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‘Hi, I … was worried about you.’
I looked around the room to see if anybody else was there. ‘You talkin’ to me?’
She laughed. ‘Yes I am. Are you OK?’
I sat up. ‘I am now.’ There was an awkward silence where we just stared at each, other until I broke it with, ‘You look good without the wrinkles and the grey hair.’
‘Why, thank you,’ she said with a nod of her head.
‘What’s it like drinking Tuan’s blood?’
‘Gross but kind of – wonderful. I haven’t felt this good in years. I have tons of energy.’
‘Maybe I should order a green dragon cocktail for myself?’
‘Maybe we should get my father to whip up some Tuan blood wine?’
We both laughed. It was nice – normal. Could it be that I was forgiven? I wondered. Could Essa and I ever be – normal?
The question was cut short by the sound of bare feet slapping against the stone floor. I was smothered in kisses even before I could see whose lips were administering them. Not that I had to look, there’s only one mermaid in all of The Land that greets me like that.
‘Oh Conor,’ kiss, kiss, ‘I have been so worried about you,’ kiss, kiss, kiss.
‘Hi Graysea,’ I garbled between smooches, ‘have you met Essa?’
The introduction had the desired effect of getting Graysea to let up on my face.
‘I remember Essa,’ Graysea said in a tone I had never heard from her before. ‘The first time I saw her she hit you in the head with a stick.’
I expected Essa to storm off, hopefully without hitting me in the head, but instead she stood her ground. ‘What are you still doing here?’
Oh my, I thought to myself, this has the potential to turn into a serious cat fight – or a cat and fish fight and they usually don’t turn out very well for the fish. I know it was cowardly of me – I reached for the bedside table but, damn it, there wasn’t any of that knock-out medicine there.
‘Where else should I be but by my beloved Conor’s side?’
To be perfectly honest I wasn’t the only reason she was still here – Graysea had nowhere else to go. When the Mertain King found out that she had stolen his dragon’s blood to give to me, he banished her.
Essa was close to snarling when she said, ‘I can think of several places I would rather you to be.’
‘Essa,’ I said as gingerly as I could, ‘Graysea helped me escape from a very difficult situation.’
‘Oh, did she?’ the Princess said. ‘And what other situations did she help you in or out of?’
‘I don’t understand you,’ my mermaid said with her usual tilt of the head. ‘Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be mourning the loss of your fiancé?’
I instantly popped up on my knees on the mattress between them. Essa had stepped back in what I recognised as a preparation to spring. I really didn’t want to be in the middle of this and suspected that any second I was going to get the worst of it.
‘Everyone out,’ came a command from the doorway. Dad was standing there in his drill suit. He wore that kingly face that made the two women snap to attention and then quickly leave. Neither said goodbye to me as they never really took their eyes off each other for the entire exit.
‘Thank you,’ I said when the Princess and the mermaid were out of earshot.
‘Don’t thank me too soon,’ Dad said, throwing me the clothes that he had been carrying. ‘Your mother and Fand have given you a clean bill of health, so come with me – it’s time for some training.’
‘Training for what?’
‘We’re going to launch an assault on the Oracle of Mount Cas.’
I thought about the prospect of going into battle again and then thought about the skirmish that Dad had just saved me from. War didn’t seem that bad at all.
Chapter Five (#ulink_dda3a7a5-7436-512f-baba-245d4d760f7a)
Graysea and Essa (#ulink_dda3a7a5-7436-512f-baba-245d4d760f7a)
I was back in Dahy’s boot camp. This time it was worse than the first time. The first time I knew I didn’t know anything. This time I thought I knew everything and Dahy proved to me that I once again knew nothing. We were learning a new technique. The master didn’t have a name for it so I called it ninja school – ’cause that’s what it felt like. None of us were allowed to execute any of our showy spins or flip manoeuvres. Every movement had to be minimal. All over the armoury, where we practised, were wooden dowels balanced upright with feathers perched on top. Every time one of us disturbed a feather, or worse, knocked over a dowel, Dahy would shoot us in the legs with a crossbow bolt that had a woollen ball stuck on the end. If you think that doesn’t sound like it would hurt – then think again.
