by Kate Forsyth
Surprised at the light timbre of the soldier’s voice, Finn looked closer and felt a shock of surprise as she saw the cloak fell unevenly over the soldier’s mail-clad chest. It was a woman with only one breast.
Standing behind the berhtilde were a row of guards in full armour, wearing white cloaks with a design of a black tower upon them. There was also a small, stout man in a long black cassock, holding a jewelled cross in his hand. Against the wall was a long table covered in peculiar tools and instruments, some heating in a brazier of white-hot coals. A huge man with a shaven head was turning the tools in the coals, his bare muscular arms shining with sweat. He lifted one out and threatened the prisoner with it, and the old man cowered away. As he pressed one cheek into the damp stone, Finn saw there was an ugly coil of red scars where his ear had once been.
‘He’s alive,’ Finn said rather faintly. ‘They torture him. They want him to sign some kind o’ confession. They want him to say he is in league with the Archfiend. He refuses.’
Elfrida gave a little sob and there was a hiss from the three Tìrsoilleirean sailors. The captain cried, ‘God be my witness, I swear I shall do aught I can to save your blessed prophet from their evil machinations! May your retribution fall upon the Fealde and her minions!’
‘Poor Killian,’ Elfrida whispered. ‘I do no’ ken how he can still live. Nine years he has been imprisoned in that hell-hole and all that time they have tried to make him recant. They starve him, they beat him, they torture him, and still he refuses to sign a false confession. He is an auld, auld man and weak as a newborn kitten. I canna think how he has survived.’
Finn went to pass back the cross but Lachlan said, ‘Nay, keep it, Finn. Ye’ll need it. The Black Tower is built within a massive compound that has many thousands o’ prisoners locked up inside it. Ye will need to find where the prophet is kept afore ye can free him and there is no doubt he will be closely guarded. Ye will need to Search him out with the cross afore ye can free him.’
‘The Black Tower is surrounded on all sides by a massive, strong fortress,’ Captain Tobias said. ‘Its walls are two hundred feet high and it is built on an island whose cliffs stand five hundred feet out o’ the sea, sheer as glass. They tell me ye can climb that but by God’s teeth! I doubt it. No-one has ever climbed it afore.’
‘I can climb anything,’ Finn boasted, though she felt a little light-headed.
‘Pride goest afore destruction and a haughty spirit afore a fall,’ Arvin the Just said sourly.
‘I have drawn maps o’ the tower, as well as I can remember,’ Elfrida said anxiously, giving Finn a sheaf of papers. ‘Plus anything I can think o’ that may be useful to ye, like the guards’ routine and what they wear and who else may be found within the tower. Ye will go, will ye no’, Finn? Indeed, they tell me there is no-one else who can possibly climb that cliff or break into the fortress without anyone kenning.’
Finn slipped her hand within her pocket to caress her cloak of invisibility. ‘For sure,’ she answered. ‘Am I no’ the Cat?’
Elfrida breathed a long sigh of relief. ‘Thank ye! Now I ken we shall overthrow the Fealde and win back my crown!’
‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ Alphonsus the Sure said gloomily. ‘Let all things be done in due order. We have first to brave the Skeleton Coast and Cape Wrath afore we need worry about the Black Tower. Let God be merciful upon us.’
Finn felt a little sick. Images of cutting off ears, witch-fires, avenging angels and a coast littered with bones whirled in her head. She glanced rather wildly at Dillon, still standing ramrod-straight against the wall with the tray in his hands. ‘I think I need a slurp of that wine, Scruffy,’ she said. ‘Better make it several slurps!’
The Black Sheep Inn was one of many crowded together down near the wharves. It was a narrow, dirty place, smelling of ale and tobacco smoke, and only dimly lit by whatever sunlight could pierce the years of accumulated grime on the windows. Even though it was not yet midday the common room was crammed full of people, shouting out for more ale, arguing over the toss of a pair of dice, or singing loud sea-shanties.
Most of the jostling crowd were sailors, enjoying their last chance to drink an inn dry before setting sail that evening on the turn of the tide. Most were dressed in breeches tied under the knee with string, coarse shirts rolled to the elbow, and long boots, much stained with salt. Many were barefoot.
Finn and Ashlin lay on their stomachs at the head of the stairwell, looking down on the crowd below with joyous excitement. Both were dressed in the same sort of rough clothes, with their skins stained dark brown with berry juice. Goblin sat between Finn’s arms, watching with the same expression of curiosity in her slanted aquamarine eyes as her mistress.
