The Phantom Queen Awakes

by Mark S. Deniz

  Not ‘til she reached Ulick’s cows. Something hard flickered over her face when her eyes fell on the sweating, miserable beasts. She made her way through them, touching a nose here and a protruding hip-bone there. It made Ennan feel ashamed and he bent his head, staring at his muddy feet.

  “You are mac Fearchair? Who boasts he owns the fairest cow in all Ireland?”

  Her voice was like a hard-rung bell. Ennan darted a quick look at her face.

  “No,” he said. “My uncle is mac Fearchair. He’s coming now.”

  Ulick’s passage through the crowded market was a great deal less graceful than the woman’s. He shoved between the cows, slapping at their dung splashed sides, and scrambled over the lower slung bodies of pigs. The drovers watched him sidelong and hid smiles under their hands when he slipped and nearly fell.

  “Lady,” he said, shooting Ennan a suspicious look. “How may I serve you?”

  The woman blinked slowly and gave Ulick a once over from head to toe. Her gaze was as dispassionate as any of the buyers looking at livestock.

  “It is said you claim your cow is as grand as any owned by the fair folk themselves,” she said.

  A chill kissed the back of Ennan’s spine and he pled silently for his uncle to stay silent, but Ulick’s pride on Fynnerois was too strong. He lifted his bearded chin.

  “Aye,” he said. “My Fynnerois is a queen amongst cattle. There’s none to match her.”

  The woman’s eyes glittered with some wicked humor.

  “I would see her,” she said, “this wondrous beast of yours.”

  Ulick sucked his teeth and gestured at his cows.

  “I fear that my Fynnerois is not for sale. I would rather put my daughter out in the field to be haggled over. Or send my nephew here to the butcher.” He said it with a chuckle but any who knew Ulick would know the truth in his words. He waved again at his cows. “These are her get though. They share her bloodlines and her spirit. One of these fine beauties will add grace to your bloodstock and fill your pails with the richest milk in Ulster. Why, it’s butter already as it leaves the teat.”

  The woman’s smile was sharp as a knife. “Or even cheese,” she said.

  Ulick squinted one eye and his smile slipped for a moment before recovering. Uncertain of how to interpret her words, he chose to chuckle as if it was a witticism. He reached out and grabbed a cow by the ear, pulling it around.

  Where Fynnerois was white, this beast was yellow, and where her eyes were dark, its were milky brown.

  “The youngest heifer of Fynnerois,” Ulick said. “Other than her mother, no finer cow can be found in all of Ulster.”

  “Set a blind man to search and little will be found,” the woman said. An upraised hand silenced Ulick when he went to protest. “I asked to see your cow, not to buy her. Oblige me in this and you will prosper.”

  What went unsaid made Ennan shudder, but Ulick did not seem to sense the threat; he was rubbing his hands together unhappily. His eyes flickered greedily from the woman’s finery to his listless cows. Two sources of profit, but which to pick?

  “I’ll watch your cows if you want, mac Fearchair,” one of the other farmers said. He nodded to the woman respectfully, a gesture that nearly verged on a bow. She returned the salute and smiled.

  Ulick curled his lip and spat on the ground.

  “I wager you would, mac Cormac,” he said. “Aye, and watch my coins into your strongbox as well, no doubt.”

  “Uncle,” Ennan said urgently. “The Lady has said we will prosper. We should listen to her.”

  Ulick scowled obdurately.

  “Words will not fill my coffers.”

  The woman drew a pouch from under her cloak and held it up. The way it swung from her fingers suggested the weight of coin within.

  “If Fynnerois pleases me,” she said, “this will be yours.”

  Ulick licked his lips and stared at the pouch. Then he turned and, slapping Ennan and the cows both, drove them out of the market and back onto the road. mac Cormac caught Ennan’s arm on the way past. He was an older man ― with white hair and scars from battles fought before age forced him to retire ― and well-respected.

  “Speak soft to that one,” he said. “Your Uncle is a fool; show her you are not to be tarred with the same brush. I’ve known her well, over the years.”

