by Kate Forsyth
‘I ken,’ Isabeau said, smoothing back the girl’s hair, stiff with mud and matted with leaves. ‘I ken. Life is no’ always fair, though. We are born, we die, and it is no’ in our power to choose the time or the nature o’ our death.’
‘But he was just a laddiekin. He should’ve been playing marbles and chase-and-hide with the other lads, he should’ve had grazed knees and be tearing his jerkin for his mam to scold him …’ Her voice dissolved into sobs.
‘But we have been at war,’ Isabeau said. ‘All things are wrong in war. These men should no’ have their guts torn out by tridents, their eyes gouged out with daggers. Ye should no’ be here weeping over a wee lad that ye had loved, but sitting by a fire knitting a cap for your own babe and dreaming o’ its birth. I should no’ be here …’ Her own voice broke and she raised her hand and gripped the Key, still hanging around her neck.
‘But here we are,’ she went on, her voice strengthening. ‘We canna choose what circumstances fate throws at us, but we can choose how we react to them. Ye gave me strength and new resolve when I needed it, Johanna. Remember how ye told me one must just face up to one’s fear and get on with it? Well, it is the same with grief. Even a grief that makes ye feel as if your very heart was being torn out.’
Johanna looked up at her. ‘Ye feel like that too?’ Isabeau nodded. Johanna sighed. ‘Well, I suppose I’d best get on with it then,’ she said gruffly and slowly got to her feet.
Leaving Johanna to oversee the other healers, Isabeau checked on the sleeping children and then went wearily back to the captain’s cabin. To her surprise there was an atmosphere of affability in the overcrowded little room, perhaps promoted by the amount of sea-squill wine that had been consumed. The Fairgean had brought a sealskin full of the colourless, odourless stuff and this was now almost empty. One or two of the younger men slept with their heads resting on their arms, and the MacSeinn was weeping as he told once more of his anguish at the death of his family and the loss of his throne. The thirteen years that had passed since had done little to dull his pain.
Nila stood and bowed to the prionnsa. When he spoke, the melodious whistles and warbles were clearly sympathetic.
‘My brother says that he too has lost those he loves most in the world. He feels your grief like a trident through his throat. He wishes that the past had been different and that your family still lived, and the ones he loved too. He says he feels great remorse that his family and his people were responsible for such deep, abiding grief,’ Maya translated, her voice showing a little lift of surprise.
The MacSeinn cleared his throat. ‘Well, that was very nicely spoken o’ your brother, very nicely spoken. No’ that it brings back the dead, o’ course, but still, very nicely spoken.’ He had another mouthful of sea-squill wine and then said, very gruffly, ‘Tell him that I be sorry too, if I was responsible for the death o’ any he loved. It was nothing personal, o’ course. We were at war. Many things are done in war that one might regret later.’
Maya translated and Nila bowed his head in grave acceptance of the prionnsa’s apology, as brusque as it had been.
Isabeau slipped into her chair, smiling wanly at Dide, who sat opposite. He smiled back, though he was clearly preoccupied. Isabeau was surprised to see there was already a closely written parchment lying on the table. She took it into her hand and read it swiftly, though it was so marked with crossed-out lines and amendments it was difficult to read. To her pleasure, it showed the beginning of some sort of treaty between human and Fairgean. Although it was clear there were many points still to be argued over and ratified, already the peace council had gone a long way towards creating a lasting truce. Both sides had admitted the wrongs they had done and had accepted their blame, something Isabeau would have thought impossible six months earlier.
All were in desperate need of rest and a period of calm and recovery. The council broke up soon after Isabeau returned to it, both Lachlan and Nila making a formal gesture of acceptance and promising to continue with talks as soon as possible. Only then was the exhausted Rìgh able to seek his bed, Iseult driving the half-drunk lairds out to find a bunk for themselves somewhere else on the overcrowded ship.
Snooze-hooh?
Isabeau smiled and put up one hand to stroke Buba’s soft feathers. Snooze-hooh soon-hooh …
She walked slowly up onto the forecastle, knowing where she would find Dide. He sat above the bowsprit, his guitar across his lap, looking out over the ruined valley. In the centre of all the devastation, the loch lay like a spread of molten gold, reflecting the colours of the sinking sun. Somehow it was too beautiful, as if nothing should be allowed to shine on this terrible day.
