by Tom O'Neill
It was a very long time since this dent had been anyone’s cooking pit. But it was very sheltered sitting in there. Once he had the rod dangling in the river, he could lie back comfortably and be very snug even on a cold April day. The river was high after all the rain, but didn’t come up to his part of the bank. He nodded off. He woke some time later and folded the rod, ready to go back to the road. He was thinking he maybe had time to drop in on Cash for a while. He stood and was brushing old burdocks off his jacket when he distinctly heard a creaky, ‘What ails you?’
Dark nearly fell into the river. He looked around and could see no one. But a heron had stopped wading in the shallower water at the far bank and had the side of her head turned towards him. It couldn’t be. He waited but the question wasn’t repeated. He thought he was finally losing his fingernail grip on reality. Everything else peculiar in his life had happened only in the darkness of night when, as the Old Man said, the countryside was free and other forces roamed.
He would somehow have preferred, despite his diversionary quests for ‘lonmaree’ and ‘nobladee’, if his daytime normality could remain solid and intact. But he decided to answer the invisible questioner because he had little or nothing to lose. ‘Nothing at all,’ he said shakily. ‘But my uncle is on the ball of his back in bed after something bit him in the ankle.’
Only the noise of the rushing brown water came back at him. He was standing in his pit feeling even more stupid for confusing the creaking of a willow bough for a voice. Then the bird spoke again. ‘Black or purple teeth marks? What sort of form is he in?’
‘He ... He’s been in better form,’ said Dark, amazed. ‘He lies there wasting away and groaning. Purple,’ he added, ‘from a little mouth.’
‘A big mouth in fact, on a very little head,’ said the bird, still inspecting him with one side of her head and then the other.
‘What’s going to happen to him?’
‘The enchanted rat? He’ll be grand. As happy as Larry.’
‘No! Connie. My uncle.’
‘Oh him,’ she said in the same flat tones, glancing for a moment at a passing trout. ‘He’ll die.’
Dark said nothing.
Even if she saw he was shocked, she added no softness to her tone. ‘The curse that was delivered to him by the little four-legged rascal was that he may die roaring.’
‘He’s not roaring,’ was the ridiculous thing that Dark heard himself say.
‘Well he should be! That is the most excruciating of poisons. From the minute it’s in your veins you are supposed to roar. He must have a far higher tolerance for pain than is usual among your kind.’
‘He keeps calling your name,’ said Dark dejectedly. ‘He must have thought you could help.’
‘Does he?’ she said, cocking her head suddenly. ‘Does he indeed?’
‘Yeah, Long Maire, he must have thought you’d help him. Sorry to have disturbed you.’
‘Hold on there, bucko, I didn’t say I couldn’t help him.’
‘You said he’ll die. That’s about all you need to say.’
‘Did I? Of course. We’ll all die,’ she said, gabbling like a turkey. ‘There is just the question of when.’
‘So is there some help you can give a man who is such a great admirer of yours?’ Dark tried, remembering something of Maire Fada’s love of flattery.
‘Admirer?’
‘Yeah he was always ... Always talking about how Long Maire is the most elegant creature ever built,’ lied Dark.
‘Well I’ll gladly tell all I know to help a fine man of such discerning tastes,’ she said. ‘There’s a canker on the bark of some old crab trees an hour’s walk further up this river. If they are fed to him along with the black paste, he may well outlive you, me, or the enemy who put this upon him.’
‘Black paste?’
‘That part I can’t help you with,’ she said, a genuine note of apology in her voice. ‘There’s another party you will have to talk to about that.’
‘Nobladee?’ tried Dark.
‘Who? What?’ said the bird. ‘You wouldn’t want to let her hear you calling her knobby.’
‘Sorry. Who then?’
‘They call her the Noble Lady, though frankly I never saw why,’ said the heron huffily. ‘Lady indeed. What kind of lady has no feathers? They say her kind never die. That of course means they are never born either. So answer me this – does that not also conclusively prove that there is no breeding and no rearing on this “fine lady”?’
‘Okay,’ said Dark, avoiding the heron’s resentful question and entirely forgetting that this gave him no more information. He was too keen to ask the other question. ‘So, who was it that sent the rat to deliver the curse to Connie?’
‘Aha! The wrong question, careful and all as he has been, he has allowed himself to ask the wrong question,’ said the long bird as if she had just won a competition. And those were the last words she spoke.
Although in truth he was very little further than he had been when leaving in the morning, he had at least overturned his lie to Connie. When he got home he went in to talk to him again. ‘You are going to have to eat more custard,’ he said. ‘From now on I’ll stuff it with those painkillers. We need you to hang in a while longer. I need just a bit more time.’
Connie nodded, but Dark could see resignation on his face. He had guessed that Dark had been only trying to humour him this morning. ‘Truly’, he said. ‘I collected the stuff from Maire Fada.’ He took a bit of the crab tree canker from his pocket. ‘And now I only have to get the black paste from the Noble Lady.’ Connie’s eyes widened, believing him now. Dark didn’t think it would be good to mention that he had completely screwed up the chance to find out from the heron who the Noble Lady actually was.
