Heart of Stars (29 page)

Filthy, exhausted and coughing from the smoke, Fèlice, Landon, Rafferty and Cameron all found themselves a spot on the deck, and gulped down some water gratefully.

‘Her Highness says the Banprionnsa Olwynne is dead,’ Fèlice told them hoarsely. ‘They killed her last night.’

‘Oh no!’ Landon cried.

‘What o’ the witch they wanted to raise?’ Rafferty asked.

‘I guess she’s alive and up there somewhere,’ Fèlice said, looking up at the old fort which, high on its hill, was still touched by the last of the sunlight. ‘She’s a powerful sorceress by all accounts. I dread to think what she plans.’

‘And the prionnsa?’ Cameron asked, coughing.

‘Alive still, though who kens for how long?’

‘What o’ Rhiannon?’ Landon asked, his hands clasped together before his chest. ‘Any news at all?’

‘None,’ Fèlice replied, and suddenly began to cry. She had never seen a battle before.

Rafferty and Cameron both put their arms about her, banging each other by mistake, and scowling at one another over her head. Fèlice wiped her eyes.

‘I just hope she and Blackthorn are all right,’ she said. ‘I wish I kent where they were!’

Both Rhiannon and Owein were still locked in their damp, smelly, unpleasant little cell. Dedrie had come at one point, to bring them more water and some food, and to look at their wounds, but she had been distracted and in a hurry, and well guarded by a surly-faced Jem and Ballard, so it was impossible to try to escape.

After that, no-one had come near them. They had spent all day listening to the distant boom of the cannons, and agonising over what was happening.

‘It’s the Yeomen! They’ve finally come!’ Owein cried. ‘But too late for Olwynne.’ Impatiently he passed his hand over his eyes.

‘It’s a miracle they are here at all,’ Rhiannon said. ‘Ye dinna see the storm they had to face to get here.’

‘What’s happening? What’s going on?’

‘I dinna ken,’ Rhiannon answered irritably. ‘Stop pacing up and down, ye’re stirring up all the dust and sneezing really hurts my shoulder.’

‘Eà’s eyes, I wish I kent what was going on!’

Just then there was a high, joyful trill, and a tiny bluebird swooped down through the bars of the cage. Rhiannon was overjoyed. ‘Bluey!’ she cried. ‘Where have ye been? I thought ye must’ve been hurt or killed when they shot me down! Where’s Blackthorn? Is she all right?’

The bluebird answered with another trill, and both Owein and Rhiannon looked at each other in relief as they heard, in the simple language of birds, that Blackthorn was alive and unhurt, hiding out in the forest behind the old fort.

‘We have some chance o’ escape then,’ Owein said, beginning to pace again. ‘Oh, Rhiannon, please ask your wee birdie to go and see what is happening. I’ll go mad shut up in here and no’ knowing what is going on!’

So the bluebird flittered in and out, giving the two captives a very vague and imprecise idea of what was going on. One piece of news cheered Owein up immensely.

‘Snow and ice,’ he cried. ‘That’s my mama! Thank Eà she’s here. It’ll no’ be long now, Rhiannon, and we’ll be free!’

Rhiannon did not have the same high opinion of the Dowager Banrìgh as Owein, but she nodded her head and smiled, and then bent her head to the bird. ‘Find Lewen,’ she whispered. ‘Find Lewen and bring him here.’

Lewen was flying through the twilight, the sky ahead of him filled with long lines of grey rain like battalions of soldiers. He had his hood up over his head and his shoulders hunched against the sharp wind, but he was gladder than he had been for weeks. Beneath him, the stallion’s great shoulder muscles moved rhythmically, as the magnificent wings shaped the wind and bade it serve him. Lewen could not believe how swiftly the land rolled by beneath them, like a dark green eiderdown stitched together with thin shining rills of water. Already they had traversed half the distance to the sea. Tomorrow he would be flying over water. The day after that, if all went well, he would see the sharp peaks of the Pirate Isles rising out of the ocean.

Keep safe, Rhiannon
, he thought.
I’m coming …

Bronwen lay on a chaise longue in the sunshine, feeling as limp as a scullery maid’s rag. They had carried her out here at her urgent request, as she could not stand being incarcerated in her stuffy room any longer. They had brought her to one of her favourite spots, a deep green pool in the forest, just far enough beyond the hedges of the garden that she could see nothing but the curve of one golden dome above the trees. Here she could lie, and listen to the birds and the wind in the trees, and soak up the warmth of the sunshine.

