Elf Killers

by Phipps, Carol Marrs

  Chapter 12

  Oisin had a pallet fixed at once for Doona and spent the next few hours tending to her and helping Caly look after Eunys and the baby. When it was finally light, he was astonished when he stood up to go and saw the beginnings of several buildings out by the well. "Two of them look nearly ready for rooves," he said. "What buildings are they?"

  "Queen Vorona's kitchen and the front room of the apothecary," said Jamys, getting to his feet. "Now the back part, when we get that up, Edard insists he's going to share with you. Vorona's kitchen roof is going up first. And when we're done, everyone talks as if we're going to celebrate."

  Oisin nodded and turned away to find Doona fast asleep. He smiled at Lilee and disappeared over the rocks.

  Lilee spent the next couple of days by her mother's side with Doona, finishing up a new Strah flax dress, a seamless leine for Doona. "It's going to be wonderful," said Doona, looking very pale under the bright blue sky.

  "I think I'll have it ready this morning."

  "I can't wait to try it on."

  "Too bad everything comes out creamy white. Green would be perfect with your eyes."

  "I don't see why it has to," said Eunys as she shifted on her pillows and offered a teat to the new Master Aedan. "I've dyed all sorts of things, and I've a hunch that you could have it as green as you want..."

  "How?" said Lilee.

  "Have you paid any attention to that aster which is in bloom all over, that everyone calls 'black dots’? Its petals are full of the deepest green juice, deeper green than even wooly worm guts."

  "I'd not really noticed, Momma," said Lilee.

  "You and Doona have been too wrapped up with young men, I expect. There's a big kettle down by Vorona's new house that never made it up here. Ask her if you can have a fire in her new fireplace. Be sure and tell her what it's for, first. Take the kettle and pack it tight with black dot heads. Then fill it with water and boil it down. Then you can boil your dress in it. If it won't stay fast, it'll at least stay green long enough for Doona to surprise Oisin."

  "But how can Doona surprise Oisin with it, if we're dying it out in plain sight of everyone?"

  "The men are the ones doing all of the thatching on her roof. No one will ever notice. Besides, it's Doona's surprise, and you'll have it done for her before she has the strength to be up on her feet."

  Lilee studied Doona's snarled bush of red hair, exposed at the end of her covers. "Kieran was over here to see you, but you haven't talked to him yet, have you?" she said.

  Doona rose onto her hands and knees.

  "What are you doing, Doona?" said Eunys.

  "I'm coming right back," she said as she weakly rose to her feet and shuffled to the edge of the rocks to look out over the Strah. Cliff swallows twittered and chirped as they swooped and dove in the air in front of their colony of nests down the face of the great rock below her feet. The air felt good blowing through her hair as she eased herself onto a rock.

  "So," said Lilee, quietly sitting beside her, "you didn't say anything did you?"

  "My word! I scarcely knew he was there. I just kept falling asleep."

  "Well, you've got a perfect time a-coming. Everyone has agreed to a celebration dance as soon as Queen Vorona's kitchen is roofed. And we're due a bit of fun, don't you think? Not just for doing all this out here, but do you realize how long the Marfora Siofra have kept us from dances?"

  "A dance, Lilee. This'll be the first one we've had since you and I first cared about whether some special young man might dance with us or not."

  "Yea, and it makes me nervous, too."

  "What for?"

  "Well, you've got Oisin and Kieran trying to ask you, Doona..."

  "So?"

  "Nobody's going to ask me, really..."

  "Bite your tongue, Lilee! You're a very pretty and sweet and wonderful young lady and you just wait and see how many young men ask you to the dance."

  "You're the sweetest friend anyone could have, Doona," she said, giving her a squeeze, "but I don't see where all these young men are going to come from, 'way out here in the grass." She turned her face into the wind. "And none of them will be Kieran," she mumbled.

  "I couldn't hear you. But if you said what I think you did, I think you're better off if Kieran doesn't ask you..."

  "That doesn't sound like you, Doona."

