The Phantom Queen Awakes (31 page)

Her voice was like a hard-rung bell. Ennan
darted a quick look at her face.

“No,” he said. “My uncle is mac Fearchair.
He’s coming now.”

Ulick’s passage through the crowded market was
a great deal less graceful than the woman’s. He shoved between the
cows, slapping at their dung splashed sides, and scrambled over the
lower slung bodies of pigs. The drovers watched him sidelong and
hid smiles under their hands when he slipped and nearly
fell.

“Lady,” he said, shooting Ennan a suspicious
look. “How may I serve you?”

The woman blinked slowly and gave Ulick a once
over from head to toe. Her gaze was as dispassionate as any of the
buyers looking at livestock.

“It is said you claim your cow is as grand as
any owned by the fair folk themselves,” she said.

A chill kissed the back of Ennan’s spine and
he pled silently for his uncle to stay silent, but Ulick’s pride on
Fynnerois was too strong. He lifted his bearded chin.

“Aye,” he said. “My Fynnerois is a queen
amongst cattle. There’s none to match her.”

The woman’s eyes glittered with some wicked
humor.

“I would see her,” she said, “this wondrous
beast of yours.”

Ulick sucked his teeth and gestured at his
cows.

“I fear that my Fynnerois is not for sale. I
would rather put my daughter out in the field to be haggled over.
Or send my nephew here to the butcher.” He said it with a chuckle
but any who knew Ulick would know the truth in his words. He waved
again at his cows. “These are her get though. They share her
bloodlines and her spirit. One of these fine beauties will add
grace to your bloodstock and fill your pails with the richest milk
in Ulster. Why, it’s butter already as it leaves the
teat.”

The woman’s smile was sharp as a knife. “Or
even cheese,” she said.

Ulick squinted one eye and his smile slipped
for a moment before recovering. Uncertain of how to interpret her
words, he chose to chuckle as if it was a witticism. He reached out
and grabbed a cow by the ear, pulling it around.

Where Fynnerois was white, this beast was
yellow, and where her eyes were dark, its were milky
brown.

“The youngest heifer of Fynnerois,” Ulick
said. “Other than her mother, no finer cow can be found in all of
Ulster.”

“Set a blind man to search and little will be
found,” the woman said. An upraised hand silenced Ulick when he
went to protest. “I asked to see your cow, not to buy her. Oblige
me in this and you will prosper.”

What went unsaid made Ennan shudder, but Ulick
did not seem to sense the threat; he was rubbing his hands together
unhappily. His eyes flickered greedily from the woman’s finery to
his listless cows. Two sources of profit, but which to
pick?

“I’ll watch your cows if you want, mac
Fearchair,” one of the other farmers said. He nodded to the woman
respectfully, a gesture that nearly verged on a bow. She returned
the salute and smiled.

Ulick curled his lip and spat on the
ground.

“I wager you would, mac Cormac,” he said.
“Aye, and watch my coins into your strongbox as well, no
doubt.”

“Uncle,” Ennan said urgently. “The Lady has
said we will prosper. We should listen to her.”

Ulick scowled obdurately.

“Words will not fill my coffers.”

The woman drew a pouch from under her cloak
and held it up. The way it swung from her fingers suggested the
weight of coin within.

“If Fynnerois pleases me,” she said, “this
will be yours.”

Ulick licked his lips and stared at the pouch.
Then he turned and, slapping Ennan and the cows both, drove them
out of the market and back onto the road. mac Cormac caught Ennan’s
arm on the way past. He was an older man ― with white hair and
scars from battles fought before age forced him to retire ― and
well-respected.

“Speak soft to that one,” he said. “Your Uncle
is a fool; show her you are not to be tarred with the same brush.
I’ve known her well, over the years.”

A fine, red horse waited by the side of the
road for the woman but she chose to walk instead, her long stride
setting a pace that left Ulick puffing and dripping with sweat. The
cows did not seem to suffer any weariness and nor did Ennan, each
floating stride he took seeming to carry him a yard or more. So
must heroes feel, he thought.

