Firebrand

by Gillian Philip

  There were compensations to exile, though. Even the otherworld’s open air was better than Kate’s skyless halls, and the spring that followed our first winter was a lovely one, as if to make up for the months of relentless hardship. It brought a new snow, one of gean blossom and hawthorn, and a dazzle of yellow whin heaped on every verge and hillside.

  By the time spring came I could appreciate that some of the girls were good-looking, too. Not with the delicate fierce loveliness of Sithe girls, but they had a blunt charm and an earthy outlook on life that appealed to me.

  I was downright offended that none of them took the least notice of me.

  When I’d come out of my furious sulk at Kate—I was far more indignant on Conal’s behalf than he was himself—I tried to settle down and enjoy the otherworld. That didn’t seem possible without the company and friendship of women. Unfortunately, none of the women seemed to require mine.

  I didn’t understand it. I wasn’t a troll, I looked like Conal. Conal was considered beautiful even among the Sithe—but then the full-mortal girls took no more interest in him than in me. Once or twice I saw a girl in the stinking clachan take a second look, and smile and edge towards him, but if her friends or her mother called out to her she’d be easily distracted and you could see that he’d drifted quickly out of her consciousness.

  It didn’t bother him. He seemed amused, and it was much the same with his work. Among the Sithe Conal wasn’t regarded as much of a smith, but he could fashion basic weapons and tools, and he was clever and inventive when it came to mending things. Nor was he a true-born healer, but he knew as much about herbs and roots and the setting of bones as any of us, and so one way or another his services were in regular demand.

  But none of his customers struck up a friendship. If we saw, say, a farmer in the inn of an evening, he’d never acknowledge Conal, even though he’d sung his praises earlier in the day for a cured horse or a soothed infant or a mended plough blade. You’d think Conal had simply slipped from memory, just as he did with the girls. Even the priest would arch his winged brows in surprise when Conal struck up a conversation with him.

  My brother at last took pity, and broke the truth to me one frustrating day when I’d finally managed to catch the eye of a girl in the clachan. Some of them, washing plaids with their bare feet in the burn, had been laughing in their raucous way and flirting with the boys. My favourite was the quietest one, a girl with a long black braid and solemn green eyes and a slight sceptical smile. I’d noticed her before, and thought I could like her. Now here she was, courted by boys who were ruddy-faced and crude-boned and fatuous, and I couldn’t bear the wound to my vanity. Sidling into the group, I grinned at my black-haired girl and dragged her sodden plaid from the water. Skirts still hitched up, slim bare legs red with cold, she rewarded me with her half-amused smile, and I felt a jolt of lust.

  ‘Well, hello!’ said one of the others. ‘And aren’t you the handsome one? Where did you spring from?’

  A red-haired boy gave me a filthy look.

  ‘Ach, you ken him,’ said another girl. ‘He’s aye up at the smith’s.’

  ‘Oh aye, I do.’ Critically the first girl examined me. ‘The smith’s brother.’

  ‘The quiet one. You know what they say about quiet ones!’

  I was still most interested in the cool black-haired girl, but I was enjoying the unaccustomed attention from all of them. ‘So tell me what they say?’

  ‘Seth.’ Conal’s hand was on my shoulder. ‘A word.’ Smiling at the girls, he tapped his finger lightly against his temple in a clear insult either to my sanity or to my intelligence.

  He drew me away, and as I glanced back over my shoulder I saw that not one of them was watching us go. Their attention was back on the skinny red-haired lad and his short ugly sidekick. I lingered resentfully, but Conal pulled me on.

  ‘They’ve forgotten you, and just as well. Drink?’

  I was livid. ‘I was getting somewhere with her, Cù Chaorach. What are we, monks?’

  ‘Chaster than monks,’ he grinned. ‘If you know what’s good for you.’

  ‘The first girls who take any notice of me,’ I said bitterly, ‘and you drag me off them. It’s not easy, you know. They’ve strange tastes. They like their men like the back end of a horse.’

  Laughing, Conal shoved me towards the inn. ‘It isn’t that. It’s not your fault. You’re a smouldering ball of sex and good looks, all right? Now shut up and have a drink and forget your precious extremities.’

