Firebrand

by Gillian Philip

  REBEL ANGELS

  BOOK ONE

  FIREBRAND

  GILLIAN PHILIP

  WWW.STRIDENTPUBLISHING.CO.UK

  Published by

  Strident Publishing Ltd

  22 Strathwhillan Drive

  The Orchard, Hairmyres

  East Kilbride G75 8GT

  Tel: +44 (0)1355 220588

  info@stridentpublishing.co.uk

  www.stridentpublishing.co.uk

  © Gillian Philip 2010

  The author has asserted her moral right under

  the Design, Patents and copyright Act, 1988

  to be identified as the Author of this Work.

  A catalogue record for this book is

  available from the British Library.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-905537-37-2

  The publisher acknowledges subsidy from the Scottish

  Arts Council towards the publication of this volume.

  Typeset in Bembo

  Designed by Sallie Moffat

  Cover by Lawrence Mann

  For Lucy and Jamie, as always

  and for Cherry Allsopp, with love

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One Ghost

  1 One

  2 Two

  3 Three

  4 Four

  5 Five

  6 Six

  7 Seven

  8 Eight

  9 Nine

  10 Ten

  Part Two Exile

  11 Eleven

  12 Twelve

  13 Thirteen

  14 Fourteen

  15 Fifteen

  16 Sixteen

  17 Seventeen

  18 Eighteen

  19 Nineteen

  20 Twenty

  Part Three Firebrand

  21 Twenty-One

  22 Twenty-Two

  23 Twenty-Three

  24 Twenty-Four

  25 Twenty-Five

  26 Twenty-Six

  27 Twenty-Seven

  28 Twenty-Eight

  29 Twenty-Nine

  30 Thirty

  31 Thirty-One

  32 Thirty-Two

  33 Thirty-Three

  34 Thirty-Four

  35 Thirty-Five

  36 Thirty-Six

  37 Thirty-Seven

  38 Thirty-Eight

  39 Thirty-Nine

  40 Forty

  Epilogue

  Book Two Bloodstone

  GILLIAN PHILIP was born in Glasgow and has been writing all her life, starting with short but frenetic novels about Captain Scarlet and The Man From UNCLE (having massive crushes on both). She has worked as a barmaid, theatre usherette, record store assistant, radio presenter, typesetter, and political assistant to a parliamentary candidate. While living in Barbados, where her steadiest job was as a singer in an Irish bar, she took up writing professionally, and wrote many short stories for women’s magazines. In 2001 she moved back to Scotland, and now lives in Morayshire with husband Ian, twins Lucy and Jamie, Cluny the Labrador, psycho cats The Ghost and The Darkness, and four nervous fish.

  Praise for Firebrand:

  ‘Once a year, a new novelist really blows me away. Last year it was Suzanne Collins with The Hunger Games. This year it’s Gillian Philip’s Firebrand…lf you have a child who adores Across the Nightingale Floor, Wolf Brother or even Twilight, this is the book for them…Firebrand is one of the very best. Like Alan Garner, she re-forges our national myths. Seth exudes a surly sexiness that girls will swoon over, but his rudeness, gutsiness and sense of humour make him as appealing to boys as the wild Scottish landscape through which he fights, hunts and rides for his life. Philip’s clear prose is as fiery as whiskey, but even as she makes you see atrocities through her hero, she springs clever shocks on the reader…This deserves prizes…The best fantasy novel of 2010.’

  Amanda Craig, The Times

  ‘Philip has created an utterly believable other world, where male and female are equals in arms. It is often stark and brutal but with moments of heartbreaking beauty. I haven’t enjoyed a book in this genre so much since Susan Price’s The Sterkarm Handshake.’

  Mary Hoffman, The Guardian

  ‘Wonderful. I wish I’d written it…Superb characterisation…[Firebrand is] often profound… I enjoyed every moment of reading it.’

  Susan Price, author of The Sterkarm Handshake, and winner of the Carnegie Medal

  ‘Everything fantasy should be: vital, charismatic characters; intensely personal stories; big, arching themes of power and greed, love and loyalty…And all about the terrible things people do to one another for the sake of a cause or ambition, so there’s plenty of crying to do…Superb…I’m blown away!’

