A Different Kingdom

by Paul Kearney

  'Water. What else?'

  'Sure... Hey wait a minute, Cat. That's thieving.'

  She eyed him innocently, sliding a pair of his Uncle Sean's breeches over her thighs. One of his old collarless shirts lay to one side.

  'I needed a change, Michael.' And she buttoned the breeches close over her navel, tying them around the waist with twine. Her breasts swung as she bent for the shirt and she looked arch at Michael's unabashed stare.

  'Manners, my dear.'

  Michael mumbled something about a lack of shame, then shook his head and left the fire to fetch the mare in closer to the light. The dark was sidling in on them. He had a sudden picture in his head of Cat in a pretty dress, shoes on her feet and a hat on her head, but it was Rose's face under the brim. He realized that he could no longer be sure it was Rose he was imagining. In his mind their two faces had become the same, and the thought disturbed him.

  Fancy nuzzled him and he gave her an apple core to munch, running his fingers down her mane. For such a highly strung beast she seemed remarkably at ease. Maybe it was the quiet here, though there was a breeze picking up again. He could hear it in the branches. The land loomed out to the south in a vast expanse of nothingness. No lights, no cars; no noise here but for the waking owls. Mullan would love it. It was the country before Man had made his mark—beautiful and untouched. Dangerous, too, he reminded himself. Odd things walked in the moonlight. As well to remember that.

  'Are we safe here?' he asked Cat on retuming to the fire. 'Are there things we should watch out for tonight?'

  She was heating up the broken pie in the greasy pan they had used for breakfast, and the night air was full of the scent of apples and pastry.

  'We're all right out here. It's in the wood we have to be careful, as you should know.' She tilted her face to the blue night and the overhanging branches of the copse. 'But here we'll have peace, unless you are afraid of owls.'

  He sat down beside her and together they picked out pieces of piping pie, burning their fingers and putting it into each other's mouths. Cat's new clothes smelled of home, despite their ducking in the river. Of ironed linen and soap. Her own rich scent—if that was the right word—rose up from the neck of the shirt, incongruous as a wolf in a drawing room.

  After they had eaten they lay pillowed by Fancy's saddle with the saddle blanket thrown round them while the flames leapt and cracked before their eyes.

  'Tomorrow we'll head for the Wildwood,' Cat murmured into Michael's arm. 'Get under real trees again.'

  Michael yawned. The open air was getting into his head. Woodsmoke and apple pie, horse and linen. The fragrance was as good as a lullaby.

  'Anything you say,' he told her, and promptly fell asleep.

  A FROST STIFFENED their hair in the morning and made the world into a brittle white fairyland, the sun picking it out in brilliance.

  Michael jumped up and down, shuddering, whilst Cat grumbled at the lost warmth of his body. She spied on him disapprovingly with the tip of her pink nose just over the rim of the blanket.

  'Get the fire going, Michael, for pity's sake, and stop hopping around like a frog on a hot stone.'

  His teeth were chattering too much for him to reply and great clouds of his breath hung in the air like steam. He settled for coaxing the ashen warmth of the fire's heart into flame. Another of the precious matches was used to resurrect it.

  'Done,' he said to Cat. 'You can come out now. It's a beautiful morning.'

  'It would freeze the tail from a dog, and I'm not getting up till the frost is gone.'

  Michael shrugged and greeted Fancy, who seemed none the worse for wear, and stood staring southwards to where the hills became covered with the frost-pale carpet of the trees.

  The Wildwood.

  Cat's arms came around him, cold fingers linking on his stomach and warm breath in his ear.

  'It is wild, Michael. We must remember that. It is not like the forests in your world. Man is not the master in there. There are things older than him in the deep woods, and not all of them friendly.' She kissed his nape where the hairs had risen.

  'What are you, Cat? Are you one of those things, a changeling or something?'

  She dropped her arms, releasing him. 'Never you mind.' She turned to the fire. 'You'd best saddle that animal of yours. We have a fair step to put behind us today.'

  He watched her as she scrubbed out the pan with a twist of rime-covered grass. 'Do you know why I'm here, Cat? Why this is happening to me?'

