The Green Hero (11 page)

Finn and Carth stood horror-struck, watching the women. Mother and wife stood crouched, eye to eye, nose to nose, jawbone to jawbone, too close to shriek, but berating each other in strangled whispers.

“He’s mine, mine, mine, and you shan’t have him!”

“He’s mine now, and I shall keep him!”

“He has me, and needs no other!”

“He needs me, not his mother!”

Now the widow wound her claws into Kathleen’s red hair and tried to pull it out by the roots. But the girl braced herself like a powerful white mare, stiffened the column of her neck, then snapped her head, and the long red pelt of her hair snapped like a whip, snapping the widow off her feet and hurling her the length of the deck, where she fetched up against a rusty anchor. She rushed upon Kathleen, screaming:

“I’ll tear the blue eyes out of your head, you wild hussy!”

“Come and try, Mother dear,” crooned Kathleen, crouching, and rocking her long arms.

Now Carth of the Cove, who could not bear to see them fight like this, the two women in his life, rushed between them—unwisely, for each seized an arm and a leg, and pulled at him, crying:

“He’s mine, he’s mine, he’s mine!”

“Drop this wife, and come away with me, dearie,” cried his mother, pulling with all her might.

“Cast off this mother and stay with me,” said Kathleen, pulling with all her wondrous might.

Flesh and bone could not take this tugging. The boy came apart in their hands. Split right in two, he did, from crotch to pate. The mother was left holding half a son by arm and leg—one arm, one leg, one haunch, one shoulder, half a face split right up the bridge of the nose. And Kathleen, for her part, held half a husband, precisely the other half—and each half useless to mother and wife.

Finn, in a rage, leaped across the deck, and seized the halves of the boy from the women’s hands, and laid them tenderly down—then clouted each warring woman along the side of the jaw, laying them out flat.

“Sure,” he said, “you two are the shrews of the world and impossible for a man to deal with. Now look what you’ve done to this poor lad. Aye, and it shall be long work knitting him together, if indeed it can be done at all. For it takes much magic to restore a lad so split and torn.”

He found a hole of the right size where a small tree had been uprooted and stuck the widow in headfirst. It was a bit narrow, but he jammed her in till she fit snug, with only her feet sticking in the air.

“She’s too tough to kill and too mean to die,” said Finn to himself, “but this will cool her off a bit.”

There she had to stay, upside down in her hole, where she could howl and gnash her teeth and disturb nothing but the worms, who are unsympathetic. And her shrieks would come out muffled as the pleasant little creakings of earth you hear among the grass sometimes in summer; and the bitter tears of her wrath would lose their bile and bubble to earth, unembittered, as fresh springs.

He began to look for another hole for Kathleen. But then he remembered suddenly the blue flame of her eyes, and the limber column of her neck, and her hair red as the oak leaf in autumn. And he returned to her and lifted her out of the wrecked ship and took her to the river, where he laved her face until the cool water awakened her. She looked at him silently.

He said: “On second thought you shall journey with me, to the far home of Angus Og whose magic I will implore to rejoin the halves of your poor husband, whom you and your mother-in-law between you have succeeded in tearing apart. For it is a far journey I make and a great boon I ask at the end of it, and a heavyweight of dead body I carry in this sack—so I shall not leave you here, but you will come with me and help. It is your husband in the sack, after all.”

“Who are you?” said Kathleen. “And why do you thrust yourself into my household affairs?”

“I am Finn McCool. And I advise you to ask no more questions in that tone, my girl, or I may clout you on the other side of the jaw. For you are a beautiful creature to look at, but a terrible shrew. As for your household affairs, I wish I were heartily out of them. But I am under hero vow to do favors when asked, and I was asked. And here I am. So shut you up, and come along.”

That night, after their evening meal, as they sat on a bluff overlooking the sea upon which a roadway had been kindled by the moon, there was a rustling in the air, and a flash of green fire from four wild eyes, high and low, and Finn’s companions, the hawk and the cat, came to him from where they had been off hunting.

The falcon perched on Finn’s shoulder. The cat, without hesitation, stepped into Kathleen’s lap. And Finn noticed with admiration that the girl was not at all frightened by the sudden apparition of a huge black tomcat with blazing green eyes who shot out of the darkness at her. She stroked the cat, saying:

“Good evening to you, Master Puss. You’re a handsome beast, to be sure, but I see no one has taught you manners, leaping out of the black darkness like that.”

