John Lenahan - Sons of Macha

When you take one of Mom/Fand’s potions you really do go out. No dreams, no visions, no nothing. I had no idea how long I had been asleep. It could have been days or minutes. When I woke up I opened one eye and had a look around. Sitting at my bedside, reading a book, was Essa.

She was back to her beautiful young-looking self. I just watched as she brushed a wisp of hair away from her forehead with a gesture that I knew oh so well.

‘Hey, old lady,’ I said and then braced myself. Essa had been plenty mad at me for so much of the time that I knew her that I was never sure if our meeting was going to be pleasant or not. But then she smiled and my body relaxed and my heart pounded.

‘Hi, I … was worried about you.’

I looked around the room to see if anybody else was there. ‘You talkin’ to me?’

She laughed. ‘Yes I am. Are you OK?’

I sat up. ‘I am now.’ There was an awkward silence where we just stared at each, other until I broke it with, ‘You look good without the wrinkles and the grey hair.’

‘Why, thank you,’ she said with a nod of her head.

‘What’s it like drinking Tuan’s blood?’

‘Gross but kind of – wonderful. I haven’t felt this good in years. I have tons of energy.’

‘Maybe I should order a green dragon cocktail for myself?’

‘Maybe we should get my father to whip up some Tuan blood wine?’

We both laughed. It was nice – normal. Could it be that I was forgiven? I wondered. Could Essa and I ever be – normal?

The question was cut short by the sound of bare feet slapping against the stone floor. I was smothered in kisses even before I could see whose lips were administering them. Not that I had to look, there’s only one mermaid in all of The Land that greets me like that.

‘Oh Conor,’ kiss, kiss , ‘I have been so worried about you,’ kiss, kiss, kiss .

‘Hi Graysea,’ I garbled between smooches, ‘have you met Essa?’

The introduction had the desired effect of getting Graysea to let up on my face.

‘I remember Essa,’ Graysea said in a tone I had never heard from her before. ‘The first time I saw her she hit you in the head with a stick.’

I expected Essa to storm off, hopefully without hitting me in the head, but instead she stood her ground. ‘What are you still doing here?’

Oh my, I thought to myself, this has the potential to turn into a serious cat fight – or a cat and fish fight and they usually don’t turn out very well for the fish. I know it was cowardly of me – I reached for the bedside table but, damn it, there wasn’t any of that knock-out medicine there.

‘Where else should I be but by my beloved Conor’s side?’

To be perfectly honest I wasn’t the only reason she was still here – Graysea had nowhere else to go. When the Mertain King found out that she had stolen his dragon’s blood to give to me, he banished her.

Essa was close to snarling when she said, ‘I can think of several places I would rather you to be.’

‘Essa,’ I said as gingerly as I could, ‘Graysea helped me escape from a very difficult situation.’

‘Oh, did she?’ the Princess said. ‘And what other situations did she help you in or out of?’

‘I don’t understand you,’ my mermaid said with her usual tilt of the head. ‘Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be mourning the loss of your fiancé?’

I instantly popped up on my knees on the mattress between them. Essa had stepped back in what I recognised as a preparation to spring. I really didn’t want to be in the middle of this and suspected that any second I was going to get the worst of it.

‘Everyone out,’ came a command from the doorway. Dad was standing there in his drill suit. He wore that kingly face that made the two women snap to attention and then quickly leave. Neither said goodbye to me as they never really took their eyes off each other for the entire exit.

‘Thank you,’ I said when the Princess and the mermaid were out of earshot.

‘Don’t thank me too soon,’ Dad said, throwing me the clothes that he had been carrying. ‘Your mother and Fand have given you a clean bill of health, so come with me – it’s time for some training.’

‘Training for what?’

‘We’re going to launch an assault on the Oracle of Mount Cas.’

I thought about the prospect of going into battle again and then thought about the skirmish that Dad had just saved me from. War didn’t seem that bad at all.

I was back in Dahy’s boot camp. This time it was worse than the first time. The first time I knew I didn’t know anything. This time I thought I knew everything and Dahy proved to me that I once again knew nothing. We were learning a new technique. The master didn’t have a name for it so I called it ninja school – ’cause that’s what it felt like. None of us were allowed to execute any of our showy spins or flip manoeuvres. Every movement had to be minimal. All over the armoury, where we practised, were wooden dowels balanced upright with feathers perched on top. Every time one of us disturbed a feather, or worse, knocked over a dowel, Dahy would shoot us in the legs with a crossbow bolt that had a woollen ball stuck on the end. If you think that doesn’t sound like it would hurt – then think again.

Araf was really good at it. It wasn’t until I saw him in a room full of feathers did I realise just how economical a fighting style he had. Except for his figure of eight propeller-like stick move, Araf hardly had to change his technique at all. Essa was lucky she didn’t have to learn this stuff. Without all of her flipping and twirling she would have been very unhappy. And when Essa is unhappy – everyone is unhappy.

Gerard, Essa’s father, forbade her to go into the Oracle’s house. She wasn’t about to let her father boss her around like that but when Gerard threatened to withdraw all of Castle Duir’s wine shipments – Oisin took Essa off active duty. She was furious and Dad had to remind her that he was, like, a king. She stormed off kicking anything, and anyone, in her path. In short, Essa was to be avoided, but I was doing that already.

Even though our practice was deadly serious it was also fun. Dad joined us and so did Mom and Aunt Nieve. The ladies had a hard time casting spells without all of that dramatic wicked-witch arm waving. Dad, who already had, like, a hundred years’ worth of Dahy tutelage, just seemed to do whatever the master told him to do without any effort at all. One time I pushed Dad over, just to see if Dahy would shoot the king with his crossbow. He didn’t, he shot me.

Brendan trained with us but he wasn’t going either. He wanted to come, just like he wanted to ask the yew trees if he could use Spideog’s bow, but he had a responsibility to his daughter Ruby not to put himself in harm’s way.

‘And actually,’ he confided to me one day at lunch, ‘I’m in no hurry to see that Oracle guy again. If I recall he kicked our butts good with just a flick of the wrist.’

I pointed that out to Dahy but he said he had a plan. So by day we continued to practise our non-feather-disturbing fighting techniques and by night I rubbed healing salve into the black and blue bruises on my legs that Dahy gave me with his crossbow.

The banging on my bedroom door would have busted any Real World door off its hinges but Duir doors are made of hardy stuff.

‘Conor,’ the voice on the other side bellowed, ‘I want to talk to you.’ I knew who it was right away – everyone in the castle was talking about it. New wine is news around here but when it’s delivered by the master winemaker himself – that’s big news.