All the King's Horses

by Laura C Stevenson

  ‘But of course we knew better than to speak to them!’ said Colin confidently. ‘We ignored them, the way the woman in the story should have.’

  Cathbad smiled a wintry smile. ‘And by ignoring faeries in the ring on the Eve of Samhain – by not trying to use either their charity or their knowledge to gain access to the Otherworld – the children were granted the power thousands have sought. Those are the Rules, and the Sidhe accepted them immediately. We arrived at the Ring too late to discuss the matter with them that night, but when they returned the next day, Mongan and I told them of their Protection and promised to help them with their mission.’

  ‘It’s spinning in their graves Oisin and all his kindred must be, hearing this,’ said Grandpa, clapping us both on the shoulder. ‘Mere babes – breaking the spell of centuries!’

  ‘Um, Grandpa,’ said Colin, looking down. ‘It wasn’t like that. More like an accident.’

  Grandpa smiled at him. ‘Do you remember how Finn Mac Cumhaill took the first taste of the Salmon of Knowledge?’

  ‘Of course!’ said Colin. ‘He was cooking it for that hermit who’d finally caught it after years and years, and a bubble rose under its skin, and as he pushed it down, he burnt his thumb and popped it into his mouth!’ Then his face changed. ‘Oh, I see. An accident.’

  ‘It sure was,’ I said. ‘We didn’t even know the Ring was there; we were hunting for you, and saw the faeries—’

  ‘– and when we did see them, we thought they’d stolen the real you and left a changeling in your place,’ said Colin. ‘So when Mongan and Cathbad told us we were under Protection if we had a mission, we asked them to bring us to Faerie, so we could find the real you and—’

  ‘– Begging your pardon,’ interrupted Mongan. ‘That’s not what you asked. You asked Us to take you where your grandfather was.’

  Grandpa’s shocked face turned from Mongan to Manannan to Epona. ‘They asked that, in their innocence?’ he said. ‘And You complied?’

  Mongan looked at him steadily. ‘We had no choice,’ he said. ‘They had broken the spell. The only thing we could do for their innocence was to send them where you were by the route you had taken yourself as you drifted from your world; we hoped that when they felt the horrors that journey had inflicted on you, they would cease to desire its completion.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Colin to Grandpa. ‘But you can bet we saw that they were just trying to scare us out of Faerie, so we kept on—’

  ‘– Shut up a minute,’ I said suddenly. ‘I just Saw.’

  He was about to fuss, but Grandpa waved him to silence, which was awful, because everything was spinning in my mind and I couldn’t get it to hold still long enough to look at it.

  Grandpa’s arm went around me. ‘Tell us what you saw.’

  ‘The difference …’ But it still wouldn’t come.

  ‘Ride it at the fence, that’s my girl. The difference … ?’

  ‘Between asking to go to Faerie and asking to go where you were,’ I said. ‘That’s what was wrong with our theory. Not the logic part. The part you take for granted.’

  ‘Premise,’ said Colin automatically. ‘But what—?’

  ‘– Let me think, will you? OK, our premise was that you were in Faerie, and we never even thought of asking if that was right. But you weren’t in Faerie – at least, not before this.’ I looked at Grandpa for the first time since I’d begun; and I saw the thing I’d seen in his face when we first met. ‘You were in the Grey Land,’ I whispered. ‘Fighting those waves.’

  ‘The Grey Land!’ Colin put his hands over his mouth. ‘Oh, no!’

  Grandpa looked at him, then at me. ‘Sure and you’re not saying … ?’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ I said. ‘But don’t blame the faeries – please! It was my fault! I made them send us! They wouldn’t have, otherwise! And when we couldn’t hear the harp well enough to come back on our own, Manannan rode all the way there to fetch us, even though he was af—’ I glanced at Manannan, and shrank close to Grandpa as dark, swirling eddies in the faery eyes swept around me. ‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled.

  Manannan’s eyes moved from me to Grandpa, then back to me. ‘You see too well, Daughter of Lugh,’ he said. ‘No doubt your world will exact a penalty for that; mortals dislike having their dignity undermined by truth. But here, you should not have to apologize for what you see.’ He sighed. ‘And what you saw when I came to the Grey Land was true. I – Manannan Mac Lir, ruler of all the seas of the Otherworld – I was afraid.’

