The Puzzle Ring (31 page)

As so often proved to be the case, Donovan was right. The closer they came to the coast, the more stories they heard about the Hag's Washtub. No one had ever managed to navigate across it. It was a ship's graveyard. You could hear its hungry roar more than eighteen kilometres away.

Nearly three weeks after leaving Dumbarton, the six footsore travellers came at last to the coast. It had been a slow and arduous journey because of the many lochs and hills and forests that had to be crossed or circumnavigated. The ferryman who took them across Loch Fyne had told them to head towards Port Righ, a small fishing village on Loch Crinan. It was, he said, the closest port to the Gulf of Corryvreckan, the turbulent stretch of water between the islands of Juta and Scarba where the Hag's Washtub was to be found.

Port Righ was a very small village, with only a handful of stone cottages built on the rocky shore of a harbour protected by a steep headland. Small, shabby boats were pulled up onto the mud, and men sat on the rocks smoking long clay pipes and mending nets and sails. They stared in surprise at the small party of travellers who came wearily down the steep goat track, and nudged each other and whispered.

‘We're looking for passage through the Gulf of Corryvreckan,' Angus said. ‘Anyone willing to take us?'

The fishermen all shook their heads, frowning and muttering.

‘Are you daft?' one said. ‘No one sails past the Hag's Washtub!'

Unwillingly Angus took out his purse, still heavy with the coins the queen had given them at Holyrood Palace. He hefted it in his hand. ‘I'm willing to pay good coin,' he said.

Scarlett and Hannah, sitting wearily on the rocks behind him, exchanged looks of unholy glee. Angus never parted with good coin if he could possibly help it.

‘I'll take you,' one of the fishermen said. He was an elderly man, with a shock of silver hair and beard, skin as thick and brown as old leather, and very blue eyes that squinted up at them from deep creases of wrinkles.

‘How much?' Angus asked suspiciously. Then, when the fisherman named his price, he roared, ‘You blood-sucking mad-headed ape! Have you lost your wits? Who would pay such a sum?'

‘Only a witless mad-headed ape would want to sail past the Hag,' the old fisherman said amiably, sucking on his pipe. ‘Since it'll be the death of both of us, I might as well make sure I leave a nice bit of coin for my missus. And you sure won't be needing it.'

‘Surely it's not as impossible as all that,' Linnet said gently. ‘You look like a man who knows the sea. I'm sure if anyone could tame the Hag, it would be you.'

The fisherman's blue eyes twinkled up at Linnet. ‘You think to cozen me with sweet words? It just might have worked if I
was forty years younger, and if your father hadn't called me a mad-headed ape.'

‘Please,' Hannah said. ‘It's really important.'

‘That you risk your lives for a look at the Hag? I can't see why.'

‘Something was lost there,' Hannah said. ‘We've got to get it back.'

His blue eyes gleamed with interest. ‘A treasure hunt? Well, well. Perhaps if I was to have part of the treasure . . .'

‘It's of no real value,' Hannah said. ‘Except to me.'

He frowned at that, and sucked on his pipe. There was a long silence. Hannah gazed at Angus with pleading eyes.

The old man gave a huge sigh. ‘We need to head north afterwards,' he said in a long-suffering tone. ‘If you will take us past the whirlpool, and then up the Firth of Lorne and to the north, then I will pay you the sum you asked for. But you must get us safely north first.'

‘Where in the north?' the boatman demanded. ‘As far as Fort William?'

‘Maybe,' Angus said. ‘Maybe not.'

The boatman frowned more deeply. ‘I'd want the money now.'

‘Not a chance,' Angus said. ‘Half now, half when we land safely.'

There was another long pause.

‘Take it or leave it,' Angus said.

‘All right, you blood-sucking mad-headed ape, it's a deal,' the boatman said, spitting on his hand and holding it out for Angus to shake. Angus shook, and then, looking very dour, counted out a pile of coins into the boatman's leathery brown hand. He weighed each one in his palm,
bit it carefully to check it was really gold, then gave Angus an astonishingly sweet smile. ‘Fergus MacGillivray, at your service, sir. And a pleasure it is to be working for such a generous, open-handed gentleman!'

