The Puzzle Ring

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘And try to get back the hag-stone,’ Max said. ‘Because I really don’t want my leg to stay like this.’ He looked down at the thin, misshapen limb with a wry twist of his mouth. Linnet had told him, very unhappily, that his only hope of walking properly again was the magic of the hag-stone, and so Hannah and her friends were determined to wrest it back from Irata, if they could.

  ‘Well, we’d better get moving then,’ Scarlett said doggedly.

  So the travellers set out for Edinburgh, following the narrow, rutted road through rolling green hills where shaggy highland cattle grazed, past fields of oats and barley, and over humpbacked stone bridges that crossed countless stony burns. The days grew warmer, and the girls folded back their sleeves and wished they could strip off their tattered petticoats.

  Food was always a problem, and so Hannah, Max and Scarlett once again began to sing for their supper. Linnet took in sewing from the soldiers and, rather to the girls’ surprise, Morgana proved she could sew exquisitely. She helped Linnet without complaint, and stopped demanding everyone wait on her hand and foot.

  There were many scuffles and outbreaks of violence, as those who supported Queen Mary argued with those who believed her a murderess. On the thirtieth of May, Queen Mary made a call to arms, declaring that some of the nobles were plotting rebellion against her and asking for aid from those still loyal to her. Thousands of men were now marching towards Edinburgh, sometimes in small bands, armed only with daggers and shields, others wearing armour and led by skirling pipers.

  A week later, the rebel lords surrounded the castle of Borthwick where Queen Mary and Lord Bothwell were staying. Bothwell slipped away secretly through a side postern and escaped, leaving Mary to defend the castle herself. When it became clear that the castle would fall, the queen dressed herself in the clothes of a man and escaped under the cover of night, leaving her wardrobe and all her belongings behind. She fled to Dunbar Castle, on the coast to the east of Edinburgh, where she was reunited with her new husband.

  A few days later, Hannah, Scarlett, Max, Linnet and Morgana reached the outskirts of Edinburgh, only to find the city gates locked tight and no one permitted to enter. It was here that they learnt Queen Mary had been betrayed by one of her most faithful lords, who had sent her a message telling her Edinburgh would rise on her behalf. Except the lord had secretly turned Edinburgh Castle over to the rebel lords and Queen Mary was caught out in the open, with only a few hundred men to protect her, while the rebel lords prevented those trapped inside Edinburgh from riding out to support her.

  ‘We had better stay well away from the city,’ Linnet said, looking pale and worried. ‘We still have several weeks until Midsummer’s Eve. Let’s keep well away.’

  Yet there was nowhere safe they could go. Battalions of soldiers marched along all the roads and byways, and across the fields, crushing the crops underfoot and raising clouds of dust. There were constant skirmishes and retreats, shouts of alarm, and flying rumours. Eventually the little group of travellers took refuge in a roadside inn on the road to Musselburgh, where the innkeeper and his wife were so glad of some extra hands to help that they let Hannah and her friends sleep in the hayloft. It was hard work, and by the end of each long, hot day Hannah could not wait to lie down in the rustling, scratchy straw and sleep.

  Early on the morning of the fifteenth of June, she was woken by the rhythmic beat of hundreds of marching feet. She crawled across to the loft door and peeked out. A long procession of soldiers passed down the highway, led by stern-faced men in armour upon prancing horses. Banners flapped in the breeze, showing the crest of family after family. Soldiers from the inn were pulling on their boots, seizing their weapons, shouting with excitement. ‘We’ll show that murdering witch that she can’t foist her lover upon us!’ one shouted.

  Hannah stood for a long time, watching the soldiers march past, a tight knot of anxiety in her belly.

  It was a blazing hot day. Luckily there was not much work to do, with the soldiers gone and no one knowing what to expect next. The sun slowly sank down in the west, through clouds of dust that turned scarlet and orange and gold.

  In Scotland in midsummer, the light lingers long after the sun has set. It was still bright enough, then, for Hannah to see the faces of the soldiers returning to Edinburgh from the battlefield at around nine o’clock that evening. They were laughing and shouting.

  ‘Kill her, burn her! Hang her from the highest tree!’

