‘You’re not going to let him get away with that are you, Princess?’
Essa dropped right back into fighting mode and came at me with a series of short fast swings that got me back-pedalling. I didn’t want this fight any more. I didn’t mean to humiliate her in front of her students. I just wanted to sit with her and ask her how she was and tell her how much I had missed her but that stick just kept on coming. One swipe came so close to my nose I smelled the sap in the timber. I finally parried a cut hard and my sword once again stuck into the wood. As she tried to pull it free I stepped in. She was forced close. I don’t think I had ever seen her this mad before – and I had seen Essa plenty mad.
‘Come on, Princess – you can take this Faerie.’
‘Who, I asked Essa, her face inches from mine, ‘is the Banshee with the big mouth?’
Essa grunted and with all of her strength threw me back, disengaging our weapons. ‘That,’ she said, while assuming a very menacing crouch, ‘would be my fiance.’
‘What?’ I stood straight up and dropped my guard. I looked directly into her eyes to see if she was serious. That’s probably why I didn’t spot the stick before it connected with my head.
In movies people wake up from a concussion and then feel their head like the pain comes as a surprise. That’s not how it works. The pain comes way before you open your eyes and if you have had as much experience with involuntary unconsciousness as I have, you delay opening them for as long as possible, ’cause that’s when the second wave of hurt arrives.
So as I lay there the first thing I noticed was the pain. Then I worked on the basics: who was I? – Conor O’Neil. Good, if you don’t know that one you’re in trouble. Where was I? – Scranton? No – Tir na Nog. How did I end up out cold and flat on my back? Essa. Essa hit me – she said she wouldn’t but she did. I had been looking for Essa. Where did I find her? The Hazellands. And she wasn’t as happy to see me as I thought she would be. In fact she seemed downright mad at me.
I felt a cold compress land on my forehead. The blessed cold ratcheted the pain level down a couple of notches.
Well, she couldn’t be that mad at me, I thought, if she was willing to nurse me. She must be feeling bad for hitting me in the head.
I reached up and placed my hand on hers. So why did she hit me? It was an accident – I had dropped my guard. Why did I do that?
I shot straight up in bed and shouted, ‘You’re engaged!’
‘No I am not,’ said the startled and still blurry face in front of me.
Chapter Twelve
The aforementioned second wave of pain hit me like a well-swung mace. I closed my eyes and lay back down. The pain was lessened only by the revelation that Essa wasn’t engaged. I squeezed her hand and she returned the gesture. This time I slowly opened my eyes but as the world became less fuzzy Essa got increasingly uglier. When I came properly to my senses I found myself holding hands with Araf.
‘Who told you I was engaged?’ the Imp demanded.
I quickly retrieved my hand. ‘Essa?’ I croaked.
‘Essa told you I was engaged?’
‘No, Essa is engaged,’ I said.
‘I know Essa is engaged but why is she going around telling people I am engaged? I’m a Prince of Ur. A rumour like that can cause a lot of trouble.’
My head hurt too much for this kind of confusion. ‘No one said you were engaged.’
‘You said I was engaged.’
‘I didn’t mean you, I thought you were Essa.’
‘You think I look like Essa?’ Araf looked concerned. ‘I’ll go get a healer.’
I dropped my head back on the pillow and covered my eyes. ‘Maybe you should get a healer – I need something for my head.’
‘There is something on your bedside table there.’
I sat up and knocked back the thimbleful of liquid from a silver shot-glass. I’m sure my face went as red as the inside of a thermometer and, as it returned to normal colour, my headache subsided. When I could breathe again I said, ‘You knew that Essa was engaged?’
‘Well yes, everyone knows that. Gerard announced it about three weeks ago. He sent all of the Runelords a cask of special wine – it was a lovely red. The bouquet had the slightest hint of-’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I interrupted.
‘You didn’t ask. I assumed, since you left, that you had no interest in Essa.’
‘Well, you assumed wrong,’ I said, as I slowly sat up and put my feet on the floor.
‘But wasn’t Essa interested in you by the end of your last visit?’
‘She was.’
‘And you left her?’
‘Yes,’ I said, feeling the pain in my head starting to return.
‘That is not a good thing,’ the Imp said in an ominous tone.
‘Why?’
‘I have known Essa a long time, my friend – she is not the forgiving type.’
Mom apparently had administered first aid and chewed out Essa for trying to take my head off. You know how she gets when someone attacks her little bear cub. She also had given me some sort of meds that knocked me out for the whole night – so I was surprised when sunshine blinded me as I opened the door. Morning in the Hazellands was a busy place. Imps and Leprechauns were clearing away rubble and rebuilding walls, while others were drilling or practising archery with Spideog.
I’ve started to realise that Araf only gets chatty when he is nervous or really happy. This morning he was still euphoric about his time with his fellow farmer Imps in the Field, so I pretended to be interested and asked him about his day digging in dirt. That kept him talking until we got our food and found a quiet table in the canteen.
‘So who is he?’
‘Who?’
‘You know who, the Banshee who is engaged to Essa.’
‘He is Turlow,’ Araf ht='0%'›
‘So who is he then?’
‘He’s Turlow.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He is The Turlow?’
‘Araf, it doesn’t matter how many different articles you use before saying Turlow, it doesn’t explain anything.’
‘Have you never heard the story about Eriu and her sisters?’
A spark flickered in my deep memory. Dad told me something about this when we were in the Rowan forest but there was so much going on and so much to remember. ‘Remind me.’
Araf sighed like I was a schoolboy who hadn’t done his homework. ‘Eriu was the first. She discovered The Land. She either found or created the first oak and maybe did the same for the Leprechauns. Then she sent for her two sisters Banbha and Fodla. Fodla,’ Araf said as he touched his forehead in a semi-religious gesture, ‘created or found the Imps and the Orchardlands.’
‘What does this have to do with The Turlow?’
‘Banbha was different from her sisters – darker. She created or, depending on what you believe, found the Yewlands. Then she travelled to the Otherworld, killed the Banshee King and convinced his son, Turlow, to come with her to defend Tir na Nog’s shores. That is how the Banshees came to The Land.’