Araf was really good at it. It wasn’t until I saw him in a room full of feathers did I realise just how economical a fighting style he had. Except for his figure of eight propeller-like stick move, Araf hardly had to change his technique at all. Essa was lucky she didn’t have to learn this stuff. Without all of her flipping and twirling she would have been very unhappy. And when Essa is unhappy – everyone is unhappy.
Gerard, Essa’s father, forbade her to go into the Oracle’s house. She wasn’t about to let her father boss her around like that but when Gerard threatened to withdraw all of Castle Duir’s wine shipments – Oisin took Essa off active duty. She was furious and Dad had to remind her that he was, like, a king. She stormed off kicking anything, and anyone, in her path. In short, Essa was to be avoided, but I was doing that already.
Even though our practice was deadly serious it was also fun. Dad joined us and so did Mom and Aunt Nieve. The ladies had a hard time casting spells without all of that dramatic wicked-witch arm waving. Dad, who already had, like, a hundred years’ worth of Dahy tutelage, just seemed to do whatever the master told him to do without any effort at all. One time I pushed Dad over, just to see if Dahy would shoot the king with his crossbow. He didn’t, he shot me.
Brendan trained with us but he wasn’t going either. He wanted to come, just like he wanted to ask the yew trees if he could use Spideog’s bow, but he had a responsibility to his daughter Ruby not to put himself in harm’s way.
‘And actually,’ he confided to me one day at lunch, ‘I’m in no hurry to see that Oracle guy again. If I recall he kicked our butts good with just a flick of the wrist.’
I pointed that out to Dahy but he said he had a plan. So by day we continued to practise our non-feather-disturbing fighting techniques and by night I rubbed healing salve into the black and blue bruises on my legs that Dahy gave me with his crossbow.
The banging on my bedroom door would have busted any Real World door off its hinges but Duir doors are made of hardy stuff.
‘Conor,’ the voice on the other side bellowed, ‘I want to talk to you.’ I knew who it was right away – everyone in the castle was talking about it. New wine is news around here but when it’s delivered by the master winemaker himself – that’s big news.
I opened the door and there stood the largest of all of the larger-than-life characters in Tir na Nog. Gerard stepped into the doorway, blocking out all of the light beyond. In his hand he held a metal bucket with a piece of cloth over the top – it didn’t look like a weapon but I kept my eye on it.
He strode further into the room, forcing me to back up, and said, ‘If I didn’t know better I would think that you have been hiding from me.’
‘I … maybe I have been,’ I confessed.
‘Why would you do that?’
‘I guess you haven’t spoken to Essa yet?’
Gerard frowned and placed his bucket on the floor. ‘Oh, I have spoken to my daughter all right. She is mighty mad at you and this – what did she call her – “fishy floozy” of yours.’
‘That’s why I’ve been avoiding you,’ I said.
‘Let me get this straight, you think that because my daughter is angry with you, that I will be too.’
‘Aren’t you?’
He came at me with his arms outstretched. I had a brief flashback of the bear attack in the Pookalands. He wrapped his arms around me and gave me one of his laughing hugs that lifted me off the ground. ‘Oh my boy,’ he said, and I relaxed even though my ribs were threatening to crack. ‘If Essa is mad at you, then you already have more enemies than any one man can stand.’ He let go of me and I tested my diaphragm to see if I could still breathe. ‘Good gods and monsters, if I had to be angry at everyone that my little darling was irritated with – I would not have any friends or customers at all.’
‘So you’re not here to give me the “don’t you dare hurt my daughter” speech?’
Gerard laughed, picked up his bucket and moved over to the table on the other side of the room. ‘Oh, I don’t give that speech. I usually just try to discourage Essa’s beaus for their own safety.’
We laughed at that as he whipped the cloth off his bucket like a TV magician. ‘I’ve brought you a gift.’ Buried deep in snow, with only their necks sticking out, were four bottles. I grabbed one, releasing it from its icy bed.
‘Beer!’ I shouted.
‘I remembered that last time you were in Castle Muhn you said you wanted beer that is “lighter, fizzier and colder” – well, try this.’ He reached over and placed his hand on the neck of the bottle and mumbled. The cork began to spin and then rise until it shot out of the bottle with a satisfying pop.
I took a quick gulp to catch the foam from overflowing onto the floor. Gerard scrutinised my face for any hint of criticism. ‘Well?’ he asked as I wiped my mouth with my sleeve.
