The Witches of Eileanan (41 page)

"Ye ken that the stallion Garlen once belonged to the Banrìgh herself, and is o' the very best stock?" the Grand-Seeker said in contemptuous tones, but Isabeau nodded eagerly.

"Och, aye, he be a fine stallion, my lady, o' the Angharar bloodline." Isabeau then rattled off the bloodlines of the horse, thankful both for the guards' conversation she had overheard, and her own excellent memory. Again she could tell she had impressed the crowd, although the judges remained skeptical. They asked her more questions about the bloodlines, hoping to trip her up, but Isabeau was very careful, and grateful for her thorough knowledge of horses. All the horses on the island were descended from those brought in the Great Crossing, since horses were not native to Eileanan, but only a few were descended from Cuinn Lionheart's six great stallions. It was from that stock that Lasair was descended, bred on the wide plains of Tireich by the great Horse-Laird Ahearn himself.

"And how does a country girl ken this much about horses?" the witch-sniffer asked. "It is obvious she is a professional horse thief."

"I be no horse thief!" Isabeau cried angrily. "Och, I beg your pardon, my lady, but the Collene family be a respectful family and nobody has ever said such a thing o' us. No, my da is employed in the laird's stables, and we do be horse trainers and breeders for many generations." This last part was not true, the real Collenes being huntsmen, but Isabeau thought she could get away with that one. "Lasair was given to my da as a wee foal, as a boon gift for the saving o' the laird's life."

"What did ye call the stallion?" the seeker said, frowning.

"Lasair. That be his name." She told them she walked the many miles to Caeryla in order to run errands for her da, and her skeelie grandmother, until she came upon Lasair grazing untethered on the moors. Recognizing him immediately, Isabeau had called the stallion to her, and ridden it the last few miles to the town, where she had been planning to ask advice about what to do with him. Although the stallion had been stolen from her da many years ago, he had a new brand on his flank and she, Mari, had not known what the legalities were about a horse stolen years earlier.

Back and forth the questioning went, but they could cut no holes in Isabeau's story. Suddenly the seeker picked up a large paperweight and threw it at Isabeau's head. Isabeau's instinctive reaction was to deflect it with her magic but she remembered in time, and let it come. It hit her hard between the eyes and down she went, bleeding.

Immediately the court was in an uproar, and Laird Serinyza protested angrily. The seeker herself was a little disconcerted. "I'm sorry, my laird," she said. "That is a common trick to catch out a witch, who usually can deflect such things."

"I be no witch," Isabeau sobbed, trying to staunch the flow of blood with her hand. "I said I be no witch. Why ye hurt me so?"

Laird Serinyza instructed the leech to attend to her, and soon Isabeau's head was bound up and the tumult in the courtroom had died down. Isabeau made much of her injury, sobbing still and holding her head. Between her sobs, she told the court again of how she had been tortured and held up her bloodstained, bandaged hand for them to see.

The witch-sniffer reminded the court of how Isabeau had tried to escape, using her witchcraft to do so.

"I picked the lock with my hairpin!" Isabeau exclaimed, and the Grand-Seeker shot her a look of such loathing that Isabeau felt fear close her throat.

The judges began to argue in low voices. The Lady Glynelda had to admit she had not seen the thief that stole her mare, that it had been night and she had been asleep. In high-flown language she described how she had tracked them by following the traces of enchantment she had found in the air, and the physical evidence such as hoofprints and the marks of a fire where the thief had stopped. She said the thief had helped an enemy of the state escape—a foul
uile-bheist
their beloved Banrìgh was anxious to recapture, before he spread more evil. She had been bringing the
uile-bheist
back to Caeryla for judgment, and he had escaped in the night with the help of the thief who had turned all their other horses loose. It was only by commandeering the Red Guards watching the Pass that she had been able to follow them at all.

Laird Serinyza asked the Grand-Seeker whether she could smell any scent of witchcraft now, and the witch-sniffer nodded her head. Isabeau's heart sank. Hours had passed since she had last used the Power, and she had washed herself thoroughly, but evidently that was not enough.