She stroked his head and shoulders, and he closed his eyes and purred his low rasping purr. The falcon said to Finn:

“I have a tale for your ears. May I tell it now?”

“Tell away,” said Finn.

“Lord McCool, tell me—did I hear that bird speak to you, and you answering it?” said Kathleen.

“You did.”

“Well, that’s a marvel now,” said the girl.

“Not so marvelous,” said the cat. “I speak too. And in more cultivated tones—without that screeching hawky accent.”

“You too!” cried Kathleen. “Well, I have been turned out of my peaceable home, and seem to find myself in the middle of an adventure, with strange companions. A meddlesome gray-eyed stripling who calls himself hero, and minds everyone’s business for them, and claims an acquaintanceship with sorcerers, and a hawk that speaks, and a cat who boasts of even greater eloquence. Sure, and I’ve fallen into curious company.”

“You’ve known worse,” said Finn.

“May I tell you my story,” said the falcon. “I seem to have been interrupted.”

“Proceed,” said Finn.

“It’s the kind of thing that interests you, master. An adventure within an adventure, as it were. And all of it holding enough peril to suit even you.”

“I’m listening,” said Finn.

“I heard this story from a gull—with whom I had been disputing property rights over the carcass of a fat fish, which he had caught, to be sure, but which I had made him drop. Anyway, he was a pleasant enough bird for a gull; we resolved our quarrel and got to chatting of this and that. And he told me there was soon going to be a terrible fish shortage because of the anger of Lyr, God of the Sea.

“ ‘Why is he angry?’ I asked.

‘You would be angry too, if you were a prisoner.’

‘Lyr, a prisoner? But who can imprison a god?’

‘Another god, of course,’ said the gull. ‘Here’s what happened. Some months ago Lyr was on one of his rare trips inland to inspect certain rivers which flow to the sea, and which are part of his domain. He spied a beautiful ice maiden, dispatched by Vilemurk, god of winter, to delay the spring and blow her sweet icy breath upon various streams and ponds that were trying to thaw, and freeze them fast, though the month was April. Lyr watched the ice maiden for a while, and liked what he saw. He flung his green cape about her and flew back with her to his crystal and coral island in the very middle of the seven seas. She resisted at first, but he promised her this and that, if she would consent to stay with him and become his youngest wife. It meant being a queen, of course, and he promised her the choicest pearls of the oyster crop, and an ivory comb curiously carved, and her own dolphin chariot, and a mermaid’s tail and gills for when she wished to travel underwater. And so she agreed to stay with him and become the most recent and most beautiful of all his briny brides.’

“All this the gull told me, master. And I listened patiently, though it is not my nature. For I could see that there was trouble coming in the story, and that’s worth waiting for.”

“Get to the trouble, then,” said Finn.

“Yes, it came immediately,” said the hawk.

And she went on with the story the gull had told her, and which goes like this: Now, Vilemurk, whom some call the frost demon, was hugely angry when he learned that someone had stolen his favorite ice maiden, and that this someone was his old enemy, Lyr, whom he had always hated because huff and puff and chill as he would, he could never freeze the wide seas. All except that one time, remember, in the year of the Great Frost, when Finn first started on his journeys, and took the seeds of fire from the frozen sunset. But even then the sea was frozen for only a short distance past its shores. And so, Vilemurk, King of Winter, had always hated Lyr, God of the Sea. And now, of course, he hated him worse than ever, with a hatred that had to end in death or torment.

What he did then was spread a tale of a treasure in the northern seas where Vilemurk holds more power than other places, and keeps great fleets of ice thronging the open waters, and has dyed all the animals the color of snow. Well, the rumor he spread was one meant to appeal to Lyr, lover of all that glitters. A giant crystal, the rumor said, had been spotted floating on the black northern waters. A pure water crystal larger than the largest iceberg, hard as a diamond, and so carved by aeons of knife-edged polar winds that it was all polished surfaces and glittering angles. When the sun hit it, the giant crystal blazed forth with rainbow light, making all the jewels of earth seem drabber than the pebbles you find in the dust.

