by Kate Forsyth
‘Do no’ tell her, please,’ Lewen begged. ‘I willna come if that sourpuss does.’
‘Mmmm, hard choice,’ Fèlice said. ‘Ye or her? Mmmm, what shall I do?’
‘Cheeky arak,’ Lewen said. ‘All right, I’ll meet ye tonight at the Nisse and Nixie. Try no’ to get into any trouble afore then.’
‘I’ll try, but I canna make any promises,’ she said, smiling over her shoulder as she left him, flanked on either side by Maisie and Landon, both grinning despite themselves.
Lewen was smiling too as he went back to his room and shed his black robes, which always irked him with their confining folds. Dressed in his usual breeches, boots and soft white shirt, he made his now-familiar way through the gardens, past the palace, and into the maze of dark, crowded streets that led him to the grim stone gateposts of the Sorrowgate Tower, so named for all those heads that had hung upon its lintel.
Lewen knew the guards in the entry foyer well enough to nod and smile at now. They did not ask his business, just jerked their heads to indicate he might pass.
He made his way unerringly through the labyrinthine corridors and up the stairs to Rhiannon’s room, at the very top of the tower. Corey, the youngest of the prison guards, was on duty, along with Henry, one of the oldest. They grunted at the sight of Lewen and laid down their cards. Corey unlocked the door and let him in to Rhiannon’s room with a sympathetic moue of the mouth, to indicate that all was not well.
Rhiannon was lying on her bed, her fists clenched under her chin.
As soon as Lewen came in, she came to her feet in one fluid movement and flew across the room to fling herself into his arms. Lewen held her close. Her hair smelt sharp, like an animal’s fur. She drove her head hard into his shoulder, shaking with tears. He felt stiff and unhappy and woefully ill-equipped to deal with her distress.
‘Why ye take so long?’ Rhiannon accused. ‘Where ye been?’
‘At school,’ he answered. ‘Ye ken I have a late class on Friday. I came as soon as I could.’
‘It’s nearly supper-time,’ she said, pointing at the long lozenges of light on the wall, red and faint. ‘The guards will bring it soon, and ye’ll have to go.’
‘I’m sorry. I couldna come any earlier. Really I couldna.’
She put her head on his shoulder. ‘The day goes past so slowly. I thought ye were no’ coming.’
He put his hand up under the midnight fall of her hair. Her nape felt soft and vulnerable. ‘I wouldna fail ye,’ he said. He felt like he was suffocating. It was an effort to draw a breath.
Rhiannon dashed the tears away from her eyes. ‘No-one cares,’ she said pitifully.
‘I do. Ye ken I do,’ Lewen answered, as he had many times before.
She stared at him with shadow-haunted blue eyes. She had lost a lot of weight since being imprisoned. Her bones were hard under her skin. Her hands looked frail, and her eyes were red-rimmed.
‘Have ye been eating?’
She shrugged one angular shoulder. ‘The food is horrible.’
‘Ye need to keep your strength up.’
‘Why? What’s the point?’
‘Ye canna lose faith now. I ken it’s hard …’
‘Do ye just?’
‘Aye …’
‘Ever faced being hung, drawn and quartered?’ She spoke the words with a peculiar intensity, as if she had rolled the words over her tongue so many times they had gained a certain sweetness, a poetic rhythm.
‘Nay, but –’
‘Ye canna even begin to ken what it feels like. Do no’ speak to me o’ hard.’
‘I’m sorry. I just –’
‘Do no’ talk! Stop talking!’
‘What do ye want me to do?’ Lewen raised his hands in helplessness.
‘Dinna talk!’ She took his hand and put it to her breast. ‘Dinna waste time!’
He let her kiss him, his love for her and his feeling of utter helplessness and failure meeting each other, like stags locked antler to antler and unable to step either way. Even allowing his hand to close upon her breast was almost too hard, and for the first time ever he felt no instant rush of desire. He roused himself with an effort, kissing her neck, brushing his hand across her nipple, and was rewarded with a sigh, and a rush of tears. He let her draw him down on the bed, and strip away his shirt. She was frantic with need. She could scarce draw breath, and her face was wet when she pressed it into his bare shoulder. He stared across her head to the stones of the wall, so damp and grey and drear. He could smell the chamber-pot under the bed. He pressed his face into her bare shoulder, and closed his eyes.