  Jill Murphy, The Bookbag

  ‘Scottish fairy folk, sword fighting, 16th century history, witch burnings—my goodness, I loved this book!’

  Jennie Hood, Waterstone’s.com

  ‘One of the best faerie fantasy books I’ve ever read… Feral yet fiercely loyal Sithe hero, Seth, is a fully-imagined and fascinating character who I fell for immediately…Gillian Philip has taken her own mythic heritage and made it into something rare, new and infinitely exciting.’

  Lucy Coats, Scribble City Central

  ‘Vast in its magnitude…there are so many things about this book that make me crazy with love of it. Firstly, it is beautifully written…Secondly, the plot kept me on the edge of my seat the whole way through… Gillian Philip is a breath-taking writer who has taken a genre that is swimming with the mediocre and given it an awe-inspiring transformation and I worship her for it.’

  The Bookette

  This dabbling with the other world is a perilous undertaking.

  And I have risked a glamour which can only be exorcised by fire, by cold iron.

  Catherine Czerkawska

  The Secret Commonwealth

  THANKS

  A lot of people kept me going when Seth MacGregor was being his ever-difficult self, and I’m hugely grateful to everyone who read the manuscript and gave advice—in particular to Hilary Johnson, Michael Malone, Ruth Howell and Elaine Reid. Special thanks, though, are due to Linda Gillard, who rescued me from the pit of despond (and Seth from the fire) at a bad moment.

  I’m indebted to Catherine Czerkawska for help with historical research, and for her permission to use a quote from her play The Secret Commonwealth. David Worthington pointed me in the right direction for details of Scottish rural history.

  Some very kind Gaelic speakers helped me out. However, the Sithe have been living in another world for many centuries and have played fast and loose with a beautiful language—so any inaccuracies, inconsistencies and plain old errors are entirely down to them (oh, and to me). I should add that in his lazy way, Seth tends to anglicise when he can get away with it.

  I’m so grateful to the wonderful people at Strident Publishing—Keith, Graham, Alison and Sallie. Any author who has been lucky enough to work with them knows how supportive, enthusiastic and just plain lovely they are.

  Finally, as always, I thank Ian, Jamie and Lucy for their endless patient tolerance while I’ve been away with the faeries. I owe one of you many drinks, and the other two an awful lot of Happy Meals and cinema visits. (Within reason.) You’re the tops.

  THE courtyard stinks of animals and muck and human waste. And wasted humans, I can’t help thinking, because beneath the stench and the louring sunset sky lies the taint of death, like a stain that can’t be shifted. My brother isn’t the first to die here, and he won’t be the last.

  I rub my filthy arm across my nose, and then across my eyes because they’re blurred and I can’t see properly. Then I shut them altogether and curl up against the parapet. I want to be a
hundred miles away, but what use would I be to Conal then? Anyway, the hideous weight of the crossbow in my arms can’t be ignored. I hate crossbows, I always have: a horrible weapon, brutal and distant, and I’ve never liked to touch them or even look at them. It’s as if I was born knowing I’ve an appointment with one that I’m not going to want to keep.

  I sniff and rub my eyes again, wishing I could be more of a man, wishing I wasn’t so afraid. I’m sixteen years old, more than old enough to kill and die, a lot older than I was when I watched my father die, hacked almost to bits and still scrabbling for a last breath. His death couldn’t be avoided and neither can this one. What’s the point of premature grief?

  My eyes jerk open. A clattering rattle of wheels on flagstones, and I glance over my shoulder. This is a good vantage point, but I’ll likely be seen as soon as I fire, and I’ll have to be fast to get down the tower walls and away. I can’t think about that, not now. The mob that so far has been muted, only muttering with the day’s excitement, now raise their voices as one, turning as if by black magic into a single howling beast. I make myself look. And I gasp.

