Firebrand

by Gillian Philip

  I hunted in a wide circle around the keep, staying in the trees. Only at the wall outside Conal’s dungeon had the guard been changed and strengthened. My brain and spine prickled with terror. How had they known?

  Two days. Could I reach the watergate in that time? Yes, but the time might unbalance. It often did. No speed would matter if a month passed while I ran helpless to my clann. Or a year.

  How long would he take to die? How long would it feel?

  The courtyard gate swung wide and out came the priest, hands clasped piously before him. Close to me was the vertical base of an uprooted pine, blown down in a spring gale. The trunk and branches were gone, but the mud-choked tangle of roots was nearly twice my height, so I ducked behind it and watched through the trees.

  The priest walked to the new guards, his robes flapping like batwings, and spoke to them for a minute or two. There was much nodding, many gestures up into the surrounding hills and trees, and at one point they all looked up simultaneously, almost directly at my hiding place.

  The priest glanced down at his feet and stamped hard. I heard the clang of solid metal. He leaned down and tugged at something with his fingertips, quite hard, then straightened, nodding in approval. Sickness turned my stomach, and tears burned my eyes.

  They’d covered up the little barred hole. They’d taken away his last light, and his last air, and his last chance of a death of his choosing.

  When he left the guards, the priest did not go back towards his pony as he usually did. He walked out towards the trees, straight towards me. For a moment panic almost made me leap from my hole and run, and I felt for every hare and bird I’d ever hunted to its death.

  But his pale gaze swept the low slopes and the trees, and I knew he hadn’t seen me. I thought I was safe, I thought I could breathe again, but the next thing that happened almost knocked the air from my lungs.

  ~ Where are you?

  His voice was clear in my head. I was scared for a fraction of a second that I’d left my block down, but no. At least I hadn’t been quite that careless, but how was he doing that? How could the thoughts of a full-mortal echo through the forest like a hunting cry?

  ~ Where are you, my little warlock? He sniffed the air and smiled, a death grimace if ever I saw one. ~ I smell you, little one. I smelt you in the grass by the keep and I smell you now.

  Do not panic, I told myself. Do not run. Do not run.

  ~ We gave your brother an extra whipping, to celebrate your visit. He’s good, he’s very good. He only screamed the once, when we hung him up by his poor sore arms.

  You’re dead, I thought. My fingers flexed and clenched, wanting his throat. But not now. Not now. I had to live to kill him.

  ~ There. You don’t interest me, so forget your brother. Run along home now, or I’ll warm my chilly old fingers on your burning bones.

  He snuffed the air again, and turned, and made his unhurried way back to the courtyard and his pony.

  It’s not a priest. That’s what Conal had said. I’d thought he was correcting my vocabulary, like always.

  I’d thought he was saying It’s a minister, you daft greenarse.

  That wasn’t what he’d been saying at all. A shudder went through me, and wouldn’t stop for more than a minute.

  It’s not a priest. It. It.

  * * *

  No-one cared about the western wall of the keep. Obviously, whoever was rotting or screaming in the dungeon on that side had no brother who was trying to get them out of it. That side was still protected, for want of a better word, by clansmen who were by now chafing at the contempt of the professional men, and resentful enough of their presence to be careless. They bitched and moaned to one another endlessly, and shared drams from their flasks, and wandered off to relieve themselves less entertainingly now that their amusing latrines had been sealed. They left their weapons lying while they did it, among them new and alien weapons that I doubt they could even use. Some of them I couldn’t, either; I knew nothing of the slender steel pistols and how they killed. Others, though, I could use better than anyone here.

  And one of the clansmen was so drunk, and so tired, and in such a furious temper with the sneering professionals, I knew fine he wouldn’t even miss the crossbow.

  * * *

  I whittled bolts from lengths of hazel. I rubbed them smooth and honed their tips to a needlepoint that would have pleased a witch-pricker. I took my time with the job; what else was there to think about? One day. Two days. I had a store of bolts, far more than I needed: every one perfect and deadly. When I was finished, I looked into the blue dawn and blinked. The cloud cover had dissipated at last. The day was going to be blazing. He would not die today. The priest would not stand in the courtyard.

