Lady of Magick

by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

  “We did not know that Carsaig had no inn,” Sophie put in; she was conscious that the admission made her seem careless and irresponsible, but the circumstances seemed to demand some sort of explanation. “It is only for the night; we must be on to Pennyghael tomorrow.”

  Ought she to mention payment? Would Rose Neill MacTerry welcome the notion of compensation for her trouble, or would it be an insult to her hospitality? Impossible to say.

  Rose Neill MacTerry smiled again. “There was an inn, once,” she said, “in the days of the MacAlpine chieftains. ’Twas named the Sasunnach’s Head.”

  Sophie shivered. At the same time, incongruously, she had to stifle a yawn.

  “Do you come in, then, Elinor Graham,” said Rose Neill MacTerry, holding wide the door of her little house, “and sit you down a little.”

  Sophie could never afterwards remember exactly what happened next.

  * * *

  “Sophie has been gone a very long time with that girl,” said Joanna, frowning.

  Gwendolen blinked at her in the dim light of the taproom. “Where did she say she was going?”

  “I . . .” Joanna thought hard. I am just going to see about a bed for the night, Sophie had said, surely more than an hour ago; stay here and finish your meal, and I shall be back directly. It had not seemed suspicious at the time, but it certainly seemed so now. “She did not say where, at all, and she meant to be back directly. Which she is not,” she added unnecessarily. “And we do not even know that girl’s name!”

  The publican’s wife had vanished at some point during their prolonged (and, it must be said, very welcome) meal. Joanna and Gwendolen went in search of her, and failing to find her, or anyone at all, in any of the public rooms, behind the bar, or—to judge by the lack of any answer to their repeated knocking—behind the door that led to the private part of the house, they gave up on the interior of the house entirely and circled about the outside of it, looking for any sign of human life at all. The afternoon was well along by now, though there would be several more hours of daylight yet, to judge by the angle of the sun, yet the village seemed sleepy and unpopulated.

  When at last they ran their quondam hostess to earth, it was by the sound of water sloshing from bucket to bucket; she was filling the water-trough for a pair of huge and weary-looking horses pastured at some distance from the public-house.

  Gwendolen chirruped softly to the horses and slipped fearlessly between them to scratch at their shaggy manes. The publican’s wife regarded this spectacle with some alarm, but upon seeing that the horses only whickered and nuzzled at the strange young man’s shoulders, she appeared to decide that neither party was in any danger from the other, and went on emptying pails of water into the trough.

  Joanna took hold of the last full bucket.

  “’S mise Harriet Dunstan,” she said determinedly, gesturing at herself with her free hand; “dè an t-ainm a tha oirbh?”

  The woman frowned at her, and was silent for a long moment. “Morag MacGregor,” she said at last, in a grudging tone.

  “Morag MacGregor,” Joanna repeated; and then, her meagre fund of Gaelic exhausted, she said, “will you tell us where my cousin and your daughter have gone?”

  Morag MacGregor spread her hands and shook her head. “Chan eil mi a’ tuigsinn,” she said. Joanna could not tell whether this meant I do not know the answer or I do not understand the question; but, she supposed, there was little to choose between the two, as in either case she should get no useful answer.

  It was only a little longer, however, before Sophie and Morag MacGregor’s daughter appeared in the distance, descending the steep hill behind the village.

  “There, you see?” said Gwendolen, clasping Joanna’s shoulder. In a lower voice she added, “How should you like to borrow these horses? I think one of them might easily carry any two of us.”

  Joanna controlled her initial startlement to give this notion serious consideration. “They do not look as though they should go very fast,” she said doubtfully.

  “No,” Gwendolen conceded, “but they will know the lay of the land, and will not panic or put their feet in rabbit-holes.” She looked doubtfully about her. “Are there rabbits on this island, do you suppose?”

  “I should imagine so,” said Joanna vaguely; most of her attention, now, was on following Sophie’s progress down the hill.

  She and her companion had now reached the foot of it and briefly disappeared behind the clutch of little stone houses that constituted the village of Carsaig; when they reappeared, they were within hailing distance, or near enough, and Joanna called, “Elinor!” and waved one arm wildly in the air.

