The Last of the High Kings
Read The Last of the High Kings Online
Authors: Kate Thompson
Kate Thompson
For my mother, Dorothy Thompson.
Thanks for everything.
J.J. Liddy stood in the hall and yelled at theâ¦
“Can I go to Ennis with the girls then,” saidâ¦
Aisling defrosted bread and made soup from frozen peas andâ¦
About half a mile away, on the edge of theâ¦
J.J. answered his mobile and listened to what Nancy hadâ¦
Hazel came in, exhausted but extremely happy, at about 3:00â¦
On a Friday afternoon in the middle of May aâ¦
Jenny, sitting on top of the hill of stones, watchedâ¦
The archaeologists had brought two large tents with them. Oneâ¦
Donal walked down the drive and crossed the New Line,â¦
The archaeologists had brought enough water with them up theâ¦
J.J. finished shaping the new bridge he was making forâ¦
Hazel burst in through the front door and slung herâ¦
When J.J. got home, Jenny was in the armchair inâ¦
It was Jenny's turn to wash up, but that didn'tâ¦
“It's not going to work,” said Aisling to J.J. asâ¦
The púka never went anywhere near the beacon, but Jennyâ¦
J.J. strode out across the top of Sliabh Carron. Itâ¦
Between them Jenny and Donal found three shoes on theirâ¦
J.J. was feeling a little less enthusiastic about his hillâ¦
Nancy McGrath went shopping for Mikey whenever he needed it,â¦
Jenny didn't think the archaeologists would work on a Sunday,â¦
The day wasn't stormy. It wasn't even raining.
Alice Kelly was astonished to discover that the little girlâ¦
J.J. parked Aidan in front of the television, even thoughâ¦
When the archaeologists finished their coffee break, they were irritatedâ¦
When they'd had lunch, Jenny went out again, after promisingâ¦
Jenny was determined to pay another visit to the digâ¦
“Do you ever feel that you don't fit in?” theâ¦
J.J. left on the seventh of June for a six-weekâ¦
“Did you ever wonder,” said the púka, “how it isâ¦
On the twentieth of July, three days before J.J. wasâ¦
“So where does the ghost come in?” said Jenny.
Jenny tried to explain to the ghost that there wereâ¦
One very early morning in late August Jenny got upâ¦
As they watched, the púka lengthened and straightened. He wasâ¦
For a few moments the world was silent and still.
“I suppose this means that it's all off then,” saidâ¦
Even with Donal's tireless help, it took J.J. the bestâ¦
While J.J.'s wood was being sawed in Waterford, there wasâ¦
John Duffy at the sawmill dropped everything to get J.J.'sâ¦
When they eventually climbed into bed that night, Aisling toldâ¦
Jenny was still the only one up when he gotâ¦
It had never occurred to J.J. that Jenny might refuseâ¦
Luckily Aisling didn't forget the trip to the station. Sheâ¦
She didn't even try to look for him. She knewâ¦
Hazel stood in the middle of the kitchen, assessing theâ¦
J.J. stumbled uselessly around the hillside for half an hourâ¦
Jenny left the púka in the woods and walked upâ¦
Jenny slept until eight o'clock the next morning; that wasâ¦
Jenny sat on the hillside above the farm and watchedâ¦
Donal woke to the sound of his mother trying toâ¦
The weather, as it turned out, could not have beenâ¦
They had barely started out again when the white goatâ¦
“I knew you'd come,” said Jenny to Aengus, grinning fromâ¦
Nancy McGrath went back to Mikey's house to see ifâ¦
Like a man pushing a car, Aengus put his shoulderâ¦
Despite what they thought, Aengus Ãg had not abandoned Jennyâ¦
The púka moved out of Jenny's way, and she turnedâ¦
Down in the Liddy house, Aisling was sorting through theâ¦
“Why don't you play him a tune, J.J.? He'd likeâ¦
There was one more thing that Donal had to do,â¦
The police had accompanied the rescue team and the sceneâ¦
On top of the mountain stood a hill of stones. It measured one hundred paces around the base and twenty paces from the bottom to the top. Of all the people of the seven tribes there was no one who could remember when it had been built, but of all the people of the seven tribes there was no one who could not remember why.
