by Prue Batten
She’s been to Fahsi, she’s behind me. He grasped both Lalita’s arms and mesmered and her face sprang to life with all the impatience and pertness of yore. ‘Are you harmed?’ His voice was husky and he continued. ‘It was the Ganconer who romanced you, not me. Aine, tell me you are untouched.’
‘Of course I’m untouched, ‘she answered. ‘I knew it wasn’t you.’
Despite the threat that hovered in the Ganconer’s revelations, he couldn’t help a small smile at Lalita’s aspersions, impressed that she chose not to give in to tears and the vapours. ‘How did you know?’
‘He didn’t have the horses.’
‘Oh, of course. The horses.’ As he crossed to the shadows he said over his shoulder, ‘So you didn’t notice the bastard had no shadow or that the birds had ceased singing?’
‘No?’ Uncertainty sat at the edge of her voice.
‘And what about the rowan branch? Why is it over there instead of in your hands?’
‘I forgot it.’
‘Surely you see what I mean now, Lalita. There is so much out there.’ He clicked his tongue as he reached for two sets of reins and the horses followed behind him, their eyes rolling, ears back, tails swishing from side to side. ‘They’re not happy. All that’s eldritch upsets their sensibilities and this glade is full of it. They’d bolt if I let them; a little like you I think. Anyway, if you feel steady enough we must mount. Their desire to depart such a fearsome place as this will lend speed to our journey.’ And we must have speed. For all that I distrust that son of evil, I think he spoke the truth. He chose not to tell Lalita of the Ganconer’s news. She had enough to assimilate for now.
She mounted quickly and proficiently, gathering up the reins of the little mare that danced on sparkling hooves. Finnian looked back at her as she touched the mare’s flanks with her heels and trotted to his side. Without a word, he urged his horse to a gallop and she followed, flying in his slipstream.
The world whizzed past the horse’s hooves, the blossom a white blur to the side. Finnian crouched low over the horse’s wither, oilskin coat billowing out behind and he glanced back to see how competent a rider Lalita was. Her mare was a true Raji, with movement that was spirited and light, a flying dance. The horse could have lasted for hours at such a pace; it was how she had been bred. But even so, as they climbed the undulations of the Barrow Hills, Lalita’s voice reached Finnian. She shouted and pulled on her reins, halting the mare as Finnian trotted back. The two horses stood snorting with their sides heaving, their shoulders and haunches wet with sweat. ‘The horses are not fit. If we continue at this pace, they’ll blow out and be useless. We must measure them more carefully.’
Finnian’s eyebrows rose. ‘And you know this because…’
‘Kholi had horses he raced in desert endurance runs. When he needed me, I helped.’
Not just a scribe, not just a pretty face. She had the knack of producing new details about herself that excited and impressed him, he who was so used to the profane and obvious enthrall of Others. He looked back down the hill and over the orchard into the far distance. The sun was at its zenith but with none of the cremating strength of Raji daylight. This one nurtured and fostered and he liked it. From the back of his horse he scrutinized every inch of the far horizon and finally he spotted something and his breath hissed through his teeth.
To the northeast, a cloud spread like a stain over the sky. The buds of grey cumulo-nimbus clouds had begun to climb into the heavens and unease pervaded the atmosphere, as if massive thunderstorms were being birthed in the distance.
A pair of swallows dipped and darted up the hill between the tussocks, flipping their wings this way and that, stalling, bending. The pair reached Finnian, rising across his shoulders and over the horse’s ebony rump, circling and twittering, before swooping to ground level again and darting away down the other side of the broad hill into the orchard that still edged their way. Finnian swore loudly, hitting his thigh so that his mount threw up its head and stepped sideways.
‘She begins to track you, doesn’t she? The birds told you.’ Lalita stared at the blackening sky. ‘She’s angry.’
‘Evidently.’ He dismounted and loosened the gelding’s girth, his mind working fast. ‘But I shall remain ahead of her.’
‘How far is she behind?’
He squinted, a hand to his forehead. ‘A day, perhaps less. She’ll need horses. But you are right, our mounts must rest and you seem to understand exactly how to eke the best from them. You’re a surprise, Lalita.’
