The Hounds of the Morrigan (9 page)

‘Brigit! Stop it and come on!’ Pidge interrupted her as forcefully as he could. ‘Do you want to hear about this serious thing or don’t you?’

‘Oh, all right, but it’s a pity to leave it though, isn’t it?’

She followed him back along the track turning to look over her shoulder at the waterfall with every second step she took.

Halfway between the island and the mainland, Pidge stopped rowing. He told her the whole story, right from the very beginning in the bookshop in Galway. She listened, her face alive with interest and fascination, and it changed from mood to mood as Pidge talked. It was just like the sky on an unsettled day.

‘I think it’s wonderful,’ she said when he had finished. ‘I hope and pray that some more things happen and I’m in it with you.’

‘But it could be dangerous,’ he said seriously.

Brigit shrugged her shoulders.

‘What do I care,’ she said. ‘I’m not afraid of danger.’

‘Well, you would be if you had any sense.’

‘Ho! Would I, indeed!’ she said and she grinned.

And Pidge was very glad that he had told her, for the sharing had lifted some of the weight off his mind. It made him feel better just to look at her cheeky grin. It’s her nature to be light-hearted and doesn’t it come in useful at times, he thought.

The heat of the day bore down heavily on them. It seemed to be getting even hotter. To the west of them, the lake was a vast expanse of shimmering bronze. If he gazed at it for too long, the effect would be entrancing, hypnotic.

The swans were gone, he noticed.

He dipped his oars and began to row to the mainland.

They had dragged in the boat and were walking back along the boreen, feet trailing in the dust. Trickles of sweat were running down Pidge’s back like rain on a window-pane. Brigit’s forehead glistened and her hair was curling in little damp ringlets at her temples. She was looking down at her feet; looking at the way the dust was gradually covering her sandals as though sprinkled with talcum powder. She saw a fat worm on the ground, whiplashing in silent pain.

‘Oh! Look at this poor worm, Pidge!’ she cried.

‘A bird must have dropped it,’ he said. ‘It’s dying from the heat.’

‘We must save its life!’ Brigit said dramatically.

‘We’ll find somewhere damp.’

Pidge bent down and picked up the worm.

‘It’s all covered in dust, poor thing,’ Brigit said.

Pidge looked round for a damp place to put the worm. The grass verges were dry and parched and useless. Lying against a small stone was a solitary white wing feather, speckled with droplets of blood now dried brown.

‘One of the swans got hurt in the fight,’ he said.

‘Oh no!’ Brigit cried, full of concern.

‘It’s all right, Brigit,’ Pidge said. ‘Look, only a few little drops of blood. It wasn’t hurt badly.’

‘All the same,’ Brigit said, her face instantly pugnacious, ‘I don’t want them to be hurt at all. I’d like to get my hands on the bully-dog that done it.’

‘Did
it,’ Pidge replied automatically.

He thought of a small coppice a little way further on, where there was a tiny stream running like a ribbon of music. The stream came out under the boundary wall of the little wood and ran alongside the road in the ditch. The earth would be soft and moist and the worm could easily burrow in and be safe.

‘We’ll put it by the stream,’ he said.

They had just finished covering the worm with damp grass and moss, when they heard the murmur of low voices coming from inside the coppice. Brigit’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth to say something but Pidge stopped her by putting his finger to his lips and shaking his head in warning. He motioned that they must get in closer. They crept in close to the wall.

One voice was talking:

‘And so, it was defeat. A third one fought. The victory was with the Daughter and Sons of the Twelve Moons.’

‘This time, Findepath!’

‘And which of us is brave enough or foolish enough to take the news to Macha and Bodbh? Great indeed will be their anger! What will our punishment be, when we report that we were too late?’

‘Not too late, Findepath.’

‘How so, Lithelegs?’

‘Is it not well-known that the Lord Of The Waters must rise to the temptation of the Brandling Breac?’

‘Lithelegs speaks truly,’ said a third voice. ‘But the Breac must be offered in the shifting-time; when morning changes to the second quarter of the day or when night changes to the fourth of the fours.’

‘Greymuzzle! You are truly well-taught in Mouth Knowledge!’ said the first voice, (must be Findepath, thought Pidge) ‘Speak further!’