  "Oh my! I didn't intend anything mean. Please. Just think about this. Kieran has chased after me for years, and when he tries to ask me to this dance and I turn him down, I'm also going to tell him once and for all that his feelings for me are completely wasted. It's going to make him crazy for a while, don't you think?"

  "I'm sorry Doona. I have moments where I feel a little hopeless, don't you know? You have two young men just crazy after you. I'm happy for you, but you don't even want both of them. And here I don't have anyone in the world."

  "Well I think you have, and I'll bet it turns out to be Kieran if you're careful. Kieran is going to feel sorry for himself for a good spell, and if he courts any girl right away, it will be a skirt tail romance, and skirt tail romances never last. You need to bide your time and be right there when at last he's ready for someone again."

  "My word, Doona. Where did you learn such things?"

  "I was helping Onora, Vorona, Caly and your mom thatch the last of the shades, if you remember."

  "You surely didn't tell them..."

  "No. I wouldn't do that. I just used a lot of 'what ifs' and got them to talking. I was very careful. It took me all afternoon. Anyway, they all agreed that a young man with a heartache would be a bad risk until he was over the one he'd lost."

  "Well, it does make sense and I certainly don't want Kieran to take up with me just because he can't have you."

  "That's how it seemed to me, and since you're the very last person in the world I'd ever want to hurt with this, I asked the ladies. Please don't be upset."

  Lilee pitched a wee pebble far out amongst the swallows and watched as one of them darted toward it before letting it fall. "I'm not Doona," she said. "Really. I'm very glad I have you for a friend. With all this happening to you, sometimes it's easy to feel left out."

  "Oh go on, Olloo!" said Kieran as he jumped to the ground from the face of Carraig Faire. "There's no point in playing me for a fool..."

  "Well here then," said Olloo, pulling a strip of cloth from his pocket. "I'll just drop this cloth by the rock and we'll go over here a couple of rods." He took a dozen quick strides and stopped. "Now, all I have to do is picture Baase snapping up the cloth and he'll do it. So here goes."

  Baase was alert at once, scampering over to the cloth to snap it up.

  "See?" said Olloo as he took the cloth from Baase.

  "Yea?" said Kieran with a gimlet-eyed glance at Olloo as he reached down to give Baase a scratch. "Good trick, but I'm not convinced that you aren't just watching Baase and telling me that the very thing he's doing happens to be exactly what you told him to do."

  "What?"

  "Look Olloo, I've seen dogs do it when they want to play fetch. You two have played fetch with that cloth before, haven't you?"

  "You think I'm making all this up?"

  "Oh go on, Olloo. I know you like to make a sport of fooling me. Admit it."

  "You beat the bugs a-fighting, Kieran. If you knew I was playing a prank on you, why didn't you say something when Baase and I were showing this to you and my folks?"

  "Right. And let Doona think I can't be a sport about it?"

  Olloo swept off his hat in exasperation. "Kieran, you may be my friend, but I don't think much of you when you're in heat. See that unicorn? You make it so I can't tell if I'm talking to his rear end or to your face."

  "Fine. Then why don't I pick what you have Baase do. If he does it, then you're not playing me for a fool. How's that?"

  "Name it, then."

  "Doona and Lilee have just come down. Have him go grab Doona by the hem of her dress and not let go until he's led her over here."

>   "He's not a puppy. He might go make a hole in her dress, but he won't drag her anywhere. And besides, being skinned alive by my sister isn't worth it."

  "I knew you'd back out. It's just like I said."

  "Kieran, go soak your head and stay clean away from me until you come to your senses."

  "Hey, I'm sorry, all right?"

  Olloo put the piece of cloth in his pocket and squinted at him.

  "Look, I haven't been myself," said Kieran, yanking up a timothy stem to chew on. "This competition for Doona with Oisin is making me kind of crazy, I guess."

  "You guess?"

  "All right, it is. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

  "No, but you really need to hear yourself say it."

  “No I don't. I really need to hear Doona say yes. So what do you think, Olloo? Will Doona go to the dance if I ask her before Oisin?"

  "Good Grief! Go ask her."

  "Yea? Well maybe you'd help a friend and..."

