Firebrand

by Gillian Philip

  But that night, when Kate announced it was dying, Conal was the only one who looked shocked. Did he ever.

  ‘It’s failing? Why, I had no idea, Kate.’ Leonora’s voice dripped sarcasm. ‘Is there a point to this?’

  Conal interrupted, voice shaking. ‘What do you mean, the end of its life?’

  Leonora flapped her fingers dismissively. ‘It has centuries left, dear. Don’t fret.’

  ‘Centuries?’ he began, then in his horror turned to Griogair. ‘Centuries isn’t enough!’

  ‘Well, of course it isn’t,’ said his mother irritably.

  Griogair was watching Conal very intently, partly I think so that his gaze wouldn’t stray to Lilith. ‘Your mother will find a means of reinforcing the Veil, Cù Chaorach. Anything else is unthinkable.’

  ‘Unthinkable? The death of an entire world? That’s one way of putting it, athair.’ Conal stared at each of them in turn. ‘Perhaps we should be thinking about it?’

  ‘Your father’s told you, dear. I already am.’

  I think it stung me more than it stung Conal, the way Leonora still treated him like a little boy.

  ‘Besides,’ interrupted Kate smoothly. ‘There’s a third way.’

  Griogair looked at her askance.

  Leonora said, ‘Meaning?’

  Kate paused for effect, bestowing her smile on each of them in turn.

  ‘We could get rid of it.’

  The silence was so complete, so oppressive, I was afraid to breathe. I only realised then how warm the night was. The candles and torches didn’t gutter at all. Beyond the walls of the dun a night bird screamed, and the raven cocked its head to listen.

  Kate went on smiling in her open, innocent way. Conal had gone white. Leonora and Lilith both looked at Kate, but they wore strikingly different expressions.

  At last Griogair gave a brief explosive laugh. ‘Don’t be a fool, Kate.’

  The queen’s smile vanished like the moon behind a cloud. Her breathing grew rapid, her eyes cold, but she didn’t reply.

  ‘Now, why would we want to do that, Kate?’ Leonora turned to pour a whisky, and handed it to Conal. He looked as if he needed it.

  Kate shrugged one elegant shoulder. ‘Because it will die one day whatever we do.’

  ‘That’s not unavoidable, I think. And why would we hurry along its death?’

  ‘Because its death can work to our advantage. Isn’t that obvious?’

  Conal laughed sharply. ‘You’re mad.’

  She turned on him the same look she’d given Griogair. I don’t think the woman had much of a sense of humour.

  ‘The otherworlders are weak,’ Lilith broke in. ‘Compared to us, they’re cripples.’

  ‘And what a lot of those cripples there are,’ murmured my father.

  ‘I believe we are outnumbered by our own cattle, Griogair.’

  ‘Lilith, what a perfect metaphor!’ laughed Kate, as if they hadn’t agreed on it earlier. ‘They’d be as malleable as beasts. We could have unimaginable power over the full-mortals, were the worlds to fuse.’

  ‘Fuse? They wouldn’t fuse,’ snapped Conal. The whisky glass trembled in his hand. ‘This is the world that was made separate by the foremothers. This one will die.’

  ‘And so would we,’ said Leonora. ‘As you well know, Kate.’

  I didn’t see the look Kate gave Leonora then; her face was angled away from me. But I did see Leonora pale. I’d almost swear she flinched, if it was possible. But she recovered fast.

  ‘The full-mortals have free will, just as we do,’ said Conal, and took a gulp of whisky. ‘They’d be free to kill us. It’s their world and without the Veil we’d be at their mercy. You can’t mould the mind of a people.’

  ‘We wouldn’t have to,’ smiled Lilith. ‘Only a few key ones.’

  ‘Tchah. You’d need absolute unanimity among the Sithe,’ said Griogair dryly. ‘And when did you last hear of that?’

  ‘She won’t get unanimity, and for a good reason.’ Licking her fingertips, Leonora began to extinguish the candles, and the raven flapped down to her wrist. ‘If you’re so keen to be loved and obeyed and worshipped by the full-mortals, Kate, why not go there? Try it for a while. See how you get along.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Leonora, as you very well know.’ There was something vicious and resentful in Kate’s tone now.

