The Pool of Two Moons (23 page)

in sorrow for no' having seen her."

The next day Sukey came up behind her and said kindly, "The Banrigh is playing to the court now, as she does each Midsummer—we're all watching from behind the curtain, if ye'd like to come?" Isabeau flushed with pleasure, for it was not often that the other serving lasses included her. Sukey led her, half running, through countless stairs and corridors, until at last they reached a gallery overlooking the great hall. Any view to the court below was concealed, however, by a mass of bobbing white caps and gray skirts. Sukey took Isabeau's hand and squeezed through, Isabeau for once not hanging back but taking advantage of her height and slenderness to wriggle past countless whispering, giggling girls, all with sharp elbows and numerous petticoats.

All at once a hush fell over the crowd, the velvet-and lace-clad courtiers milling below, the servants peeping around the curtains and through the carved stone screens of the galleries. Exquisite music spilled into the silence, rising in little running cascades that seemed to reach for, and fail to catch, some unimaginable resolution. Again and again the notes soared upward, and fell down, and prickles ran all over Isabeau's skin. She knelt against the wall and thrust her eye to one of the gaps in the scrolled stonework, but all she could see were the plaid-hung shoulders of the courtiers, a set of wide stone steps, and a man's languid, outflung foot, clad in an ornate slipper.

The music shifted, ran deeper, the beat quickened, and then the hidden musician began to sing. Unexpectedly, her voice was deep, but with such power thrilling through it that Isabeau felt a shiver run over her.

The Banrigh sang, "My love my honey my honeyed love," rising and rising until the crescendo reached as high as any meadow lark and then at last, so unexpectedly tears sprang in Isabeau's eyes, the pinnacle was reached. "My love my honey my honeyed love, my laird!" Again and again "My laird!" flew to the ceiling so high above. As the last throbbing note died away, the gallery erupted into applause. Isabeau clapped as rapturously as anyone. To her surprise, she was being embraced by all around her, and she hugged them back and joined in the ringing calls from the audience. The footmen and maids no longer hid behind the curtains but hung from the gallery, some weeping, all clapping and stamping their feet. At last the noise died down, cut in part by a little trill from the Banrigh's clarsach. The velvet slipper slowly drew back, and then the Righ came languorously forward, wearing a loose green robe over silken hosen. He was slender and dark, with a neatly clipped beard and mustache, and a dreamy, almost vacant expression on his face. He murmured something and held up his hand to bring his wife forward. All Isabeau could see of the Banrigh were her fine, white fingers, bare of rings, clasped in the hand of the Righ.

As the Banrigh turned to leave, her long velvet train swept over the steps, crimson as roses. Isabeau's heart hammered once, painfully. It was the same color as the skirt of the Grand-Seeker Glynelda. Gripping her cold, sweaty palms together, she sank down to her knees.

"Red, what's wrong?" Sukey asked, bending over her. She was jostled on all sides as the laughing, chattering maids hurried back to their work.

Isabeau shook her head. "Just a wee dizzy," she managed to say, then slowly got to her feet. She leaned against the stone scrollwork to regain her balance, then caught her breath suddenly. Down in the rapidly emptying room, a small woman clothed entirely in black was staring up at her. Isabeau could see how pale her eyes were in the dark, broad face and how intently they were fixed on the gallery. Instinctively she ducked back into the shelter of the curtain.

"That is Sani, the Banrigh's own servant," Sukey whispered.

Although she was thin and hunched as a swarthyweb spider, the old woman emanated power, as if she were a fully armed warrior. With no lessening of her intense focus, she stood and stared up at the gallery until the flock of serving maids had twittered away. Neither girl dared move until she was long gone, though why, Isabeau did not know.

"She be right blaygird," Sukey whispered. "We all be terrified o' her. I think she be naught but a jealous auld maid, but I still do no' like to go near her." The two girls began to hurry back down the corridor.

"She was asking about ye, ye ken," Sukey said idly.

"Asking about me? The Banrigh's servant?"

"Aye, though why I canna tell. It were when ye first arrived. She asked me and Doreen if there was a red-haired lassie new come to the palace, and if so, where ye came from. We said aye, but that ye were sick unto death."

"Was I really?"

