by Kate Forsyth
Nobody moved, all stunned with surprise.
‘Ye heard me! Get out!’
‘But … it’s late, it’s raining,’ Iven said. ‘Ye canna mean to turn us out into the storm.’
Alice’s face was distorted with hate. ‘I can indeed. Witches! I should’ve kent. No-one else would be riding out on the moors after dark, wi’ the ghosts and evil spirits and walking dead. Get out, get out, afore ye curse this house.’
‘But where could we go?’ Nina asked, nonplussed. ‘Maisie is hurt sorely, and needs to rest, we all need to rest, we are exhausted. We have done ye no harm.’
‘No harm! Harm is all ye witches ever do.’
‘Ye canna believe that! Why, since the Coven threw down the Ensorcellor it has done nothing but good, surely ye must ken that? Why do ye hate witches so?’
‘Nothing but good!’ She snorted with scorn. ‘All the evil that has ever happened in this valley is because o’ the meddling o’ those blasted witches. Go on! Get out o’ my house.’
Nina rose hesitantly. ‘Please, may we no’ sleep in your stables? It is so late, and listen to that rain! We have ridden so far already today.’
‘No, no! I want ye gone!’
‘Ye canna throw us out into that storm,’ Iven said angrily. ‘It would no’ be right.’
‘Ye’re witches, surely ye can drive away the storm?’ Tavish said sarcastically. He took a few belligerent steps forward, a big burly man with clenched fists.
Nina shook her head. ‘I am no weather witch to command the storm.’ Her voice was very tired and sad. ‘Even if I could, I doubt I’d have the strength now. I’ve already worked strong magic today. Please do no’ drive us out. I am sorry if we have distressed ye …’
Tavish shook his head. ‘Alice wishes ye gone. Gather up your things and get out.’
‘I will go if ye wish, but my wee laddie? Ye would no’ turn him out into the storm? And Maisie … and Edithe … they are sore hurt … will ye no’ shelter them for the night at least? They are naught but lassies, and sleeping. And the other bairns? They are all so weary. There is no’ room for them all in the caravans. Please, will ye no’ let them stay?’
Alice shook her head, eyes red-rimmed, arms folded.
Nina’s black eyes sparked with sudden anger. ‘Ye ken I could force ye to shelter us, I could sing ye to sleep, or compel ye against your will, or I could even tell the boys to draw their knives and force ye into some cold storeroom to spend the night thinking about the meaning o’ kindness and compassion. But I shallna do any o’ those things for that is no’ the way o’ the Coven. I will wake those poor injured girls, and I will take these poor weary bairns, and we will all go out into the rain and the storm and the darkness. But I hope ye never rest easy in your bed again, for ye are a cruel, hard woman.’
Alice’s face twisted and she tried to speak, but her grief and rage and hate were like a boulder in her chest and she could not draw breath around it.
Nina looked round at the pale, miserable faces of the apprentices.
‘Come on, my dears. I ken it is hard, but I for one do no’ wish to spend another minute under this roof!’
As everyone slowly and unhappily got up, and gathered together their wet cloaks, Nina took out her purse with fingers that trembled. ‘Here, for the hay, and the soup, and for your trouble.’
She held out a heavy gold coin.
Alice reached out and snatched it.
It was close on midnight and a foul wind was blowing. The horses refused to go out into the storm, and they had to whip their flanks and drag at their heads, all the while the rain beating on them through the open stable door. It was not until Lewen and Rhiannon seized their bridles and whispered cajolingly in their ears that the horses at last consented to leave the warmth of the stable.
Cocooned in blankets, Maisie and Edithe had been carried through the sleet by Lewen and Cameron and deposited on their narrow bunks in the cold, draughty caravan, frightened and questioning. Fèlice ran behind them, cloak over her head, tears running down her face. At Rhiannon’s insistence, Landon took the fourth bunk and he was so exhausted he did not argue, just thanked her and lay down, huddling the blanket about him.
‘Ye’ll have to hold on tightly,’ Cameron told them grimly. ‘It’s as black as Brann’s waistcoat out there, and the roads are rough. I’ll do my best, but I canna promise ye won’t be jolted.’
