The Heart of Stars

by Kate Forsyth

  One of the servants had pulled a rusty chain by the door, and they heard the bell clanging loudly far above their heads in the castle. Bronwen had been to Rhyssmadill many times before. She knew it would take some time before someone descended the two-hundred-odd steps to open the river door, and then an even longer time for the party to climb the steps up into the main part of the castle. Gwilym would find the steps difficult with his wooden leg, and Cameron, the Lord Chancellor, was so old and doddery it would surely take him ages.

  Bronwen floated in the darkness, thinking furiously. Her best chance, she thought, was to try to get to Donncan before the others, so she could have a chance to explain and warn him. Surely that would be better than climbing out onto the platform now, naked and dripping wet, in front of all those eyes? And if she waited for them to start the climb, then got out, dressed and tidied herself, before ringing the bell, she would be ten minutes behind them at least. More than time enough to tip a little poison into Donncan’s glass.

  If Bronwen could find the secret underwater entrance to the castle, however, she would have a chance to get in front of the men and reach Donncan before them. Bronwen, Donncan and Neil had all explored the underground caves, years ago, after giving their nursemaid the slip one day. Bronwen felt sure she knew how to find the entrance again. So she took a deep breath, and dived.

  Deep, deep, she dived, right down to the very roots of the rock on which Rhyssmadill was built. It was pitch-black. Even with her eyes wide open and staring, she could see nothing. Bronwen had only her sensitive, long-fingered hands to guide her. The entrance was not far from the river gate, she knew, but several minutes passed and she was forced to come up, gasping for air.

  On her third dive, she found it, a narrow crack in the rock which led her through a long underwater tunnel. Bronwen’s ears were thundering, and she was sick and dizzy from lack of oxygen when her head at last broke through the water.

  She could see nothing, and hear nothing but her own tortured breath and the constant lapping of the water about her. Holding her hands out in front of her, Bronwen swam slowly forward, wondering how she could ever have thought this was a good idea. Her hands found a stone ledge, and she pulled herself up on it, and then rummaged through her bag until her fingers found the smooth roundness of the Lodestar. At once light sprang up in its depths. Gratefully she pulled it free of the swaddle of clothes, and stuck the sceptre through the rungs of the rusty old ladder that disappeared up the wall into darkness. By its light she dressed herself hurriedly and then thrust the sceptre into the bag, drawing its strings tight just below the Lodestar so its radiance still lit her way. With the bag slung over her shoulders, Bronwen began the long climb up the ladder.

  Rhyssmadill had been first built by Brann the Raven, many centuries before, and this secret entrance was only one of the castle’s many mysteries. Years ago, when Bronwen had been a child, the Fairgean had used this hidden entrance to invade Rhyssmadill and attack Lachlan and his people while they celebrated Beltane. It was one of Bronwen’s most dreadful memories. Now, climbing the ladder in the fitful light of the swinging Lodestar, Bronwen could not help an oppressive feeling of dread. Her blood hammered in her ears, and her breath came unevenly. Donncan, she thought, and fixed her will and desire upon him.

  At last Bronwen reached the top of the ladder, and found a wooden cover had been pulled across the well opening. It took the last of her strength to heave the heavy cover to one side. Giddiness overcame her. She lay half-fainting in the dark courtyard, the starry sky spinning above her. At last the giddiness ebbed away. She managed to sit up and unhitch her bag so she could hug the Lodestar to her, drawing strength from it. She did not know how much time had passed. Too much, she feared. Hampered by the heavy, damp skirts, she began to run.

  Where would they be? In the grand receiving room? In the great hall? Or in the solar? Perhaps even in Donncan’s bedroom, if he was sick or injured.

  With her Lodestar pressed close to her heart, Bronwen sent out her thoughts as she had been taught at the Theurgia. She was sick with apprehension, and wished, not for the first time since her uncle’s murder, that she had not wasted so much time at the witches’ school in frivolity and fun. Her heart leapt. She could feel Donncan! He was alive, he was smiling, she could hear him speak.

  ‘Gwilym! Neil! How glad I am to see ye! Come in, come in. Tell me all the news. Can I offer ye some wine?’

  No, Donncan! Bronwen screamed with all her mind-force. Do no’ drink the wine!