  That isn’t my brother, it can’t be. That is not Cù Chaorach, Hound of the Sheep, Father of his Clann. He’s never been so thin. His face is half-blackened and bloody, his hair is gone, sheared roughly off. His shirt is ripped and frayed and through the gashes in the linen I can see the bloody marks of a lash on his back.

  Oh, no. No. The girl is with Conal. She can’t be any older than me, and she’s taken a few beatings too, poor cow. I’ve never seen such bruised terror in a human face, and she is weeping uncontrollably. Their hands are bound but Conal’s shoulder is pressed hard against hers, and when they’re yanked apart and thrust down from the cart, he quickly recovers his footing and presses close to her once more. There’s a dark stain on her filthy grey shift: she’s wet herself. And my brother, the great noble fool, is all concern for her, when she’s one of them, and in slightly altered circumstances she’d have been howling at him with the rest of the mob.

  He turns his face to hers, his lips move. It’s all rubbish, probably. He’s telling her it’ll be over quickly, she needn’t be scared. The liar.

  Gods, Conal, you’re going to want me to fire twice. Do I have time?

  I can’t do this alone, I was never any use without him. I can’t stop myself calling out to him.

  ~ Conal!

  Conal goes very still, but he doesn’t look up. As he whispers to the girl once more a smile spreads across his wounded face, a smile of pure happiness.

  ~ Seth!

  ‘Look at the warlock, he’s grinning!’ Something flies out of the crowd and strikes Conal’s cheekbone, making him stagger. ‘Happy, scum? You’ll be seeing your Master soon!’

  ‘Aye, not soon enough!’ Raucous laughter. ‘See if he smiles when he’s burning!’

  ‘The Satan-spawn won’t smile when he’s burning in Hell!’

  Hatred rushes over me in such a hot violent tide I’m dizzy with it. It’s the tail-end of the sixteenth century, for gods’ sake: when do these people plan to evolve?

  My fingers tighten on the crossbow. Then I can feel his mind inside mine, soothing, reassuring, the way it’s been since I was a feral snarling infant and he tamed me.

  ~ Murlainn. Little brother. Don’t lose your focus!

  ~ Conal, I can’t fire twice! I haven’t time!

  ~ Yes, you have. Don’t panic. Turning his face briefly to the girl, Conal manages to kiss her hacked and shorn scalp before she is yanked away and hauled up onto the pile of firewood.

  ~ She’s nothing to us. She’s one of them!

  Conal’s head angles very slightly upwards, as if he’d like to look right at me and give me a real piece of his mind. I see the flicker of a smile.

  ~ She has a name, Seth.

  I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know her damned name. I’m here for Conal.

  ~ Catriona. Her name’s Catriona. His eyes almost find mine across the hazy dusk, and he half-smiles. And with that he knows I’ll do it. He must have known I’d do it anyway. I’d do anything for him.

  He’s dragged up behind her and bound to the same stake, ropes tightened around them both. He strains his fingers enough to touch the girl’s, and he’s speaking to her again, but I doubt she can hear him above the noise of the baying crowd. The pale-eyed priest steps forward, robes billowing, a black crow hungry for carrion. He stays in the long shadow of the courtyard wall; I notice that. Smiling, he raises his bible.

  ~ Be calm, Seth. Hands steady, both eyes open, remember.

  ~ Conal, I…

  ~ I love you, little brother. I’ll see you again, I promise.

  Oh, no, we’ll never meet again. I stare down at the priest, his ringing declamations of hatred raised above the yells of the mob. Not in that devil’s heaven. It doesn’t exist, and worse, there’s no hell for him to go to after he’s died screaming at my hands.

  That’s my promise, Cù Chaorach.

  But I don’t let Conal hear it. I block it coldly away, because he wouldn’t approve, even now. My hands are steady now; my hatred helps a lot. I’m glad I don’t have time to shoot the priest as well. A bolt to the heart would be too fast.

  ~ I love you, Cù Chaorach. I’m sorry.

  ~ I’m glad you’re here. Don’t be sorry. Be quick.