  I laughed too, I couldn’t help it. ‘You’re buying.’

  ‘Course I am. Listen, I mean it. They can’t see you, Seth. Not really see you.’

  I gave him a dark look.

  ‘It’s true. It’s because of the Veil.’ He held up his hands mockingly.

  ‘That’s nothing but a skin between the worlds,’ I said.

  ‘It’s that, but it’s also your protection. On this side of it…well, the Veil doesn’t hide us, but it’s camouflage. We’re easy to forget. We slip from their minds like a fistful of water.’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘They know we’re there, but they won’t take an interest.’

  ‘I see.’ I thought for a moment. ‘That would explain a lot.’

  The inn was dark and woodsmoky, like every other hut in the clachan. It was there, theoretically, for the drovers of the north, stopping for the night on their way further south. They drank and they passed on news; they rested their ponies and their cattle, whether honestly traded or thieved; and they moved on the next day to more promising markets. But the locals haunted the inn too, trading in gossip, and dreich fiddle tunes, and a few hours’ respite from grim lives. A woman from the lowlands rented the place, and made some kind of business of it: who knew how she’d ended up here with wild Highlanders? They gathered here to buy or barter good ale, and bad whisky, and forgetfulness. The place stank of alcohol and exhausted hopes.

  ‘Listen, Murlainn.’ Setting a flask of whisky on the rough table, Conal dug me in the ribs. ‘Don’t get the wrong idea about the Veil. Don’t go thinking you can get away with murder. You’re inconspicuous, not invisible. Right?’

  ‘You might have told me this earlier.’

  ‘You found out, didn’t you?’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t think you’d like it.’

  ‘I’ll live. So what am I supposed to do? Lie back and think of Orach?’

  He smiled. ‘You could do worse. We won’t be here forever.’

  I wished now I hadn’t made the remark. It felt like a deception of Conal, and a betrayal of Orach. To change the subject I said, ‘Couldn’t we just…’

  ‘What?’

  I glanced around at peasants who were no better than slaves to their clan chief. There were worse lairds; I’m sure there were better. In the dimness of the inn, men sat and stared into their filthy cups, beaten down by work, and work, and more work, for no reward that I could see but survival. And their women worked harder, for less pleasure.

  I loathed them and pitied them. Where was their wild-hearted music and their dancing and their joy in breathing the world’s air?

  ‘We could make it better for them,’ I said. ‘We could improve them. We could…we could change their minds.’

  Conal took his time filling our dirty tumblers with whisky. At last he took a mouthful, and cuffed my cheek gently.

  ‘That’s beneath you, Murlainn.’

  ‘Nothing is beneath me.’ I regretted that too, as soon as it was out. He’d stuck a thorn in my pride, but I’d let myself be provoked, and my words reeked of self-pity.

  ‘They have free will just like we do. Why shouldn’t they keep it?’

  ‘Much good it does them.’ I snorted.

  ‘Look, how strong do you think your mind would have to be? You can influence one or two, if you’re clever. Twist a perception, adjust a memory. Whether you should or not…’ He shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why not? When we’re better than they are?’
<
br />   I saw the temper flash in his eyes. ‘Sometimes I despair of you. Better, you call yourself? Go ahead and fight people with your mind, if they can fight back. If they know what you’re doing, why not? Otherwise it’s as honourable as taking your sword to an unarmed man. You want to be like Kate, or your mother?’ He nodded at the surly-mouthed drinkers. ‘Kate wants to manipulate their minds. She wants to rule them, to own the otherworld.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she, then?’ I muttered, ‘Gets her own way with everything else.’

  ‘Can’t.’ He grinned again, I was relieved to see. ‘That’s why she wants rid of the Veil. She’s got the strength in her head to control a mob, even a nation. But not if they can’t see her.’

  ‘And she’s no more conspicuous than the rest of us?’ I said.

  ‘Quite. She wants to be seen, she’d love to be loved by them, but she doesn’t know how to destroy the Veil. That’s beyond even her, thank the gods.’

  I communed with the gods as little as I could. ‘Why?’

