He groaned and smote himself on the head. But he knew better than to bargain with the crones. The longer the conversation, the more it would cost him. He groaned again, and said:
“Agreed.”
“Go away, good customer,” said Drabne. “Amuse yourself until the hour before dawn while my sister and I counsel together. When you return, we shall have a plan to present.”
Goll strode away through the wood and left the withered sisters hanging upside down on their branch, twittering away to each other. How he would have liked to set a torch to them as he had done to wasps’ nests when he was a boy. But he did not dare. He walked through the woods thinking many things, and returned an hour before dawn.
“Greetings, O Master of the Fianna,” said Drabne. “My sister and I have conferred. We submit this plan.”
Drabne spoke a long time then. Occasionally her sister broke in to add a detail or two. Goll listened very carefully. As he listened, he began to smile. When she had finished he was laughing. A curious sound, something like the creaking of a gate that has not been oiled; he was not used to laughing. When she was through, it was full dawn and he could see the witches in all their ugliness. He bit back his shudder. He knew full well that you must never show a female—young or old; maiden, nymph, or crone; filly, mare, or nag; chick or vixen; blooming girl or horrid hag—that she is anything but charming and desirable. He made himself smile, and kissed the withered claws of their hands, letting his lips linger on the mildewed hide, and said:
“Oh, sisters sage, your wisdom is surpassed only by your beauty. Truly, I thank you for this splendid strategy, and will begin the payment of your fee immediately.”
“You are courteous indeed,” said Drabne. “Quite our favorite client, in fact. Isn’t he, sister?”
“Oh yes … oh yes … teehee. …”
“Thank you, kindly Crones,” said Goll. “And farewell.”
“Farewell. Do ill,” they said politely, and flew away, blinking and smiling, for they hated the sun and loved the darkness.
Now, to understand the dreadful trap being prepared for Finn, you must know about Hanratty.
He was a king in Ulster, a huge burly brawling man. The battle-axe was his favorite weapon. There was no peace in Ulster, but there were long dull periods of truce when all he could use his axe on was trees.
One day he went farther than usual and found himself in a grove he had not seen before. Oaks grew there, beautiful thick old trees, evenly spaced. The earth was strangely clear of acorns and twigs, as if it had been swept. He did not know it but he had stumbled on a sacred grove of Amara, Goddess of Growing Things. All he saw was the thickness of the trees and a chance to use his wild strength. He stepped to the largest tree and raised his axe.
“Do not strike,” the tree said.
“Why not?”
“This grove belongs to Amara. I am one of her oak maidens, grown old now, a priestess now, and this tree is her temple. It must not be defiled.”
“This grove belongs to me,” said Hanratty. “And I am not in the habit of consulting trees before I chop them down.”
He swung his axe and buried its head in the trunk of the tree. The wind moaned through the leaves, and blood, not sap, bathed the axe-head. But Hanratty was used to blood; for a moment he fancied himself in the whirl of battle again, and happily swung his axe. By this time he was all spattered with blood like a butcher, but he chopped faster and faster—and the great tree fell with a tremendous crash. He looked at its bulk lying there, shouldered his axe and tramped away. Owls and hawks dipped in to sip the blood welling from the stump.
When Amara heard the news—and she heard it soon because birds are great gossips—she was torn by rage. Never had she been so insulted by mortal.
“No … I will not kill him, not just yet,” she whispered to herself. “Death is too easy. I must think of something to fit the crime. And not in some dim afterlife, but here, right here on this earth he loves so well and uses so violently. Yes, I shall practice my reprisal on that big hot body whose pleasure he is always serving.”
She paced her throne room, and thought and thought, and finally sent for one of her servants. This was a terrible servant, one she rarely employed, and only when people seemed to be losing veneration for the Queen of Harvests. The servant’s name was Famine. She was not quite a skeleton. She had flesh, but it hung on her like rags on a scarecrow. Her lips had fallen away, and the fleshy part of her nose, and the flesh had been eaten away from her eyepits so that her face was four holes and a fall of hair.
