The Phantom Queen Awakes (32 page)

He huddled with Bebin, holding her hand, while
Ulick cursed in defiance and drank himself to sleep.

“What will it be the third night?” Bebin asked
in a whisper.

Ennan could not answer. He squeezed her hand
and murmured comfort against her temple. The sound of battle faded
with the sun. The last they heard of it was a harsh, fading whisper
through the door.

“You will give her the calf. It is
fated.”

When Ennan went out to check to the farm, the
second calf was gone. Fynnerois stood alone in the pasture, lowing
disconsolately for her offspring. He milked her to make her more
comfortable and placated her with food. When Ulick woke from his
soused slumber he cursed the woman for a thief and a brigand and
swore he would have her hung from the crows. Even Fynnerois felt
his temper; her mourning driving him to whip her across the
field.

Still, he refused to produce the
bull-calf.

Once more Ennan fixed the fence, whispering
his excuses to the Lady as he did so. He feared she would not hear
him, nor care if she did. Her and hers were not known for their
kindness.

That night, the third night, a great fête was
held on the farm. High, elegant beings danced with capering,
chortling things that had trouble holding their forms. Laughter
tinged with madness shrilled and the music the beings danced to was
plucked on strange instruments that jangled the ear. The few hours
of sleep snatched during the night were sour with dreams and
portents.

In the morning the pasture was empty:
Fynnerois was gone.

Ulick cursed the sun, moon and the gods,
hunting up and down the barn for his missing treasure. There was no
trace of her. In a fury he snatched up his switch and laid it
across both Ennan’s and Bebin’s back, cursing them for traitors and
conspirators. Blood flicked from the slender withy and spattered
Ulick’s face and clothes.

“You think I am blind to your plotting?” he
ranted. “Are my eyes shut; my ears closed when you go off into
corners to whisper and conspire? Am I a fool?”

The cool, hard tones of the red-haired woman’s
voice interrupted him.

“Some would say that to ask the question is to
answer it.”

Ulick turned, blood in his eye and his chest
heaving, and raised the bloody switch to her. She caught the length
of wood in her hand before it could strike her face; the meaty
thwack making Ennan flinch but the woman’s still, shining face
showed no reaction. She took the switch from Ulick and her white
hands snapped it into short lengths. The pieces fell between her
fingers to the ground at her feet. Ulick’s hands opened and closed
around the weapon he no longer held and for the first time he had
wit enough to show fear.

“If you had given me the bull-calf,” the woman
said. “I would have granted you boons and wealth that kings and
druids have begged for. Harm would have bypassed your farm and your
beasts would have fattened on stones and sand. Instead, you have
lost everything.”

Ulick raised his chin and stared at her
defiantly,

“You still don’t have your calf,” he said.
“Bring back my Fynnerois and I shall gift him to you. Then we need
never have dealings with each other again.”

Those flame-lick brows rose.

“You still try to haggle?” she
asked.

The young bullock appeared on the road behind
her. He wandered up to her and stood, head low and gentle as a
spring lamb, by her side. The woman put her hand on his proud
skull, between the budding horns. “I am not one of your neighbors
to be fooled by gravel amidst the oats or dozed cloth folded under
good. These three nights were not a threat but a chance to
repent.”

The last reserves of Ulick’s fool pride were
drained. His knees gave way under him and he knelt in the mud,
clutching at the hem of the woman’s robe.

“And I do,” he swore. “I repent, gentle
one.”

She kicked his hand from her robe. “Too late
do you come to wisdom, Ulick. The deadline has passed. You wish to
claim your Fynnerois again? Your white queen of cows who you boast
is finer than the Morrigan’s own? Then go.” The woman pointed
towards the fence, to the herd of white cattle that grazed there.
To Ennan’s eyes, it seemed that the beasts had not appeared, more
they had been there all along and it was his eyes that were
lacking. “If you can find her amidst my herds, Ulick mac Fearchair,
then she is yours and your debt to me is discharged. But for each
cow you mistakenly claim as her, you must serve me for nine
years.”

Ulick rose to his feet and stared at the cows
in dismay. Each white-flanked, dark-eyed beast was as fine as his
Fynnerois but no finer. It was an impossible task, but the woman’s
command was undeniable. His shoulders slumped and without a second
look at farm or nephew or daughter he climbed into the
field.

“Fynnerois?” he called. “Fynnerois, my sweet
girl. My beauty.”

Now the woman’s gaze returned to Ennan. He
knelt still and felt no urge to rise to his feet. Shame for his
part in this bowed his head.

“And you,” the woman said.

“He spoke against my father’s plan,” Bebin
said. Her voice trembled and cracked but did not fall silent.
“Ennan urged my father to abide by his word and return the calf,
but he would not listen.”

“And was that enough?” the woman
asked.

Ennan raised his head.

“No,” he said. “No, Lady, it was not. I should
have defied him.”

Bebin clutched his shoulder, digging her
fingers in. “No! My father would have put him out and where else
has he to go?”

“Better that, than to be so dishonored,” Ennan
said thickly, “Then to bring this down on you and the
farm.”

The woman’s long fingers scratched the
bull-calf’s poll as a man would a dog’s head. Her smile was not
cruel, but nor was it kind. It was her smile and as such, beyond
understanding.

“What is it you ask for,” she said,
“punishment or forgiveness? Would you ever decide?”

Ennan put his hand over Bebin’s to silence her
and looked up at the woman, at her bright hair and her spear and
her sharp glory, and he knew her. Dread was the frog in his
throat.

“Is there forgiveness in you?”

Her smile widened and she shook her head,
raising the spear she carried. Ennan closed his eyes. Some might
watch their doom unflinching, but he was not so bold. He heard
Bebin cry out and then hot agony lanced through his leg, from thigh
to calf to heel.