  A fine, red horse waited by the side of the road for the woman but she chose to walk instead, her long stride setting a pace that left Ulick puffing and dripping with sweat. The cows did not seem to suffer any weariness and nor did Ennan, each floating stride he took seeming to carry him a yard or more. So must heroes feel, he thought.

  The fine, red horse trotted beside them.

  Back at the farm Ulick sent Bebin to fetch mead and Ennan to put the cows back into the field. Meanwhile, he fetched Fynnerois from her byre to show her off to the strange woman. The dainty cow pranced like a blood mare and tossed her fine-horned head. Her hide shone like ivory in the sunlight and her feet were obsidian.

  The woman held out her hand; Fynnerois came to her like a calf to its mother.

  “She will do,” the woman said. “Give her to me for three nights and when I return her she will be in calf to the finest bull in Ireland. The bull-calf she throws from this covering will be mine.”

  Ulick laughed coarsely.

  “Will it?” he said. “And why would I let you do this? What benefit is there for me?”

  Bebin brought the mead from the house. She blanched when she saw the red woman waiting in her yard, the freckles standing out on her plain face and the cups slipping from her numb hands. Ennan caught them before they fell, so that only a few drops of mead spilled.

  “She is no mortal woman,” Bebin whispered to him raggedly. “What does she wish of us?”

  “Fynnerois,” Ennan muttered.

  Bebin closed her bog-green eyes and mouthed a prayer to Danu. “We are going to die.”

  She took the cups back and hurried over to Ulick and the woman, essaying a clumsy curtsey in her thick skirts.

  “Father,” she said. “I am sure we can trust the Lady.”

  “You were sure you could trust that last beggar, Imbolc, not to steal from us,” Ulick snapped. “We are short one haunch of lamb and a jug of ale for your surety. Now hold your tongue and let your betters speak.”

  Bebin bit her lip and backed away, twisting her hands in her old apron. Ennan caught her by the shoulders and squeezed gently.

  “Don’t be concerned, Bebin,” he said. “It will be fine. Go inside.”

  She shook her head, brown braid whisking over her back, and fled. Ennan wiped his hands on his smock and walked across the field. The woman’s patience was clearly slipping. She tossed her head, tight copper coils escaping her pins, and turned her back on Ulick.

  “I will find another cow,” she said.

  “Not one as fine as my Fynnerois,” Ulick said. “Why look at her! Even the Morrigan’s heifers could not challenge her beauty.”

  The woman turned around, her eyes narrow under flame-lick brows. Her thin lips pursed and then smoothed into a smile.

  “A pouch of gold,” she said. “My horse left as surety.”

  Ulick hesitated, his mistrust tormenting him, and Ennan did not think the woman would tolerate her honor being questioned again. He took a shaky breath and dared to speak for his uncle.

  “Done and done, Lady,” he said.

  Those words earned Ennan bruises for a week but Ulick did not counter his nephew’s agreement. The woman loosed a golden girdle from around her waist and fashioned a halter for Fynnerois from it. Until this day, Fynnerois had never known a halter nor left the fields of Ulick’s farm, but she submitted and contentedly followed at the woman’s heels.

  The fine, red horse stood outside Ulick’s house for three nights. He tried to catch it to harness it to a plough but the horse led him a merry chase across the farm. He borrowed a thick-necked, goose-rumped mare from a neighbor, but the fine horse led her off into the
forest and returned alone.

  On the third day the horse was gone and Fynnerois was returned to them, none the worse for her journeying. Though you would not know that by the way Ulick fussed and fretted over her.

  Over the next few months, Fynnerois waxed in size like the moon, her white sides swelling till she could barely fit through the barn doors. Ulick fed her on the best grains and slipped strengthening herbs into her water, shorting his daughter and Ennan’s rations in her place. Fynnerois gave birth at night to three healthy calves the color of rich loam: two heifers and a bull-calf. They surpassed their mother. At only a week old the bull-calf sprouted horns and at two he stood taller at the shoulder than Fynnerois.

  Ulick looked at him and muttered and chewed his beard.

  Ennan feared what his uncle planned.