“Hail, great Queen,” she said. “It is long since you called upon my services. I have been in the Place of Shadow working for Oogah. She sends me out to frighten children. I come to them as dreams of their dead grandmother, bringing night-sweats and filial piety. Half-rations down there, Amara, half-rations. You see I have been forced to finish my own lips.”
“I have a task for you, Famine. You will feed well for a while. …”
While this was happening, those dire sisters, Drabne of Dole and the Fish-hag, were preparing to strike.
Drabne of Dole, making herself invisible, followed Hanratty around his courtyard that noon, and stole his shadow. She folded it carefully, stuck it in her purse, and flew away.
That same morning, the Fish-hag went to the woodland pool where Finn swam each morning. She hid underwater and kept out of his way as he swam. Then she crouched under the bank and waited. He climbed out and knelt on the bank to look into the mirror of the still water and comb his hair. But as soon as his image flickered on the silver pool the Fish-hag seized it, stuck it in her purse, and swam off.
The sisters met in a clearing of the woods. They set a black pot boiling on a fire of twigs, and dropped in a frog, a spider, and certain magic spices. Then Drabne stirred in the shadow of Hanratty, and the Fish-hag added Finn’s image she had stolen from the pool.
The pot bubbled; its lid bounced spurting steam. The sisters joined hands and danced around the fire, singing:
When we disagree
with nature’s decree
Why, then, we two
simply brew
A magic recipe,
Or two, or three.
Teehee … tehee … tehee.
From the steaming pot two spites arose. Drabne seized one, spoke a curse, and hurled it northward. The Fish-hag seized the other, spoke a curse, and hurled it southward. The spites flew like darts, one toward Ulster, one toward Meath. They flew and darted and hurried and hurtled through the changing airs. One entered the castle in Ulster and bit Hanratty’s neck, hanging there like a bat. The other found Finn as he was crossing a meadow in Meath, and bit him on the neck, hanging there like a bat. Hanratty fell to the floor, bloodless, and lay there with no more thickness than a cobweb. Finn’s spite drank all his blood, and left the boy on the grass, no thicker than a cobweb.
A bitter draught blew through the castle, lifting Hanratty’s cobwebby body off the floor, blowing it out the window, beyond the walls, southward. A sweet strong meadow wind blew, lifting Finn’s cobwebby body off the grass and sailing it north.
Finn came to the castle, the king to the meadow. The lacy bodies plumped out, and took on color. But a powerful magic had been worked, making Finn and Hanratty change places. Finn now had Hanratty’s appearance, and sat massively on his throne, while Hanratty was now a slender youth whose eyes were sometimes gray and sometimes blue as the light changed. They were still themselves in their souls, but with each other’s body and habits—and both were in ignorance of the transformation.
And so it was that that night when Famine arrived to work Amara’s vengeance she found Finn in Hanratty’s place, and never knew the difference.
Finn had eaten and drunk himself into a heavy stupor, and was lying on his couch when he was visited by an amorous dream. A naked maiden, tall and graceful, came to his couch where he lay all flushed with wine. Her hands were cold, laving his heat. Cool as tall eels her drifting legs. And her hair seemed froste
d. When he embraced her she pressed so close that the icy length of her body seemed to be entering his, laying delicious icy fingers on the very roots of his blood. He shuddered with pleasure, and slept.
When he awoke in the morning he was hungrier than he had ever been in his life before. He sent for a monster breakfast. Five huge melons. A great tureen of porridge. A baby pig, roasted whole. Twenty hens’ eggs. And half a barrel of wine.
“Call that a breakfast?” he roared, flinging the barrel at the cook’s head. “Food, man, food!”
The cook was terrified. The king had eaten all his own breakfast, and his daughter’s breakfast, and the servants’, too. But still he called for more. Even in the kitchen they could hear him bellowing—all the way from the great dining hall. Nothing to do then but to serve him what had been planned for lunch. Now they brought him a huge haunch of venison. A peck of potatoes roasted in their skins. Also pastry, honey, apples, grapes. And a barrel of undiluted wine.
