The Grey Horse

by MacAvoy, R. A. ;

  Máire sat down and tried to pry his hands off with her left hand. He caught that also. “You see, lass? If it weren’t for the terror I have for you, I’d be able to let you go.”

  She gathered her shreds of control and glanced behind, at the darkened house. “Quiet. Now no more fooling. Let me go. I promise I won’t hit you.”

  “Then you’ll kick me,” he answered, and held tight.

  Máire took a deep breath which ended in a giggle. “I’ll neither hit nor kick you nor do you harm in any fashion.”

  His eyes were black in the darkness. “How can I believe you?”

  Now Máire laughed outright, but bitterly. “As I’m neither a man nor a fairy, you can believe me, MacEibhir. I’ll do you no harm.”

  Her hand was free, just like that. Ruairí stared at her intently with his invisible eyes. “And because I am both, Máire. Both a man and a fairy, you can believe me. I mean you no harm, but great good.”

  She stood up again, chagrined to find that the ground had been damp. “I’ve heard about fairie’s promises.”

  He had remained sitting. “They are kept. It is only that they are sometimes carefully worded. But I say it plainly, with the night as my witness: I will do well by you, a Mháire daughter of beautiful Nóra NíGhallchóir by a child of Danu. In waking and in sleeping and in all seasons I will keep and guard you.”

  His serious expression dissolved. He stood up. “—at least as well as a bee can.”

  Máire tried to turn away from him and could not. “How would you do that? Keep me, I mean, when you’re Anraí Ó Reachtaire’s second groom and haven’t even a cottage or an acre of your own?”

  When his answer was not immediate, she added, “I knew it. You’re after play, just like the man who ruined my mother.” She headed back for the house, stumbling.

  “Stop!” To her own surprise, Máire did.

  “Don’t you think I could find sport enough without spending the sweet season sitting under a hedge, like a dog waiting for his master?” The fairy man stepped over to her, soundlessly. “If I waited in my answer, a Mháirin, it was because there were so many, answers among which to choose.

  “I am now old Ó Reachtaire’s horseboy, yes, but I needn’t remain so. I could come to you dripping in gold and jewels, like a king, and riding a stallion shod with silver. I could put money into your lap.”

  For a moment she was breathless. “And in the morning it would all disappear?”

  Ruairí had to smile. He scratched his grey head. “Some of it might, certainly. But fairies know about more than fairy gold, believe me. I know what the earth knows.

  “With me, you could live better than with this corn-haired man who is not your father and who has so little love for you.” He sighed softly. “For I do love you, a Mháire.”

  Máire frowned. She stared from the moon to her own white hands in confusion. Then she met his glance, and her full lips were tight. “You’re not a Christian, Ruáirí”

  So unexpected was the statement that he left his mouth hanging in the breeze for a good while. “Not at all. How would you expect me to be?”

  She nodded, and there was relief in her face. “I didn’t expect it. But I am a Christian, you must know, and I cannot marry one who isn’t without putting my immortal soul into risk.”

  “Is that so?” he said, and his smile was sly.

  “It is, and I’ll hear no fairy nonsense against my revealed religion, thank you!” As he said nothing to this she continued more softly, “So you see, I cannot marry you. You must find another like yourself. More like yourself.

  “But… .” a sudden idea brightened her moon-white face. “If indeed you know where treasure lies, there are hundreds of poor Gaels in this parish alone whose lives would be lightened …”

  “Poor Gaels are nothing to me,” said Ruairí shortly.

  Máire’s temper rose again. “Well, then, there is nothing more to say!” She stalked by the chickens and toward the back door.

  He was trotting beside her. “Is that the only objection? That I’m not a Christian? It seems small enough. I will declare myself so.”

  “What?” So loud was her exclamation that Máire covered her own mouth with her hand and glanced guiltily at all the windows of the house. “You can’t, Ruáiri. Fairies are the enemies of the church. A touch of holy water to you would be acid on the skin!”

  “Who says?” He snorted. “I’ll bet I could endure it. Besides, it hasn’t hurt you any, lass.”

  “I’m nothing like a fairy,” Máire whispered, more composedly.

