The Witches of Eileanan (30 page)

Isabeau's basket was full, and her back beginning to ache when a sudden neigh made her stand and look around. The cottage was built in the shelter of a small copse of trees, with a stream that ran through the garden. Behind the house, a steep hill ran up to the great waves of purplish moors that undulated as far as the eye could see. A red horse was galloping along the crest of the hill, mane flashing bright in the sun. As she watched, the horse neighed again and tossed its head, rearing and striking the ground with its hooves. The horse was calling to her. Even at that distance she could recognize the sound.

"Isabeau!" the horse called. "Isabeau!"

Isabeau stood still in confusion. The horse neighed again and suddenly she recognized the sound. Lasair! How could she have forgotten Lasair? As she watched, the horse turned and ran back again, pawing the ground and neighing. There was a shrill sound to the neigh, almost panic. Isabeau dropped the basket and ran round the side of the house. At the bottom of the long garden was a hedge set with a gate.

She called Lasair to her, but though the horse neighed and tossed his head and ran back and forth frantically, he did not come any closer. Isabeau immediately went to open the gate to go out to him, but as soon as her hand touched the wooden clasp, all desire to go out suddenly left her, and she stood dreamily, brushing a tuft of grass gently with the sole of her boot.

Lasair had to neigh again, and then again, before Isabeau remembered, and then dismay and chagrin swept over her. How had she forgotten Lasair? And Meghan, her beloved guardian, and her journey to the south? All she could remember was the fire flickering on the creamy walls, the sound of rain washing against the windows, the skeelie's breathless voice as she served up another delicious platter of food . .. and her own voice. She could remember talking a lot. What had she told the old woman? Cold fear swept over. She must have been enchanted. But how? She had not felt any of the chill that came when power was drawn from the air and the earth, a usual sign of witchcraft. She had felt nothing, only an increasing comfort. If Lasair had not jerked her out of her dreamy state, she would have gone back in, eager for another afternoon with the wise old woman, not even thinking about the days slipping away.

Lasair was neighing again now, the sound shrill. Isabeau whickered reassuringly, and tried to think. After a moment she picked up a stick and knocked the clasp aside with it. Without letting the woven twigs touch her, she slipped through the roughly made gate and ran up the slope toward the horse. However, it was an effort—white butterflies danced in the sunshine before her and it was hard not to get distracted by their pretty flutterings, or by the beauty of the view. She forced herself to keep climbing, while the chestnut stallion ran back and forth along the crest of the hill.

Once Isabeau reached the top, she felt a dullness and sleepiness slip from her that she had not known was there. She took great gulps of clean, graygorse-scented air, while Lasair pushed his head against her roughly.

"She must be a witch," Isabeau said. "I never thought."

Lasair neighed and tossed his bright mane. Isabeau ran her hand through it, chastising herself. What was she to do? All her belongings—her pack, her precious rings, even the talisman that Meghan had given her, were still in the cottage. "I must go back," she said.

Lasair pawed the ground, shaking his head and neighing, but Isabeau knew she had no choice. How could she have left the talisman alone with a witch? Meghan had trusted her, and a month into her journey, she had lost her supplies, and her knife, and fallen under the spell of a simple skeelie!

She turned and hurried back down the hill, thinking,
I
have to be strong. I have to keep a clear head. I have to be strong and brave and clear-headed the way Meghan would want me to be.

When she pushed open the door into the cottage, the old woman turned from the fire, smiling. "Just in time for potato an' tarragon soup, my dear. Put the basket on the table."

Isabeau had forgotten the basket. She almost turned to go and get it, then she remembered. "Ye are a witch," she said.

"As are ye," the skeelie responded, ladling thick soup into an earthenware bowl.

Isabeau was disconcerted for a moment. "Ye put a spell on me. Ye made me forget what I was doing, where I was going."

"Did I, dearie? Well, twas very wet, miserable weather. Ye wouldna have wanted to be out there in that storm." The skeelie put the bowls on the table. "Eat up, lassie, ye're skin and bones still."

"No, I have to go."

"Well, if ye want, lass, though does it no' make sense to eat afore ye gae?"

It did of course, and Isabeau found herself looking rather longingly at the bowls, which were wreathed with tendrils of steam and smelling delicious. In anger she swept her arm across the table, crashing the two bowls to the floor so soup poured onto the thick rug.

"Now, dear, that's no' very nice. Wha' a way to repay my hospitality for the week! I'm ashamed o' ye."

"I'm sorry," Isabeau mumbled, feeling thoroughly ashamed. "I'll clean it up." She began to pick up the shards of pottery, burning her hand on the hot soup as she did so. The skeelie picked up a bowl and filled it with water from the barrel in the corner, passing it to her with a cloth. Isabeau was on her hands and knees scrubbing the rug before she realized. At once she threw down the cloth. "Ye've done it again! I said I was leaving."

"Well, o' course, dearie, ye can gae whenever ye want, though I do think ye should finish cleaning up that mess afore ye do." The reprimand in the skeelie's voice made Isabeau's cheeks burn, and she quickly bent over her task again.
I'll just do this, and then I'll go,
she told herself.

The skeelie had poured them some more soup, however, chatting away in her faded old voice. After Isabeau had cleared away the broken bowls, she felt she could not again refuse the old woman.
I
will no' forget again,
she vowed, spooning down the soup as fast as she could.

"Gently, Isabeau, gently," the skeelie said. "Ye'll give yersel' wind bolting your food like tha'. Whatever did yer guardian teach ye?"

Immediately Isabeau was filled with panic. She had obviously told the skeelie about Meghan. How else could she know she had a guardian, not an old grandmother as the story was meant to go? She tried desperately to remember the last week but most of it was a blur.

Before she could say another word, Manissia suddenly raised her head. "The gate ward has been breached," she said. "Isabeau, it be no one I ken. Quickly, into the wall-bed!"

Isabeau immediately balked, gathering herself to say something that would express her contempt for the old hag; but the skeelie turned and said softly, "Isabeau, in the wall-bed."

Before Isabeau realized she was moving, she was in the bed, and the skeelie had slammed the doors so she was locked inside. Isabeau opened her mouth to cry out but found she could say nothing—her throat muscles were suddenly rigid. Then she lost all desire to protest, for through the crack in the door she could see two Red Guards standing in the doorway. They were cavalrymen, their helmets tucked under their arms, their red cloaks swaying.

"Dearie me, how I can help ye?" the skeelie was saying, in her breathless voice. "Are ye lost? The village is no' hard to find ..."

"We have heard reports o' sorcery from hereabouts," one guard said gruffly.

"Sorcery? In this puir wee village? Och, no, I think ye two fine young men mun have been misled, there's naught here but sheep and bairns. C'min, c'min, can I get ye some tea? Where can ye have heard such a tale? Wha' would a sorcerer be doing here? Why, there be no money to be had in these here parts, and I'll have ye ken the people o' Quotil are guid, honest folks, no' the sort that'd rub shoulders with any wickedness like sorcery—"

"We heard a lass was seen round abouts here with a horse," the other soldier managed to interpolate.

"A lassie? Why, aye, a lass did drop by for some pennyroyal tea. Did she have a horse?" The Red Guards shouldered their way into the cottage, looking about pugnaciously. The skeelie bustled about, pouring tea and finding nut cookies, talking incessantly. "Aye, it be hard for a puir auld woman, up here in these lonely parts. Please ye, have a cookie. I'm too auld to be worth much anymore; the villagers are kind to puir auld Manissia, and buy my pennyroyal tea..."

"She be just a puir auld woman," one of the guards said.

"And what would a witch be doing up in these here lonely parts?" the other said.

They turned to go, grabbing a handful of cookies each on the way, but before the skeelie could do more than take a few steps toward the wall-bed, they were back, looking sheepish, a woman scornful at their backs. Peering through the crack, Isabeau saw a crimson skirt, and felt fear again.

"Ye feeble-minded fools," the witch-sniffer said contemptuously. "As easy to trick as a babe just beginning to waddle .. ."

