A Falcon for a Queen/Meeting with a Great Beast/Blockbuster/The Shape of Illusion/Duel in the Snow [antikvár]

i^f lilPIIIiia.lA pf' ' . , .,-v.'- ft' ' /.ft ^^ ^^wsissiiiiiachapter oneThe heart of the Scottish Highlands is a long way to come from China, butall because of a few Chinese characters splashed down the side of a scroll with a drawing of a birdI had come. Unbidden, unexpected, for all I knew unwelcome. I had come because my brother, William, lay buried in a Highland churchyard, and before he died he had scratched those words on that Chinese scroll.I had sent no message, perhaps for fear I'd be turned back from what I knew of my grandfather Angus Macdonald, he was capable of that. So now I stood with my trunk and my father's leather bag at the tiny station of Ballinaclash, in a wilderness, without, as far as I could judge, any way of getting where I wanted to go. There were no houses, no smoke curling from chimneys; ther^ was nothing but the anxious, bewildered stare of the station-master. Clearly, no one came to Ballinaclash unheralded even from Inverness, much less from China. I must be mad. The stationmas-ter shook his head. "Cluain, is it? That will be a good six miles." Only an innate courtesy held back his questions. "I'm very sorry, jnistress, there's no conveyance for hire about here."