The Witches of Eileanan (29 page)

As she rode in, Isabeau wondered what story could she tell and what she could trade for food. There were only her herbs, and many of these women would know as much about plant lore as she did herself. Nonetheless, she gave it her best, spreading out some of the buds and leaves on the ground, and slipping easily into the patter. "I also have some mother-wort, which as ye ken is excellent for calming the heart an' settling the babe in the womb—"

"If I wanted mother-wort I'd just gae an' ask the skeelie," the worn-faced mother-to-be said dismissively.

Isabeau's eyes brightened, for she might have something rare in her pouch that the skeelie would need and, in any case, one skeelie would always welcome another.

"Where be your skeelie?" she asked, and was told that she lived in a small cottage a few minutes' walk away from the village. "The skeelie will help ye, lassie," they all repeated. Isabeau thanked the women and set off down the muddy street, thinking how skinny the children were and how broken-down the houses looked. The winter here, on the edge of the highlands, must have been harsh.

The skeelie's cottage was set in a small copse of trees with a stream running through its back garden. It was small but its doorstep was scrubbed white as none in the village had been. Isabeau gingerly lowered herself to the ground, and let Lasair free to graze as he pleased. Before pushing open the gate and proceeding up the path, she cast an experienced eye over the contents of the garden and was impressed by the multitude of herbs and plants growing there. The skeelie could cure most of the village's ailments with what grew in this garden. Isabeau even recognized the pretty blue flowers of flax in one corner, a powerful plant that would have been difficult to grow in this cold climate. She laughed a little—here she had come, thinking she could give the skeelie a plant she did not have and it looked as though she would be begging her for something instead.

The door was opened before she had a chance to knock, so Isabeau was left with one hand foolishly raised in the air. "C'min, c'min," the old woman said breathlessly. "Wha' can I be doing for ye? Are ye having trouble with your menses, lassie? I have some tea made with ploughman's spikenard which'll clear that up right away."

"Why no' pennyroyal?" Isabeau asked. "I notice ye have a good crop right by your door, while surely ye would have to travel to find ploughman's spikenard?"

"True, true," the old woman said, shooting Isabeau a shrewd glance from sparkling black eyes. "But I have no' made the pennyroyal tea, while I have plenty o' ploughman's spikenard left from a batch o' tea I made a few years ago. But I dinna think ye've come to see me to discuss pennyroyal and ploughman's spikenard. Ye hungry? It looks like it's been a few days syne ye've had a guid meal. I've some stew on the stove." Relief made Isabeau's knees weak, and she staggered forward with no hesitation.

"Will your horse no' stray, left loose like that?" the skeelie asked.

Isabeau shook her head. "Och, no, he's very well trained," she responded, and sat down in one of the cushion-laden chairs before the fire, holding her chilly hands out to the comforting blaze.

The skeelie moved briskly about the tiny kitchen, swinging the kettle over the fire, getting out cups and bowls, polishing spoons with a tiny cloth. As she worked she chattered away in her breathless voice, about the unseasonable cold, the hard winter, the difficulty in finding rare roots and flowers.

Isabeau let her body relax, suddenly realizing how very tired and hungry she was. When the skeelie passed her a cup of tea, she took it and sipped, frowning a little at the unfamiliar taste. The warmth of the fire and the comfort of the chair together made her bones as soft as butter. Then the skeelie passed her a bowl filled with fragrant stew, carrots and potatoes bobbing about in a rich, dark sauce. Isabeau ate ravenously.

"So what's a bonny young lassie like yourself doing wandering the moors?" the skeelie asked, the firelight playing over her wrinkled face.

"Going south," Isabeau mumbled through the stew.

"Going south? So many young people seem to want to go south, though really there's nothing there, just a dirty city and the blaygird sea and pirates. Looking for work, I s'pose, in the city?" Isabeau nodded. "Just ye and your horse, heading south." Isabeau nodded again, cleaning out her bowl with a piece of unleavened bread and trying not to look hopefully at the pot still steaming at the side of the fire. "And have ye no family to worry about their bonny daughter all alone on the moors?" the skeelie asked, taking Isabeau's empty bowl and filling it again.