  ‘Remember what Leonora said, that night you came spying? It’s true, we need the Veil. The full-mortals are easily whipped to fear, and from there it’s only a step to hatred. Destroy the Veil, you destroy the Sithe. In the end you do.’ He shook his head. ‘I like to think Kate doesn’t understand that. Hasn’t thought it through, you know? Why would she do such a thing to her own people?’

  ‘Cause she fancies some full-mortal boy?’ I thought about the pretty girl in the marketplace, and my groin ached. ‘I’m with Kate.’

  It was supposed to be a joke. Partly. But his voice was frosty when he said, ‘You’re my brother, Murlainn. I want you on my side.’

  I stared at him. I could barely believe he would even question it.

  ‘Always,’ I said. ‘I will always be your bondsman, Cù Chaorach. I’ll never let you down.’

  He glanced up, searching my eyes, then gave me a troubled smile.

  ‘I know that, Murlainn,’ he said. ‘I know that.’

  12

  TWELVE

  ‘Ah, your brother. He’s hard on you, isn’t he? I think perhaps he has to be, my beautiful boy.’

  I blinked at my filthy whisky, then raised my glass to eye the speaker through its murky filter.

  So I’d finally been noticed. And she thought I was beautiful. Unfortunate, then, that my new admirer was the old crone who ran the place. She was leaning on the chair Conal had left five minutes ago to do some business with the miller. I’d stayed to sulk. It seemed ironic that I couldn’t now get any peace to do it.

  Her name was Sinclair. Her principal business was the brewing of ale, but she also paid men to turn beremeal into whisky up in the hills. The laird turned a blind eye, or he simply didn’t care, or the arrangement suited him as well as it did everyone else.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘What do you want?’

  She sniffed and gave me a haughty look, but pulled out Conal’s chair and slumped down anyway, leaning her bare sinewy arms on the table. ‘Too old for you, am I? And here was me thinking you wouldn’t be that fussy, seeing as you never have a girl in your bed.’

  I felt my jaw sag, so I shut it with a snap. ‘Look, no offence, but…’

  She gave a raucous howl that I decided was a laugh. ‘Oh, don’t panic, laddie. You’re a youngster and I’m not after your body. Fine as it is.’ Her wink was so suggestive I laughed.

  ‘And how would you know?’

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ she said briskly, and poured herself a dram of the whisky I’d paid her good money for. ‘I go up the hill by way of that linn under the waterfall. I’ve seen you and your brother swimming of a morning.’

  ‘The cheek of you,’ I said.

  ‘The cheeks on you,’ she said, and let out that barking howl of a laugh again. ‘Fine pair of backsides you have, you and him. And more. If I was twenty years younger…’

  ‘Aye, right,’ I said. ‘Forty maybe.’

  She guffawed into her whisky, then downed it in one and wagged the glass at me. I was grinning, but her eyes glinted with seriousness.

  ‘I know what you are,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen your kind before.’

  Pushing my glass away, I got to my feet. ‘I’ll be going.’

  ‘No.’ Her claw of a hand was round my wrist, and surprisingly strong. ‘I don’t mean you harm.’

  ‘Is that right? You tell me something, then.’ I shook her off, but sat down again and glared at her, one hand possessively on my whisky bottle. ‘Why are you talking to me?’

  ‘I told you. I’ve seen your kind before. I know others don’t see you so well.’ There was a note of pride in her voice. ‘They say I’ve a bit of the blood myself. I have the sight.’

  ‘The sight indeed.’ But I stared at her. Behind the crumpled skin and veins and tiny sprouting hairs there were bones like a lovely rockface, high and prominent and well-defined. ‘Aye, maybe, but a bit would be right. And don’t believe everything you hear. Two sights! Prophecy! It’s horseshit wherever you get your blood, lady.’

  ‘And see? You’re calling me a lady.’ Her cheeks dimpled with her huge gold-toothed smile. ‘That proves it, then.’

  Exasperated, I rolled my eyes. ‘Is there a point to this conversation? Seeing as you don’t want my body?’

  ‘I’m telling you to be careful.’ Her sudden plummets into seriousness were unnerving.

  I hesitated. ‘We keep our heads down.’

