The Cursed Towers (3 page)

An eager-faced lad was sent to show the party the way, and he marched before them, casting curious glances at them from under his sandy thatch of hair. Morrell swung the crippled Enit into his strong arms and carried her easily, a mere bundle of shawls, amber jewelry and dark, liquid eyes. The palace corridors were as crowded as the streets and square had been. Everyone hurried about his or her business with purposeful faces. Dide's face lit up as he gazed about him. One long hall had been converted into a military training ground, and young men and women sparred together with wooden swords, a blue-kilted soldier shouting orders from what had once been a musicians' platform. Through another set of doors sleeping forms huddled in blankets covered the floor. One man leant on his elbow to cough harshly, and a girl knelt by his side and gave him something to drink from a beaker. Another hall had been turned into an indoor garden, seedlings growing in pots covered by sheets of glass. Growing from dark, rich soil were the feathery tops of carrots, the writhing vines of pumpkins, the spindly stems of oats and barley, all flourishing despite the snow whirling against the steamed-up windows. Another young woman was spraying the plants with water, her face flushed, her sleeves rolled up past her elbow.

The boy led the jongleurs through into the main wing of the palace where another blue-clad soldier relieved him of his task. Servants hurried past, arms full of scrolls, while men in furred cloaks and velvet doublets conferred in low voices at the foot of the wide, marble stairs. They were taken up to the top floor, Morrell panting as he carried his mother's frail form up the many flights of steps. Dide was tense now, his fingers clenching the strap of his guitar. Overwhelmed by the grandeur of the palace and the crowds of richly dressed people, Lilanthe hung close to the young jongleur's shoulder, Gwilym stumping behind, while the children chattered in nervous excitement. Only Iain, Douglas and the NicAislin sisters seemed at ease—they had grown up in castles as grand as this and were used to the magnificence of the furnishings.

The party was shown into a long hall hung with blue and silver brocade, the ceiling lavishly painted with clouds, rainbows and the lissom shapes of dancing nisses. Pacing the floor at one end was a tall, powerfully built man with black curly hair and an aquiline nose. He was scowling ferociously, one hand clenched around a scepter in which a large round orb of glowing white was set in claws of silver. He was dressed in a dark green kilt and plaid and fidgeting behind him were a pair of long, glossy black wings.

"Even if we get the recruits trained by the spring thaw, we still have no' got enough weapons or horses to arm even a third o' them!" he exclaimed.

"Lachlan, ye ken we have every forge in Rionnagan fired up night and day! I shall no' let ye start melting down plough-shares and shovels to make swords—come the spring, we shall need to be planting the crops and preparing for the harvest. Too many people are starving already." The speaker was a small, thin woman, her gray hair streaked with white, her face heavily lined. She was sitting bolt upright on a cushioned chair, a donbeag curled on her lap.

The room was lined with an odd selection of people. There were courtiers in velvet doublets, soldiers in the blue kilts and mail-shirts of the Righ's own bodyguard, a bow-legged old man in the leather gaiters of a groom. A frail old man in a blue robe sat near the throne, a raven on his shoulder. His eyes were milky white, his snowy beard reaching to his knees. On the other side of the throne sat a shaggy wolf leaning against the knee of a tall man in a black kilt. By the fireplace a woman with cropped red-gold curls was sitting, cushions at her back, the folds of her white tunic failing to conceal the great mound of her abdomen. She looked to be only a few days away from giving birth.

"Isabeau," Lilanthe whispered in delight and nudged Dide, standing stiff-backed before her. He nodded once, brusquely.

"Lachlan, is there no' some other way to get the metal ye need?" the red-haired woman asked wearily, and both Lilanthe and Dide started at the sound of her voice. It had an odd, stilted intonation, quite unlike the eager tones of the Isabeau they both knew. Lilanthe leant forward, staring at her intently, then, at Dide's raised eyebrow, shrugged.

Dide and Lilanthe had first been drawn together by their friendship with the red-haired Isabeau. It was only because of Isabeau's capture by the Anti-Witchcraft League that Lilanthe had left the safety of the sheltering forests and joined the rebel movement. It was partly the hope of seeing Isabeau that had persuaded Lilanthe to accompany the jongleurs to Lucescere rather than staying in Aslinn with the other tree-shifter, Corissa. It had cost her dearly to leave Corissa for, until she had helped rescue her in Arran, Lilanthe had thought she was the only one of her kind—half human, half tree-changer, and welcomed by neither. She would happily have stayed in Aslinn, sleeping away the winter in the shape of a tree, had she not hoped to see Isabeau again, and had her secret feelings for Dide the Juggler not meant she wished to stay by his side.

