Lady of Magick

by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

  Then, giving Sophie no opportunity of reply, she straightened, threw back her head, and assumed an imperious expression—putting on the heiress of Alba, exactly as Sophie herself might have put on the Princess Royal—and paced very deliberately towards the front door.

  * * *

  The tug of Sophie’s magick faded over the course of the return journey—to which Gray was blind and nearly deaf, for his wings were pinioned and his small feathered body tucked (not very gently) under someone’s elbow—and at last vanished altogether. Not for the first time, Gray wished desperately for some hint to the situation of Castle MacAlpine. How far was he at this moment from Din Edin, from Sophie? The distance must be less than he had supposed, if her spell could reach him, even so faintly as this. Why had they never tested her limits systematically, like the scholars they purported to be? Had he been certain of her range, he might now have calculated his own distance from her, and thus determined . . .

  What?

  By the position of the sun as it sank below the horizon, just before the mad brangle in the clearing, he could at least be certain that the pull of Sophie’s spell had been towards the southeast: he was north and west of Din Edin, then. Though he could hardly have been east of it without falling into the sea, it was something to know that they had travelled north and not south or due west.

  The scrape of heavy oak on rough-dressed stone signalled the opening of a door. Abruptly Gray found himself unwrapped and flung carelessly onto the straw pallet in the corner of his cell; the impact, though greatly lessened by his presently weighing less than half a stone, set his shoulder and knee ringing with pain. His bedraggled garments were tossed in after him and the door pulled to with a dull thunk.

  If the sensation of escaping the interdiction was akin to a wellspring bubbling up through newly thawing earth, returning to it in this form was like being violently turned inside out. Gray’s human shape reasserted itself with nauseating suddenness, and quite without volition; every part of him ached and itched at once; sprawled on the stinking straw-tick, he was swallowed by waves of nausea, and retched helplessly, though—perhaps fortunately—there was nothing in his stomach to bring up.

  At long last—it might have been a quarter-hour that passed in this manner, or several days, for all that Gray could tell—the sick fitful darkness rolled over him again.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  In Which Joanna Writes a Letter and Attends a Council of War

  My dear Jo, Joanna read, in Jenny’s clear, elegant hand,

  Please write very soon, and tell me that you and Sophie and Gwendolen are safe and well, as it seems that my brother has not after all outgrown his tendency to attract trouble. My lord had a letter from Din Edin this morning, by the diplomatic express, whose contents I expect you can very easily imagine—indeed, I should not wonder if the hand that enciphered them was your own—and you may therefore imagine, too, my state of mind at present . . .

  Joanna sighed. Lord de Courcy could not, of course, reasonably have kept the MacAlpine débacle from his masters. She had hoped, however, that Kergabet might for the time being refrain from terrifying Jenny with its details.

  My dear Jenny, she wrote,

  I am very sorry that you should have learnt of the circumstances here in such a way. I had hoped to delay in telling you of it, until I should be able to tell you also of Gray’s safe return; but that, I suppose, was a foolish hope. I may at least assure you that both Gwen and I are perfectly well, and very far from any sort of excitement. I regret to say that Sophie is not so well as I should wish, though at any rate her health seems not to be growing worse at present.

  I shall not sport with your patience by simply repeating facts with which I must suppose you are already acquainted, through Courcy’s letter to Kergabet—it was not I who enciphered it, and in fact I did not read it at all, but its contents are not difficult to deduce. You may, however, be interested in a second angle of view upon those facts.

  She read this over, chewing thoughtfully on the end of her pen—a bad habit of her childhood, which she had taken up again under the strain of this visit.

  So, then: Sophie and some of her mage friends have located Gray, through some combination of spells which I do not at all understand, in the general vicinity of an abandoned castle on the island of Mull, off the eastern coast, which was once the seat of Clan MacAlpine. Circumstances suggest that where Gray is, we shall also find the several other foreign mages who have gone missing whilst visiting or residing in Alba, in the course of the past twelvemonth.