"Och, aye, there's a smell here, for sure," the seeker said. "I can smell the stink o' it, and all the hair on my neck is bristling."

"That could be the serpent," the young laird said calmly. "I have been taught it is a magical creature, and this castle is always filled with the mists from the loch. That may be what brings the scent o' enchantment."

The witch-sniffer scowled, as if hating the idea that any magical creature be allowed to exist. Indeed, Isabeau wondered why they had not hunted it down, considering any magical creature was anathema to the Awl, but thought perhaps it was too convenient as both executioner and the town's defense.

"It is true there is always a stink on this place, my laird," said the seeker, "but this is something different. I examined the cell where the witch had been incarcerated, and there were clear traces of witchcraft, a quite different thing to the smell of a fairy-serpent. The lock stank o' it."

Isabeau's heart dropped. She wondered how it was witch-sniffers were able to smell magic so clearly. Was it a Talent? Or were they trained in some way? Surely, if it were an inherent ability, they too were witches?

The trial dragged on. The judges were now arguing about Isabeau's story, the Lady Glynelda insistent that she was lying, some of the other judges half convinced by Isabeau's story. One, in particular, stood up against the Grand-Seeker, an elderly man with ordered waves of white hair and a green velvet doublet. He said wearily, "Have we no' tired o' feeding our people to the serpent o' the loch, or sending them to Dùn Gorm to be burned? She seems a mere country lass, and surely too young to have been taught the Skills the Grand-Questioner is so sure she's been displaying. The laws o' the Truth promise that none shall be Questioned without first having been proved guilty. Yet she has been put to the rack, and given the pilliwinkes, a cruel torture for no proven crime. And we have no positive identification, no first-hand witnesses. Everything is said to be proven by the fact that she used sorcery, yet she is so young, how could she be capable of such Craft and Cunning?"

For the first time Isabeau felt hope, but she stood demurely, head lowered.

"Ye are very free with the terms o' the witches, Laird Bailey. They slide off your tongue with great familiarity and comfort." The Grand-Seeker's voice dripped with poisoned honey.

"Ye must forgive me, Lady Glynelda Grand-Seeker. I am an auld man, and sometimes the times o' my youth are clearer to me than my middle years, and so my language also. I just wish that we should be careful and canny in our judging—make sure we do not cry 'witch!' when the peculiar effects o' chance may be all that is at play."

"Chance! Indeed, I can see today is no' as clear to ye as your past, my laird, when ye think chance can have had a hand in this. Chance that my horse is stolen and this lass happens to be riding it? Chance that she escapes us again and again, although I have the best trackers in Rionnagan? Chance that she is hidden by a village witch or that she kills Baron Yutta?"

The young laird held his hand up for silence. "Please, let us stop this bickering," he said, and immediately the judges fell silent, though they did not look too pleased to be told what to do by a seven-year-old boy, dwarfed by his huge chair. "I think I have a solution," he said. "The accused says she found the stallion loose on the moors and it recognized her, coming to her when she called. Surely if that were true, it would prove the stallion knows the accused and therefore that she is telling the truth. Why do we no' call in the stallion?"

A flood of relief broke over Isabeau, though one of the judges sneered and said, "Really, my laird, calling in a horse as a witness is ridiculous .. ." Laughter broke out here and there in the packed hall, while the murmurs of conversation rose high. Eventually, however, the young laird prevailed, and Lasair was brought in, whinnying and flailing out with sharp hooves at the man who led him. He whickered anxiously at Isabeau, who dared not reply. Laird Serinyza instructed the Grand-Seeker Glynelda to come down from the dais and stand in the square with Isabeau and she did so, her face stiff with outrage. A few of the crowd snickered and she glared round at them with anger clearly written on her face. The crowd fell silent.

Lasair was led to the center of the room, where he reared, so that the groom had to fight to retain hold on his rein. Then the groom let go, and Isabeau held out her hand and whickered, saying, "Lasair," while the Seeker called impatiently, "Garlen!"

The chestnut tossed his beautiful head, and dashed over to Isabeau, leaning against her and whickering anxiously.

