The Tower of Ravens

by Kate Forsyth

  They all nodded and murmured, without a smile or a joke between them, and went quietly to their own rooms, where the dancing flames of a freshly kindled fire helped, to some degree, to drive away the sudden chill that had shadowed them.

  Rhiannon woke slowly from a strange dream.

  She had been in the castle garden, sitting under the apple tree, watching a young boy dressed in stiff, formal clothes rolling a hoop along the pavement with a stick. He had run to her, laughing, and she had held out her arms, gathering him in close for a kiss and a hug. At first she had thought he was Roden, but when she held him away, she saw it was some other boy. He had tugged at her hand and, smiling, she had got up and followed him. As they passed through the great door into the castle hall, chill air had struck at her, the bee-humming sunshine behind her swallowed. There was a confusion of noise, shouting, steel crashing, screams of pain, and she was running, the little boy’s hand in hers. ‘All will be well,’ someone whispered. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

  Then she had been kneeling in a dark, icy space, stone walls pressing close all around. Weeping, she had beaten her fists on the stone, screaming to someone to release her. ‘So cold,’ the little boy sobbed. ‘Mama, I’m so cold.’

  Small, cold hands touched her face. Somewhere ravens were crying. ‘So cold,’ a voice whimpered in her ear. ‘Please, I’m so cold.’

  Rhiannon woke, tears on her cheeks. It took a while for her shivering to ease. She rubbed her damp eyes, realising she was lying in a warm bed under a soft quilt, with firelight playing on tapestry-hung walls. She sat up. Rain drummed on the diamond-paned windows and the sky was dark. Ravens were calling weirdly. Fèlice was sitting in a hipbath by the fire, her hair twisted up into tight knots all over her head, washing her arms and softly humming. Rhiannon watched her for a while, unable to completely shake away the cobwebs of the dream. There had been a boy, she remembered, a crying boy. She shivered.

  Fèlice looked across. ‘Och, ye’ve woken at last. Ye’ve slept all afternoon.’

  Rhiannon was surprised. ‘Have I?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘I was exhausted.’

  ‘Ye slept like the dead. No’ even the servants bringing in the bath roused ye. I was debating whether to try to wake ye for dinner or let ye sleep on.’

  ‘The dead do no’ sleep in this valley,’ Rhiannon said.

  ‘Och! Must ye remind me? I was just beginning to feel a wee bit better. Come, have a bath and borrow some o’ my perfume. That’ll take your mind off such gruesome things.’

  ‘I had a dream …’ Rhiannon clutched the coverlet to her chin.

  ‘What kind o’ dream?’

  Rhiannon shook her head. ‘Gone now. Something about cold hands touching me …’

  ‘Gruesomer and gruesomer. Mind ye, this castle’s creepy enough to give anyone nightmares. I’m glad we’re leaving tomorrow, even if it does mean poor Maisie shall be all rattled about.’ Fèlice stood up, water streaming off her, rosy in the firelight. She shivered, clambered out of the bath, and hurriedly wrapped a bath-sheet about her. ‘Come and have a bath, and I’ll wash your hair for ye,’ she said winningly. ‘Do ye want me to put it into ringlets?’

  ‘Is that why ye have all those knots in your hair?’ Rhiannon climbed reluctantly out of bed.

  Fèlice put one hand up to her head. ‘O’ course. Dinna tell me ye’ve never seen anyone with their hair papered afore?’

  Rhiannon shook her head.

  ‘Gracious me, where have ye sprung from, my sweet?’

  Rhiannon’s mouth shut firmly, but Fèlice had no real interest in an answer. She went on gaily, ‘I’ll do it for ye now, if ye like.’

  ‘Doesna it hurt?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Fèlice admitted. ‘It does make my scalp ache a wee, and I canna lie down and sleep like ye did very comfortably. But it’s all the fashion, ye ken. The Banrìgh and the Keybearer both have the curliest hair ye ever did see, apparently, and now it is all the craze to have curls too.’

  ‘I canna,’ Rhiannon said. ‘I must go and see to Blackthorn. She shallna like being confined within these high stone walls.’

  ‘Ye canna go now, it’s close on dusk already,’ Fèlice said in alarm. ‘The laird keeps country hours here, we were told to be ready for dinner at sunset and it’s nearly that now, look at the sky.’

  Rhiannon looked out at the bruise-coloured sky, hesitating.

  ‘Do no’ fear, Lewen was going out to check on the horses when the servants came with my bath. He would’ve come to rouse ye if he was concerned, ye ken he would.’

