Surely no one would dare sing such a song, right here in Lucescere, the capital of Rionnagan?
Surely the twins could not be in danger?
The crowd eased back, clearing the way for the twins. Owein smiled around, oblivious to the tense atmosphere, but Lewen saw Olwynne frown and draw herself up. She glanced at their bodyguards, who followed close behind. The Khan‟cohban warriors both had their hands close to their weapons belt, their thick brows drawn together as they scanned the crowd. Tall strong men with long pale hair bound back from their faces and sharp curving horns, their dark skin was marked with three slashes on either cheek, showing they were warriors of high distinction. One wore a cloak of spotted sabre leopard skin, and the other of white snow lion fur, the snarling heads still intact.
Accompanying the twins were their usual entourage, chief among them Alasdair and Heloïse MacFaghan, the younger children of Ishbel the Winged and Khan‟gharad the Scarred Warrior.
Having recently turned nineteen, Alasdair and Heloïse were fifteen months younger than their nephew Owein and niece Olwynne. They had been born twenty-two years after their famous sisters Isabeau and Iseult, and had come, like all the other young prionnsachan of Eileanan, to study at the Theurgia.
As the elder twin, Heloïse was heir to the throne of Tìrlethan, and so spent much of her time reluctantly studying politics, history, law, economics, and land management. Alasdair occupied his time with riding, drinking, flirting, and getting up to mischief with the other squires. Like Lewen and Owein, Alasdair was one of the Rìgh‟s six squires. He was accompanied by his great friend and fellow squire, a thin, intense, dark-haired boy called Barney, the youngest son of the MacRuraich.
Accompanying the MacFaghan twins were their own bodyguards, also fierce Khan‟cohban
warriors. Among the lively party was Cailean of the Shadowswathe, with his enormous shadow-hound, Dobhailen, and the old and rather portly cluricaun Brun.
Their entrance caused such a stir that the subtle dissonance created by the masked singer‟s song seemed to evaporate like ale fumes. Lewen was left with nothing more than a vague sense of disquiet. He stood up and waved at Owein, who grinned at him and veered his way. A table of corrigans rose and bowed and offered them their table, and they were all able to squeeze in together, their attendants taking the table Lewen had vacated. The bodyguards took up positions against the wall, their eyes moving constantly and suspiciously over the seething crowd, while Brun found himself a comfortable chair by the fire with an equally stout and elderly hobgoblin who was evidently an old friend.
“I‟ve never been to an inn yet where Brun didna meet someone he kens,” Owein said, signaling to the seelie waitress. She came at once, smiling, the ogre looming behind her.
“I havena seen Brun leave the palace in a while,” Lewen said. “I‟ll have some more ale, thanks.”
“Fuzzle gin for me,” Heloïse said.
“Are ye sure?” Owein teased. “I‟ve heard it has the most unfortunate effect on young ladies.”
“I may look like a young lady but I have the stomach o‟ a man,” Heloïse replied serenely.
“Fuzzle gin it is then,” Owein said.
“Make it two,” Olwynne said.
Lewen raised an eyebrow at her, for Olwynne rarely drank. She made a face at him and shrugged one shoulder sharply. She was, he noticed suddenly, looking very pale and tired.
“If ye two are drinking fuzzle gin, I‟ll be damned if I drink ale,” Owein said. “What else do ye have?”
“Apart from ordinary ale, there‟s scurvy ale, and plague ale, or whiskey,” the seelie said. “Or if that‟s no‟ what ye be wanting, there‟s moonflower ruin, or weasel fizzle, or oak-apple wine, or—
”
“What in Eà‟s name is weasel fizzle?”
“The cursehags like it, and the goblins too.”
“Reason enough to keep away from it,” Owein said. “What about moonflower ruin?”
“Ye willna be wanting that, sir,” the ogre said suddenly, startling them. He was a great hulking creature, with scaly limbs, coarse dark hair, and a tusked and warty face. His eyes glowed red.
“May I suggest blue ruin instead?”
They stared at him in fascination, ogres still being rare enough, and brute enough, to be seldom seen in the city.
Owein recovered first. “What‟s that?”
“Gin,” the ogre answered. His voice sounded like he shouted through a funnel in a vast, windy canyon. It caused the girls‟ hair to fly back from their faces.
“Seems rather tame,” Owein replied. “What do ogres drink?”
“Ye willna be wanting that either, sir,” the ogre said firmly. “If ye willna stick to gin or whiskey or ale, how about clamber skull?”
“Never heard o‟ it.”