"Aye, we all thought ye'd die for sure, ye were that ill. Anyway, she told us there'd be a penny for us both if we came to her and told her whether ye'd lived or died, and we said aye, that we would, but o' course we did no'. Neither Doreen nor me like to get too close to her, no' even for a penny. Besides, she and Latifa do no' get on so well and we have to live with Latifa's temper, while if we are careful indeed, we do no' have to set eyes on Sani for a sennight or more."

Heels clattering on the stone stairs, the two girls raced back to the kitchen. Isabeau was puzzled and a little frightened by the news the Banrigh's own servant had been asking about her. She could not see how the little old woman could have had any idea she even existed, let alone know of her connection with Meghan. Isabeau tried to reassure herself that the servant's questions did not mean that she was under suspicion, but she could not help the cold finger of dread that touched her. Isabeau's experiences at the hands of the Awl were still too fresh for her to take any such occurrence lightly. Once back in the hot, crowded kitchen, Isabeau had no time to worry about Sani as Latifa's orders were flying fast and thick. There was so much to do for the Midsummer's Eve feast that Isabeau had no time or energy to think about anything else at all. That night, even as exhausted as she was by the labor and excitement of the day, Isabeau did not sleep well, her dreams filled with crimson robes and blood. The day before the summer solstice, Iseult was resting in the shade of a moss-oak when she heard, incredibly, the brazen call of a dragon in the distance. "Asrohc!" she cried, sitting up. "It canna be . . ." The long bugle came again, sending a shiver of dragon-fear down Iseult's spine so she knew it was no auditory illusion. Then she saw the flash of bright wings and smelled sulphur. "Asrohc!" she cried again and began hurrying through the trees to Tulachna Celeste, sure that was where the dragon would alight, the thorny branches of the forest dangerous to her delicate wings. Sure enough, the golden-green body of the young dragon was circling down from the sky into the circle of stones, her stretched wings almost wide enough to knock down the tall menhirs. On her back were two figures.

Although they were too far away for Iseult to see, she began to run, her sickness of the morning dropping away from her like a discarded cloak. She ran nimbly down the root-mazed avenue, burst from the trees into the open ground of the hill and ran all the way up its steep green slope. Breathless, a stitch in her side, she ran through the stone doorway and into her grandmother's arms.

"Firemaker!" she cried. "Old mother, what are ye doing here?" The old woman kissed Iseult between the brows, and in the harsh, guttural language of the Khan'cohbans murmured greetings and blessings over her red head.

"I have come to see you wed," she replied. "Did you think I would stay away? My great-granddaughter crosses her leg over the back of the dragon, why should I not also?"

"Iseult, my bonny lass!" a gruff voice cried, and Iseult found herself being hugged hard against the skinny frame of Feld of the Dragons.

"It is so good to see ye, Feld! Asrohc! What are ye doing letting humans cross your back in this way?"
My mother said it was time I stretched my wings, and I had heard thee was to be mated to another
of thine kind. Naturally I wished to see him, and see if his heart was big enough and his wings
strong enough for a dragon-lord such as yourself. . .

"Meghan told me ye were to be Tested this summer solstice, and needed me here to complete the circle," Feld said, a broad smile across his face, pushing his glasses back onto his nose with one ink-stained finger. "I was to bring Ishbel too, but nothing I could do or say would wake her, and so at last I thought to bring your great-grandmother. She is no' o' the Coven, but a witch nonetheless."

"No witch, but powerful at least," the Firemaker said haltingly in the common dialect. After a thousand years with the Prides, the descendants of Faodhagan had remembered little of his language, but both she and Iseult had learned from Feld after he had gone to live in the Cursed Valley. Asrohc announced with a flick of her writhing tail that she was going to hunt something down for her dinner. Iseult warned her with a laugh not to pursue anything in the Veiled Forest if she did not want Meghan and the Celestines after her. "Apparently the Awl has its own flocks in the fields outside Dunceleste. Why do ye no'

snack on them?" she suggested. "Be careful, though, ye are still the last o' the she-dragons and do no'

want to be losing your life to a poisoned spear!"

Those evil, red witches have broken the Pact of Aedan already, I see no reason why I should not,
Asrohc yawned, showing a long, supple tongue as blue as the sky above them. She flexed her translucent-gold wings and launched easily into the air, her shadow darkening the hill before swinging away.

