by Gwynn White
Madelaine gave her a pleading look that meant: Won’t you carry Fifi? Leonie pretended not to see. She was carrying the Z4, inside Madelaine’s black shoulder bag this time. Just in case anyone was here, they had to look like harmless tourists.
She walked up the hill ahead of the princess. The wind wuthered in her ears. The air tasted so fresh it almost hurt.
Reaching the car, she circled it. “Bloody.”
“What is it?” Madelaine had stopped behind her. Frail and hooded, Fiona on her hip, she gazed back down at the lake.
“Literally. Bloody. Someone was kneeling behind the car, here, and they got shot. Splatter on the paintwork. And it can’t have been long ago or the rain would have washed it all off.”
Despite that grisly sign, Leonie opened the driver’s side door and had a hunt for the keys. This was a better car than their Mini. And changing vehicles again might help to throw MI5 off.
The keys were missing, of course. She straightened up and turned around. Madelaine was not there.
The red balloon bobbed around the outside of the churchyard and vanished down the far side of the knoll.
“Come back! Where’re you going!” Leonie ran after them.
When she got around the knoll, she saw Madelaine standing halfway down the slope to the lake, petting a small black pony. It nuzzled Fiona’s legs, and Leonie heard HRH giggling, a girlish sound that dissolved into the wind.
Leonie walked down the hill to them. “Where’d the pony come from?”
“Now you’ve frightened him. Come here, boy, come here …”
The pony obviously knew humans as a source of food. Its velvety lips nibbled Madelaine’s sleeve.
“Oh, I wish we had something to give you. Grant, go and get those apples from the car. We can give him one of those.”
“I think we ought to just leave, Your Highness.”
“What’s the hurry? Aren’t I allowed to enjoy myself even for a few minutes?”
“Horsey,” Fiona said, yearning with both arms. Leonie blinked. It was the first word she’d ever heard the baby speak. “Horsey!”
“Want to go ridey, Fifi? Ridey on the horsey? Let’s see if he’ll let you. See, Grant, she’s not scared of him …” Madelaine set Fiona on the pony’s back, supporting her astraddle.
The pony’s head came around. It was looking at Leonie, laughing at her, and deep in its liquid black eye she saw a spark of fire burning red.
She launched herself at Madelaine and Fiona, crying out, “No!”
Fiona flopped forward, twining chubby hands into the pony’s mane.
The pony’s ears flattened and it kicked, forcing Madelaine back. With Fiona clinging to its back, it galloped towards the lake. The red balloon, still tied to Fiona’s wrist, bobbled behind it.
Leonie fumbled the Z4 out of her bag, wedged the stock into her shoulder. Magazine loaded, selector on single shot. Did she dare to shoot? Did she dare to not shoot?
Twenty yards to the lake, the pony going like the wind. Fifteen.
Leonie fired a double tap. The pony’s stride faltered. She fired again, her target moving slower now, and the pony slowed. But still it was moving towards the lake, and Fiona was still stuck on its back, and now Madelaine was sprinting after them.
“Get out of my fucking line of fire!” Leonie screamed. Finger splayed outside the trigger guard, she started to run, too.
Ten yards to the lake. The pony hobbled on. Five. Leonie’s feet splashed in the boggy bits between the tussocks. Injured or not, the pony was going to reach the water, and Madelaine was still cluttering up her shot.
Gunfire erupted from off to the left. Leonie’s training threw her flat on her belly, Z4 held clear of the bog, left hand plunging into muddy water to break her fall. She identified the chatter of a Myxilite. She rolled, ready to shoot back, and saw that the pony had gone down. It was rolling in the bog, kicking its legs and screaming.
She stumbled to her feet, knees and arse soaked.
A gunman ran around the lake towards them, Myxilite pistoning in one hand.
Madelaine reached the pony. Fearless for once, she pounced. With Fiona locked in her arms, she floundered back towards Leonie. The baby was screaming, her pink romper soaked with bog water. The red balloon had burst at last. It was just a rag of foil trailing on its string.
“Is she all right?” Leonie demanded, her attention alternating between the pony and the approaching gunman. She held the Z4 low, not displaying open hostility, but wary. The bloke could’ve killed Fiona! But he had saved her. But he was still a bloke running around in the cuds with a Myxilite.
