The Puzzle Ring (39 page)

‘We'll have to get right away,' Hannah whispered in Scarlett's ear. ‘We cannot risk being caught by them.'

‘But where shall we go? Back to Fairknowe?'

‘Unless we can find another fairy gateway closer,' Hannah whispered. ‘It's almost May Day now. We have the third part of the puzzle ring. If we can just find a gateway, we can rescue Donovan and my father and then go home again.'

‘I think it's getting a bit hot for us here,' Scarlett said wryly.

The girls found Linnet waiting for them anxiously at the mouth of the cave, her plaid wrapped close about her against the early morning chill. Max was awake too, his thin face drawn with pain.

‘Where have you been? What's happened?' he cried.

‘We'll tell you on the way,' Hannah said. ‘We need to get moving . . . fast!'

But it was impossible to move quickly through the countryside. News of the fairy bairns and their fiendish horse had spread fast, and anyone who caught sight of Linnet and the children ran at once to call for help. Time and again the water-horse was forced to gallop from angry villagers, tossing his mane and baring his fanged teeth in rage. Hannah and her friends began to travel only in the early hours of the
morning and at dusk, when people had gone home to their cottages and the roads were empty.

When May Day came, they were still far from Fairknowe Hill and so had no chance of getting home to their own time for another seven weeks. The next thin day was Midsummer's Eve, on the twenty-second of June. Till then, Hannah and her friends were trapped in sixteenth-century Scotland, with civil war threatening to break out at any moment. Hannah, Max and Scarlett were very quiet that night, sitting with slumped shoulders by the campfire and barely tasting the game soup Linnet had cooked especially for them. Hannah felt as if she would never get home; never see her mother or her great-grandmother again; never go to the movies or watch TV or catch a train wherever she wanted to go; never wear comfortable clothes that could be washed and dried by machines, instead of by her own chapped and chilblained hands; never eat a hamburger or chocolate or icecream again. No one said a word; they just sat staring morosely into the camp-fire, then wrapped themselves in their plaids and pretended to sleep.

They missed Angus more than ever over the next few days, for the old man had known many secret ways through the forests and hills. Hannah and her friends did not know the secret ways, and found the mountains to the west completely impassable. Again and again they would follow a river or explore a glen, only to find their way blocked by immense brooding pinnacles of stone. The forest on the valley floor was tangled and overgrown, and there were signs that outlaws lived there, rampaging forth to steal what they could.

‘I can't risk the puzzle ring being stolen,' Hannah said anxiously. ‘I think we should stick to the road if we can.'

‘There are outlaws on the roads as well,' Linnet said.

‘Yes, but at least there aren't any wolves,' Hannah said, for they had all been frightened by an unexpected encounter with a shaggy grey wolf the previous evening. It had only stared at them with fierce golden eyes, growling low in its throat, its hackles raised, before loping swiftly away when the kelpie growled back.

As Hannah and her friends came closer to Perth, they began to see bands of men with great two-handled claymores strapped to their backs marching the muddy roads. Max still found it hard to walk, so he and Morgana rode on the water-horse, while Hannah, Scarlett and Linnet hiked alongside, foraging for food as they went. The further south they went, the harder it was to find mushrooms or birds' eggs or fish, as the land was rounded and green and planted with crops. Luckily, blackberries were plentiful, as brambles grew all over the stone walls. Linnet cooked them with a crust of oatmeal and wild honey and, after weeks of plain porridge, Hannah and her friends could not get enough, so that their mouths were stained with purple all day.

They could not live on blackberries and porridge alone, though. At last, Linnet left the four younger ones camping in a small copse of trees and walked to Perth for news and supplies. The town was milling with worried, frightened people, Linnet said when she got back. A few days earlier, Queen Mary had married Lord Bothwell in a rushed ceremony at Holyrood. Bothwell had divorced his wife only a week earlier. Queen Mary wore an old dress, and was said to have wept afterwards. Many people thought she had been forced to wed against her will. Others said she wept for joy.

‘But how long has it been since the king died?' Scarlett demanded.

‘Thirteen weeks,' Linnet replied unhappily.