  Rhiannon bit her lip but submitted, knowing Fèlice was right. She stripped off her chemise and stepped into the bath, which was cooling fast. Dressed in petticoats and pantaloons, Fèlice brought her soap, but stopped abruptly at the sight of Rhiannon’s wrists, which were roughly and inexpertly bandaged, the cloth stained with seeping blood.

  ‘Eà forbid! Rhiannon! Why do ye cut yourself so? It’s horrible. Look at your poor wrists. Have ye done it every night? Why? I do no’ understand.’

  Rhiannon said nothing at first, but she liked Fèlice and found to her amazement that she wanted Fèlice to like her too. This was a new experience for Rhiannon, and it caused her to blurt out unhappily, ‘It’s the only way I ken how to …’ She searched for a word. ‘Quiet down … the dark walkers. They demand blood.’

  ‘Ye said that afore, the dark walkers. What does it mean? Ghosts? Ye think ghosts want to drink your blood?’ There was incredulity in Fèlice’s voice.

  Rhiannon tried again. ‘Dark walkers the things that lurk … evil spirits … unhappy spirits … they hungry … they angry … they hunt at night, want blood. Spill blood, they drink, go away.’

  Fèlice shook her head. ‘Who told ye all this? It’s rubbish. Ghosts do no’ want to drink your blood. It’s naught but an auld faery tale.’

  ‘Happen dark walkers no’ ghosts,’ Rhiannon said. She searched for the best word. ‘Happen they gods.’

  Fèlice stared at her then came and knelt by the bath, taking Rhiannon’s sore, abused wrists in her hands. ‘None o’ it is true, Rhiannon, I promise ye. Whoever told ye this was tricking ye. Wounding yourself like this does ye no good. Ye will make yourself ill and scar yourself, to no avail. Please do no’ do it any longer.’

  Rhiannon looked stubborn. ‘Must. I see dark walkers at the edges, everywhere. They want blood.’

  ‘Must it be yours?’ Fèlice asked helplessly.

  Rhiannon looked surprised. ‘Nay. Any blood will do. Only I have no time to hunt. Ride, ride, ride all day, all night, and no eating meat, no hunting. So only my blood left.’

  ‘I will find ye something else tonight,’ Fèlice swore. ‘If no’, ye can cut me.’

  Rhiannon looked at Fèlice’s soft white wrists, with the blood pulsing gently through a delicate tracery of blue veins. ‘Och, nay,’ she said. ‘I couldna do that.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Fèlice said rather tremulously. ‘Because I really do no’ want ye to. We’ll find something else, much as it hurts me to wantonly kill another living creature.’

  ‘Why?’ Rhiannon was perplexed.

  Fèlice shook her head, all her tight ringlets dancing. ‘Where did ye come from, Rhiannon? Do ye ken naught about the Coven?’

  Rhiannon set her jaw. ‘No’ much,’ she admitted angrily.

  ‘Well, a conversation for another day. We’re late and ye’re still very grimy. Let me wash your hair and bandage your wrists and make ye bonny, and we’ll worry about all this serious stuff tomorrow.’

  Rhiannon submitted to Fèlice washing her hair and then tying it up into hard little knots that made her feel as if her hair was being pulled out by the roots. Fèlice then laid her hot little hands over Rhiannon’s head, explaining as she did so that this was one sorceress trick she had learnt at court, to hasten the drying of the hair. ‘Otherwise it can take hours to dry, when our hair is so long.’

  Rhiannon was amazed at this magic trick, and so Fèlice amused her by ca
using the candles on the mantelpiece to flicker out, then spring back into life again, and then warmed the cooling water by swirling her finger round and round. ‘Surely ye must’ve seen such tricks afore?’ she asked. ‘The challenge o’ the flame and the void is an elementary exercise – any novice can do it. Can ye no’ do it yourself?’

  ‘I do no’ think so,’ Rhiannon answered.

  ‘Have ye had no lessons in magic at all?’

  Rhiannon shook her head.

  ‘Nina must think ye have Talent though, else she’ll no’ be taking ye to the Theurgia,’ Fèlice said thoughtfully. ‘O’course, ye’ve tamed a flying horse and no lass has ever done that afore.’

  Rhiannon smiled at the thought of Blackthorn. She hoped her horse was safe and comfortable in that great, draughty stable. She stared at the candles on the mantelpiece and imagined putting them out with the power of her mind alone. Nothing happened. She scowled.