  ‘And that’s why you need to destroy the Veil, dear.’ Leonora smirked. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘And you? You’d rather wait for it to die? When our options will have narrowed to nothing? Destroy it now and we can rule them. If it lives on, even as a motheaten old shroud, we cannot begin to have the influence we need. And Cù Chaorach, you’re young and strong and you shouldn’t be so nervous. We’ve interacted with the otherworlders for as long as we’ve existed.’

  ‘And always had a place to run to when they saw us clearly, saw what we were, when they grew afraid of us. When they tried to wipe us out.’ Leonora’s damp fingers hissed on another flame, and it died, and the blue shadows deepened at the corner of my vision. ‘Your way, Kate, we’d have nowhere to run. Cù Chaorach’s right. It would be the death of our race and you know it.’

  ‘Leonora, you’re too dramatic. I wouldn’t suggest this if I thought we would suffer.’

  ‘You wouldn’t suffer. Would you?’

  Kate drew herself up. ‘Why would I seek to destroy my own people?’

  Leonora shrugged. ‘Because you’re bored?’

  If anything passed between their minds after that, I don’t know what it was. I didn’t understand about the Veil, and I was desperate to ask Conal, but I was terrified to let down my block for fear of detection. All I wanted now was for the terrible silence to be over, for the last flames to die to cold night, for them all to leave so that I could too.

  At last Kate nodded and said. ‘Very well. I’m not going to change your mind, am I?’

  ‘No,’ said Leonora.

  ‘I accept that. I have to, don’t I?’ Kate rose and stretched sleepily. ‘I can’t destroy the Veil without you, Leonora. Ah, well. I still think it was a fine idea. But perhaps a little ahead of its time.’

  ‘It isn’t going to have a time, dear.’

  Kate laughed a genuine laugh. ‘Goodnight, Leonora.’

  I let my breath out very slowly. Kate accepted another kiss from Griogair, and an extremely restrained one from Conal, and then she and Lilith were drifting in a cloud of scent and silk from the anteroom. When the heavy wooden door had clunked shut behind them, the raven cawed derisively and hopped back to its chair. Leonora extended her hand to Griogair, ready to turn and smile her goodnight at Conal.

  ‘Mother,’ he snarled.

  Leonora turned, wide-eyed, and lifted her fingers to her perfect mouth.

  ‘The Veil’s dying?’ he hissed. ‘And you couldn’t even tell me?’

  ‘Darling. Of course it isn’t dying!’

  ‘Leonora!’ barked Griogair.

  ‘Ah. All right.’ Leonora gave him a tiny sheepish smile before turning back to Conal. ‘Not yet, dear. And there will be a way to prevent its death. I’ve heard, er…rumours. There’s something that could mend the Veil, restore its strength. A talisman, a charm…’

  ‘Rumours?’ he snapped. ‘A prophecy, you mean. From that barking old soothsayer again? Mother, for gods’ sake. Blink and it’ll be the seventeenth century.’

  ‘Conal. Such a cynic! I’ll find a way to preserve the Veil, and in plenty of time.’

  ‘What? Before Kate finds a way to kill it?’

  ‘She wouldn’t dare,’ said Leonora, and placed her hand in Griogair’s demanding one. ‘She hasn’t the knowledge, any more than I do. And truly? She wouldn’t dare.’

  I didn’t like the way she said that twice.

  5

  FIVE

  ‘Is my name Greenarse?’

  I spat the words with a degree of bitterness, but only because I was afraid. What if it was my name and I just wasn’t recognising it? If that was
the name I had to take through my life, I decided I’d just kill myself now.

  Conal was staring at me, his hand stilled, the comb halfway through his horse’s glossy mane and caught on a tangle. There was disbelief in his eyes, but suddenly he laughed.

  ‘You daft greenarse! Of course it isn’t your name!’

  His ridicule galled a little, but it was reassuring. I knew he wouldn’t lie to me, and he wouldn’t even laugh at me unless he absolutely couldn’t help it. I said, ‘So when do I get one?’

  ‘A name?’ He shrugged, and pulled the comb out of the mane. ‘When it’s found.’

  ‘Why can’t you find it now? Or just give me one?’

  ‘Not how it works. You know that fine.’

  ‘Eili and Sionnach have their names,’ I muttered.

