Daughters of Fire - Barbara Erskine

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her head down, her hands rammed into the pockets of her jacket, determined not to think about Tasha’s revelation, concentrating instead on the city around her. It was beautiful at night. She loved it all. The secrecy that the luminous darkness threw across the elegant streets and gardens of the New Town. The contrast, as she crossed Princes Street, between the brightly lit shop windows and the convoys of buses making their way towards the West End, with the darkness of the gardens beyond, the cavern of blackness over the railway line, set deep in its gorge below the castle. And she loved the steep ridge beyond the gardens on which crouched the Old Town where she lived, crowded, atmospheric, the shadows of the night hiding the twenty-first century, allowing memories of the past to filter up through the narrow streets and dark alleyways like a subtle, all-pervasive miasma.

       Vivienne, Lady, hear my pleas!

      Carta was crying, her voice echoing amongst the trees and bushes which clustered around the hilltop lochan.

       I need your help, Lady. Where are you?

      Viv had walked faster.

      Daughters of Fire. It had a good ring to it. It made her cooperation with Pat official. It gave them a base from which to work. If they got on. There hadn’t been an instant rapport between them, that much was certain, but she thought that they could respect each other for the experience each could bring to the project.

      She had reached the bend in the Mound when she heard footsteps behind her. Light. Hurrying. She stopped dead and turned. There was no one there. The street was empty. Below her the city spread out like a colourful carpet of light and dark.

      Cartimandua.

      Or Maeve.

      Medb.

      Medb of the White Hands.

      Where had Pat got that name? Viv felt a shiver playing again across her shoulders, and wished she had allowed Pete to bring her home.

      Medb and Cartimandua. Who or what had Tasha and Pablo and then Pete, dear old unflappable, unimaginative Pete, seen as they stared at her across the kitchen table? They had certainly seen something, and whatever they may all have said afterwards about the child’s vivid imagination, and the scatty cat, and the trick of the light, deep down inside, they all knew it.

      II

      ‘Mellia?’ Carta had walked out of her bedroom and stared round the living chamber. It was empty. The fire burned quietly, unwatched, a full cauldron of water steaming gently as it hung from the chains above it. The women were outside in the sunshine about their various tasks. ‘Mellia?’ she called again. ‘I want you to come with me to see Conaire about tonight’s songs.’ Mellia would enjoy that; Carta, not above a little matchmaking, smiled gleefully. She planned to bring Mellia into the discussion and then, remembering an urgent meeting with her groom, to leave the two of them together. She made her way outside and stood in the warm sunshine looking around. Mellia would not be far. She always stayed within earshot in case Carta should need her. ‘Mellia?’ She walked across the cobbled street, between two other houses and onto the broad grass terrace above the clifftop ramparts. From there a panorama of woods and hills stretched out towards the western horizon. Below her a blackbird broke cover, screeching its alarm note and she stepped forward, glancing down.

      At the bottom of the flight of steep steps cut into the rockface a body lay in the shadows on a pile of fallen scree below the cliff. Carta stared down, her heart in her mouth. The green plaid mantle had been pulled half off in the fall and it lay fluttering and tangled in a bush of whin. It was a mantle that she herself had given to Mellia as a gift only a few days earlier. Mellia, who was like a sister to her.

      ‘Mellia?’ Her strangled whisper hardly made a sound. For a moment she stood still, paralysed with terror, then she ran frantically down the long flight of steps. ‘Mellia? Mellia? Are you all right?’

      Mellia’s eyes were still open, her hand clutched around a lump of raw wool. Her spindle lay crushed beneath her.

      ‘Mellia?’ Carta touched the girl’s face with incredulous fingers. ‘Mellia? Speak to me!’ She could feel the panic welling up in her throat. ‘Mellia! Wake up!’

      But the girl’s skin was cold, her head twisted to one side at an impossible angle, her neck broken.

      For a long time she knelt there, Mellia’s cold hand clutched in her own, willing warmth back into the stiffening fingers, tears pouring down her cheeks. No one came. The busy township went about its business on the hill above her as usual, unaware of the tragedy.

      It was a long time before someone appeared at the top of the steps. It was Éabha. She stood there for a moment, calling, ‘Mellia? Where are you? Are you out here?’ Then she looked down and saw.

      ‘She tripped, child.’ Truthac was summoned at once. Gently he raised Carta to her feet. ‘See, the thongs of her shoe are unlaced. She was concentrating on her spinning as she walked.’

      ‘It’s not true.’ Carta could not control her tears as Mairghread, summoned by Éabha’s screams, put her arms around her. ‘She was killed. Someone pushed her.’ It was a certainty deep inside her. Something she had known the very moment she realised that Mellia was dead.

      Truthac looked hard at her face. He did not attempt to contradict her, or to question. She could feel his mind reaching out to hers, questing, seeking the truth.

      After a moment he nodded. He believed her, as he had believed her all along. ‘I will consult with the gods. And so, child, must you. They watch over you, Carta. If you ask, they will answer.’ He gave the order and Mellia’s body was lifted and carried away.

      Sadly Carta stepped away from Mairghread. She stooped and picked up the broken spindle. ‘I will ask my goddess,’ she muttered to herself. ‘She sees everything. She will know what to do.’ Anger was coming now and the tears were drying on her face. She knew who had done it, whether with her own hands or through someone else’s action at her command, or by magic, by weaving a spell to unlace the thong around Mellia’s ankle. By whatever method Mellia’s death had been accomplished, Carta vowed she was going to find out the truth. Above all else, that was what mattered here. That was what the Druids taught. Truth and justice and finally retribution. Mourning could come later.

      She stared round. Truthac had gone. Trying desperately to compose herself she sent the women away. For a moment they hesitated, then they moved back towards the house, shooing away the crowd of sightseers who had gathered to watch the young woman’s body being carried back up the cliff. She was alone again now, save for the one pair of eyes that watched her constantly from the dark corners of the settlement, jealous, vicious eyes which could see her from wherever their owner was hidden. Eyes which held power and hatred. Carta shivered, then she turned and headed towards the shrine.

      ‘What shall I do, Lady? The king will never believe me. How can I prove what she has done?’

      She had brought offerings of milk and a pot of wild bee honey to the goddess.

      As she looked up, her eyes were looking straight at Viv’s. She was in the room, yet not in the room. Together, they were in some dark place that smelled of cold stone. Viv could hear the lap of water and somewhere in the distance the thin delicate sound of a flute. She held her breath, trying to concentrate, afraid to blink in case the young woman disappeared.

      But nothing she could do would hold her. Carta was fading, dissolving. In seconds she had gone.

      Viv shivered violently. The wind in Dun Pelder had been cold, in spite of the spring sunshine; the trickling water bringing memories of winter ice from deep beneath the ground. Going back to the window, she focussed on her neighbour’s geraniums as she felt warmth seep back slowly into her body. She could feel the tears wet on her own cheeks, the misery tight inside her. Carta’s misery. Her absolute desolation. Leaning with her elbows on the sill, Viv breathed in the comforting warm

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