‘They’re quality mounts and willing. It pays to respect them.’ She jumped off lightly, loosening the girth and rubbing the mare between the ears.
He said nothing, just folded onto the ground holding the reins and watching the gelding nibble at sweet blades of grass.
‘Finnian, why didn’t your grandmother use the Gate? She would be so much closer to us.’
‘I don’t know.’ He would not tell her what his grandmother had done, who she had slaughtered as she sought information. But you can be sure, she does it with a purpose in mind. She is a masterful tactician.’
Lalita seemed to digest this information as she stared at the dark cloud stack in the far distance. ‘Can other mortals pass through the Gates the way I did?’
‘With someone like me, yes. It would be well nigh impossible without.’ He elucidated no further and they sat together in what should have been the restful and lush beauty of the strange orchard beside them. Insects flitted, small birds called and the overpowering fragrance of fermenting fruit, like an aged wine, hung in the air.
‘Aine but I’m thirsty. It’s an age since I drank water.’ Lalita reached for a peach, but he grabbed it and threw it away.
‘Don’t. It may trap you here and we shall never get further than this very spot. We’ll stop at the next stream once we have passed from Færan and I’ll get water for you. I don’t want you to dip a fingertip in any water without me by your side.’ A vision arose of a ravished, starving wraith wandering the highways and byways of Eirie. He had never given a thought to the games Others play with mortals because in truth he had never cared. But the balance was shifting. He cared most completely now and had much to lose. He needed those paperweights if he was to best Isolde and do what he must, therefore he needed Lalita, whole and in one piece, not some fragmented lovelorn scrap.
‘This is such a strange place. We come through a Gate into Færan, you find a mortal farmlet on its outskirts and then you say we must leave Færan to find Killymoon. I am lost I tell you. It wanders and wends like some obscure mountain track. Do the Gates never shut?’
‘They’re not like normal gates. It’s not a question of shut or open. They’re odd. As you saw when we passed from the Raj to Trevallyn, the gates straddle both worlds. The Ymp Tree Orchard too – a leg in each camp as it were. Not that it matters. Others are everywhere in the mortal world. Don’t djinns, afrits and a hundred others plague the Raj?’
‘It’s all so odd,’ she looked around, almost as if she, like he, searched for signs of Isolde. ‘Why did you use yew to try and kill her… what was it that made you think it might work. Surely if she’s as omnipotent as you imply, she could arm herself against anything.’
He often wondered at this himself. Why yew above all other things? Why not the death mesmer? Because she was always quicker than me. I would have died, not her. ‘She always seemed touchy about yew. In her vast array of poisons there was not one jar of leaves or bag of bark or anything at all from the shrub. An ostler found my father’s yew staff in the stables when I was quite young. I remember she visibly shrank from it, wouldn’t touch it, her face paled and her eyes became as black as pitch when she looked at it. She had the ostler build a fire and burn it and then she instructed that the ashes be thrown over a cliff into the sea. It was such irrational behaviour from a woman who made calculated irrationality a conceivable artform.’
Lalita looked at him as if she were calculating his answer but she didn’t respon
d as a haunting cry cut through the humming and tweeting of the hill. Every hair on Finnian’s body stood on end as Lalita gasped, jumping up and grabbing onto the mare which had begin to pull back in fear.
‘What is that?’
‘It’s the Caointeach. She wails for someone about to die. She washes her bloody laundry by a stream and cries and thrashes about as a warning of death and doom. There will be a death before the hour is out. We must leave,’ he held out his hand and she took it, ‘come on. Mount up.’
‘Whose death, Finnian? Tell me. How close is it?’ She hitched up the girth and put her foot in the stirrup, springing aboard the circling mare.
‘Not us, it’s not near,’ was all he said. No not us, and quite far away, but perhaps my grandmother has found someone mortal who defies her, who blocks her way and she has taken a life.
He recalled the nightmare image of devastation that had plagued him in Fahsi, when Lalita and Eirie died. As he looked now, he imagined everything that surrounded him – the swallows, the horses, the landsman and his family – all prostrate and twisted in grim and painful death-throes. As if she read his mind, Lalita said, ‘If Isolde catches us, will the Caointeach cry for us?’
