The Cursed Towers by Kate Forsyth

the big wooden bowl of Het Pint was passed from mouth to mouth. Then the musicians started to play again, the hall began to fill with dancers, and the servants refilled empty goblets with wine or ale or passed around trays of sweetmeats. New Year gifts which had been carefully chosen for their luck-bringing qualities were exchanged. Meghan gave Isabeau and Iseult snowy white plaids she had woven with her own hands from the soft fur of the geal'teas. The fine material had pale bands of red and blue running through it, and the old sorceress said with great solemnity, "It is the MacFaghan tartan, my dears. Ye are the first to wear it in a thousand years, so wear it with pride." Lachlan must have known what she was planning for he gave them both a gold brooch to pin it with—a circle made from the writhing form of a winged dragon rising from two single-petaled roses. The dragons'
    eyes were made from tiny, perfect dragoneye jewels which matched the rose-carved rings the twins wore on their left hands.
    Isabeau pinned the plaid about her shoulders with a constriction in her throat and a burning in her eyes. She had only just discovered the secret of her parentage after sixteen years of wondering, for Meghan had found her as a baby, abandoned in the forest. Isabeau now knew she and Iseult were the daughters of Ishbel the Winged, the flying sorceress of legend, and her faery lover Khan'-gharad the Dragon-Laird. The lovers had been cruelly separated on the Day of Betrayal, Khan'gharad falling into a pit that Meghan had opened below his feet. Her intention had been to kill Maya, but somehow the Ensor-cellor had escaped and the sacrifice of Khan'gharad's life had been in vain.
    Although the queen-dragon had told Meghan Khan'gharad still lived, Ishbel had refused to believe her, falling back into her enchanted sleep that had lasted for sixteen years. Although her father was lost and her mother was sunk in grief-stricken sleep, it meant a great deal to Isabeau to know she was no longer a foundling child without a name or ancestry, but a banprionnsa, the descendant of Faodhagan the Red, one of the First Coven of Witches. This meant she was of the very finest blood, as nobly born as Lachlan himself.
    Isabeau was still examining her plaid with pride and satisfaction when Dide found her. She looked up at him and said huskily, "It is odd what a difference it makes, knowing my real name and who my parents are."
    He gave her a shadowed smile and bowed deeply to her. "May I have this dance, Isabeau NicFaghan o'
    Tirlethan? If ye are no' too proud to dance with a mere jongleur now that ye ken ye are a banprionnsa."
    "Thank ye indeed, Dide the Juggler, I would love it, as long as ye do no' mind me stomping on your toes," she replied wryly. "I never had much chance to learn to dance in the depths o' the Sithiche Mountains!"
    "I shall be glad to teach ye," he cried and swept her away into a vigorous reel. Panting and laughing, Isabeau skipped down the room, Dide's arm about her waist. She waved to Lilanthe who was watching enviously from one corner. Although tree-changers loved to dance, theirs was a far statelier promenade, and Lilanthe was too self-conscious about her broad, gnarled feet to ever display them so freely. As the fiddles and flutes began another tune, Cathmor the Nimble leapt up onto the musicians' platform.
    "Come join the wassail," he cried, lifting the over-brimming bowl of Het Pint. "Wassail, wassail, all over the town!"
    With cries of delight, many of the younger people left the floor, streaming out behind Cathmor as he danced out of the hall and through the great front doors. Dide caught Isabeau's hand and dragged her after, lifting up his voice and singing.
    "Here we come a-wassailing
    among the leaves so green
    Here we come a-wandering
    so bonny to be seen.
    Here we come a-wassailing
    wi' our bowl o' ashen tree
    Here we come a-wandering
    love and peace to all o' ye.
    For it's your wassail and it's our wassail,
    wassail,