"We shall just have to try and find the men to work the iron mines," the old woman said, stroking the don-beag's brown fur. "Though it be cruel work in this bitter weather, with the rations so short."

"Make all those that refused to submit to us work the mines," the redhead said. "All those prisoners o'

war that Tomas insisted on healing should be put to good use. We have little enough food for our supporters without feeding and housing all those still championing Maya the Ensorcellor. Perhaps a few months digging in the darkness will make them regret their defiance!" The ruthless note in her voice made Lilanthe frown in puzzlement, for it was so unlike the tender-hearted Isa-beau she knew. Tentatively she probed the mind of the white-robed girl. Immediately the bright blue eyes turned her way, meeting Lilanthe's perplexed gaze with no hint of recognition. "But we have guests!" the woman said, rising awkwardly, one hand bracing her back, the other trying in vain to support the weight of her enormously swollen stomach.

Lachlan swung round and his scowl disappeared at the sight of the jongleurs. "Enit! Dide!" he cried and strode forward, the kilt swinging. "Glad indeed I am to see ye! What in Ea's name has kept ye?" He seized Dide's hands and embraced him, then took Enit's clawlike hand, kissing her withered cheek. From the group of courtiers by the fire came an inarticulate cry, and a tall man with a haggard face came stumbling forward. "Douglas, is it ye?" he cried.

"Dai-dein!"
Douglas rushed forward and was pulled into a fierce embrace. His father, Linley MacSeinn, said brokenly, "I thought I had lost ye as well! Douglas, where have ye been? What happened to ye?"

Ghislaine and Gilliane NicAislin were being as eagerly greeted, for their parents had also been among those to flee the siege of Rhyssmadill. The other children shifted unhappily and wished they too were being reunited with their families. They had all been kidnapped by Margrit of Arran for her Theurgia, and many were a long way from home.

"What a crowd! Where's my wee Nina? Heavens, how ye've shot up, lassie!" Dide's younger sister Nina laughed and dimpled, her black eyes dancing at the Righ's words. She made a pert response, and Lachlan picked her up in his powerful arms and spun her around.

"But, Lachlan my lad, wha' is this?" Enit asked in a trembling voice. "Your claws, they are gone! Ye move as gracefully as any young man should. Wha' happened? How did ye break the enchantment?"

"A long story and one I hope ye will write a ballad about to woo the people to my side!" He laughed.

"Come, Morrell, set your mother down, ye must be dying for a dram on this wicked cold night."

"That I am!" the fire-eater said. "But wha' do ye do holding war councils at midnight? Surely all good people should be abed at this hour?"

"Sleep is the one thing we have little time for," Lachlan responded, the laughter dying from his face, leaving it haggard with tiredness. "I am glad indeed ye have come, for we need all the help we can get." In the whirl of explanations and introductions which followed, Lilanthe stood to one side, tired and bewildered. She did not understand how the redhead could look so much like Isabeau but be so unlike her in voice and temperament. She wondered if such a profound change could be the result of the torture Isabeau had suffered at the hands of the Awl during her imprisonment. Then Lachlan introduced the woman as his wife, Iseult NicFaghan, and Meghan said, "She's Isabeau's twin sister, Enit. Ye must remember Isabeau from that time in the woods, when we labored so hard together to release Lachlan from his enchantment? She was only a bairn then, and Dide a mere lad."

"O' course I remember her," Enit exclaimed. "So this is her twin? I remember ye hinting at such, last time we were able to speak."

The two old women gossiped on, but Lilanthe did not listen. She was gripping her hands together in sudden dread. She had seen the relief and gladness that had transformed Dide's face at Meghan's words. With a sharp pang she wondered whether his quietness this past month had been because he was afraid his one-time playmate was married and with child rather than because he was concerned about the ill will in the countryside. When a door at the end of the hall opened quietly and Isabeau slipped inside, Lilanthe saw the nervous anticipation that flashed over the jongleur's expressive face and knew her suspicions to be true.

Then she heard her name called in joy, and Isabeau had seized her hands and embraced her. "Thank Ea!" Isabeau cried. "I have so wondered about ye these months. What are ye doing here, Lilanthe?" All Lilanthe's anxiety and loneliness melted away, and she hugged her friend tightly. "I'm here to join the rebels," she answered gruffly and heard Isabeau's familiar laugh peal out.

