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.
I opened the door and there stood the largest of all of the larger-than-life characters in Tir na Nog. Gerard stepped into the doorway, blocking out all of the light beyond. In his hand he held a metal bucket with a piece of cloth over the top – it didn’t look like a weapon but I kept my eye on it.
He strode further into the room, forcing me to back up, and said, ‘If I didn’t know better I would think that you have been hiding from me.’
‘I … maybe I have been,’ I confessed.
‘Why would you do that?’
‘I guess you haven’t spoken to Essa yet?’
Gerard frowned and placed his bucket on the floor. ‘Oh, I have spoken to my daughter all right. She is mighty mad at you and this – what did she call her – “fishy floozy” of yours.’
‘That’s why I’ve been avoiding you,’ I said.
‘Let me get this straight, you think that because my daughter is angry with you, that I will be too.’
‘Aren’t you?’
He came at me with his arms outstretched. I had a brief flashback of the bear attack in the Pookalands. He wrapped his arms around me and gave me one of his laughing hugs that lifted me off the ground. ‘Oh my boy,’ he said, and I relaxed even though my ribs were threatening to crack. ‘If Essa is mad at you, then you already have more enemies than any one man can stand.’ He let go of me and I tested my diaphragm to see if I could still breathe. ‘Good gods and monsters, if I had to be angry at everyone that my little darling was irritated with – I would not have any friends or customers at all.’
‘So you’re not here to give me the “don’t you dare hurt my daughter” speech?’
Gerard laughed, picked up his bucket and moved over to the table on the other side of the room. ‘Oh, I don’t give that speech. I usually just try to discourage Essa’s beaus for their own safety.’
We laughed at that as he whipped the cloth off his bucket like a TV magician. ‘I’ve brought you a gift.’ Buried deep in snow, with only their necks sticking out, were four bottles. I grabbed one, releasing it from its icy bed.
‘Beer!’ I shouted.
‘I remembered that last time you were in Castle Muhn you said you wanted beer that is “lighter, fizzier and colder” – well, try this.’ He reached over and placed his hand on the neck of the bottle and mumbled. The cork began to spin and then rise until it shot out of the bottle with a satisfying pop.
I took a quick gulp to catch the foam from overflowing onto the floor. Gerard scrutinised my face for any hint of criticism. ‘Well?’ he asked as I wiped my mouth with my sleeve.
‘I think you should give up on this wine stuff and become a full-time brewer.’
Gerard beamed like a child who had just received a stick-on star on his homework.
‘Did I hear someone shouting beer?’ It was Brendan at the door.
‘Brendan,’ I said. ‘Come in and meet Essa’s father, Lord Gerard of Muhn.’
‘Oh,’ Brendan said, a bit surprised while improvising a bow. ‘How do you do? I’m a big fan of your wine.’
‘Well, come in and try my beer,’ Gerard said without standing.
Brendan hesitated and said, ‘Actually I was just passing with my mother.’ Brendan reached into the hallway and took his mother’s hand and guided her into the room. ‘Lord Gerard, may I introduce Nora Fallon.’
I hadn’t seen Brendan’s mother since she arrived in the Hall of Spells. She was dressed in a green felt-ish tunic with gold embroidery and leather trousers – pretty much what everyone around here wears and it suited her to a T.
Gerard jumped to his feet, and bowed. ‘Of course I have heard about both of you. Welcome home, Druids. Please join us in a drink.’
Nora bowed. ‘Thank you, my lord, but no. I have to tend to my granddaughter.’ Brendan started to go with her when Nora said to her son, ‘No, please stay. I know how much you are missing beer.’ She bowed once again to us and left.
‘Your mother,’ Gerard said after seating Brendan and uncorking a beer for him, ‘is … old.’
‘Yes, try not to point that out to her when you meet her next. She’s getting a bit tired of that.’
‘But according to my daughter a couple of drops of blood from that remarkable Pooka friend of yours would change that – would it not?’
‘Tuan has offered my mother some dragon blood but she says she feels great and likes herself the way she is.’
‘Well, it sounds as if your mother knows her own mind. I like that in a woman.’ Gerard slapped Brendan on the shoulder, changing the subject. ‘My daughter speaks highly of you, Druid.’
‘Well, she hasn’t hit me yet,’ the cop said.
Gerard laughed, ‘It’s a shame you are not going on our little expedition but I understand about parental responsibilities.’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Are you coming?’
‘Oh yes,’ Gerard said, ‘Oisin has summoned me – I am an integral part of the plan.’
‘Look it’s a three and a half day ride to the base of Mount Cas,’ I said. ‘There is no reason to leave at dawn. We can leave at, like, ten and still be there way before it’s dark on the fourth day.’
‘Son, we leave at dawn – that’s how it is.’
‘Who says? Where is it etched in stone that all expeditions must leave at dawn?’
Finally Dad gave me one of his patented withering stares that, although he looked like my annoying younger cousin, still worked.
‘Yes sir. See you in the morning.’
‘Before the morning,’ he called after me.
So here I was, yawning while dragging my pack