“It‟s green, it‟s evil, and it does the job,” the ogre said. “It‟s called clamber skull because it climbs up into your skull and knocks out any thoughts ye might have rattling around up there.”
“Sounds good. Bring it on.”
“Me too,” Lewen said.
The seelie bowed and smiled her triangular smile that was half-sweet, half-sly, and moved away, her hips swaying under the fall of her rich golden hair. Despite himself, Lewen found himself staring after her, as did every man in the room. He wrenched his gaze away, recalling how some Lucescere matrons had tried, unsuccessfully, to convince the Rìgh to sign and seal an act forbidding female seelies from walking the streets unveiled. Their beauty was simply too intoxicating and their morality too lax. Seelies believed the act of love to be as natural as breathing and would lie with anyone who smiled at them, or offered them a flower, or a bright pebble, or a song. They were said to be careless lovers, whose own lack of jealousy made them indifferent to another‟s agonies. Since they were forest faeries, who dwelled far from the filth and noise of human inhabitation, this had never been too much of a problem before. But since the Pact of Peace, more and more had come to the towns and cities, apparently driven by curiosity and a desire for the bright, useless things that humans made. In recent years, they had caused a great deal of trouble.
“So what is Brun doing here?” Lewen asked, forcing his gaze back to Owein‟s face. “It‟s no‟ like him to move far from the tower.”
“I dinna ken. Happen he has friends here,” Owein said. “Look at the place. It‟s swarming with faeries.”
“He said he‟s heard rumors o‟ a new singer here who is stirring up all sorts o‟ trouble,” Olwynne said. “He thought he‟d come and have a listen.”
“If she‟s who I think she is, ye‟ve just missed her,” Lewen replied.
“Really? Any good?”
“Extraordinary,” Lewen replied. “And verging on treasonable, I think.”
“Indeed!” Owein swung round to look at him. “How so?”
Lewen shrugged. He was already wondering if he had misconstrued or overstated the power and intent of the song. “A different version o‟ history,” he answered.
Owein lost interest, glancing back at the door. “Boring! I‟m glad we missed her. I‟d much rather see those dancing ogres.”
“I‟d have liked to have seen her,” Heloïse said. “The whole school is buzzing with talk o‟ her.
Apparently she‟s been singing every night the last few weeks and drawing such a crowd they‟ve been turning them away in droves. I hope she comes back on. We would‟ve been here sooner, but Owein insisted on going to see some play at the Mandrake that I‟d already seen, and really had no interest in seeing again.”
“Did ye see the others there?” Lewen asked.
“Nay,” Owein answered, rather shortly.
Their drinks arrived. The girls‟ fuzzle gin was pink and frothy, and after only a few sips Olwynne and Heloïse were both giggling. The boys‟ clamber skull was the color and texture of slime and made their eyes water. After three glasses, swallowed at first with difficulty, it tasted marvelous and the world seemed a sweeter, more melodious place.
Alasdair staggered away after the seelie, his bodyguard moving unobtrusively after him. Heloïse found someone to dance with. Cailean was deep in conversation with a tree-changer, while Dobhailen menaced a group of goblins with a stare and lifted lip. The room grew so crowded it was like a thick bean soup, steaming and bubbling. The musicians played at a great rate, the tree-shifters tossing their manes of long hanging twigs about, the hobgoblin tapping one enormous broad foot.
Lewen drank down his poison-green drink, his head spinning, and ordered yet another. Owein matched him drink for drink, growing more morose with every mouthful, his gaze continually straying towards the door. Suddenly, though, his eyes brightened and he sat up straighter. Lewen squinted through the smoke.
The young apprentices who had traveled through Ravenshaw with him crowded in through the doorway, along with a collection of other young students, all talking and laughing. Fèlice was at the center of it all and, Lewen hazarded, the cause of Owein‟s sudden attention. She was dressed, he was pleased to see, in a very pretty and demure dress of dusky pink with a narrow edging of white lace at hem and sleeve. He had been worried, after her boldness in the garth that afternoon, that she would try to impress Owein by following the new fashion in the court of wearing very clingy and revealing gowns. Owein had been raised by Iseult of the Snows, however, who always dressed with great simplicity, almost to the point of austerity. Although Lewen had never heard the young Prionnsa express much opinion on fashion, except to mock it in general, he was sure he would have thought less of Fèlice if she had dressed, like some of her companions, in a diaphanous gown with fluttering sleeves sewn to mimic the fins of the Fairgean.
Fèlice saw them crammed into their narrow booth and raised a hand to them, but made no move to come over.