  Panting, sobbing, she ran up the stairs towards the solar. Rhyssmadill was a huge castle, seven storeys high in parts, with many towers and balconies. It was a steep climb from the well in the courtyard to the Rìgh’s solar at the very height of the tower. She passed a number of servants on the way, pushing past them, too distraught to even try to explain. Even in her drab servant’s gown, they recognised her, and cried out, ‘My lady! Your Majesty! What do ye do here?’

  The guards, recognising something was wrong, hurried after her, their pikes held at the ready.

  By the time she reached the top floor, Bronwen was gasping for breath and bent half double over the stitch in her side. There were guards outside the solar, and they sprang to attention and flung open the door for her.

  Bronwen stumbled inside, trying to catch her breath.

  The room was round, and richly furnished with cushioned chairs, embroidered curtains and many tall paintings in ornate gilt frames. A fire was lit in the massive grate, and a party of people were all drawn up in front of it, laughing and talking. Bronwen saw only her husband, standing with one booted foot on the iron grate, a glass of wine in his hand. Beside him stood the pastor like a man of bone and shadows, the reflection of the fire flickering in his hooded eyes, a tiny smile on his lips as Donncan lifted his cup to his lips.

  Bronwen could not speak. Her breath sobbing in her throat, she heaved up the Lodestar and pointed it at her husband. Stop … she thought.

  Donncan froze midmotion, his cup at his mouth. Bronwen walked forward, so slowly it felt as if she was wading through mud to her waist. Around her she saw the expressions of those caught frozen in place. Consternation, shock, anger, suspicion. She saw Thunderlily with one hand stretched out to her in painful surprise and joy, and said Poison … She saw Isabeau’s face alter as the Keybearer heard the mind-thought too, and saw Dide’s eyes suddenly open wide.

  Bronwen reached her husband. Frozen in place, only his eyes were alive with anger and hurt. All he saw, she knew, was his newly wedded wife walking towards him with the Lodestar in her hand, immobilising him and all his friends like bees caught in a spider’s web. All sorts of dreadful suspicions were flashing through his mind. She could see them all in his eyes. He struggled to move, to force a hand up against her, but he could not.

  Her breath ragged and uneven, her breast heaving painfully, Bronwen took the cup from his lips. She turned and offered it to the pastor.

  He stood as still as Donncan, only his eyes darting about under his hooded eyelids.

  Bronwen was still too short of breath to speak. She urged the cup on him, and he shook his head slowly, trying to smile.

  ‘What is this?’ he asked, licking his dry lips. ‘Some kind o’ game?’

  Bronwen managed a snort of laughter. ‘No game,’ she answered. Everyone was beginning to be able to move again. Their eyelids flickered, their hands reached out towards her. Bronwen turned to Neil. ‘What about ye?’ she asked, her breath wheezing in her chest. ‘Will ye drink it?’

  Neil looked utterly flabbergasted. ‘Bronny … Your Majesty … what is it?’

  ‘Will ye drink it?’ She held the cup to his mouth.

  He pushed it away violently. ‘What’s going on? What are ye doing here? Ye were sick …’

  She nodded. ‘Aye, I was. Very, very sick.’

  ‘Bronny, what do ye mean? What’s wrong?’ He turned apologetically to Donncan. ‘I dinna ken what she means. She’s been sick. We were just telling ye that was why she c
ouldna come …’

  Donncan could not move or speak. He was still frozen in place. Bronwen felt his eyes on her, scorching her with his suspicions. The Lodestar felt very heavy in her hand.

  ‘But I did come,’ Bronwen said. ‘Despite ye.’

  She was feeling very odd and giddy again. The world wavered before her. She forced herself to stand upright, to hold the cup of wine steady. She looked pleadingly at her husband.

  ‘It’s poisoned,’ she said. ‘They poisoned me too. That’s why I was sick. All o’ us at the palace, sick.’

  The pastor said, ‘I think the illness has turned her mind. She’s raving. Look at her! She’s wet through. She’s been in the river. What madness, to swim at night in the river when she’s clearly unwell.’

  As he spoke, he moved forward a step, then pretended to stumble. His arm sent the cup in Bronwen’s hand flying. In utter dismay, she saw the cup fly up and then tumble down to the ground, the wine spilling in a wild flurry of crimson.

