The Hounds of the Morrigan (21 page)

All the Maines cried silently.

Brigit did her best to wipe their tears but her hankie was still damp.

‘Oh, poor boys,’ said Pidge, and he took Brigit by the hand and hurried away from Maeve’s sons, before he cried too. It didn’t seem wrong to talk like this to young men who were a good deal older than himself; they seemed so lonesome, somehow.

He wished that Maeve were there to cheer them up, even if it was by giving them a hammering, they seemed to miss it so much.

But he would much rather that she could tell them stories and be nice to them.

O
N
the same morning that Pidge and Brigit had met the Old Angler and Serena the ass, the Sergeant woke up much earlier on, with a groan. He lay on his side for a good while, trying hard to put off turning over onto his back.

He knew that if he changed his position, his eye would light on the text that hung on the wall opposite the foot of the bed. The text had been given to him by his Horrible Auntie Hanorah, in honour of the day that he got promoted to Sergeant. It was there every morning, staring him callously in the face.

After some minutes he began to get pins and needles.

With another groan, he turned over and his gaze was drawn against his will to the text.

It was done in poker-work. It said:

Every morning, the Sergeant answered it:

‘It’s not. A rose is.’

This morning, however, he just said:

‘Why?’

Before his startled eyes, the text—giving out a hissing and crackling sound—changed. It now said:

‘What?’ said the Sergeant, sitting up in bed: ‘Am I seeing things, again?’

The text crackled even more loudly and emitted sparks. It changed again and said:

‘That poteen!’ exclaimed the Sergeant. ‘I always heard that the effects stayed in your system for days; but it never happened to me before!’

While he stared with his eyes popping, the text continued in a series of messages:

‘I wish the effects had been nicer,’ the Sergeant said glumly.

‘All right, all right! Stop nagging!’ the Sergeant answered crossly.

‘All right, I said!’ shouted the Sergeant and he got out of bed.

He started to obey all the orders.

‘Can’t you see I am washing behind my ears?’ he roared.

‘I’m sorry: I nearly forgot. God help me,’ said the Sergeant and that was the best prayer he said—he was so distracted by all the strange things that kept happening to him.

Later, he strode into the Garda Barracks.

‘Good morning, Sergeant. Isn’t it a lovely morning?’ said the young Garda with a bright smile.

‘Oil me bike!’ the Sergeant responded abruptly.

After all, he said to himself, what’s the use of being Sergeant if you can’t get your bike oiled?

But he was sorry in his heart for being nasty. It’s not the young fella’s fault when all’s said and done, he told himself severely. It’s Horrible Auntie Hanorah’s fault—a woman constructed on a frame of sharp bones, with a thin nose that could slice cheese, a tongue like a leather strap, and a heart that wore corsets of steel or was coated in concrete, at least.

When the young Garda came in to mutter that the bike was oiled and what else would the Sergeant like him to do, the Sergeant smiled a warm, expansive smile.

‘Don’t you be minding me, now. I’m not too well at present, you know. Here’s a couple of quid—take your young lady to the hop tonight,’ he said generously.

The young Garda blushed.

‘I haven’t got a young lady, Sergeant,’ he said.

‘WELL GO OUT AND GET ONE,’ the Sergeant roared in an immediate temper, feeling thwarted in every possible way.

He sat by the fire, brooding and drinking cocoa.

W
HEN
one of the hounds went to the glasshouse with the news that Pidge and Brigit had gone through the path under the stones, Breda Fairfoul, wearing a fashionable apron and a chef’s hat, was frying up a panful of Stinking Parasols, Death Caps and Destroying Angels for a late breakfast. Melodie Moonlight was brushing her hair with a hedgehog who was pretending to be in a coma; and the Great Queen was playing with a chessboard on which all the pieces were alive. She made her moves with the help of a sharp pin, using it to coax the figures to bustle from one square to another. She was smiling.

‘O Great Queen,’ said the hound speaking with a whistle, as though he had a bird trapped behind his teeth, ‘they were helped through.’

There was a squeak from the chessboard as she stabbed at something, with her pin.

‘Have you found the track?’

‘Not yet. It is elusive.’

The hound bowed and began to slide out the door with little backward steps, trying very hard to be insignificant. He held his tail in tight and moved slowly on the ground. He had almost reached the outside, when the Great Queen said with a mild, benign air and a terrifying gentleness:

‘Eating on duty, my pet? Come here.’

The hound came back, his jaw dropped open and a thrush flew out. The door shut itself.

‘O Mórrígan, be not angry,’ the hound pleaded. ‘I make no boast of skill. It flew so low it all but flew into my mouth of its own accord. Out of the sky, it came and seemed like a gift from yourself, Great Queen,’ he finished desperately.

‘Did it?’