John Lenahan - Prince of Hazel and Oak

He looked at me. ‘How do you know that?’

‘He told me.’

That brought a crooked smile to Spideog’s face. ‘It must have pained him to tell you that.’

I laughed. ‘I think it did.’ I stirred the fire with a stick and felt the extra warmth on my face. ‘I found a letter of yours in the library.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Yeah, it was a letter you wrote to Dahy after the Fili war.’

‘Really? Oh, I think I remember someone collating material for some sort of an archive. Good gods, that was so many years ago.’

‘It seemed to me that you and Dahy were friends.’

After a sigh he said, ‘We were. More than just friends, we were comrades in arms.’

‘What happened?’

‘What else? A girl. I thought he stole her from me. He thought I stole her from him. In the end we fought. She said that she loved each of us equally and it was tearing her apart. She left us both and I disappeared into the Real World. Dahy always said he wasn’t mad about the girl, he claimed he was really mad about me leaving my duties but that is a false memory on his part. It was the girl. I needed to get away from him but more importantly I needed to find some peace of mind. I went to the Real World which was a pretty barbaric place back then. I didn’t discover what I was looking for until I travelled east. In Asia I found that the answer lies within, and as a bonus I learned their way of fighting. It was exciting and it changed my life. Everyone thinks that fighting is about brawn but in the east I learned that success in a battle comes from thinking.’

‘Dahy says that you know.’

‘I’m not surprised; Master Dahy is the most natural fighter I have ever known. He didn’t have to study to be as good as he is.’

‘It sunds to me that you two still like each other.’

‘Maybe.’

‘What happened to the girl?’

‘She found another, a man better than both of us.’

‘Well, I think you are both great men,’ I said, standing. It was time for bed. ‘It sounds to me that this two-timing woman screwed up a great friendship.’

Spideog rose, his face grimaced in the firelight. ‘You really shouldn’t speak that way about your grandmother.’

Spideog would say no more that night. I went to bed trying to remember what Dad had told me about his mother. It wasn’t much. He once told me that she left on a sorceress quest when he was still a baby and had never returned, but that was all I could recall. It was well into the next day, after the camp was packed and we were hiking up the trail, that I got a chance to speak to Spideog in private. It turned out that the love of his and Dahy’s lives was indeed my grandmother, Macha the Sorceress Queen, the Horse Whisperer, Mother of the Twins of Macha – Dad and Cialtie.

‘By the time I had come back from the Real World she had married Finn,’ Spideog said.

‘How did you deal with that?’

‘I had found peace in Asia. She was my queen and Finn was my king – I re-entered into the service of the House of Duir.’

‘But you never took a wife after her.’

‘No,’ he said. There was so much emotion in that one word I didn’t have the heart to ask him any more.

The path up got steeper and narrower. By midday I was exhausted and ready to stop but Spideog was not a ‘stopping for lunch’ kind of guy. He was a ‘one foot in front of the other’ kind of guy. We walked into the night until we found a place where the trail widened enough to make camp. It was cold and windy but dry and we all went out like candles in a hurricane.

The trail got ledge-like on the morning of the second day. Around one bend a small stream had frozen where it crossed the path. It was nothing too dangerous but Spideog lashed us together with ropes. He said one can never be too careful and it would be disastrous if he lost one of the two princes, to which Brendan replied, ‘What am I, chopped liver?’ We camped well before dusk on the second day. I would like to think it was because Spideog’s muscles were howling with the altitude and the cold as much as mine, but it was probably because we came onto a place that was wide enough for all of us to sleep safely.

It was not a comfortable night. The thin air meant that even though we had stopped climbing my legs still ached. We made a small fire to brew willow tea but we didn’ have enough wood to build one for warmth. The wind whistled around so that we almost had to shout at each other.

I sat next to Brendan with my back against the mountain and said, ‘Are you enjoying our vacation?’

He did a strange thing then, he turned completely away from me and presented his other ear and said, ‘Say that again.’

So I did. ‘Are you enjoying our vacation?’

He sat back down and asked me to say it again so I said it a third time.

‘Well I’ll be damned,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘About five years ago I went to the rifle range to test some experimental ammunition. The officer in the firing stall next to me was a quick draw. I thought he was finished so I took off my ear protectors just as his gun misfired. I have only had about 20 per cent hearing in this ear ever since.’

‘Sorry to hear that,’ I said, wincing at my accidental pun.

‘Don’t be. The weird thing is, I can hear perfectly now. This place is astounding. If I wasn’t so worried about my daughter and the junk my lunatic mother must be filling her head with, I’d think I was in paradise. I’m climbing a mountain without even breaking a sweat. Back home I could hardly walk up three flights of stairs without wheezing. And my accuracy with a bow and arrow is almost better than with a gun. This place is amazing.’

‘As I recall, I told you that a long time ago.’

‘Well, I’m starting to believe you, Conor.’

After half an hour of walking on the third day of the climb, we spotted the Yew House above us. Five hours later and after completing almost two circumnavigations, the sun was high in the sky and I was actually working up a good sweat despite the cold. We came to a sharp bend in the path that was covered by another one of those frozen fords and Spideog once again made us rope-up and don crampons and ice picks. I remembered laughing at the old guy when he made us pack all of this stuff, but not now. The wet ice in the noonday sun would have been impossibly treacherous to traverse without crampons.

Spideog, in the lead, had just rounded the corner when his rope went slack. Then Brendan, in front of me, disappeared around the bend, stopped and said, ‘Oh my.’ Rounding the bend myself I saw what had stopped my fellow mountaineers. Standing on the path just past the ice floe were two tall thin men dressed in tight woolly brown tunics and trousers – Brownies. They stood there with one fist on their hip. They would have looked just like an illustration in an old copy of Peter Pan, if it wasn’t for the cocked crossbows in their other hands.

Spideog spoke first. ‘Greetings. We come to speak with the Master of the Yew House.’

The Brownies just stood there and grinned. I didn’t like it. Neither did Spideog. He raised his voice and repeated himself. Still we got nothing from the skinny guys in brown.

Spideog planted his pick into the ice and unslung his bow from his back. He didn’t notch an arrow in it but I’ve seen the ter archer load a bow and it doesn’t take him but a second. Brendan planted his pick into the floe, mirroring his tutor. I guess I could have just stood there but the others were slamming their picks into the ice, so I did too.

The crack started immediately. It moved like lightning from the point where my pick pierced the ice, to where Brendan’s was planted, to past Spideog’s feet. Then the rumble began as the entire ice sheet began to slide. I thought the whole mountain was about to collapse. Brendan went straight down on his nose. I managed to keep one crampon on the ice but had to go down on one knee. Spideog kept his footing and yelled, ‘Run.’