Dide appeared in the doorway of a room down the hall and whistled softly. When Finn and Ashlin looked up, he beckoned them to return to the room. It struck Finn forcibly how different Dide looked now that he was masquerading as a sailor. With the shedding of his flamboyant clothes, the jongleur had somehow shed all the impudent charm that had seemed so much of his natural personality. He now walked with the rolling gait of a man who was used to the constant movement of a ship’s deck. His movements had all the economical briskness of a sailor used to cramped quarters instead of the excitable gesticulations of a jongleur used to performing to a crowd. He even spoke differently, with a rough coastal accent spiced with the oaths and expressions of a sailing man. Finn thought she had much to learn about the art of masquerade from the young jongleur.
She scrambled to her feet, lifting Goblin to lie against her shoulder and casting one last regretful glance down at the fascinating hubbub below them. Just then the door to the inn opened, a shaft of sunlight setting the smoke to swirl about. For a moment all Finn could see was the dazzle of sunlight on a mass of fair hair, then she heard ribald whistles and catcalls as the sailors near the door greeted the girl stepping within.
‘Och, no,’ Finn breathed in dismay. ‘What is she doing here?’
Brangaine had paused in the doorway, taken aback by the barrage of lewd suggestions. She drew her plaid more tightly around her body, even though it was sweltering hot in the crowded room, then lifted her chin and stepped in. Amongst all those rough brown men she looked like a princess in her pretty gown and slippers, her silky blonde hair hanging down to her knees in a thick, loose plait.
‘Och, the lamb-brained ninny,’ Finn breathed. ‘She could no’ have drawn more attention to herself if she’d tried!
She leant over the railing. ‘Dinna tell me the bawdy-house has finally sent me my whore!’ she slurred in an excellent imitation of a cocky young man who had had far too much to drink. ‘Where have ye been, my gallimaufrey? I was beginning to be afraid I’d have to raise anchor without having got to sheathe my dirk in a ripe-and-ready lassie.’
Brangaine stopped in her tracks, vivid colour rushing up her throat and staining her cheeks. There was general laughter and one man slid his hand inside Brangaine’s arm, saying, ‘Let me get her loosened up for ye, laddie.’
Finn came down the stairs in a rush, drawing her dagger. ‘Get off her, ye frog-faced lout,’ she cried. ‘I want no buttered muffin. Me mates have paid well for this fine fancy-skirt and I do no’ want to share my first bite o’ giblet pie with a filthy auld goat. Get your own whore!’
Ashlin leapt down in front of her, drawing his own dagger, even though his face was white. The sailor only laughed though, and let go Brangaine’s arm. She drew herself away and Finn came swaggering up to her and kissed her wetly on the side of her neck, one hand rubbing her bottom. ‘Aye, ye be a fine braw piece o’ skirt, I warrant me mates paid highly for ye!’ Finn cried, drawing Brangaine towards the stairs.
‘Your first time raiding the cockpit, laddie?’ one sailor cried.
Finn grinned and gave a little drunken stagger. ‘It may be my first, Jack Tar, but I warrant it willna be my last.’
To the sound of raucous laughter they disappeared up the stairs, Brangaine
’s arm stiff and unyielding beneath Finn’s tight grip.
‘How dare ye!’ Brangaine hissed.
Finn just hauled Brangaine on up the stairs, saying through gritted teeth, ‘Have ye porridge for brains, ye great gowk? And us supposed to be naught but sailor lads!’
Dide was standing in the shadows at the top of the stairs, his black eyes snapping with anger. ‘What do ye mean, turning up here like this? Do ye wish to give the game away? Look at ye, in your silk gown and the NicSian plaid, by Eà’s green bluid! Ye have as much wit as two fools and a madman!’
Tears started to Brangaine’s eyes. ‘What else was I meant to do?’ she asked as Dide pushed the three of them over the sill of the door and into the room, shutting the door smartly behind them. ‘Ye set sail in less than an hour. I had to see ye …’
‘Why?’ Dide replied shortly. ‘I thought it was agreed that ye mun stay with Nina till we were long gone and no harm could be done if ye blabbed.’
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Brangaine said breathlessly. ‘I want to go with ye.’