The pony thing was still dragging itself towards the water. Leonie thought about putting some more bullets in it. But she only had a few rounds left.
She urged Madelaine back from the shore, watching the gunman. He’d given up sprinting and was now jogging clumsily towards them.
“You could have killed her!” Madelaine shouted over Fiona’s wailing.
“That thing could have killed her! Why’d you let her ride it?”
“How was I to know it was wild?”
“It was more than just bloody wild!” Out of the corner of her eye, Leonie saw the pony roll heavily into the water. It sank beneath the surface. Ripples spread and vanished. “Look at that, would you, it just dived into the lake like a bloody fish!” The ripples broke on something else submerged just under the surface. The roof of a car. Maybe Fiona wouldn’t have been the thing’s first victim.
Madelaine’s mouth squared. She was going to start crying, too. “What was it?”
“How would I know?”
“It was a nympie,” said the gunman, panting up to them. “Your wee one had a narrow escape. Lucky I was here!”
Leonie scowled at him and started walking back the way they had come, steering Madelaine by one elbow. “What’s a nympie when it’s at home?”
“Sure it’s that fey beast that just went in the water. There was always one or two of them in this lake.” The man’s gaze fastened on the Z4 in Leonie’s hand. She read on his plump, sideburned face a mixture of lust for the weapon, and contempt for her shooting, as well as resentment of the very fact that she, a woman, should own such a rifle. Yet his voice stayed solicitous, warm with the chumminess that Irishmen typically showed to women, especially ones as pretty as Madelaine. “Is she not hurt, then, the wee one?”
“She was thrown clear.” Madelaine smiled and bobbed her head in thanks. “The ground is soft there, it broke her fall. We are in your debt, my good man.”
Short hair and a hoodie might disguise Madelaine’s appearance but nothing could disguise her accent or her highborn condescension. Despair plugged the bottom of Leonie’s stomach as the incongruity registered on the gunman’s face.
“What are you doing out here, then?” he demanded curiously. “It’s a long way from town, and as you can see no one lives here.”
“Don’t you?” Leonie said.
At the same time Madelaine said, “It was my—my bodyguard’s idea. She thought we might find what we’re looking for here!”
“Oh aye, and what’s that?”
This fellow was no farmer. He didn’t have the reddened face from working outside, and his clothes were too good, his hair longish but neatly parted. A Oughterard man out for rabbits? With a bleeding Myxilite? Leonie tried to send Madelaine a message with her eyes: shut up! But Madelaine did not see, or ignored her.
“It’s rather a long shot, I’m afraid. But … we’re looking for a woman. Diarmait MacConn’s common-law widow. Don’t worry, she isn’t in trouble of any sort. In fact she—she’s inherited some money. A legacy from my father. You wouldn’t know of her, I suppose?”
The man grinned. “I know her well! In fact I’m staying with her at the moment. She lives just up there.”
He pointed up past the village. Leonie followed his gesture to a thread of smoke, the same color as the clouds; you’d miss it if you didn’t know it was there.
Madelaine looked s
tunned. “That is—well, that’s marvelous!” Leonie felt stunned, too. So Tristan had been right. Or had he been? The wind blew the gunman’s fringe off his forehead and Leonie saw beads of sweat at his hairline, despite the cold. She didn’t trust him at all.
“Tell you what, m’lady, why don’t you come up the hill with me? You want to dry the wee one’s things before she catches a chill, and you can talk to herself. She’s there now.”
“That’s very kind of you, my good man,” Madelaine started to say.
“We’re not going anywhere with this bloke,” Leonie interrupted. “Come on, Your H—my lady. Let’s go.”
The man smiled mockingly. “Twitchy, sweetheart?”
“Just bugger off back to where you came from,” Leonie said.
“Oh—oh! Why must you spoil everything, Grant?”
“There’s the car. Get in.”
“If she doesn’t want to, you can’t make her.” The man circled towards Madelaine. “There now, m’lady, you’ve had a terrible shock.”