  “Harriet!” Sophie’s voice came faintly back, caught on the rising breeze.

  A little nearer, and Joanna’s heart leapt, then plummeted; the woman striding along beside Morag MacGregor’s daughter was not the buxom, auburn-haired Elinor Graham, but unmistakably Sophie.

  “Mother Goddess,” Gwendolen breathed, going very still. “This is a right balls-up.”

  “It is that,” said Joanna, too poleaxed even to demand where Gwendolen had learnt such language.

  She wished very much, at the moment, to swing up onto one of those enormous horses, kick it into a gallop, and pull her sister up behind her on the way to . . . well, to somewhere very far from this gods-accursèd village, at any rate. None of this was possible—quite apart from anything else, she should need a mounting-block the size of Glastonbury Tor to get aboard either of those beasts—but her pulse pounded with the need to do something, and her feet carried her towards Sophie as if pulled by one of Sophie’s drawing-spells.

  “Elinor,” she said cautiously, as they drew level with one another, “are you quite well?”

  “Very well,” said Sophie. Her voice was even, her lips curved in a smile, but her dark eyes held Joanna’s, wide and frantic.

  Gwendolen stepped up behind Joanna, one hand splayed across her back. Half an hour ago, she should have shrugged it off with sharp annoyance; now she had to fight the temptation to lean closer, into the comfort of the known.

  “Rose Neill MacTerry will give us a bed for the night,” Sophie said. “Two beds, that is. And our supper.” She half turned, gesturing towards the hill. “Her house is up there.”

  Squinting, Joanna could indeed make out what might be another of the little village houses, high up on the brow of the hill.

  “Yes?” she said.

  Sophie’s brisk nod said yes; her anguished eyes cried no.

  What did it mean that Sophie had let go the masque of Elinor Graham? And what did it mean that Morag MacGregor and her daughter were pretending not to have noticed the transformation?

  Joanna gently took her sister’s hand, ignoring the Albans as steadfastly as they were ignoring her, and turned to walk back towards the public-house, and their modest carpet-bags waiting under the shelter of the overhanging roof.

  “Sophie,” she said, low, as soon as she judged them to be out of earshot. “What has become of Elinor Graham?”

  Sophie looked down at her, and once again Joanna’s mind swam briefly as she struggled to reconcile the baffled expression on Sophie’s face with the desperation in her eyes.

  “She is bespelled,” said Gwendolen, her voice low but sharp with impatience. “Obviously. Why, I have no notion, and I believe I had rather not. I think we must get away tonight, if we can.”

  She collected the carpet-bags and turned expectantly.

  “Well?” said Joanna to Sophie. “Do we go?” She did not see that they had much choice; they must sleep somewhere, or, at any rate, they could not borrow Morag MacGregor’s horses and ride away in broad daylight.

  “Of course,” said Sophie, smiling. Her fingers gripped Joanna’s elbow so tightly that Joanna expected bruises in the morning.

  “I know,” she murmured. “I understand.”

&n
bsp; Sophie’s eyes closed briefly, and when she opened them again the sharp desperation had eased a little.

  * * *

  They trudged up the hill to the house of Rose Neill MacTerry. It was small, stone-built, with a heavy front door whose hinges creaked as it opened; Joanna reflexively looked for and marked all other possible means of egress. It was not immediately apparent why, as between this diminutive dwelling and the much larger one which housed the Drovers’ Drum, Rose Neill MacTerry’s house should be the one offered to guests; was Morag MacGregor hiding something, or someone?

  Rose Neill MacTerry gave them a supper of bread, smoked fish, and a strongly flavoured sheep’s-milk cheese; Joanna suspected this last of harbouring some noxious substance, but Gwendolen elbowed her and muttered, “We do not know when our next meal may be,” and she succeeded in eating a few bites.

