“I tell you he can’t take it!” Brodsky’s voice was low but urgent. “They can’t none of them. One time when this guy was going to put the slug on everyone at the court, the King sent out a bunch of babes with bare knockers, and they nearly had to pick him up in a basket.”
“I like this not,” said Belphebe; but Shea said: “A nudity taboo! That could be part of a culture pattern, all right. Do they all have it?”
“Yeah, and but good,” said Brodsky. “They even croak of it. What gave me the tip was him putting the chill on you before he started to undress—he was doing you a favor.”
Cuchulainn stepped out of the alcove, buckling a belt around a fresh tunic, emerald-green with embroidery of golden thread. He scrubbed his long hair with a towel and ran a comb through it, while Laeg took his place behind the screen.
Belphebe said, “Is there to be but one water for all?”
Cuchulainn said, “There is plenty of soapwort. Cleanliness is good for beauty.” He glanced at Brodsky. “The slave can bathe in the trough outside.”
“Listen . . .” began Brodsky, but Shea put a hand on his arm, and to cover up, asked: “Do your druids use spells of transportation—from one place to another?”
“There is little a good druid cannot do—but I would advise you not to use the spells of Cathbadh unless you are a hero as well as a maker of magic, for they are very mighty.”
He turned to watch the preparations for dinner with a somber satisfaction. Laeg presently appeared, his toilet made, and from another direction one of the women brought garments which she took into the bathroom for Shea and Belphebe. Shea started to follow his wife, but remembered what Brodsky had said about the taboo, and decided not to take a chance on shocking his hosts. She came out soon enough in a floor-length gown that clung to her all over, and he noted with displeasure that it was the same green and embroidered pattern as Cuchulainn’s tunic.
After Shea had dealt with water almost cold and a towel already damp, his own costume turned out to be a saffron tunic and tight-knitted scarlet trews which he imagined as looking quite effective.
Belphebe was watching the women around the fire. Over in the shadows under the eaves sat Pete Brodsky, cleaning his fingernails with a bronze knife, a chunky, middle-aged man—a good hand in a fight, with his knowledge of jujitsu and his quick reflexes, and not a bad companion. Things would be a lot easier, though, if he hadn’t fouled up the spell by wanting to stay where he was. Or had that been responsible?
Old Cathbadh came stumping up with his stick. “Mac Shea,” he said, “the Little Hound is after telling me that you also are a druid, who came here by magical arts from a distant place, and can summon lightning from the skies.”
“It’s true enough,” said Shea. “Doubtless you know those spells.”
“Doubtless I do,” said Cathbadh, looking sly. “We must hold converse on matters of our craft. We will be teaching each other some new spells, I am thinking.”
Shea frowned. The only spell he was really interested in was one that would take Belphebe and himself—and Pete—back to Garaden, Ohio, and Cathbadh probably didn’t know that one. It would be a question of getting at the basic assumptions, and more or less working out his own method of putting them to use.
Aloud he said, “I think we can be quite useful to each other. In America, where I come from, we have worked out some of the general principles of magic, so that it is only necessary to learn the procedures in various places.”
Cathbadh shook his head. “You do be telling me—and it is the word of a druid, so I must believe you—but ’tis hard to credit that a druid could travel among the Scythians of Greece or the Scots of Egypt, with all the strange gods they do be having, and still be protected by his spells as well as at home.”
Shea got a picture of violently confused geography. But then, he reflected, the correspondence between this world and his own would only be rough, anyway. There might be Scots in Egypt here.
Just then Cuchulainn came out of his private room and sat down without ceremony at the head of the table. The others gathered round. Laeg took the place at one side of the hero and Cathbadh at the other. Shea and Belphebe were nodded to the next places, opposite each other. A good-looking serf woman with hair bound back from her forehead filled a large golden goblet at Cuchulainn’s place with wine from a golden ewer, then smaller silver cups at the places of Laeg and Cathbadh, and copper mugs for Shea and Belphebe. Down the table the rest of the company had leather jacks and barley beer.