“I have.” On cue, Madelaine started to cry. “Fifi’s all I’ve got left, you see. My mother died when I was nine. And then my brother. My father. Everyone’s dead. And my h-h-husband …”
“Ah, now!”
If he lays hands on the princess, I’ll shoot him. Her thoughts were cold and definite, like bullets travelling through a void.
“My h-h-husband betrayed me. He’s an utter swine. And he’s got our son. So all I have is Fifi. Oh, my angel, my poor sweet little angel.” Madelaine covered Fiona’s face with tearful kisses.
“There, now. Better out than in.”
“Don’t you see, I simply can’t take any more! I simply can’t go on, and it’s no use asking me to!”
Leonie went over to the princess and patted her shoulder. That put her within reach of the gunman. She shifted her weight onto her forward foot and seized the barrel of his Myxilite, pushing down and twisting. His fingers loosed the weapon and he bent to reach for it. Leonie remembered her Company training. Their spairjack instructor had singled out the handful of female trainees: Here’s how you even up the odds. They had had to unlearn all their manners, learn to be aggressive instead of nice. She kicked the man in the groin. He dropped to the ground, yelping and weeping. She seized his ankles—luckily, he was a little fellow—and dragged him towards the Mini, his head bumping on the ground.
“Get the tow rope out of the boot!” she screamed at Madelaine. “Secure his weapon!”
She dumped the man beside the car and held the Z4 on him. The sky was vast and silent, a mouth full of clouds ringed by the fangs of the Twelve Bens. She had slogged up these very mountains, proving herself. Not around here, of course. The ROCK base the Company used for their selection courses was on the far side of the range, in County Mayo. Might as well have been a thousand miles away.
“Who are you?”
The man huddled against the wheel of the Mini, silent.
“Who told you to fuck with us?”
She kicked him in the stomach.
“Where’s Alyx O’Braonain?”
“Aaagh! She’s not here!”
“Is she up there on the hill?”
“No! Aaaarrgh!”
The howl of pain sounded exaggerated and the wet eyes were flickering around, looking for some way to escape. He’s not frightened enough. He should be kissing my boots and begging for mercy. If she couldn’t frighten him, how could she make him tell her the truth?
“What’s your name?” She menaced him with the Z4, and he smirked at her hopefully. “Are you IRA?”
“Is it joining up you’re here for? We don’t take English. We don’t take bints, either. Alyx doesn’t like competition. Not that you’d give her any, you ugly bitch.”
“Who’s the Black Mother? Is it Alyx herself?”
His smile broadened, blood trickling from a split lip. “You know nothing.”
“Right.” Leonie turned to Madelaine, who had put Fiona in the car, but made no move to fetch the tow rope. “Here’s his weapon, hold it on him!” She thrust the Myxilite at Madelaine. “Shoot him if you have to.”
She headed around to the front of the Mini and released the bonnet. She’d seen this done when she was in the Tabbies. She unclipped the jump leads and stood over the man. “Last chance. Where’s Alyx O’Braonain?”
“Fuck you.” The man surged up, trying to headbutt her. Ready for that, she stomped him in the stomach. He collapsed again, bleating. She clamped one of the jump leads onto his neck, catching a fold of skin, then touched the other clip to his ear.
He squealed, stiffened—all his limbs flying out like one of those dancing dolls when you pushed on the base—and slumped, legs lolling wide.
“Oh my God,” Madelaine said.
Leonie prodded the man with her toe. “Well?”
He lay snivelling with his face in the mud. “Belfast. She’s gone to Belfast. Ah God.”
“Pity I don’t believe you,” Leonie said. She laid the jump lead tenderly against his cheek. Held it there until he stopped screaming and was just twitching. “Now then, where is she?”
He was drooling blood, he’d bitten his tongue. Maybe she’d given him too much juice. “Belfast! Gone—to—Belfast!”
Do I believe him, or don’t I? She had to make up her mind, or they could go on like this all day.
She risked a glance over her shoulder, up the mountain. Amid the gorse, something moved. A goat. But that wasn’t what she’d seen.
An old woman, dumpy, grey hair escaping from a headscarf. Just standing there. Watching.
Leonie waved at her, friendly-like. Don’t mind us, Gran. Just taking care of business.