  Sophie ate mechanically, her eyes fixed on some unidentifiable point midway along the scrubbed kitchen table. Their hostess, having set their meal before them, sat down to the spinning-wheel in one corner of her kitchen and made no attempt to engage them in conversation; when the meal was done, she showed them their night’s accomodations—a small, square, aggressively spotless bedroom for the ladies, and a clean straw-tick in the attic for Gwendolen—and left them to their own devices.

  Sophie sat down on the edge of the bed, smiling absently at nothing in particular.

  “Elinor?” said Joanna, laying a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Should you like to take a turn about the garden with Morgan, before we go to bed?”

  Sophie looked up at her, her eyes deep wells of furious anger.

  Joanna blinked in surprise. Then she hugged her sister tight, bending close to her ear to whisper fiercely, “Good.”

  * * *

  There was very little garden to walk in, and the slope was such that it was often more climbing than walking, but they were very near the sea, and for all that Joanna had lately conceived a considerable dislike of sea voyages, the wild salt smell and the glitter of the swell along the horizon were a comfort to her. Sophie did not speak—whether because she could not or because she refused to do so was difficult to discern—but her hand gripped Joanna’s painfully tight.

  “Can you get down the hill yourselves in the dark?” said Gwendolen. “I should think we shall have moonlight enough to see by—the sky is clear, and the moon nearly full—but we cannot risk a light.”

  “We shall manage well enough,” said Joanna, frowning, “but what of you?”

  “I shall be fetching the horses,” said Gwendolen. Then, pointing down the slope, she added, “There is a stream there—do you see? If we ride along it—”

  “Yes, I see. To hide our tracks.”

  They were keeping their voices lowered, but Joanna could not help frequently glancing about, in case of listeners.

  “We shall have to leave all of our bags and baggage behind,” Gwendolen added.

  Joanna sighed. “What sort of idiot do you take me for?”

  * * *

  After bidding Rose Neill MacTerry a good night and shutting herself and Sophie into their bedroom, Joanna dug out her huswife and her warmest and least-beloved pelisse, and set about picking apart a seam. Sophie lay curled on the bed, watching her: placid face and raging eyes, her limbs relaxed and languid, her fingers curled like claws into the candle-wicked coverlet.

  Joanna heard nothing to herald Gwendolen’s departure and bolstered her courage with the notion of her having escaped the house entirely undetected. Having made her preparations—and, by necessity, Sophie’s also—she blew out the lamps and watched the moon, peering at intervals through a small gap in the window-curtains.

  Long before the moon reached the agreed-upon point in its trajectory, however, Joanna, peering out of the window for at least the hundredth time, caught a glimmer of light bobbing its way up the foot of the hill. It was gone again directly, but she crouched down on the floor below the window and exchanged her intermittent reconnaissance for a continuous vigil, determined not to repeat the mistakes of Angus Ferguson’s ill-fated scouts.

  Sure enough, before long the glimmer came again, and nearer; and again, and nearer yet: someone was climbing the hill.

  Joanna dropped the curtain and scrambled to her feet.

  “Sophie,” she said, low, bending over the bed where Sophie yet lay, silent and unmoving. “Sophie, someone is coming. We must go at once.”

  Sophie’s pale face turned up to hers, and her eyes were no longer terrified or angry, only unfathomably sad. “Go,” she said. “You have no magick; it is me they want.”

  Joanna gaped at her. “We thought you were bespelled,” she managed, after a moment.

  “I was,” said Sophie quietly. “Rose Neill MacTerry can see magick, you see, and she is in league with a man they call Cormac MacAlpine—he must be the rogue chieftain whom we have been hearing of. Morag MacGregor’s husband and her daughter, also—I am not sure of Morag MacGregor herself, for I think she tried to warn us off.”

  “Sophie, what—”

  “Hush, now. Listen. They spoke of Cormac MacAlpine’s raising the clan-lands; they would not say what it meant, only that it was an old magick—old and deep, Morag MacGregor said—does that not sound very like the legend of Ailpín Drostan’s spell-net?”

  “Oh!” said Joanna.