On top of the hill of stones stood a boy. He was barely twelve years old, but he considered himself a man, already a proven warrior and hunter. If the talks going on in his father's fort went well, he would soon be married. If they went badly, he would even sooner be dead.
The young man who stood beside him on the hill of stones was a cousin. He was short, barely taller
than the boy, and some people said it was his small size that had made him so angry. He was the right man to go hunting with and the wrong man to have an argument with. He had killed stags and bears and men in close combat, and when he saw blood, he always wanted to see more of it. But even he had not wanted to see this blood, the blood of his young cousin. It was with great reluctance that he had allowed himself to be persuaded to take on this watch.
Throughout the whole of the night the two of them had waited on the beacon, taking it in turns to rest but never to sleep. A constant hard wind had been blowing against them, but it hadn't been that which kept them awake. They were watching for a messenger to tell them that the boy would live or a sign to tell them he would die.
Time after time, throughout that longest of nights, the boy wondered what had compelled him to speak. His father, as everyone had known he would, had asked for a hero, and the words were barely out of his mouth before the boy had called out with his own name. He hadn't thought about it. Something in him that was quicker and deeper than thought had spoken. The meeting had exploded into uproar. A dozen men and women demanded to be chosen instead of the
boy, and the voice that shouted loudest and longest was that of the man who stood beside him now. But it was no use. Battling against his own powerful feelings, the boy's father had quelled the storm. It was he who would be leading the forthcoming negotiations. It was right that his own flesh and blood should pay the price if they failed.
The fort on the edge of the plain could not be seen from the beacon, which was why two signalmen had been stationed at the edge of the mountaintop. Both the fort and the mountain's edge had brush pyres waiting to be lit if the talks broke down. The one at the fort would signal to the watchers on the mountain, and theirs in turn would signal to the boy. All through the night he had stared in its direction, sometimes imagining he saw the red glow of fire or smelled the smoke from burning kindling. Now, as the day dawned, he could see the two men, more cousins, their backs turned toward him as they kept their careful watch upon the fort. In the daylight the fires would not be lit. There were other signals instead: arms stretched up and held still for success and reprieve; arms to the sides and then up, waving, for failure and death.
The boy wondered why it was all taking so long.
Could they still be talking down there? Perhaps the meeting had finished hours ago and no one had thought of coming up to tell them. He sighed and stamped his sandaled feet in an effort to warm them.
“Hungry?” said his cousin.
“No.”
There was bread and cold meat in a hide bag, but neither of them had touched it all night. The boy rewrapped his cloak around him and fastened it with the gold pin that his mother had given him shortly before her death.
“You keep this,” he said. “Ifâ”
But the young man shook his head. “If you die, I will not be long coming after you. There are those who say I'm an angry man, but if I am made to spill your blood, there isn't a beast in the forest or a man among the seven tribes that will not know what my anger looks like.”
The boy shook his head. “Don't take it out on them,” he said. “They aren't to blame for this.”
But he saw already the glint of derangement in those dark brown eyes, and he realized that an early death had always been written on his cousin's brow. At that same moment he saw that the same thing was written on his own. His death was waving at him from
the horizon. He saw the signalers turn back and look toward the plain, then wave again, more urgently.
“Do it,” he told his cousin.
“Then say it.” The boy looked and saw tears streaming down his cousin's windburned face. He turned away from him and saw the signalmen running hard, in opposite directions, away from their unlit pyre.
Something was coming. Already. How could it all have happened so fast? The boy found that his knees were shaking so hard that they would scarcely support his weight.
“I swearâ” he began, but his voice was constricted by fear, and it squeaked like a child's. The words would be worthless if he did not mean them.
The mountain was shaking. Huge, heavy feet were thundering up the hillside from the plain.
“Say it,” said his cousin.
Two enormous, monstrous heads appeared over the rim of the mountaintop, then a third, then a fourth. The creatures had reached the top and were advancing on the beacon with massive strides, and they were far, far more terrible than he had ever imagined.
There was no more time. The boy took a deep breath, and as he did so, all doubt left him.
“I swear that I will guard this place,” he said, and his voice was clear and strong. “I will stay here and guard it whether I am alive or dead.”
The beasts were almost upon them. Behind him the boy heard the whistling swish of a sword being swung through the air with ferocious strength.
And for a short while afterward everything was very, very still.