The Puzzle Ring (24 page)

By the time Angus returned in the cold dark of the evening, the four teenagers had almost driven each other crazy with anxiety and irritation. The old man had turned the free length of his plaid into a kind of sling in which he carried various supplies, and four sets of old, shabby clothes which he said he had purchased from a woman whose children had grown out of them.

‘Have they been washed?' Max said, wrinkling his nose.

Angus scowled. ‘Of course!'

‘I wish we could boil them,' Max said, lifting one of the shirts and sniffing it. ‘Typhus was spread by the lice which nested in the seams of clothing.'

None of the children were keen to try on the clothes after that, but the material smelt pleasantly enough of lavender and mint, and Angus scowled so fiercely and muttered so angrily, that at last they were persuaded to try them on.

‘If you do get bitten by lice, don't scratch,' Max instructed them. ‘It's not the louse's bite that gives you typhus, it's rubbing the louse's poo into the wound.'

‘Oh God,' Scarlett said. ‘I think I'm going to be sick.'

‘We'll hang the clothes over the fire tonight,' Max said. ‘The stench of that smoke will be enough to kill them!'

‘You hope,' Donovan muttered.

Angus had brought loose shirts of linen for the boys, which were worn over what looked like long woollen bloomers, with a rather embarrassing flap in the front so the boys could pee without having to undress.

The girls were given loose ankle-length smocks, which they wore under heavy woollen petticoats. A rough brown dress went over the top of that, lacing up the front, and an apron of unbleached linen with a deep pocket that could be tied closed with a drawstring.

Angus had also brought four crudely made sheepskin jackets, with the woolly side inside, and four broad lengths of grey-brown plaid, which were to serve the children as blankets, slings, hoods or scarves, as well as four knitted tam o'shanters. All four had worn stout leather boots, so at least they did not need to go barefoot.

‘Oh my God, what a hideous outfit!' Scarlett cried, holding her coarse brown skirts out stiffly. ‘The poor girls, having to get around in this get-up all the time. I look like such a frump!'

‘I thought everyone wore ruffs,' Hannah said, remembering the book on Tudor costume in the library.

Angus looked disapproving. ‘Only the rich wear such fripperies. Do you know how much one of those costs?'

Giggling, the friends paraded up and down in their new clothes, bowing and curtseying to each other. It was odd how different they all looked. A shrill sort of hilarity possessed them, a reaction to the long hours of anxiety and dread. Angus glared at them and shook his shaggy head, but that only made them giggle harder.

It was by now growing dark outside again. Hannah thought she would never get used to how short the days were in Scotland in winter. It worried her that they had wasted a whole day, but she consoled herself thinking that it did not really matter, as she would make sure they returned to their own time on the same night as they had left. At dawn on the next day, instead of at midnight, she thought, so they did not meet themselves in the tunnels of the fairy hill. The very idea gave her the heebie-jeebies.

While they had been trying on their clothes and laughing at each other, Angus had been quietly preparing a meal for them. Thin vegetable soup with a dry oatcake. The children were all so hungry they ate obediently, even though they once again had to eat straight from the pot. At least they had cutlery this time, for Angus had brought them each a spoon carved from horn and a small but sharp knife. The old man wore his knife in his belt at all times, and used it to chop the carrots and turnips, to clean his fingernails, and to transfix a small mouse that scurried over the beaten-earth floor. He was most offended by Max's insistence on squirting antibacterial gel all over it before he returned to chopping turnips. Max had brought two big bottles of the gel, as well as a first-aid kit.

Hannah and her friends were lying sleepily in the straw, watching the strange muted glow of the peat fire, when a soft voice called from outside. Angus got up from the stool, where he had been mending an old leather satchel, and opened the door.

A young woman came in, unwinding a shawl from her head. She was small and slight and brown-haired, with eyes that looked too large in her wedge-shaped white face. She
was dressed plainly in brown, with a long grey apron, and her feet were bare.

