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<title>Spellbinder - Chapter 17</title>
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<h1>17</h1><p>She was still in a cage, but no longer on the cart.</p>
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<p>She was high up, very close to the raftered ceiling on a great hall, and the cage was suspended from beams by a thick chain. It swung just a little when she moved. Connor was slumped in another suspended cage, bewildered and still stiff and sore from the beating he'd taken.</p>
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<p>It was hot and the air thick with smoke from a fire that crackled in a vast fireplace way down below. The walls were grey stone, here and there relieved by tapestries of hunting scenes. Wide wooden pillars that looked to be cut from single trunks held up the arched ceiling.</p>
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<p>There were other cages up here, and they had been used before. It was clear from the tattered, desiccated remains crumpled inside them that some prisoners had not been taken out to be hunted down. They had died here and dried to brown leather in the heat and smoke.</p>
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<p>The open hearth sent up fumes that gathered around the rafters in choking clouds, making it hard to catch a full breath and Corriwen wondered if this was intended; if Dermott intended to let them slowly suffocate up here. </p>
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<p>Below, a long table, wider than a man was tall, stretched almost the length of the hall, with stout benches on either side. At its head, a heavy chair, intricately carved for an important man, and that is where Dermott sat, massive in his wolfskin cloak. All around the table sat big, boisterous men. For the past hour or so, they had been drinking from horn goblets, arguing and singing.</p>
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<p>Behind Dermott, and to his left, stood a huge silver cauldron. She had seen it when they had dragged her inside and forced her into the cage, two men on each arm to keep her powerless and then they had hauled it up, foot by foot until she was at a dizzy height far above. Dermott had laughed.</p>
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<p>"Well, fighting woman!" he called up to her. "Not much fight in you now, I think."</p>
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<p>In the passing, she had seen her own reflection on the burnished cauldron, pale and thin, as if she was hardly there at all. The silver had somehow drawn her into its finely carved surface, where a creature that looked to be half-man and half stag dominated a festive scene of dancing forest nymphs and strange creatures. The cauldron had seemed very old and mysterious and somehow ominous, though she couldn't say why.</p>
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<p>From her vantage point, whenever the smoke cleared, she could see beyond its rim into its depths.</p>
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<p>It hurt her eyes, hurt her brain, just to look in there.</p>
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<p>A few inches below the silver rim, dark colours swirled, fast and oily, as if she was peering into the eye of a storm. Occasional spurts of dark vapour would coil up in tendrils and in the centre of that strange storm, was a darkness, utter darkness, as if the cauldron was an entryway to some vast underworld. It was like looking into the deepest night, so black it seemed solid, and the dark eye tugged on her with such power it gave her a dizzying sense of falling.</p>
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<p>She pulled her eyes away. The tall, thin man in the strange cap and the fluttering cape, he sat off to Dermott's left, hunched like a hawk and seemingly oblivious to the raucous feasting down the long table. Cowed servants scurried back and forth to and from him and every now and again he would touch the cauldron with a long staff carved into intertwining snakes and weave signs with his fingers over the surface and for a moment that dark eye would lighten until 1t seemed a thick mist oozed its way up to the rim and the servant would reach in to the depths and produce a ham, or a plucked goose, or a long fat salmon to be taken to the hot coals and cooked there and then.</p>
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<p>The supply seemed never-ending. And Fainn seemed to be able to get this cauldron to produce whatever he wanted every time Dermott demanded more.</p>
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<p>She had been right about Fainn, Corriwen told herself, looking down at his hunched, narrow shoulders. Dermott was just a big hard man, loud and brash and arrogant, the king of all he surveyed, and from what she had learned, very keen to be king of everything else worth surveying.</p>
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<p>But Fainn, he was different. She had felt his poisonous touch the first time those hooded eyes had fixed on her.</p>
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<p>Before they had hoisted the cage up to the rafters, Fainn had approached, as quiet as a spider and every bit as alien. The spiral tattoos on his face had seemed to twist and dance as if they crawled beneath his skin. A thin, long-fingered had had clenched the stave and she had seen it was carved from a single piece into two intertwining snakes, so cleverly worked that she could make out the pattern of scales down their coiled bodies.</p>
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<p>Fainn had pointed the stave at her, two snake heads joined like twins, and her heart almost stopped in her chest when a long forked tongue flicked out from one wooden mouth and licked at the air.</p>