That night he persuaded his mam that she needed sleep; that he would get enough rest in the armchair next to Connie. As soon as she was gone, he told Connie he was heading for the rath. Connie would understand. First though, he had another thing to do. A thing that Connie definitely would not approve of.
Since the visit that morning Dark had had an aching fear that Saltee had found the secret vault. He had to go to check. Even though Connie had warned him to keep it in his mind but never to let his eyes lead another to it. He looked around the dark yard to try to make sure that nobody was watching. Then he went quickly into the long tractor shed and bolted the door behind him. He didn’t even turn on the lights. He used the faint light of his phone to avoid stumbling over drums of oil, gearboxes, and the compressor. He quickly pulled back the crate for storing black plastic and inspected the safe that was sunk in the concrete below. It did not look like it had been opened in a long time. He ought to have been reassured but as he had gone this far off course he decided to carry on. From his inner pocket he retrieved the keys that he had sneaked from the top of Connie’s wardrobe. He opened the two locks and put his hand inside the old gun safe.
Wrapped in cheese cloth, he could clearly make out the reassuring contours and intricate designs of the scabbard. He felt the gem in the centre of the shield. Suddenly he could see clearly. He could see that this was the centre of everything. These old things were what made Connie so sure he could save the rest of his old friend’s possessions. They were also what drew Saltee into their lives.
Touching them should have been all the reassurance Dark needed. He couldn’t deny now that when he took them out it was only for his own pleasure: to set his eyes on them again; to again be reassured by the familiar dents whose stories he knew. He laid them on the floor and gazed at them, the items that had bridged his worlds and that reassured him he was not insane. He took the worn handle of the sword and pulled it part way from the prized bronze scabbard. Tools that had passed from generation to generation.
Then he felt a cold breeze. The door of the tractor shed opened behind him. He must not have pulled the bolt properly. He could see only dark outside. He was certain someone was looking at him. He switched his phone light off to level things b
ut still his eyes could not make out a silhouette. As fast as he was able to, he felt for the cloths and re-wrapped the property of the ancients, locked the safe, and put everything back the best way he could. He left the shed and locked it behind him.
Later, in the rath, Dark took the goblet from Etain but didn’t drink from it straight away. He wanted to know. Surely someone there could give him a direct answer. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘can anyone here tell me who the Noble Lady is?’
As usual, all he got in reply was other questions.
‘Why do you want to know that?’ growled the Fear Dearg, hanging from a high branch of a yew tree.
‘For my uncle,’ said Dark abruptly.
‘How is your uncle faring?’ asked the Old Man.
‘He is not well. That is why I am asking,’ said Dark, feeling suddenly angry and frustrated. ‘Is none of you willing to help me?’
‘Settle down, son,’ said Conán.
Dark sat. The Old Man spoke to him, ‘You are a good young man and true as any I have met. Believe me, you are surrounded by friends here.’
‘If I was so true, I would be in the house sitting with my dying uncle and not escaping down here to travel in some bloody other world or wherever it is I really am,’ blurted Dark.
‘We can all see your torment and nobody here wishes to upset you further,’ came another voice. It was the old druid Dreoilín, in wren form. Dark appreciated his voice. He knew that Dreoilín did not willingly visit the fort of the little people. They were of the view that big people should not dabble in their arts. Magic was what had been left to them. They could turn on a druid without excuse. The Old Man must have called him to be here. Maybe they really were watching over him. Dreoilín continued, ‘Believe me, nobody here wants your uncle to suffer more under this spell or to lose the battle with this curse. It is just that some truths you have to seek, but the most important truths have to come to you. You are doing everything right.’
Why that did not anger Dark further, he did not know. He should have been angry that they wouldn’t just tell him what he needed to know instead of weaving a vagueness of words around his head. Maybe he was too tired. He drank from Etain’s chalice. The Old Man’s words then took him away from his worries into another person’s world.
Chapter 5a
FIONN’S DEFEAT
Matha was a happy young man as he made his way back towards his own little valley. He had been travelling long enough now that he would never want to travel again. The outside world held no more wonder for him. He was weary of the roads. He would relieve his poor mother of her gruelling workload. She would no longer be dependent on the stingy chief. And he would reward his loyal cousin, who he felt sure would still be faithfully minding the sick horse all this time.
He knew the fluid most precious that would have to be applied to the bowl. Scorm had as much as told him. It could only be the blood of the very animal he wanted to cure. Of that he was certain.
Conán had come with him. Brought him racing across the country on a battle chariot. People along the way stood aside in wonder. Matha didn’t know why they had decided to escort him home. Maybe as a reward for his help, which they praised too much.
After only a couple of hours they got close to the little hills that sheltered the grounds Matha grew up on. He asked Conán to stop a little distance from home, preferring to walk the last of the way.
As he stepped off the chariot, Matha realised that this place was not like anywhere else. He had enjoyed some other parts of the country well enough. He had been awestruck by other sights. But the smell of this damp clay got inside him in a particular way. He understood it for the first time in his life. This was where his ancestors were. This was the ground of which his very bones were made.
