by Sarah Rayne
‘Remarkable,’ said Eogan, as the rather sorry little group came exhaustedly through the forest.
‘I’ll lay them some places at the table, shall I?’ said Clumhach. ‘They’ll be glad of a bite to eat. Well, anyone would after being chained up by the Robemaker. Dear me, what a to-do.’
They had all been extremely heartened by the arrival of Caspar and the freed slaves of the Robemaker. Tealtaoich had made a speech of welcome, and Snizort had sharpened up his charcoal sticks again, because there would be a story to be told presently, when the poor young men had recovered. In the meantime, he was very glad to see Caspar who explained how Fenella and Floy and Snodgrass had escaped from the giants.
‘Floy and Snodgrass will have a fine old time at the Fire Court and Fenella’s with Nuadu,’ said Caspar. ‘I daresay they’ll all turn up any time.’ To which Snizort said, bless his soul, of course they would turn up, and felt happier than he had felt since the others had left him here, and went back to plotting how he could best record this latest set of events. One vellum-bound volume in Tara’s library would be very nice, but two would be even better. He made a few notes while Clumhach went round with the mulled wine. Everyone was extremely pleased to see Caspar and the freed slaves, although Feradach was heard to remark in not-quite-a-whisper to Eogan that this handful of battered young men would not be of any great help to them in their march on Tara, but Eogan had said sharply that this was not the point. The point was that Caspar and Fenella had been able to outwit the Robemaker to the extent of setting free his slaves, which showed that the Robemaker was not as omnipotent as they had feared.
Caspar, appealed to about the attack on Tara, said that dawn would be a very good time.
‘Although,’ he said, ‘it’s entirely possible that the Gruagach are still all under the Draoicht Suan.’
‘But if that’s so,’ said Oisin, ‘then we could simply march into Tara unchallenged.’
‘Well, yes,’ said Caspar doubtfully, because it surely could not be as easy as all that. But he listened to the plans, and was made to feel at home, and began almost to think that for somebody who had not wanted to participate in a battle at all, he was doing really rather well.
He was just helping Oisin to unroll the map of Tara and the surrounding villages, when Eogan looked across the table, and said, ‘Listen.’
‘What is it?’
‘There’s something coming through the Forest.’ He stopped, his head tilted to listen, and Feradach said, ‘It’s several someones.’
‘My enchantments will catch any enemies,’ said Miach, and stopped as well, because he could hear it now. Marching feet.
And the sound of rather uncertain singing.
We’re free of the giants, at last, boys,
We’re free as we can be.
We climbed down the castle wall, boys,
And slipped out from their grasp, boys;
But they’ll be chasing and running
And they’ll be stamping and shouting,
So we’d better make for safety, bo-o-o-y-s,
We’d better hide from the giants, bo-o-o-y-s,
Or we’ll be roasted for sure.
And we’ll be eaten for keeps.
And we’ll be never no more.
‘And death to the Fidchell,’ called a single, rather defiant voice, and at once the other voices said, ‘And death to the Fidchell'
As everyone rose and turned to stare in the direction of the rather unhappy singing, through the Trees, spades and satchels on their backs, hats determinedly jaunty, came the Gnomes of Gallan.
Tealtaoich moved at once to welcome them.
‘Because,’ said Oisin later, ‘they were plainly seeking sanctuary of some kind and, anyway, the Gnomes have always fought for the High Kings.’
‘Even when they have not understood the reason,’ said Dian Cecht who had rejoined the others to hear about the freed slaves, and who had fixed her mournful dark eyes on the comeliest and least battered of the young men.
The Gnomes were extremely pleased to find themselves at the centre of the Forest Court and welcomed into it by no less a person than Tealtaoich of the Wild Panthers. They brightened up considerably and accepted large tankards of mead from Clumhach and sat themselves down by the fire to get warm. Culdub Oakapple spread out his neckerchief to dry, because hadn’t it fallen into a puddle half-way here and a damp neckerchief gave anyone a terrible old attack of the rheumatics.