He then put up the hood of his cloak and climbed up into the driver’s seat, gathering up the reins dourly. Rafferty climbed up next to him, too weary to ride any further. Iven was driving the other caravan as usual, having first made sure Nina and Roden were safely tucked up in their bunks inside. Nina had protested, feeling she should drive the caravan since it was her fault they had all been turned out, but Iven simply told her not to be a goosecap, and to get in and comfort Roden, who was wailing in the thin, high tone used by very tired young children.
So that left Lewen and Rhiannon, the horse-whisperers, to lead the horses and keep them calm in that thunder-rumbling, lightning-stalked night. It was a difficult job. The horses shied at every crack and flash, sometimes rearing up on their hind legs in terror, sometimes trying to bolt and almost dragging their arms out of their sockets. It was so dark they had trouble seeing the road, and so the horses stumbled into every pothole and water-filled rut. Only the swaying orange blur of the lanterns in front of them kept them from wandering off the road altogether.
They stumbled along for half an hour, shivering in the icy wind. The road was covered with water now, swirling around the horses’ hocks and sometimes splashing up to their withers. Once Edithe’s nervy bay mare Donnagh reared as a great white sheet of lightning illuminated the sky. Lewen realised with a shock that they were making their way round the shore of an immense, wind-tossed lake. He only had time for one quick glance before he had to leap out of the saddle to drag Donnagh to her feet, the mare having slipped in the mud and fallen on her side. That one glance had been enough, though. Lewen knew where he was. That lake filled the mouth of the valley, spilling down through the gap in the Broken Ring of Dubhslain to fall in an immense roaring waterfall called the Findhorn Falls.
Somewhere on the far side of the lake, hidden behind the spray thrown up by the roiling waters, was Ravenscraig, built on its high crag of rock. That meant they must be coming close to the Tower of Ravens, for Brann had built his witches’ tower on the crag facing the castle across the waterfall. Once, the castle and the tower had been joined by a great arched bridge of silver-bound stone, like a cold grey rainbow, so that Brann could cross as he willed. So high was the bridge, and so terrible the fall, that few had ever dared cross with him, the old stories told, even though it was the only way to cross from one side of the lake to the other. The waters were simply too wild and the currents too strong for any boat to risk crossing so close to the waterfall, which was more than one thousand feet wide from crag to crag and fell almost three hundred feet to the lowlands below. The bridge across the waterfall had been a marvel of engineering, but was destroyed on the Day of Betrayal by the Ensorcellor’s Red Guards, toppling down into the maelstrom below and taking with it a hundred fleeing witches.
Knowing where to look now, Lewen waited for the next flash of sheet lightning then raised his head, peering through the driving rain. Involuntarily he cried out, for ahead he could see the walled town of Fetterness, built against a high ridge which rose and rose and rose into a great, forbidding pinnacle of stone. Perched high on this bare, stern crag was the ruin of a huge building, its stone blasted black with fire. Only for an instant could he see it, then the lightning was gone, leaving coloured midges dancing in Lewen’s eyes, and he could see no more.
‘What is it? What wrong?’ Rhiannon cried.
‘Naught,’ he answered, his lips stiff with cold. ‘Look, ahead, there’s the town. Fetterness, they call it. Happen we’ll be able to rouse someone to open the gate and let us in. There must be an inn where we can stay, even so late as this.’
&n
bsp; But the town of Fetterness would not be roused. Though Iven pounded and pounded on the gate, and shouted until he was hoarse, no sleepy gatekeeper or surly guard came to open it up and let them in. At last they had to admit defeat.
‘We’ll find a croft somewhere,’ Iven said, his hair dripping into his eyes, his shabby clothes wet through to the skin. ‘Do no’ worry, Nina, there must be somewhere we can shelter, even if it’s only an auld ruin. Why, if the worst comes to the worst, we’ll brave the tower! It canna all be burnt and broken down.’
Nina, standing in the caravan doorway with a gorgeous green-and-gold shawl wrapped round her head, shuddered and shook her head. ‘No, thank ye! I’ve had enough o’ ghosts for one night. Iven, that farmer said something about the laird, do ye remember? The laird o’ Fettercairn, he said. If there’s a laird, there must be a castle.’
‘Aye, Fettercairn Castle,’ Iven said slowly. ‘I remember hearing about it, ages ago. It guards the pass down into the lowlands. It canna be far away. Do ye really wish to look for it, at this hour o’ the night?’