  “You know nothing about it,” he replied in an even quieter whisper. He kissed her on the lips before she could stop him, and then he ran off, making no noise on the short spring grass.

  There were the white walls and the white sheets and the white spring coverlet that their mother had sewn before she died five years ago, but there was no Eibhlín against them.

  Máire stood still in the doorway. She began to sweat and then to shiver. She looked out the window which gave onto the garden. At last she undressed and went back into her own bed.

  What could the chippie say against her, even had she heard? (And what she heard she would tell, for she was Eibhlin.) She could accuse—no, convict her—of a clandestine meeting with a man in the garden. Of a kiss. That could ruin her, of course, if there was anything in big Máire Standún left to ruin. It would confirm her father’s conviction that she was a whore born.

  Like her mother.

  But it was not as bad as if Eibhlín had gone through the dirty papers in Máire’s “teaching” pile. Not as if she had discovered any one of Tadhg Ó Murchú’s unobtrusive visitors. Eibhlín, with her mind irremovably fixed on young men, would not think to suspect her sister of misdeeds so unrewarding.

  She was still hot with anger, however, and stiff under the covers, when pale Eibhlín drifted in. She shot a covert glance at Máire’s bed and went back to her own, placing her black woven shawl ever so neatly on the peg by the bed.

  “Where did you go?” asked Máire, and to her disgust her own voice betrayed her upset.

  Eibhlín gave a well-rehearsed chuckle. “Where do you think, at this hour, and with the tea we were drinking all evening? But unless you were squatting in the garden to water the plants, a Mháire, I don’t know where you were, for I didn’t see you at the little house. Perhaps I shouldn’t bother about it.”

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t,” said Máire. “Perhaps you shouldn’t bother with a lot of the business you bother about.” She turned over with great energy and lay as though asleep.

  Eibhlín lay down without messing the covers and folded her hands over her stomach. She slept neatly, but snored.

  A light spatter of rain made both the saddles and the horse’s smell. Anraí Ó Reachtaire, on the black Thoroughbred, peered with weather-worn eyes down at the rippling summer grass and sedges in the valley below. Ruáiri, sitting the crazy chestnut indolently, looked further, at the wild hell of fuchsia and gorse on the far slope.

  “We don’t know where he is, but I make no doubt that he knows where we are,” murmured the old horseman.

  “Oh, but I know where he’s hiding,” said Ruairí His complacency roused Anraí

  “Damn you if you do. We’ve been searching all morning, MacEibhir, and I think you don’t like to waste your time any more than the rest of us.”

  Ruairí still sat at ease, and his peaceable face went even sleepier. “But it’s no waste, Anrái, son of Thurlaigh. To ride a fast horse on a fair morning … ?”

  “Fair!”

  “Well I’ve endured many worse. I’ll follow you like the good hand I am, Anraí, but if you’d have me bring you this horse, you must tell me what you’ll do with him. Shoot him, as Diarmuid Ó Cadhain wants you to?”

  Anraí had a long rifle slung behind his saddle. He did not look at it. “If he’s as vicious as they tell me, I’ll have to, Ruairí. I’m told he’d be no loss to the race of ponies.”

  MacEibhir c
olored, in one of his rare moments of temper. “The little king? Indeed he is not vicious, or not as vicious as you are, horsekeeper. And as for being a loss to the race, well, I think the race might have some say in that. I know he is very good to his mares.”

  Anraí ’s eyes widened, but he was not one to back away from an argument. “Except that his mares are actually Diarmuid’s mares. And James Blondell’s mares as well, which he has stolen. And the babes they could be breeding for good gain for their owners are rough pony babes, and uncatchable.”

  Ruairí smiled, as though Anraí had actually agreed with him, but the red stallion took a sudden opportunity to snap at his black colleague, who shied away.

  “Sorry, my oversight,” said Ruairí, turning his mount’s head.

  “I’m sure it was!” Now it was Anraí’s turn to get hot. “You make that kind of mistake all the time, you unholy creature. Let me tell you I’ve never been happy to kill a horse my life long. Much rather would I kill a human man, but sometimes it comes to that.” He pointed a gnarled finger at the fairy.