  Not till the shadows were long.

  My woodland lair was beautiful: a clearing that was green with life. It smelt of summer and rain and newness. It was patterned with shifting light and shade, alive with the trill and whistle of flirtatious birdsong. Oh, this was too lovely a day to die, too lovely to kill.

  But the shadows would, in the end, grow long.

  I walked with my crossbow to the middle of the forest clearing. The grass was cool beneath my bare feet, still damp with dew despite the warmth. Sitting down cross-legged, I let the birdsong distract me from reality, and in my head I went to the courtyard. I walked it in my mind, counted stones, timed my paces. I had watched guards and clansmen and doomed prisoners walk it; in my memory I watched them again, and walked with them, and measured my paces to theirs. And when I’d sat there and walked it over and over again in my mind, I stood up and opened my eyes and paced the length of the courtyard in the clearing, my stolen crossbow clutched against my breast.

  When I had the distance I scrambled into the branches of a high pine with the bow slung across my back. I saw the clearing and replaced it in my head with the courtyard.

  And when I’d done all I could do I shinned down the tree, and hung my last small bag of meal on a branch at the far side of the clearing, then climbed once more into the pine. I fired bolts at the dangling target till oatmeal lay wasted and scattered through the grass, and the hessian bag hung in shreds, and as far as I could possibly estimate the distance, my stolen bow was sighted for death.

  * * *

  You would never have thought the keep walls were scaleable. But then, no-one I knew had thought the dun’s northern wall was scaleable, till I made a habit of scaling it. One of my father’s fighters had spotted me once, clambering down hand over hand to avoid my chores. He’d yelled for his companions and they’d stood there, leaning over the parapet and chucking things at me, anything that came to hand, and laughing their heads off. When I made it safely to the bottom, and brushed bits of oatcake and horse manure from my hair and clothes, I stepped back and made them an elegant bow, then gave them two insulting fingers. That had made them laugh even more as they clapped and cheered. I was smaller than most of them, and lighter, and from then on whenever anyone needed a climber they called for me. I could find handholds and footholds where any Sithe would have sworn there were none. There were always handholds, always. And—so far—I was living proof that I’d never fallen.

  I tried to remember all of that as I looked up at the sheer keep wall that evening. One of the clansmen snored at my feet; the guard was light again. It was all over. The prisoner who was going to die was the one they all wanted to see, and there was no hope of rescue for him now. Even the professional fighters had gone inside the keep walls to help tend the fires and enjoy the entertainment. I’d made mistakes. Well, so could the priest. He’d underestimated me.

  I wouldn’t do the same for him, not a second time. I swore that day I’d never again make the same mistake twice. I kept all my senses fixed on the priest, all but the one he could track. I knew where he was all the time, and I stayed downwind.

  I made sure my crossbow was slung tightly on my back. Running my palms across the wall, I found a first small uneven ridge. For a second I paused, and lean
ed my forehead against the cool rough stone, and breathed hard, and got a hold of myself. Then I curled my fingertips round the invisible handhold, and found and gripped another, and began to climb.

  20

  TWENTY

  Why have they bothered to put them in a cart for a journey of a hundred yards? So he can be seen and spat at and pelted with shit and sent to Hell with their curses ringing in his ears?

  Yes. I suppose so.

  The crowd is not under the priest’s control. I do wonder for a moment if they are. I want them to be, but I only have to look at them once to know their sacred free will is intact. No one is bending these minds, though bent they are. I certainly can’t twist so many, though gods know I want to. Even the priest, whatever he is, couldn’t do that.

  He’s shown Conal to them, and he’s told them what they didn’t even know they wanted to hear. The rest is their own instinct, their own foul cravings. The priest has nothing more to do, only watch and smile. There among the mob is my quiet black-haired girl with the sceptical green eyes. She’s not so quiet now: she’s howling her hate.