  “Yes. We knew already, that someone has been collecting mages, and we suspected what they might be wanted for, and now I think we know both the why and the who, and one part of the how. There are more mages unaccounted for than we know of, I expect.” She shivered. “Teàrlag MacAlpine brings travellers here, so that Rose Neill MacTerry can see whether they have power worth . . . pursuing. I suppose there must be allies of Cormac MacAlpine in Din Edin, doing the same office—”

  “Catriona MacCrimmon,” said Joanna. Oh, Sophie.

  “But they will not pursue you, Jo,” Sophie went on, ignoring this, “or not at once, provided they have their prize.” This with a little grimace of self-disgust. “Go and find Gwendolen—”

  “Sophie Marshall!” Joanna hissed. “How can you—”

  “Jo. Listen.”

  Sophie’s palm wrapped warm across Joanna’s mouth; Joanna swallowed outrage.

  “Go and find her. Wait with the horses at the bottom of the hill. And follow me.”

  Joanna considered this scheme. She had not much liking for it in general, and none at all for Sophie’s part of it in particular; but Sophie in this mood (as Joanna knew from long experience) was immovable, and as between the capture of them both, leaving Gwendolen in ignorance of their fate (and in possession of someone else’s horses), and the capture of one, with two relatively well-informed rescuers to pursue her, the more rational choice was not difficult to see.

  Joanna nodded, and Sophie let her go.

  Then she surged up from the bed, crossed the small room, and crouched in the corner to rummage in her carpet-bag. When she rose to her feet again, she held something out to Joanna and said, “Here.”

  Joanna reached for Sophie’s hand and was puzzled to find herself holding a tangle of silken cords and smooth oval stones. The puzzle resolved itself when Sophie said, “From Lady Maëlle, for emergencies.”

  “Mama’s jewels?” said Joanna, disentangling one of the cords and looping it twice about her wrist.

  Sophie’s nod was just perceptible in the darkness.

  “And have you kept one for yourself?”

  “I have only those two,” said Sophie; when Joanna attempted to give back the one she still held in her hand, she said, “I can shift for myself, Jo; you and Gwendolen cannot. Go, now, before it is too late.”

  “Be careful, then,” said Joanna, hating the incipient tears that roughened her voice and made her breath come short. “May all the gods go with you.”

  They clung together tightly for a moment. Then Joanna wrapped a heavy
knitted shawl over her gown and pelisse; tied a double knot in each of her bootlaces, and kilted up her skirts; and, having opened the window as silently as she could, climbed up over the sill and lowered herself carefully to the ground below.

  Crouched against the south wall of the house, as deep in shadow as circumstances permitted, she watched the small procession approach the front door, which faced eastward and down the hill. At first only that little intermittent gleam showed its progress; as it drew nearer, however, she at last made out the tall, broad shapes of three men, dressed in the kilted plaid.

  There came a quiet knocking at the door; the hinges creaked, and soft lamplight gleamed briefly on the flagstoned path. When she heard the door closing again, Joanna crept round the corner of the house, through the garden, and away down the hill; the moment she was out of sight of Rose Neill MacTerry’s house, she ran.

  * * *

  Sophie eased the window closed behind Joanna and allowed herself a moment’s frozen, agonising terror. Then she took a deep breath, let it out, and drew another, until the terror had receded a little; then, at last, she set about making her preparations.

  First she drew down the bedclothes and arranged carpet-bags and cushions in the general outline of a sleeping body. Then, closing her eyes, she summoned up what magick she could.

  In the darkness behind her eyelids she called to mind the curves and hollows of Joanna’s body as she slept, curled beside Sophie in their bed at the inn in Glaschu; here the slope of her tucked-up knees, there the swell of her hip, here the fall of a chestnut plait over the curve of her shoulder. She marshalled the words of an illusion-spell and, murmuring them under her breath, shaped the magick to hide the cushions and carpet-bags under a semblance of her sister, breathing slow and steady in deep sleep. It was not so precise as the likeness she had made of herself before leaving Din Edin; but this time, in hopes of delaying its discovery, she gave her illusion no catch, no clue for Rose Neill MacTerry to follow. Silently she thanked Cormac MacWattie for insisting that she learn this magick and begged his pardon for this deliberate lapse.