Now was the time for Isabeau to bring out the story about her elderly grandmother who lived on the moors, and sent her out in search of healing herbs. She opened her mouth to say it, and was surprised to hear herself say, "No, I never knew my real family."

"They died when ye were young?"

"No, at least, I do no' ken. I was found." Isabeau was surprised that she had spoken so freely. She glanced up at the skeelie, and saw her old face was calm, the black eyes vague and more interested in locating the rare pieces of carrot in her bowl than in watching Isabeau. Her uneasiness died.

"Ye were found! That be an interesting story. Most rare. I do no' think I ever met anyone who was found before. Who found ye?"

"My guardian. I call her my grandmother, but she's no' really."

"An' where does your guardian live? Wha' is her name?"

"M ... M ... M ..." Isabeau tried to answer but found her tongue tangled in knots. She tried again. "She bides ..." Again she found she could not speak, and her hand, which had risen from her lap to gesture toward the mountains, froze in the air. Isabeau tried again, but somehow her mouth could not enunciate the word "Dragonclaw." After a moment, her hand dropped, and she kept on eating, shaking her head a little as if to dispel the buzz of an insect in her ear.

"Ye live on the moors?"

Isabeau opened her mouth to say "Aye," but heard herself say, "No, in the mountains," and now felt real panic that she was answering so freely.

"In the mountains!" the skeelie exclaimed. "Ye mun have had a hard winter—we were snowed in and many died. Mainly the auld, o' course, and the very young. There was no' much I could do, with my garden frozen solid and the snow piling up around the windows. It mun be much worse in the mountains."

"We never really feel the cold," Isabeau said, remembering how snow only ever lay in patches on the slopes of her valley home. Even at the height of winter, the valley remained only thinly veiled with snow. For the first time, she realized how strange this was, and remembered how she had had to fight her way through snow on the other side of Dragonclaw when she had left.

"Ye mun live in a sheltered spot," the skeelie said, and took Isabeau's empty bowl away.

"Aye," Isabeau agreed.

"Yet I hear the mountains be harsh. It mun be a hard life for a young lassie."

"I do no' ken really . . ." Isabeau said slowly, wondering. Her life had never seemed hard; all she ever did was spin and sew, search for herbs, and listen to Meghan's teachings. Remembering the thin children and the tired women in the village, she thought her life was probably much easier than theirs. She had never gone hungry or lacked warm clothes or boots.

"Your guardian mun be a very wise woman, to live in the mountains with the cold and the storms, and no' suffer."

"Aye, she be the wisest woman. She ken everything about plants and beasts and the weather," Isabeau babbled. "She can tell if snow is coming by the smell o' the wind, and she—" Suddenly she found she could not speak again. Her thoughts seemed to unravel so she could not remember what she was about to say. "She's a very wise woman," she finished lamely.

"Wha' was her name again?" the skeelie asked, but again Isabeau was unable to answer, Meghan's name choking in her throat. She sat back in her chair, and found she could not even lift her finger to rub at her aching forehead. The shadows in the cottage were heavy now, rising over the two chairs by the fire so they looked alive. She was beginning to feel frightened, although even that emotion was very remote. Her tongue felt very thick and furry, and there was an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

The skeelie leaned forward. "I want ye to tell me about your childhood," she commanded, her voice strong and clear.

To her dismay, Isabeau did. All sorts of details poured out—what Meghan made her for her ninth birthday, how she had to spin wool for hours in the winter, how bored she got with Meghan's endless lessons. Again and again, however, the strange confusion came over her so she could not remember what she was trying to say. The shadows got thicker and more solid, the room beyond the circle of firelight vaguer and more insubstantial, and the skeelie more impatient, urging her for more information so at last Isabeau began to try to resist, and found to her horror she could not.