They bowed solemnly to each of the Beastline in turn, Bith lost his bog-hat when he bowed to Eogan, and then had to be presented to the Trees, because this was only polite.
The Gnomes were charmed to meet the Trees and Flaherty said he hoped the Trees hadn’t been thinking them ill mannered at all for ignoring them earlier on, only that they hadn’t precisely seen them until now, what with it being a touch dark in the forest, and what with it not being the sort of thing you’d be thinking to see anyway, and the others agreed that you wouldn’t expect such a thing at all, and wasn’t it the grandest thing ever to find themselves amidst a collection of such important people, and would their importantships be thinking of a bit of a battle at all?
‘We’d be happy to help out if so,’ said Bith of the Bog-hat. ‘We’re good fighters,’ he added, and at once the others said they were, the grandest fighters to be found in all Ireland, leave aside the forging of a few swords which they would happily undertake, and maybe a plate or two of armour and a length of chain mail to round it all off.
‘And,’ said Pumlumon, ‘haven’t we the bit of spell-saying as well,’ and the others joined in excitedly, saying they had, wasn’t that the truth, and Pumlumon a great one in the spell-saying department, and him wholly responsible for sending the entire clan of the Gruagach into the deepest sleep ever known.
‘And still in it!’ shouted Flaherty, who had, truth to tell, taken a mite more of the mead than was strictly good for him. ‘Aren’t they still in it!’ he repeated, and Bith of the Bog-hat told him to sit down and be quiet, it being the exiled Court they were talking to.
Tealtaoich, who remembered the Gnomes very well, and who had, in fact, consulted them on several occasions over the matter of some particularly special gems for one or two female acquaintances, asked to be told what had happened at Tara after Caspar and Fenella left, and Eogan seated himself at the head of the table, and said, ‘Yes, good Gnomes, we should find it very useful to know all you can tell us,’ and the Gnomes beamed and Bith rearranged his hat and Flaherty took another draught of mead to be sure not to run out of voice half-way through the tale, which would be a terrible thing to happen, and it the great Eogan of the Eagles and Tealtaoich of the Wild Panthers they were addressing, never mind all of the others.
And so Bith explained how they’d outwitted the Gruagach with the weaving of the Draoicht Suan, ‘Although,’ he added, ‘I’d be bound to tell your dignityships that it was all Pumlumon’s doing, and him knowing the spell as fast as the cat could lick its whiskers, not meaning any respect to your catship,’ he said to Tealtaoich, and Tealtaoich grinned and said none in the world, and please to go on.
Bith scratched his head and said bother and blow him for a pair of giant’s boots if that wasn’t all there was to it.
‘There we were,’ he said, ‘the entirety of us all fast asleep, because of the Draoicht Suan just catching us a bit unaware as you might say — ’
Flaherty said that this was the sort of thing that might happen to anyone, and the Gnomes said to be sure it was.
‘But the spell wasn’t directed at us,’ explained Bith earnestly. ‘Which is why we woke up without the counterspell, although I’m bound to say it was as well we did wake up, what with none of us knowing the counter-spell very well.’
‘And even if we had known it,’ put in Culdub, ‘weren’t we all fast asleep and not able to chant it anyway.’
‘So we were,’ exclaimed the Gnomes, beaming because wasn’t it like the Oakapple to spot such a thing.
Bith said, ‘And
there we were, with the giants still fast asleep, every last one, and all of us not knowing what was what, or whether we ought to go or stay. Although,’ he added severely, ‘I’d be bound to say that we weren’t any of us happy about being up there in the first place, what with the Fidchell board ready and waiting, and Goibniu the Greediguts smacking his lips and reaching for the carving knife, and what with it being a well-known thing that giants are partial to a bit of roast Gnome now and then.’
‘I never wanted to go in the first place,’ said Culdub Oakapple, who was engaged in re-knotting his neckerchief.
‘And the end was,’ said Bith, turning round to frown at the Oakapple who could be a terrible old interruption, ‘the end was that we all woke up when the Draoicht Suan wore off, and came creeping out of Tara as quiet as mouses — ’
Several people said they had been quieter than that even, and Flaherty said he had been so quiet that everyone thought he had been left behind.