‘Angus? How is it with you?' she asked. Her voice was very soft, and had a strange lilt to it, as if she had grown up speaking another language.

‘I can't complain,' Angus said in a tone of deep depression.

‘What's wrong? Have you news of my lady?' she asked, noticing the four children in their bed of straw. Her eyes widened and Hannah noticed they were a deep and vivid green. ‘What has happened?'

‘No good news, I'm afraid. Here, let me warm some ale for you, you're freezing!' He poured her a cup from the barrel and thrust in the hot poker. She sank down onto the stool and held out her hands to the orange glow.

‘Tell me, what news?' She fixed her anxious eyes upon his face.

‘Lord Fairknowe failed. He was never seen again after that night, and no word of my lady either. I'm so sorry, Linnet.'

She closed her eyes. Tears began to trickle down her white face. She lifted her arm to blot them away with her sleeve. ‘How do you know?'

‘Lord Fairknowe's daughter is here. She came through the fairy gate.' He waved one hand towards the pile of straw, where the four children had sat up, staring in amazement.

‘Linnet?' Hannah asked uncertainly. This young woman looked and sounded so different from the old woman she knew and loved. Her figure was slim and straight as a willow wand. Her face was oddly shaped, like a cat's, with wide-spaced
eyes set at a slight angle and wide cheekbones that narrowed to a pointed chin. If it was not for the green eyes, Hannah would not have thought it possible that they could be the same person.

‘Yes?'

‘Linnet!' Hannah leapt up and ran to embrace her. To her astonishment, Linnet did not hug her close but leant back, stiff and surprised.

‘Of course! You don't know me yet.' Hannah thought how odd she must sound. ‘I'm sorry. It's just so confusing. You know me well, in my own time. You always put a hot-water bottle in my bed, and make me marmalade cake because I love it so—'

‘What's marma . . . marma . . . what?' Linnet asked.

‘Marmalade. I guess it's not invented yet.' Hannah wondered how long it would be before she stopped getting tangled in these confusing loops of time and tenses. It made her brain hurt, just thinking of it all. ‘You are Linnet, aren't you? My Linnet?'

‘I don't know. Am I?' Linnet sounded weary. ‘I was my lady's Linnet, but she's gone now. We thought she'd been rescued and taken to safety, but . . . you say she and Lord Fairknowe never made it back safely?'

‘They made it back,' Hannah said slowly. ‘Because I found my father's hag-stone.' She bent to find the holey stone, which she had hidden in the pocket of her dress.

‘My lady's hag-stone! You have it?'

Hannah nodded. ‘So my father must have made it back safely, else surely I could not have found it? But we don't know what happened after that. He disappeared . . .'

‘And my lady?' Linnet spoke with fierce intensity.

‘I don't know.' Hannah hesitated, then looked towards the bed, where three sets of eyes were watching intently. ‘I think my father brought her to some kind of safety. I think . . . well, I wonder . . . if maybe she had her baby. These are my friends. They were all born that same week. I don't know. Maybe . . .'

‘Maybe what?' Donovan demanded, his blue-grey eyes fixed on her intently.

‘Belle . . . my great-grandmother . . . she was convinced that one of you was Eglantyne's child. That somehow my father did rescue her, and bring her back to our time, and that something happened—'

‘Of course!' Scarlett sat bolt upright. ‘That explains everything! I must be Eglantyne's child. That's why I look so different from the rest of the family. That's why I always felt like I didn't belong! My father . . . I mean, my adopted father . . . he always calls me his fairy princess. Maybe they found me on their doorstep or something.'

‘That only happens in stories,' Max said dismissively. ‘If they did find you on the doorstep, they'd have had to turn you over to the police or something.'

‘Not if they hid me, lied about how they got me,' Scarlett said eagerly. ‘Mum is always saying how she thought she could never conceive, and how I was the best Christmas present ever.'

