Highland Raven

Chapter 5

For the men who still remained, the revelry began at sunup as opposed to sundown. I spent most of the morning and afternoon playing with the puppy and avoiding the main hall, but by dinnertime, I had no more excuses.

The hall was again too bright. The musicians played too loudly, and the smoke was so thick that it made it hard to breathe. Sweat beaded down my back. The men, still unwashed, were drunk from the day before and continued to drink more. Their speeches slurred.

“This will be the last night. They will all go home tomorrow,” my aunt whispered. The salve she had used to hide the bruise around her eye had faded. The dark ring around her shining emerald eyes was obvious. While Madelaine tried to smile like she had no cares in the world, I seethed.

I moved discreetly and forced my body to feel small so no one would notice me. It was difficult, however, to escape attention. My aunt and I were the most fetching women in the room, and when the food had been cleared, the men sought out attractive dancing partners.

“Dance, niece,” my uncle said, grabbing my hand.

My aunt, despite the risk of accusation, had taken to the floor with Tavis. I noticed their words were soft as he examined her eye and looked on her sympathetically. They weren’t doing a very good job hiding their feelings for one another. And when Tavis looked at Alister, his eyes smoldered. I tried to entertain my uncle, keeping his back turned toward his wife and her lover. I feared for Tavis. His rage was too ready, too obvious. He needed to be smarter. If Alister ever suspected anything between Madelaine and Tavis, Tavis would be dead.

“Such a pretty girl,” Alister said then, stroking his rough finger down my cheek.

“Thank you, my uncle,” I replied, my stomach flopping with nausea.

He pulled me closer. “How many years have you lived in my house?” he asked, his words coming slow and slurred.

“Sixteen.”

“Now you are leaving. And a convent? What a shame! You’ve grown into such a fine and beautiful woman,” he said, his hands stroking slowly upward from the curve of my waist toward my chest.

“Just for a time. King Malcolm will make a match for me soon enough,” I said. “I will be given a royal husband and produce heirs for the realm,” I said pointedly, reminding Alister that his hands had no business on a body intended for greater things than himself.

He frowned and lowered his hands to my waist. “As a daughter of Boite should.”

“Indeed. But, of course, all the realm knows that you are my foster father, and I always think of you as such. I am so glad I bring a father’s pride to your eyes.”

Alister looked away from me then, and I saw a glimmer of shame cross his face. “Well, if you hope to please your royal husband, don’t let those women teach you too much. Take your foster father’s advice, and don’t become as wicked tongued as your aunt. No man will want you, royal or not.”

The harp strings fell silent. “Of course, my uncle and foster father. Many thanks for your good counsel. Let me beg your leave. May I retire to my chamber? The ale has given me a headache.”

With a grunting laugh, my uncle nodded dismissively.

It was his words, not the ale, that made my head ache. He made my poor aunt, one of the kindest women I knew, seem wicked. Worse, I knew Alister fully believed in what he said, making his way reality to so many, simply because he thought he could. I shot a knowing glance to Madelaine, who had untangled herself from Tavis before Alister’s eyes espied the pair, and headed to my chamber.

Back in the privacy of my own room, I could finally relax. My little puppy was sleeping in a basket at the foot of my bed. She opened her drowsy eyes and looked at me when I entered, her tail wagging.

“Sleep, little one,” I told her. “And send me a dream so I can learn your name.”

The puppy rolled onto her back, her tongue falling out of the side of her mouth, then drifted back to sleep.

I went to the open window casement and looked out at the silver moon. It was glowing brightly. In the field below, two men where stringing up a freshly killed stag. The light of the fire and the glow of the moon illuminated the scene. I couldn’t quite catch their words on the wind, but they were laughing and drinking. I saw the flash of silver as the hunter took out a knife and slit open the belly of the deer with a jerk.

Blood and guts erupted like heavy rain. The deer’s intestines burst from the body and with a wet sounding heave, spilled bloody red onto the earth.

The hunter groaned a disgusted grunt as blood splattered all over him.

The image both awed and horrified me. The blood and heap of guts made a massive dark pool at the hunter’s feet. The red of innards and blood glimmered in the firelight. The image of it so unsettled me that I swooned. I gazed up at the moon. My head felt dizzy.

For a brief moment, I saw the world in double vision. Everything around me suddenly felt very far away. I held on to the stone window casement, but my body felt like it was spinning.

The men’s voices grew increasingly distant. Everything became dark.

The world glimmered from blackness to a rainbow of opalescent colors then to darkness once again and everything became very still and silent and black. The spinning sensation stopped and my feet were on solid earth, but I didn’t know where. The only thing that was certain was that I was not in my chamber anymore.

I saw the light of a fire in the far distance and traveled to it with the speed of thought. I moved as if on the wings of a bird. Propelled through time and space, wings beating in the wind, I soon found myself standing beside a cauldron. A fire was burning underneath. Two women stood aside the fire. One was ancient looking, the lines on her face deeply grooved. The other was more middle-aged; her hair was deep red.

“Twice the raven has cawed,” said the ancient matriarch.

“Twice the star flower has bloomed,” said the red-haired woman.

“’Tis time, ’tis time,” they said together.

“Are you…are you the ladies of the nine?” I asked.

The ancient one laughed a long and heady laugh. “Hail daughter of Boite.”

The red-haired woman bowed to me. “Hail Queen hereafter.”

“Cauldron queen, old one reborn, come join, come join,” they called to me. They joined their hands, extending their free ones to me, motioning for me to join them in their circle.

“Round the cauldron come and sing,” said the elder.

“Like fey things in a ring,” said the younger.

The hair on the back of my neck rose, and my skin chilled to goose bumps. These were not Madelaine’s women. I knew who they were: the Wyrd Sisters. Their dark magic was known only in ancient lore. It was said that they meddled in the world of men. They had not been seen since the time of my ancestor, Kenneth MacAlpin, when their prophecies helped him unite old Alba. My body chilled from head to toe.

“I know who you are,” I whispered. “What do you want from me?”

“A deed with a heavy name,” answered the ancient one with a laugh.

“A service, Lady,” said the younger.

“Nay, nay…say Queen,” said the elder.

“But more yet, say Sister,” replied the younger, red-haired one.

“Even more,” the elder said mysteriously. The old woman let go of her younger companion and drew close to me. She was ancient. As she neared me, the sharp smell of flowers effervesced from her, familiar and sweet. While her words frightened me, her eyes were soft and loving. “Bubble of the earth, and Goddess hereafter,” she said then reached up to draw a mark on the center of my forehead. “Wake.”

My eyes opened with a jolt. I was lying on my chamber floor staring up at the ceiling. Pain shot through my body. I sat up and touched the back of my head. It was wet. In the dim candlelight, I could see blood on my fingers. I must have fainted.

I rose slowly and glanced outside. The men were skinning the stag. I went over to my water basin to rinse the blood from my fingers, but I gasped when I caught my reflection. On the center of my forehead, drawn in blood, was a flower with five petals. I leaned forward to look at it better. For just a moment, I spied the image of the Wyrd Sisters standing behind me. I turned to see…nothing. And when I peered back into the basin, the vision was gone. The bloody flower, however, remained. I wiped a wet cloth across the symbol, washing away the flower…the symbol of the Cauldron Goddess, the Goddess Cerridwen.