Cuchulainn said to Cathbadh: “Will you make the sacrifice, dear?”
The druid stood up, spilled a few drops on the floor and chanted to the gods Bile, Danu, and Ler. Shea decided that it was only imagination that he was hearing the sound of beating wings, and only the approach of the meal that gave him a powerful sense of internal comfort, but there was no doubt that Cathbadh knew his stuff.
He knew it, too. “Was that not fine, now?” he said, as he sat down next to Shea. “Can you show me anything in your outland magic ever so good?”
Shea thought. It wouldn’t do any harm to give the old codger a small piece of sympathetic magic, and might help his own reputation. He said: “Move your wine-cup over next to mine, and then watch it carefully.”
There would have to be a spell to link the two if he were going to make Cathbadh’s wine disappear as he drank his own, and the only one he could think of at the moment was the “Double, Double” from “Macbeth.” He murmured that under his breath, making the hand passes he had learned in Faerie.
Then he said, “Now, watch,” picked up his mug and set it to his lips.
Whoosh! Out of Cathbadh’s cup a geyser of wine leaped as though driven by a pressure hose, nearly reaching the ceiling before it broke up to descend in a rain of glittering drops, while the guests at the head of the table leaped to their feet to draw back from the phenomenon. Cathbadh was a fast worker; he lifted his stick and struck the hurrying stream of liquid, crying something unintelligible in a high voice. Abruptly the gusher was quenched and there was only the table, swimming with wine, and serf women rushing to mop up the mess.
Cuchulainn said, “This is a very beautiful piece of magic, Mac Shea, and it is a pleasure to have so notable a druid among us. But you would not be making fun of us, would you?” He looked dangerous.
“Not me,” said Shea, “I only—”
Whatever he intended to say was cut off by a sudden burst of unearthly howling from somewhere outside. Shea glanced around rather wildly, feeling that things were getting out of hand. Cuchulainn said: “You need not be minding that at all, now. It will only be Uath, and because the moon has reached her term.”
“I don’t understand,” said Shea.
“The women of Ulster were not good enough for Uath, so he must be going to Connacht and courting the daughter of Ollgaeth the druid. This Ollgaeth is no very polite man; he said no Ultonian should have his daughter, and when Uath persisted, he put a geas on Uath that when the moon fills he must howl the night out, and a geas on his own daughter that she cannot abide the sound of howling. I am thinking that Ollgaeth’s head is due for a place of honor.” He looked significantly at his collection.
Shea said: “But I still don’t understand. If you can put a geas on someone, can’t it be taken off again?”
Cuchulainn looked mournful, Cathbadh embarrassed, and Laeg laughed. “Now you will be making Cathbadh sad, and our dear Cucuc is too polite to tell you, but the fact is no other than that Ollgaeth is so good a druid that no one can lift the spells he lavs, nor lay one he cannot lift.”
Outside, Uath’s mournful howl rose again. Cuchulainn said to Belphebe: “Does he trouble you, dear? I can have him removed, or the upper part of him.”
As the meal progressed, Shea noticed that Cuchulainn was putting away an astonishing quantity of the wine, talking almost exclusively with Belphebe, although the drink did not seem to have much effect on the hero but to intensify his somber courtesy. But, when the table was clea
red, he lifted his goblet to drain it, looked at Belphebe from across the table, and nodded significantly.
Shea got up and ran around the table to place a hand on her shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pete Brodsky getting up, too. Cuchulainn’s face bore the faintest of smiles. “It is sorry to discommode you I am,” he said, “but this is by the rules and not even a challenging matter. So now, Belphebe, darling, you will just come to my room.”
He got up and started towards Belphebe, who got up, too, backing away. Shea tried to keep between them and racked his brain hopelessly for some kind of spell that might stop this business. Everyone else was standing up and pushing to watch the little drama.
Cuchulainn said: “Now you would not be getting in my way, would you, Mac Shea, darling?” His voice was gentle, but there was something incredibly ferocious in the way he uttered the words, and Shea suddenly realized he was facing a man who had a sword. Outside, Uath howled mournfully.