  "Kieran! You have to do this. It isn't my place. Do you seriously think Doona would be more likely to go to the dance with you if I asked her?"

  "I guess I'll have to ask her, then. But could you at least invite me over to supper tonight so I'll have a better chance of asking her without her nosey friends?"

  "Sure, but Lilee might be there too, Kieran. She and Doona have been spending all their time together, lately."

  "Oh, Lilee's probably hanging around more because she's after you, Olloo. You ever think of that?"

  "No, because it's quite clear she's not. She and Doona are just up to girl things, don't you know?"

  "Yea, like talking about boys."

  "Oh some of that, maybe. But they've really been going on about sewing and new dresses and stuff."

  "They're not going to let you hear about the boys, but what do you reckon dresses are for anyway, if not to look pretty for the boys?"

  "Right. Well, five sharp as always," said Olloo as Baase bounded out of the grass with a half grown rabbit swinging from his beak, "and you can take my place helping Doona with the dishes. That'll give you a chance to speak with her alone, even if Lilee is there."

  "Hey thanks. Well I've got to go. I'm supposed to help Great-Grandma move some of her things down off the rock."

  Olloo nodded and squatted to have a look at Baase's rabbit.

  "There you are," said Olloo as he and Kieran appeared, looking a little lost. "We didn't expect a move."

  "I just thought Doona and Lilee's sandstone shelf made a better place to eat," said Onora. "It's almost like having a proper board."

  "Yea," said Brenden, "except you must either stand on your knees with your food at your chin or sit on the table, but I'll agree it makes a nice change."

  "We were almost late, Onora," said Kieran as he grandly handed her a rose bush with its roots wrapped in old rags. "I wanted to give you one of Great-Grandma's rose bushes, but it took me a bit of talking to get her to let go of it."

  "Why Kieran," she said, "how very nice of you. Thank you."

  "I thought you deserved it for putting up with me all the times you have," he said, flushing a bit when she pecked him on the cheek.

  "I've always enjoyed having you for supper, Kieran," she said. "So just how did Queen Vorona come by roses like this? I sure don't remember her bringing any."

  "The last thing Oisin loaded onto the sleayds back at Baile Gairdin was a pair of very nice spades..."

  "Yea," said Olloo, "after we finished burying Isbal, Reina and that pink troll..."

  "They called him Darragh," said Kieran. "Anyway, I thought it would be right nice to dig Great-Grandma some of the very roses she had always liked..."

  "Yes. We dug her roses first thing to make room for Oisin's aunts in the palace graveyard. I'm surprised Vorona was ever in there." Olloo could see that it was time to stop, but Kieran's inclination to be windy from time to time had always irked him.

  "This wonderful roast is off of that huge quarter of auroch they've got on the coals for everyone," said Onora. "Oisin shot it this morning, I'm sure you've heard. Let's eat."

  It was quite a bounty, with larks tinkling far above in the vault of blue, for along with the roast auroch, they had a nice pair of Strah hens and a huge kettle of steaming greens, as they talked of the new sod houses and about the things that happened at Baile Gairdin. At last they were finished eating.

  "As usual, Onora, that was a truly wonderful meal," said Kieran, "and if you don't mind, I'll give Olloo a break and help Doona with dishes this evening."

  Onora glanced at Doona. "I'm sure Olloo won't mind," she said.

  Kieran immediately set to gathering up the dishes and helping Doona carry them over to the big water skins by the fissure in the carraig which the Elves used for a drain. They got onto their knees and began scrubbing.

  "I must say that you've been right thoughtful to Onora and Olloo this evening," said Doona as she scoured.

  "I don't mind," he said, "but I have to confess that there's another reason I volunteered to do Olloo's dish chore."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. I was wondering if you'd go for a walk with me afterwards. I'd like a moment alone with you."

  "All right," she said, turning back to her task to avoid his eyes as her stomach began to flutter.

  "Great!" said Kieran, sounding dreadfully more pleased than she was comfortable with. And they were already finished with the dishes.

  "Well," she said as she gathered up her pan of dishes, "that's done. Let's take these back and let Onora and Brandon know where we're going."