Iseult took Feld's arm in one hand and the Firemak-er's in the other and led them down to the clearing, barely able to contain her joy at the sight of two of the people closest to her in the world. If the Firemaker had guarded and directed her winters, Feld had looked over her summers, the two of them teaching Iseult nearly everything she knew.

Iseult felt some trepidation at introducing Lachlan to her fierce, proud great-grandmother. Lachlan flushed and fidgeted under the Firemaker's intense scrutiny, but surprised Iseult by not retreating into his usual surly silence. Instead, he set out to charm the old woman, greeting her with the ritual gesture and salutation of the Khan'cohbans, and treating her with respectful deference. After a while, the Firemaker's stiff back and stern glance softened, and Iseult relaxed in relief.

There was much talk and laughter around the camp-fire that afternoon. Feld had been much alone over the past eight years, and he mellowed alarmingly under the influence of Meghan's goldensloe wine. They were all shrieking at the sight of him trying to dance a jig when Iseult suddenly looked up and saw a pale, ghostly figure standing under the trees, watching them.

Her immediate reaction should have been a stab of fear. Instead Iseult felt immense happiness well up from deep inside her. She recognized that slender figure surrounded by a nimbus of floating, silvery hair. She had spent eight years of her life tending that fragile form, combing out the great length of hair, coaxing her to swallow water or gruel. It was Ishbel the Winged standing there so gravely. Iseult's mother. She stood up, saying nothing, staring. Slowly the laughter and teasing died. "Ishbel!" Meghan cried.

"Ye've come!"

"Aye, Meghan, I have come," Ishbel answered softly. "I heard your voice in my dreams again and knew ye wished me here. My dreams are often disturbed these days." She sighed and stepped over the tree roots. "Iseult. .." she said, holding out her hand to her daughter. With color staining her cheeks so her scars stood out strongly, Iseult scrambled to her feet and crossed the clearing to her mother's side. Ishbel's fingers closed over hers. "Ye are with babe, my bairn." Iseult nodded. Ishbel sighed and tears filled her vivid blue eyes. "To think my baby girls are auld enough to bear their own babes. Tis strange . . ,"

She sat with them by the fire, Iseult unable to take her eyes off her. Even though she had seen Ishbel the Winged every day during the spring and summer of the past eight years, she had not then known who the sleeping sorceress was.

Ishbel asked for news of Isabeau, and Meghan told her she was safe in Rhyssmadill with Latifa the Cook. Hesitantly, she asked about the Key, and a little of her stiffness left her once she heard Meghan had located all three portions of the Keybearer's badge.

The shadows were growing longer and soon the Ordeal must begin, the night of solitude and fasting all acolytes must endure before being allowed to undertake the tests for entrance into the Coven. Ishbel turned to Iseult and asked shyly, "Will ye walk with me for a while, my daughter?" Together they moved through lines of light and shadow, both shy and unsure what to say. Iseult said finally, "I often wondered if I was bid to tend ye because ye were my mother."

"I knew always that ye were there."

"Why did ye never wake for me?"

"I wandered in a far place. I did no' ken my way back. I was searching ..."

"For my father?"

"Aye," Ishbel's eyes filled with tears. "But I have no' been able to find him."

"The queen-dragon told Meghan he was still alive."

She shook her head. "If he were alive, he would have answered me," she said. "Nothing would keep him from answering me."

Iseult bowed her head and clenched her fingers together. She knew dragons did not lie. Ishbel smiled at her sadly, and said, "Your father was a remarkable man, Iseult, I wish ye and Isabeau could have known him."

Iseult nodded her head and told her mother some of the stories the Scarred Warriors of the Fire Dragon Pride told about him on winter nights about the meal-fire. "He was the youngest to ever receive all seven scars," she said. "And he talked with dragons and flew on their backs." Ishbel told her much about how their love had flowered, saying softly, "Did ye ken ye and Isabeau were conceived on Midsummer's Eve? We thought it an omen o' joy to come at the time. Strange how your path can be twisted so awry . . ."

Her blue eyes overbrimmed with tears again, but she shook away her melancholy, and said affectionately,

"Meghan tells me ye have a talent with air."

"Indeed, I seem to. I have always called what I owned to my hand. Then I can jump . . .'" She hesitated, then burst out, "Can ye teach me to fly?"