Not for me, no. Only for mortals. But in all likelihood the Caointeach will be dead also. My grandmother has never cared for harbingers of doom. But he said nothing to her. The wailing echoes had stirred the horses and Finnian’s gelding pranced to the other side of the hill’s crown, saving the need to answer. Lalita’s own horse bucked and spun but eventually she managed to join him as they looked down to spy a honey coloured manor amongst the ordered rows of the orchard. It basked in the sun’s golden wash and they saw a man with white hair, his clothing as black as a moonless night sky, his hand shielding his eyes as he looked up at them.
‘Is that the house, Finnian? Is that Killymoon?’ Her voice was breathless as she held onto her reins tightly.
‘No,’ he replied with certainty. ‘Killymoon is a stately home with the grandeur of nobility. But see now, if we go down this hill and feed through the third row from the bottom in the orchard, then we shall again be in mortal Trevallyn. Come on, we must make haste.’
‘How do you know about the orchard,’ she said. ‘I thought you had never been here before.’
‘Isolde rambled a lot and the rest I remember from her library.’ Thank Aine there is a memory because at the time I cared little.
The horses pranced one foot in front of the other as they negotiated the steep descent, their riders rolling in the saddle, leaning back from the sharp downhill angle. The hill was bare of anything but red-leafed trees that fluttered their ruby detritus to lie under the feet of the animals. Finnian twitched a rein and turned into the rows of fruit trees, bending the animal back and forth until the third last row was reached. Whereupon they urged their mounts to a ground-swallowing trot as they climbed up and down over the Barrow Hills, always heading southeasterly.
Chapter Eighteen
Lalita longed to see someone, anyone, just for a sight of life as they began to approach the outskirts of the woods of North Tamerton. But the way was deserted, a neverland of limitless verdancy to be sure, but as soulless as a graveyard. Her rear throbbed, the insides of her legs burned, and her hands clawed from holding the reins. Her spirit had thinned along with her confidence after her engagement with the Ganconer and the mistake of dropping the rowan staff.
But she would not tell Finnian. Her stomach had fluttered as the cries of the Caointeach faded into the hills and she thought for a minute that her companion would have been able to bend her across his arms and she’d break like a twig. She tried to inject fortitude into her thinking, grabbing at the memory of Kholi to inspire her. But I’m frightened. Frightened of this dark shadow that chases us, spreading across the sky like spilled bottles of ink.
As they passed off the foothills, more and more beech and oak crowded around them. The foliage cast lacy patterns on the forest floor and the horses’ hooves proceeded with muffled thuds along pathways edged with thick mosses and fern. The silence of the forest, with only the occasional chime of a bellbird, settled over them and Lalita resonated with aches and pains as she gazed around.
‘Finnian, look, there’s a stream and a copse. Say we can stop, please. The horses need water and nourishment and I’m tired beyond belief.’ She pulled the mare up and rubbed at the equine neck, the horse grabbing at the slack rein and stretching. It shook its whole body and rattled every bone in Lalita’s own. ‘You may find it tiresome but I’m not Other and as subject to discomfort as the next mortal. Even if Hamou Ukaiou were behind me, I can go no further.’ And with such a pronouncement, ignoring likely protest, she flicked her leg over the horse’s wither and slid down, groaning as if she were eighty in order to make her point.
But Finnian was vaguely equable, foraging for food – berries and some windfall apples. He shelled some almonds and fetched water for them both to drink, passing her a tin cup from the small array of goods he discovered in his saddlebag. ‘You should put on your jacket, it’s becoming chill.’
Her heart sank. ‘It’s at the glade. I’m sorry but we left so precipitously.’
‘No, Lalita!’
She knew he was seeing the crone, just as she was, bending over the jacket, almost sniffing it. It will be like a drag hunt, that’s what he’s thinking.
‘Rain,’ he cast a hand to the canopy above and a misty drizzle began to eke from the sky – mizzle that blotted scents away like stains off fabric. ‘We must have rain.’