  “I’ve spent my little share of strength covering this mountain, and I won’t be made fool of. If you can catch me this wild hammerheaded pony, then do so, and I’ll see he gets no bullet. But if I have to sweat much more, I’ll shoot him as I see him, to spare my own life!”

  Anraí had no intention of shooting the wild horse unless it attacked him, and Ruairí did not believe for a moment that he had. He replied, “If I catch him, can I do my own will with him?”

  The old man stared. “If that doesn’t include turning him loose again or breeding him to my mares, then you can.”

  The red horse dropped its head and pawed, as though it and not its rider were considering. “It doesn’t include either of those, though by preference I’d let him remain king of his little country, for he has qualities, and I have known him since his birth.” He turned his horse’s limber neck.

  “I’ll catch you this horse, Anraí. Sit here at your leisure, and I’ll bring him to you.”

  Anraí watched him start down the hill, sparing the Thoroughbred’s delicate legs. The horseman felt somehow badly used. It was Ruairí’s eternal command that bothered him. Damn all, Anraí was boss.

  He thought of something hurtful to say. “You know, Ruairí, that a decent man does not go courting at night without a father’s permission.”

  In surprise the other reined his mount. “Doesn’t he? But when am I to court, if you keep me working all day?”

  The black horse stirred at the grip of Anraí’s legs. “A decent man doesn’t go courting at all, but leaves that to wise friends, who take a good bottle to the man of the house and discuss the matter.”

  The fairy produced an incredulous expression, which made Anraí angrier. “That’s what a Christian does, you heathen. But you wouldn’t understand!”

  Now Ruairí settled back in the saddle. “It’s true that I don’t, Anraí. But I must learn to, for a Christian is exactly what I intend to become.”

  And as the old man stared, he rode down the hill after the hammerheaded pony.

  Anraí sat in the mist, while the black horse shifted left and right. After a while he could no longer see the chestnut spot against the grass that meant Ruairí.

  He began to consider his finances, as he always did when he had time. He wondered whether the summer would be impossibly tight or only a decent pinch. With pounds on one side and bales weighed against them, it seemed possible that they would manage.

  Because of the fairy, of course. He was more use than any two assistants, and as yet Anraí had not paid out a shilling to him. Even Donncha could not be jealous of that.

  Wet wind blew under Anraí’s hat. His horse snorted. There was nothing to see but the green, barren valley below and the thorn across the way.

  Of course Ruairí MacEibhir had not asked for money, but only an opportunity to make himself known to the parish. To Standiln’s black daughter, specifically.

  Anraí sighed, and so did his horse under him. His agreement with Ruairí MacEibhir might be more costly than the pennies he saved, if the fellow got Máire in trouble. Carraroe would not like that and would ask Anraí why he’d taken such a villain into his household and where he had gotten him in the first place. Was he to answer that he met him in the form of a great pony on the hills? The priest thought he was a Kerryman, by his slow, old-fashioned speech. Old-fashioned, indeed! And little Toby, the young squire, who walked about telling folks that Ruairí had come off a horse and broken his eyeballs like egg yolks! Dear Lord, what a tale! Who in his right mind could believe that man would come off a horse?

  If Ruairí MacEibhir came to grief, be sure he’d drag Anraí down with him. Or in his place. But Máire …

  His head nodded under the spatter of rain.

  Máire Standún might take care of herself very well.

  When Ruairí MacEibhir came back, Anraí was asleep on an uncomfortable, wet black horse. The scrape of hooves over rock did not disturb him, but the snorts and groans of fright from the horse Ruairí led behind him woke the old man in an instant. Before he opened his eyes, his hand was stroking the neck of his mount, and he was crooning to it.

  There was the grey-haired fellow with the black eyes and the young face, looking as sleepy as ever—-though the red horse he rode was clearly unhappy. And behind them, frozen in shock and dread, was a small, stocky, dust-black stallion, with a rope of grass draped around its thick neck. Its nose was pinched, its lips pulled, and the expression in its round eyes made Anraí catch his breath. His unkempt coat was wet through by sweat more than by rainwater, and steam rose.

  “By sweet Jesus, man! What did you do to him to put him in that state? He is a horse terrified to the edge of death!” Anraí Ó Reachtaire was flooded with outrage.