Nina nodded. ‘Surely the laird willna have forgotten all the laws o’ hospitality, no matter how surly his people? And I need to sleep, Iven, we all need to sleep. It’s impossible to rest with the caravan jolting and swaying the way it does, and we canna all cram in, the vans are simply too small. I hate to think how poor Maisie is doing, all torn and bitten as she is. Let us find this castle and if they willna open to us, I swear I’ll sing the gate open, if I have to! Never have I been in such an unhappy place!’
So on they trudged, following the road past the town and zigzagging up the side of the ridge. The wind plucked at them with icy fingers, dragging at the caravans as if seeking to throw them off the side. The road was steep and narrow and cobbled with stone, all slick and wet from the rain, and in the darkness it was hard to see their way. Iven got down and led the grey gelding, afraid they would miss a turn and drive right over the edge of the cliff. Nina got out and walked with him, to relieve the strain on the horse, and called to those who were not injured to do the same.
The higher they climbed, the more vicious the storm became. The wind sent their cloaks fluttering and snatched Iven’s hat from his head, taking it whirling up into the sky. Thunder grumbled all around them, and flash after flash of lightning tore the sky from end to end. The horses were terrified, rearing and neighing and fighting to be free of the firm hands that held them steady. They came to the last turn of the road and, in a great stabbing stroke of lightning that made them all jump and swear, saw before them a long driveway, running through tall gateposts topped by stone ravens.
‘No’ that way!’ Iven called back to Cameron. ‘That must be the way to the haunted tower. Turn this way. Down the road. Down!’
The road wound down the side of the ridge, protected by tall battlemented walls all the way along. Lewen could only see over the wall by standing up in his stirrups, and he sat down abruptly again for the drop down into the valley below was many hundreds of feet.
The road was so steep they had to lean on the brake to stop the caravans from sliding down on top of the weary carthorses, who could barely lift one great hoof after another. Down another turn of the road they went, and then the road ended at a tall gatehouse with an enormous iron door. They looked around them, suddenly feeling trapped in that narrow ditch of a road, and realised that they had been passing under the outer wall of the castle, which reared grim battlements and towers far above them on the left side.
‘Well, we found Fettercairn Castle,’ Iven said. He cleared his throat, smoothed down his wind-ruffled hair, twirled his fair beard into its usual fork, both twists dripping water down his front, and tried to brush away some of the mud.
‘Big castle,’ he said.
‘Plenty o’ room for all o’ us,’ Nina answered.
Iven squared his shoulders and strode up to the enormous door. A bell hung beside it and he rang it loudly, catching his breath as echoes sounded from the abyss below. Again and again he rang the bell, and was just turning to Nina with a dismal shrug when a little doorway cut into the gate opened. An old, stooped man dressed in a nightgown and nightcap peered out, holding high a lantern. ‘Aye?’
‘Please, we’re travellers, in desperate need o’ shelter,’ Nina cried out. ‘Please, let us in!’
‘O’ course, o’ course,’ the old man said. ‘Bad night to be lost in. What are ye doing here, o’ all places? Och, ye canna go wandering round here at night, it’s a bad dangerous place, it is. Come in, come in, out o’ the rain. What have ye got there? Caravans? I’d best open the big gate.’
With a loud groaning noise, the gate swung open, revealing a narrow passage beyond, guarded by a portcullis. Looking up nervously at the sharp iron prongs above his head, Iven led the carthorse along the passage into a large stone room, the others following close behind.
Rhiannon slipped off Blackthorn’s back to lead her through last of all, feeling a shiver run through the mare’s delicate frame that she felt in her own bones. This was a grim, dark place indeed, the gatehouse of Fettercairn Castle. Its walls seemed to ooze fear and misery as much as they did dampness. Rhiannon imagined she could hear cries and groans and the clash of arms, and looking round at the white, anxious faces of her companions, she thought they heard them too. There were no windows, only small apertures in the ceiling and walls through which arrows could be shot, or boiling oil poured. Weapons were hung all over the walls, broadswords and axes and spiked clubs and flails. On the far side of the room, the cramped passageway continued along to another great iron door, which presumably opened out onto the road down into the lowlands.
