by Phil Parker
The twins stepped out and stood on either side of me. I’d told Oisin to stand behind me and keep quiet so his accent didn’t give him away.
‘Is that all of you?’
‘You know it is!’ I called. ‘You watched us arrive.’
That didn’t get a reply so it suggested they had been watching the cottage.
‘I’d prefer to talk to a man’s face rather than call into the night. Last time I did that I was madly in love!’
A little humour I hoped would ease the tension. I hoped someone in the darkness would be smiling. I felt Finn’s hand on my elbow as he whispered. ‘They’re moving closer. Three I think.’
From a short distance a lantern bobbed from side to side and got steadily nearer. I felt Brea tense.
‘Don’t you dare!’ I whispered.
Eventually the outlines of dark shapes against the darker night formed then suddenly the man holding the lantern appeared in front of us, his face a ruin. A thin white diagonal line of scar tissue ran across his face; one eye socket was a mess of burned tissue like puckered plastic. I heard Finn gasp. The guy smirked, when he spoke I recognised this was who’d called out to us.
‘I know. People always react like that. Handsome, aren’t I?’ he spoke with a mixture of humour and bitterness. There was a refined quality to his speech, certainly not a local, or if he was, he was well educated.
Two other men joined him. One was big, beefy and bearded with muscle turned to flab. He watched me in a way I recognised, he was sizing me up as a fighter. The other was younger, his hair a tangled mass and a beard struggling to make any impact and succeeding only in patches. It was his eyes that concerned me, there was a wild unpredictability there. A loose cannon.
Their leader, having made his own assessments, glared at Brea for a few seconds before turning his attention back to me. I needed to take the initiative.
‘She’s angered you. I understand that. She made your men think she meant to kill them but that wasn’t the case at all.’
One eye narrowed as he watched me and a slight curl formed on narrow lips.
‘You’re a smart one, aren’t you Mister…?’
‘Fellows. Robin Fellows.’ I stuck out a hand for him to shake just to stop him getting the measure of me. He looked at my hand and the smile curled a little more. ‘And you are?’
‘Joe Purdy,’ he said. ‘So you know why we’re here.’ It wasn’t said as a question.
‘Brea will make a full and complete apology to your men and you are invited to help yourself to the vegetables and any other food you need to improve your men’s rations.’
I watched him closely as I made the military reference and sure enough, even with one eye, there was the briefest expression of surprise. This guy had held a military command, his two sidekicks had been his subordinates most likely, the beefy guy probably his sergeant major. He realised what I was doing and fixed me with that single orb.
‘Yeah. Smart. Too smart.’
I didn’t like that at all. Was I overplaying my hand? He shrugged broad shoulders, this guy would know how to handle himself in a fight, a fact I considered exploring if it meant we needed to play testosterone-fuelled games.
Suddenly, from out of the darkness, another figure appeared, tall and thin and brandishing a battered Bible. I knew this type well, I’d faced more than my fair share of religious nutcases.
‘We’re wasting time Joe Purdy. Bring these demons to face their punishment!’
He scowled at Brea, who bristled in return, I grabbed one of her hands to stop her from releasing the energy building in her body.
‘These kids are not demons,’ I said to the one-eyed man. I knew he’d be the one making decisions. ‘They are soldiers with special talents designed to fight the fairies.’
‘Lies! Lies!’ screamed the Bible-grasping maniac whose eyes virtually rolled in his head as he screamed at us. ‘God identifies our sins and punish us for them too! Take the demons for trial!’
From out of the night stepped reinforcements. An assortment of men who shared the same qualities, shaved heads, straggly beards and a hollow-eyed look that comes from staying alive by the simple quality of following orders no matter how crazy they are. You don’t argue in situations like that, it gets you beaten to a pulp. Or killed by people who’ve abandoned the luxury of a conscience.
It’s a lesson learned from a great deal of experience. Youth rarely acknowledges the value of that commodity though, it knows better, or its prepared to try a different approach that might work even better. I assume these were Brea’s conclusions for behaving like she did. Her actions went a long way to proving Oisin and Amelie wrong when it came to me being a guardian. Brea called me a fucking coward and blasted two of the men who were about to grab her arms. They leapt out of the way, she’d telegraphed her intentions and provided enough warning that it saved their lives.
It did nothing to help our situation. Quite the reverse.
Seeing a young woman emit bolts of bright, white energy from her fingertips, for the uninitiated, is quite a sight. Even Oisin, who knew what the female Knight could do, gasped and looked at her in awe.
Sadly, Joe Purdey’s gang was less inclined to react that way. Certainly, their zealous religious leader, who’d presumably only heard stories of her ability, launched into impassioned fire-and-brimstone exhortation, screaming for the salvation of his flock, who responded to his orders to capture the demons before they killed everyone.
Power shifted. Joe Purdey watched it with barely constrained fury but didn’t interfere, it was the classic schism between religion and the military. The church, I’d learned, always won in such situations because they could galvanise fear, it was down to the military to defend against those who were the focus of that fear. With a lunatic in charge who could inspire people to acts of barbarism, we’d degenerated into something out of the Middle Ages.