  Mongan gave a little grunt of surprise, but Epona nodded. ‘There’s no shame in that,’ she said. ‘The Grey Land floats like a fog around all worlds and all Ways; it’s a place that haunts us all.’

  ‘Not quite all,’ said Manannan. ‘There is one soul who has fought its horrors without fear, and emerged from them in triumph. He stands there.’ He pointed to Grandpa with a bow.

  ‘Well, of course!’ said Colin. ‘He’s a hero!’

  Grandpa shook his head. ‘Sure and I wish you were right, lad – and you too, my lord, for I’d be happy to take your praise if I’d earned it. But you’re not right. It’s one thing to go to the Grey Land, as you children did, heaven save you, without knowing what it is – that’s innocence. It’s a different thing to ride there to keep it from hurting the innocent – that’s courage, my lord, whether you’re shaking with fear or no, and I’ll be thanking you for it until the end of time. But to go there as I did, step by step out of the world of man, when you can’t recall the step you last took, or recognize the landmarks that tell you where you are, or remember the people who’re watching you … that’s something else again. There’s no innocence; just a blur of things seen and not known. There’s no fear, even in the Grey Land; it’s just one of many unfamiliar places. And no courage; just mindless struggle with no goal or chance of winning.’ He gazed out over the lake. ‘Oh, little ones! How it grieves me that you’ve had to—’

  The grass behind us rustled; Grandpa glanced over his shoulder and rose slowly to his feet. We jumped up too, and I turned around just in time to see Cathbad’s black cloak swish as he bowed. ‘Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘the hour is near. You must prepare to depart.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Colin, looking up. ‘We really should be getting back. Mom will be so glad to see you all right again.’ His smile faded. ‘You will be all right at home now, won’t you?’

  ‘Colin—’ said Grandpa, in a strange sort of voice.

  Cathbad frowned. ‘You don’t understand, Son of Lugh. Your grandfather cannot go home with you, any more than he can stay with us. A man can become king of the faeries only in the moment between life and death. That moment is far longer in Faerie time than in mortal time – long enough for Us to honour him for all that he was in his life. But when it is over, he must go on to the Land Beyond All Lands, and he must stay there forever.’

  ‘Forever!’ I said. ‘You mean … ?’

  ‘Oh, no, Grandpa!’ said Colin, clinging to him. ‘You can’t leave us forever! We need you! That’s why we came to get you, all those times!’

  Grandpa looked sadly at Cathbad. ‘Some things should be explained gently, my lord.’

  ‘Don’t worry about explanations!’ I said. ‘Just come back with us!’

  ‘Right!’ said Colin. ‘You’re king of the faeries now! You make the Rules! Just make one that makes you stay with us!’

  ‘Sure and you know I can’t do that,’ said Grandpa. ‘There are Rules made by neither mortals nor faeries; they’re as old as the Earth itself, because they are the Rules of the Earth itself. One of them is that human beings – kings and beggars alike – must travel in the end to the Land Beyond All Lands. That’s what it means to be a mortal.’

  I closed my eyes, because I knew how Grandpa looked when he said exactly what he meant, and he looked that way now.

  ‘But Grandpa,’ said Colin desolately. ‘What … what’ll we do without you?’

  ‘You’ll go on with your own stories, just the way you do afte
r you close a book,’ said Grandpa. ‘And if you want me to be with you again—’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, yes!’

  He shook his head. ‘If you want me to be with you again, think of the way we used to be, before the time when all there was left of me was the shadow of what I’d been. Think about the barn, and the ponies, and the nights we sat out on the steps and told stories.’ He smiled. ‘Those were wonderful nights, weren’t they? With the stars and the smell of roses, and the sound of the horses grazing in the pastures …’

  ‘Oh, Grandpa,’ I sobbed. ‘Please don’t go …’

  ‘What I’m telling you,’ he said, ‘is that when you remember those nights, and the days that went with them, it’ll be as if I’ve never left.’ He paused, then added, ‘And it’s something else that’ll give you comfort too, if you’ll dry your eyes and think.’

  Something about his voice made us both stop hanging on him and look at him instead.