‘I think you should give up on this wine stuff and become a full-time brewer.’
Gerard beamed like a child who had just received a stick-on star on his homework.
‘Did I hear someone shouting beer?’ It was Brendan at the door.
‘Brendan,’ I said. ‘Come in and meet Essa’s father, Lord Gerard of Muhn.’
‘Oh,’ Brendan said, a bit surprised while improvising a bow. ‘How do you do? I’m a big fan of your wine.’
‘Well, come in and try my beer,’ Gerard said without standing.
Brendan hesitated and said, ‘Actually I was just passing with my mother.’ Brendan reached into the hallway and took his mother’s hand and guided her into the room. ‘Lord Gerard, may I introduce Nora Fallon.’
I hadn’t seen Brendan’s mother since she arrived in the Hall of Spells. She was dressed in a green felt-ish tunic with gold embroidery and leather trousers – pretty much what everyone around here wears and it suited her to a T.
Gerard jumped to his feet, and bowed. ‘Of course I have heard about both of you. Welcome home, Druids. Please join us in a drink.’
Nora bowed. ‘Thank you, my lord, but no. I have to tend to my granddaughter.’ Brendan started to go with her when Nora said to her son, ‘No, please stay. I know how much you are missing beer.’ She bowed once again to us and left.
‘Your mother,’ Gerard said after seating Brendan and uncorking a beer for him, ‘is … old.’
‘Yes, try not to point that out to her when you meet her next. She’s getting a bit tired of that.’
‘But according to my daughter a couple of drops of blood from that remarkable Pooka friend of yours would change that – would it not?’
‘Tuan has offered my mother some dragon blood but she says she feels great and likes herself the way she is.’
‘Well, it sounds as if your mother knows her own mind. I like that in a woman.’ Gerard slapped Brendan on the shoulder, changing the subject. ‘My daughter speaks highly of you, Druid.’
‘Well, she hasn’t hit me yet,’ the cop said.
Gerard laughed, ‘It’s a shame you are not going on our little expedition but I understand about parental responsibilities.’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Are you coming?’
‘Oh yes,’ Gerard said, ‘Oisin has summoned me – I am an integral part of the plan.’
‘Look it’s a three and a half day ride to the base of Mount Cas,’ I said. ‘There is no reason to leave at dawn. We can leave at, like, ten and still be there way before it’s dark on the fourth day.’
‘Son, we leave at dawn – that’s how it is.’
‘Who says? Where is it etched in stone that all expeditions must leave at dawn?’
Finally Dad gave me one of his patented withering stares that, although he looked like my annoying younger cousin, still worked.
‘Yes sir. See you in the morning.’
‘Before the morning,’ he called after me.
So here I was, yawning while dragging my pack on the ground behind me, trying to get some kind of enthusiasm for the adventure ahead.
Believe it or not, I was early. The only ones in the stable before me were Gerard and four brawny soldiers. I watched and yawned as they hoisted a huge wine barrel on to Gerard’s cart.
‘Are we planning to get sloshed on this trip?’
‘I wish,’ Gerard said. ‘There is no wine in that barrel.’
‘What’s in there?’
‘Salt water.’
I was about to ask why we needed a barrel of salt water when I was blinded by a pair of hands covering my eyes from behind. ‘Guess who?’ said the unmistakable voice.
‘Is it a person or a fish?’ I asked.
‘Both.’
I turned to see the ever bubbly Graysea standing behind me. She kissed me on both cheeks and said, ‘Good morning.’
‘Good morning to you too – how nice of you to see me off.’
‘Oh, I’m not seeing you off. I’m going with you.’
‘Graysea, this is a very dangerous mission. I really don’t think you should come.’
‘Think again, son,’ Dad said while arriving around the corner with his mount.
I walked Dad out of earshot. ‘Why is Graysea coming with us?’
‘Because we are going up against a tough customer and I want a healer with us, and I have never seen anything like that Mertain healing power of hers.’
‘Yes, Dad, but she’s …’ I tried to remember what matron had said about Graysea. ‘She’s a sensitive fishy.’
‘I think you underestimate your mermaid, son. Graysea saved your butt out there in the ocean and defied her king. She can handle a three-day hike.’