They brought him food. Finn sat at the great table, roaring with hunger, striking the board with the haft of his axe. Hanratty’s young daughter sat near him, not daring to speak a word, staring at the man she thought her father, amazed. Finn seized the haunch of venison as if it were a drumstick and ate it swiftly, wrenching the meat from the bone, eyes bulging. When he had stripped all the meat away, he cracked the head of the huge bone between his teeth and sucked the marrow. Then he reached with both hands, seizing potatoes and pastry and fruit and shoving them indiscriminately in his mouth, chewing and mumbling, and looking about the table for more. He ate the fruit—skins, pits, and all—drained the flagon of honey, then raised the barrel of wine to his mouth, drank that off, and flung the barrel away.
The girl was still staring at him.
“You know, you’re very pretty,” he said to her.
“Father, what’s the matter? Why are you looking at me like that? Don’t you know me?”
“You must be my daughter since you call me father.”
“But why are you acting so strangely?”
“Pretty girls shouldn’t ask questions. They should enjoy their food, and smile, and play the harp.”
“Would you like me to play, Father? And sing for you?”
“After we’ve had something to eat. I must apologize for this meager fare, my dear. …”
“Are you still hungry, father?”
“Cook!” he bellowed. “Where is that rascal?”
The servants rushed to the storeroom to get what was laid by for dinner. A very lavish state dinner—he had planned to entertain three kings. But his daughter told the servants to prepare the food as quickly as they could, and she herself sent messages to the three kings, asking them to come another time.
So the great kitchen fires blazed. Spits were turning. Pots were boiling. Every servant was working like ten. For it was not enough to prepare the dinner. Finn still sat at the table, and they had to assuage his raging hunger by a constant stream of tidbits until the main course should be ready. But they could not appease him. He came storming into the kitchen and seized a half-cooked sheep from the spit, and ate it right there, standing in front of the fire, feet spread, one hand on each end of the spit, not noticing that his hands were burning. He devoured the sheep, and cracked the bones and sucked the marrow—and smote the cook again for being slow. Then he went back to the table to wait for his meal.
The bewildered footmen tried to serve him as if it were a formal dinner and he a banquet room of guests. They began with a huge carp, which had been raised in the royal pond and fed only on swans. He didn’t bother to slice it. He ate it from tail to nose, crunching the bones, eating the eyeballs like grapes. Then he ate several giant crabs, shells and all. He drank off a tub of mutton and barley soup, then went to work on a whole roasted ox stuffed with pigeons. When he finished the ox it was midnight. His eyes were glazed, his face red and swollen. But he ate the honey and cakes and fruit, finishing another barrel of wine—and then, finally, stumbled to his couch with a bowlful of walnuts. And the weary servants who had been feeding him since dawn began to clear the table.
He awoke in the middle of the night, ravenous. The servants were all asleep. He would have roused them, but he couldn’t bear the delay. He took a torch and went to the kitchen. The cupboards were bare, not enough there to interest a mouse. He went to the storeroom, placed the torch in a sconce on the wall, and then looked at the carcasses hanging from meat hooks. He lifted an enormous side of beef from its hook, sat down on a barrel and began to devour it. It wasn’t cooked, of course, but he didn’t care. By dawn all the carcasses were gone—the oxen, the sheep, the dressed goats—he had eaten them all. He went off to take a nap before breakfast.
By the end of the week there wasn’t a scrap of food to be found in the castle or in any of the houses around. The villagers had fled—because he had sent his soldiers to take their livestock. He hunted from morning till night. Game was plentiful. He killed stags and wild boars, nor did he fear to hunt the savage bear, for bear steaks were good too. But, mighty hunter though he was, he could not kill enough each day to satisfy the day’s hunger. Famine was inside him; when he fed himself he fed her. And she grew stronger and stronger and made him want more and more and more.
Finally, his kingdom was swept bare. The villagers had fled; their crops lay untended; he had devoured all their stock. There was no game in the forest, no fish in the rivers. He sold all he owned—his castle and his jewels, his very crown, his chariots; the horses had long been eaten. He sold everything, keeping only his battle-axe. Then he took the princess and went to another kingdom to buy food with his gold. It was a treasure of gold, a huge leather bagful. But inside a week he had spent it all on food, and had nothing left.