‘No wonder people are upset. Thirteen weeks is not very long!'

‘What are we to do?' Hannah wanted to know. ‘At this rate, we won't get back to Fairknowe by Christmas!'

‘I've been thinking,' Linnet said. ‘No one paid me any mind at all in Perth. Either the story of the two wild fairy bairns has not travelled this far south, or everyone's far too worried about what's going on to care.'

‘So?' Scarlett said.

‘Well, we'd have a long, hard journey from here to Fairknowe through the hills. I've never travelled that way myself, and Angus cannot show us the way.' As Linnet spoke, she cradled the toad in her hands. He croaked and shot out his long sticky tongue to catch a midge. ‘There must be a path, but I don't know the way. However, if we stick to the highway it'll take us straight down to Edinburgh. And there are so many people travelling the roads now, no one will notice us.'

‘But we want to get home,' Hannah cried. ‘What's the point of going to Edinburgh?'

‘There's a fairy hill there. Another gateway into the Otherworld. It's only very small, and not much used these days. My lady's cousin may not even have guards on it.'

‘Really? A fairy hill in Edinburgh? Where?'

‘It is called Dow Craig, which means the Black Rock,' Linnet said. ‘It stands just outside the walls, separated from the city by a gorge. I have ridden out the gate there before, I know where it is. If we can get there by Midsummer's Eve, you should be able to pass through.'

‘But we'll still be miles and miles away from home, or from Schiehallion, where they took Donovan prisoner,' Hannah said hopelessly. ‘How are we meant to find him or my father, or get home?'

‘You know that time moves differently in the Otherworld,' Linnet said quietly. ‘Well, space moves differently too. What would take you days to walk in this world would take you a few hours, or maybe even minutes, in the fairy realm.'

‘Really?' Hannah was filled with new hope. ‘You mean we could cross into the Otherworld, rescue my father and Donovan, and escape back out the gateway at Fairknowe, all in a matter of hours?'

Linnet nodded.

‘Then why didn't we just do that in the first place, instead of traipsing all over Scotland?' Scarlett demanded. ‘We needn't have walked all the way to Edinburgh, we could have just gone through the gateway at Fairknowe Hill and popped up outside the city walls a couple of hours later.'

Linnet regarded her gravely. ‘Do you think I would willingly take you to the black witch's realm? Do you have any idea of how dangerous it will be? I would not suggest it now, if we did not have to brave her in order to rescue poor Lord Fairknowe and Donovan! The very thought of it makes me feel sick to my stomach. But I can think of no other way, if we are to save them.'

‘We can't just leave them there,' Hannah cried. ‘Of course we have to rescue them!'

‘And try to get back the hag-stone,' Max said. ‘Because I really don't want my leg to stay like this.' He looked down at the thin, misshapen limb with a wry twist of his mouth. Linnet had told him, very unhappily, that his only hope of
walking properly again was the magic of the hag-stone, and so Hannah and her friends were determined to wrest it back from Irata, if they could.

‘Well, we'd better get moving then,' Scarlett said doggedly.

So the travellers set out for Edinburgh, following the narrow, rutted road through rolling green hills where shaggy highland cattle grazed, past fields of oats and barley, and over humpbacked stone bridges that crossed countless stony burns. The days grew warmer, and the girls folded back their sleeves and wished they could strip off their tattered petticoats.

Food was always a problem, and so Hannah, Max and Scarlett once again began to sing for their supper. Linnet took in sewing from the soldiers and, rather to the girls' surprise, Morgana proved she could sew exquisitely. She helped Linnet without complaint, and stopped demanding everyone wait on her hand and foot.

There were many scuffles and outbreaks of violence, as those who supported Queen Mary argued with those who believed her a murderess. On the thirtieth of May, Queen Mary made a call to arms, declaring that some of the nobles were plotting rebellion against her and asking for aid from those still loyal to her. Thousands of men were now marching towards Edinburgh, sometimes in small bands, armed only with daggers and shields, others wearing armour and led by skirling pipers.