She caught her breath in a sob. When she kissed him, she tasted of salt and mucus. He could feel her heart pounding under her ribs, and his heart accelerated to match the rapid beat of hers, the uneven jerk of her breath arousing him at last. He would have liked to have taken the time to calm her, and bring her to pleasure slowly, but he was as aware of the guards outside as Rhiannon was, and kept listening for the rusty squeal of the grille in the door that meant they were being watched. So it was another hasty coupling, the prison blanket harsh under his shoulder blades, and Rhiannon’s face above him tense and white with misery.
Although it eased him physically, Lewen felt an almost unbearable oppression of his spirits as he sat up and pulled his shirt back on. There was no joy in this loving, none of the blissful abandonment of self that he had felt in their first few couplings.
He had found Rhiannon infinitely desirable from the first time he had seen her, a filthy, scratched creature who had tied herself to the back of a wild winged horse, so desperate was she to escape her herd. He had had to tame her as he might an unbroken foal, or a wild bird from the forest. He had coaxed her with gentleness and kindness, listening to the emotions behind her rough words, her fierce gestures. He had been rewarded with a gorgeous flowering of her personality, a spreading of gaily coloured wings, a sweet-throated song. Yet all along he had loved the wildness in her, the fierceness, the refusal to be tamed. To find her now so humbled by her incarceration troubled and distressed him. It was like finding a canary mute in its cage when once he had seen it flying free and singing. He did not know how to help her.
The squeak of the bolts being pulled back galvanised them both to action. Lewen buttoned himself up in haste, and Rhiannon dragged her grey prison dress together and scrubbed her wet face with her hand. By the time the guards came in with a tray for her, the length of the room was between them and they were each studiously avoiding each other’s gaze. Although neither had ever articulated it, Lewen knew they both feared that Rhiannon’s warmness towards him would make her vulnerable to unwanted attention from her guards. She was so vulnerable, locked up in this small stone cell with nowhere to flee to and no weapon with which to defend herself.
‘Time to go,’ Henry said, jerking his head towards the door.
Lewen always hated this moment. Each time he had to go, Rhiannon grew more and more distressed, and he had not yet had a chance to give her the news about her friend Bess.
‘Just one more moment. Please?’ he asked.
‘Make it quick,’ Henry said, dumping the tray on the table. He and Corey withdrew, the younger guard trying his best to hide his sympathy for the satyricorn girl.
Lewen braced himself. ‘Rhiannon, I just wanted to tell ye … Cailean made enquiries o’ that friend o’ yours, the one ye say was attacked by rats …’
‘Aye?’ Rhiannon stared at him with her hands clasped tight together.
‘There’s no record o’ her anywhere. It’s as if she never existed.’
‘She did exist! She real!’ There was a raw edge of hysteria in Rhiannon’s voice.
Lewen tried to speak soothingly. ‘O’ course she really existed, I’m no’ saying –’
‘Ye dinna believe me! She real!’
‘I do believe ye, Rhiannon, I do. It’s just –’
‘What happened to her? She canna just disappear! What they do to her?’
‘I do no
’ ken … I’ll try to find out, I promise.’
‘Will I just disappear too?’ Rhiannon spoke wonderingly, staring at Lewen with very wide eyes.
Lewen felt sick. ‘No, no, o’ course no’.’
The door to the cell opened.
‘Time to go,’ the guard said stolidly.
‘Don’t go,’ Rhiannon said. ‘Please, don’t go.’
‘I have to,’ Lewen answered. He tried to summon a reassuring smile.
‘Please.’
‘Ye ken I canna stay. They willna let me. I’m lucky they let me visit ye as often as I do.’
‘Please don’t go.’
‘Rhiannon, I’m sorry, but I have to go. Ye ken I do.’
‘I canna stand it, Lewen, truly I canna. Ye canna leave me here!’ Her voice rose.
‘Time’s up,’ the guard said with a note of impatience in his voice.
Rhiannon seized Lewen’s hands. ‘The ghost … Bess … I canna stand it anymore. Please, Lewen. Please!’
‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’ He embraced her awkwardly and kissed her cheek. She would not let go of his hands. He tried to wrest them away from her, but she clung to them frantically, tears pouring down her cheeks.