  ‘No, let’s throw the witch in the millpond and see if she floats!’

  ‘No more women ruling the roost!’

  In the midst of this noisy, chaotic crowd rode Queen Mary, alone, dressed in the shabby clothes of a commoner, all dusty from the road and torn and dishevelled. Her red petticoat showed beneath her bedraggled hem, her bodice was half torn away, and her bright chestnut hair fell out of its pins down her back. She wept as she rode, shrinking away from the jeers and catcalls of the soldiers. Every now and again she held out a hand of entreaty, calling for help.

  ‘Your precious husband has abandoned you!’ someone shouted. ‘Murderess! Jezebel! Burn her, I say!’

  Hannah and her friends could only watch in shock and horror. It seemed impossible that this weeping, haggard, forsaken woman could be the same beautiful queen they had seen laughing and dancing only four months earlier.

  They watched until the queen was gone from sight, dragged towards the city that had once been her home.

  ‘What happens to her?’ Scarlett said shakily. ‘Doesn’t she die?’

  ‘Not for a long time,’ Hannah said. ‘They keep her captive first and make her give up her throne to her son, who’s only a baby. In the end she escapes, dressed like a servant, and flees to England. Queen Elizabeth keeps her prisoner there for about twenty years, and in the end cuts off her head.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem fair,’ Scarlett said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I wish we could rescue her,’ Max said.

  ‘Lots of people tried, and they all died horribly. There’s nothing we can do.’ Hannah felt a fierce determination rise in her. ‘We may not be able to save Queen Mary, but we can and we will rescue Donovan and my father!’

  Into The Otherworld

  Seven days later, it was finally Midsummer’s Eve.

  At the base of the steep green hill called Black Rock, Hannah and her friends made their farewells to Linnet, Morgana, Angus the toad and the water-horse. If all went well, they would be back in their own time before dawn.

  Although it was late and the sun had set, the sky was still full of light. Edinburgh lay across the narrow gorge, crouched higgledy-piggledy within its stone walls, a city of spires and towers and slanted roofs and narrow crooked chimneys. Black Rock, better known in Hannah’s time as Calton Hill, looked quite different without its crowning monuments and follies.

  ‘I wish that I could go with you, to help you and guard you!’ Linnet said. ‘But you know I cannot. I must keep Lady Morgana safe, for if you fail to rescue Donovan she is the only child of true blood left. And I cannot exist in both times—it could wrench the whole world awry.’

  ‘Yeah, imagine young Linnet running into old Linnet,’ Max said exuberantly. ‘What do you think would happen?’

  Hannah had to swallow a lump in her throat before she could speak, for the idea of leaving Linnet behind filled her with misery and anxiety. ‘There are two theories, Mum says. The first is that the universe would have to split into a kind of parallel universe. The problem with that idea is that we could have billions and trillions of different universes, all of them with different Linnets in them, and that just seems impossible. The universe would have to split at every single little tiny decision that every single one of us made . . .’

  Hannah suddenly realised that, in an attempt to keep her grief and fear at bay, she was lecturing her friends just as Roz always did to her. It gave her a swift, keen insight into her mother’s heart. Wishing she had been kinder to her mother, Hannah continued in a gentler tone. />
  ‘Mum says it’s more likely that the universe would just protect itself, making sure that nothing happened that would change the future, or affect the past. So, if Linnet tried to travel back to the twenty-first century with us, something would happen to stop her. Which means something would happen to stop us too! And we don’t want that.’

  ‘So I will stay here, in this time, and look after Angus and Lady Morgana,’ Linnet said to Hannah. ‘I’ll go back to Wintersloe Castle, and wait for you there.’

  ‘It’ll be a long time,’ Hannah said unhappily.

  ‘I know. I’m patient. I will look after the family and try to ease the burden of the curse as best I can.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Linnet. I never meant for this to happen.’

  Linnet smiled, her green eyes bright with tears. ‘I know. But those of fairy kind are long-lived anyway, you know that, Hannah. And I swore an oath to my lady Eglantyne, as well as to you, and I should like to see the end of the story.’

  ‘What about me?’ Morgana demanded, looking frightened.

