The Pool of Two Moons (42 page)

"What? What will ye do?" they cried.

Enit's eyes twinkled. "I shall scry to my friend Muire in Dun Eidean. She is maid to the dowager banprionnsa herself. She will have the news in a minute, rather than weeks. I shall also send news to the rebels in Dun Gorm and elsewhere, telling them to prepare for the attack, and contact Meghan NicCuinn who will relay it to a spy o' hers in Rhyssmadill. I hear her spy has had the ear o' the Righ since he was a lad." She laughed at their expressions. "I have friends everywhere, my bairns. I have traveled this land in my caravan since I was a mere lass."

"W-W-What about us?" Iain asked, rather crestfallen. Their imaginations had been running wild with the idea of saving the whole land and being heroes.

"Why do ye no' join the rebellion? I shall take ye into Rionnagan. The rebel camp is gathering there—and an auld friend o' mine has already gathered there many children o' Talent for a Theurgia." Immediately there was an outcry, and Enit laughed. "Be at peace, my bairns, Jorge the Seer is the gentlest o' men and his Theurgia will be quite unlike that o' Margrit o' Arran's! Besides, it need only be for a short time. Perhaps the land will be saved and ye can travel where ye wish." Enit filled her silver bowl with water and set it by the fire, staring into it for a long while. At last she looked up, her wrinkled face weary. "I have spoken with Muire and she is hastening to tell the dowager now. She swears she can convince her to take action and warn the city in time." The children cheered in excitement, and Douglas and Iain shared a weary grin. Enit said more slowly, "I canna reach Meghan. We scry the same day each week, always at dawn but she has no' answered me these last few weeks ... I feel uneasy. Dide, perhaps ye could try and reach Bacaiche?" The old jongleur called birds from the forest to her hand and attached coded messages to their legs, speaking to them earnestly in their language before throwing them up into the sky. Meanwhile Dide stared into the bowl, his face darkening. At last he looked up and said bleakly, "Enit, I have spoken with my master. Meghan has been taken. And she has set the MacRuraich on our trail." The old woman played with her beads, her eyes hooded. At last she looked up, and said, "Indeed, I was afraid that is what might have happened. Meghan told me the black wolf was on her trail. Well, we had best be moving. The last place we were seen is Blessem, let us put as much ground between us and the blessed land as we can."

The Wolf Hunts

The howl of a wolf reverberated around the valley, and the glum-faced soldiers riding along the narrow path hunched deeper into their cloaks. An-ghus MacRuraich was unable to control his start of pleasure. He looked around eagerly and saw the shape of a wolf silhouetted against the crimson glow of the rising moon. The wolf howled again, muzzle raised to the sky, and Anghus had to stifle the desire to shout his sister's name. He saw Floinn Redbeard make the age-old gesture against evil, and wondered again how he could rid himself of his unwelcome escort.

He had spent the week after Meghan's capture in the hot, submerging embrace of alcohol. He only stopped drinking when the black fumes finally overcame him. When he woke again, it was to reach for the silver flask. He was sick at heart, angry and, for the first time in his life, bewildered. What was he to do? The revelations Meghan had made about his sister and daughter had turned everything topsy turvy. Tabithas a wolf? His little daughter Fionnghal an apprentice thief and beggar? His own Talent twisted back on itself by a simple reverse spell? He longed for his wife. If only Gwyneth were with him, to wrap him in her pale silken hair, her pale silken body, to soothe his brow with her cool mouth, to tell him she loved him. It had been so long since she had said she loved him.

It had been his faithful gillie who had jerked him out of his fug of misery. On the fifth morning he had stood by the prionnsa's bed until at last Anghus had rolled over and peered at him from eyes that felt like they had been scorched in with pokers.

"Obh obh, so ye've decided to wake," Donald had said, adding belatedly, "my laird." He passed his master a glass of water, which Anghus pushed away, demanding whiskey instead. "Ye've drunk your flask dry again, my laird," Donald answered meekly.

"Then get me some more!"

"Soon enough, my laird. I have some food for ye first, and some tea."

"I do no' want tea, Ea damn ye!"

Donald did not answer, plates clinking as he set up the table for Anghus. He brought his master cold water and a towel and, after a glowering moment, Anghus washed his face and head, groaning and complaining. He lurched from the bed to the table where he picked at his food irritably, too proud to ask again for his whiskey but not wanting anything else.

