LITMIR.BIZ

      It is a couple of miles to the castle, over the moor and down to the foreland, but it seemed longer because a mist came down and hid all the distances. I was tired. I trudged through the heather behind the other two, feeling small and untidy and a failure. Some of the time I was trying not to cry at the idea of having to spend another night in the Place in a month’s time.

      Even if I did get initiated, then I knew with a dreadful certainty that I would never, ever be the equal of Aunt Beck. Oh, I had memorised the cantrips and procedures all right, and I knew all my herbs and weatherlore, but it takes more than that to be a proper magicwoman. I had only to look at my aunt’s tall, narrow figure striding elegantly ahead, with her plaid stylishly not quite wrapping her small, dark, neatly-plaited head, to know that. Aunt Beck’s best boots had red cork heels – they cost the earth because they came from Logra before the blockade – and never once did a splash of mud or spray of heather cling to those gleaming scarlet cubes.

      My feet were muddy all over already. My hair is a messy pale brown and nothing seems to stop wisps of it separating from my pigtails. They flapped beside my face, fuzzy already. And I am short for my age. Even the younger children in the castle were taller than me now and I couldn’t see myself ever being tall or wise. I shall always be that little Aileen with the freckles and the buck teeth and no real gift at all, I thought sadly. Damn it, even Ogo looked more imposing than me.

      Ogo had new shoes that laced up over his smart new trews to his knees. They must have taken a deal of leather to make because Ogo’s feet are enormous. They looked even bigger on the ends of his skinny, laced-up legs. I could see he was treading very carefully so as not to spoil them in the peat. I guessed he had promised the shoemaker to keep that pair good at least.

      Poor Ogo. Everyone at the castle scolded him or jeered. He is a foreigner and different from the rest. As far as I knew, he had been left behind ten years ago when the magicmen of Logra cast the spells that made it impossible for anyone from Skarr – or Bernica, or Gallis for that matter – to cross the sea to Logra. Logra might be on the moon now for all that we can do to get to it.

      We were at war with Logra then. We always are. All the same, there were quite a few families of Lograns on Skarr, traders and ambassadors, and priests and so forth, who all fled to boats on the night of the spellcasting. One or two others got left behind as well as Ogo: the mad old spinning-woman up in Kilcannon for one, and the man who claimed to be a scholar whom the Cormacks arrested as a spy, but Ogo was the only child. I believe he was five at the time. I suppose his relatives were traders or something who fled with the rest and simply forgot him. I think the worse of them for that. According to Ogo, some of them were magicmen, but that’s as maybe. If they were, they can’t have been half as good magic-workers as Aunt Beck. She never forgets anything. Ogo was lucky that King Kenig took him in.

      Meanwhile, Aunt Beck went with her lovely swinging stride and Ogo marched like a pair of scissors beside her, down the hill to the river and across the stepping stones there, while I came galumphing after.

      Dark shapes came out of the fog to us on the other side. “There they are now,” said my distant cousin Ivar. We had not seen him for the fog until then. “Ogo seems to have got it right for once. You can strike up now, fellows.”

      “What is this?” demanded Aunt Beck, standing like a ramrod on the last stepping stone with brown water swirling below her red heels. But her voice was nearly drowned out by the sudden squeal and chant from the top of the bank as at least four pipers started on the ‘March of Chaldea’.

      I was quite as astonished as my aunt. An honour of pipes was quite unheard of, at least since the days when we were the Twelve Sisters. But I could now see that there were six pipers up there – more than they had in the castle.

      “I said, what is THIS?” my aunt yelled.

      “Nothing, my dear cousin. Don’t be alarmed,” said Ivar. He came right to the bank and offered her his arm. “The King insisted on it for some reason. He said the ladies must be brought in with due honour.”

      “Hmph,” said Aunt Beck. But she took his arm and stepped on up the bank. Ivar is a favourite of hers.

      I felt better for seeing Ivar there too. He is dark and skinny, with a long neck with a big Adam’s apple in it. I consider him very handsome with his beaky, jagged profile, dark eyes and jutting cheekbones. And he makes good jokes too. Although he doesn’t know it yet, I have chosen him to be my husband when the time comes and, until then, I feel free to admire him greatly in secret. All the same, I wondered, as I scrambled up the bank, what had got into King Kenig, Ivar’s father, to escort us with pipers like this. I know the King believes in doing everything the old way, now that Logra is off our backs, but this was ridiculous!

      In fact, I was quite glad of those pipers. There is something about a night with no sleep that weakens your legs. It is quite a steep climb up to the castle and without the steady, skirling beat ahead of me I would have made heavy going of it. Or I might not have got there at all. The fog was now so thick that it could have been easy to miss the way, for all I knew it so well.

      As it was, I never saw the pipers clearly, just followed them until, under the wet black walls of the castle, they peeled smoothly away, all except one – Old Ian – who led us solemnly up the steps and through into the castle hall.

      All was set for dinner there, everyone seated and the serving-people standing by the walls. There was a lot of yellow light from more candles than I could count. This surprised me greatly. King Kenig is even more fiercely economical than Aunt Beck – and she is a byword for it in the countryside. Old Ian led us solemnly up to the top table, piping the whole way, and stopped when we got there, halfway through the tune.

      Ivar dug his elbow into Ogo and Ogo bowed to King Kenig sitting there. “I-I’ve brought the ladies to you, sire,” he said.

      “Round by Kilcannon Head, I imagine. You certainly took your time,” the King said. “Get away to your place now.”

      Ogo turned around with his face very white and the eyes and mouth in it set in straight lines. I have seen him look like that often, and often after the children have been jeering at him. Once or twice, I have seen him, wearing that same straight face, standing in a lonely part of the castle

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