  She paused and sucked her teeth for a second. 'I know the Horseman has some link with you. He wants something from you.'

  'What?'

  'How would I know that? He's not someone I pass the time of day with very often.' For an instant it seemed she was going to say more, then she clamped her mouth shut in a thin line.

  'Who is he?'

  'The Devil'

  'Are you sure about that, Cat? Do you know what the Devil is?'

  The sun caught her eyes as she stared at him, and the light in them was as green as emerald, the pupils mere pinpoints.

  'Some say he is father to all the Wyrim in the Wildwood, that we are his children. It is the village folk who say this.'

  'Wyrim?' He made it into a question.

  'Some you have met. The troll. The manwolf. They are both of the Wyrim. And the morning I killed the pig. They were watching you then, the tree folk, but they left you alone because I was with you.'

  He remembered hooted laughter in the branches, spidery limbs, the glimpse of a pointed face.

  'What are you then, Cat? You look just like me. Normal.' Most of the. time, he added to himself.

  'I'm one of them, Michael I belong to the land, too; its sap courses in my veins. Tree sap and old magic—they're the stuff I'm made of. I don't know when I was born or ... or from whom, what manner of home I had or how long I have been upon the earth.' She gazed down at her slim hands for a moment. 'There are others like me. The villagers call us ghosts, changelings. They shun us once they know our true nature—but I'm as real as l can be when you are here. I love you, Michael Is that not enough?'

  Tears had set her eyes alight with green fire. Surprised, Michael bent and took her in his arms.

  She was real; she was muscle and bone under his hands, warm flesh and blood and he would follow her to death's door if need be.

  They took turns riding Fancy south, one of them always striding through the wet grass of the hills at her side whilst the other perched like a lord on her back. It grew warmer as the sun climbed; a fine, clear day reminiscent of an early September.

  There were deer wandering and grazing in groups along the hills, kestrels overhead and hares streaking through the grass at their approach.

  'No people,' Michael said. It was odd to see land as good as this unused. No hedges here, no fields. It constantly amazed him.

  'No one lives this far north because this is where the most doors are between this world and the others. Strange things come through them at times— not only men such as the Brothers, but odd beasts as well. To the men of the wood this is a sorcerous region.'

  Michael shook his head, frowning.

  'What is it?' Cat asked.

  'Now I know where the fairies and stuff came from. They were from here, these Forest-Folk you talk about, and werewolves and all sorts. They've been made into myths back home, but they're here, plain as day.'

  'Plain as day,' Cat repeated. She seemed preoccupied, taken up with the dark line of forest on the southern horizon.

  They kept marching and riding through the day, munching oatcakes as they travelled and drinking their fill from streams. Cat managed to tickle a trout from one in a twinkling, leaving Michael agape. Mullan had always said it was possible, but he had never believed it.

  They went on through the lengthening shadows and halted in the eaves of the Wildwood. It was pitch-black under the trees except for the glow of fireflies and luminous mould, and Michael felt himself grow wary. He loaded the shotgun despite Cat's gl
are and they had their trout for supper along with the last of the bread and cheese. Then they lay in each other's arms before the fire and listened to the wood noises whilst Fancy stamped nervously in the leaves and sniffed the crowded air.

  'They're here, Michael,' said Cat.

  'What? Who?' His hand sprang for the shotgun but she caught his wrist and pinioned it with startling strength.

  'Be still, love. You are all right so long as I am here.'

  'Who is it, Cat?'

  She did not answer him. The hair on his head rose up stiffly and his heartbeat became an audible swish in his throat. He began to mutter an Our Father.

  Cat squirmed as if in pain. 'No! None of that. Be quiet.' She laid a hand across his mouth.

  There was noise in the trees, a rustling that might have been a momentary breeze.

  'Mirkady,' Cat said softly.

  'I'm here, sister,' a voice said out of the blackness, making Michael jump. At once, all around him there was a chorus of titters and chuckles, some as highpitched as those of an infant, others a deep baritone.