They had set up a little table nearby, with a jug of iced water and a glass, some smelling salts, a pile of the latest broadsheets that made Bronwen’s head ache to look at, and a plate of fruit and sweetmeats for which she had absolutely no appetite. Joey stood beside her, holding a parasol to shade her face from the brightness of the sun, and Maura crouched in a chair next to her, for once sitting idle, and looking very ill and wretched. Her breath wheezed in her chest, and every few breaths she coughed,
a deep guttural cough that sounded as if her lungs were full of mud.

‘Oh, Maura, please go to bed,’ Bronwen said faintly. ‘Your coughing is making my head ache!’

‘I dinna
…
cough, cough
…
want to
…
cough
…
leave ye.’

‘Ye’re sick. Go to bed. I’ll send Mirabelle to tend ye.’

‘Nay, thank ye!’

Bronwen raised herself on one elbow. ‘Why no’? She is the head healer now. It is her job.’

‘Bogfaeries have own remedies,’ Maura said, her voice hoarse with coughing. ‘Besides, me no like that one, with her poxy face. She never smiles.’

‘It’s no’ her fault she’s pockmarked,’ Bronwen said. ‘I’m sure she’s a very good healer, else she’d no’ be head o’ the Healers’ Guild.’

‘Like that other one? Who took our Donn? She mighty fine.’ Maura paused to cough throatily into her handkerchief.

‘Ye shouldna judge Mirabelle just because she was Johanna’s assistant,’ Bronwen said, and then a terrible thought occurred to her. So terrible was it, and yet so obvious, that she sat utterly frozen for a moment, looking back over the past few days and seeing its pattern tumble into an entirely new configuration.

‘Joey,’ she said after a long moment.

‘Aye, Your Majesty?’

‘I have a fancy for some o’ Mirabelle’s special angelica tea. Could ye please go and ask the butler to make me a pot, and bring it out to me here?’

Joey hesitated. ‘I was told I shouldna leave ye alone,’ he said.

‘I’m no’ alone. Maura is here. She can look after me. Please. I do think it will make me feel better.’

‘Aye, Your Majesty. I’ll go now.’ He propped the parasol against the chair, carefully wedging it with a stone so it would not fall and subject Bronwen to the harsh glare of the sunlight, and then he went running back towards the palace at top speed.

‘Maura,’ Bronwen said. Her voice was slow and thick and difficult to force out through her numb lips. ‘When did ye start feeling sick?’

The bogfaery coughed violently before answering, and then stared for a moment at her handkerchief. ‘Day or two ago. Maybe more. I been so sad and heartsick since winged one die, it’s hard to tell.’

‘Have ye eaten anything unusual?’ Bronwen asked.

Maura was surprised. ‘No, no. I eat as usual. In kitchen with other maids mostly. That boy o’ yours, he been kind, he bring me soup and bread at night, when I sit up a-waiting for ye. I do get tired these days. No’ as young as I was.’

‘Joey’s been bringing ye soup?’

‘Aye, soup and a nice drop o’ hot elderberry wine. I done changed my mind about that boy. Me thought him very quick and sly when first Cuckoo brought him, but he been kind, and saves my legs.’

The bogfaery’s voice was broken continually by coughs and the clearing of her throat.

‘Maura, will ye please go to bed? For me?’

The bogfaery protested, and Bronwen said, her voice strengthening with the urgency of her emotions, ‘Maura! Ye are making me feel ill listening to ye. Go
…
to
…
bed! And on your way, will ye send Dolan to me?’

‘Och, Dolan no’ feeling too good either,’ Maura said. ‘Did ye no’ hear? Half the palace guard are down with the same thing as ye. Sick as cats, they are.’

‘Barlow too?’

‘Och, aye. They think some kind o’ rot got into the grain, perhaps, because o’ the weather. They been up all night, coughing up their guts, poor boys.’

Some kind o’ rot, all right
, Bronwen thought grimly. She wondered what to do. She was so weak she could barely walk. Her breath shortened in her chest. She found it hard to breathe.
It’s all just coincidence. Just my stupid suspicious imaginings. Mirabelle taught me when I was just a lass. She couldna possibly be a traitor. She couldna possibly be poisoning me …

‘Your Majesty, how do ye feel?’ Mirabelle’s shadow fell upon her.

Bronwen jumped violently. She put one hand to her heart. ‘Terrible,’ she said in a whining voice. ‘Like I’ve been beaten with clubs.’

‘Let me give ye some more medicine,’ Mirabelle said, measuring out a dose from one of her big brown bottles. ‘Joey says ye’ve asked for some more tea. It’ll be here in just a moment. I’m so glad ye’ve been enjoying my special brew. I made it up just for ye.’