Chaos followed. The men piled onto Brea to incapacitate her demonic power, throwing themselves on her like you would a grenade. I tried to stop them, so did Oisin. Men came at us, too many to stop. I saw someone knock Oisin to the ground while others grabbed a startled Finn and pinned him against the wall. I felt Puck rise up and worried his arrival would only make matters worse but then pain exploded at the back of my head and the ground came up to meet me with frightening speed.
I had just enough time to conclude we were in all kinds of shit now.
Chapter 10
Master Darragh’s fury could be measured by the red marks on my cheeks. Each one represented a mistake in my phraseology of the human tongue. Our language may have been similar but there were too many idiosyncrasies. It depended on who you spoke to, the content of the conversation, even the time of day, it proved impossible to remember them all. A fact Master Darragh didn’t appreciate, all his other pupils managed the differences without any problems, so I was supposed to believe.
It didn’t help that the old man, with his milk-white hair and parchment-like skin, considered teaching a servant to be a huge insult. Somehow he ignored the distinction between slave and servant, servants were supposed to be treated with some respect, I was apparently too stupid to qualify. He made it very clear he’d taught royalty and now he’d been instructed to spend his time in the dusty library trying to turn shit into something useful. As I failed to use the correct greeting to a familiar and well-respected friend, he launched into familiar bellyaching.
‘I’m wasting my time! Nothing stays in that head of yours, you stupid little shit. I do not understand why I should be forced to waste my time on ignorant hybrids.’
Tears weren’t far away but I was determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing how he upset me. It earned me another stinging slap. His insults were circular, starting with my hybrid ancestry, followed by my ignorance and then my gutter-like manners, my irrelevance to the world at large and finally, unsurprisingly, the colour of my skin before linking this back to my ancestry.
‘If I knew who’d commanded me to u
ndertake this humiliation I could tell them of the futility of teaching a cretin such as you. Who was it, wretch?’
This was how each session always ended, with a concerted effort by Master Darragh to force me to name names. No matter how desperate the old man’s interrogation, it couldn’t compare to the ocean of dread that swept over me at the thought of betraying my secret connection with Mab. Since our meeting in the library I’d been left in no doubt as to the implications of anyone discovering what she planned. My meteoric rise from devious slave to page had everyone gossiping, confronting me with all kinds of scenarios, some of them wildly offensive. It was made harder by not being able to say anything to deny them, which only made the gossip grow.
There was one good thing to counterpoint the repercussions in my rise to power.
Irvyn suffered a significant loss of status. He’d been ejected from the infirmary suddenly and lost his relative luxury in the laundry to be demoted to mucking out the horses. Stories abounded of his resentment, which others were quick to fuel, after all I was a brown-skinned hybrid and shouldn’t be allowed such opportunities. It meant Master Darragh wasn’t the only one in the palace who resented me. The world, according to some, had gone mad when hard-working, obedient and respectful individuals were ignored and jumped-up types with dubious parentage were promoted in their stead.
If I’d felt lonely before it was nothing compared to the isolation I experienced now.
I sat at our study table, in front of a red-faced Master Darragh, silently denying him an answer to his question. He stormed out of the library, cursing me for my lack of respect and my deceit.
I slumped in my chair and sighed at the unfairness of life, which had grown a lot more complicated. These moments were growing in number and I had to keep reminding myself why I’d chosen this new life.
There was never a day went by when I didn’t think about my wyvern and my need to rescue her. Once I had her at my side, things would be clearer to everyone, I would have a purpose finally, I might even get to enjoy what I did every day.
That was the fantasy. In my darker moments, and there were a lot of them, I couldn’t stop imagining horrific scenarios that would befall me on my quest. My dreams were full of them. As the date of my departure drew nearer, more and more details of my dreams infiltrated my daytime thoughts. I’d visited the infirmary twice, convinced I’d caught some terrible disease; I trembled constantly, felt sick and dizzy all the time and couldn’t eat. The second time the impatient medic told me to go away, the symptoms I described had one simple cause: cowardice.
No one understood my fear of leaving the only place I knew. I’d spent the whole of my life in the palace, a place so big there were parts I’d never visited, yet its scale didn’t compare to my destination. I was to travel to another world, a place where I was an alien and even more of an outsider than I was here.
Lady Mab had tried to explain what happened when I went through the gateway. I was going to travel to a world that lay a hair’s breadth away but couldn’t be reached without a gateway that connected the two worlds. It didn’t make any sense to me, how could a world be so near, yet not be seen? Why did you need gateways to reach something so close?
According to Lady Mab our two worlds existed in exactly the same space and time, they were called dimensions apparently. She’d pointed to the stars in the sky, as we stood in a quiet courtyard after our latest planning session, and said they would exist in the human realm in the same way. For someone who’d known only the palace grounds, we were dealing with a scale I couldn’t understand, and she gave up trying to teach me. At least she didn’t beat me for my stupidity.
With my lesson over, Master Sidwell would expect me to return to my duties, like any other page. He’d been cold and distant since my reprimand, he wasn’t happy about my promotion either but he knew better than to argue with Lady Mab, he was the only other person who knew about our arrangements.