  ‘Aye, your brother’s a wise man. You’re less so, but then you’re only a boy still.’ Her gilded grin took the barb out of her remark. ‘And I’m not the only one who sees you well.’

  A little shiver in the nape of my neck. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘That’s so. And you know who I mean and all.’

  I did know. There was one otherworlder who never failed to notice us, one man who always acknowledged Conal with an unsmiling nod: the man who’d given us our sorry strip of land and the right to farm it. Our laird, our new chief, our landlord. The MacLeod.

  Conal said we had to be grateful to him for a place to live and work. I wasn’t, but luckily we didn’t see him often. Occasionally he rode through the clachan with his men, collecting rents or judging disputes or sentencing thieves and cheats. He was an earl and a clan chief, one of the old Mormaers who had controlled these otherworld lands for centuries and had never bowed to interfering kings. It gave him an easy authority that I resented; I’d have liked to slap his complacent face, to let him know I was at least his equal, that I was the son of a dun captain, the scion of a powerful Sithe clann. But it would have meant nothing to him, and I’d have ended up flogged or branded or kicked out of our meagre home, so I kept my resentment to myself.

  Anyway, Conal liked him. Conal liked most people, whether or not they noticed him.

  I didn’t want to encourage Ma Sinclair and her gossip, but the curiosity was killing me. ‘The MacLeod.’ I cleared my throat gruffly. ‘What? He’s got the blood too?’

  ‘Him? Never!’ A raw whoop of mirth, then she lowered her voice, all conspiratorial. ‘But they say he’s had dealings. With you. With the People of Peace, I mean.’

  ‘If you knew that much about us,’ I said, ‘you wouldn’t be using that expression.’

  ‘Well.’ For the first time she looked offended. ‘He’s had a lover among you. That will explain it, you see. The MacLeod knows how to see you. Be careful. That’s all I’m saying.’

  She stood up, whisking away my half-full bottle and shuffling back to her counter. I was so startled by her nerve I could only gape at her swishing grubby skirts, but all she did was dump the bottle on the dirt floor and rummage on a shelf for another. That one she brought back and clanked onto the table in front of me.

  ‘There,’ she whispered. ‘It’s better, that one. And I’ll be giving you that, you and your brother, next time you come, and all the times after.’

  I cocked a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Why?’

  She winked again; for her age she had a real way of looking lascivious. ‘Because
I’m superstitious, my beautiful lad? I’ll be staying on your good side if I can.’

  ‘Nice. So long as you know it won’t do you any good. You won’t be finding your chores done in the morning and your enemies’ cows won’t be running dry.’

  ‘I have no enemies, laddie, and I’ve had all I wanted from your kind. You taste that second bottle and you’ll see. And I know some healing ways. They were taught me by someone like your brother.’ A lustful nostalgia misted her eyes. ‘Thirty years ago. So no more cheek from you.’

  I laughed, and taking the whisky I rose to go after Conal, but she tugged on my sleeve again.

  ‘You tell him to be careful, mind. With his healing.’ Her eyes were pale and watery, but that wasn’t all that made them so cold. ‘It’s all fine and well when it goes as it should. Wait till it doesn’t, and you’ll see less gratitude.’

  I gave a short laugh, bewildered now and cross. ‘Is that a threat?’

  ‘It’s a warning, my lad. You’re too beautiful to burn.’

  The silly crone had too much time on her hands. I’d seen this before with women in the marketplace: she was old, and lonely, and thirsty to make excitement out of thin air. It wasn’t till I opened the whisky later that night that a chill set into my backbone.

  It wasn’t that the drink was bad. It was too good, and I could taste the truth of her words, and I realised she knew what she was talking about.

  * * *

  I tried to forget what Ma Sinclair had said. Conal was already too careful, too nervous for my taste; I almost yearned for a decent bar brawl to brighten up my life. There seemed no need to pass on any extra warnings, and besides, I could keep an eye on him. That was what I was here for, after all.

  ‘I’ve wondered about the MacLeod,’ I told Conal one cold and damp spring dawn.

  ‘I know you have,’ he said. ‘Me too. But he’s a born reiver, and I don’t want to get involved in wars here. He’s always away on raids. Taking cattle. Picking fights.’