  After three weeks the woman returned to the farm. This time her wild copper hair was loose over her shoulders and she wore white silk thick with blue embroidery. She stopped at the field where Fynnerois nursed her calves and considered the scene: the ivory white mother and the two healthy young heifers.

  A weight settled on Ennan’s shoulder and he felt like every step he took towards her sank him into the earth. This was not what heroes felt, or if it was, only when they went to meet their doom. Ulick, on the other hand, chortled on his way down from the farmhouse.

  “Greetings, Lady,” he said. “You see my two fine young heifers, I see. They are the princesses of my farm. A shame that our deal specified that the first bull-calf would be yours.”

  “And there was no bull-calf?” she asked.

  “None,” Ulick asserted happily. “Just my two young girls. Perhaps another covering would serve your purposes better.”

  The woman regarded Ulick with disdain and tapped the butt of her spear three times against the fence.

  “Three nights I had your Fynnerois,” she said. “So three nights you have to find my bull-calf. Think well on your greed, Ulick mac Fearchair, and think hard on who you try to cheat.”

  She left without another word and disappeared at the gates to the farm, leaving not a strand of hair or thread of silk to show her passing. Ulick thought he had fooled her.

  “Give her the bull-calf, Uncle,” Ennan begged hopelessly. “This does our family dishonor and it is never wise to try and trick the likes of her.”

  Ulick snorted.

  “Don’t be a fool, boy,” he said. “She’s just a woman. If she was anything more, do you think she would not have just conjured up the bull-calf?”

  He pushed past Ennan and strode back towards the house. Ennan followed him in an attempt to get him to listen.

  “She vanished!”

  Ulick dismissed that with contempt. “She realized I had gotten the better of her and fled. This is the last we will see of her, mark my words.”

  That night a storm shook the house, rousing them out of their slumber. Thunder cracked overhead and lightning caged the dwelling. Rain leaked through the ill-thatched roof in dripping streams over their beds. Only Ennan, in his bed in the hay, had a warm night. By morning the house was drenched, half-flooded, and Ulick was more clod-tempered than usual from weariness.

  “Give the bull-calf back,” Bebin said as they broke their fast. “Things will get worse otherwise.”

  Ulick slapped her across the face for questioning him, pulled his boots on and stalked out of the house. His furious roar brought Bebin and Ennan stumbling out after him. The fence around Fynnerois’ field was broken and one of the two brown heifers was missing. Ulick bent down and picked up a long splinter of wood.

  “The bull-calf―” Ennan started. Before he could say anything else, Ulick turned and hit him with the wood. Ennan got his arms up just in time to avoid taking the blow in the face. Splintered edges tore at his forearms. The next blow took him across the shoulders and drove him to his knees. Ulick kept hitting him until his clothes tore and blood dripped into the mud and Bebin threw herself between them. He hit her once, scraping the line of her jaw and cracking her shoulder, then threw the stick down. The effort of beating Ennan had broken a sweat on Ulick’s forehead. “Fix the fence,” he snapped and stalked away.

  Bebin helped Ennan to his feet and used her apron to blot the blood from his face and scalp. Her fingers were trembling.

  “He won’t listen,” she said. “It will only get worse.”

  “I know.”

  Bebin twisted her bloodied apron in her hands.

  “Stay inside tonight,” she said. “I will tell Father it is to guard the house in case any dare try to enter; to stir his fear for his goods and himself. It is not safe for you out here.”

  That night the small farm house was surrounded by the clangor of a fight: the crash and clash of swords, the moans of the wounded and the shrill screams of embattled horses. It raged through the night, waxing and waning in ferocity. Ennan, huddled by the door and clutching an old cudgel in sweaty hands, heard the battle cries of kings and the death-groans of heroes: Conchobar, Fergus, Cuchulainn. There was no sign of any men in the darkness, but when Ulick drubbed Ennan from the house, he was given rough handling by the emptiness and thrown back over the threshold.

  He huddled with Bebin, holding her hand, while Ulick cursed in defiance and drank himself to sleep.

  “What will it be the third night?” Bebin asked in a whisper.

  Ennan could not answer. He squeezed her hand and murmured comfort against her temple. The sound of battle faded with the sun. The last they heard of it was a harsh, fading whisper through the door.