Finn gave a snort of derision and opened her mouth to say something rude, but Dide silenced her with a gesture. ‘But why, Brangaine? Ye ken this is no pleasure trip we go on. It is a dangerous journey indeed. Putting aside for a moment the fact that the Fairgean rule the seas, the coast between here and Bride is no’ called the Skeleton Coast for naught. It is littered with the wrecks o’ the ships that have foundered on the rocks or been sunk by sea serpents, or dragged down by a whirlpool. And even if we make it to Bride in one piece, we have to break into the most impregnable prison in Eileanan and steal away the Bright Soldiers’ most closely guarded prisoner. Ye will be much safer here in Dùn Gorm with Nina.’
Brangaine was sickly pale but she swallowed and said, ‘I ken all that. I still want to go.’
‘But why?’ Although there was nothing but concerned interest in Dide’s voice, he was looking at Brangaine with frowning intentness, his hand resting on his belt of daggers.
‘I promised Lady Gwyneth I’d have a care for Fionnghal,’ Brangaine replied.
‘I find myself no’ altogether convinced, Lady Brangaine,’ Dide replied softly. ‘Ye admitted yourself that ye hate and fear the sea. Ye ken what will happen to us if our ship is overrun by the Fairgean, better than any o’ us, having lost your own parents to them. Ye’ll be as out o’ place on board a ship as a eunuch in a brothel. Besides, there’s no love lost between ye and Finn. So, what’s the true story?’
Brangaine hesitated then blurted out, ‘Ye’d all think I was white-livered if I stayed behind. Finn would crow over it for years …’
‘… If I survive,’ Finn muttered but Dide motioned her to silence as Brangaine went on, stumbling a little. ‘She’s had so many adventures and I’ve done naught but stay at home and mind my manners and learn to sew a straight seam—I’m sick o’ always being the good one. I ken I could be o’ use to ye, did ye no’ say so yourself? And Nina said I’d have to stay hidden away in the inn so none kent I was there. Ye could be gone for months, she said.’
‘Have ye looked in the mirror lately, sweet Brangaine?’ Finn said charmingly. ‘Ye look less like a cabin-boy than any primping, pampered banprionnsa I’ve ever seen.’
‘That’s enough, Finn,’ Donald said suddenly. ‘Why must ye always be biting and nipping at your cousin’s heels? It is no’ worthy o’ ye.’
Finn blushed scarlet.
‘She has a point though, Brangaine,’ Dide said gently. ‘As ye can see, we have all disguised ourselves as sailors. Only my granddam has no’ tried, for she canna be anything but herself. If ye were to come with us ye would have to do the same, and indeed, I do no’ think ye could. Look at your soft white hands. They’ve never hauled rope in their life. Look at your hair.’
Brangaine bit her lip, glancing involuntarily in the mirror. She stared around at the others, all dressed in cotton breeches and shirts, their faces and necks brown as berries. Finn looked as boyish as any with her hair cut short, her arms tanned and muscular under the rolled-up shirt. For a moment Brangaine hesitated then suddenly she plunged her hand into her reticule, dragged out her sewing kit and withdrew a pair of scissors with mother-of-pearl handles. She seized her long corn-silk plait in one hand and hacked at it till it came away in her hand, leaving her hair jagged just below her ears. ‘The hair was easy enough to fix,’ she said in a high, breathless voice. ‘Has anyone any more o’ that stuff to stain the skin?’
Finn gaped at her, unable to think of anything to say. Enit held out one trembling, blue-veined hand. ‘Aye, I do, lassie,’ she said warmly. ‘Donald will find it for ye. Kindle a fire for the lass, Dide. She must burn every last scrap o’ that hair.’
Brangaine looked at the long corn-silk plait dangling from her hand and made an instinctive move to clutch it to her. ‘Ye mun burn it, lass,’ Enit said. ‘We want none here to wonder who has been cutting their hair. Apart from that, it is dangerous to leave parts o’ yourself just lying around. Ye have heard Dide sing the story o’ how Lachlan was cursed by a feather plucked from his wing.’
‘Never mind, lass, it’ll grow back,’ Dide said sympathetically and snapped his fingers so a fire leapt to life on the empty hearth. Brangaine hesitated a moment longer, then threw her plait onto the flame. It flared up, slender threads of living light, then sank away into ashes.
‘Do we have any more sailors’ clothes for the lass?’ Enit asked. ‘Donald, the berry juice is in a wee pot in my bag by the door. Brangaine, ye must rub it into every part of your body. We canna risk anyone noticing a line where the colour ends. And ye must bind your breasts. Finn, help her.’
