by Lari Don
“All they stood to lose from my trick was a hunt. The boy was losing his life with your shield over his heart.” Ossian shook his head. “But he won, so that is the second task to the young challengers.
“Now, who will answer my three riddles?”
Helen said, “We’ll answer them together.”
“No. Your boy fought alone. Your wolf hunted, and your horse raced, alone. Your bard will answer alone.”
Helen took a deep breath. “Alright. I will answer.”
Ossian smiled. “You must reply to my riddles not just with truth, because the bare truth is too harsh, you must reply also with beauty. That’s the way to turn a riddle into a poem.”
Helen sighed. She didn’t tell stories with exciting words like Yann and Sylvie, or declaim in fancy words like Lee, or cast spells with clever words like Lavender, or stop quarrels with wise words like Sapphire. Perhaps she shouldn’t have volunteered for this.
Ossian stared at Helen through smoke rising into the blue sky, and asked his first riddle.
“What is more precious than yellow gold and worth more than white diamonds?”
Helen sighed. Would an answer about bank accounts and oil pipelines work here on Tir nan Og? She doubted it. She must give an answer that would be understandable in the Fianna’s world.
She looked around, hoping for inspiration.
All her friends were staring at her. Lavender was sitting on Sylvie’s head, tiny hands clamped over her mouth, afraid to come closer in case she was accused of cheating. Helen turned to her left, and saw Lee look quickly behind her.
She glanced back. Sapphire was using a claw to ping an old necklace Helen had given her against the shiny scales of her left leg. The necklace was a bit tatty now, but Sapphire still wore it as a sign of their friendship.
Helen grinned, then turned back. But the right answer wasn’t enough. She needed beauty as well as truth.
“More precious than gold and diamonds…” What was the exact question? She mouthed it to herself, then she thought how Yann would answer it when he was being pompous.
“More precious than yellow gold and worth more than white diamonds, are the friends you can trust with your treasure.”
Ossian laughed. “Nicely put, for one surrounded by helpful friends!
“My second riddle. What drink is hot and sweet and salty, all at once?”
Helen made a face, remembering the time she had tipped a sachet of salt into her hot chocolate in a café. That probably wasn’t the answer Ossian was looking for.
She glanced at the group around her again. Yann, Lee and Lavender were staring at Sylvie, who was licking her lips. Helen frowned. Sylvie bared her teeth and swallowed.
Helen raised her eyebrows and thought hard. Then she spoke, “Hot and sweet and salt, all at once, is the blood from fresh caught prey.”
Sylvie laughed and hugged Helen. “You do understand!”
Ossian said pointedly, “This third riddle is for you alone.
“What is the most beautiful music?”
Helen didn’t even look round; she knew the truth of this riddle herself. But how could she answer it for Ossian’s ears? It needed a longer answer than the ones she had managed up until now.
She remembered how Lee had spoken to Ossian when they first arrived, how his list of titles and names had sounded like a poem or song. That list might give her a structure, but what words should she use?
She had spent so much time with her fabled friends, listening to their flowing, flowery, formal language. Could she copy it convincingly?
Then she realized it would be like playing a tune in the style of a musician she admired. She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the rhythm of Lee’s speech and the melody of Yann’s words.
She started to speak in a voice so soft it was almost a whisper:
“The most beautiful music is:
“For a mother the laugh of a baby in her arms,
“For a warrior the whine of a blade in the air,
“For a sailor the wind whistling through the ropes,
“For a hunter the baying of hounds on the hill,
“For a miser the clink of coins in a bag,
“For a host the belches of his well-fed guests,
“And for a bard, the moment of silence before the applause, the cheers and the encores.”
After a moment of silence, Ossian spoke. “Beauty, truth and a riddle of your own. What is an encore?”
“An encore,” Helen answered carefully, “is when the audience love your music so much they ask you to play again. Just like we’re asking the greatest bard ever to play just one more time.”
She stopped. She had said enough.
Ossian frowned, then laughed. “Neatly done. You win the contest and offer me a gracious way to pay the forfeit.
“Where and when do you wish me to play to save your young boy, what was his name again? And what do you wish me to bring?”
Helen could hardly answer, she was shivering with relief. Their quest had been successful. They had found their bard.
Helen said, “Please come to the green hill in the west of Dorry Shee an hour before midnight tomorrow night. Bring your harp and your heroism, to save James and escape yourself. And bring some good dancing tunes too!”
Suddenly they were going home.
Ossian said goodbye to them all, hugging Yann and Lee, slapping Sapphire on her rump, and clasping wrists in a handshake with Sylvie. He just smiled at Lavender, who was too small for a hearty Fianna farewell.
He looked at Helen. “Thank you for good sport and for the chance to see midsummer’s night one more time. I give you my word that I will be there.”
Helen saw Sylvie kneel down beside Bran, so her eyes were on a level with the hound. Did they nod at each other?
Then the men of the Fianna gave them all boosts onto the dragon’s back, and Sapphire was airborne again.
She flew straight upwards into a cloud that cast no shadow on Tir nan Og, then turned east. Once they were out of the greyness of the cloud, all they could see was the dark sea below and the faint bruised stripes of an old sunset behind.