To the left, the room opened out into the ground floor of the barbican. An enormous hearth on the eastern wall lay cold and empty. The old man opened another fortified door beside it to show a narrow grassed area between the inner and outer walls.
‘The stables are along that way,’ he said. ‘I willna take ye, I have no desire to get soaked to the skin. Rouse up the grooms to help ye. Do no’ fear, ye canna get lost. There’s no way in to the inner ward from here. Ye’ll have to spend the night here in the gatehouse with me, o’ course, I dinna wish to be waking my laird at this hour and I canna take ye through to the castle myself, I’m just the gatekeeper. It’s rather rough and ready, but there’s plenty o’ room. We dinna keep men-at-arms here anymore, no’ being at war, ye ken, so there’s just me and a messenger lad, who’s still sleeping, despite all the racket ye lot made.’
‘Oh, I canna thank ye enough,’ Nina said. ‘We’ve had a long day o’ it, and a few o’ us are injured, and we have no’ been able to find shelter anywhere.’
‘Aye, so I can imagine,’ the old man said. ‘Bad times in the Fetterness Valley, these past few years. Anyone who wishes to leave must come past me, and I’ve seen many o’ them, all o’ them weeping and wringing their hands. Och, well, it’s keen I am to get back to my bed, for it’s awful cold and my bones feel it these days, indeed they do. Come, I’ll show ye where ye can sleep. There’s firewood if ye wish to light a fire, and some blankets in a chest. Let the horses bide a wee, while I show ye. In the morning I’ll send the lad up to the castle to tell the laird ye’re here, for he’ll want to ken.’
Nina nodded dumbly, and they followed the old man’s flickering lantern up a spiral staircase to the second floor, where he showed them into a bare dormitory with rows of narrow beds.
‘Ye’ll be comfortable enough here, I imagine,’ the old man said. ‘Better than camping out in the rain.’
‘Aye, indeed,’ Nina said gratefully. ‘Thank ye!’
‘Och, it’s my job,’ he answered with a shrug of his skinny shoulders. ‘No’ that I’ve been roused at night for a long time, mind ye.’
He kindled a candle on the mantelpiece, nodded goodnight, then went out, leaving them staring at the cold, bare room, while outside the wind howled like a flight of banshees. Rhiannon shuddered and wrapped her arms about her body, feeling a dark foreboding pressing on
her spirits.
Nina sighed and looked at Iven.
‘We’ve slept in worse places, my love,’ he said.
‘Och, I ken. I just hope those mattresses aren’t full o’ lice.’
‘Doubt it, looks like they havena been slept in for years.’
‘They’ll be damp, for sure.’
‘Well, so are we all. Come, leannan, this is no’ like ye, ye’re worn to a shadow. Let’s get a fire going and get ourselves dry and warm, and tomorrow we can drive on, and shake the mud o’ Fetterness off our feet. It’s only one night.’
The wind shrieked in the chimney, as if in derision.
Rain lashed at the mullioned windows, an occasional sheet of lightning irradiating the sky, before the heavy gloom descended again.
‘I have never kent such foul weather,’ Fèlice said discontentedly. ‘Is it always like this?’
Nina was trying to blow the sullen coals into flames with the help of wheezy old bellows. She looked up and tried to smile. ‘No’ always. If I did no’ ken better, I’d think the Broken Ring o’ Dubhslain sought to keep us here. At least it is no’ hailing.’
‘In April!’ Fèlice cried.
Hail suddenly clattered against the glass.
‘I spoke too soon,’ Nina said, and sat back on her heels, wiping one hand across her brow and leaving a dirty smudge.
It was midmorning already. Everyone had slept late, for little light penetrated the thick walls of the gatehouse and they had all been exhausted. It was the sound of Maisie’s moans that had woken them in the end. She was sick with fever, and when Nina carefully dampened and peeled away the bloody, grimy bandages, it was to find the wounds beneath festering and green. Landon was unwell also, racked by a hacking cough, and aches and pains in all his joints. When Nina felt his forehead, the little crease between her brows deepened and she bade him stay in bed. Cameron was also coughing, and complained he had not been able to get warm all night, so he was abed also, and Edithe too, while Iven had gone to ask the gatekeeper for water and a kettle, and any herbs or medicines he might have.