I bet ye did
, Bronwen thought as she accepted the cup of medicine. She held it to her lips, and noticed how fixedly Mirabelle watched her until she had drunk down the medicine and given her back the empty cup.

‘Ye’ll have a nice sleep now, and when ye wake ye’ll feel much better, I promise,’ Mirabelle said, and went quietly away, her green healer’s robe almost invisible among the shifting hues of the garden.

Bronwen leant over, thrust her fingers as far as she could down her throat, and vomited up the sickly sweet medicine. Maura watched her in dismay. ‘Ye sick again! I get healer!’

‘Dinna be a fool,’ Bronwen said savagely. ‘Get me my mother! And then, Maura, I want ye to get away from
here. Go find yourself a nice inn in the city. The Nisse and Nixie would be best. Get a faery healer and get them to purge ye. Do ye hear me?’

Maura stared at her, then turned and looked with frightened eyes up the path, where Mirabelle had gone.

‘I canna
…
cough, cough
…
leave ye
…
’

‘Aye, ye can. Please, Maura. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened
…
please
…
’

Maura nodded. ‘What else me do first?’

‘I just want my mother. Tell her to send Joey off on some other errand, so we have a chance to talk in private. Then get yourself somewhere safe, and find someone to help ye. Wait! There’s money in my bedchamber, ye ken where it is. Take a purse o’ coins, and try and get away with no-one seeing ye.’

‘No-one notices servants,’ Maura said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

She bent and embraced Bronwen fervently, patting her arms with her tiny, wrinkled paws. Then she hurried away, leaving Bronwen alone. Despite the warm, golden sunshine, Bronwen felt very cold.

Was it Mirabelle who killed my uncle then?
she wondered.
But no. It couldna have been. Mirabelle was at the healers’ hall. She was drugged like the others. Though Gwilym did say she was the first to recover …

Bronwen dropped her face into her hands. Was she wrong in suspecting Mirabelle of being involved in this plot to undermine the throne? What proof did she have? A tea that tasted delicious but left one with a desperate craving for more and an inability to sleep? More medicine, to help her sleep, that left her feeling as though her head was stuffed with wool and her limbs weighed down with lead. Mirabelle’s constant presence in the palace, even at night, fully dressed, with her pockets filled with potions? And the way Bronwen always felt uncomfortable around her
…

These were not proofs. Mirabelle was one of those heavy, lumpish, envious women who always made those that had been more fortunate in the lottery of life feel awkward. It was no fault of hers, and no fault of Bronwen’s. It was just the way things were. And Maura’s dreadful cough, and the sickness decimating the palace guard, they too could just be coincidences, and not an attempt to isolate Bronwen and leave her vulnerable.

Though she did feel very vulnerable.

Her Aunt Isabeau had once said to her, ‘Always trust your intuition. It is the witch-sense, prickling at ye. Listen to it.’

Wishing desperately that Isabeau was here now to help and advise her, Bronwen got to her feet, holding onto the chaise longue for support. She looked up the path, wanting her mother desperately. She was all alone in the garden. This felt all wrong. Bronwen was never left alone without servants or guards of some kind. Her sense of fear almost overwhelmed her. She had to lower her head and breathe deeply, as she had been taught during her days at the Theurgia, before she could force the panic back down.

‘How are ye yourself, Your Majesty?’ Elfrida’s voice cut across her thoughts. Bronwen looked up. Elfrida stood before her, carrying a tray with a teapot and cup. ‘Ye look very ill,’ Elfrida said. ‘Have ye been sick again? Sit down, my dear. Shall I call Mirabelle?’

‘No!’

Elfrida raised an eyebrow.

‘I’m sorry. I’m fine, really. I stood up and got all dizzy. I’ll sit down again. I’ll be fine.’

‘I heard ye wanted some tea. Joey has been waylaid by your mother, to run some chores for her, so I thought I would bring it out to ye myself. Where is your little bogfaery? Ye shouldna be alone.’

Bronwen was sending up a fervent prayer of thanks at the news her mother had got the message, and so she was stumped for an answer for a moment. ‘Oh. I
…
I sent her to get me a book from my room.’

‘Ye shouldna be out here all alone, when ye’re so sick and dizzy. Ye could faint or be sick again. Here, let me pour ye some tea.’