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<p>The blinkless snake eyes had fixed on her and she felt as if she was being invaded, as if they were draining the strength from her.</p>
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<p>A voice whispered, like the hiss of steam from a spout, like the rustle of dead leaves.</p>
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<p><em>Who </em>are<em> you, girl? You are not what you say. Tell me </em>everything<em>."</em></p>
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<p>The words formed in her head, almost as if she had thought them herself.</p>
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<p>His eyes held her. Her vision began to waver and a giddy sensation rolled in the pit of her belly.</p>
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<p><em>I saw you in the forest. I had you and you escaped me, and none escape Fainn's search. But you, you are different. And there are others. I smell them. I </em>taste<em> them on the very air.</em></p>
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<p>In that instant, Corriwen knew he was looking for her thoughts, as if he could pick them from her head. She felt the scrape of his mind against hers, the way she had felt the vile touch of the Morrigan in the dark of the Black barrow.</p>
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<p>Almost unbidden, a picture of Jack and Kerry together, racing for the homeward gate, began to form in her mind and with an enormous effort of will she turned the thought away and instead pictured her brother as she had found him on the slaughterfield.</p>
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<p>The memory hit her in a solid blow of anguish.</p>
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<p>She saw herself cradle he brother's bloodied head in her arms as she had moaned and rocked back and forth, devastated by her loss. The power of the memory was so great that she felt the connection between her and Fainn snap like string. </p>
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<p>His black eyes widened in surprise as he stumbled back. Corriwen staggered against the bars of the cage. Fainn's carved stave dropped to the flagstone floor and for a brief, blurry instant, it coiled and looped on itself before becoming rigid once more.</p>
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<p>Fainn picked it up while Corriwen stood, breathless and gasping as if she had run a great distance.</p>
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<p>He glared at her, thin face twisted with anger.</p>
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<p><em>You defy me, girl. You will regret it as long as you live. And you will regret it as you die in pain.</em></p>
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<p>Then the men hoisted her up towards the vaulted ceiling where the smoke gathered like the clouds over Eirinn.</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>The guards made them park the wagons well away from the castle drawbridge and Brand was quite happy with that. He had made Jack and Kerry leave their weapons hidden, which was another good idea because the gatemen searched them all very thoroughly before the drawbridge swung down over the crevasse.</p>
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<p>As soon as the heavy door hit the blocks, the heartstone on Jack's chest gave a slow pulse.</p>
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<p>Jack already knew he was walking into danger and he swallowed hard.</p>
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<p>They entered the outer ring of the castle, with Kerry close to Jack who stayed beside Score Four-arm. The big juggler pretended to be at ease, but Jack saw his eyes flick right and left, taking in the sprocket wheel that raised the drawbridge, then scan the walls and turrets like a well-trained spy.</p>
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<p>Brand walked ahead of them, his big whiskers sticking out on either side, in a green jacked and jaunty red hat and a swagger in his step. </p>
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<p>"Brand's wandering troupe," he announced to the gatemen. "And the Lord of the Keep is expecting us prompt. So be about your business and let us get about ours."</p>
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<p>Despite his small stature, his voice carried authority and confidence and in only a minute they were through the second ring and into the main part of the castle where the walls were so high that little light reached the ground and all around them were grey fortifications and thick, heavy stone.</p>
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<p>The heart stone squeezed more strongly.</p>
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<p>The guards up on the battlements were armed to the teeth with pikes and swords, and<em> </em>there were enough of them to man a good-sized army.</p>
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<p>Jack looked about him, wondering where in this maze of stone and turrets they had put Corriwen. When the second door closed behind him with a booming thud, he quailed for a second at the thought of finding her and then trying to get her out again.</p>
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<p>But nothing seemed to affect Brand's confidence or his self-important strut.</p>
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<p>They were marched round a narrow way until they reached a double door studded with bronze dead-nails. Four fierce men eyed them steadily before they were allowed entry and then Jack and Kerry and the rest of them found themselves in the midst of mayhem.</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>From up above Corriwen had heard Dermott's voice boom out, demanding silence.</p>