"We're no' rebels anymore," Isabeau said. "We won the Lodestar at Samhain and now we rule the land, as the auld proverb says—"

"Those parts o' the land no' overrun by the Bright Soldiers or held by supporters o' the Awl," Meghan said dryly and held out her hand to the tree-shifter. "Welcome to Lucescere, Lilanthe. I have heard much about ye. Glad we are indeed to have ye with us."

Outside, the howling wind threw handfuls of snow against the palace windows, but inside Isabeau's chamber everything was warm and quiet. The young witch had ordered a tub of earth from the conservatory for Lilanthe to sink her roots in, and the tree-shifter's feet were thankfully buried. Her slender torso looked more like a tree trunk than a human form, her arms stretched into lissom branches that dangled toward the ground. Only her face still retained its humanlike characteristics, though occasionally a shiver ran over her like a susurration of wind, and then it seemed as if Isabeau was confiding in a weeping greenberry tree instead of her best friend.

It was very late and the palace had at last quietened. Lilanthe resisted the temptation to shift entirely into her tree shape and listened intently as Isabeau finished the tale of her adventures. The red-haired witch kept her hands tucked close under the silken bedclothes, not gesticulating as she once would have done. Lilanthe knew she hid her maimed hand and wondered how else her torture and imprisonment had changed the carefree girl she had known.

In a cradle by the bed, a baby whimpered in her sleep and immediately Isabeau turned to look within the canopy and murmur soothingly.

"So that is the Ensorcellor's babe?" Lilanthe whispered, and Isabeau flashed her a quick glance.

"Aye," she answered, a defensive note in her voice.

"In the villages, there is much talk o' raising an army to restore her to the throne. They say she was named heir and Lachlan the Winged had no right to seize the Crown."

"That is bad news indeed," Isabeau whispered back. "Lachlan already looks on the babe with distrust. If he sees her as a threat to the throne, who kens what he will do."

"Who has the right o' it?" Lilanthe asked, her voice almost inaudible as she stifled a timber-cracking yawn.

Isabeau shrugged and slid down the bed, her face troubled. "Who is to say? The Lodestar went to Lachlan's hand, no' the babe's, and by Aedan Whitelock's law it is he who wields the Lodestar who rules the land. Yet Jaspar named his daughter heir, and there are many who do no' wish the days o' the Coven to return and will seek to undermine Lachlan's charter. We had hoped the saving o' the Lodestar would prevent civil war, yet it seems we canna escape it."

Isabeau glanced at the tree-shifter and saw she had closed her long eyes so they looked like mere knots in the smooth bark of her trunk. "Go to sleep, Lilanthe," she said affectionately. "I canna sit here talking to a tree, for Ea's sake. And ye'll need your rest—none o' us are getting much sleep these days." The only answer was a slight shiver of Lilanthe's bare twigs, and with a small hand gesture Isabeau snuffed the candles on the mantelpiece and caused the fire to sink down to embers. She did not close her eyes, however, but stared into the darkness with a grimly set mouth. She was so tired her bones ached, but she was too troubled to sleep easily.

It was the fourth week of winter, almost a month since the success of the Samhain rebellion and the winning of the Lodestar. That month had been crammed with activity. On the winter solstice, Lachlan had been crowned Righ of Eileanan in a grand ceremony, with Iseult causing an absolute sensation by turning the white velvet Toireasa the Seamstress had brought her into a trouser suit instead of the trailing, clinging gown the seamstress had imagined.

The new Coven had been reinstalled at the ruined Tower of Two Moons, Meghan of the Beasts leading the solemn procession with the sacred Key hanging at her breast. It had been a bittersweet day for Meghan, for she had been unable to muster the thirteen sorcerers and sorceresses required for the full council of the Coven. After sixteen years of persecution, any witch who had not died in the Awl's fires was still in hiding, and there had not been time for more than a few to make their way to the Shining City. Jorge the Seer had been chosen as the Keybearer's second, pacing close behind Meghan in the procession, his ancient face wet with tears. Behind him walked Feld of the Dragons, who had flown down from the mountains for the ceremony, though Ishbel the Winged had not woken, despite all his entreaties, instead remaining deep in her grief-troubled sleep. Arkening the Dreamwalker had arrived in the train of the rebels, having been rescued from the fire in Siantan, and a sorcerer named Dail-las the Lame limped along behind her. He had been cruelly tortured by the Awl and was yet another frail figure in the pitiful parade of elderly,' blind and crippled sorcerers.