‘The day is theirs but the night is ours. So, it must be at middle-night when we are at our fullest strength and The Dagda’s people are low.’

Then other voices spoke:

‘Wolfson speaks! It is true that we are not at our best in the light hours. Greymuzzle is wise!’

‘Fowler speaks! Because of this alone did the White Walkers, who are the Sons and the Daughter of the Twelve Moons, defeat us!’

‘But who is to do the telling of this defeat to The Queens? It is Silkenskin who asks.’

‘What were the words spoken to us? “Have a care and keep a good watch!” It was thus did Scald Crow speak!’ said yet another voice.

‘Well does Rushbrook remember! I, Swift, remember also The Mórrígan’s final words:
“Do not fail on your peril! Let not Olc-Glas by you
—
or it will be the worse for you!”
And even now, Olc-Glas is in the jaws of the Lord Of The Waters, imprisoned in iron!’

(‘They’re talking about that green snake on that page I told you about,’ Pidge whispered.

‘Who are they?’ asked Brigit.

‘I don’t know,’ whispered Pidge again.

‘They have funny names, and do you hear the daft way they talk?’ Brigit said and she began to giggle.

‘Sssshhhh!’ said Pidge.)

‘A question, Findepath!’

‘I hear you, Fierce.’

‘Would it not be pleasing to The Mórrígan, Scald Crow and The Queen of Phantoms for us to kill the two-legged cubs, who are like gnats in one’s eye or two specks of sand between one’s teeth, and meet again in the ending of this day and seek then the Lord Of The Waters?’

Other voices approved:

‘It would please The Mórrígan indeed!’

‘There is but one middle-night to each day and think how she would delight in not waiting one more day.’

‘NO!’ said Findepath forcefully.

‘Why so?’ asked Fierce.

‘The striplings are under the protection of The Dagda, The Lord of Great Knowledge. There are bonds on us not to kill them except in the hunt.’

(‘Findepath is the boss!’ murmured Brigit. ‘Sssshhhh!’ Pidge said again.)

‘We must find a way of making them run. I, Gnawbone, undertake this.’

‘Not yet. It is not time. Now that there is a beginning, there is an imperative on us to follow the course. It must be so. We must play our correct part,’ Greymuzzle declared.

‘Our chance will come,’ said the voice of the one named Fierce.

A small breath of wind touched Pidge on the back of the neck.

‘Be still!’ commanded Findepath. ‘I have a scent. We are not in close concealment here and the two-legged cubs are close-by. It is time to disperse. Let us melt away like snow-flakes!’

Then there was silence, broken suddenly by some magpies chattering in their castanet-like way. They sounded louder than was normal, as though they had held their noise for so long that it was unbearable.

Pidge peeped over the wall.

The coppice was empty. The tall bracken was moving and swaying as if battling against a gale and yet there was the merest breeze blowing. He saw the hind-quarters of a hound disappearing through a white cloud of marguerites before it vanished from sight completely, in the cover of the thickly-growing bracken.

‘Did you see them, Pidge?’ Brigit asked breathlessly.

‘I saw the back-end of a hound, that’s all.’

‘I don’t like them. They talked in a funny way and I had the feeling that they were talking about us some of the time,’ Brigit said.

‘So did I!’

‘Did you really see a hound?’

‘Yes.’

‘And no people? Who was talking?’

‘To judge by the names they called each other—a whole pack of hounds!’

‘Dogs! I don’t want any old dogs thinking they can kill me!’

They said they couldn’t because of bonds or something.’

‘Unless they can make us run. Wasn’t that it? Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Pidge. They’ll never make
me
run. And I hope they all get worms!’

‘And the mange,’ Pidge said fervently.

‘Do you really think that hounds were talking?’ Brigit asked.

‘I don’t know. It seems too strange. Maybe there were people there and we just didn’t see them.’

It really does seem too strange a thing to be true, he thought. But then, well, there were the peculiar names.

‘I only saw the back-end of one hound you know,’ he said aloud.

‘I wonder who daft old Mórrígan is? And Scald Crow. And the other one they talked of, Queen of something.’