She told the strange old woman many things she would never tell anyone, but not one word about magic or witchcraft did she utter, nor could she say Meghan's name. Somehow she managed to resist revealing the more dangerous secrets of her and Meghan's life, and as she resisted, the skeelie became more direct in her questioning. Soon it became clear to Isabeau that the old woman herself must know something of witchcraft. This compulsion to talk must be the result of some spell that Isabeau had not even noticed being cast. Once Isabeau knew this, she let herself babble, talking about the everyday mundanities of their life, until at last the skeelie leaned forward in her chair, and fixed her piercing black eye on Isabeau's face. She said something in a strange tongue and Isabeau felt herself being drawn forward, her mouth working as she tried to speak but her tongue refusing to respond, as thick as a plank of wood. For almost a minute, words raced back and forth in her mind, damning words that could have had her and her guardian dragged before the Awl and condemned to a horrible death. But not one word did she utter. At last the skeelie sat back.

"I see," she said. "A very powerful ward."

For quite a long time she stared into the fire, her gnarled fingers twisting in her lap, then she sat back and said in her breathless voice, "Dearie me, wha' kind o' hostess have I been, bothering ye with questions when anyone can see ye're dropping off to sleep where ye sit. Ye mun forgive me, such a lonely life sometimes, biding here on the moors, it's no' often I have such a bonny, bright lassie to while away the time with. Come, come, let's tuck ye up in a bed for the night, and tomorrow it'll all look different."

Isabeau could only obey. She was so tired her bones refused to move in unison and she stumbled as she followed the skeelie to a bed made up in one corner of the room, in what looked like a cupboard set into the wall. The bed was hard but warm, and she could see the shadows of the flames dancing over the rough ceiling. She crawled in, and almost immediately was asleep.

When she woke the next morning to the sound of rain hammering on the roof, she had only the vaguest recollection of the previous evening. She remembered the delicious stew, she remembered talking about her childhood like she never had before, and she remembered the feeling of being asleep while she was awake. It was hard to distinguish her dreams from what had really happened. A vague sense of uneasiness remained, though, and so her immediate thought was to barter for some food and maybe a knife, and then be on her way. The skeelie had other plans however.

"Bide a wee, lassie, and I shall get ye some porridge an' cream for your brekker. I be baking some bread this morning; shall I pop in an extra loaf for ye?" Then she needed Isabeau's help in distilling some pure essences, and Isabeau found it hard to refuse. The skeelie was right, she should wait for the weather to warm, for the storm to pass, for the skeelie to have time to bake her some nut cookies. It was so comfortable in the little cottage, and she had never eaten such delicious food. The skeelie was a delightful woman, she showed such interest in Isabeau and all her thoughts and feelings. True, Isabeau sometimes felt uneasy or uncomfortable at her questions, but these feelings soon passed, and the skeelie could teach her things about plants even Meghan could not know.

The old woman made a delicious lunch that Isabeau could not bear to refuse, and before she knew it, night was falling and she could not leave. Again, each postponement of her leaving had seemed so natural and so difficult to refuse, that Isabeau felt only a vague uneasiness or impatience. That night, as she slept in the little box-bed, she dreamt only of summer on the moors.

Isabeau hummed as she sat on her heels in the garden. The air was very sweet and warm, bees buzzed around her, and the garden was thick with butterflies. After six days of storm and rain, the sight of clear blue skies and the feel of the sun warm on her face was a tonic for her spirits, which had been strangely depressed of late.

Manissia had sent her out into the garden with a basket and some scissors to cut flowers and herbs. Today they were going to start making the many teas and infusions that the skeelie used to heal the villagers nearby, and which she sold at the market. Isabeau had always been fascinated by the distilling of aromatic leaves, woods, and roots, and she was looking forward to seeing how Manissia's methods differed from Meghan's.

For a moment a strange unease stole over her, and then she shrugged the thought aside and concentrated on the rich smell of the earth, the spicy scent of rosemary and thyme, the sensuous pleasure of the sun on the back of her neck. Manissia was going to let her look at some of her strange books this afternoon, books with pages yellowing with age and filled with diagrams of the stars and planets, the two moons, and the sun. Meghan had never been interested in the sky, only in the earth, its animals, its plants ... Again a frisson of anxiety crossed her, and for a moment she frowned and shivered, despite the sun, crossing her arms over her chest and rubbing at the goosebumps which had sprung up on her skin. Almost immediately the unease was gone, and she continued thinking happily about the skeelie's books.