‘Well, I've always thought you look exactly like your father,' Donovan said brutally.

‘What do you mean? He's fat and bald and ugly!' Scarlett was horrified.

‘He's got blue eyes just like yours.'

‘My lady had eyes as blue as the loch,' Linnet said.

‘See? It must be me. I'm the lost child.' Scarlett clasped
her hands together and gazed rapturously up at the smoke-blackened rafters.

‘Well, it's not me,' Max said gruffly. ‘No mystery about me and my mum. Just another sordid love story.'

‘Except that you were born at Wintersloe, at a time when all the roads were closed because of the snow,' Hannah pointed out. ‘Where did your mum come from? There's only the one road. And she talks about her homeland as if it were the Otherworld.'

His sallow cheeks reddened. ‘She's no fairy princess, my mum.'

‘And her name,' Hannah went on. ‘Evangeline. It sounds a bit similar, don't you think? And her nickname is Genie, which is like a fairy. And she loves gardens, just like Eglantyne.'

‘So? Lots of people like gardens. Mum came to Scotland because of the gardens. She told me so.'

‘Doesn't it make you wonder, though?'

‘No,' Max said roughly.

Donovan, as always, had been silent. Now he said, with an edge to his voice, ‘And I, of course, have a mother who died giving birth to me. But her name was not Eglantyne. It was Rose. At least, I always thought it was.'

‘Eglantyne means “rose”, you know,' Hannah said slowly.

Donovan stared at her, sudden hope on his face. ‘My father doesn't have one single photograph of my mother. And he'll never tell me anything about her.'

‘Well, my mum says that's because he barely knew her,' Scarlett said unkindly. ‘He didn't even know she was pregnant.'

Linnet looked from one face to another with eyes that blazed with eagerness. ‘I cannot tell. Oh, by the stars, I hope
it is you.' She stared at Max hungrily. ‘To know that my lady is alive and well, and growing a beautiful garden . . . It could be you. Lord Montgomery has eyes as dark as yours.'

‘It's not my mum,' Max said, his arms crossed, his face obstinate.

‘How can you be so sure?' Hannah asked, disappointed. She had had high hopes of Genie. ‘I thought you didn't know where she came from?'

Max went scarlet. He took off his glasses and polished them. ‘She comes from Gozo. All right? Satisfied?'

‘Gozo?' Hannah repeated blankly.

‘Yeah, Gozo. It's a small island near Malta, in the Mediterranean. I don't like to tell people because everyone always laughs, all right?'

‘Gozo!' Scarlett repeated, then snorted with laughter.

‘See?' Max cast Scarlett a furious look, and the blonde girl grinned back at him, drawling, ‘Oh, that explains so much! The gonzo from Gozo!'

‘You see why I never tell anyone?' Max said in a long-suffering voice.

Donovan was sitting up, his arms crossed on his knees, his blue-grey eyes fixed questioningly on Hannah's face. ‘Does Lady Wintersloe really think one of us is the lost heir, the child of true blood?' When Hannah nodded, he whispered, ‘It'd explain so much . . .'

Scarlett snorted. ‘Sure. Much better than having to admit your dad is a mean old man. No, it's obviously me!'

Donovan glanced at her angrily, opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. ‘Whatever,' he said, and rolled away to face the wall.

‘So, what's the plan?' Scarlett asked next morning as they chewed their way through another pot of gluey porridge. It was early, so early it was still dark outside, and bitterly cold.

‘Well, my great-grandmother says the four loops of the puzzle ring were flung in the four directions of the compass. We know my father found one . . . but we don't know which one or how.'

‘I went with him,' Angus said. ‘We went south because it was winter still, and the travelling would be easier that way. He found the ring in Galloway, at some old standing stones near Drumtrodden.'

‘But how did he know to go there?' Donovan asked.

‘He looked through the hole in his fairy stone,' Angus said, ‘and chanted some spell.'