‘Well, we know already that they are one and the same person. The Great Eel said so. She’s The Battle Goddess or something.’

‘Who does she think she is, coming here to Shancreg and messing about with us? Herself and her oul’ Battles. Whoever she is, she’ll find out a thing or two from us.’

‘I think she must be very powerful,’ Pidge said.

‘Powerful, me eye!’ Brigit said gruffly and they set off again on their journey home.

S
UDDENLY,
there was the roar of an engine and a motor-bike came behind them as if from nowhere—as if it had been skulking behind a hedge waiting for them to pass and then leaped out and chased after them.

Pidge jumped on to the grassy verge just in time.

The motor-bike almost grazed his right side, travelled on a few yards and then pulled up. The children saw that it was being ridden by the two ladies who had rented Mossie’s glasshouse. Pidge thought he heard the one with the blue hair say:

‘Oh drat it! We missed him!’

‘Sssshhhh! They’ll hear you,’ the one with the red hair replied, and then she sniggered. She looked back over her shoulder and shouted:

‘I say! Are you all right?’

She dismounted from the pillion and walked back.

‘Frightfully sorry, old bean. Let me help you up.’

‘It’s all right. I can manage,’ said Pidge.

‘He’s able to stand by himself,’ Brigit said firmly.

‘Nonsense!’ said the woman. ‘I must assist you. After all, what are fiends for? I
beg
your pardon! What I meant was—what are
friends
for. Dear, dear, I really must learn to listen to what I say.’

She leaned forward and grasped Pidge by the arm and jerked him to his feet. She closed her eyes and held him for a moment like one in a trance.

Before letting him go, she gave him a nasty, nippy little pinch. She smiled at him and then she aimed and spat a tobacco spit over the roadside wall.

‘My name is Breda Fairfoul,’ she said chattily. ‘This is my friend, Melodie Moonlight.’

Melodie turned the bike round and purred back to where they stood.

‘Why do you chew tobacco?’ asked Brigit.

‘Like to bite something that bites back. Puts me in a hot mood,’ she said. She smiled again.

Melodie Moonlight looked penetratingly at her.

‘Well?’ she said.

‘Too late,’ said Breda Fairfoul. ‘Another moment in time, peradventure.’

‘Foiled, then,’ commented Melodie Moonlight. ‘The question is—by whom?’ She turned to the children.

‘Do come home with us and have some tea,’ she said silkily.

Pidge thought that her voice sounded like a cat singing the death song of a mouse.

‘No thanks,’ he said.

‘Try and persuade him, my little duck,’ said Breda Fairfoul turning to Brigit.

‘Yes do, my fubsy one,’ said Melodie Moonlight, ‘and you shall have Red Cap Pasty, Peggy’s Leg, Kiss Pie and Walking Stick, Hafner’s Sausages and Soup Of The Day.’

‘No,’ said Brigit. ‘I’ve took against you.’

‘You’ve took against us? But why?’ Breda Fairfoul cried theatrically.

‘Cos you’re a pair of road hogs. You might have killed Pidge just then.’

‘Yes—we might have, mightn’t we,’ said Melodie Moonlight, rather regretfully, Pidge thought. He wasn’t quite sure what she was regretting; nearly killing him or just missing him.

‘Oh dear!’ said Melodie artificially while she lit a cigar, ‘now I’m feeling in a fuss. Forward Fairfoul! We must regroup.’

As she got back on the motor-bike, Pidge noticed that she carried a dagger in her garter.

‘Don’t boggle at me, it’s rude!’ she snapped.

‘Bogglers get fits of the braxy if they’re not
very
careful,’ Breda added. ‘Especially when they boggle into things that don’t concern them—don’t they, Melodie?’

‘Not half,’ said Melodie and she kick-started the bike. Breda remounted the pillion and with a roar of the engine, they shot away ahead of the children, shrieking with loud laughter.

Before they were lost to sight over a small hill, Breda made her hair stand up and wave goodbye.

‘Aren’t they queer,’ said Brigit. They gave me the running willies up and down my backbone. What’s this they dropped?’

She bent down and picked up a small white card from the road. Pidge read it aloud: