Kate Forsyth - The Forbidden Land: Book four of the Witches of Eileanan

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The Forbidden Land

Book Four of The Witches of Eileanan

Kate Forsyth

A ROC BOOK

ISBN 0-451-45828-1

for Binny and Nick

blood-kin and soul-kin

in memory of all the imaginary worlds

we created and lived in,

and with thanks for a lifetime of

love and support.

Write on!

She can overcast the night and cloud the moon,

and make the Devil obedient to her croon.

At midnight hours over the kirkyard she raves,

Digging unchristened weans out of their graves;

Boils up their livers in a warlock's pow,

Runs widdershins about the hemlocks low;

And seven times does her prayers backwards pray.

Then, mixed with venom of black toads and snakes,

Of this unsousy pictures oft she makes

Of anyone she hates and makes them expire

With cruel and racking pains afore a fire:

Stuck full of pins the devilish pictures melt;

The pain by folk they represent is felt

Whilst she and her cat sit howling in her yard.

Allan Ramsay,

Seventeenth-century Scottish poet

THE LOOM IS STRUNG

Castle Rurach

Finn brushed away the crust of snow and sat in the embrasure of the battlement, her legs hanging out. Carefully she packed her pipe with tobacco and, shielding the sparks from the wind with her hand, lit it with her flint. With a sigh of pleasure, she drew in a lungful of sharp-scented smoke. For a long moment she held it in her lungs, then breathed it out in a long plume that was dragged away by the frosty breeze.

She inhaled again, leant back her head and puffed out a series of perfect blue smoke-rings. As far as she could see there was no sign of life, only the sharp spears of snow-laden pines crowding close about the feet of towering grey mountains. "Does anything ever happen in Rurach?" she said to the elven cat curled on her lap. "Flaming dragon balls, I'm as bored as a eunuch in a brothel!"

Goblin yawned, showing a mouthful of tiny but very sharply pointed fangs. "I canna help agreeing," Finn said. "Do ye think we should run away and join the pirates? At least then we'd see some adventure."

The cat arched its back and hissed.

"No? Ye do no' like that idea? No, o' course, ye dislike water. Ye would no' have to swim in it though. I believe the pirate ships are quite snug and there'd be fish to eat every day."

Goblin tidied up her whiskers, not deigning to reply. Finn sighed again and stared up at the sharp silhouette of the Fang. For once, it was not wreathed in clouds but cut into the sky like a sabre leopard's tooth, dominating the horizon.

When Finn had first seen the sleeping volcano, she had been troubled by an odd sense of recognition. It had woken all sorts of half-memories in her, a longing or homesickness that she had not then understood. She had then been travelling through the mountains of upper Rionnagan, on the far side of the Fang, and to her knowledge had never seen the tall, symmetrically shaped mountain before. As far as she knew, Finn had never before left the city of Lucescere where she had lived on the streets, picking pockets and begging for scraps of old food in order to survive.

Finn had been one of a gang of beggar children who had had to flee Lucescere after helping Jorge the Seer and his young acolyte Tomas the Healer escape from the cruel seekers of the Awl, the Anti-Witchcraft League. That had been in the days when suspected witches were burnt to death. In company with the old, blind man and the little boy, Finn and her gang had taken refuge from the Awl in a hidden valley at the very foot of the Fang. There they had formed the League of the Healing Hand, a fellowship sworn to protect the two witches who, despite having such potent magical abilities, were in themselves frail and rather helpless. The League had ended up being very important in the overthrow of the Awl and the restoration of the Coven, and had earned the heartfelt gratitude of the new Righ, Lachlan MacCuinn.

Remembering, Finn thought rather wistfully that those years had been the happiest of her life. Although there was always the danger of losing a hand as a pickpocket or being captured as a rebel, there had been the close comradeship of the gang and the constant thrill of pitting one's wits against the world and winning. Although Finn was never cold or hungry anymore, she was lonely now and sullen with misery. The constraints of court life chafed her unbearably and she felt all the court ladies, including her own mother, disapproved of her greatly.

It had been five years since Finn had discovered she was not an orphan of the streets, as she had thought, but the daughter of the prionnsa of Rurach. She had been kidnapped by the Awl as a mere child of six in order to force her father to their will. She had only discovered the truth during the Samhain rebellion which had put Lachlan MacCuinn on the throne and returned the Coven to power. Her father had then brought her back to Rurach, to meet a mother she had not remembered, and to learn to be a banprionnsa. Although Finn had felt a wrench at leaving her friends, she had been eager to see her home and her mother and to enjoy a life of ease.

But although Castle Rurach was as luxurious and comfortable as she had imagined, it was also boring. Built high in the mountains, it was a long way from the crowded streets of Lucescere, with its merchants, artisans, street performers, thieves and idle nobility. A young lady of Rurach was expected to spend her time with the other ladies of the court, plying her needle in exquisite embroidery and discussing the newest way to cut a sleeve. Finn had no interest in fashion, refused to learn how to sew, and thought of her mother's retinue as a gaggle of fussy old hens.

The towering range of mountains that culminated in the crooked spire of the Fang was no longer a source of wistful longings but instead a prison wall which kept her locked away from the world with no chance of escape. If Finn had known the secret way over the mountains, she would have run away long ago, searching out her old friends in Lucescere. She did not know it, however, and so she took what pleasure she could in defying her mother and shocking the castle.

Goblin had curled up to sleep but suddenly the little cat raised her head, ears pricked forward. Finn tensed. She heard a step on the stair. She knocked out her pipe with one hand and thrust the other into her pocket, drawing out a small square of tightly folded black material. With a shake it billowed out into a cloak which she wrapped around her swiftly. Wherever the silky stuff brushed against her skin, it tingled and stung, and all the little hairs rose. She pulled the hood up to cover her face, and sat very still. A gangly young man came out on to the battlements and stood hesitantly. Her father's piper, he was dressed in the castle livery, a black and green kilt with a white woollen shirt and black jerkin. Although he had wrapped his plaid around his thin shoulders, it was bitterly cold out on the tower heights and he shivered and rubbed his arms.

"My lady Fionnghal?" Ashlin the Piper called. "Are ye here? Your mother desires your presence. My lady?"

Finn said nothing. Ashlin stared about with a troubled expression and called her again. When there was no response he turned and clattered back downstairs. Finn stuck out her tongue at his retreating back and shrugged off the cloak, which somehow always made her feel even colder. She huddled her furs closer around her neck and brought out her precious hoard of tobacco. "Why canna they ever leave me alone?" she said resentfully to the cat, who was still curled up on her lap. "Always following me about, spying on me, tittle-tattling. Anyone would think they had naught else to do." She puffed on her pipe angrily, kicking her legs against the stone. "I wish my dai-dein