  An acquaintance of Gray and Sophie’s may be somehow involved in the business, which is a great consternation to Sophie, particularly because it was her brother who secured them the invitation to the University. She could not be questioned, having left Din Edin shortly after Gray did, allegedly on a visit to her parents; but the brother remains here, and has admitted quite openly that though he had been previously in correspondence with Gray, and thought the invitation an excellent notion, it was his sister who first suggested it. I do not believe he himself stands accused of any wrongdoing, but he has been put under guard, lest he attempt to communicate with his sister. I am sorry for it, but I cannot fault the decision. The absent sister was also responsible for engaging Sophie’s daily woman, who as a result is now also under suspicion—though erroneously, in my view, for she seems quite devoted to Sophie.

  Sophie believes—and it appears that Lucia MacNeill finds her theory plausible, though I confess I cannot entirely fathom it—that there is some connexion with an old legend from the time of the MacAlpine kings, of a “spell-net” which is attributed to Ailpín Drostan, called the father of Alba, but which must have been the work of an entire cohort of mages, not just one.

  Donald MacNeill having once been convinced of the accuracy of Sophie’s information—

  And what a conversation that must have been! Lucia MacNeill’s exasperation had risen like steam from her explanatory note to Sophie, which had arrived by one of her father’s pages on the following afternoon.

  —called for the muster of the company of what we should call royal troops which are quartered at Oban, and sent his serjeant-at-arms (a cousin of some sort, in whom he reposes great trust) to take command of them and to lead an expedition to Mull (which lies within sight of the town) to investigate the recent rumours that the old Castle MacAlpine is haunted, and if possible to rescue the prisoners. Most unfortunately however, the serjeant-at-arms was badly injured in the course of the journey—he will recover, we are told, though I fear the same cannot be said for his poor horse—and the company commander, it appears, received his instructions, disregarded them almost entire, and turned a quiet investigative sortie into a full-scale assault.

  If you were to suppose that His Majesty sent a troop of the Palace Guard against, say, the Duke of Kernow, without warning or parley and upon no evidence but the claim of one of his sons, that some foreign mage had seen something through a finding-spell, you should begin to have some idea of the result. Only you must understand that the man so attacked is one of two claimants to the chieftainship of a clan which once ruled all of Alba, and not only that, but a direct descendant of the kingdom’s founder; and that the politics and sensibilities (and, it appears, the magicks) of our own factions at home are as nothing beside those of Alba’s clans and clan-lands.

  It was, in short, a disaster—not only was there no rescuing of prisoners, but I should not have been at all surprised, if it had ended in civil war—the only redeeming feature of which was, that in the course of it two of D.MacN.’s guardsmen, sent as scouts, did in fact (or so they say) find evidence of prisoners’ being held there. I am confident, therefore, that this is indeed a case of kidnap and not murder, and that I shall soon have the best of news to send you.

  Joanna chewed her pen once more as she considered this last. It was not untrue, so far as it went, but she could certainly not tell anyone what, in fact, s
he meant to do next.

  * * *

  The council of war, so called, which followed the disastrous raid upon Castle MacAlpine was, as Joanna had expected, entirely unsatisfactory. Joanna was included in it—or, rather, her presence was tolerated—only at Lucia MacNeill’s insistence; and her gratitude for that favour, and for Lucia MacNeill’s earnest, if bizarrely expressed, desire to help Sophie, allowed her to keep her countenance, and her silence, in the face of what proved very strong provocation.

  Donald MacNeill’s serjeant-at-arms was in no condition to travel, or to answer questions; his ill-fated second-in-command had taken to the boats, and though he had sent in letters—a series of letters, each, or so said Lucia MacNeill, more defensive and self-serving than the last—remained at sea, in the firth between Mull and the mainland, with his troops. The recriminations now flying about Donald MacNeill’s council chamber, therefore, were balked of their proper object, and thus accomplished even less than such post hoc strategic argumentation ordinarily does.