Angus snorted in disgust.

It was midmorning when they employed Fergus, but they could not set out into the Sound of Jura at once. The old boatman had to finish mending his sails and provision his boat. He allowed the six weary travellers to camp in his cowbyre, for an extra fee, which Angus paid begrudgingly, and only because it had begun to rain heavily.

The next morning dawned grey and blustery. Fergus shook his head. ‘I'm sorry, my bairns, but we're not going anywhere today.'

‘But we have to,' Hannah said.

‘Hear that?' Fergus asked. ‘That's the Hag roaring. Any man with sense knows not to go out when the Hag is angry.'

Hannah could indeed hear a low, continuous roaring to the west. She looked at her friends in dismay.

The next day Fergus said the same, and the next day too. By that time, Hannah was sick to death of baked herring, the cottage, the smell of Fergus's pipe, and her companions.
‘We can't spend the whole winter cooped up here,' she said crossly. ‘We have to keep moving!'

‘It's too dangerous,' Fergus said. ‘You may be paying me a king's ransom, but that doesn't mean I want to die in your service.'

Linnet looked troubled. She had spent much of the previous day standing in the doorway, staring out at the rain. ‘Hannah,' she said in a low voice. ‘Why don't you use the hag-stone? Weather magic is one of its powers, didn't you know?'

Hannah turned to her in surprise. She remembered the entry on hag-stones in her father's notebook. It had said something about storms, she remembered now.

‘But how?' Hannah instinctively held the hag-stone out to Linnet.

She stared at it with a strange look on her face. ‘Once you give a hag-stone away, you cannot take it back again,' she said softly.

Hannah's fingers closed about the stone and her hand fell down by her side.

Linnet nodded. ‘I'd like my lady's hag-stone back again one day, to take home with me. It is one of the treasures of my land, always carried by the crown prince or princess. Your father gave it to you, and you must keep it until it is time for you to pass it on too.'

My father didn't give it to me, a toad in the witch's pool did
, Hannah thought, but she did not say anything. She found the gift of the toad obscurely embarrassing, because it was so very odd.

‘Will you tell me how to use it then?' she asked.

Linnet nodded. ‘If I can. It's wild magic and thus mysterious, a magic of instinct and impulse. It cannot be
taught like the words of a spell or a sorcerer's drawing of symbols.'

‘So what do I do? To drive away the storm, I mean,' Hannah said.

‘I'd hang the stone on a cord and swing it about your head,' Linnet said. ‘Or, if it is the sea you wish to calm, I'd throw it into the water. Make sure you keep a tight hold of the cord, though, you do not want to lose it.'

‘No,' Hannah said in heartfelt agreement. She found a long piece of leather cord, strung the hag-stone upon it and hung it about her neck, tucking it inside her bodice. Then she went to the doorway and peered out into the pouring rain. ‘I'm going to go for a walk,' she announced.

‘Are you crazy?' Scarlett said. ‘You'll get soaked.'

‘I
will
go crazy if I have to spend any more time in this tiny cottage with you lot,' Hannah said rudely.

‘Well, I hope you get soaking wet and catch pneumonia,' Scarlett returned.

‘Remember they don't have antibiotics here,' Max warned her. ‘If you do get pneumonia, you'll probably die.'

Donovan uttered a groan and jumped to his feet. ‘I'll come with you, Hannah! I'm going stir-crazy too.'

‘Okay,' Hannah said, although the idea of Donovan watching her use the hag-stone made her feel hot and uncomfortable. ‘Though it's bucketing down!'

‘I don't melt,' Donovan said scornfully. ‘Not like the sugarplum fairy there.'

Scarlett stuck out her tongue at him, and went back to chipping the old polish off her toenails.