I looked around, I was rapidly growing to love the library, despite Master Darragh. At this time in the afternoon, sunlight streamed through a window with coloured leaden panes that projected patterns on to the floor. Above me, the ceiling was a huge dome, painted dark blue with yellow stars in the patterns Mab had pointed out to me. Dust was everywhere, on every shelf of every bookcase that filled the room. There must be so much knowIedge contained in the books and folded manuscripts, a whole world of learning that had to be as big as Tir na nÓg. People must have valued that information at some point, to go to all the trouble of writing it down and printing it. Even Lady Mab had recognised that they should have consulted the library about training dragons before they’d introduced their programme of breeding the beasts.
That thought process set me off thinking. I had, stuffed in my pocket, a document from Master Sidwell, giving me permission to be in this room. There was no time or date displayed so I could be here officially, should the unlikely event happen that someone asked, no one ever came here though so that seemed unlikely.
I felt a smile grow on my lips at the delight of finding out things about dragons without the fear of being discovered. I’d certainly never get a better opportunity.
I sprinted to the furthest corners, amidst rows of musty books on dusty shelves to find the section on dragons. My search brought me the single ancient tome I’d seen before, bound in cracked leather, at least this time I could take time to read it properly. With great care I flicked through its vellum pages. There were beautiful drawings of all kinds of dragons, detailing their behaviour, diet, mating habits and even training methods. This book held everything we needed to know.
Correction: everything I needed to know.
I settled myself into a comfortable seat in the stained glass window, placed the book on my knees and started reading.
It seemed the only occasions when Time got the better of me, was when dragons were involved. I realised how late it was when the lack of light caused me to squint. The sun had set and the library was gloomy and full of shadows. I’d be in trouble for evading my duties for so long but I was confident I’d learned enough about dragon training to convince Lady Mab to defend me against Master Sidwell.
I was returning the book to the shelf when I heard voices. My permission document would have little relevance at this time of day, when all servants should be with their masters and mistresses. I panicked. I tiptoed along the length of the bookshelf and dodged from the end of one row of shelves to another until I could see the space near the door where I had my lessons, beyond that the corridor. I weighed up the chance of risking a quick dash to the door but I waited too long.
The door closed with an ominous thud, to be followed by a voice I knew well and made my bowels quiver.
‘Be wary. My patience wears thin.’
If Lady Mab knew I was eavesdropping on her, my value as a dragon trainer would have no bearing on the scale of my punishment. My stomach and my bowels churned.
Someone said something but they spoke so softly it was only a murmur.
Footsteps drew closer to my position and I froze. Hiding was my only option. The bookshelves stood on wooden legs, there was just enough space for me to squeeze under them so I wouldn’t be discovered, I doubted anyone would look for anything at floor level.
I couldn’t see much, only Mab’s distinctive riding boots. The other pair of feet belonged to a man, he wore stylist shoes and green twill trousers, the garments of a high ranking member of the Dark Court.
When you’ve lived in a royal court all your life, with all of its intrigue and gossip, you know there is only one reason why two powerful people would meet in such an isolated place. They weren’t interested in the books, they wanted to talk privately, Mab must have chosen the location for that reason.
The man’s voice was easier to hear from my position, he must be nearer. He was softly spoken but his tone was firm, full of authority.
‘Latest reports have him trapped, cornered by the humans.’
I didn’t need to see his face to work o
ut he was smiling, I could hear it in his voice. The same was true for Mab’s reply.
‘I told you what he’d do, didn’t I? Now will you listen to my plan?’
I could tell from the position of their feet that they were facing each other. From the tone of her voice, Mab was negotiating, almost pleading for the man to listen to her. The thought of being discovered frightened me so much I thought they’d hear the noises made by my churning stomach, especially when the man asked his next question.
‘We’re not going to be discovered here, are we?’
The impatience in Mab’s reply caused her to almost snarl.
‘Don’t change the subject. I want an answer.’
The man sighed heavily. ‘I’m listening.’
‘I have undertaken certain measures to ensure things deteriorate for him even though he’s obtained reinforcements beyond his spriggan contingent.’
‘Who?’
‘Clíodna.’ Mab spoke the name like it was poison.
The man cursed. ‘How has he persuaded the Queen of the Bean Sidhe to join him?’
‘He’s promised to help her regain power. It doesn’t matter. They won’t prevail.’
There was scepticism in the man’s voice now. ‘How can you be so sure?’
The stone floor was making me cold and I started to shiver. I wondered how much longer they’d keep talking, I hoped it wasn’t long. Mab’s voice took on a lighter tone, as though she was smiling again.
‘I am a skilled tactician, my lord.’ She giggled, as though she was flirting with the man. ‘Or have you forgotten how well I led the forces of the Dark Court before you chose to relieve me of the position?’
The man sighed heavily and with a tinge of impatience.
‘Your wit has not diminished with age, my lady.’
They both laughed briefly but it wasn’t genuine, it ended too suddenly. When the man spoke again the tone of his voice sounded like he was being promised something he wanted very much.
‘And you guarantee he will be killed in this battle?’