Beside him, Belphebe herself suddenly leaped for one of the weapons hanging on the wall and tugged, but in vain. It had been so securely fastened with staples that it would have taken a pry bar to get it loose. Cuchulainn laughed.
Behind and to the left of Shea, Brodsky’s voice rose, “Belle, you stiff, do like I told you!”
She turned back as Cuchulainn drew nearer and with set face crossed her arms and whipped the green gown off over her head. She stood in her underwear.
There was a simultaneous gasp and groan of horror from the audience. Cuchulainn stopped, his mouth coming open.
“Go on!” yelled Brodsky in the background. “Give it the business!”
Belphebe reached behind her to unhook her brassiere. Cuchulainn staggered as though he had been struck. He threw one arm across his eyes, reached the table and brought his face down on it, pounding the wood with the other fist.
“Ara!” he shouted. “Take her away! Is it killing me you will be and in my own hall, and me your host that has saved your life?”
“Will you let her alone?” asked Shea.
“I will that for the night.”
“Mac Shea, take his offer,” advised Laeg from the head of the table. He looked rather greenish himself. “If his rage comes on him, none of us will be safe.”
“Okay. Honest,” said Shea and held Belphebe’s dress for her.
There was a universal sigh of relief from the background. Cuchulainn staggered to his feet. “It is not feeling well that I am, darlings,” he said, and picking up the golden ewer of wine, made for his room.
Four
There was a good deal of excited gabble among the retainers as Belphebe walked back to her place without looking to right or left, but they made room for Shea and Brodsky to join her. The druid looked shrewdly at the closed door and said: “If the Little Hound drinks too much by himself, he may be brooding on the wrong you are after doing him, and a sad day that would be. If he comes out with the herolight playing round his head, run for your lives.”
Belphebe said: “But where would we go?”
“Back to your own place. Where else?”
Shea frowned. “I’m not sure . . .” he began when Brodsky cut in suddenly, “Say,” he said, “your boss ain’t really got no right to be bugged up. We had to play it that way.”
Cathbadh swung to him. “And why, serf?”
“Don’t call me serf. She’s got a fierce geas on her. Any guy that touches her gets a bellyache and dies of it. Her husband only stands it because he’s a magician. It’s lucky we put the brakes on before the boss got her in that room, or he’d be ready for the lilies right now.”
Cathbadh’s eyebrows shot up like a seagull taking off. “Himself should know of this,” he said. “There would be less bloodshed in Ireland if more people opened their mouths to explain things before they put their feet in them.”
He got up, went to the bedroom door and knocked. There was a growl from within, Cathbadh entered, and a few minutes later came out with Cuchulainn. The latter’s step was visibly unsteady, and his melancholy seemed to have deepened. He walked to the head of the table and sat down in the chair again.
“Sure, and this is the saddest tale in the world I’m hearing about your wife having such a bad geas on her. The evening is spoilt and all. I hope the black fit does not come on me, for then it will be blood and death I need to restore me.”
There were a couple of gasps audible and Laeg looked alarmed, but Cathbadh said hastily: “The evening is not so spoilt as you think, Cucuc. This Mac Shea is evidently a very notable druid and spell-maker, but I think I am a better. Did you notice how quickly I put down his wine fountain? Would it not lift your heart, now, to see the two of us engage in a contest of magic?”
Cuchulainn clapped his hands. “Never was truer word spoken. You will do just that, darlings.”
Shea said, “I’m afraid I can’t guarantee . . .” but Belphebe plucked his sleeve and with her head close to his, whispered: “Do it. There is a danger here.”
“It isn’t working right,” Shea whispered back.
Outside rose the mournful sound of Uath’s howling. “Can you not use your psychology on him out there?” the girl asked. “It will be magic to them.”
“A real psychoanalysis would take days,” said Shea. “Wait a minute, though—we seem to be in a world where the hysteric type is the norm. That means a high suggestibility, and we might get something out of post-hypnotic suggestion.”
Cuchulainn from the head of the table said, “It is not all night we have to wait.”