  Donald MacNeill had dispatched a courier to the encampment to question the two guardsmen whose scouting report appeared to confirm the presence of prisoners at Castle MacAlpine, and the courier had this morning returned with his report.

  “‘While observing from the cover of the wood abutting the castle to the northwest, at a height of some ten feet, we saw a man in shackles,’” Lucia MacNeill read, her voice as clear and precise as though the words affected her not at all, “‘and two men dragging him between them towards the castle walls, as though he could not walk. He was a small man, and his hair apparently dark. We could see nothing else of him but that he was dressed in rags.’”

  Not Gray, then, but very possibly one of the other missing mages. Joanna glanced up from the handkerchief she was worrying in her hands, for lack of any useful task to turn them to, and found Lord de Courcy and his secretary exchanging a look which told her quite clearly that they had made the same connexion.

  “‘We followed them at a little distance. They entered through a postern-gate in the castle’s northern wall. It was too small for more than one man to pass through at a time, and reached by means of a walled staircase, yet it was guarded by two armed men, and the staircase itself by two more. We therefore set a watch upon this gate for some time, in hopes of learning what lay beyond it, and of overhearing some watchword or countersign which might be used to gain entry.

  “‘Approximately a quarter-hour later, the same two men again passed out through the postern-gate, again escorting a shackled prisoner who stumbled badly. They spoke to the guardsmen, but we could not hear what they said. The prisoner did not appear to be the same as before, but we cannot be certain, as the night was very dark. They entered the wood, but did not come out again while we watched there.’”

  The assembled company waited for Lucia MacNeill to continue, but she only said, “There is no more.”

  Donald MacNeill bent his head and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

  Joanna remained long enough to conclude both that Lord de Courcy could be relied upon to take the matter seriously, and that Donald MacNeill would not or could not act so quickly as she considered needful. Then, with a glance at Lucia MacNeill, she seized the chance of a particularly loud and vitriolic dispute between two of the Albans—both cousins of Donald MacNeill, if she read the insignia on their various accoutrements correctly—to leave her seat at the periphery of the room and slip silently out of the door.

  * * *

  “If you have been plotting to go haring off without me, you had best think again,” said Gwendolen, folding her arms across her breast.

  She had quietly dogged Joanna’s steps almost since the moment of her return to Quarry Close, and now was standing firmly in the doorway of Sophie’s tiny guest bedroom, blocking her way. Of course Joanna had not supposed that she should succeed in evading her; but she had hoped for a little more time to collect her thoughts.

  “I take it that you mean to cross half of Alba all alone,” Gwendolen continued, “and hire passage to the isle of Mull, and take Castle MacAlpine by storm?”

  “Of course not!” said Joanna, stung into speech by her friend’s mocking tone—which over the months of their acquaintance she had grown used to hearing directed at almost everyone but herself. “Storming Castle MacAlpine was an idiotic idea when Angus Ferguson did it, and I should be the queen of all fools to try it a second time, even if I had the men to do it with.” His Majesty’s guardsmen, indeed, were much more likely to pack her off back to London than to follow her orders. “And I am not such a fool, Gwendolen Pryce, and nor are you.”

  “What, then?” said Gwendolen, still sceptical.

  “Obviously,” said Joanna, “I intend to infiltrate by stealth.”

  Gwendolen frowned at this for a moment before translating, “Sneak in, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “You”—looking her up and down—“dressed like that.”

  “Well—”

  “And when you have done your stealthy infiltrating, what then?”

  Joanna scowled. “Well, I cannot know what to do next until I have seen the lay of the land, can I?” she said. “There is a postern-gate in the north wall—away from the sea—with two guards. The prisoners are brought in and out that way.”

  Gwendolen’s eyes widened. “Please, Jo,” she said, “tell me that your grand plan does not rely upon being taken prisoner yourself.”