‘Lewen, ye canna leave me here, Lewen!’
He managed to free his hands and put her away from him, moving swiftly to the door. She threw herself after him, but the guards caught her and quickly wrestled her back.
‘I’m sorry!’ he cried, and went out quickly, his eyes smarting, his whole body hot. All the time she wept and called out to him, her voice rising high into a shriek. Then the door slammed shut.
Lewen went quickly down the stairs and through the gloomy corridors until at last he was out in the fresh air, breathing great gulps to rid his nose of the prison stink. He was blind and deaf to all around him, seeing only Rhiannon’s pale, gaunt face, hearing only her pleas to him to stay. His heart was beating so fast he felt it would choke him.
It felt good to walk the city streets. He strode out, arms swinging. After a while his heartbeat steadied, though he still felt an awful hollowness within. He tried to think of other things, concentrating on the dramas and spectacles of those around him. It was dark, and the streets were all lit with lanterns strung high overhead. Light spilled out from doors and windows, and the streets thronged with people. The inns were all doing good business with the weather fine and warm. Through the windows he could hear music and see people dancing. His step slowed, and he glanced in through one door, his mouth lifting at the sight of the laughing faces and swinging skirts. A young man was sitting in a chair by the window, a mug of ale on the table before him, a smiling girl sitting on his lap. She bent her head and kissed him on the mouth, twining her arms about his neck. Lewen stared at them, and felt a shameful hotness in his eyes.
After a moment, he went on again, wishing with all his heart that Rhiannon strolled along beside him, in a blue dress, with a flower in her hair. He would take her to the theatre. He knew she had never been. He imagined her face all lit up with wonder and amusement, turning to him to demand an explanation, scowling in disbelief at his answer. He would buy her a bracelet of blue moonstones at the markets, to match her glowing eyes, and they would share a paper cone of hot chestnuts, as they stood and watched the jongleurs walk on stilts and do one back-flip after another. They would go on to the inn together, and drink wine and dance until they were tipsy with laughter. Then he would walk her home, stopping to kiss in the velvety shadows between the pools of lantern light, perhaps lying with her in the gardens that encircled the Tower of Two Moons, seeing how the moonlight through leaves patterned her pale skin.
It was such an enticing fantasy Lewen felt his eyes grow hot again. He pressed the back of his hand against his mouth, swallowing his misery. Soon, he promised himself. When she is free …
He came to the Nisse and Nixie, and went inside. The common room was large, with lots of alcoves hung with gold-fringed green velvet curtains. It was crowded with people and faeries, all drinking and talking and smoking so that the room was hazed with blue. Lewen looked round for his friends, but saw no sign of them. He followed the sound of music through to an inner room. This was even darker and smokier. A lantern was hung right above the door so that he had to pass under its light to enter the room. It dazzled his eyes for a moment so that he could not see. He stepped quickly through, and paused for his eyes to adjust.
In the centre of the room, couples were dancing to the music of a small band of faery musicians: a cluricaun with a flute, a corrigan with a double bass, two willow-haired tree-shifters playing fiddles, and a hobgoblin banging a drum that was bigger than him. The room was so crowded the dancers were barely able to do more than sway in each other’s arms. Lewen jumped back to avoid a lurching pair of drunken bogfaeries and stepped on the gnarled root-like foot of an enormous tree-changer. He shouted an apology, and squeezed his way through the crowd to get himself a mug of ale. The barmaid was a delicate, green-eyed seelie dressed in a clinging gown cut to look like forest leaves. A massive ogre stood guard behind her, arms folded on his granite chest. He scowled at Lewen, glaring at him as if daring him to admire the frail beauty of the seelie too much. Lewen averted his eyes, paid for the ale, and then gulped down a mouthful. It was very good.
The song came to an end, and everyone clapped. Lewen used his shoulder to push his way through the crowd, looking for the others. There was a stir of interest before the stage, and he turned to see. A woman had come out from behind the curtains, and was sitting on a tall stool at the front of the stage. She wore a long red velvet dress, buttoned high to her throat, with clinging sleeves that widened at her wrist to fall in long points down her sides. Her blue-black hair was unfashionably short, cut in a straight line above her brows and again level with her ears. It gave her an exotic air, enhanced by the black silk mask she wore over her eyes. Lewen stared at her, troubled by a feeling that he had seen her somewhere before. He could not remember where. She was not young. Lewen could see silver glinting in her hair, and deep lines on either side of her thin-lipped mouth. As he racked his brains, trying to place her, the musicians began to play a slow, melancholy tune and the woman began to sing.