‘And we came straight into the Forest,’ said Bith, ‘because there’s no knowing when the giants might wake up and come chasing after us, what with Pumlumon having forgotten how long the Draoicht Suan lasts.’
Pumlumon said it was not a thing that you easily recalled, not when there was so much else to be thinking about, and most people turned to look at Miach, because you could surely expect the Court sorcerer to be knowing about things like this. Miach, who had taken longer to recover from Dian Cecht’s ordeal than Dian Cecht, said that he could very easily look this particular piece of information up in the Sorcery Annals, always supposing anyone would ask him politely. He managed to make it sound as if he was very preoccupied with half a score or so of various enchantments, so that he could not for the moment bring to mind a very minor detail like how long the Draoicht Suan might be expected to last.
And while Clumhach was anxiously looking to see was there enough mead left to offer the Gnomes, Miach went off to discuss the Draoicht Suan and the counter-spell with Pumlumon and a couple of the younger Oaks who might be trusted to know such a thing. If they were to attack Tara and regain it for the Wolfking, wherever he might now be, they would have to rouse the giants before they could drive them out.
Chapter Forty-four
Reflection was in the worst temper she had ever been in. ‘And,’ she said to her assembled household, ‘in the general way, I am the mildest tempered of souls,’ and her household, most of whom were still bathing the wounds inflicted by the fire demons the previous night, all of whom could recount a good many tales about Madame’s temper, nodded obediently, and said: to be sure, the temper of an angel.
‘But,’ said Reflection, striding up and down the Aurora Banqueting Hall, swishing her silk skirts angrily, and pausing to run a finger across an undusted chandelier as she went. ‘But, when it is a question of my only child, my poor innocent babe, the comfort of my — of my retreat from the world,’ said Reflection, and everyone looked sympathetic, and tried not to appear as if they all knew quite well that Madame had very nearly said, ‘the comfort of my old age’, which, as the chefs said, only went to show how very distrait Madame must be.
Reflection paused in her pacing and stopped at the foot of the stairs and then, remembering that to be higher than your audience gave you a good smatch of authority, ascended half a dozen stairs and turned to face them all.
‘I am distraught,’ she said, clasping her hands to her breast, and closing her eyes. ‘When I think of my poor untried child at the hands of that — seducer. Ah me, she is succumbing to the very fate that was forced upon me at the tenderest of ages, for,’ added Reflection, suddenly confiding, ‘for I was the merest child when that villain Fael-Inis took my innocence.’ She waited for a suitable response and her household, knowing their duty, nodded sympathetically all over again. And waited worriedly to see were they all about to be pressed into service for a bit of a battle, which was a thing which had happened once or twice before, and which could be remarkably nasty, what with Madame calling up a few enchantments to help out.
‘She must be brought back,’ said Reflection, glaring at the assembled Court. ‘Whether or not she will be unsullied we cannot yet know, for I would not put anything past that vile, decadent Human. Also,’ said Reflection, her eyes suddenly spitting fire at them, ‘also, we must do so before Inchbad gets to hear what has happened. He will be quite demented,’ said Reflection, limpidly, ‘and I would not for worlds upset the dear creature when he has been so obliging — that is to say when he is so inflamed with passion for the poor child.
‘And so Flame must be brought back at once,’ said Reflection. ‘We shall leave nothing to chance. I shall summon the help of my good friends to bring them back,’ she added grandly, and the Court groaned inwardly, because this almost certainly meant they would have to welcome the Robemaker to the Fire Court.
‘The Robemaker will lend his aid,’ said Reflection and everyone nodded glumly, but said to be sure he would, and him the grandest ally ever known.
‘And,’ said Reflection, consideringly, ‘I believe we should invite the Frost Giantess, for I hear she does not get out much these days, poor soul, and there is no knowing but that she may be of some help.