Isabeau sat next to Dide, rested her head against his shoulder. He was strumming a sweet and plaintive tune. Isabeau recognised it as one Enit had often sung.
‘So ye be the new Keybearer,’ he said at last.
Isabeau nodded. ‘I canna think why,’ she said. ‘There are so many aulder than me and more knowledgeable. Gwilym for example, or even my mam …’
Dide shook his head, though he still did not look at her. ‘None more powerful. Who else could have turned themselves into a dragon and flown through a tornado? Who else could have overcome the Priestesses o’ Jor? None. No-one else.’
‘It was my birthday,’ Isabeau said. ‘The power o’ the comet was with me. I could no’ do it now.’
He looked at her then, and grinned. ‘Liar.’
She smiled and shrugged. ‘Who kens? I do no’ feel strong enough to light a candle.’
‘Ye should get some rest,’ he said in sudden concern. ‘Ye’re as white as whey.’
‘It’s been a long day,’ Isabeau agreed. ‘And a long day afore that. No’ to mention the night.’
He nodded, swallowing and looking away. ‘No’ to mention the night.’
She put up her hand and took his gently. ‘They have given me a cabin o’ my own. I shall have to get used to such consideration. It shall be hard, having been no-one for so long.’
‘Och, ye’ll get used to it,’ Dide said with a ghost of his old smile.
Isabeau smiled in response, then hesitated a moment. ‘There’s nowhere for ye to sleep,’ she said. ‘Will ye no’ come and share with me?’ He looked at her in silence for a moment. To her surprise, Isabeau’s eyes filled with tears. ‘It would be good … to hold someone warm … and alive,’ she said, the words coming slowly. ‘I am so sick o’ death … and being all alone.’
He nodded, and rose to his feet, pulling her up with him. ‘Lead the way, my bonny Beau. That be an invitation any man’d find hard to refuse.’
Isabeau’s cabin was small, like all the others, but the bunk was just wide enough for the two of them to lie close. Both had passed beyond exhaustion to a strange floating state where colours seemed too bright, noises too loud, people too confronting. It was dark and quiet in the little cabin, the only sound that of Dide’s heart beating against Isabeau’s back. She closed her eyes and pressed his hands closer about her, warm and at peace for the first time in many days.
When she woke, it was to the knowledge she was being watched. Isabeau opened her eyes and looked straight into Dide’s. Black, unfathomable, they gazed at her intently. Isabeau smiled at him. Dide did not smile back. He shifted his weight a little so she lay below him, all her red ringlets fanning out over his arm. He curled one around his finger.
‘So, my Beau, do ye think this be the time and the place now?’
Isabeau smiled. She looked about her. The cabin was very small, the roof pressing close above their heads. It smelt rather unpleasantly of the bilge. Buba slept still, perched on the only chair, her head sunk down into her wings. She could hear someone snoring nearby. Slowly she shook her head. Dide’s expression did not change, though he very gently laid her curl back on the pillow.
‘Happen it be the time,’ she whispered, ‘but definitely no’ the place.’ She sat up, just avoiding banging her head, and swung her bare legs over the edge of the bunk. L
ooking back, she saw his face had changed, grown more intent, the black eyes more brilliant. ‘Come on,’ she whispered, jerking her head.
He laughed then and followed her, catching up his breeches and dragging them on, tying back his long black curls into a ponytail with a measure of ribbon. Isabeau did not bother to tie back her hair. Dressed only in her white witch’s robe, made without buttons, buckles, hooks or knots, she left all her red curls hanging freely down her back, simply throwing her plaid about her shoulders and leading him out into the passage.
They clambered down from the ship and made their way silently over the rough ground. Before the ship there was nothing but broken tree trunks and great piles of twigs and sodden leaves, dead animals and mud, all churned up into a thick, grey, gluey mess. Behind the ship the forest rose undamaged, slim white birches swaying, tall pines soughing, great maples and hemlocks showing the first unfurling of green leaf at the tips of their branches. It was just after dawn, and all the valley was filled with a gentle, silvery light. Birds sang softly and a breeze riffled the trees.
