerned. The tower room had smelled of bird droppings for as long as he could remember, and Morwenna had never troubled to do anything about it.
Glynis, the new young yspridwch, was last to arrive, and came to curtsey to her Lady all in a rush, pushing one hand through her tangled curls. She always looked as if she never knew what to do with her staff, though she must have strong Talent, or Morwenna would never have taken her on.
Morwenna stroked the back of the pigeon gently with the tip of her finger. With her other hand, she reached towards the bronze Mirror that lay on the table. "Now we're all here," she said, "let me show you what our messenger has brought for us."
They all leaned forward to look into the Mirror. The cloudy surface cleared to show a pigeon's eye view of a long, low island, fringed with reed beds. Pasture at one end gave way to a small wood and at the other end there was a small manor, after the Palatine fashion, with a central hall and outbuildings and a few peasant's cottages further off. This manor had been re-modelled, though, and fairly recently by the look of it. A bank and ditch had been dug around the buildings, with a wooden gatehouse facing to the landward side. One the beach, three ships were drawn up out of the way of the winter gales.
"Those are corsair ships," Porec said. "Where is this, grandmother, and why is it so important to us here?"
Morwenna took her hand from the handle of the Mirror, and the image faded. She rummaged at her belt pouch and brought out a handful of seed for the pigeon.
"You will remember Owain Brecca?" she asked.
"Of course – Aunt Brecca's eldest who disappeared. It's been so long that I'd assumed he'd died."
"He's there," Morwenna said. "He sent this pigeon and a plea for help."
"So where," Porec asked reasonably, "is there?"
Morwenna pushed a map over to him. "You see here, the sea marshes at the southern end of Moissac?" She stabbed a finger down at a tiny blob on the coast, so close in to land it could hardly be counted as an island. "That's the manor of Corcuvion, but as you pointed out, those are not Palatine ships beached there." She turned to Glynis. "Scry for it. See what you can find."
Glynis put her staff down on the stone floor, before it fell down, and reached across the table to cup her hands around the Mirror. She closed her eyes, and breathed deeply and evenly. Nothing appeared in the surface of the Mirror.
With a sigh, she took her hands away. "There's nothing there when I look, madam," she said. "Whoever is living there, they have a formidable wizard in their employ, if he can make the whole island invisible to me."
"Which explains why we couldn't find Owain three years ago, when he first went missing," Morwenna said, " and explains why he is still there now."
"He was just a kid," Aidan said. "Fourteen, was it?" I remember Aunt Brecca was quite frightening in her grief for a while, son and husband gone in the same raid."
"At least she found Eryl's body," Porec said. "She didn't even have that consolation for Owain."
Gwalchmai sat back from the table, his fingers steepled in front of him thoughtfully. "It's going to be tricky to get him out of there," he said slowly. "Quite apart from this formidable wizard the corsairs seem to have, the island is in the middle of enemy territor
y as far as we're concerned. De Moissac won't take kindly to Tiraeg warriors wandering around his duchy."
"It surprises me that de Moissac hasn't thrown the corsairs out already," Aidan said. "A nest of pirates isn't exactly what you want cluttering up your coast line, after all."
Porec had swung the map round to place it between them. "But see, here – there's nothing but salt marsh for miles. I bet he didn't even know until they were well dug in – and by that time he'd need a lot of troops and a formidable wizard of his own to dislodge them."
"We, on the other hand, don't want to dislodge them," Morwenna said. "Let de Moissac have his pirates and welcome to them. For now all we want is one boy." She was looking, sharply, at Gwalchmai.
Gwalchmai sat up straighter in his chair. "You're talking about a covert operation, madam. If this was thirty years ago, I wouldn't hesitate, but I'm not that reckless – I'm not that young – any more. Madam, I have grandchildren...."
"So have I," Morwenna snapped back at him, "and one of them is held captive by these thieves and robbers."
"At least he should be well treated," Porec said. "An awynwch must be valuable to pirates, who depend on the wind."
"And an awynwch of rank," Aidan added, touching his own gold torc in passing. "If they don't need him for weather working, they could always ransom him back to us. I'm surprised they haven't approached us long before now."
"We can't depend on them wanting to take gold for him," Morwenna said, "though we can try that if it seems appropriate. Gwalchmai, you must do this. You're the only one I can trust to go for me."
"Ah," Porec said drily, "dear Uncle Ianto."
"Your dear Uncle Ianto indeed," Morwenna said. "Above all things, I want this kept a secret from him. You all know his ambition. It grieves me to say it of my own son, but I believe him capable of killing his own cousins to clear the way to the succession." She gave a half nod to Porec. "You needn't worry – I fully intend you to take over here when I die. I have my suspicions, though, that your cousin Peredur will not be returning from his ill-advised visit to Ianto's Dun."
Gwalchmai shifted uneasily in his seat. This was something he couldn't refuse to do, however much he wished it were otherwise. "So, madam," he said heavily, "you want me to go alone into the Palatinate, where de Moissac, if he knew, would be after my head, snatch the boy from under the nose of this corsair wizard and his nest of pirates, and keep him safe until I get him back here."
She smiled fondly. "We did far more difficult things in the old days, you and I," she said. "Once he's here, of course, he'll be safe. Ianto won't dare do anything once I've acknowledged him – but until then, the world thinks Owain Brecca is dead, and Ianto will want to keep it that way."
"It's about time you gave up wearing black, isn't it?" Morwenna sniffed disapprovingly.