But the old woman stumped down the hill towards them.
“It’s her,” Madelaine said in a high voice.
The old woman said not a word as she took in the scene. Now that Leonie saw her in the flesh, it was clear she’d been beautiful once.
“What’s that noise?” she said eventually. “Not Ferdy. In the car. Sounds like a wean.”
Fiona was crying, all right. Leonie had stopped noticing the sound.
“It’s—it’s my daughter,” Madelaine said.
“Then why are you standing there? Not even the knackers leave their wee ones to cry like that.” The old woman turned to Leonie. “What have you done to poor Ferdy?”
The gunman was out cold. She’d given him too much juice. “I need to know where to find Alyx O’Braonain. He wasn’t cooperating.”
“But it’s Millie O’Braonain we’re looking for.” Madelaine scrambled out of the car with Fiona. “Aren’t you her?”
The old woman laughed. “First time I’ve ever been mistaken for that bitch. I’m Marigh Healy, lass. Everyone in these parts knows me. What were you wanting with Millie, then?”
Madelaine’s face fell. “I don’t understand,” she said in a devastated whimper. “You’re supposed to be her.”
“What do you not understand? It’s a tale easily told. You must be the only one who’s not heard it, but then you’re not from these parts. When he was young and foolish, Diarmait kept company with Millie. But she was deceiving him. She never gave a damn about the movement. She only pretended to love him because she thought he’d regain his throne, and that’s what she wanted—the riches, the high life, power. She wanted to be a queen. But after Niorlain and them betrayed Diarmait, she showed her true colors. Left him flat. Vanished into thin air. Time passed by and it was in sixty-two that I met him.” The old woman’s expression did not alter, but the hoarse voice might have softened slightly. “I was sorry he’d been cheated out of his birthright, but it was him I loved, not his name.”
Leonie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I see. It was you. The only woman Diarmait MacConn ever loved.”
“Aye. I still miss him. Every day.” Marigh Healy stumped across the road and peered down at Leonie’s prisoner. “What are we going to do with you, Ferdy? Been giving these lasses trouble, have you? And now you’ve g
ot what was coming to you.” Ferdy was twitching now, drooling, but still too far gone to know they were there. “My heart breaks for you, heh heh.”
“You know him?”
“He’s one of Alyx’s lads. Alyx is Millie’s daughter. Like mother, like daughter. Comes here with her retinue and eats me out of house and home. And that wyvern of theirs devoured one of my goats. They’re worth thirty pound each, and she gives me five. Five!” The old woman spat. “Then as if that’s not enough, Big Ted O’Leary comes looking for her and they slaughter him and all his men on my front doorstep. The movement’s gone to the dogs.”
“Is she still here?”
“Would I let her stay after that, think you? No, she’s gone, and before you ask, I don’t know where and I don’t care.”
Belfast, the man Ferdy had said.
“But what are we going to do with this lad? She left him behind to protect me. Heh. He went out today hoping to shoot nympie; I was hoping nympie would get him. That’s the only good thing she’s ever done for me, bringing nympie back, and it wasn’t her that did it, it was that black magician who follows her like a wee dog.”
Leonie was getting tired of the old woman’s chatter. It was all too hard to take in. Ferdy was twitching, regaining consciousness. Leonie felt a spasm of irritation as bright and intense as lightning. She took the Z4 from Madelaine’s hands, pressed the muzzle into his head, and fired.
Marigh Healy cackled in exultation. “That’s giving him the stuff!”
You vicious old bag. The only woman Diarmait MacConn had ever loved? Leonie believed it.
They hauled the body away from the car and left it arse-up in the ditch along the lakeside road. Leonie took the dead man’s Myxilite, after Marigh Healy had said she didn’t want it. All of Leonie’s remaining Z4 rounds had made a one-way trip through Ferdy’s head. The Myxilite was a piece of shit, but at least it still had some ammo in it.
“Belfast,” Leonie murmured. “Belfast.”
It was a long way from here. The roads in the west of Ireland were a joke, and hills were not the Mini’s forte at the best of times.
Maybe we should ditch the car, take the train. But if MI5 is on the lookout for two women and a baby…