A week later, the rebel lords surrounded the castle of Borthwick where Queen Mary and Lord Bothwell were staying. Bothwell slipped away secretly through a side postern and escaped, leaving Mary to defend the castle
herself. When it became clear that the castle would fall, the queen dressed herself in the clothes of a man and escaped under the cover of night, leaving her wardrobe and all her belongings behind. She fled to Dunbar Castle, on the coast to the east of Edinburgh, where she was reunited with her new husband.

A few days later, Hannah, Scarlett, Max, Linnet and Morgana reached the outskirts of Edinburgh, only to find the city gates locked tight and no one permitted to enter. It was here that they learnt Queen Mary had been betrayed by one of her most faithful lords, who had sent her a message telling her Edinburgh would rise on her behalf. Except the lord had secretly turned Edinburgh Castle over to the rebel lords and Queen Mary was caught out in the open, with only a few hundred men to protect her, while the rebel lords prevented those trapped inside Edinburgh from riding out to support her.

‘We had better stay well away from the city,' Linnet said, looking pale and worried. ‘We still have several weeks until Midsummer's Eve. Let's keep well away.'

Yet there was nowhere safe they could go. Battalions of soldiers marched along all the roads and byways, and across the fields, crushing the crops underfoot and raising clouds of dust. There were constant skirmishes and retreats, shouts of alarm, and flying rumours. Eventually the little group of travellers took refuge in a roadside inn on the road to Musselburgh, where the innkeeper and his wife were so glad of some extra hands to help that they let Hannah and her friends sleep in the hayloft. It was hard work, and by the end of each long, hot day Hannah could not wait to lie down in the rustling, scratchy straw and sleep.

Early on the morning of the fifteenth of June, she was woken by the rhythmic beat of hundreds of marching feet. She crawled across to the loft door and peeked out. A long procession of soldiers passed down the highway, led by stern-faced men in armour upon prancing horses. Banners flapped in the breeze, showing the crest of family after family. Soldiers from the inn were pulling on their boots, seizing their weapons, shouting with excitement. ‘We'll show that murdering witch that she can't foist her lover upon us!' one shouted.

Hannah stood for a long time, watching the soldiers march past, a tight knot of anxiety in her belly.

It was a blazing hot day. Luckily there was not much work to do, with the soldiers gone and no one knowing what to expect next. The sun slowly sank down in the west, through clouds of dust that turned scarlet and orange and gold.

In Scotland in midsummer, the light lingers long after the sun has set. It was still bright enough, then, for Hannah to see the faces of the soldiers returning to Edinburgh from the battlefield at around nine o'clock that evening. They were laughing and shouting.

‘Kill her, burn her! Hang her from the highest tree!'

‘No, let's throw the witch in the millpond and see if she floats!'

‘No more women ruling the roost!'

In the midst of this noisy, chaotic crowd rode Queen Mary, alone, dressed in the shabby clothes of a commoner, all dusty from the road and torn and dishevelled. Her red petticoat showed beneath her bedraggled hem, her bodice was half torn away, and her bright chestnut hair fell out of its pins down her back. She wept as she rode, shrinking away
from the jeers and catcalls of the soldiers. Every now and again she held out a hand of entreaty, calling for help.

‘Your precious husband has abandoned you!' someone shouted. ‘Murderess! Jezebel! Burn her, I say!'

Hannah and her friends could only watch in shock and horror. It seemed impossible that this weeping, haggard, forsaken woman could be the same beautiful queen they had seen laughing and dancing only four months earlier.

They watched until the queen was gone from sight, dragged towards the city that had once been her home.

‘What happens to her?' Scarlett said shakily. ‘Doesn't she die?'

‘Not for a long time,' Hannah said. ‘They keep her captive first and make her give up her throne to her son, who's only a baby. In the end she escapes, dressed like a servant, and flees to England. Queen Elizabeth keeps her prisoner there for about twenty years, and in the end cuts off her head.'

‘It doesn't seem fair,' Scarlett said.

‘No.'

‘I wish we could rescue her,' Max said.

‘Lots of people tried, and they all died horribly. There's nothing we can do.' Hannah felt a fierce determination rise in her. ‘We may not be able to save Queen Mary, but we
can
and we
will
rescue Donovan and my father!'