  Kieran followed her out to the sandstone shelf where they found everyone in the midst of a lively discussion.

  "My, that didn't take you long," said Onora.

  "Kieran and I were wondering if we could take a short walk," said Doona. "That is, just the two of us."

  Onora and Brenden exchanged a look. "Do you mean down off the rock?" said Onora.

  "Just down to the houses and back," said Doona. "Kieran has his bow."

  "Good," said Brenden, "because you wouldn't go if he didn't have. It's getting a bit late for shawkyn spooghey, but it's still light. Well go ahead, but come right back."

  They hadn't gone a dozen steps before Onner came racing after them. Doona greeted her with a good scratch. "If you'd wait right here," she said, "I'll get Olloo to bird sit."

  She led Onner back to the shelf, said a few words to Olloo and returned, refusing to look back at her bird as she came for fear of having her on her heels again in an instant.

  "So you haven't learnt to use 'mind pictures' to speak with your strike falcon the way Olloo has, aye?" said Kieran.

  "I understood you didn't think Olloo and Baase could do that," said Doona.

  "Well, let's just say I have my doubts. Maybe I'll be convinced when I hear that you and Lilee can speak with your birds that way."

  "My. I thought Olloo was your best friend. Don't you know him any better than that?"

  "Of course I do. Olloo isn't a liar. Everyone knows that. But he also likes to play a good joke now and then, particularly at my expense."

  "Maybe," said Doona as she paused to look at the sky before finding her footing down the face of the great rock, "but this isn't one of those times. Olloo's telling the truth. And, for the record, Lilee and I have indeed learnt to speak with our shawkyn sphooghey using mind pictures."

  "Then how come you had to take Onner back to Olloo rather than simply sending her back there with a picture of it in your head?"

  "Because I had to ask Olloo if he would take care of her. I can't speak with him in mind pictures."

  "Oh."

  "Anyway, it's a lovely evening for a walk. Thank you for inviting me."

  "You're welcome. I can't think of anyone I'd rather share it with.”

  Doona's stomach knotted.

  "Well, here we are, down in the grass," he said. "I don't see any strike falcons, but I've got an arrow nocked, just in case. You know, I think I'm going to miss it up on top. I know we haven't li
ved on Carraig Faire very long at all, but it's the first place where I ever remember feeling truly safe."

  "Oh, I think we all feel that way, but I'm sure we'll come to feel the same way about Baile Tuath."

  "Baile Tuath?"

  "You haven't heard? That's the name of our new village."

  "My," he said as he followed one of the meandering paths through the grass. "Baile Tuath. Country Town. Reckon that's as good as any... I guess we're just walking too fast to talk because of the strike falcons."

  "Well you may be a good shot, but I'll still feel better when we get to the houses."

  Before long they neared the buildings. "I know," he said. "Let's sit on the front wall of my folks's house." Soon they were sitting with dangling legs on one of the sod walls. A field mouse hopped out from between the blocks of sod nearby and ran the length of the wall before vanishing over the edge.

  "Hark!" she said. "Shhh. Listen."

  "Wolves," he said. "Wolves and no mistake. There they go again, 'way, 'way off yonder toward the mountains. They've come far enough for us to hear them, 'way out into the grass."

  "I've not once heard them since we've been out here in the Strah."

  "I have, but it was right near the edge of the Maidenhair Woods when we were on our way back to the camp for tools. Then on one of the trips back to the woods for timber, we found where a strike falcon had killed one of them. He was a strike falcon kill, no question, and he was easily the biggest wolf I've ever seen. He was a fresh kill. He'd been dead only long enough to get dew in his fur. He had deep slashes all over, particularly his shoulders, and his throat and his belly were ripped out. It was the only strike falcon kill I've ever seen where it didn't look like they'd eaten any of it."

  There they sat for a time, listening to the crickets and looking at the very first stars. When at last Kieran spoke, it startled Doona, and her heart filled with sadness.

  "I reckon you know that they've decided for a dance?" he said, peering into her face as the wolves howled again, far away and wee. "They're having it right after Great-Grandma's kitchen roof is up."