teased the healer when she had been one of their teachers at the Theurgia. Bronwen remembered one particular day, when she had given in to the impulse to mock Mirabelle for her pox-ravaged face, just to make the class giggle. Mirabelle had not seemed to mind, using the jibe to issue a smiling warning about the importance of taking care when nursing highly infectious diseases, yet Bronwen felt rather ashamed of her cruelty and as a consequence was always very sweet and charming to Mirabelle when they met.
Cloudshadow was lying against a mound of pillows, her snow-white hair rippling down to stream across the green satin coverlet. She looked more frail and ethereal than ever. Her skin was so white it looked bloodless, and there were violet shadows under the strange, colourless eyes.
Bronwen bowed low. Greetings, honourable one , she hummed deep in her throat.
Greetings , the Stargazer hummed back.
Ye ken your daughter was dear to me , Bronwen thought. I am as devastated by her loss as ye. My husband too is missing, and our land is plunged into chaos. Can ye help me find them?
The Stargazer reached out her long, four-jointed finger and placed it between Bronwen’s brows.
I cannot see my daughter , the Stargazer said. Her mind-voice was filled with anguish. I cannot sense her.
Is she … are they … dead?
I do not know. The Celestine’s hand fell away.
Bronwen was puzzled. The mind-ability of the Celestines was legendary. It was said they could see into every man and woman’s heart and read what was written there, and that they could cast their senses far across the land.
We think they have travelled the Auld Way. We found Donncan’s sash at the entrance o’ the maze, and evidence that Johanna seeks to go back a thousand years in time, to the days o’ the First Coven.
The Celestine closed her eyes. To Bronwen’s dismay, tears began to slide down from under her closed lids. She had never seen a Celestine cry before. She had not imagined they could, let alone ordinary tears of water like a human.
Forgive me, honourable one, but is this indeed possible? Can one travel the Auld Way so far back in time?
So far, and further , came the reply. It is a perilous journey, and forbidden to us. Even when our kind was being hunted down and burnt alive by your mother’s soldiers, we did not take refuge in other times, as some among us argued we should. To do so would have been to break one of the most sacred taboos of our kind. To bend time is to remake history, and to remake history is to remake the world.
There was a long silence.
Did Thunderlily know the secret o’ travelling back in time? Bronwen asked.
The Celestine lifted one hand and wiped away her tears. Thunderlily has learnt the tree-language and the star-language, as any child of the Stargazers must , she said very quietly. These are the most sacred secrets of my kind, and never to be disclosed to one not of her blood. Even the man whom she shall sacrifice to the Summer Tree may not know all the songs.
So she does know how to do it? Would she do so? Bronwen asked.
The Stargazer opened her eyes and stared straight into Bronwen’s. It was like being stabbed with a bright pin. Bronwen found it impossible to maintain her gaze, despiteall her majesty and authority as the banrìgh of all Eileanan and the Far Islands. She dropped her eyes, colour staining her cheeks.
I would not have thought so , came the answer. But if a knife was held to the winged one’s throat … perhaps she would rather brave the dangers of the Old Ways and do as she was bid, than sully the perfection of the Heart of Stars with the blood of a murdered king. I cannot tell. I have been too long away from my daughter. I no longer know what is in her heart. She has folded secrets away inside her, and closed her eye to me so I cannot read them.
The Celestine sounded unutterably weary and sad. Bronwen felt her own eyes sting in sudden sympathy, and a guilt she told herself was entirely
Massimo Carlotto, Anthony Shugaar