‘We canna be calling her “Brangaine” any more,’ Dide said. ‘Happen we’d better just call her Bran. Like “Finn”, it’s more o’ a boy’s name than a girl’s, and that way we have less chance o’ making a mistake.’
‘There’s no’ much we can do about her soft hands,’ Enit said. ‘She will have to be the son o’ a landholder that’s run away to sea for the fun o’ it.’
‘What about my hands?’ Finn demanded, spreading them out. Only then did she realise how rough they were in comparison to Bran’s, the nails broken, the palms calloused from riding her horse and shooting her bow.
‘Och, they’ll do,’ Dide said with a laugh. ‘Come now, no time to dawdle. The tide is on the turn.’
Despite herself, Finn felt a stroke of cold fear down her spine. Her eyes met her cousin’s and she saw Bran had shared the same instinctive chill.
The fleet left the safety of the Berhtfane with the ebbing of the evening tide. There was a grand ceremony, with many speeches and toasts of Midsummer ale. The twenty-five ships were all decorated with flowers and anointed with goldensloe wine, and as they slipped their moorings and floated down the harbour towards the river-gates, the fleet was blessed by the city sorceress, Oonagh the White.
Most of the twenty-five ships in the Rìgh’s fleet had been captured from the Tìrsoilleirean navy during the Bright Wars. They had been wrecked during the battle for Dùn Gorm, when the Bright Soldiers had inadvertently blown up the river-gates, causing the Berhtfane to flood to the sea. The rest were the skeleton remnants of Lachlan’s father’s navy, which had spent the years of Jaspar’s rule quietly mouldering away in the shipwrights’ yards. Quite a few of the ships had needed to be almost completely rebuilt, with a controversial Ship Tax levied by the Rìgh to pay the astronomical cost. Timbers had been brought in from Rurach and Aslinn, and men who knew the sea had eagerly travelled from every corner of Eileanan for the chance of earning a living from their trade.
Nonetheless, many of the seamen were Tìrsoilleirean prisoners-of-war who had sworn their allegiance to Elfrida NicHilde and through her to the Rìgh. There were simply too few experienced sailors from the other countries of Eileanan, thanks to the Fairgean besieging the coast for so many years.
Ten of the ships were great galleons, each with four masts and armed with thirty cannons and a great many soldiers. Five
were caravels, with two masts carrying square sails and a third carrying a triangular sail, making them quick and manoeuvrable, riding high out of the water but broad enough to stay afloat in the roughest seas. Although these too were armed with cannon, they did not have the range or firing power of the galleons’ cannons, being designed more as merchant ships than warships. The remaining ten ships were car-racks: strongly built, three-masted vessels designed primarily for carrying cargo. Heavily loaded with sacks of grain, seeds and potatoes, barrels of ale and whiskey, bottles of medicines, and newly forged weapons and farming implements, they were equipped with only a limited amount of armament and so relied heavily on the galleons to protect them from marauding pirates and the Fairgean.
Luckily the admiral of the fleet was not expecting to run into too much trouble from the sea-faeries. Summer was the time when the hunters and warriors of the Fairgean were mostly much further south, following in the wake of the blue whales who mated in the warm shallow seas of the tropics. The only Fairgean in the seas around Eileanan were those younger warriors set to guard the women who bore their young on the soft sands of southern Eileanan and the Fair Isles. With such a strong fleet, the admiral was sure the young Fairgean bloods would not attempt to attack when that meant leaving the women and their young unprotected.
The drawback to sailing in high summer was, of course, the lowness of the tides. Dragged back by the gravitational force of the two moons, the summer sea was shallow indeed and many rocks and reefs that were covered in spring and autumn were exposed. Most dangerous of all were the sandbanks which changed every year as the king tide dragged them back and forth. Rocks, reefs and islands could be mapped and avoided. Most captains only knew there was a sandbank ahead when they ran aground.
The fleet made a brave sight as they slowly glided down the calm waters of the Berhtfane towards the river-gates, their brightly coloured flags snapping in the breeze. There was much cheering from the crowd gathered on the foreshores, and the sailors all sang a light-hearted sea-shanty as they hauled up the sails. Not knowing what to do to help, Finn and Bran leant on the bulwark and waved to the crowd until the first mate yelled at them to look lively and lend them a hand. ‘The devil finds work for idle hands to do, so no idle hands on my watch!’ he shouted. ‘Give them a hand raising the mizzensail, ye lazy seaslugs!’