  Stop … Bronwen cried silently again and felt the Lodestar blaze up in response. Once again the whirligig of time spun slower. The cup hovered in midair, the wine frozen in its dark curlicues, all the faces in the firelit circle caught mid-cry.

  Bronwen took a deep breath, then she walked to the table, picked up another cup and, with the Lodestar caught in the crook of her elbow, held the cup with both hands so it caught the wine as it once again began to gently fall. It splashed into the cup she held, and then Donncan’s cup fell to the ground with a clatter and rolled away under a chair.

  ‘If it isn’t poisoned, ye willna mind drinking it,’ she said to the pastor, and offered it to him again challengingly.

  ‘Drink it,’ Isabeau said, her voice very low and dangerous. ‘Bronny’s right. If it’s no’ poisoned, ye shouldna mind drinking it.’

  The pastor’s eyes darted this way, then that.

  A dagger suddenly glinted in Dide’s hand. ‘I guess he doesna want to drink,’ he said. ‘Shall I make him?’

  ‘Go on, Father Francis, drink it,’ Bronwen said. ‘Else admit to treason and conspiracy to murder, and face the gallows.’

  The guards were all standing with their weapons drawn and pointing straight at the pastor. Neil looked white and sick, but he said nothing, his hands hanging by his side.

  ‘On what evidence?’ the pastor said, his voice shaking.

  ‘I can have the contents o’ this cup analysed,’ Bronwen said, her voice coming more strongly. ‘And if we look at the ring that ye wear, I am sure we will find traces o’ the poison in there as well. And we’ll search the healer Mirabelle’s rooms, and Lady Elfrida’s too.’

  Neil started forward a step, and the guards at once had their spear points at his throat. The pastor cast a quick look round the room, then suddenly he seized the cup from Bronwen’s hand. She cried aloud in surprise and flinched back, but he did not throw it at her, or toss it in the fire, as she had expected. He laughed, lifted it to her and hissed, ‘Blaygird half-breed, may ye burn in hell!’

  Then he drank down the poisoned wine.

  It was not a pleasant death. It seemed to go on for a very long time, and although Isabeau and Ghislaine tried to ease his agony for him, the pastor was beyond help. At last his thrashing and screaming ended, and Ghislaine was able to throw a rug over his purplish countenance, hiding the dreadful engorged eyes and tongue and foam-flecked skin.

  Bronwen could not help weeping. Thunderlily wept with her, the two girls pressed close together, crying in each other’s arms. When at last it was all over, and the shocked and horrified murmurs were filling the room, Bronwen gently extracted herself from Thunderlily’s arms and went to Donncan.

  Although he was no longer under her power he stood as still and silent as before, staring at her with narrowed eyes.

  She offered him the Lodestar.

  ‘I couldna leave it just lying on the floor,’ she said.

  He took it from her, still angry and suspicious.

  Tears stung her eyes. ‘Oh, Donncan, I am so glad ye’re home!’ she cried, and flung her arms about his neck.

  For a bare instant he did not respond, then suddenly his arms enfolded her and he was squeezing all the breath out of her, and then she lifted her face, and he lowered his, and they were kissing, deeply, passionately, breathlessly.

  ‘Oh, Bronny!’ he murmured into her hair. ‘Thank Eà! I’ve missed ye!’

  ‘And me ye,’ she sobbed. ‘Ye can never ken how much.’

  ‘I’m so glad ye’re here.’

  ‘I’m so glad I got here in time. I was so afraid …’

  ‘Here in the nick o’ time.’

  ‘I never meant to raise the Lodestar against ye.’

  ‘I ken, I ken.’

  ‘I dinna want to steal it from ye. It called to me though, Donn, it called and I had to answer.’

  He was silent. She felt him looking over her head, to where he held the Lodestar still in his hand, pressed against her back. ‘Canna we share it?’ she whispered. ‘We raised it together when we were bairns, and look what we did! Canna we hold it and the land together? Work together as friends and allies?’

  ‘O’ course we can,’ Donncan replied, and bent his head to kiss her again. ‘And lovers too, I hope,’ he whispered in her ear.

  She smiled her slow, beguiling smile.