  ‘It’s all they do have. They’ve been Eilid and Sionnach almost since they were born. You’re more, um…complicated.’

  I didn’t want to be that complicated. I wanted my name.

  He sighed. ‘Look at it this way, you’re lucky. You’ll always have two names. Like me. Nobody remembers the birth names Eili and Sionnach were given.’

  ‘Everybody else has their true names too.’

  ‘No, they don’t. Nobody knows my mother’s.’

  That’s because she’s a witch, I thought, but I didn’t say it.

  ‘I heard that, greenarse.’ But he grinned. ‘And Griogair didn’t get his name till he was older than I am now.’

  ‘Griogair has a name?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Is that right? Did you use it the other night, in the antechamber? Just between you and him?’

  His spine stiffened, and his eyes iced over. ‘I’m surprised you have the nerve to mention it, you little greenarse. Yes, I used his name.’

  Shamed by his anger, I hesitated, but only for a moment. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Griogair’s name?’ Conal too paused, biting his lip as if afraid he’d gone far enough in hurting me. ‘Fitheach.’

  Oh. In a moment of violent, unbearable resentment, I wondered if that was why Leonora kept a pet raven: so she’d have a matching pair.

  I said, ‘Nobody else uses his name.’

  Sighing, Conal tapped his temple. ‘In here we do. We all do.’

  So I was the only one in the dun who hadn’t known my own father’s name. Sometimes I thought I was going to spend my whole life feeling galled. To hell with it, and to hell with the mighty Raven. It wasn’t as if I loved him or anything.

  I loved Conal, of course, with an unswerving loyalty, but I still envied him. I did envy him Griogair’s love. I envied him Eili’s hero-worship. And I envied him that horse.

  I wanted the creature with a longing that was physically painful, and Conal knew it. He knew too that I knew I could never have it, and maybe he felt a little sorry for me, because once it grew used to me and I proved I could handle it, he would let me feed and groom it, though I could never ride it, not without him on its back at the same time. I knew what that horse was, I knew even before I mixed my first feed for it and saw the skinned and quartered hare laid out ready. There was no mistaking the black eyes, lightless and flat like a deadly fish. More than once, when it was impatient or irritated, I saw its gills flap out from its cheekbone to expose spongy red flesh. Unsurprisingly, the stablehands wouldn’t go near it, but that was superstition; Conal was in control of it, after all. He had its bridle.

  Not that having its bridle was the same as mastering it. Most days I had its bridle to clean, as Conal did the grooming, and I still wouldn’t have dared ride the animal alone. I loved cleaning the bridle just as I loved honing Conal’s sword, because the one was as beautiful as the other. The bridle was soft black leather, the buckles and bit solid silver, and its noseband and cheekpiece were chased with an elaborate silver inlay. Cleaning it was a lot of work, but I guarded the chore with a snarling possessive pride. I refused to let any of the stablehands touch the thing.

  Conal was watching me as he brushed his horse’s glossy black flank. Snorting fondly, it swung its head round to nibble at his hair. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of that?’ he said.

  ‘No.’ I scraped at a fold of leather with my thumbnail.

  ‘I mean,’ he said patiently, ‘doing my work.’

  I stiffened. I was not his skivvy, and for him to say so implied that deep down, he imagined I thought I was. Complex and tetchy, I know, but my pride was all I had.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, reading my mind. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  I glared at him, and sighing, he laid down the brush and shoved his shirt sleeves up to his elbows. Like all the fighters, his forearms were scarred with defensive wounds, and now he scratched idly at a recent scab from a swordplay accident. His scars weren’t what caught my eye, though. I couldn’t tear my gaze from what glinted on his left wrist. The thing was exquisite, she’d finished and polished it beautifully. She’d made a lovely job of it.

  His hands stilled as he realised. Then he tugged down his sleeve, futilely and too late, over the silver rope torque.

  ‘Seth,’ he said, and nipped his lip. ‘She’s thirteen years old. She’s infatuated, that’s all.’

  I stood up, flung the bridle at him, and stormed out.

  ‘Seth, stop!’

  I walked faster.

  ‘Seth!’ There was anger in his voice, overcoming his remorse. ‘You’re in love with nothing but hatred!’