Once they reached the mainland, Sapphire flew south-east until they arrived at Dorry Shee, where Lee and Yann had a competition to see who could chuck sandwiches most accurately into a root cave from the back of a dragon. Then they were near their own clearing, falling off the dragon’s back in a happy tangle of legs and wings and hooves.
Helen yelled, “We did it! Our own quest! And we did it!
“You were all wonderful. Racing, hunting, fighting and giving me answers. We did it together.”
She hugged them all.
“Now we have our bard, and Ossian will be more than a match for the Queen tomorrow!”
She sat down, waiting for her heartbeat to slow. Yann and Lee were comparing scratches and scrapes from their race and fight. Helen didn’t bother with the first aid kit; they seemed more proud of their injuries than bothered by them.
Lavender was adjusting the necklace on Sapphire’s leg. But Sylvie stood quietly on the edge of the group, her head down, her shoulders hunched. Helen went over to her.
“You were wonderful. You brought a deer down, then didn’t even taste her hot sweet salty blood, just to preserve our luck. That was amazing. Thank you, Sylvie.”
Sylvie looked at Helen, her face pale and pointed. “Now what, human child?”
“Now, we get James back. And the Faery Queen won’t get her real live music forever, because no one can hold onto Ossian.”
“She will still have her party,” growled Sylvie. “With the greatest bard ever, she will have the greatest party ever, so the faeries who come will never leave … and we will have lost our forest. And I have helped you do it!”
She almost howled in frustration and misery.
Helen shook her head. “The party hasn’t been a success yet. They haven’t settled in your forest yet.
“I promise, once we have the boy safe, we will help y
ou protect your land against the faeries. I know we failed in one quest, but it was set up by the Queen. Our own quest was a complete success. If we set ourselves the task of driving your enemies away, I’m sure we can do it.
“We free James, then it’s open season on faery parties.”
“Do you have a plan, human child?”
“Not yet.”
“When will you have a plan?”
“Em … soon? Tomorrow?”
Sylvie shook her head. “You will never have a plan. You’re just making this up as you go along. That’s why it was so easy for the Queen to give you a quest which you flung yourself into and failed. That’s why you needed every single one of us to win you your bard. You’re making it up as you go along.”
Helen stayed silent. Sylvie was probably right.
“Any success you have is entirely accidental.” The wolf-girl spoke sharply. “But tomorrow, your success could be my failure. I will not go back to my pack a failure. So if you don’t have a plan to save my forest, as well as your boy, by the time your bard arrives tomorrow night, then my brothers and I will stop the party by preventing your musician playing. With our teeth and claws if we have to.”
Helen looked round. No one was laughing and joking now.
They were all questing for different prizes. And they hadn’t beaten the Faery Queen yet.
Chapter 20
Helen sat down, her legs suddenly weak with exhaustion.
Lavender fluttered over to comfort her, crash-landing into her forehead. The fairy’s flying was still erratic. Helen stuck her hand out and caught the falling fairy.
Lavender rolled over on Helen’s palm and said, “Don’t worry. We all need a good night’s sleep and a nice hot breakfast, then we’ll think of something.”
Yann said confidently. “We will meet before either Ossian or the summer school musicians arrive at the mound tomorrow, and come up with the plan Sylvie needs. Ossian might even help.”
“We must stop the summer school coming to the forest at all,” Sylvie snapped.
“No,” insisted Helen. “Fay Greenhill must be communicating with the Faery Queen somehow. So we need to act like I’m sacrificing the school for James, which is what she’s expecting me to do, or else she’ll come up with other tricks.”
“But we do have to stop the summer school going into the mound. How can we do that?” asked Lavender.
“My brothers would be happy to pin them down.” Sylvie ran her tongue over her sharp front teeth.
Helen said, “No! We don’t want them going home with tales of wolves in Dorry Shee, bringing hunters and film crews back with them.
“We need to get Ossian inside first, then James out, then I can tell the summer school folk that the concert has been cancelled, or moved, or postponed.”
They refined the plan a little, with Yann volunteering to ride back to the cottage with the boy once he was freed, and Lee, Sylvie and Sapphire arguing about the best vantage point for keeping an eye both on the minibus’s parking space at the forest edge and the green mound within the trees.
Helen drifted into a doze as she waited for her friends to decide where and when to meet. Yann woke her with a nudge. “I’ll take you home.”
She clambered onto his back, yawning, and he broke into a trot. Helen looked up. Through ragged clouds, she saw the bear and eagle stars watching them. “Slow down, the Wild Hunt might be out tonight.”
So the centaur walked her home, not much faster than she could have walked herself.
Helen looked behind occasionally. She didn’t see any red-eared dogs or any wolves. But her neck was prickling and she wondered if Sylvie’s brothers were watching her, waiting for her to fail again.
When they got back to the lodge, Helen jumped down. “Thanks for the company, Yann. See you tomorrow.”
Yann’s face was bright in the light from the buildings. He took a step backwards, but didn’t leave. He cleared his throat. “Don’t bring your fiddle.”
“Pardon?”
“When you come tomorrow, don’t bring your fiddle.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you don’t have it, you can’t play for them.”