  ‘Think of the Grey Land and what it does,’ he said. ‘Steals every quality that makes a man a man, and makes him nothing – right? But some of us … whether we deserve it or not, God save us … are protected from the horror of that nothingness by the one mortal grace even the Grey Land can’t strip away: the dignity of being loved.’ He bowed his head and put one hand on each of our shoulders. ‘And you have given me that grace.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Epona. She swept her arm over the Sidhe, the lake, the horses, and finally, the palace. ‘The faeries would not choose a mortal for their king if they didn’t know that some mortals are better than they are, though mortal powers seem so weak. This time, we have celebrated, and the land itself has praised, not just the heroism of the Old Days but that great dignity, which only mortals can bestow.’ She gave us her wonderful smile. ‘Do you understand, Children of Lugh?’

  ‘I … I think so,’ I said.

  ‘That’s fine, for now,’ said Grandpa. ‘For later – promise to remember what she said.’

  ‘Promise,’ we said together.

  ‘That’s my loves,’ he said. ‘And now, we must thank the Sidhe and say farewell.’

  I looked at the four faeries, and I suddenly realized he’d meant more than he’d said. ‘You mean,’ I choked, ‘you mean we can’t come back?’

  Cathbad nodded. ‘Your mission is fulfilled. Henceforth, you will have to abide by the Rules that govern all other mortals.’

  We looked at Grandpa, but he nodded. ‘Cathbad is right,’ he said, ‘but don’t think of it as a loss; you will have lost only what other mortals have never had. As for what remains…’ His eyes drifted away, and I felt the way I had in Pennsylvania sometimes – that he was talking to himself, not to us. ‘What remains is enough,’ he said slowly, ‘enough to shelter wasted children, to remind old men there is more in their world than bitterness and regret …’ He sighed and stroked my short hair. ‘Tell your mother I love her.’

  I swallowed hard. ‘She loves you, too. I heard her say so, and she really meant it.’

  ‘I know she does,’ he said. ‘And the pity of it is she had to prove it the way she did, with never a word of blessing from myself, never a glimmer of what she’s given me. Be good to her; she’s seen only toil and grief.’ He bent over us, and for the first time in my life, I saw his eyes fill with tears. ‘Tell her – in any way you can – that though I’m king of the faeries and have ridden the horse that has no flaws, you have given me my heart’s desire. You and she.’

  Behind us, we heard a flurry of mounting and getting ready; turning, I saw that the Sidhe were ready to go. The only horses without riders were Epona’s brown mare and Enbharr.

  Epona touched Grandpa’s arm. ‘Your Highness, it is time to shed mortal sorrow and ride onward, celebrating what has been and what is to come.’

  Grandpa let us go and stood up. ‘It was not sorrow I was shedding,’ he said. ‘But you are right.’ He put one hand on each of our shoulders and turned us so he could look into our faces. ‘You must not try to follow me; let the Otherworld send you home. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Grandpa,’ I whispered. Colin was crying too hard to talk, but he nodded.

  ‘That’s my little ones,’ he said. ‘All right, then …’

  He hugged us again, and we clung to him until he gently put us away, strode into the circle of Sidhe, and vaulted onto Enbharr’s back. Manannan handed him the crown, and Cathbad, leaning from his horse, draped the royal mantle around his shoulders. Epona mounted her own horse, made some gesture with her hand, and slowly, the company of Sidhe rode to the lake – and disappeared, two by two, into the reflection of the palace and the cliffs. There was no ripple in the water, no mist on the far side; they simply vanished, until only Grandpa was left, sitting perfectly on his perfect horse, smiling, whole, wonderful. He raised one hand in farewell; then Enbharr turned, and they were gone.

  We both ran forward to wave one more time, but Colin tripped, and I fell over him. When we got up, we were in the Ring, and the trucks were roaring past on Highway 495.

  I stood there, staring at them, until a big tanker took the exit and crawled down the ramp onto the 125 Connector, sending a black cloud out of its smokestack as it shifted down. At the bottom of the ramp, it turned towards town, and the gears started the other way: first, second, third … It disappeared around the curve, and I turned to Colin. ‘Let’s go.’

  He wiped his eyes with the tail of his shirt. ‘OK.’