Rumor of this wondrous crystal fired Lyr with a wild greed. And he rushed off north to see for himself. Left in such haste that he left behind his escort of swordfish and spearfish and fire-eels and shark-toothed mermen, and all-ignorant and unguarded sped northward to where his enemy, Vilemurk, lay in ambush.

Now Vilemurk had brought with him all the disastrous giants that the foul-weather fiend commanded:

The huge coiled serpentine monster that lies underearth, stone asleep, until he awakes in rage to make earth quake.

And the giants who dwell in hollow mountains whose cooking fires are called volcanoes.

And the Master of Winds, who can whistle up a hurricane as a man whistles for his dog.

All these and more: The bat-winged mist-hags, who, flying low and in formation, can lay a blindness upon earth and sea. Those same chill crones whose fingers are icicles and whose breath can freeze the marrow. When they have nothing else to do they go about robbing the cradles of girl-babies and train them up as ice maidens.

All these lay in wait for the god of the sea. Lyr came northward, traveling alone in his sky chariot drawn by flying fishes. Toward a rumored treasure and an unknown foe he rushed, standing tall in his chariot, clad in whaleskin armor with a mantle of seal furs swinging from his mighty shoulders; wearing his crown of pearls, white beard flying, holding his three-pronged spear, which he could hurl like a thunderbolt if he wished, or handle as delicately as a seamstress does her needle. Northward he came, flashing across the low horizon, making a strange sun in the northern sky, which was entering its season of night.

All a-glitter, hot with greed, Lyr came riding across the sky to seek the huge gem of water crystal he had heard about—and flew right into Vilemurk’s ambush.

Such was the tale the hawk told Finn, sitting on his shoulder in a clearing of the wood where the little fire Kathleen had cooked supper on made tree shadows dance. But Finn and the tall girl sat motionless among the dancing shadows, still and rapt, drinking in the words of the strange tale told by the hawk, who had heard it from a gull.

“Go on!” said Finn. “Don’t stop now, just when Lyr is about to be trapped.”

“Flying
fish
,” hissed the falcon. “Imagine fish flying. Disgusting! Sure, and Lyr deserved what happened to him, employing such unnatural creatures.”

The cat yawned in the firelight, half turning on Kathleen’s lap, and lifted a paw to play with a plume of her hair.

“But what
did
happen to Lyr?” crooned Kathleen. “Don’t leave us hangin’, falcon dear. ‘Tis a fearsome exciting tale, and you tell it so well. Did he fall into Vilemurk’s trap, or what? Was he ambushed there by the frost demon in the northern wastes? Was there a battle perhaps? Tell … tell. …”

“Remember the big storm a few days back?” said the hawk.

“Oh, yes,” said Kathleen. “It fair leveled the forest over our heads. And didn’t mighty waves pound the beaches, swallowing up fishing huts, sweeping away barns and byres, drowning cattle. Most terrible storm in years it was—and the next day my mother-in-law came a-callin’.”

“Well, that terrible storm, Kathleen ni Houlihan, was only a tiny ripple of the tempest that raged in the north when the forces of Vilemurk came screaming out of ambush and fell upon the sea king.”

“Go on … what happened?”

“I don’t mean to leave you in suspense,” said the hawk. “But, unfortunately, I cannot finish the story … because the gull never finished it. He got too hungry. The fish had been very scarce, and when he saw the shadow of a trout he dived at it, leaving me there. I waited for him, but he never came back. So he must have kept on hunting, and I don’t know how the battle ended.”

No one said anything. Kathleen stared into the fire. The flames snapped. The cat yawned. Suddenly, across the orange face of the moon were pasted the black silhouettes of wild geese. A long flight of them, necks outthrust, wings low, honking faintly, almost a barking sound, like hounds of the sky.

The hawk rose in the air and balanced herself just above Finn’s head.

“Good night, master!” she cried. “I go a-hunting. We eat goose tomorrow.”

She disappeared. The honking grew clamorous, alarmed—then nothing was heard save the snapping of the fire.

“What do you think, lad?” said Kathleen. “What happened out there in the northern wastes? How went the battle? Did Vilemurk conquer Lyr? Did Lyr prevail? Tell me your opinion.”

Finn said nothing, but stared into the fire, gently biting his thumb.

“Don’t sit there sucking at your thumb like an idiot child,” cried Kathleen. “I asked you a question. I want an answer. I get excited by stories. I don’t like them to stop before they end. And a good guess is better than nothing.”