Brecca looked down at her black divided tunic, black trousers, black boots. Unlike her mother, she felt the cold, and was bundled up under the tunic with at least three more layers, as well as a fur-lined cloak over the top. She was still wearing the cloak even inside the tower – Morwenna had never been one for closing windows, and the birds were coming and going even now.
She looked across at her mother. Morwenna was wearing a long black robe. "Don't you think you should give it up, too, mother?" she asked. "It must be twenty years since father died, after all."
Morwenna snorted. "Who wants to see bright colours on someone at my time of life?" she asked, without expecting or inviting an answer.
Gwalchmai stood by the door with his arms folded, watching them both argue as if he wasn't there. He'd grown used to it, over the years. They would both vehemently deny it, but they enjoyed sniping at each other when they met.
Brecca pulled a green tunic out of her bag and held it up so Gwalchmai could see it. "Give this to the man you find," she said. "It's one of Owain's that I couldn't bring myself to give away." She held it by the neck and turned it so that Gwalchmai could see the embroidery there. "See, this is what I did and this," she added, turning to the back of the neck, "was one of the first pieces of embroidery his sister ever did." She smiled fondly at the wobbly stitches. "She was so proud of it, and he wore it to please her. If it's Owain, he'll remember it."
"It won't fit him," Gwalchmai pointed out. "He's bound to have grown in three years."
Brecca favoured him with a withering look. "I am not," she said deliberately, "the kind of mother who fixes their children in aspic in her memory when they are away from her." She folded the tunic up, and put it on the table. "It's because he'll be hard to recognise that I want you to show him this. Only Owain would know who stitched the decoration round the neck."
"There are a few things that won't change, madam," Gwalchmai said, bowing his head slightly in acknowledgement that she was not, of all people, an overly doting mother with delusions. "Black hair, green eyes, left-handed, and an awynwch. That's a rare enough combination in itself."
She bent over the bag she was holding and pulled out a bronze belt knife in a sheath dyed green and decorated with a looped and entwined pattern that terminated in a raven's head. It had to be bronze; he would be unable to handle iron, like all the Talented of Ytir. All of them were burned by iron, and all of them were left-handed. Brecca herself was the exception among Morwenna's children. Totally unmagical, she was the only one of ten brothers and sisters who had been able to learn to handle a steel sword.
"I keep thinking," she said quietly, "that he'll favour Eryl now, in looks. That will be hard."
Gwalchmai remembered the tall, dark haired chieftain who had swept Brecca off her feet as a girl and married her despite Morwenna's disapproval. There were few alive who dared go against the old princess, but he had managed to charm her too, when he finally dared to face her – in this very room, if Gwalchmai remembered correctly. He had had no magic, either, and no great heroes in his lineage; he was just an extremely good breeder of horses, and Brecca had loved him.
Brecca still loved him, dead these three years though he was. She hadn't remarried since his death at the hands of the corsairs who raided her lands, though there had been several suitors for her hand. She had thought her son dead too, by the hands of those same corsairs, and now to find he had been living as one of them, and had only now contacted the family to tell them that he was alive – it was hard to understand, and Gwalchmai could see that she was nervous about meeting him again, however much she wanted back the fourteen year old boy who had ridden out with his father three years ago.
She looked up now, to face him – and to face her own fears. "We have to admit," she said slowly, "that he may have kept silent these years because he wanted to be with the corsairs. We don't know what he may have become." She drew herself up very straight backed; taller than Morwenna, she was still a head shorter than Gwalchmai. "The boy I brought up is dead," she said. "Whoever you bring back cannot be the same, but he is still my son, and of the line of Morwenna, and our honour demands that we bring him back, no matter what."
When Gwalchmai knocked on the door of Glynis's workroom, later that same day, he half expected her to refuse to answer. She answered the door herself, though, and invited him in.
"Did you bring any wine with you?" she asked vaguely.
Gwalchmai raised one eyebrow in quizzical surprise. Glynis was not known as a great drinker, particularly during the day, when she was busy. She had been very busy today, he noted. She sank down in the nearest chair with every indication that she was exhausted, and waved him vaguely to a nearby bench. "I've done the best I can," she said, "in such a short time. I'm sorry I couldn't bring you both back to Ravenscar in one leap, but I'd need help from Douglas Ker for that, and he couldn't come at such short notice."
Or wouldn't, Gwalchmai thought privately. The foremost expert on Portal magic in Ytir would have come if compelled by Morwenna, but not simply at the request of Glynis, and they didn't dare tell him what his help would be needed for.
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"Never mind him," Gwalchmai said. "What could you do for me?"
Glynis lifted a leather thong from the worktable and held it up to set a pendant stone swinging from it. The dark green stone glowed very slightly at its core. Glynis picked up a scrap of dark green silk with her free hand and muffled the amulet in it before slipping both in a small leather pouch. "It's very short range, I'm afraid," she said, "no more than three miles, but you can use it as often as you need it, as long as you accept that it will drain your energy a little each time."
Gwalchmai nodded and reached for the bag. "Acceptable," he said. "My thanks for doing this so quickly, Glynis Aide."
She passed a hand over her eyes. "I hope it all works," she said, "but all I really want now is to sleep for a week. Packing a Portal down into something of that size...." She yawned widely.
"You're sure you didn't want to come with me?" Gwalchmai asked, with a sly grin. "A pleasant trip across the river...."
"In winter...."
"It's almost spring. Meeting new people?"
"Who might try to kill me."
"Hmm, it's a possibility...."
"I thought harpers were supposed to have superior powers of persuasion," Glynis said. "You've just made me more determined to stay here, thank you."
*****
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