The fine, red horse trotted beside
them.

Back at the farm Ulick sent Bebin to fetch
mead and Ennan to put the cows back into the field. Meanwhile, he
fetched Fynnerois from her byre to show her off to the strange
woman. The dainty cow pranced like a blood mare and tossed her
fine-horned head. Her hide shone like ivory in the sunlight and her
feet were obsidian.

The woman held out her hand; Fynnerois came to
her like a calf to its mother.

“She will do,” the woman said. “Give her to me
for three nights and when I return her she will be in calf to the
finest bull in Ireland. The bull-calf she throws from this covering
will be mine.”

Ulick laughed coarsely.

“Will it?” he said. “And why would I let you
do this? What benefit is there for me?”

Bebin brought the mead from the house. She
blanched when she saw the red woman waiting in her yard, the
freckles standing out on her plain face and the cups slipping from
her numb hands. Ennan caught them before they fell, so that only a
few drops of mead spilled.

“She is no mortal woman,” Bebin whispered to
him raggedly. “What does she wish of us?”

“Fynnerois,” Ennan muttered.

Bebin closed her bog-green eyes and mouthed a
prayer to Danu. “We are going to die.”

She took the cups back and hurried over to
Ulick and the woman, essaying a clumsy curtsey in her thick
skirts.

“Father,” she said. “I am sure we can trust
the Lady.”

“You were sure you could trust that last
beggar, Imbolc, not to steal from us,” Ulick snapped. “We are short
one haunch of lamb and a jug of ale for your surety. Now hold your
tongue and let your betters speak.”

Bebin bit her lip and backed away, twisting
her hands in her old apron. Ennan caught her by the shoulders and
squeezed gently.

“Don’t be concerned, Bebin,” he said. “It will
be fine. Go inside.”

She shook her head, brown braid whisking over
her back, and fled. Ennan wiped his hands on his smock and walked
across the field. The woman’s patience was clearly slipping. She
tossed her head, tight copper coils escaping her pins, and turned
her back on Ulick.

“I will find another cow,” she
said.

“Not one as fine as my Fynnerois,” Ulick said.
“Why look at her! Even the Morrigan’s heifers could not challenge
her beauty.”

The woman turned around, her eyes narrow under
flame-lick brows. Her thin lips pursed and then smoothed into a
smile.

“A pouch of gold,” she said. “My horse left as
surety.”

Ulick hesitated, his mistrust tormenting him,
and Ennan did not think the woman would tolerate her honor being
questioned again. He took a shaky breath and dared to speak for his
uncle.

“Done and done, Lady,” he said.

Those words earned Ennan bruises for a week
but Ulick did not counter his nephew’s agreement. The woman loosed
a golden girdle from around her waist and fashioned a halter for
Fynnerois from it. Until this day, Fynnerois had never known a
halter nor left the fields of Ulick’s farm, but she submitted and
contentedly followed at the woman’s heels.

The fine, red horse stood outside Ulick’s
house for three nights. He tried to catch it to harness it to a
plough but the horse led him a merry chase across the farm. He
borrowed a thick-necked, goose-rumped mare from a neighbor, but the
fine horse led her off into the forest and returned
alone.

On the third day the horse was gone and
Fynnerois was returned to them, none the worse for her journeying.
Though you would not know that by the way Ulick fussed and fretted
over her.

Over the next few months, Fynnerois waxed in
size like the moon, her white sides swelling till she could barely
fit through the barn doors. Ulick fed her on the best grains and
slipped strengthening herbs into her water, shorting his daughter
and Ennan’s rations in her place. Fynnerois gave birth at night to
three healthy calves the color of rich loam: two heifers and a
bull-calf. They surpassed their mother. At only a week old the
bull-calf sprouted horns and at two he stood taller at the shoulder
than Fynnerois.

Ulick looked at him and muttered and chewed
his beard.

Ennan feared what his uncle
planned.

