Emerald Magic_ Great Tales of Irish Fantasy - Andrew M. Greeley [34]
About that touch. I do not allow many to touch me and live. And certainly not those of the Unseelie Court.Not even a prince. But these negotiations were about the fate of all the Fair Folk, not just some minor border dispute between the courts. This was about the continuing existence of the race of the Sidhe. For we are few and humanity many, and even old enemies within the Fey now must unite if we are to remain in this world and under the hill. Or so say my masters.
I pulled my hand down.Muttered under my breath. Pictured my companion’s body flayed and bleeding at my feet. The image calmed me.
The band played on, now singing something quieter, a tune I didn’t recognize. Hardly Irish at all.
“Well,” he said.
“Well,” I answered.
The negotiations continued.
Before either of us could clarify these opening gambits, I felt another presence enter the bar like a cold shiver down the spine that ended with a tickle in the loins.
Bean Sidhe, I thought. Bean Chaointe. The wailing woman. Squall crow.
My companion felt her, too, and looked alarmed. His eyes widened, and he stood, starting toward the stairs. But he was not as quick as I. A prince he might be, but I had learned my trade from Cuchulainn so that I might be sharp in both the faerie world and the world of men. Before he got a single step up, I grabbed him and pulled us both away from the stairs. It is no touch if I initiate it.
My back to the wall and my bone knife to his throat, I whispered, “Why does the Washer at the Ford come here?” She was neither Seelie, nor Unseelie, presaging doom and destruction to all she sang, regardless of their house. She was without prejudice.Without mercy. I pressed the knife deeper, and he gave a strangled gasp. It was difficult not to just kill him, to pay him back for that earlier touch.
“I . . . I know not.” His face had turned the white of a winding sheet. No prince of any court likes to be held to the truth. But a bone knife to the great vein is the strongest of persuaders.
What he said smelled like the truth, but I distrust coincidence. It may work in the stories we send out to the world, but in real life it smacks of treachery. I took the knife away from his throat and pushed him toward the stairs.
“Let us go ask her ourselves then,” I said. “The both of us. Together.”
I thought he might turn and rush me. His eyes flared, and for a moment his breath stopped. But my weapon was still in my hand, and he had already tasted my speed. I may look like a toad, but I move like a snake.He thought better of it and gave me the back of his head as he stomped his way up.
I palmed the knife and followed close behind, so close I might be the tail of his coat or the shirt on his shoulders. So close I might be skin of his skin. Negotiations were one thing, but trust him? Never.
I WOULDNOT HAVE THOUGHT IT POSSIBLE, but the club had gotten even louder and smokier in our short time in the basement. The band was lost in an improvisation, fingers flying across their fretboards. One guitarist kept the song nailed in E minor while the other jumped from mode to mode, willy-nilly, with no respect for key or meter. The drummer, now playing acoustic bass, followed the lead guitarist closely, his right foot tapping on the offbeats.When they broke back into the chorus, I recognized the song.
It was Scottish.
I gave a mental spit of disgust. Scots are only secondhand Irishmen, and I guessed the band knew no difference. All the while, I continued looking for the Bean Sidhe.
Of course, I was expecting to see her usual flowing white robes and streaming hair, and for a moment was flummoxed when I did not spot her. And then, suddenly, I espied her on the small dance floor, oblivious to our presence. She wore a black half shirt emblazoned with the band’s logo and jeans so tight, I wondered she could move at all. But move she did. She whirled and wiggled, shook and shimmied, and half the audience—and not just