Deep into the forest they wandered, hand in hand. They came at last to a copse far from the sight of broken trees and high cairns of stone. There the bracken grew vigorously and tall trees cast green shadows over a smooth stretch of grass and the first few flowers of spring. There bubbled a spring swollen with melted snows. Dide cupped his hands for Isabeau to drink and then drank himself. When he slipped one wet hand down the side of her neck, it was shockingly cold.
There, in the sunlit glade, only the song of the wind and the birds to serenade them, Isabeau and Dide slowly, gently, disrobed each other. They did not talk of the future or of the past. There was only this moment. Neither felt any shyness or constraint. All barriers between them had been broken down in other places, at other times. Now there was only the rapture of touch and whisper, the sense of life reaffirmed, death banished, joy rediscovered. Afterwards, Isabeau lay within the cradle of Dide’s arms, watching the shadows shift over his lean dark body curled about her soft white one, their fingers entwined, their hair curling together, red and black, fire and darkness.
‘I love ye,’ he whispered.
Isabeau turned her head so she could look into his eyes. ‘I love ye too,’ she whispered back. There was no need of other words.
The treaty between the two races was not one to be drawn up in a day, or even a week. It took almost two months. There were a thousand years of hatred to be overcome and many misunderstandings caused by the gaps between the two cultures and ways of thinking.
To complicate matters, there were many among the Fairgean who did not wish to make peace, and many among the humans who still thought the best solution was to totally disempower the sea-faeries, rendering them little more than slaves. Both Lachlan and Nila were determined, however, and the strength of their convictions and of their characters at last prevailed in winning over the dissenters.
After much angry discussion it had at last been agreed that the sea and its shore had always been the traditional home of the Fairgean and by rights belonged to them. Many of the northern islands had already been ceded to the Fairgean and most of the safe harbours too. In return, the Fairgean had promised the humans the right to use the safe harbours for their fishing and merchant fleets, as long as a tithe of some sort was paid. Since the Fairgean had no monetary system, this was to be paid in kind.
Already a long list of desirable products had been drawn up. The Fairgean had a great need of grains and fruits, as well as fire-forged weapons and tools. They also had a great admiration of the fine silks and velvets the prionnsachan wore, while the humans coveted the rich furs hanging down the backs of the Fairgean warriors. Pearls had always been very rare among human society and highly prized, while diamonds were much admired by the Fairgean for their clarity and brilliance, yet were found in the sea only infrequently. Perhaps most importantly, the Fairgean prince desired lanterns, candles, tinder and flint, anything to assist in the making of fire. For so long the Priestesses of Jor had been the only ones with any form of illumination, deriving much of their aura of power and mystery from their night-globes. Prince Nila wanted to make it possible for any Fairge to light his cave and cook fish or seal meat.
For several weeks the only point of contention had been the Isle of the Gods. Even with the new feeling of accord between Prince Nila and Linley MacSeinn, neither would budge on this one point. Finally the MacSeinn had grown so angry he had threatened to leave the peace talks for good. His son Douglas had laid his hand on his father’s shoulder. Watching closely, Isabeau noticed at once that the young prionnsa’s hand had deep curves of skin running from knuckle to knuckle. His hand was nearly as webbed as Nila’s.
‘But Dai-dein, why do ye want the island?’ Douglas said in a low voice. ‘It has been drowned in the floods and the Tower o’ Sea-singers was naught but a ruin anyway, and thick with ghosts, I’d wager. Why would we want such a cold, gloomy, Eà-forsaken place? Canna we build a new castle and a new tower up here, in the mountains? It be so bonny here.’
The MacSeinn had stared at his son for a long, tense moment, then suddenly his angry face had relaxed and he had laughed. ‘Why no’?’ he had said. ‘Eà kens this place has proved lucky for us. We shall call it Bonnyblair, the beautiful field o’ war.’
And so it was decided. The hallowed Isle of the Gods was given to the Fairgean unconditionally, with no human ever to enter the Fathomless Caves unless expressly invited. With that one concession, the MacSeinn was able to win many compromises from the sea-faeries on fishing rights and harbour fees.