Shea turned round and said aloud: “How would it be if I took the geas off that character out there training to be a bar-room tenor? I understand that’s something Cathbadh hasn’t been able to do.”
Cathbadh said, “If you can do this, it will be a thing worth seeing, but I will not acknowledge you can do it until I have seen it.”
“All right,” said Shea. “Bring him in.”
“Laeg, dear, go get us Uath,” said Cuchulainn. He took a drink, looked at Belphebe and his expression became morose again.
Shea said, “Let’s see. I want a small bright object. May I borrow one of your rings, Cuchulainn? That one with the big stone would do nicely.”
Cuchulainn slid the ring down the table as Laeg returned, firmly gripping the arm of a stocky young man, who seemed to be offering some resistance to the process. Just as they got in the door Uath flung back his head and emitted a blood-curdling howl. Laeg dragged him forward, howling away.
Shea turned to the others. “Now if this magic is going to work, I’ll need a little room. Don’t come too near us while I’m spinning the spell, or you’ll be apt to get caught in it, too.” He arranged a pair of seats well back from the table and attached a thread to the ring.
Laeg pushed Uath into one of the seats. “That’s a bad geas you have there, Uath,” said Shea, “and I want you to cooperate with me in getting rid of it. You’ll do everything I tell you, won’t you?”
The man nodded. Shea lifted the ring, said: “Watch this,” and began twirling the thread back and forth between thumb and forefinger, so that the ring rotated first one way and then the other, sending out a flickering gleam of reflection from the rushlights. Meanwhile Shea talked to Uath in a low voice, saying “sleep” now and then in the process. Behind him he could hear an occasionally caught breath and could almost feel the atmosphere of suspense.
Uath went rigid.
Shea asked in a low voice: “Can you hear me, Uath?”
“That I can.”
“You will do what I say.”
“That I will.”
“When you wake up, you won’t suffer from this howling geas anymore.”
“That I will not.”
“To prove that you mean it, the first thing you do on waking will be to clap Laeg on the shoulder.”
“That I will.”
Shea repeated his directions several times, varying the words, and making Uath repeat them after him. There was no use taking a chance on slip-ups
. At last he brought him out of the hypnotic trance with a snap of the fingers and a sharp, “Wake up!”
Uath stared about him with an air of bewilderment. Then he got up, walked over to the table and clapped Laeg on the shoulder. There was an appreciative murmur from the audience.
Shea asked: “How do you feel, Uath?”
“It is just fine that I am feeling. I do not want to be howling at the moon at all now, and I’m thinking the geas is gone for good. I thank your honor.” He came down the table, seized Shea’s hand and kissed it and joined the other retainers at the lower part of the table.
Cathbadh said: “That is a very good magic, indeed, and not the least of it was the small geas you put on him to lay his hand on Laeg’s shoulder at the same time. And true it is that I have been unable to lift this geas. But as one man can run faster, so can another one climb faster, and I will demonstrate by taking the geas off your wife, which you have evidently not been able to deal with.”
“I’m not sure . . .” began Shea, doubtfully.
“Let not yourself be worried,” said Cuchulainn. “It will not harm her at all, and in the future she can be more courteous in the high houses she visits.”
The druid rose and pointed a long, bony finger at Belphebe. He chanted some sort of rhythmic affair which began in a gibberish of unknown language, but became more and more intelligible, ending with: “. . . and by oak, ash and yew, by the beauty of Aengus and the strength of Ler and by authority as high druid of Ulster, let this geas be lifted from you, Belphebe! Let it pass! Out with it! It is erased, cancelled and no more to be heard of!” He tossed up his arms and then sat down. “How do you feel, darling?”
“In good sooth, not much different than before,” said Belphebe. “Should I?”
Cuchulainn said, “But how can we know now that the spell has worked? Aha! I have it! Come with me.” He rose and came round the table, and in response to Shea’s exclamation of fury and Belphebe’s of dismay, added: “Only as far as the door. Have I not given you my word?”
The Complete Compleat Enchanter Page 53