Her voice was smoky and deep, and quavered with an intensity of feeling that struck Lewen deep in the heart. He was ashamed to feel the sting of tears in his eyes for the third time that night. It felt as if she sang only for him, as if she knew his deepest, innermost longings and gave them voice. The smoky, crowded room faded away. She seemed to look straight at him, and he looked back, riveted, lost.
The song came to an end. The room erupted with applause. Lewen came back to himself with a start. He shook his head and rubbed his hand over his eyes, ashamed of his tears. He realised he was not the only one in the crowd weeping.
The singer smiled and inclined her head. ‘Thank ye,’ she said huskily. ‘I sang to ye then o’ love. Now I shall sing o’ sorrow.’
She began then to sing a song Lewen had never heard before. At first he thought it told a made-up story, a tale from other times or other lands. After a while he realised, with a growing sense of incredulity, that she was singing of the death of Jaspar the Ensorcelled. She sang of the Rìgh’s bitter grief that he must die so soon after the birth of his beloved daughter, Bronwen. She told how he named his daughter heir before he died, and how she, a mere babe-in-arms, was then declared Banrìgh of Eileanan. She sang of how Lachlan the Winged stormed the palace and wrested the crown away from the baby Banrìgh, and how he sought to keep Bronwen from bonding with the Lodestar, as was the right of all those born of MacCuinn blood. An old cook, she sang, who loved the child dearly, braved his wrath to make sure the Rìgh’s daughter had her chance to lay her hand upon Aedan’s Inheritance, and the Lodestar had kindled at the touch of her baby hand.
It was always said whoever holds the Lodestar shall hold the land, the woman sang, and so Lachlan’s heart was filled with rage. He had fought the Banrìgh for the singing sphere, and he was a man a
nd she but a babe. She could not hold it and so she lost: the throne, the crown, the Lodestar.
‘But now she is a woman grown,’ the singer sang, ‘Bronwen the Bonny they call her. Now she is a woman grown, the Banrìgh she should be.’
Lewen looked around him, amazed. He saw the whole crowd was as riveted as he was. A few had tears in their eyes. It was a most beautiful and sorrowful song. More than that, it had the ring of utter truth. Lewen had always known Bronwen was the daughter of Jaspar the Ensorcelled, but it had never occurred to him to wonder how her uncle Lachlan came to rule after his brother’s death. He saw now how it had happened, and his heart swelled with anger and sympathy for Bronwen. No wonder she was so wild and intractable, flaunting her disobedience in Lachlan’s face. No wonder she submerged herself in frivolous pleasures, having no other place for herself at court. So many things seemed clear now.
There was the sound of a group of people coming in. He heard a laugh he recognised, and turned his head. Owein and Olwynne stood together in the doorway, the lantern shining on their bright curls. Owein’s wings flamed out of the darkness like wildfire.
The royal twins were recognised at once. A stir and mutter ran over the crowd. Everyone gaped and fell back, and the twins came forward, smiling, supremely confident, unaware of any ill-will.
Lewen wanted to stand up, to shout at them and warn them. He glanced back at the stage. The masked woman was gone as if she had never been. Lewen shook his head, trying to clear it of the fumes of smoke and ale. He felt dazed. Suddenly he was not so sure of what he had just heard. Surely no-one would dare sing such a song, right here in Lucescere, the capital of Rionnagan? Surely the twins could not be in danger?
The crowd eased back, clearing the way for the twins. Owein smiled round, oblivious to the tense atmosphere, but Lewen saw Olwynne frown and draw herself up. She glanced at their bodyguards, who followed close behind. The Khan’cohban warriors both had their hands close to their weapons belt, their thick brows drawn together as they scanned the crowd. Tall strong men with long pale hair bound back from their faces and sharp curving horns, their dark skin was marked with three slashes on either cheek, showing they were warriors of high distinction. One wore a cloak of spotted sabre-leopard skin, and the other of white snow-lion fur, the snarling heads still intact.