His gillie stood before him, his tam o'shanter twisting in his hands so his bald scalp shone in the lamplight.

"Wha' are your plans, my laird?"

Anghus laughed, an ugly sound. "To send ye in search o' the water o' life, my man."

"As ye wish, my laird. I mean, after that."

"Is there anything after that?"

"That is for ye to say, my laird. I just wish to ken when we plan to leave this place, my laird."

"Now, never, what does it matter?"

Donald did not reply, his big hands gripping his tam o'shanter. Then very deliberately, he pulled it on, picked up his plaid and prepared to leave. Suddenly Anghus called, "Nay, man, bide a wee." He paused, obviously struggling for words, then said abruptly, "I'm sorry, Donald, a bad laird I am to ye indeed." Donald's face softened almost imperceptibly. "Ye are troubled, my laird."

"Aye." Anghus regarded his hands, then said huskily, "I do no' ken which way to turn, Donald. The path before me is unclear."

Knowing what a difficult admission that was for a MacRuraich to make, Donald took off his tarn o'shanter again. The shiny dome of his head was pink. He listened in silence as Anghus told him what Meghan had said. "I have promised to search for the Cripple as the Banrigh instructed. I have given my word on it. Yet I know I have been told only lies about my Fionnghal. Meghan may have given me the clues to searching her out. Everything, all o' me, yearns to track her down."

"Then why do ye no'?"

"To do so would be rebellion, Donald, can ye no' see that? I have a royal order, signed by the Banrigh's own hand. I have given my word, and a MacRuraich's word is his bond. If I break my word, am I any better than them? Besides, I canna take such a risk. I have to look to my people, and they have suffered enough at the hands o' those blasted Red Guards."

"Aye, and angry they are indeed, my laird, and hiding their weapons in the thatch as they used to in the auld days. Ye ken ye are their laird, and they will follow ye no matter wha' road ye take." Anghus looked sharply at the gillie's wrinkled, apple-cheeked face, but it was open and guileless as ever. He replied slowly, "The MacRuraichs have always been faithful to the MacCuinns."

"My laird, I do no' understand how searching for your daughter is a declaration o' rebellion," Donald said, with a slight stress on the third last word. Anghus stared at him. The gillie went on slowly, "Besides, is it no' just the Banrigh's squiggle on that piece o' paper? Ye have sworn no oath o' loyalty to the Righ's wife, only to him."

Anghus nodded. "That is true."

"And do they no' think the winged lad is the Cripple, and did they no' tell ye to hunt him down? If ye follow him to this rebel camp, where ye think your daughter may be, are ye no' just following their orders? It is only Meghan o' the Beasts who told ye he was no' the Cripple." Anghus's hazel-green eyes glowed brightly. "Indeed, indeed, that is so," he said. "And who are the Awl to be questioning my movements anyway? It is no' as if I were some shoddy witch-sniffer, having to report my every movement."

He got up and asked irritably for his boots. "Surely ye've had them cleaned by now!" Donald crammed his tarn o'shanter back on and said he would go and retrieve them from the bootboy. An-ghus, rummaging through his pack for a clean shirt, said, "And do no' forget my whiskey, Donald, else I'll pluck your beard for ye!"

Anghus had not been able to avoid having an escort thrust upon him, though he had persuaded Humbert that a seeker would be more likely to hinder him than help. So he and Donald had ridden out from Dunceleste with six soldiers, among them the three who had lived through their journey to the heart of the Veiled Forest.

They were on the trail of the winged prionnsa, and a torturous trail it was too, leading through valley and dale, back down into the forest and over some difficult rocky terrain. If he had not been following an extrasensory trail as well as a physical one, Anghus would never have been able to track him. Although he gave no hint of his intentions, the men knew enough about tracking to know he was following someone. As Anghus seemed to know the path regardless of physical signs such as footprints, broken branches, or dead coals hidden by earth, the men began to look at him askance. Floinn Redbeard in particular was suspicious. Staring at Anghus with his watery blue eyes, he asked one day where it was the prionnsa was leading them. "There be nothing in these mountains but woolly bears and coneys, m'laird. I thought ye were meant to be on the trail o' that blaygird Cripple, but it seems to me we're just chasing our tails."