  ‘It takes time,’ Fèlice said, dressing herself in a long dusty-pink evening gown and hanging a delicate, sparkling necklace about her slim neck. ‘Ye need to learn how to draw upon the One Power, and that is no easy task.’

  ‘What’s the One Power?’

  Fèlice hesitated. ‘It is the life-force o’ the universe, the energy that exists inside all matter, whether it be stone or tree, star or moon, wind or water. It is the wheel that drives the motion o’ time and the seasons. It is in us too, our soul or our spirit, and when we die, our life-force dissolves again in the world’s life-force, bringing with it all the gifts o’ wisdom we have acquired in our life, to be born again in another shape, another time.’

  She fell silent and Rhiannon was quiet also, thinking.

  ‘What about ghosts?’ she asked after a moment. ‘Why do the spirits o’ ghosts no’ dissolve?’

  ‘I’m no’ sure,’ Fèlice admitted. ‘Happen they are no’ ready to go.’

  Rhiannon thought she could understand that. She too had a hunger for life that she could never imagine being satiated. If she was to die now, in her youth, before ever having had all the things she wanted, would she not cling to her empty shell of a body with fierce hands, refusing to let go?

  Fèlice noticed her shiver. ‘Hop out now, that water’s getting cold and I do no’ want to use all my energy keeping it warm for ye.’

  Rhiannon climbed out obediently and huddled herself into the warmed bath-sheet Fèlice held ready.

  ‘So these witch-tricks o’ yours, they take energy, just like running or fighting?’ she asked.

  Fèlice nodded. ‘O’ course. Working magic is very exhausting, and no’ just for the witch. The greater the magic, the more energy ye draw upon – and no’ just from your own reserves but everything around ye, even other people if ye are no’ careful. That is why witches must be taught to be canny in their use o’ the One Power, for misuse can be very dangerous. That is why we go to the Theurgia.’ She gave herself a little shake, setting her ringlets dancing. ‘But all this talk is very boring. Let’s let your hair out and see what it looks like.’

  With Fèlice’s help, Rhiannon put on her green silk dress, the other girl smoothing away the creases with her witch-warm hands. Then Fèlice took out the papers from her hair, Rhiannon biting the inside of her mouth to stop crying out in pain. By the time Fèlice had finished fussing, Rhiannon’s hair hung in long, dusky ringlets to the small of her back, and her mouth and cheeks had been subtly rouged.

  Looking at herself in the mirror, a device she had never before seen, Rhiannon smiled, and for the very first time saw the flash of her dimples in her cheeks. They surprised her and, after a few more tentative smiles at herself in the mirror, pleased her. The face that looked back at her looked nothing like the stern, unhappy face that she had sometimes glimpsed in the satyricorns’ lake.

  ‘Well, ye scrub up well,’ Fèlice said, sounding very pleased with herself. ‘Though the dress is a wee bit too tight for modesty. If ye were no’ so tall, I’d lend ye something o’ mine.’

  Rhiannon stood up, conscious of how much bigger she was than the dainty dark-haired girl beside her. Fèlice smiled up at her. ‘Here, let me fold down your sleeves to hide those bandages. We do no’ want anyone to see ye’ve been wounding yourself again. Now, look, are ye no’ bonny? Let us go show the lads!’

  Together they left their room, going next door to Nina and Iven’s room, where they could hear the sound of voices and low laughter. Rhiannon felt eagerness rise in her. She felt so much better after her sleep and a bath; it had made her realise how tired she must have been, and how very cranky and bad-tempered. She felt sorry now, and resolved to smile at Lewen as soon as she saw him.

  But although Lewen looked up when she came into the room, he only coloured and looked away when she smiled at him. Rhiannon scowled at his averted profile and smiled at Rafferty instead, who went scarlet and jumped to his feet, saying incoherently, ‘Ye look bonny indeed, Rhiannon, like a narcissus. All slim and green, I mean, not narcissistic. No’ that ye’re green, o’ course, except in the dress. I just mean … ye look bonny. Like a lily-of-the-valley.’ He gulped and managed to stop himself, and Rhiannon laughed and let him pull out a chair for her next to Nina.

  Both Cameron and Landon were there also, exclaiming over the efficacy of Dedrie’s herbal remedies, and telling Nina she must get the recipe for the elderflower wine.

  ‘It was the most delicious thing I’ve tasted, and cleared my head something marvellous,’ Cameron said. ‘I feel so much better now.’

  ‘Aye, happen so, but drinking too much o’ that willna help any,’ Nina said pointedly, looking at the glass of whisky in Cameron’s hand.

