The Puzzle Ring (25 page)

Hannah nodded her head. ‘I wondered if that was how he did it.' She did not mention that she had tried to locate the quarter of the ring her father had hidden at Wintersloe using
the same method, and had seen nothing more remarkable than her mother sitting across the room from her, reading the paper.

‘It was an eerie place. Your dad told me it was very old,' Angus said. ‘A local told us the stones marked the rising of the sun at midsummer and its setting in winter. We saw the sun set, a few weeks before the winter solstice, and it's true, if you stood with all the stones aligned, it almost blotted out the sun.'

‘And the ring was just lying there, at these standing stones?' Max asked.

Angus nodded. ‘There were three stones, just standing in some field. It was lying on the top of the middle stone. We had no trouble finding it at all, really, apart from the journey there.'

Hannah and the other three exchanged quick glances of relief. They had all spent a good part of the night worrying about the difficulties of the task that lay before them.

‘Drumtrodden is about a hundred miles south of here,' Angus said. ‘Your dad said he thought the other quarters of the ring would be about the same distance, north, east and west.'

‘A hundred miles . . .' That was about one hundred and sixty-one kilometres. Hannah's heart quailed within her. From the cries of dismay and consternation from her friends, she could tell they felt the same. A hundred and sixty-one kilometres was a long way to travel without a car.

‘Your father planned to go east to Edinburgh next. He thought that was where another part of the ring had fallen. That's not so far,' Linnet consoled them.

‘That would be the best place to go next,' Angus said. ‘There's a highway that runs to Edinburgh from Stirling, so
it'll be easier walking. And it's not a good time of year to head north, the snow will still be deep.'

‘
Walking!
' Scarlett cried. ‘Couldn't you have got us some horses to ride? It'll take forever if we have to
walk
across Scotland!'

Angus looked at her as if she was mad. ‘Do you know how much a horse
costs
? It's got to be ten pounds or more!'

‘Is that all?' Scarlett began.

Angus cut across her. ‘I'm only paid four shillings a year! It cost me all my savings to buy you those clothes and some food for the road. I can't afford to mount us all.'

Scarlett's eyes were round. ‘Four shillings a year? But that's practically nothing!'

‘All too true, lassie,' Angus said with feeling. ‘Luckily I do not work much in the winter, and so no one will miss me if I go with you to show you the way. We must be careful, though. Wandering beggars are not welcome anywhere, nor poachers. We'll have to travel light, and keep away from the villages as much as we can. Do not go killing any rabbits or birds unless I tell you to.'

‘We're not going to kill any rabbits,' Scarlett cried, revolted.

Max grinned. ‘A week or two of light rations and I'll bet you're as eager for a bit of roast rabbit as anyone.'

To their dismay, Angus made them sit down and sort through their packs, for he would not allow them to carry anything that was too modern or strange to his eyes.

‘They'll be calling this a tool of the Devil,' he said about their torches, fear and suspicion all over his face at the sight of the light-beam flicking on and off. He said the same about Max's spectacles, but let the boy keep them after Max
promised to hide them in his pocket whenever they went anywhere near people.

Max had also brought a pile of books with titles like
The Black Death
,
Plagues and Poxes
, and
Medicine and Magic in Tudor England
. Angus went pale at the sight of them, and insisted on hiding them as deep in the thatch as he could thrust them.

‘But they're library books and I haven't finished reading them!' Max protested. ‘How am I meant to be able to recognise the symptoms of bubonic plague without them?'

Scarlett shuddered theatrically. ‘Oh God! I don't want to get the plague!'

‘Just don't touch any dead rats,' Max said.

‘I'm not going to touch a dead rat!'

‘And keep an eye out for fleas.'

‘Fleas!' she screeched. ‘Why did I ever come?'

Angus made Scarlett leave most of her backpack behind, since it consisted mainly of clothes and gossip magazines. The sight of these filled the old man with such disapproval that his eyes were almost completely hidden by his frowning grey eyebrows.

Of them all, Donovan had brought the least. He had his flugelhorn; a lightweight rain jacket which Angus fingered enviously but hid in the thatch anyway; his compass; a wind-up torch; and a travel mix of nuts, seeds and dried fruits that Angus approved of heartily. Since Angus would not let any of them carry their backpacks, Donovan was going to find the flugelhorn awkward to carry, so he and the old man contrived a carry strap with some old rope made of heather.

By this time, it was growing light outside. Max and Scarlett were arguing over whether anyone would find her pink Barbie sleeping-bag peculiar, and Angus was packing his battered leather satchel while Linnet went out to wash the dishes in the fast-running burn. Hannah went outside too, her hag-stone in her hand. She wondered what she had done wrong when she had tried to find the loop that her father had hidden at Wintersloe.

The cottage was built low to the ground, and grass and heather grew on its roof so that it looked like a mossy boulder that had been there forever. It was ridiculously easy to climb onto the roof, giving her a clear view in all directions.

‘Um,' Hannah said, holding the hag-stone to her left eye. ‘Where's the puzzle ring?'

Hannah was whirled around, as if by an impatient hand playing blindman's bluff. Her vision swam dizzyingly, as far-distant landscapes and people spun in and out of sight. She lost her balance, and tumbled down the roof and to the ground again. Luckily the roof was so low to the ground, she was only a little shaken and bruised.

‘What happened?' Scarlett and Max came running outside, looking startled.

‘You okay?' Donovan said, helping her up.

‘Mmm-mmm,' Hannah grunted, too winded to speak. She was scowling. First time she tried, she saw nothing. Second time, she saw too much. What was she doing wrong?

‘You'd probably better be specific,' Donovan said. ‘If the ring has been split in four and thrown in four different directions, the hag-stone won't be able to show you it all, will it? Try asking for just one direction at a time.'