  It was very late. Isabeau and Dide lay together in their bed, firelight casting soft, ever-changing shadows all over the room. They lay close, but not together, both naked under the warmth of the counterpane, both feeling oddly self-conscious. Isabeau’s hair, freshly washed and plaited, lay neatly along the pillow. Dide’s eyes were wide open, staring up at the shapeshifting shadows.

  ‘Dide?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Dide, Dide … do ye care? Do ye mind? Ye must … ye must hate me!’

  ‘I do no’ hate ye.’

  His words did not satisfy her. ‘But do ye mind? Does it … does it make ye feel different, to ken that I could do such a thing?’

  He stroked her hair away from her face and said nothing.

  ‘Dide?’

  ‘I do feel different,’ he said at last.

  She tensed. ‘Has it changed things?’ she asked in a small voice. ‘Do ye feel differently about me?’

  He glanced at her. ‘I dinna ken,’ he said at last. ‘I mean … I’m still struggling to understand it all. What happened, how I felt. I was afraid, Beau, terribly, terribly afraid.’

  ‘That’s natural …’ she began, but he hurried on.

  ‘No, I mean, I was afraid that all ye witches are wrong and that death is the end o’ it all. I was afraid I’d die and discover that there is no soul after all, and we are just machines clothed in flesh that run down and stop like an unwound clock, and then our tale is over. It was no’ death itself I was afraid o’, but what I would discover after.’

  Isabeau was silent.

  ‘But I dreamt while I was dead,’ he said softly. ‘Is it possible? Could I truly dream? Was I dead or just asleep? If it was no’ for this …’ he put up his hand and traced the scar on his throat, ‘I would think it all a dream, a joke, a trick.’

  ‘Do ye remember aught? Were ye aware?’

  He snorted in bitter laughter. ‘Always the witch, wanting to ken everything.’

  ‘Well, did ye?’

  ‘Only fragments,’ he whispered. ‘But I canna help feeling I should remember. What they told me, it was terribly, terribly important … but I canna remember.’

  ‘Who were they that spoke?’

  He put out one hand and traced the line of her cheek. ‘Ye will mock me.’

  ‘I? The Keybearer o’ the Coven? Dide, I am hungry for aught ye can tell me. Please.’

  He shrugged. ‘I can no’ remember. They seemed like beings o’ light … yet their faces were shadowed. Their voices were great and terrible. I could no’ look at them. They said …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe they did no’ tell me, maybe they showed me … b
ut Beau! It was proof. I ken it was proof. I wish I could remember.’

  ‘Proof? O’ what?’

  He made a helpless gesture with his hand. ‘O’ the rightness o’ it all, perhaps. O’ Eà.’

  Tears prickled Isabeau’s eyes.

  ‘I wish I could remember.’

  She touched his heart, and then the pulse at his throat, and then the point between his brows where, witches believed, the third eye was hidden. ‘Ye remember,’ she said softly. ‘In here.’

  He sighed.

  She nestled closer to him.

  ‘Beau?’

  ‘Mmm?’ she said sleepily.

  ‘Since … it happened … I’m hearing things all the time,’ Dide said. ‘What people are thinking, all the time. My head aches, it is so full o’ noise, my ears are ringing with it. I canna stand it, it’s intolerable.’

  Isabeau lifted her head so she could stare at him.

  ‘There’s more,’ he said. ‘I … I ken how to do things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  He gestured towards the fire and it went out abruptly, plunging them into darkness. A few seconds later it flared up again, a raging inferno that tore at the wood with hungry jaws and threatened to leap free of the hearth.

  Isabeau calmed it with a thought.

  ‘I’ve always had a few witch-tricks,’ Dide said, ‘but no’ like that.’

  Isabeau was quiet.

  ‘Am I Brann?’ Dide whispered. ‘Have I become him?’

  She reached out and stroked back his hair from his eyes. ‘Nay,’ she said. ‘Ye are still your own sweet self. I’d say, though, that the whole experience o’ dying and being reborn has … opened some doors in ye. Knocked aside the veils. Ye have always had potential, Dide, ye just were never ready to take the journey towards realising them. Ye canna expect to come through such an experience and remain unchanged.’

  ‘What should I do? I … I dread sleeping. I’m afraid he waits for me there, in the dream world, wanting to possess me.’

  Isabeau nodded. She could understand that fear.