  He flushed but drank a mouthful defiantly, saying, ‘Och, my granddad said a dram o’ whisky is the best thing for any ailment. That’s why they call it the water o’ life.’

  ‘And your granddad was a healer, was he?’

  ‘Well, nay, but he lived to be sixty-four years auld,’ Cameron said defensively.

  ‘Well, my lad, let’s hope ye live to be a lot aulder,’ Iven said, taking the glass out of Cameron’s hand. ‘Do no’ forget we are guests in this castle and I doubt the laird wishes drunk and rowdy young men at his table.’

  ‘I’m no’ drunk,’ Cameron said angrily.

  ‘No’ yet,’ Iven answered, still smiling. ‘But I’ll wager ye two gold crowns that Dedrie’s elderflower wine is as potent as it is effective, and ye look like ye’ve been drinking it all afternoon.’

  ‘I had a few glasses,’ Cameron replied, on his dignity. ‘To clear my head.’

  ‘To muddle your head,’ Iven teased.

  ‘I must give this wine a taste,’ Rafferty said. ‘Any left, Cameron?’

  ‘O’ course! I dinna drink the whole damn bottle.’

  ‘Well, when we come back up after dinner I’ll come and have a swig,’ Rafferty said.

  ‘Maybe I should have custody o’ this famous bottle o’ wine?’ Nina said. ‘I’m sure Dedrie did no’ mean for ye all to get sozzled on it.’

  ‘Ye just want it for yourself,’ Rafferty said teasingly.

  ‘No’ I,’ Nina said. ‘My father was both a fire-eater and a drunkard, a combination that does no’ work well. I will drink Isabeau’s goldensloe wine at Midsummer, but naught else, ever.’

  Her words cast a pall of sobriety over the room. She looked up and smiled. ‘Do no’ fear, he did no’ burn himself to death or anything awful like that. He just could no’ work his trade, and he was a jongleur to the bone, it hurt him to have to leave the travelling life. Luckily my brother Dide had a house where he could stay and do his best to drink the cellars dry. He died comfortably in his bed when Roden was a babe.’

  ‘Thank Eà for that!’ Fèlice said. ‘I was imagining the worst.’

  Nina smiled. ‘I think my da would probably have preferred to go out in a blaze o’ glory. Dying in bed is no’ the way a jongleur wishes to go.’

  ‘What is it about this place that makes us keep talking about death?’ Fèlice wondered. ‘Canna we f
ind aught else to talk about?’

  ‘I was happy talking about the wine,’ Cameron said. Fèlice laughed and moved to sit down next to him by the fire.

  Nina smiled at Rhiannon. ‘Ye look the very picture o’ courtly fashion. I fear it is wasted on the laird o’ Fettercairn. Did ye notice he wears his hair short and his chin clean-shaven? He wears the fashion o’ thirty years ago. He willna like all the long curls and soft clothes o’ today.’

  She cast a rueful hand down her own gown, a low-cut, cap-sleeved orange velvet dress that brought out fiery tones in her long chestnut hair. Round her neck she had clasped an amber and gold necklace. Roden stood between her legs, squirming and protesting as she tried to comb out his unruly curls. He was neatly dressed in a clean white shirt with a flowing collar and full sleeves, under an embroidered brown velvet jerkin.

  ‘If the laird willna like it, why do I have to wear it, Mam?’ the boy complained, tugging at his collar. ‘It’s tight. It itches. I dinna like it. Ow! Mam!’

  ‘Sorry!’ Nina freed the comb from his hair and tried again.

  ‘Please, Mam? I dinna want to.’

  ‘We’re guests here, Roden, and must mind our manners. I canna have ye coming down to the drawing room all in a tangle, and wearing a shabby auld shirt.’

  ‘I dinna like this one. I want to take it off!’ He pulled violently at his collar and a button pinged free.

  ‘Roden!’ Nina sighed in exasperation and pulled him onto her lap, as Lulu uncurled her long, dexterous tail, retrieved the button from under the chair, and gave it back to Nina, all without moving from the table, where she sat eating her way through a bowl of small green apples.

  ‘Can I have my sewing kit too, please, Lulu?’ Nina said, twisting Roden round so she could see where the button had come loose. Obligingly Lulu leapt across the room, rummaged through one of the bags, and brought back a little floral-topped basket. Roden had become engrossed in looking at Nina’s necklace and so his long-suffering mother was able to deftly sew back the button without any more trouble.