‘I’m sorry. If I’d known, do you think I’d have left it deliberately? Anyone would think the old woman was the most malign in Eirie the way you react.’ Lalita snapped. ‘I wish you’d tell me what makes you so frightened. You’re Other, a Færan, apparently inviolable. You magick rain and you mesmer clothes out of air. Surely you can protect us against her.’
His face soured as she ranted but she continued on her abrasive way. ‘Besides, I told you the truth and you owe me the same. Surely it’s better for me to know what I face than to go into battle ignorant and unaware.’
He sat still, always so still. This unreadable quality was what Lalita hated the most. Finally he spoke without making eye contact at all. ‘Malign? Oh she is, Lalita. The most malignant in all of Eirie. And she is even more dangerous because I tried to kill her. Her anger at being defied almost unto death will know no bounds. She’ll think I seek the charms for myself. She has spies the length and breadth of the land – goblins, trows, djinns, afrits, foliots, all manner of wights who are in her thrall.’
Lalita sucked in a breath. Afrits! Have I been gulled by those I thought were my friends? Perhaps they are his grandmother’s lackeys. ‘But you don’t seek the charms for yourself do you, Finnian?’ The fragile trust stretched thinner between them as her confidence received another shake to its foundations.
Finnian took a breath. ‘This is a wretched, blood-spattered story of merrows and innocent men and babies, of whirlwind djinns and my own cowardice, Lalita. Brace yourself because if you didn’t like me before, there is no doubt you’ll hate me by the end of what I have to say.’
Lalita heard everything, every misbegotten detail; of the game with the captain, of drunken ego, of Finnian’s cowardly escape with the Black Madonnas. With each word he spoke, she alternated between sympathy and disgust. He told of his dream of the Moonlady and how she had offered him choices and a chance to redeem himself and Lalita said nothing of her own feelings one way or the other, instead quizzing him about other matters. ‘So this is just a magnaminous gesture to the world at large? You seeking the paperweights?’ She bit like a dog but she needed to push him, she needed her answers.
‘I seek them to prevent her from possession of them.’
‘That’s a bland answer, Finnian, very oblique. It could mean anything. If it is altruism then why didn’t you tell me back in Fahsi? Why be so secretive? We are after one and the same thing after all.’
‘You had already decided
I was untrustworthy. Imagine if I had told you everything.’
‘Well I could never condone your game with the Captain but you were not to know the merrow would kill the sailor or the djinn to cause the babe’s death.’ She rubbed at her arms, the chill of insecurity biting at her skin. ‘No wonder we have to carry charms and amulets against Others. What you’ve said sickens me… innocent lives.’
Finnian shrugged off his coat and placed it around her shoulders and despite her best efforts to the contrary, she relished the feel of his fingers as he lifted her falling hair away from the collar. ‘Tell me about your grandmother,’ she asked. ‘I can see pain in the back of your eyes, it obviously haunts you.’
He moved to sit in front of her, his face engraved with bitterness. ‘She’s been my guardian like your uncle and aunt since I was a babe.’
‘But why such appalling care of you?’
‘I was asked this not long since.’ He shifted. ‘I chose not to enlighten the last person, but with you…’ he gave a hollow laugh. ‘I have to, don’t I? I promised you the truth.’
She waited, afraid to cast one ripple upon the moment.
‘Isolde had two daughters,’ he continued. ‘And her husband, my grandfather, arranged for the eldest to marry my father. The woman died in childbirth – her bane perhaps, or perhaps it was his seed that was her bane. One or the other.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘Whispers. The kitchen staff gossiped and who pays attention to a scrawny child in the shadows? But to continue: my grandfather had met his own bane at this time and Isolde was absent on one of her questionable expeditions. To be sure there would have been a trail of despair and damage behind her, it is how she is known – killing, maiming, all in an uncontrolled instant. She has a reputation for darkness amongst the Færan. Whilst she was gone, my father seduced his sister-in-law my mother, and by the time Isolde returned her remaining daughter was my father’s wife. My mother successfully birthed a son, but being Isolde’s daughter, tired quickly of lying-in, taking her infant on a rade.’