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<p>"Time to eat and drink," he roared. He drew his sword and slammed the hilt down on the table. Plates and goblets jumped in unison.</p>
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<p>"Half a moon to the midsummer and I will have all the kings gathered here. They will all bow their heads to me and be grateful for the privilege."</p>
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<p>The men cheered. They raised goblets and horns and clashed them together.</p>
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<p><em>To Dermott, the Wolf of CorNamara.</em></p>
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<p>"And this wolf has been on the hunt," he boomed. "There's a hunger in Eirinn that none can feed; none but Dermott of Wolfen castle. And they know it. The kings don't remember what it is to fight. They grew fat and lazy on the easy times. Peace and harmony for generations and where has it got them? Wasted lands and empty fields, and now they all turn to Dermott for help."</p>
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<p>He got up and strode to the great cauldron and hit it with his hand. It rang like a vast bell.</p>
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<p>"None had the heart to win the Cerunnos Cauldron, so by default they lose their place. What's a king who cannot feed his people? No king at all, I say. So they come to me, the only one who could find and win the cauldron and reap its plenty. They come begging, trading their lands to fill their bellies."</p>
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<p>He threw his wide shoulders back. "Let them come, I say. On the midsummer, they will see me crowned high king, and they will sell their lands and their souls. And those of you who marched with me, you will reap ten times over. Lands a-plenty.</p>
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<p>"And then they can have peace and harmony," he said, chuckling. "<em>My</em> peace and harmony.</p>
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<p>"So today we feast from my cauldron and we make merry. And we show them what real kings are made of. And tomorrow the hunt."</p>
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<p>He looked up to where the high cages were almost hidden in the smoky haze. "Tomorrow the <em>kill</em>!"</p>
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<p>They roared and clashed their tankards and fell upon the feast like beasts.</p>
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<p>The smell of food drifted up.</p>
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<p>Connor roused himself from the cage.</p>
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<p>"I'm drooling like a starving dog," he muttered. "I don't mind so much them hunting me down. But do they have to torture me first. I'd sell my granny for a bite of that ham."</p>
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<p>"I thought you were an orphan."</p>
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<p>"But I must have had a granny somewhere," he said. "Hasn't everybody?"</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>Brand played it like a true ringmaster. He stood on an upturned tub and doffed his hat.</p>
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<p>"My Lord Dermott, good sirs," he began. "It is a fine honour to be in such exalted company. At your request, we bring music and mystery for your delight."</p>
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<p>"Better be good," Dermott growled.</p>
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<p>Thin Doolan had a drum strapped to his thigh and played a roll. Natterjack squatted on his haunches with a big lambeg skin drum that he beat steadily with a long bone. Score Four-arm opened his bag and began juggling his coloured balls in the air, using only two hands, but managing to get ten flying at the same time, then he reached for an old fiddle and bow and with his spare arms, he began to play, still keeping those balls flying.</p>
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<p>"He said he was a <em>fuggler</em>," Kerry said. "Now, that's a neat trick."</p>
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<p>Jack cast his eyes around. The table was groaning with more food than he had seen in their journey across Eirinn and he felt a wave of disgust at seeing such plenty when there was so much hunger across the land. His stomach tried to argue with him when he smelt the roasting goose and he forced himself to ignore it.</p>
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<p>Dermott was every bit as fierce as he had been told to expect, big and bearded and broad as an ox. The rest of the roistering men looked almost as tough, swilling from their tankards and stuffing food into their mouths. From their arrogance he could tell they thought they owned the world and would squash anybody who said otherwise.</p>
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<p>But it was the thin hooded man who sat close to the great cauldron who held his attention.</p>
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<p>Fainn the Hood sat alone, aloof, eyes taking in everything. Jack felt those eyes light on him and he looked away, though he sensed a pause, and closer scrutiny. The heartstone felt it too, for it started beating again, slow squeezes against his skin and for an anxious moment, Jack believed it was beating loud enough to hear. His belly clenched tight for a second and then Fainn's probing gaze passed on.</p>
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<p>His flat, feral stare reminded him of the snake that had lunged at him in the deep woods.</p>
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<p> </p>
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