  I roll onto my stomach. I won’t be seen; I do have time. No one’s looking upwards toward my hiding place, no one wants to miss a moment of the spectacle. Probably they’ll take a while to realise what’s happened in the confusion. I may hate crossbows but I’m good with them: he taught me himself. I can get in two shots. I can reload, fire, and still get away. Yes.

  I level my gaze and aim. The girl first, so she’ll know nothing, and so Conal will know I’ve done it and be pleased with me.

  And then, Conal. My brother, my friend, my Captain. My father in every way that ever mattered. Oh, please, you nonexistent gods, please give me the strength.

  Two men step from behind the priest, blazing torches held high.

  That’s it. I blink away the sweat and the tears and the terror. And my mind is as cold as my heart as I tighten my finger on the trigger.

  PART ONE

  GHOST

  1

  ONE

  You deal with him.

  That was the first and last communication my mother ever had with my father about me. My father was more surprised than angry when my mother’s emissary rode through the dun gates with a sullen brat on a pony behind him and an expression of pained endurance on his face. The man had ridden three days with me and I’d made sure they were the longest three days of his life. He was so glad to see the back of me, he didn’t even take bed and board from Griogair for the night; he stayed for one meal and a very stiff drink, then turned right round and rode back the way he came. I hope Lilith made it worth his while.

  Even later my father was never angry about it. He wasn’t involved enough for that; at most he was mildly irritated. Deep down I’m sure he wasn’t convinced of my existence, that he thought I was just one more of Lilith’s illusions.

  My stepmother believed in me, all right. I used to feel Leonora’s cold blue gaze like frost on my skin, and if I looked up, she wouldn’t look away. She was the only one who didn’t. The rest of the clann averted their eyes, as if I was a colossal embarrassment. Well, that’s what I was, so as soon as it became clear Griogair wasn’t going to embrace me as his long-lost heir, they adopted the policy of pretending I didn’t exist. The small band of children took more of an interest, the older ones freezing me out or taunting me at best, and giving me thrashings at worst. The younger ones ran from me: I made sure they did.

  But my stepmother didn’t bully me or fear me or ignore me. She watched me. I thought it quite likely she’d eventually kill me, but I never could read Leonora’s eyes, let alone her mind. It wasn’t that she felt threatened by me; she wasn’t threatened by anyone. I’d watched her and my father together and I’m sure he never sm
iled at my mother like that, or touched her so gently, or spoke so tenderly. Certainly he never treated me that way. If he caught sight of me his brow would furrow and he’d set his teeth and look exasperated, as if I was a reminder of some great mistake, a souvenir he couldn’t get rid of. Leonora? All I could ever make out in her was pity and a degree of contempt, and I hated her for it. I’d have liked to hate my father too, but I couldn’t. All I ever wanted was his love, or if I couldn’t have that, his notice would do.

  I never had a chance.

  But my mother sent me back to him anyway. She was living at court by then, an adviser to the queen: oh, her exile had brought her up in the world. From being Griogair Dubh’s afterthought lover, she’d risen to be one of the most powerful courtiers in Kate NicNiven’s halls. What she didn’t need was a truculent attention-seeking toe-rag who was always getting into trouble, calling the captains names and the courtiers worse ones, getting thrashed on a regular basis and generally being an embarrassment. So she sent me back to Griogair.

  I liked it better with my father anyway. The women of our race don’t do motherhood well, it’s a known fact, so I didn’t really miss Lilith, not after a while. Sithe women make wonderful fighters, wise and wily counsellors. If they’re healers or smiths they do it well; when they’re witches they excel at witchcraft. What they do not excel at is motherhood. It’s not something that happens easily, we’re not a fertile race; maybe that’s where those ridiculous stories come from, the ones about us being baby-stealers. Let me tell you, our women can barely tolerate their own brats, let alone someone else’s. Our women don’t yearn for children, because what’s the point mourning for centuries over something that may never happen? Instead they harden themselves, and even if they do breed they never quite shake off that hardness. Anyway, some of them don’t even take lovers, the loss of their virginity is so physically painful. Must be, to stay loverless for centuries.