  Linnet drew her close. ‘I’ll take care of you, my chick. You can’t go back to our own world, you know that. It’s too dangerous. Like it or not, you’re in the human world now and you’ll have to find some way to live here happily. You’ll grow up and make a life for yourself, never you fear.’

  ‘So I’ll never see my home again?’ Morgana asked in a small voice.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Linnet said. ‘But maybe, one day, if Hannah succeeds in reuniting the puzzle ring, your children might, or their children. All things are possible in all the worlds.’

  The little girl drew herself up. Tears were winding down her white face, but she did not sob or scream as she might once have done. She took Hannah’s hand in her own small, cold one, and said in a trembling voice, ‘Defeat Irata for me, Hannah, will you?’

  ‘Don’t speak her name,’ Linnet and Hannah said together.

  Morgana nodded. ‘Defeat her. Cast her out of my land forever. Make sure she never comes back.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Hannah said rather hopelessly. ‘But I’m only a girl myself, Morgana. How am I meant to do such a thing?’

  ‘You’ll find a way,’ the fairy princess answered. ‘I know you will!’

  Scarlett was saying goodbye to the water-horse. ‘I wish you could come back with us. I’d love a horse like you! But you belong here, I know. Linnet will let you go just as soon as she’s safely away from here. I hope you get back to your loch all right. Just don’t try eating any more kids, okay?’

  The water-horse shook his head and hurrumphed as if he understood what she was saying.

  ‘Come on, girls,’ Max said. ‘We’d better get going.’

  He stood leaning on Hannah’s rowan walking-stick, his leg still bound with rags to two old sticks.

  ‘When you get the hag-stone back, remember it has healing powers too,’ Linnet said to Hannah. ‘You must heal Max before you go back to your own time, else he will be lame all his life.’

  ‘But what do I do?’

  ‘The magic of the hag-stone is wild magic, remember, and so is held as deep within your blood and bone as it is within star and stone. If you trust yourself, you will know what to do.’

  ‘But . . .’ Hannah began, but then grew silent, thinking.

  Linnet nodded and kissed her brow. ‘Keep safe, my lamb. I will wait and watch for you.’

  ‘Goodbye!’ Scarlett cried, beginning to climb Black Rock. ‘Wish us luck!’

  ‘Goodbye!’ Max called. ‘Thank you!’

  There was time for one last loving embrace with Linnet, then Hannah began the steep climb up to the cave, where the doorway to the Otherworld lay hidden.

  The three friends crept quietly into the narrow cave halfway up the hill. Although they wore fern-seed paste on their brows, they did not want to make any noise that might attract attention. It was pitch-black inside the caves, and so they carried candles impaled upon rough wooden holders.

  At last Hannah led the way into a much greater chamber. There was a tall, smooth wall, running beyond the reach of the candles’ faint light. This, Linnet had told them, was the gateway to the Otherworld. Rather tremulously, Hannah and her friends blew out their candles and waited in the heavy darkness until they could no longer smell any trace of smoke.

  Then, holding hands, Hannah, Max and Scarlett began to sing. ‘Open the door in the green hill, open the door and let us in.’ Their voices sounded unearthly as they echoed through the caverns.

  After a long moment they heard a grating noise and then a vertical crack of light appeared down the length of the wall. Slowly the crack widened as two immense stone doors were dragged open by two hulking giants, with heads as large as boulders upon thick, crooked torsos. Their long arms hung right down to their knees, for their bowed legs were much shorter than their bodies, with huge, flat feet that turned out like a duck’s.

  With pounding heart and trembling legs, Hannah hurried invisibly past the giants and through the doorway, Max and Scarlett at her heels. The huge guards scratched their heads, peering out into the darkness. After a while they shrugged their immense shoulders, drew the doors shut again, and went to refresh themselves from tankards as large as buckets.

  Hannah and Max and Scarlett tiptoed away down a long stone corridor, hands pressed over their hearts as if that would stop them beating so loudly. The ceiling of the corridor was vaulted like a cathedral’s, with stone gargoyles every few paces. These gargoyles, however, were alive, with bright impish eyes and chattering mouths. One of the gargoyles, with a broad flat nose and horns like a goat, snuffled the air and remarked, ‘Can you smell that? Fee-fie-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a human.’