After three weeks the woman returned to the
farm. This time her wild copper hair was loose over her shoulders
and she wore white silk thick with blue embroidery. She stopped at
the field where Fynnerois nursed her calves and considered the
scene: the ivory white mother and the two healthy young
heifers.

A weight settled on Ennan’s shoulder and he
felt like every step he took towards her sank him into the earth.
This was not what heroes felt, or if it was, only when they went to
meet their doom. Ulick, on the other hand, chortled on his way down
from the farmhouse.

“Greetings, Lady,” he said. “You see my two
fine young heifers, I see. They are the princesses of my farm. A
shame that our deal specified that the first bull-calf would be
yours.”

“And there was no bull-calf?” she
asked.

“None,” Ulick asserted happily. “Just my two
young girls. Perhaps another covering would serve your purposes
better.”

The woman regarded Ulick with disdain and
tapped the butt of her spear three times against the
fence.

“Three nights I had your Fynnerois,” she said.
“So three nights you have to find my bull-calf. Think well on your
greed, Ulick mac Fearchair, and think hard on who you try to
cheat.”

She left without another word and disappeared
at the gates to the farm, leaving not a strand of hair or thread of
silk to show her passing. Ulick thought he had fooled
her.

“Give her the bull-calf, Uncle,” Ennan begged
hopelessly. “This does our family dishonor and it is never wise to
try and trick the likes of her.”

Ulick snorted.

“Don’t be a fool, boy,” he said. “She’s just a
woman. If she was anything more, do you think she would not have
just conjured up the bull-calf?”

He pushed past Ennan and strode back towards
the house. Ennan followed him in an attempt to get him to
listen.

“She vanished!”

Ulick dismissed that with contempt. “She
realized I had gotten the better of her and fled. This is the last
we will see of her, mark my words.”

That night a storm shook the house, rousing
them out of their slumber. Thunder cracked overhead and lightning
caged the dwelling. Rain leaked through the ill-thatched roof in
dripping streams over their beds. Only Ennan, in his bed in the
hay, had a warm night. By morning the house was drenched,
half-flooded, and Ulick was more clod-tempered than usual from
weariness.

“Give the bull-calf back,” Bebin said as they
broke their fast. “Things will get worse otherwise.”

Ulick slapped her across the face for
questioning him, pulled his boots on and stalked out of the house.
His furious roar brought Bebin and Ennan stumbling out after him.
The fence around Fynnerois’ field was broken and one of the two
brown heifers was missing. Ulick bent down and picked up a long
splinter of wood.

“The bull-calf―” Ennan started. Before he
could say anything else, Ulick turned and hit him with the wood.
Ennan got his arms up just in time to avoid taking the blow in the
face. Splintered edges tore at his forearms. The next blow took him
across the shoulders and drove him to his knees. Ulick kept hitting
him until his clothes tore and blood dripped into the mud and Bebin
threw herself between them. He hit her once, scraping the line of
her jaw and cracking her shoulder, then threw the stick down. The
effort of beating Ennan had broken a sweat on Ulick’s forehead.
“Fix the fence,” he snapped and stalked away.

Bebin helped Ennan to his feet and used her
apron to blot the blood from his face and scalp. Her fingers were
trembling.

“He won’t listen,” she said. “It will only get
worse.”

“I know.”

Bebin twisted her bloodied apron in her
hands.

“Stay inside tonight,” she said. “I will tell
Father it is to guard the house in case any dare try to enter; to
stir his fear for his goods and himself. It is not safe for you out
here.”

That night the small farm house was surrounded
by the clangor of a fight: the crash and clash of swords, the moans
of the wounded and the shrill screams of embattled horses. It raged
through the night, waxing and waning in ferocity. Ennan, huddled by
the door and clutching an old cudgel in sweaty hands, heard the
battle cries of kings and the death-groans of heroes: Conchobar,
Fergus, Cuchulainn. There was no sign of any men in the darkness,
but when Ulick drubbed Ennan from the house, he was given rough
handling by the emptiness and thrown back over the
threshold.