  'What have you done, sister?' one said.

  'What company she keeps' a second gurgled.

  'See how he glares,' a third put in.

  'I smell iron off him,' a deep voice said, and then there was silence again. But Michael thought he could sense shufflings and shiftings in the dark, rustlings of movement. And there were eyes out there in the night, scores of them around the limit of the firelight. Some were as large as golf balls, others subdued firefly flickers. They moved incessantly, blinking and winking at him. He stared about wildly and saw that they were high up in the trees peering down at him. A twig came whizzing through the flame light and bounced off his skull, producing a ripple of merriment. Cat's arms tightened around him.

  'Leave him be. He's mine.'

  Something plucked at his foot. He caught a glimpse of a black spindly form, small as a child's. There was more laughter.

  'Stop it, Mirkady,' Cat said, and her eyes flashed with a light to match those glowing in the trees. 'Leave him alone.'

  'What game is it you are playing, Sister Catherine?' the voice

  Mirkady asked, reedy and high-toned as a flute. 'Why do you bring an iron-bearing mortal into the Wildwood? Have we taught you nothing?' .

  'I claim his eyes,' a voice said.

  'His teeth I'll have—a necklace of them.'

  'No,' Cat said steadily.

  'He is from the place that spawned the bald men. I smell it on him.'

  A long, collective snarl eddied round the tree trunks. Michael sprang to his feet, tearing out of Cat's embrace. His instinct was to run, but before he could go a step something hissed round his head and a rope of some sort had lassoed his torso, pinning his arms to his sides, He was jerked forward into the dark beyond the fire while a medley of catcalls and shrieks broke out, and behind him Cat's voice was raised in fury. He crashed to the leaves head first, his mouth and nose full of the stink of decaying humus, and struggled there whilst bony hands pinched and pulled at him, tugged painfully at his ears and poked at his eyes. Angry as well as frightened now, he battled to his knees and roared at his tormentors. Laughter rose around him like a ripple of bells, and he was jerked to the ground again. This time a tree root smote him between the eyes, filling his head with coloured lights and bringing the smell of blood to his nose. He grunted with pain and felt the weight of what seemed a child tap-dancing on the small of his back. Then there was a squawk; and the unseen dancer had gone. Hands helped him upright with gentle but irresistible strength. He blinked the tears out of his eyes until he was able to see.

  There was Cat, holding a spitting branch from the fire, the light of anger in her eyes and her black brows thunderous. Beside her was a fantastic, scarecrow figure no more than three feet high. Its skin was black, the eyes upward-slanting slits filled with green light, the nose sharp and angular as a chisel, the ears pointed and long, a mop of curly hair so fine it might have been moss on the head. It wore rough clothes of tanned hide decorated with strips of fur, reams of shining beads, lumps of quartz and amber, and what had to be the skulls of tiny animals—shrews, moles, squirrels and voles. It stank of leaf mould and earth, the reek of autumn, of the very forest itself.

  Michael's attention was drawn to the hands holding him upright. They were massive, fourfingered and hairy, with thick, sharp nails that were almost claws. He twisted his neck to look and found himself staring up—and up—at a broad, ugly face with a huge nose, two beaming eyes, pointed ears and a lower lip that hung pendulous and wet because of the two great fangs that were poking it open.

  'Jesus, Mary and Joseph,' he said.

  '1 am Mirkady,' the small figure said, grinning so that Michael could see the even, yellow teeth that seemed to stretch from ear to pointed ear. 'My friend there is Dwarmo, a good-hearted soul, if none too bright. Sister Catherine here has persuaded us that you should be shown more deference.'

  He nodded to the hulking figure behind Michael and the thin cord fell loose, dropping to the ground.

  'She has also persuaded us that you may need something in the way of help in the Wildwood, so I'm thinking we can maybe sup a little and sip a little and think the matter over, and maybe wager a little when the needs of the body are satisfied. What say you, tall man?'

  Beside Mirkady Cat was looking intense and concerned, as if she wished to say something, but the guttering branch so confused the shadow and light amid the trees that it was hard to tell. Michael fingered the footprints in his back.