Hannah grunted again. It was good advice, but she was angry she had not thought of it herself.

‘I need paper and pen,' she said. ‘I'd better ask in rhyme. It seemed to work for the fairy gate.' She found the little pad and pencil she had packed, and sat down again, scribbling on the paper. Every few seconds she would stop, squint up at the leaden sky, and mutter a few words. ‘Ring, sing, sling, king, bling.'

‘I think “bling” is a bit modern,' Scarlett said helpfully.

Hannah ignored her. ‘East, beast, feast, least. Sun, bun, fun, done. Oh, how can I say this?'

Eventually she had something that satisfied her. She did not try to climb the roof, having no desire to fall off again, but walked up the gentle slope of the hill behind the house till she could see across the bare hillside to the east.

Show me, show me, magic stone,
where one quarter of the ring was thrown,
east where the new sun does rise,
help me to find the golden prize
.

It was not very good poetry, but it was the best Hannah could do on short notice. To her delight, looking through the hag-stone as she chanted the words, she saw the landscape rushing towards her as if she were flying over the moors in a helicopter. A walled grey town hurried towards her. Before it crouched a great hill, shaped like a sleeping lion. Closer she came, until she saw a spring of water bubbling down into a small carved bowl.

‘Surely that was Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh?' she murmured. ‘Though the town was so small.'

‘Edinburgh would be much smaller then . . . I mean now,' Max said.

When she described what she had seen, Angus nodded his grizzled head. ‘I've heard tell of that spring. They say it's got magical healing properties. It's called Saint Anthony's Well.'

‘If it's the spring of water I know, it's far older than your Saint Anthony,' Linnet said, coming barefoot through the snow with the porridge pot on her hip.

‘So you know the place I saw?' Hannah demanded.

Linnet nodded her head. ‘Aye, many's the time I've danced on that hill on May Day. Though not for many a long year.' She handed Angus the pot and he hung it to his satchel, along with a big leather bottle of water—which Max had insisted he boil first—and a flat griddle pan.

‘So are you going to come with us?' Hannah asked eagerly, the hag-stone in her hand. ‘You'll stay until we join the puzzle ring again, won't you, Linnet? And you too, Angus?'

There was a strange silence for a moment. Linnet was pale, her green eyes wide in her small, wedge-shaped face. Then she surprised them all by going down on her knees before Hannah, heedless of the mud on her skirt, and bowing low her head. ‘As you bid, so shall I do,' she said, her voice husky. ‘However long it takes.'

Angus glanced up. ‘For sure, lassie,' he said irritably, slinging a tall bow over his shoulder and picking up a quiver of arrows. ‘Haven't I said so? Come on, let's be getting on the road! Plenty of time for blethering while we walk.'

Hannah, standing astounded with Linnet kneeling in the mud before her, suddenly remembered what her father had written in his diary:
Hag-stones have the power to bind a faery to the owner's service
.

What have I done?
she wondered in dismay.

All that day Hannah was haunted by the possibility that she had just bound Linnet to her service for the next four hundred and forty years. Is that why Linnet had grown so very old? She had spoken impulsively, but it was clear by Linnet's reaction that she took the pledge seriously. Hannah tried to apologise and tell her not to worry, but Linnet just said gently, ‘I was bound to my Lady Eglantyne, and now I am bound to you. I will serve you well, my lady.'

Hannah was too cold and exhausted to worry for long. It was a long, hard day, following rough paths that wound through tangled forests, over boulders and rocky streams and patches of bog that oozed black mud. When Hannah stumbled and fell to her knees, she had to haul herself up and keep on walking, cold and muddy though she was, her guitar banging uncomfortably on her back. There was nothing to eat but cold leftover porridge, cut into slices they ate as they walked.

A magpie followed them for some distance, making Hannah feel quite apprehensive, but then Linnet spat at it, crying, ‘I defy thee!' seven times. In a welter of feathers, the magpie somersaulted backwards as if flung by a sudden gust of wind, and flew away, squawking loudly. Hannah smiled faintly, and Linnet told her that if she ever saw a magpie again, she was to do the same thing.

‘It is the black witch's spy, that bird,' she told Hannah. ‘My lady's cousin slit its tongue with a silver knife and then trickled a drop of her own blood into the wound, so that the bird could speak to her. You must always beware of magpies.'

Hannah nodded, remembering the black and white bird that had attacked her in the garden at Wintersloe, plucking a strand of hair.

Max and Scarlett had been quiet and morose all day, only speaking to complain of the ache in their legs, or how cold they were, but Donovan walked with a long easy stride, his head held high, his eyes bright with pleasure.

‘I wonder if we'll see any wolves,' he said. ‘They weren't extinct nowadays.'

‘You've got to get your tenses sorted,' Max said gruffly, taking off his glasses to wipe away the sweat. ‘They
aren't
extinct
these
days.'

‘Wolves. Just what we need,' Scarlett said.

‘I'd love to see a bear in the wild too,' Donovan said. ‘And look out for beaver dams. Can you believe they hunted beavers to extinction?'

‘All I want to see right now is a Pizza Express,' Scarlett said tartly.

Donovan cast her a look of contempt. ‘Typical.'

The forest was far thicker and darker and wilder than the woods Hannah had explored with Donovan back in their own time, and there was no distant sound of traffic, or the white trails of airplanes in the sky. If it had not been for the heavy confinement of her petticoats and skirt, she could have believed they were just out for a hike and would soon go back to Wintersloe for a cup of hot chocolate and some marmalade cake. It made her feel very frightened and alone to think the house with its mismatching towers and crow-stepped gables had not even been built yet.