At sunset on the night of the spring equinox, a time of significance for both human and Fairgean, the treaty was signed by Lachlan and the prionnsachan, and by Nila and the most prominent of the Fairgean families. It was signed within the Cave of a Thousand Kings, which had been cleared of sea wrack and restored to its former grandeur. Golden rays of light struck down through the chasm in its high, vaulted ceiling, highlighting the gleaming colours of the mother-of-pearl walls and striking deep through the vivid aquamarine water.
After the Pact of Peace was signed, Lachlan crowned Nila with the Fairgean King’s black pearl coronet and gave him the King’s jewelled sceptre to hold. The Rìgh had insisted that the Fairgean prince acknowledge his overlordship and swear fealty to him, like all the other peoples of Eileanan. Although the new king of the Fairgean wore a long skirt stiff with diamonds, pearls and opals, and had fastened his magnificent white fur cloak about his shoulders with a jewelled brooch, about his throat he wore nothing but the black pearl hanging on its simple cord.
When the coronation ceremony had concluded, Nila stepped down from his sparkling crystal throne and raised up Fand, who had waited, kneeling, at the base of the throne. She was clothed all in white fur, with a small coronet of white pearls holding back her hair. Nila led Fand up the steps to the throne and stood facing the expectant crowd, speaking for a very long time in the melodic warbling language of the Fairgean.
‘What does he say?’ Isabeau asked Maya.
‘He takes the halfbreed as his wife,’ Maya answered.
‘Aye, I ken that,’ Isabeau answered impatiently. ‘I want to ken what he is actually saying.’ She was eager indeed to learn the language of the sea-faeries, but found it baffling and difficult, particularly since they seemed to take a very long time to say the simplest of things.
‘He says, “I take thee, Fand, as my wife”,’ Maya answered mockingly. Isabeau rolled her eyes but had to grin. Even though Maya remained a prisoner of state, she had not lost either her charm or her audacity.
The wedding ceremony was surprisingly brief, given the amount of time the Fairgean spent over most of their rituals. When it was finished, Nila and Fand sat together on the crystal throne, an act which Maya explained was daringly egalitarian, particularly since Fand was the daughter of a human concubine, a halfbreed. It was a symbol of the new order, however, where women were no longer mere playthings, to be gambled away at the toss of a sea-
stirk’s knuckle.
It was growing dark in the Cave of a Thousand Kings. Lanterns were kindled all along the walls, and candles set to bobbing about on the water, a very pretty sight indeed. Now was to come the last of the ceremonies and the one in which Isabeau and Maya were most interested.
It had been decreed, as part of the peace treaties, that the cousins Donncan and Bronwen were to be betrothed. As a part-human was to be queen of the Fairgean, the agreement said, so shall a part-Fairgean in time become queen of the humans.
Although Isabeau had been reluctant to tie the children together when they were still so young and did not know where their hearts would lead them, she knew the betrothal was politically astute. It would silence any lingering opposition to Lachlan’s rule, since those who still believed Jaspar’s daughter should have inherited the throne would know that in time Bronwen would share it with Donncan, Lachlan’s son. It satisfied Nila’s concern about the Fairgean swearing fealty to the MacCuinn clan, and showed Lachlan’s own clemency towards the sea-faeries. And it was a swift and visible way of showing the whole land that the Fairgean were no longer their enemy and that any prejudice towards them was unacceptable.
Donncan was happy and excited about the betrothal, sure that he loved his cousin and that his feelings would not change by the time they were both sixteen, when the marriage was to be consummated. What Bronwen felt was harder to tell. She had learnt to keep her true feelings hidden long ago.
In a long, beautifully carved boat, the two children floated across the water towards the crystal throne, sitting side by side, hand in hand. Donncan was dressed in the MacCuinn kilt and plaid, but flung over his shoulders was a long cloak of plush white fur like the Fairgean wore. Similarly, Bronwen was dressed as a Fairgean princess, in white fur and pearls, but over her shoulder she wore a drapery of the MacCuinn plaid, crossing her breast and fastened at her waist with a brooch depicting the crowned stag of her father’s clan.