  The priest stays in the long shadow of the courtyard wall. I notice that. I’m trying to remember something I was taught, a long time ago, when it was all fairy stories to me. I’m trying to remember, but instead I remember the pale sun coming out as he rode from the rowan copse not three days ago. I remember his nervous glance, and his ironic smile. And now I do remember what I saw: I see it again, clear in my head. I saw the sun cast a shadow on the track, but it was the shadow of a saddled pony, no more. The priest threw none.

  It threw none.

  Conal is a dead man limping to his death-fire, and I know it.

  I can’t do this alone. And the priest isn’t watching for my mind. Either he doesn’t care any more, or he’s so in thrall to the coming spectacle that he wants to concentrate on nothing else. He can’t. He’s in a trance of ecstasy. It’s in ecstasy, I mean. It’s loving it. It’s what it was born for. You can’t blame it.

  It isn’t watching, and that’s why I can talk to my brother one last time. I can let him know I haven’t let him down, that I haven’t failed after all, that his black despair when they sealed the dungeon vent wasn’t the end of everything. Finally, at the end of his life and possibly the end of mine, I’ve done something right and I’ve done it for him. I’ve returned the favour he’s been doing me since I was eight years old.

  I squeeze my eyes hard shut and open them again. Damn the blurring of my eyes: I have to see straight. Maybe that’s why I change my mind. I’m sorry for the girl, but it has to be Conal first. I can’t risk my eyesight failing through sentiment and weakness. It has to be now, and it has to be Conal before the girl. I’m sorry, whatever your name is. Catriona. I’ll get to you later. It has to be my brother first. He’s dead already, after all. He’s dead already.

  And my mind is as cold as my heart as I tighten my finger on the trigger.

  * * *

  ‘WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD IS GOING ON?’

  PART THREE

  FIREBRAND

  21

  TWENTY-ONE

  So many years. There have been so many years between then and now, and still I’ll dream that my finger was a fraction of an instant faster on that crossbow, and I’ll wake shaking and screaming. Still.

  So in the darkness I’ll reach for the woman beside me, for that other half of my soul and my self, and she’ll put her arms around me and soothe me back to sleep, thinking I’m dreaming of another time, of terrible things that were still in my future. Sometimes— often—that’s what it is. Sometimes it isn’t.

  She knows, of course, that I almost killed a man she loved. There have been so many women we both loved, but she was different. She still is. I waited too long for her. Too long. Fate’s cruel.

  No, it was kind that day. It was kind the day I didn’t kill my brother. It’s just that I so nearly did, and Fate likes to remind me. In the small hours.

  But I don’t tell her when I dream his death. It doesn’t matter. I have plenty of night terrors to choose from now. She doesn’t always need to know which. She only needs to know she’s my firewall against them. That’s all. And she knows that fine.

  * * *

  Hooves clattered into the courtyard, horses neighed, swords rasped out of scabbards. The man on the grey stallion looked familiar, but for a moment I couldn’t place him. He was well-dressed, tall and elegant, but he had the dirt of a long journey on him, and the hard ruthless fitness of a man just done with battle. The twenty-three men on horseback behind him had a similar look, and they all had naked swords in their hands.

  Utter silence had fallen, broken only by the muffled aching sobs of the girl at the stake.

  ‘If you put those flames to that wood,’ said the newcomer in a voice rimmed with ice, ‘my men will cut every one of you down where you stand. Men, women and children.’

  The men holding the firebrands exchanged glances and stepped very slightly back, but the priest barged forward, brandishing his bible. ‘You have no authority in this matter, lord! Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!’

  ‘And nor shalt thou kill,’ said the horseman calmly. ‘But I suspect you have as much respect for that as I do.’

  The MacLeod. Back from his hobby-wars and alive. I forgave him every disdainful glance, every patronising smile. I forgave him my lowly otherworld life and I forgave him our hovel. Never in my life did I meet a man with better timing.