  “You will give her the calf. It is fated.”

  When Ennan went out to check to the farm, the second calf was gone. Fynnerois stood alone in the pasture, lowing disconsolately for her offspring. He milked her to make her more comfortable and placated her with food. When Ulick woke from his soused slumber he cursed the woman for a thief and a brigand and swore he would have her hung from the crows. Even Fynnerois felt his temper; her mourning driving him to whip her across the field.

  Still, he refused to produce the bull-calf.

  Once more Ennan fixed the fence, whispering his excuses to the Lady as he did so. He feared she would not hear him, nor care if she did. Her and hers were not known for their kindness.

  That night, the third night, a great fête was held on the farm. High, elegant beings danced with capering, chortling things that had trouble holding their forms. Laughter tinged with madness shrilled and the music the beings danced to was plucked on strange instruments that jangled the ear. The few hours of sleep snatched during the night were sour with dreams and portents.

  In the morning the pasture was empty: Fynnerois was gone.

  Ulick cursed the sun, moon and the gods, hunting up and down the barn for his missing treasure. There was no trace of her. In a fury he snatched up his switch and laid it across both Ennan’s and Bebin’s back, cursing them for traitors and conspirators. Blood flicked from the slender withy and spattered Ulick’s face and clothes.

  “You think I am blind to your plotting?” he ranted. “Are my eyes shut; my ears closed when you go off into corners to whisper and conspire? Am I a fool?”

  The cool, hard tones of the red-haired woman’s voice interrupted him.

  “Some would say that to ask the question is to answer it.”

  Ulick turned, blood in his eye and his chest heaving, and raised the bloody switch to her. She caught the length of wood in her hand before it could strike her face; the meaty thwack making Ennan flinch but the woman’s still, shining face showed no reaction. She took the switch from Ulick and her white hands snapped it into short lengths. The pieces fell between her fingers to the ground at her feet. Ulick’s hands opened and closed around the weapon he no longer held and for the first time he had wit enough to show fear.

  “If you had given me the bull-calf,” the woman said. “I would have granted you boons and wealth that kings and druids have begged for. Harm would have bypassed your farm and your beasts would have fattened on stones and sand.
Instead, you have lost everything.”

  Ulick raised his chin and stared at her defiantly,

  “You still don’t have your calf,” he said. “Bring back my Fynnerois and I shall gift him to you. Then we need never have dealings with each other again.”

  Those flame-lick brows rose.

  “You still try to haggle?” she asked.

  The young bullock appeared on the road behind her. He wandered up to her and stood, head low and gentle as a spring lamb, by her side. The woman put her hand on his proud skull, between the budding horns. “I am not one of your neighbors to be fooled by gravel amidst the oats or dozed cloth folded under good. These three nights were not a threat but a chance to repent.”

  The last reserves of Ulick’s fool pride were drained. His knees gave way under him and he knelt in the mud, clutching at the hem of the woman’s robe.

  “And I do,” he swore. “I repent, gentle one.”

  She kicked his hand from her robe. “Too late do you come to wisdom, Ulick. The deadline has passed. You wish to claim your Fynnerois again? Your white queen of cows who you boast is finer than the Morrigan’s own? Then go.” The woman pointed towards the fence, to the herd of white cattle that grazed there. To Ennan’s eyes, it seemed that the beasts had not appeared, more they had been there all along and it was his eyes that were lacking. “If you can find her amidst my herds, Ulick mac Fearchair, then she is yours and your debt to me is discharged. But for each cow you mistakenly claim as her, you must serve me for nine years.”

  Ulick rose to his feet and stared at the cows in dismay. Each white-flanked, dark-eyed beast was as fine as his Fynnerois but no finer. It was an impossible task, but the woman’s command was undeniable. His shoulders slumped and without a second look at farm or nephew or daughter he climbed into the field.

  “Fynnerois?” he called. “Fynnerois, my sweet girl. My beauty.”

  Now the woman’s gaze returned to Ennan. He knelt still and felt no urge to rise to his feet. Shame for his part in this bowed his head.