The skeelie Manissia began her soft flow of words again, but the witch-sniffer ignored her, glaring around the small room.

"I smell enchantments," Lady Glynelda said. "The air is thick with enchantments, like smoke."

"That would be my whortleberry pie ye be smelling," the skeelie said. "Smell is thick, is it no'? Some find the whortleberry a trifle sweet but personally I think—"

"Shut up, auld woman," the seeker said nastily, and breathed deeply through her nose, frowning a little. "There's witchery here, no doubt, and we'll find it too." She began to instruct the guards to search the little cottage, and Isabeau could hear the sound of crashing and banging as they opened cupboards and emptied tins and canisters on the floor. Manissia kept up a flow of small talk, exclamations and pleas for gentleness, and offers of food and tea which seemed to irritate the witch-sniffer greatly. Pressing her eye to the crack, Isabeau could see little but her crimson skirt, as the witch-hunter stood waiting by the door, sipping the tea Manissia had pressed into her hand.

Suddenly there was a loud commotion and a thin wail from Manissia. "My valerian roots! Quick, they be burning! They be burning! That be all my stock. Wha' will I do when the villagers come asking?"

Plumes of sweet-scented smoke were pouring out of the fireplace, and Isabeau buried her face in her hands as it penetrated even through the closed door of the cupboard. She heard the witch-sniffer giving quick orders and the sound of boots clumping and metal rattling, then the commotion gradually faded away into silence. Suddenly the door was pulled open and Isabeau looked up with a start. She felt strangely dazed, and blinked for a moment in the bright light without making any move to escape. Only Manissia stood there, however, and, scrambling out of the cupboard, Isabeau saw to her amazement that the two Red Guards were both slumped in the chairs by the fire, snoring heavily and looking very comfortable. The seeker Glynelda was lying on the small settee by the front door, her arms crossed neatly over her breast, her red skirt decorously arranged.

"What happened?" Isabeau said stupidly, and ground the heels of her hands into her eyes, which felt gritty and tired.

"I gave them relaxing tea," Manissia said, quickly gathering together a loaf of barley bread and some cheese in a white
cloth,
and stuffing them in Isabeau's knapsack. "Then, silly clumsy auld me, I knocked my bundle o' valerian roots onto the fire, and dear me, it be the rare person who can stay awake after choking on a mouthful o' valerian root smoke."

"How
come ye're still awake?" Isabeau asked, trying not to yawn.

"Och, I threw my apron o'er my head, o' course," Manissia said. "Now ye mun go, and fast, Isabeau. I do no' ken why the Red Guards are on your track, but I do ken I wouldna want any lassie o' mine to fall into that bitch's hands." She prodded the witch-sniffer's leg with one slippered foot. "As hard a face as I seen on anyone."

"What about ye?"

"Och, they canna hurt a skeelie," Manissia said cheerfully. "Now they've got a tummy full o' my tea, they be like spring lambs to the slaughter. They'll be down in the Quotil inn tonight, chatting to the locals about the simple auld lady that bides up in the copse. Poor auld thing, they'll say, a penny short o' a pound, but harmless."

"How do ye do it?" Isabeau asked, pulling her pack over her shoulder.

"Why, it's the Will and the Word," the skeelie answered, looking up at Isabeau with sparkling eyes. "Have ye been taught nothing?"

"Do ye mean ... compulsion? I thought compulsion was no' allowed?"

"Och, so it be one o' the Tower witches yer're apprenticed to," Manissia said. "Very interesting. I thought they were all dead." Isabeau shut her mouth tight, wondering if she'd been indiscreet yet again. Manissia chortled. "Even the Tower witches are no' above imposing their will on others when it suits them, my dear. Besides, the Towers are gone now, and times are troubled. A puir auld skeelie has to use every trick she can to stay happy and healthy in these times. Now go!"

Already the witch-sniffer was stirring, although the Red Guards lay like the dead. "The trick now," Manissia mused as Isabeau slipped out the back door, "is to keep them from realizing they been asleep at all. Good wishes to ye, lassie, and come visit me again sometime ..."