The scream was wrenched from his throat, harsh
as a crow’s call, and he would have toppled if not for the spear
driven through his leg and into the ground. Her hand was still on
the butt.

“No forgiveness in me and my gifts tend to
sour. So you have this, Ennan mac Fearchair: a boon that will give
you no joy.” She wrenched the spear free, shreds of flesh and
muscle caught on the barbs, blood dripping from the point. “War
comes, Ennan mac Fearchair, and the cream of Ireland’s men will die
paying their toll to me: My name on their last breath in this life.
You heard its ghost the other night. So, I give you your life,
Ennan. A cripple will not be called to fight; a lame man cannot
keep up with the warbands. You will live long and be content and
never know glory.

“Remember me.”

****

Afterword

“It was when Queen Mebd saw the bull calf born
of Donn Cuailnge and the Morrigan’s heifer fight Ailill’s
white-horned Finnbhennach that she set her heart on stealing Donn
Cuailnge away for her herd.”

I love Irish Mythology, so when Morrigan Books
announced that they were publishing an anthology in honor of their
patron goddess, the Phantom Queen of War, Death and Sovereignty, I
was determined to have my name on the Table of Contents. The
question was: what was I going to write about?

In the end, I decided on the ‘White Heifer’,
because I wanted to explore an untold tale from the Ulster Cycle;
and because I needed to tell the story of a man who was not a hero,
but still had dealings with the gods. Ennan is a kind man, a good
person, but neither goodness nor kindness are attributes valued by
the Morrigan. Yet, she can be fair, in her own, hard
way.

‘The White Heifer’ is also an exploration of
something I have always found appealing about Irish Mythology: that
the gods and myths are so intrinsically interwoven into the land
and life of Ireland itself. They are not set above, below, or
aside, but are an essential part of the world. It was a terrifying
wonder to have Morrigan come visiting, but at the same time, it was
an accepted one. Her presence in their life was like a storm;
something to awe and survive.

****

Biography

Elegant, disturbing prose is Northern Irish
author, T.A. Moore’s, stock-in-trade. From the decadent, eternally
decaying Even City to the worrying charm of Sol in ‘A Different
Breed’, she weaves horror and beauty together to create worlds of
dizzying variation and charm. Her first novel,
The Even
, was
published in September 2008 and the sequel,
Shadows Bloom
,
will be published in 2011.

****

Elaine
Cunningham

She Who Is Becoming

Any man who believes in unchangeable Fate has
never stood in the shade of Yggdrasil, nor is he overly familiar
with the ways of women.

Three sisters stood beneath the great World
Tree, goddesses who spun the threads and wove the tapestry of
mortal lives. They gathered around their silver loom and watched in
silence as the fabric unraveled from the bottom up.

First, the warriors in the valley faltered and
fell. Death continued upward, cresting the hill where a young bard
stood. The curved frame of his great battle harp came unbowed.
Gold-thread harp strings snapped free and writhed away like worms
eager to feast upon unfinished lives.

Urd, the white-haired eldest, sighed and
gestured with the distaff in her hand toward a pile of new-spun
thread. “Eregar was fated to live long and win great renown as a
bard. On this we all agreed.”

“I wove such skill into his fingers,” said
Verdandi, the middle sister. Her round, matronly face was wistful
as she ran her own deft fingers over the ruined work. “I fashioned
for him the heart of a warrior-poet. Such a man could have written
songs that would ring through Valhalla until the end of
days.”

The youngest sister, Skuld, smirked and
brandished the knife that had cut the bard’s
life-thread.

“The decision was mine to make. If I undo your
work, what of it?” She lifted her chin proudly. “I am unchanging
Fate. I am Death, which cannot be denied.”

“There are three Norns,” Urd reminded
her.

“She Who Was, She Who Becomes.” The maiden
gestured to each of the older women in turn. “You may spin and
weave the threads, but the future is mine. Only She Who Is Becoming
determines the fate of mortals.”

The older sisters exchanged a quick glance.
Unspoken agreement passed between them.

“Then sharpen your knife, Sister, and get you
to Eire,” said Verdandi. “It is mine to know what is, and I tell
you that as we speak, five Danish warships sail for that green
shore.”

The maiden frowned. “But those are the
Morrigan’s lands.”

“What of it? Death cannot be denied,” She Who
Was said mildly.

Skuld eyed Urd suspiciously, but there was no
hint of mockery on her sister’s time-worn face. After a moment, she
nodded and spun away to climb the Great Tree.

It took her less time than that which passes
between two beats of a mortal’s heart to reach the place where a
broad limb arced up into the clouds. Her flaxen braids trailed
behind her as she ran, and the raven’s cries that burst from her
throat soared off to ride the winds.

An answering call came, then another. The
clouds parted as Gunnr and Rόta, sister valkyries, rode to meet
Skuld on horses made of air.

The youngest Norn leaped into the sky and
gathered the reins of the wind. They sped toward Eire, crossing
silver seas and soaring over awakening villages. If any mortals in
the lands below noted their passing, it was only as a keening wind
and the distant calling of crows.

Finally Skuld saw five slim ships riding the
waves, swiftly closing on the island’s southern shore. She and her
sister Valkyries circled down for a closer look.

Signal fires burned on scores of hilltops and
the swift heartbeat of drums sped the men of Eire as they ran to
meet the invaders. Skuld noted with interest the many Northmen
among the Celts ― tall men with hair as bright as flame or as fair
as her own. She’d heard it said that the green island held a magic
to rival Annwn’s cauldron, for men who came to these shores were
soon reborn as sons of Eire.

The ships spilled Danes onto the shore. Eire’s
sons ran to meet them with axe and sword.