As the light began to fail, we were moving through a dense wood of spruce and pine, heading down a slope towards a frozen stream with an even steeper slope rising beyond it.
‘We’ll never get our horses up that incline!’ Nessa shouted. She was right.
At the bottom on the left stood a five-barred gate. Here, giving the purra a wicked grin, I dismounted. After a good deal of scooping of snow and pulling and tugging, I managed to open it wide enough for the horse and cart to pass through.
A cinder track ran alongside the stream, and upon this the snow had been unable to take a hold: each snowflake had melted immediately on making contact. The track was actually steaming.
I watched Nessa dismount and lead her own mare through the gate. She reached down to test the surface with her fingers.
‘It’s hot!’ she squealed, drawing her fingers away rapidly.
‘Of course it is!’ I said with a laugh. ‘How else could it be kept free of snow?’
Nessa walked back to the cart and spoke to her sisters. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘I’m so cold,’ Susan complained, ‘I can hardly feel my hands or the nose on my face.’
‘I feel sick, Nessa. Can we stop soon?’ Bryony asked.
Nessa didn’t reply but looked up at me. ‘Where are we going?’
‘A hostelry,’ I replied and, without bothering to elaborate, I leaped back onto my horse and took up the lead once again.
The spruce and pine gave way to deciduous sycamore, oak and ash trees, which were waiting, bereft of leaves, for the coming of the short summer. These trees pressed in upon us, dark and thick, their stark branches hooked like talons against the grey sky. It was strange to see such trees so far north.
Soon there came a strange silence: the wind suddenly died away, and even the clop of hooves and the rattle of the cartwheels seemed muffled on the cinders.
Bryony, the youngest child, started to sob with cold. Before Nessa could ride closer to offer her words of comfort, I turned and hissed at her to ensure her silence, placing my finger vertically against my lips.
After another few moments, I saw through the trees a faint purple light that blinked on and off like the opening and closing of a giant eye. Finally a building came into view.
It was a dark tower, enclosed by a high circular wall complete with battlements, and a portcullis that could only be reached by means of a drawbridge crossing a wide moat.
‘Is this what you call a hostelry?’ Nessa demanded angrily. ‘I’d hoped for an inn with welcoming fires and clean rooms where we might take refuge from the blizzard and sleep in comfort. My sisters are half frozen to death. What is this strange forbidding tower? It seems to have been constructed by other than human hands.’
The tower itself was about nine storeys high and the size of three or more large farmhouses combined. It was built of a dark purple stone, and the whole structure gleamed as rivulets of water cascaded down its sides. For, although snow was still falling heavily from the darkening sky, all around the tower the ground was completely clear. Both walls and ground were steaming, as if some huge fire burned deep within the earth. The fortress had been constructed over a hot-spot, an underground geyser that heated the stones of the tower.
I had spent a night in this tower almost forty years earlier, on my way to sell a slave and meet my legal obligations under the law of Bindos. However, at that time it had been ruled by someone who was now dead, slain by Nunc, the High Mage who was the tower’s present incumbent.
I smiled at Nessa. ‘It is not a hostelry for your kind. But beggars can’t be choosers. This is a kulad, a fortress built by my people. Better stay close to me if you wish to survive the night.’
As we moved forward, I heard gasps from the two younger sisters, and the portcullis began to rise. The sound of chain and ratchet could clearly be heard, but there was no gatekeeper, and nobody came out to either greet or challenge us.
I guided the purrai across the circular inner courtyard towards stables with fresh straw for the horses and a lean-to under which the cart could be sheltered from the worst of the elements. Then I led them through a narrow door to a spiral staircase that rose widdershins up and up, into the dark inner tower. Every ten steps there were torches set within iron holders bolted to the wall. Their yellow flames danced and flickered, although the air was perfectly still, but they were never enough to dispel the shadows that gathered above them.
‘I don’t like this place,’ Bryony whimpered. ‘I can feel eyes watching us. Horrible things hiding in the darkness!’
‘There’s nothing here to worry about,’ Nessa told her. ‘It’s just your imagination.’
‘But there could be insects and mice,’ Susan complained. Succulent she might be, but that purra’s voice was starting to irritate me.
We began to climb the stairs; wooden doors were spaced at intervals, but then we came to three set quite close together, so I chose these for the sisters. Each had a rusty iron lock into which was inserted a large steel key.
‘Here’s a warm bedroom for each of you,’ I said, my tail rising in annoyance. ‘You’ll be safe enough in here if I lock the doors. Try to sleep. There’s no supper, but breakfast will be served soon after dawn.’
‘Why can’t we all just share a room?’ demanded Nessa.
‘Too small,’ I said, opening the first of the doors. ‘And each has only one bed. Young growing girls like you need your rest.’
Nessa looked in and I saw the dismay on her face. It was indeed small and cramped.
‘It’s dirty in there,’ Susan complained with a pout.
Bryony began to cry softly. ‘I want to stay with Nessa! I want to stay with Nessa!’
‘Please allow Bryony to share my room,’ said Nessa, making one last desperate appeal. ‘She’s too young to be left alone in a place like this . . .’
But I paid no heed and, twisting my face into a savage expression, pushed her roughly inside. Next I slammed the door behind her and twisted the key to lock her in. I quickly did the same for each of her sisters.
But although cruelty is in my nature, it was not this that prompted my behaviour now. I had done it for their own safety, confining each separately to mark them as three distinct items of my property, according to the customs of my people.
I’d had no choice but to bring the three girls here – they would soon have died of exposure outside. We were now well beyond the last human habitation and this was the only refuge that was available. It was a dangerous place, even for a haizda mage, and I could not be sure of a welcome. Now, as was customary, I had to ascend to the top of the tower to make obeisance to its lord, Nunc. He had a formidable reputation and ruled by fear.