  The clansmen had shrunk back, shifty and terrified, but not the priest’s professionals. Their fingers twitched by scabbards and on pistol hilts, waiting for a word.

  For interminable silent ages the priest and the earl stared at one another. The skin was stretched even tauter across the priest’s cheekbones—cheated of his prey, I thought he might launch himself at the earl’s throat—but I couldn’t speak or move. I could barely breathe.

  Snatching the firebrand from the closer of the two clansmen, the priest raised it high, a smiling snarl on those thin yellow lips. Almost simultaneously the MacLeod raised his own hand and snapped his fingers.

  A blade flew from the hand of one of the riders behind him, straight and true, impaling the priest. Someone in the crowd screamed once; there was a collective intake of breath. The mercenaries stared, swords and pistols half-drawn but far too late.

  The priest sank to his knees, robes billowing around him like black smoke, the snarl—and the smile—still on his lips. He tried to utter some anathema, but only a horrible rattling sigh came out. He did not fall, but remained kneeling before the earl. It took me long heart-stopping moments to be sure that he was dead.

  That it was dead.

  ‘Conal MacGregor is no witch, you fools, and even if he was he’d be better than any ten of you. Bring him down,’ said the MacLeod calmly. ‘The girl too. The rest of you go home, and be aware that I will hang each and every one of you, and evict your families to starve, if it even crosses your mind to behave in this manner again.’

  The priest’s men simply melted away, silent. I watched them go. I knew their faces, every one, and I promised myself I’d see them again one day from a different angle. From the crowd, beginning to disperse, there was very little mutinous muttering. With the priest dead, there was only one man to fear, and they knew who buttered their bread, and on which side. Some had already begun to look ashamed of themselves.

  Two of the earl’s fighters were cutting Conal’s bonds, and his hands trembled as he rubbed life back into them. He swayed, but righted himself, teeth gritted, and he refused their help. And he had the nerve to complain about my insufferable pride?

  The girl was incapable of standing, only sank down weeping onto the pile of firewood as they freed her. She cringed away from the fighters, but Conal crouched down and lifted her into his arms. I saw him stagger again, and almost drop her, but he recovered. I saw all that, though I was running down the steps from the parapet to the courtyard. I trusted to my mind to sense the steps and my feet to fin
d them, because I couldn’t take my eyes off my brother.

  He scrambled unsteadily down from the pyre, the girl’s face pressed fiercely into his neck, her arms almost choking him. A fighter tried to take her from him, only to help him, but he froze and jerked away, giving the man a wary look.

  The man only smiled an intent smile. There was a silvery glow in his eyes. As I leaped impatiently from one flight of steps to the bottom of the next, I heard him quite clearly.

  ~ Get out of here, Cù Chaorach.

  Conal stared at him. Then, as he stumbled back, he turned and almost fell, but he was still upright when he stopped in front of the MacLeod’s horse.

  His arms tightened round the girl. ‘Thank you, Morair.’

  The MacLeod gave him a long searching look.

  ‘I suggest you leave here, MacGregor, you and your brother. I’ll be sorry to see the back of you but it would be safer for you both.’

  ‘You’ll have trouble over this, lord. I’m sorry for that too.’

  ‘Oh, not as much as I should.’ The earl shrugged and gave the dead priest a look of contempt. ‘That is the privilege of wealth and power. But things will get worse before they get better, and my protection will not be limitless. So go.’

  ‘Yes, Morair.’

  ‘Give up the obsequies, MacGregor. They don’t suit you.’

  I reached them running, the crossbow still in my hands. Several fighters turned to me with weapons raised, and I’d happily have taken them on barehanded to get to Conal, but the MacLeod lifted a hand, and they lowered their swords.

  ‘Ah. A contingency plan, MacGregor.’ He smiled. ‘You are lucky to have such a brother.’

  ‘I know that, lo…I know that.’

  He couldn’t put his arms round me because he was holding the girl, and I resented her bitterly for it, but he pressed his face against my head as I embraced him, tears soaking my cheeks.