“I’m not going to play for them. Ossian is. Anyway, all the summer school students will have their instruments, so it’ll look really strange if I leave mine at home. I have to take it.”
“Helen. Promise me you won’t bring it.”
“You’re hoping that if I don’t have my fiddle, when Ossian has his harp, and the students have their pipes, flutes, fiddles and drums, then I’ll be the only human there safe from the Faery Queen. That even if I’m tempted, I won’t be able to play for her.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t do that. That would be … unfair. Cheating.”
“It would be sensible. Please leave your fiddle at home.”
Helen smiled wearily at him, shook her head, then trudged towards the lodge. The cottage was dark. So was the Professor’s bedroom window. The four wings were still brightly lit, and she heard competing threads of melody, as nervous students over-rehearsed.
Helen went straight to bed. She had neither the energy nor the desire to rehearse.
Next morning, Helen joined the rest of the Murray Wing students for breakfast. It was her turn to make toast again, according to Zoe, which Juliet thought was unfair, as no one had made breakfast for Helen yet. Helen just shrugged. She wasn’t going to bother making sandwiches today. James would either be free tonight or with the faeries forever, so she might as well use her bread-spreading skills for breakfast rather than picnics.
She barely spoke to anyone. She was thinking too hard, patching together everything she knew about faeries’ weaknesses.
Could Ossian smuggle iron into the green hill? No, he would need to be inside before the boy got out and if the faeries sensed the iron too early, they would refuse to let the boy go.
Could he smuggle something else in? What? Helen had a sudden vision of itching powder and plastic spiders at an elegant faery party. She shook her head.
She wasn’t even sure if Ossian would help them drive the faeries away. The bargain had only been for music. But could they do it on their own, without a hero? The Queen had run circles round them so far. Except last night. They had managed fine on their own last night. She grinned.
“What are you so pleased about?” Zoe snapped.
Helen glanced up. Everyone was staring at her.
“I’m looking forward to learning from your masterly solo performance tonight, Zoe.” Helen smiled, knowing Ossian would be the only one playing a solo tonight, then put four more slices in the toaster.
After breakfast, they had a final full rehearsal. The Professor made them run through the beginning a dozen times.
“It is very important that you make a good impression,” she said anxiously. “This is a very discerning audience. They will only stay until the end if you make the opening bars the best you have ever played. So let’s try that one more time.”
They tried it six more times and it was perfect every time, but the Professor flounced off on her spiky orange heels, saying perhaps she should write a simpler introduction.
Dr Lermontov smiled as she left the barn. “She is always nervous before a performance. Don’t worry, she won’t change it now. You have played brilliantly, all of you. Now you need to rest your fingers and your minds, so why not make yourselves a picnic and enjoy this sunny day … but don’t go into the forest. We don’t want to lose any of you before tonight. Even your soft Scottish forests could be dangerous.”
“What do you mean,” said Helen indignantly, “even our soft Scottish forests?”
“In Russia, we hide all our scariest things in the forest: child-eating witches and child-freezing frost fathers, as well as wolves and bears. But even in your fragrant Scottish forest, you could fall and sprain a wrist, or get lost and wander in circles.
“So take your sandwiches, sit on the rocks or by the water, but don’t go into th
e trees.”
Helen left the barn, made yet another picnic, then went to the cottage. Emma was sitting quietlyat the table, looking red-eyed and lonely. Mrs McGregor was sitting on the couch, beside James, who was lying silent, still and very pale, with his cold eyes finally closed.
“How is he?” asked Helen.
“He hasn’t spoken or moved since last night. The doctor visited this morning and says she can’t find anything wrong with him, but if James doesn’t wake up and talk to me today, I’m going to take him to the hospital in Inverness tomorrow. I know he’s not right. I need to get him some help.”
Helen put her hand on the little boy’s head. The skin was cold and hard. She leant closer. Did he smell of sawdust?
Helen said reassuringly, “It’s midsummer night. A magical night. I know he will wake up tonight. I’m sure of it.”
Mrs McGregor smiled weakly. “I hope you’re right.”
Helen stood up. “I’ve made a picnic. Would Emma like to share it with me?”
Emma looked up. “Chocolate biscuits?”
“Of course.”
So Helen and Emma sat a little way from the sad cottage, ate chocolate biscuits, a whole packet between them, and threw stones into a small burn running down to the loch.
There were groups of summer school students lounging about in the heather and on the rocky shore of the loch. The sun shone, butterflies and dragonflies fluttered just out of reach, and almost everyone except Emma was too hot and happy to do more than lie still, eat and drink, chat and dream.
Helen stood on a wall and looked round. She could count all the pipers, fiddlers and drummers. If it went well tonight, every single one of them would be safe from the Faery Queen for ever.
From the wall, she watched Emma splashing barefoot on the pebbles of the burn.
Then she looked towards the forest edge. Was anyone watching from there? Her friends? The wolf people? The faeries? She jumped off the wall and sat in its shade; not hiding, just keeping cool.
Emma ran up and put a wet hand on Helen’s nose. “Catch me a sticky fish!”
“A what?”
“James catches me sticky fish!”