‘No, no. I’m fine. Maybe a wee drop o’ water. Thank ye. Please, no need to fuss. I’ll be right in a moment.’ Bronwen drank a mouthful of water to stop herself gabbling, then passed the glass back to Elfrida. She found her gaze riveted by Elfrida’s bare fingers. No onyx ring with the seal of the Thistle upon it. Bronwen was oddly disturbed by this. She remembered the silver tray of sliced bellfruit, and began to wonder. Elfrida sat down next to her, spreading out her black skirt, setting her feet side by side and her hands in her lap. Bronwen suddenly realised one of the weird dissonances about Elfrida today was the lack of the pastor behind her, like the thin elongated shadow of early evening. It made Elfrida seem warmer, pinker, more human.

‘Has it no’ grown hot today, with the Dowager Banrìgh gone and all her frost and snow with her?’ Elfrida said, fanning herself with her hand.

‘Aye, it’s almost like summer again,’ Bronwen said, lying back with a sigh. ‘Poor Mistress Dorcas. That’s the mistress o’ the wardrobe, ye ken. She’ll have packed away all the summer clothes and dug out all the winter clothes, and now suddenly it’s summer again. She will be in a tizz.’ A thought suddenly occurred to her. ‘What a shame I’m in mourning! My fan is all white, and I have no wish to dye it black. It’s made from the feathers o’ the white bhanais bird, ye ken, the one in the maze. It’s very rare. If it’s going to get all sultry again, I’ll have to order a new one. Made of black silk, perhaps, with sticks o’ jet.’

It made Bronwen feel much better to be sitting in the garden, chatting about fashion, even though she knew it was only a diversion to stop Elfrida suspecting anything was wrong. Any moment now, Maya would come, and Bronwen could make some excuse to get rid of Elfrida. Bronwen wanted her mother desperately. Maya had the sharpest, most cunning mind of anyone she knew. She would know what to do.

Elfrida moved back her chair so she was not sitting in direct sunlight, and waved her hand up and down again. It was warm. Bronwen noticed small beads of sweat along Elfrida’s upper lip.

‘Where is your fan?’ she asked idly, having another sip of cool water. ‘I remember admiring it at the wedding. It was heavy gold, and very ornate. Some kind o’ antique, was it?’

She glanced up at Elfrida, and was surprised to find her pasty-white and breathing heavily. ‘Och, aye, my fan,’ she said. ‘Mmm, it broke. I threw it out.’

‘But surely it must have been very valuable! It was gold!’

‘Happen so, but
…
it was broken. Couldna be fixed.’

‘What a shame. It was lovely, if ye like that heavy, ornate style. No’ your usual thing, though, I would have thought. What a shame it broke. How did it happen? It looked sturdy enough.’

Bronwen was talking more to keep the conversational ball rolling than for any other reason, but she found herself in a strange position of gradually revealing something to herself while she spoke, as if her words were heavy sheets over a shrieking creature in a cage, and with each word, another cover was whisked away, until at last Bronwen could see the ugly, terrible thing that lay beneath. Her voice faltered. Her breath stopped in her
throat. She took a long sip of water, gazing out at the garden, carefully not looking at Elfrida.

‘It was nothing special,’ Elfrida was saying. ‘It belonged to my mother-in-law. Ye’re right, it’s no’ really my style to carry a gaudy thing like that. I’ll have another made, something lighter to carry.’

‘We’ll all need new fans if it gets much hotter,’ Bronwen managed to say. She still could not look at Elfrida. Incredulity was burning through her veins. Surely it was impossible! Elfrida the murderer? Elfrida the secret assassin? Cuckoo’s mother!

This sickness has affected my brain
, she thought.
I’m imagining vile things, horrible things, about people I’ve kent for years. It’s no’ true, none o’ it is true.

Yet her mind continued to worry at the problem, turning little jigsaw pieces of oddness around and finding they were making a shape. Elfrida and Mirabelle in the corridors in the dark hours of the night. Mirabelle saying to the banprionnsa, ‘Now is no’ the time to be giving in to doubts and weaknesses.’ What had she meant by that? Why not now? The angelica tea. Elfrida giving her the bellfruit. The dreadful sickness that had followed. The golden fan, with its thick embossed sticks, that Elfrida had clutched so tightly all through that long, terrible night that Lachlan was murdered, and then tossed aside so carelessly later. The fan’s sticks had been wide enough to conceal a thin blowpipe and some barbs. It had belonged to Margrit of Arran, who by all accounts had had no hesitation in poisoning her enemies. Margrit of Arran, whose ghost had haunted the lord of Fettercairn, and led him to the spell of resurrection. Margrit of Arran, whose ring Elfrida had been wearing, and was no longer. Margrit of Arran, who the lord of Fettercairn sought to raise from the dead, using the blood of Bronwen’s cousin, Olwynne. Margrit of Arran, called the Thistle.