After the first few minutes, Hannah and Donovan got used to the rain and even began to enjoy it. The air smelt so
fresh, full of salt and seaweed. The mud was damp and cool under their bare feet, for they had taken off their boots and most of their clothes so they had something dry to change into when they got home. Seabirds wheeled in the blustery wind, calling out to each other in their raucous voices.

‘What a good idea this was!' Donovan said. ‘I hate being cooped up inside.'

‘Me too!'

The wind was so strong it almost blew them over. Donovan spread wide his arms and ran in great swooping curves, like a hawk riding the aerial currents. Hannah swung the hag-stone round and round her head, chanting, ‘Rain, rain, go away, come back another day!' It seemed as good a rhyme as anything she could come up with on her own.

She raced along the beach, dragging the hag-stone through the tumultuous waters. ‘Waves, waves, calming down, choose another day to frown,' she chanted. She felt amazingly free and light and, for the first time in her life, completely unselfconscious. Donovan seemed to take her chanting and capering for granted. He never did mock her, she realised, not even when she had first begun to talk about fairies and curses and travelling back in time. She felt a smile curve her mouth.

‘It's stopped raining,' Donovan said.

‘I think the sea's calming down as well.'

Donovan stared out at the bay, frowning, his eyes as grey as the wind-ruffled water. ‘So it is,' he said slowly, and looked at her sideways.

Hannah slipped the hag-stone back over her head. ‘Let's go tell Fergus. I think we should set out just as soon as we can.'

Donovan was silent on the walk back to the village and glanced at her once or twice, but did not say anything. Hannah was glad. The power of the hag-stone troubled her as much as it thrilled her, and she wanted as little talk about it as possible. They burnt witches here.

‘Glory be,' Fergus said, pushing his cap to the back of his head and scratching his balding temple. ‘I thought that storm was here for days. Well now, it's coming up to low tide. I guess if we want to see the Hag at her quietest, we'd best be getting a move-on.'

‘Well done,' Linnet said softly. ‘You have a gift for it, no doubt of that.'

Hannah felt warm all through with pleasure.

Despite the magic of the hag-stone, it was still a rough, tumultuous ride out of the loch and into the Sound of Jura, the boat's brown, patched sails billowing in the wind. On the far shore of the loch was a small grey castle; otherwise bare brown hills rose high all around, capped with mist. Scarlett gripped the side of the boat with both hands, the wind whipping her blonde hair across her face, which had lost its roses. Max too had lost as much colour as it was possible for someone with his olive skin to lose. It made him look oddly green.

‘Seasickness is . . . caused by . . . the disturbance . . . to the inner ear,' he said. ‘You just need . . . to . . . look . . . at the horizon . . .' His last words disappeared as he vomited violently over the side of the boat. Scarlett clapped her hand over her mouth.

Hannah looked round. ‘What's wrong?'

‘Doctor Death is seasick,' Donovan said.

‘Just need to . . . trick my brain . . . into thinking . . . we're steady,' Max said, and was sick again.

Linnet bent over him, her hand rubbing his back.

‘Ewww, yuck,' Scarlett cried and scrambled up to the prow of the boat, where Hannah and Donovan clung to the wooden gunwales of the boat, revelling in the fresh wind that tasted of salt.

They passed a flock of small islands, some no more than bare rocks rising out of the sea, and headed towards the coast of Jura, which lay due west. Its landscape was dominated by three tall snow-capped hills that lay in a row. Seabirds followed the boat, crying raucously. Some made spectacular dives from high in the air, plummeting below the wave and then bursting out minutes later with silver-backed fish wriggling in their long beaks. They were gannets, Donovan told Hannah, and nested in their hundreds of thousands on the islands to the west.

About an hour later, the little wooden boat rounded Jura's northern-most tip. The waves were wild and mackerel-backed with foam, and the boat pitched and swayed and spun so that Max moaned and clutched his stomach, occasionally retching miserably. Hannah could hear the roar of the whirlpool clearly. She leant forward, half excited, half filled with dread.