Lady Glynelda was saying crossly, "In Truth, I've never called the damn horse in my life. That's what I have a groom for!", and the Lord Serinyza said, "See, the stallion does ken her," and Isabeau tried not to grin in relief. The whole room seemed to relax, and Isabeau held her breath, sure now she would be freed. The Laird was the highest authority in his holding, the highest point of law except for the Rìgh himself.

"Is there any more evidence to be brought to bear in the charges o' horse theft, sorcery, resisting arrest and murder?" the herald said.

"Aye," the Grand-Seeker shouted, "and I think this will close the case." She held something up between two fingers and everyone in the courtroom strained forward in an attempt to see, but whatever she held appeared invisible, making the witch-sniffer seem rather ludicrous. Seeing the boy's puzzled look, Lady Glynelda got to her feet and walked over to the dark-haired laird perched on the edge of his huge chair. The young laird's face fell and Isabeau's heart with it. The Grand-Seeker smiled.

"I found this caught on a branch near where the
uile-bheist
we had captured was lying asleep," she said in tones ringing with triumph. "It proves the accused was skulking in the bushes while we made camp! We ken that witchcraft must have been used to free the
uile-bheist,
so it therefore proves that the accused is a witch!"

Isabeau strained desperately to see what it was the Grand-Seeker was holding up so triumphantly before the courts, while murmurs of, "What is it?" ran round the room like a plague. No one could see anything in the witch-sniffer's hands. "It also proves that the accursed witch enchanted and stole my stallion Garlen and the ponies o' the trackers, who hunted down the
uile-bheist
for us. To these heinous crimes are added the wicked and abominable murder o' the Grand-Questioner o' the great Awl, also by the foul practice o' sorcery!"

Only then did she walk over to Isabeau and show her what she held in her hand—a long thread of bright red hair. Then she yanked Isabeau's tarn o'shanter off, pulling on her hair so hard that Isabeau fell to her knees with a scream of pain. With great ostentation, the seeker compared the strand to Isabeau's ruddy tresses. "Of these charges the accused is proven guilty!"

Isabeau tried to wrench her hair free, but the seeker tightened her grip so Isabeau thought she'd pull her hair out by the roots. "Look at the length o' this hair! I would wager my entire year's salary that these luscious locks have never been touched by scissors. This girl is a witch! No' a doubt! And she freed that
uile-bheist
we hunted down in the mountains, and she killed the Grand-Questioner when he tried to discover the nature o' her witchcraft. I say drown her! Feed her to the
loch-serpent!"

As the crowd began to chant "Drown her! drown her!", Isabeau kicked the Grand-Seeker sharply in the stomach, wrenched her hair out of her weakened grasp, and leaped onto Lasair's back. Before anyone could do more than cry out, the stallion was galloping down the great hall while the screaming crowd tried to get out of the way. One man leaped in front of the wild-eyed horse and was knocked down for his trouble. While the Red Guards ran after, shouting and waving their spears, the Grand-Seeker Glynelda screamed, "Stop her! She's stolen my horse again!" and the young laird on his throne laughed till tears ran down his cheeks.

With freedom heady in Isabeau's mouth, they were out of the massive doors and bolting down the steps. Ahead of them, a castle guard struggled to shut the high gates that divided the castle from its town, but Isabeau spurred Lasair on and the stallion galloped over the guard so he shrieked and fell, arms over his head. Then they were into the town, hooves loud on the cobbles. Dogs and chickens scattered before them, and they knocked a cart of vegetables into the path of the Red Guards behind them. Over a low wall they jumped, Lasair showing his breeding in the smoothness of his motion. Down a narrow alley, through a maze of twisty streets and at last the sound of pursuit began to fade. Isabeau risked a look behind her and saw only an empty lane.

"We've done it!" she whickered, and Lasair neighed, only to be answered by another horse as they rounded the corner into a square filled with red-clad soldiers. Isabeau dragged at the stallion's mane and the horse wheeled and headed back into the narrow lanes, but again the pursuit was loud behind them, and now it was on horseback. Lasair was losing his freshness and once his hoof slipped in some unidentifiable slime so that he almost lost his footing.