  'All right, then.'

  The grin widened until Mirkady's face seemed all leering teeth and glowing eyeslits. 'Then we will invite you home'—there was a babble of voices in the darkness, instantly stilled—'and offer you the hospitality of the Folk of the Wood.' And here he bowed deeply, one skinny leg thrust forward until his long nose was touching his kneecap. Without warning Cat's burning brand went out, and there was only the glow of the campfire, strangely distant. In the faint light Mirkady's features were as hideous as a gargoyle's. He came forward a step and beckoned Michael's head down with a long curl of forefinger.

  'Your consort worries over you, you know. Best to keep her sweet. She's a fine lass, but a touch impulsive.' He laid the forefmger against the side of his nose and gave Michael a conspiratorial wink.

  'What?'

  But Mirkady had already skipped away.

  'To home, to home—to Gallow's Howe!' he cried, and the shout was taken up by a crowd of voices. Behind Michael, Dwarmo's deep bass joined in, chuckling like a good-humoured bear. Cat took Michael's hand.

  'Cat, what is going on here? Who are these people? They know you.' Sister Catherine.

  She squeezed his fingers until the bones grated.

  'They are friends, Michael. Stay close to me and you will come to no harm.'

  'To home, to home, to Gallow's Howe!'

  'Do we have to, Cat?' His superstitions, deeprooted as a religion, were crowding his throat.

  She stopped and took his face in her hands, kissing his mouth quiet. 'We have no choice.'

  'To home, to home, to Gallow's Howe!'

  ELEVEN

  FAIRIES. THAT WAS what these things were supposed to be, except they were like no fairies out of any book Michael had ever read. There were no gossamer wings, no diaphanous robes and slim, pale limbs. No butterfly-like maidens offering cups of honeydew. These things were as angular and odd-shaped as the denizens of a Bosch canvas. They capered and pranced and danced through the black wood so that Cat and Michael travelled as it were in the midst of a feverish Rackham illustration, made all the more fantastic by the light of a thousand fireflies that circled and spun in squadrons like tiny Chinese lanterns come to life.

  Goblins, Michael decided. They were goblins. And trolls, he added to himself, looking up at the hulking shape of Dwarmo and his long-fanged grin.

  Mirkady had called Cat 'Catherine'.

  They walked for hours hand in hand, Michael leading the mare by the brid
le. She seemed unperturbed by her fantastic company, and even when the more boisterous of the Forest-Folk swung through the branches close to her head she did not shy. It was as if they did not exist. Cat, however, gripped Michael's hand until it pained him. He would have sworn she was afraid, if he had ever known her to show any fear—and yet she had said these were her friends.

  'Leave the horse,' Mirkady commanded.

  'What?' They had stopped. He felt thick-headed with wonder, dull as an oft-used knife.

  'Leave the horse. It cannot enter the Howe, it being a creature of the sun and suchlike. Come now, sir, are you so ignorant?'

  'Thick as young oak,' something said.

  'Indeed. A clodpoll,' said another.

  'I'm not leaving her out here in the middle of nowhere,' Michael said, becoming heated. Already he was tiring of being a butt.

  Cat took his arm. 'She'll be all right, Michael. Nothing will harm her in the bounds of the Howe.'

  Except cross-magic, and Latin, and holy water,' a voice squeaked.

  'Silence!' Mirkady shouted, his mouth opening wide enough to show the deep red within. The eerie glow of the fireflies was all around, and the air was full of the rich smell of freshly turned earth, like that of a new-dug grave. There was a sweet stink underlying it however, a hint of putrefaction which made Michael wrinkle his nose.

  'I don't see any Howe.' Laughter beat about the trees. 'Well might he not!'

  'Someone open the front door for him!'

  Mirkady bowed deeply again, and the fireflies clustered around his temples like a burning circlet.

  'Your pardon. Our manners are not all they might be. Let me be the first to welcome you to Gallow's Howe, Michael-?' He made it a question.

  'Fay,' said Michael, just as Cat's elbow drove the breath out of his ribs.