She had no need to. Owein rose at once and tried to make his way towards her, but found his way blocked by a line of dancers. Always impatient, the Prionnsa did not wait for the dance to end, but spread his wings and flew over their heads, causing a general outcry of amazement and laughter. He landed lightly next to Fèlice, who smiled and curtsied, her eyelashes lowered.
“So ye‟ve come at last,” Owein said to Fèlice. “I‟d almost given ye up.”
She looked up. “Really? Are we so late?”
“Nay, I s‟pose no‟ . . . though I‟d thought to see ye at the Mandrake.”
“Och, I heard the play was no‟ so good after all, so we went to see a puppet show at the Astral. It was most amusing!”
“I wish I had been there,” Owein said in a voice devoid of any expression.
Fèlice dimpled at him. “I wish ye had too. If I‟d kent ye‟d go to the Mandrake, I would‟ve sent ye a message, but indeed, Your Highness, I did no‟ expect to see ye there.”
“Didn‟t ye?” Owein said.
They were interrupted by Edithe NicAven, dressed in a dashing gown much the same color as the clamber skull, with fake fins and a plunging neckline. “Your Highness!” she cried and dipped into a deep curtsy that gave him an excellent view down her cleavage. Owein took an
involuntary step back and saw Fèlice hide a quick smile that made him shoot her a wry glance.
“I am so very pleased to meet Your Highness at last,” Edithe cooed. “I have heard so much about ye from our mutual friend, Lewen o‟ Kingarth. We all grew to be very close, ye ken, on our journey here from Ravenshaw. I do declare, I have hardly seen him since we arrived here at Lucescere! It‟s been such a mad whirl, hasn‟t it, Fèlice? Parties one night, balls another, and then, o‟ course, I have been very busy with my studies—I am taking Advanced Magic, ye ken.
My father will be
so
pleased! Though I suppose it is no‟ surprising considering I am descended from Aven the Mysterious, who was one o‟ Brann‟s foremost acolytes.”
She paused to take a breath. Owein at once bowed and murmured, “I am glad ye are enjoying the Theurgia, my lady. If ye would excuse me, I must just—”
“Oh, I always kent I would blossom once I came to the Tower o‟ Two Moons,” Edithe went on, glancing away modestly and so missing Owein‟s mute appeal to Fèlice for help. “It has been my burning ambition to be a sorceress since I was a mere lassiekin and first began to demonstrate such striking powers. I remember my grandmother saying that I was a born witch, and she should ken. Her mother had been First Sorceress at the Tower o‟ Ravens for many years, ye see. I was only three when I first—”
“Ladies and gentlemen, faeries and
uile-bheistean
, may I have your attention!” The ogre‟s voice boomed through the crowded, smoky chamber, drowning out even Edithe‟s high-pitched nasal drone. Thankfully Owein turned to the stage.
“Every Friday evening we present the Song and Dance Night, an opportunity for us to showcase the talents o‟ our patrons. If ye can tell a joke, or juggle, dance a jig, or walk on your hands, if you can sing a song or tell a story, swallow a sword or turn a somersault, then this is the place and this is the time for ye! The prize for the best act is six gold royals!”
A cheer went up from the crowd, and Owein‟s eyes widened. It was a rich prize indeed. No wonder it was such a popular event.
“Just remember, it costs three coppers to enter, and no professional singers, dancers, or jongleurs allowed. The penalty is to be stomped on by me.” To illustrate his point the ogre raised one enormous boot and slammed it back down on to the wooden stage. The whole room shook. Dust drifted down from the rafters, making the air even hazier. There was another roar of laughter, and the ogre grinned, showing a cavernous mouth filled with crooked, discolored fangs. He then tramped off the stage, and the show began.
“Come on, Landon, let‟s pay our fee and get ye on the list,” Fèlice said.
Landon hung back. “I canna do it, Fèlice! Have ye seen how many people there are here?”
“All the better for getting your point across. Come on, Landon, dinna be shy. This is why we‟re here, remember?”
Landon glanced up at the stage, where two portly young cluricauns were juggling battered pots and pans, then around at the swaying crowd. He shook his head and clutched the sheaf of papers to his breast.
“Och, give them to me!” Fèlice seized the papers. “I‟ll read it for ye, Landon! It‟s too good an opportunity to miss. If anyone is going to be sympathetic towards Rhiannon, it‟s the Nisse and Nixie crowd. Most o‟ them are faeries, or faery friends, and most do no‟ have much liking for authority. They willna think it such a crime that she shot down a Yeoman, when they ken she did it to save her mother!”