  Ruairí cleared his throat, which was thick. “I told him his reign was over,” he said, and there was none of the accustomed cheerfulness in his voice. “That his reign was over and his family broken. What would you expect him to look like, after hearing that?”

  Anraí looked at the stocky pony, not fourteen hands high, and tried to see a king within.

  To call the beast hammerheaded was unfair, though its jaw was heavy enough and its throatlatch almost drafty. Its ribs were broad, but not quite barrel shaped. Its shaggy short legs were foursquare. “And yet he came with you? On a little grass rope, not even tied?”

  Ruairí put both hands on the pommel of his saddle and let his head hang forward. Anraí thought he said, “What choice had he?” but realized then that he had heard wrongly. “What choice had we?” was what the fellow had said.

  The black pony stood very still, all his legs braced, as though he were falling asleep. Anraí knew better. “It might have been kinder to shoot him,” he said, and he raised his eyes away from the sight.

  But behind the black pony and Ruairí on the red horse there was another horse, coming slowly up the hill. It was long limbed and very elegant, and it came freely. The red stallion nickered and pawed, and the black turned his head an inch.

  It was Diarmuid Ó Cadhain’s Thoroughbred mare, half sister to Anraí’s own black stallion. A dark, burnished bay, fully eight inches taller than the little pony, she walked a large circle around the red stallion to approach from the pony’s side, and she lay her very expensive head across his slanting croup.

  “There’s loyalty for you,” said Anraí.

  There was a shrill call from the opposite slope, and Anraí could barely make out other horses, or ponies, most likely, half hidden amid the gorse. They did not approach.

  “Don’t be hard on them, old man. They’re not tame to man, like the big girl,” said Ruairí.

  At the far whinny, the pony turned his head all the way behind, raised his ears, and took one step to the side. Ruairí gave the slightest of pulls upon the grass rope, and from his human throat came a deep, equine grunting.

  The prick ears slid back again and the black eyes glazed over. Anraí circled his horse to c
ome up on the pony’s other side. They started toward Mám Cross, where Ó Cadhain had his barn, and the black pony and the bay Thoroughbred came with them.

  “He’ll scarcely let you keep her, too,” said Anraí, roughly. Ruairí was unmoved. “I never led the horse to believe he could.”

  There was silence broken only by hoof falls and the black pony’s frequent stumble. They passed sheep and a man in black gaiters, who was accompanied by a black, barking dog. The sun came out. It was over ten miles to the crossing.

  “So how do I do it?”

  It was the fairy’s question, and Anraí, who was nodding again, squinted at him in confusion. “Are you asking me to guess how you convinced that poor pony to give up all …”

  Chuckling, Ruairí shook the ruin from his hair. “That wouldn’t be fair, Anraí. I’m asking you how it is I become a Christian.”

  Old Anraí snorted very much like a horse, and the bay mare he was leading lifted her nose to him. “Why, you become a Christian by being baptized, of course. That is, after you believe what the holy church has to teach you.”

  Ruairí was examining the pony’s eyes, but he caught at least-part of it. “Baptized! Of course. That’s what the man Pàdraig came to do, isn’t it. With a lance through the foot?”

  Anraí blinked. “I’m sorry?”

  “I asked you whether you still baptize with a lance through the foot, as the old bishop did in my early years?”

  “He never!” Anraí’s forehead wrinkled so that he let the drops from his wet hair run into his eyes.

  And Ruairí giggled. “Ah, but he did! Who should know better than I, who was there, although a small foal at the time.”

  Looking at Anraí’s scandalized face, he giggled again. “Ara! Anraí, I never lie to you. Not outright, that is.”

  They were on the wooden bridge of Mám Cross, with the high hills rising behind. “Well, Tadhg Ó Murchu does not baptize with a lance through the foot,” Anraí stated.

  “I’m glad of it,” answered Ruairí.

  They turned left and went a half mile.

  “ Anraí,” said Ruairí, “If you take my advice, you’ll exchange the payment Diarmuid has offered you for the foal that bay mare carries. He’ll be glad to dispose of it, feeling as he does, and it …”