Anghus said calmly, "Then do no' trouble yourself, Floinn, I am no' lost. A MacRuraich is never lost." As he repeated these words, which had become over the centuries something like a mantra, it occurred to him how ironic they were at this point in history. One could argue that all MacRuraichs living were lost—Tabithas, Fionnghal and himself, all lost and changed beyond recognition. The thought made him weary. It cost him an effort to spur his horse on, and he could not mask his expression from either Donald or Casey Hawkeye. He was conscious of the latter's intent blue eyes on his face, and wondered what he was thinking.

Anghus knew he had to rid himself of the soldiers before he got too near the rebel camp, but he was loath to commit to any action that would narrow his options. So violence was out of the question. He had to wait for an opportunity to trick them instead. It came during the course of the second week, when they were so deep in the mountains that the soldiers would have difficulty in finding their way out without assistance. Anghus did not want word getting back to Humbert too quickly. He did not want to harm the soldiers either, particularly the young piper with his ungainly wrists and doglike eyes, or the keen-eyed Casey. So when he saw the weather beginning to worsen he rode down toward the forests. They were trekking along a ridge in single file when the storm that had been threatening all day broke over their heads with a crash of thunder. "It's dangerous out here in the open," Anghus shouted. "Let's look for shelter as quickly as we can."

With the downpour obscuring their eyes, the soldiers all plunged into the forest after Anghus. The prionnsa, hiding in the thick underbrush, heard them crashing through the bushes. He whistled like a tree-swallow, and soon Donald wriggled silently up beside him, leading his horse. He had already muffled the riding tack and had his hand over the mare's nose to stop her from whickering. Both Anghus and Donald were seasoned hunters and foresters, and they had no difficulty in losing the soldiers in the tangled undergrowth. They slipped silently back to the outskirts of the forest and resumed their journey.

Some time during the night they heard something in the woods behind them and concealed themselves warily in the undergrowth. It was Tabithas, tracking them nose to ground. It was the first time Anghus had come close to the wolf since Meghan's revelations and he was surprised at the wave of emotion which overwhelmed him. He found himself on the ground, his arms full of whining, wriggling wolf, tears mingling with the rain on his cheeks.

"Tabithas, Tabithas, is it really ye?" he asked, and she yapped and thrust her head under his chin for him to scratch.

He stared into her yellow eyes, searching for some resemblance to his sister, but there was no sign that the wolf had ever been a woman, let alone a powerful sorceress. Grief and anger filled him, and he leaned his head against her thick ruff. She whined and licked his cheek, her tail wagging furiously, and he swallowed the knot in his throat. "I canna believe it is really ye," he said hoarsely, and she leaned her bulk against him, looking up at him with such a clear expression of understanding and sympathy on her lupine face that he suddenly no longer doubted this silver-ruffed wolf was indeed his sister Tabithas. By sunrise they were far away from the forest where they had left their companions, tired, hungry and thoroughly chilled. Both were wet through to the skin, and their clothes clung to them clammily. "Should we stop, my laird?" Donald asked. "The sides o' my stomach are fair clemming together." Anghus shook his head. He had an uneasy feeling, and the wolf seemed to share his anxiety, for she looked back often, her lip lifting in a snarl. "Nay, those Red Guards are trained trackers and we've left more o' a trail than I would have liked. Let us push on while we can." They ate as they rode, Anghus swallowing a few mouthfuls of whiskey to warm his blood. He felt strangely vulnerable, as if a few layers of skin had been flayed away. He had kept his heart and mind locked up for so long, but now all his careful defences seemed to be dissolving. "Soon I shall find her, my Fionnghal," he said to himself. The wolf barked and looked up at him as she ran alongside the horses, unnerving them with her wolf smell.

By noon Anghus was sure they were being followed. Every hair on his neck was bristling, his spine felt stiff and tense, and the wolf stared back down the trail with raised hackles and a low growl. He decided he had best see who it was before taking decisive action, so he and Donald concealed themselves in an outcrop of boulders. After about ten minutes they saw Casey Hawkeye come trotting out of the woods. Behind him rode Ashlin the Piper, his wayward knees and elbows showing he had not yet mastered the art of riding. Casey pulled his horse to a halt and dismounted gracefully, kneeling to examine the ground. Anghus and Donald had wrapped their horses' hooves in cloth to try and conceal the prints their hooves made in the soft mud, but an experienced and keen-eyed scout would still be able to identify the blurred marks left behind. Casey Hawkeye was evidently such a scout.