He looked around and Conán and the chariot were still standing.
‘We’ll see you again soon, garsún,’ said Conán, with a strange laugh.
‘Only if your travels take you this way,’ responded Matha. ‘This is my life you see before you. Once I’m settled back in to this peaceful place not even death will get me out of it.’
Conán shook his head and laughed loud, but said nothing more as his stout grey stallion pulled off.
Matha went to the brow of the hill behind his mother’s cabin, wishing to stand looking down on it, on the chief’s camp and on all of the little fields that he would soon have back from his neighbour once he had his horse restored to health.
But as he got over the top of the hill, a great confusion ran through him. Beneath him was a different valley. Not familiar at all. He couldn’t think that he had made a mistake. He was standing right next to the pile of stones that marked the burial place of an ancestor on his mother’s side. But nothing below was recognisable. There were homesteads there right enough. There was productive ground and similar kinds of black cattle and white goats grazing the slopes. But none of it was the same. His head started aching. He went down the hill and called in to the biggest farmstead.
He got a mannerly reception. He asked them where he might find the residence of Peigín’s Eoghan, Flaith Rian. He explained that his mother worked there.
They were very sorry. They had never heard of a Rian clan in these parts. Matha thought they were up to some kind of trickery but he didn’t say so outright. ‘Clearly you people are only recently here,’ he said. ‘You will not think it rude if I move on now to find some of the people who have been here longer.’
They called the oldest man of their clan. He was thought to be one hundred and fifty years old. He told Matha he had never left this valley in all those years. Nor had he ever heard of the Chief Pegín’s Eoghan, of Matha’s mother, nor even of a Rian clan.
In the end, Matha knew that the lies they were telling were nothing but the truth as they knew it. He thanked them and went to the next house only to get a similar response. Next he tried to persuade himself of the impossible: that maybe he had somehow been mistaken and that his valley was over the next hill.
The people of this valley had no quarrel with him and begged him to stay with them for the night. He decided to move on. He had come this far and his heart was set on only one thing: to get home straight away. He set out again and climbed the next hill which was higher, hoping to see his own valley on the far side of it. But the next valley was stony and brown with bracken. It looked nothing like his own.
He became very despondent. He rushed down the valley and climbed another wooded peak further to the east, and then another after it, doubling back to reassure himself he hadn’t made a mistake. He tracked back and forth across the range until he was exhausted. He rested under rocks and before dawn the next morning he started again.
For a solid year, Matha kept travelling like this. He could think of nothing else but searching. In truth, matters inside his head were becoming un-firm. His feeling was that his soul and all that made him up was starting to leak from him, like the disappeared valley of his birth.
One day he heard himself talking. To nobody at all, as was becoming his habit. ‘The thing I wonder,’ he addressed a sprig of sedge that he was about to eat, ‘the thing I wonder most about is whether I am still alive on this earth at all. Do I have an existence here or am I now part of another world? I don’t remember dying. But maybe that’s the best way.’
His words shocked him. He needed to stop before every bit of sense had been drained out of him. What good would he be then? Even if he did eventually find his people he would be of no more use to them than the poor feeble horse. He had to get away again to regain his senses if he was to have any hope of finding a solution to the puzzle he had been snared in all this time.
He hit out on the track he now knew well, the one heading north east.
He hadn’t gone very far when he met a young woman. She was a large muscular lady with a great square jaw. She had a sack and she was scrutinising the sides of the carriage way for dried sticks and likely pieces of firewood to put in it. She was muttering and seemed not too happy about her
task. Nevertheless, he wished a blessing on her and on the road before her as he passed. He was right about her mood. She turned to him and said, ‘And a curse of the seven deadly crows on you, and all belonging to you. Why don’t you mind your own business, you great big torment?’
Matha thought little enough of this as he had other things on his mind. However, he hadn’t gone a whole lot further when he heard a fuss behind him. He turned to see a rather pompous parade of horses and men in colourful robes and flags. He knew enough by now to realise that this wasn’t King Cormac, who was more likely to be walking alone and without finery, muttering rhymes to himself, and clutching his wide-bladed spear in one hand and his precious tatty bodhrán skin in the other. Even from the distance, Matha thought he could see or sense something else lurking within the central man. He thought it best to hide himself out of the view of this lurking thing. He moved into the alders that were to the side.
Unfortunately for her, the woman he had just met didn’t appear to have the same cautious nature. She stood out in the middle of the track with no intention of budging. He moved up through the bushes at the side so as to have a better view of the goings on.
The party stopped. The central man was wearing a long shiny purple robe. He was a small ugly man with the pinched face of a low lout: a bodach. But he had some kind of a crown on his head and the armed men alongside him were fanning him with branches of a chestnut tree. He descended from his trimmed black horse and stepped up to the sullen woman. She was much taller than him. He said to her, ‘Subject! Step out of the path of your new royal King!’
Dark almost fell with fright.
‘I was on the road before ye and I’ll be on it after ye,’ she said, ‘you little dog’s vomit.’
The little man reddened but responded in a calm voice: ‘I have a puzzle for you.’