  “I did think of that, at first,” Joanna conceded, “but it will not answer; they are kidnapping powerful mages—for their great spell-thing, if Sophie is not mistaken—and I cannot even call light.”

  “Then you had much better let me do it,” said Sophie.

  * * *

  The ensuing dispute quickly became a shouting-match, which Gwendolen (aided by her superior height) interrupted by taking Joanna by one shoulder and Sophie by the other, dragging them apart, and bellowing over their combined protests, “You shall neither of you do anything of the sort, if I have to lock both of you up in that wardrobe to stop you.”

  The three of them retreated to separate corners of the tiny room—so close together, still, that any of them might have reached out and touched the others—and glared, breathing hard.

  “How can you think of doing such a thing, Sophie?” Joanna demanded, not for the first time. “You have scarcely left your bed since—”

  “Have you forgot already how Donald MacNeill came by the intelligence that sent all those men out to the Ross of Mull to begin with?” Sophie retorted. “If done once, it can be done again—and besides, the nearer I am to Gray, the better I shall recover.”

  This last, at any rate, was true enough that Joanna could not at once find words to refute it.

  “Wardrobe,” said Gwendolen darkly. “Locked. I have three brothers and three sisters who will tell you whether or not I mean what I say.”

  Sophie glowered.

  Joanna took several deep breaths, marshalling her thoughts, and at last said, “I cannot be content to wait for Donald MacNeill to put his house in order. Something must be done, as soon as may be, and we are the ones to do it.” She turned to Sophie. “I had hoped to keep you safely out of it. That was always a vain hope, I suppose.”

  “We are neither of us renowned for keeping safe at home,” Sophie muttered; Joanna pretended not to hear her.

  “I am—I am willing that you should be of the party, if Lucia MacNeill will consent to share her magick with you. Otherwise you should be a danger to all of us, rather than a help. I am sorry to say it,” she added, in response to Sophie’s poorly concealed flinch, “but so it is.”

  It was not an entirely safe promise to make; still, Donald MacNeill’s reaction to the first such undertaking had been such as, in Joanna’s estimation, made it unlikely that he should countenance a repeat performance.

  Relief and terror and hope
chased one another across Sophie’s face before a careful blankness took their place. “I shall go and write to Lucia, then.”

  Joanna watched her go, attempting to look encouraging whilst earnestly praying that Donald MacNeill might refuse to let his daughter anywhere near Quarry Close for the next month.

  * * *

  Sophie’s letter to Lucia—in which she pleaded for a renewal of the MacNeill magick, so that she might continue her attempts to reach Gray by means of a drawing-spell—produced a swift and damping reply, to the effect that Donald MacNeill had expressly forbidden any undertaking of the kind. The despondent mood into which Sophie fell as a result was not alleviated by a strong impression that Joanna was rather relieved than disappointed by this turn of events.

  But hard on the heels of Lucia’s letter came Lucia herself, again on foot and dressed as a University undergraduate, complete with a stack of codices and a quite plausible air of abstraction.

  Sophie heard the knock at the door, but she paid it no heed until Donella MacHutcheon came into the sitting-room—where for the past hour Sophie had sat forlornly at the pianoforte, looking through sheets of music which she had not the heart to play, whilst behind her Gwendolen Pryce worked silently through the contents of the mending-basket—and said, “You have a visitor, Domina.”

  She looked up just as Lucia followed Donella MacHutcheon into the room, throwing back the hood of her grey woollen cloak.

  “What—”

  “If my father learns what I am about,” said the heiress of Alba, cutting off Sophie’s astonished protest, “I cannot say what he may do. I have almost no time; I pray you, let us not waste it in arguing. Come.”

  She gestured at the sofa, and Sophie swallowed her questions—What do you here? Surely you do not mean to defy your father’s direct command, only to help me work a drawing-spell? Have you guessed what it is I truly mean to do with your magick?—and obeyed.