  We turned and picked our way slowly through the junk, blinking in the late afternoon sun. When we got to the yard, Colin stopped and frowned. ‘It shouldn’t be where it is.’

  ‘The house?’ I said blankly.

  ‘The sun. Usually, when we go to Faerie, it’s the same time when we come back, right?’

  I saw what he meant; it had been a little after noon when we had started home from the Gordons’, and now … ‘Maybe it’s different now that our mission’s over.’ Then I wished I’d held my tongue; putting it in words made it so … certain.

  We were both standing there, looking towards the sun, when Mom’s old car bumped across the tracks. As it got closer, we could see that Mom wasn’t driving; Mr Crewes was. I suppose we should have waved or something, but we just watched it pass the warehouses … slow down … pull into the driveway … stop. After what seemed a long time, Mom got out of her door and walked slowly towards us. Her face was completely frozen.

  ‘Children,’ she began, ‘your grandfather …’ She stopped, and so did everything else. Well, not really. The birds kept singing, Mr Crewes walked slowly towards the porch, the whistle of the 4:45 sounded far off down the tracks … but it was like there was nothing in the world but Mom, all alone, not talking, not crying.

  Be good to her, he’d said. I understood now, and I wanted more than anything to tell her all the things he’d explained, but the words just wouldn’t come. All I could do was run and put my arms around her. ‘Don’t feel bad, Mom,’ I said. ‘He’s all right, now … and he loved you.’

  Mom’s frozen expression melted, and she hugged us both – and I guess we all cried, but I don’t remember.

  THERE WERE OVER two hundred people at the funeral; every horse person I’d ever met in Pennsylvania was there, and a lot of other people I’d only seen in pictures. It was great to see them, except they all said the same sorts of things. It was a blessing. He could have lingered for years. It must be a tremendous relief to have it all over.

  ‘If I hear one more person say it’s a good thing that Grandpa died, I don’t know how I’ll stay polite,’ said Colin, as we climbed into a black limousine to follow the hearse from the church to the cemetery. ‘Can’t they understand that even a Grey Land Grandpa is better than no Grandpa at all?’

  ‘I guess not,’ I said. ‘But then, they’re not the ones who have to go into his study and see all his stuff there.’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said. So I looked out the window.

  Mom got into the limousine and sat next to Colin; Mr Crewes got in and sat next to me. He saw I was cr
ying a little, and he put his arm around my shoulder. Which was OK; he’d been really, really great. The thing was, though, it didn’t help. Nothing did. Everywhere Grandpa had been, there were empty spaces, and nothing anybody said or did could make them go away. There were even spaces where I knew he couldn’t possibly be. Like, when we got to the cemetery, I kept worrying that he might fall into the grave as we watched the funeral people lower the coffin into the ground. And at the wake, as I passed the food and said ‘thank you’, when people told me how grown up I looked, I kept worrying that the noise and confusion would upset him. It all seemed like a bad dream, and I was very glad when we finally went back home with Mr Crewes, the Gordons, and the Smithes, who had come up from Pennsylvania.

  After I’d helped put the leftovers away, I changed and lay down on my bed, hoping I’d go to sleep or something; but I stayed awake and hurting. Outside, the 5:15 express shot past, and in the silence it left behind, I heard Colin’s sneakers padding down the hall to the front stairs. When I looked out my door, he was sitting on the top step with his chin on his hand, and he didn’t turn around. I tiptoed to the stairs and sat down next to him, feeling sort of guilty. All through the wake, he’d been looking just fine, and I’d thought he’d let everyone cheer him up. After a while, he looked sideways at me. ‘That was awful,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘but like Mr Crewes says, you have to do something.’

  ‘The faeries do it a lot better.’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  We sat there, listening to the grown-ups’ voices float up the stairs from the living room … not words, just questions, answers, mutterings … and watching the colours in the stained-glass window flicker in the shadows of the leaves outside. They were the same colours they’d always been, but the pattern around the border was just vines, trees, and flowers. No faeries.

  ‘Do you suppose They knew when we were there?’ said Colin after a while. ‘About the house, I mean?’

  ‘Maybe. Epona said something about it … I can’t remember exactly what.’