‘Although I will not,’ said Reflection, looking suddenly fierce, so that several people moved back a few steps, ‘I will not have those Storm Wraiths in my house. They are nothing but trouble, and the Frost Giantess will have to be told we do not want them. We can be quite friendly about it,’ said Reflection, which, as several people murmured, meant that it was a task that would be delegated.
Reflection then took herself off to her bedchamber, to look up the enchantment which would summon the Robemaker and also the Geimhreadh, and pondered as to whether CuRoi ought to be included in her party. He would probably accept for old times’ sake — he and Reflection had been rather close once, round about the time of the last attempt but two to take Tara for the Dark Ireland — and it was rumoured that he still had something of a fondness for Reflection. This was only to be expected, of course, but the trouble with CuRoi was that he was a terrible old attention-seeker, and he would almost certainly want to grab the glory of the battle for himself. On balance it might be better not to invite CuRoi at all, because if there was any glory going, then it was going to be Reflection’s.
She waited until the Purple Hour, which would give the incantation to call the Robemaker and the Frost Giantess a bit of a boost and issued orders to the household that she was not to be disturbed until they could report that the Robemaker and the Frost Giantess had turned up.
Snodgrass had listened to the reports about Madame’s intentions with a worried frown.
‘Dear me,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t like the sound of this. The Robemaker and the Frost Giantess, you say?’
Snodgrass asked would the bailiffs be riding out in the expedition to catch up with Flame and Floy and the bailiffs, who had of late been a bit bored with their lot, looked thoughtful and said: very possibly.
‘Then,’ said Snodgrass, determinedly, ‘I shall come with you.’
In the end they all went, although the furnace-room workers drew lots as to which of them would stay behind, because it would not do to be letting the fires die down and nobody wanted to risk Madame’s wrath when she returned to a cold and fireless Court, and a few of the kitchen staff stayed behind as well, in case a victory banquet was needed later. You could not just drum up a ten-course banquet for a hundred people inside of half an hour.
Reflection had been regally welcoming to the Robemaker and the Frost Giantess, both of whom had materialised reasonably soon after the incantation. She had given them glasses of wine and had explained the nature of the task.
‘I should be happy to place my powers at your disposal, my dear,’ said the Robemaker, sitting in his chair with his back to the light. ‘For I have had dealings with Humans lately that have roused my anger to a very high pitch against the creatures.’
‘Indeed?’
‘They disturbed the pac
t I have long since had with the Soul Eaters.’
‘Really?’ said Reflection, who knew all about he Robemaker’s thralldom to the Soul Eaters and was charmed by this unlooked-for snippet of gossip. ‘Oh, do tell us more.’
‘A conflict of interest,’ said the Robemaker. ‘CuRoi had captured a very valuable hostage and was holding him in the Fields of Blood using the cruciform. You know of it, I daresay? It is an eastern method and one of the more refined.’ The hooded head moved angrily. ‘A vulgar quarrel arose between the Soul Eaters and the Master over the creature.’
‘Who won?’ asked the Frost Giantess and the Robemaker turned his hooded head to regard her. The bone-white smile showed briefly.
‘The hostage escaped,’ he said. ‘For the moment. The Master was outwitted.’ A malicious glint showed in the partly hidden eyes. ‘For the moment, I am done with that one, with his posturing and his posing and his illusions,’ said the Robemaker. ‘But I have since sworn to the Soul Eaters that I shall find the creature and offer it to them.’ The glint showed red. ‘A very valuable soul,’ he said.
Reflection thought, but did not say, that the Robemaker had clearly been up to his usual pastime of changing sides if it looked profitable to him. But she was rather pleased to think that CuRoi had for once been bested, and she was very pleased indeed to hear that he was engaged in some kind of tussle with the Soul Eaters.
She said, ‘But you yourself-and also you, ma’am — are free to assist me?’
‘I should relish it greatly,’ said the Robemaker, and the Frost Giantess chuckled wetly, and writhed in the chair that Reflection had given her. ‘Floy,’ she said and her voice caressed the name. ‘A beautiful young man.’ The little dark eyes gleamed. ‘I remember him. I shall enjoy helping our good friend Reflection to catch him.’