  I half-turned only to spit on the ground. Once out of the dun gates, I ran.

  I sprinted across heather and through the shining serpentine patterns of the outgoing tide. I scrambled up small rock faces and along beaten paths, the black cattle thundering panicked out of my way. I didn’t stop running till I was empty of breath and all care, till I was on the crest of the rock outcrop that overlooked the bay. Lying on my stomach, the stone rough and hard beneath me, I glowered at the blue shimmering horizon and the silken curve of the sea. With a yell of frustration I punched the rock, punched it again, then ground my knuckles till I felt the broken skin tear and rip. It still didn’t hurt enough, so I raised my fist high to bring it down as hard as I could.

  Halfway to the rock my wrist was caught in a hard grip.

  ‘Don’t break your sword hand, you little fool.’

  My blood thundered in my eardrums, and my wrist trembled in his grasp as he crouched and glared into my eyes. I couldn’t tear my hand away; he was too strong, and I was too unbalanced by anger. The clash of minds was almost painful.

  ‘Shush,’ he said at last. ‘Shush.’

  Like he was talking to his horse, his wild mad demonhorse. And just like his horse, I found myself calming down, my heartbeat slowing, my breath easing in my aching lungs. He relaxed his grip on my hand as he examined it, then tugged a handful of moss from the boggy ground, pressing it to my bruised and skinned knuckles. It felt wet and cool, as soothing as his touch, and I shut my eyes in case I was going to cry.

  ‘You little idiot,’ he said again, more gently.

  I didn’t care how often he called me a fool; it was the rest of it that was like a shard of steel in my chest. Perhaps it was the truth in them, but I had no idea words could hurt just like a blade.

  ‘Hell, Seth, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said that, it was stupid. It’s not true. You’ve a right to hate more than you do.’

  Falling silent, he sat down beside me, and I dragged myself up to sit next to him, letting him dab my hand with the wet moss. The torque slipped up and down his wrist as he cleaned away the blood, and he watched me watching it.

  ‘I’d give it to you,’ he said at last, ‘but it isn’t what you want, is it?’

  I shook my head.

  The autumn sun was warm and I was so tired now, but it was fine, he didn’t seem to expect me to speak. When he let my hand go, the silence between us was easy again. A last bee blundered in the heather, blades of grass quivered in a tiny breeze, a buzzard keened in the updraft. Drowsy, I found myself leaning against Conal’s should
er, but he didn’t make the mistake of putting an arm round me, so I didn’t pull away. We stared out at the shining horizon and the islands, suspended above the firth in a crystal sky.

  ‘You’re a good fighter,’ he said at last, quite casually. ‘You need to control yourself but you’re good. You need to work on your short sword. Eorna can help you with that, and the crossbow. Oh, you put up a good mind block, by the way, but sometimes it’s a little crude. Too obvious. I was terrified for you the other night. Get Eili to teach you her tricks, will you?’

  I turned to stare at him, but he had lifted my hand again, and was examining it very intently. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I asked.

  Sighing, he pressed the damp moss against my skin. It felt warm now, the same temperature as my blood.

  ‘I have to go away, Seth.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have to go. Kate’s called on me, she’s requested me from Griogair. It’s not really a request, by the way. I have to go and be one of her captains now.’

  ‘She can’t do that!’ I yelled.

  Conal laughed wryly. ‘She can do what she likes, Seth. She’s our queen.’

  ‘Only by consent!’ As if I knew anything about politics.

  ‘She has it,’ he pointed out.

  ‘She can’t do this,’ I moaned again, trying desperately to think why not. ‘Alasdair Kilrevin is planning raids, everybody knows it. Griogair needs you.’

  ‘Griogair can deal with Kilrevin by himself,’ said Conal. ‘He always does.’

  Pulling away from him, I turned to look at him properly. ‘What’s the witch up to?’

  ‘That’s enough.’ He met my eyes. ‘Forget what you saw, Seth, forget what you heard. Kate had a wild thought, and a wilder idea: monarchs do. That’s why they have counsellors, to talk them back to reality. That’ll be one of my own duties now. Griogair was her captain and her counsellor in his time, and now it’s my turn. Don’t be always angry at your rulers, Seth. There’s no point. It would drive you mad.’