Now the hunger began to torment him so that he could think of nothing else. More than a hunger, it was more like a thirst, but for food. A thirst, parching every juice of his body, involving all his organs, squeezing his entrails into one burning mandate—food!
Finn was walking outside the city, along the shore, trying to find a washed-up fish, upending rocks and scraping barnacles off with his teeth, for they had tiny specks of flesh inside. Gulls stooped, screaming. He was hoping to catch one. A man of the city passed, walking by the shore. Stout, richly dressed, a merchant by the look of him. He passed, and looked back again at Hanratty’s daughter.
“Stop!”
The man turned. Finn held the girl by the wrist, and walked to the merchant.
“You, there. You looked at her.”
“I meant no offense, sir,” said the man.
“I don’t care what you meant. Do you like her?”
“What?”
“This girl, man, the girl. Do you fancy her?”
“She is … very beautiful.”
“How beautiful?”
“What?”
“How beautiful? In money? How much?”
“Are you offering to sell her?”
“She’s mine to sell.”
“I hesitate to name a price.”
“Don’t hesitate.”
“I’m not a rich man. …”
“Look, sir, I am a king, no greasy merchant. I do not bargain. I am a king and I am offering you a princess. The price is ten bars of gold, which I know you can afford. So let us conclude before I lose my temper.”
The merchant looked at the huge hairy wild-eyed stranger, and then at the lovely young girl. He sighed deeply, and wrote an order for ten bars of gold. Finn snatched the paper and rushed toward the city to the countinghouse before it should close. The merchant and the girl stood looking at each other on the beach.
She was looking at him, but her eyes had already veiled over, refusing to see him. She had seen enough in one swift glance—the mild pouting cheeks, the tiny mouth, the shrewd eyes, the big stomach. She moved from him and waded out into the water, and stood there, whispering:
“Oh, Father Lyr, you whom I have always honored above all the gods—ever since I was a little girl and my
father thrust me into the salt bay like a wriggling little tadpole, and I felt no fear at all, only a wild bliss—oh, Lyr, whose sea I have always loved, whom I love even in rage because your rage is storm and in the center of storm I find silence which my heart drinks—O Lyr of the living waters, oh, master of the horse, swinger of tides, hear my prayer. I am only a young girl, a lost princess whose father, the king, has gone mad. Please, please deliver me from the gross body of this transaction. Please, please save me from this ugly old man. At his touch I will either perish, or kill him and go mad as my father. Please help me, Lyr, and teach me to help my father in his crazed hunger.”
The merchant stood there on the beach keeping an eye on his new purchase as she stood knee-deep in the water. Then he saw a wave rolling, larger than the others. Even as he looked upon it, its cusp deepened and seemed to fill with hot silver. The light was too bright; it stabbed his eyes with pain. He looked away and blinked—and, when he looked back again, there was no girl there, but a fisherman casting his net.
“Fisherman, fisherman,” he cried, “have you seen a girl?”
The fisherman shook his head silently.
“Where is she, where did she go? She’s brand-new—just finished paying for her. Where did she go?” He raced down the beach, frantically looking for the girl.
That night, Finn was in the hovel where he now lived, finishing an enormous meal, when he saw an old fisherman come in with a net over his shoulder. He threw the net on the table and little silver fish spilled out.
“For your breakfast,” said the fisherman, and turned into Hanratty’s daughter.
“A clever trick,” said Finn. “Where did you learn it?”
“When you left me with that terrible man, I prayed to Lyr to help me. He did. He taught me sea changes.”
“Think you can do it again?”
“Oh, father. …”
“Well, if Lyr is trying to help, let him do it right. Gods should not stint—any more than kings. You just keep saying those prayers, missy. I see a small but steady income.”
The next day he sold her to a landowner. When the old man tried to embrace her, she turned into the likeness of his wife, paralyzing him with fear. And so she slipped away.
The Green Hero Page 13