  ‘It’s that new jester of the queen’s,’ another remarked, with a fat face and ears like a cow. ‘Ooof, but that boy stinks! I wish the queen would stop cluttering up the place with mortals.’

  ‘She likes to think she’s queen of both worlds,’ another said. ‘I’ve never known such a one for galloping out into the mortal world.’

  ‘No one left here to terrorise,’ said the next in the line. ‘They’re all too browbeaten.’

  Tiptoeing past, Hannah did not breathe freely until she and her friends had left the gargoyles far behind them.

  The corridor led into a vast and gorgeous palace made of pale stone, every inch of which was carved and gilded. Tapestries and embroidered cloths hung on the walls, and flower petals were scattered over the flagstones. The air was warm and smelt deliciously of roses and apricots. Every room had a wall of tall arched windows that looked over boundless gardens and orchards to a dazzle of sea.

  ‘We need to find the doorway that leads to Fairknowe,’ Hannah said. ‘This place is so huge! Can you remember Morgana’s directions?’

  It took them about forty minutes, walking slowly for the sake of Max’s aching leg, to find the little low door Morgana had described to them. It was made of grey rock, and had two stone gargoyles perched on pillars on either side. One was happy and held a branch of flowering blackthorn. The other was doleful, and held a branch of sloe berries.

  ‘This is it!’ Hannah said, exultant.

  A clamour approached them along the corridor—the sound of voices and cruel laughter and a wild sort of music. Then the stone door was slammed open. Irata strode through, dressed all in green with flowers twined in her hair, with a procession of fairies and bogey-beasts streaming along behind her. She looked furious.

  ‘But how was I meant to know that Lord Montgomery has ridden to war?’ a dwarf was saying piteously, wringing his hands. ‘He was there when last I looked, I swear, your Majesty.’

  ‘I’ll see you swinging by your heels above a pit of snakes,’ Irata snapped. ‘How am I meant to win his love when he’s a hundred miles away?’

  ‘We can try again at the autumn equinox, your Majesty,’ the dwarf suggested.

  ‘I don’t want him in autumn, I want him now!’ she snapped. ‘I’ll teach him to prefer my whey-faced cousin
Eglantyne to me!’

  She strode on, snapping her fingers at some guards, who seized the dwarf and dragged him away in the opposite direction. The rest of the procession surged after the queen. Hannah had to stifle a little gasp when she saw her father and Donovan, with ropes around their necks, being tugged along at the rear by the Red Cap. The goblin looked around sharply and flared his broad nostrils, but there was such a stench and a noise in the corridor that he could not sense the three invisible watchers in the shadows, and so he stumped on, his captives stumbling along behind him.

  A guard pulled the stone door closed. Hannah quickly ran forward and, taking her eating knife from her belt, drove it into the crack between the two doors so that it did not properly close. The guard did not notice. He was too busy exchanging banter with the gargoyles.

  Hannah ran back to the others. ‘Let’s find somewhere you can sit and rest, Max,’ she whispered.

  He was looking white and tired after the long walk. ‘Okay. But don’t be long.’

  ‘We’ll be as quick as we can.’

  They settled him in a little antechamber with a bed made from their plaids, some food and a leather bottle of water—boiled and cooled. Hannah left her guitar and her walking-stick with him, but took her long dagger. Scarlett left her tambourine too. Then the two girls crept back out into the corridor and went in search of the Unseelie Court.

  A cacophony of music, singing and roaring could be heard in the distance and the girls followed the sound, down broad marble steps and through immense, empty hallways. Hannah was so afraid she felt quite sick.

  They reached a banqueting room, crowded with goblins and fairies and bogey-beasts of all size and description. They were gnawing on bones and tossing them to the floor, dancing on tables, sending fine crystal crashing everywhere, and swinging on the chandeliers. Harassed-looking fairies hurried everywhere, sweeping up glass and chewed bones, mopping up spilt wine, and bringing in great jugs and platters that were seized upon with roars of approval. Irata herself was seated on a tall, wooden throne at the head of the room, with four small elflike boys to serve her wine and sweetmeats, fan her with peacock feathers, massage her scaly feet and buff her long, silver-painted nails.