chapter 23
It needs to be said: No one can completely cock up a day like Siodhachan. And I think there are few living people who can bear witness to this fact so well as I. If he’s only hurting himself, then I can hold me tongue and let him go, because he might learn a lesson from it. But when his shenanigans are going to get me in trouble, I need to say something. And I know he’s technically my elder many times over now, and if there’s anyone who knows a thing or two about surviving it’s him, but surely that doesn’t mean I have to shut up about him being stupid. It just means I have to tell him he’s stupid using me best manners. And not hit him while I’m doing it.
“Listen, Siodhachan, this isn’t going to turn out well for us if we go in there alone,” I says. “Let’s bring along an army of Scottish bagpipers to distract them while we move in silent from the flanks—you know, the lads who smell like old cheese. Or maybe some of those dwarf axemen you were tellin’ me about.”
“We can hardly signal our desire to talk if we bring an army of anything.”
“But it’s not we who wish to talk, lad. It’s only you.” Of course, Siodhachan turns to the selkie to bolster his pox-ridden argument. After we drank ourselves nearly unconscious the night before, she slept in his room, while he spread out on the living room couch with his hound curled up on the floor beside him.
“Do you want to talk rather than fight, Meara?” he says.
“My lord Manannan commands it.” Aye, he commanded it as the bar closed, then shifted away with Flidais and her mountainous hairy sex toy to sleep it off. Soon they would unburden their souls to Brighid in hopes that she wouldn’t char them to toast. Siodhachan recognizes that Meara doesn’t give a true answer, but he pretends that it’s good enough, and my good sense is somehow overruled because a selkie obeys the commands of her god.
“You’re perceived as a neutral party at the moment,” Siodhachan tells me, “so I need you along. And Meara will be Manannan’s eyes and ears and provide us safe passage.”
“I hope you’re right,” I says, “but I’m afraid you’re not. I think Fand’s lost her mind once and I think she can lose it again. And my neutrality will mean about as much as a pellet of rabbit shite when I walk up there with you.”
That hound of his speaks up: "So does that mean a lot or a little? What’s the market rate on rabbit shite now, Atticus? And why does he say shite instead of shit? Is shite fancier somehow, or is he just trying to make it sound that way?"
“We’ll go in with our eyes open, Owen.”
“Speaking of going in,” Meara says, “will we be shifting directly into the castle courtyard? I know which tethers to follow.”
“No, but thank you for the offer,” Siodhachan says. “We’ll shift in using the surrounding trees, as we normally do. I want to be invited in, so that the rules of hospitality apply.”
“It’s going to be the rules of the battlefield, lad. We should be going in there with a thousand naked warriors who fight like wet cats with dodgy bowels.”
“You can go naked if you want,” the bastard says to me, ignoring my advice. “I’m wearing pants.”
I sigh and back off for a moment. If I’m going to get through to him, I’ll need to try a different angle. And there are things that need saying.
“Meara, would ye mind givin’ us a bit o’ time to talk amongst ourselves?” I asks her.
“Aye. I’ll walk the dog,” she says, getting to her feet.
"She means she’ll walk while I smell things, right?" Oberon says. I don’t answer him, but I assume Siodhachan does, for the hound stands and wags his tail. "There’s a fox den out there somewhere. It is my quest to find it and see if the fox has extra tails."
The two of them trot away into the trees, and Siodhachan is doing his best to look unconcerned about what I’ll say next.
“I’ll be needin’ honesty from ye now, lad. Are ye bein’ contrary with me because ye have genuine objections to being prepared, or is it merely because you’re trying to get back at me for all those knocks to the noggin I gave ye as an apprentice?”
“Can I say it’s both?” he says. “Or neither? That’s quite the false choice you’ve laid out there.”
“Nothin’ false about it. Going in with three people means we’re unprepared for a fight, and it doesn’t matter that you’re the most powerful Druid who ever lived.”
That makes him take notice. He whips his head around like I’d stuck me tongue in his ear. “Pardon me?”
“Yes, you heard me.” Eye contact might be too intense for this next bit, either for him or for me, so I turn me head and face the forest, talking in low tones but being careful not to mumble. “I know I’m a proper bastard, Siodhachan, but that’s only because I’m not afraid to speak unpleasant truths. The truth was that you used to cock things up on a regular basis. But it was also true that you were more gifted and brilliant than anyone I knew.”
There is silence for a time as I stare at the treetops and he stares at me. The intensity of his regard kind of burns the side of me face. “If you’re not being sarcastic,” he says, “you neglected to tell me that last part. Ever.”
I shrug my shoulders. “It’s why nobody ever liked me. I always forgot to speak the pleasant truths.”
Siodhachan doesn’t have an answer. I see peripherally that his lips tighten and his jaw clenches as he looks away and down at the ground. Silence stretches between us again, and I can see I haven’t said enough. I suppose I really must have scarred him, and if I’m going to speak an unpleasant truth, I should probably begin by telling meself to stop being such a raging arsehole all the time and remember what it is to be kind.
“Look, lad,” I says. “I have an apology to make that’s long overdue. I’m sorry for being so free with my criticism and so frugal with my praise. I should have been more balanced, and I will try to notice out loud when ye do something well instead of noticing only your mistakes. I’ll start now, if ye have no objections. I want to thank ye for pullin’ me off that island. What little I’ve seen of this world so far looks like five pigs fucking, but it’s new and different, and, damn it, I feel better than I have in so many years. There’s even a werewolf walking around in Arizona who likes me, and I like her back. And I have you and the Morrigan to thank for it, which is strange, since there was a time I was sure one or both of ye would be the death of me. Heh!”
He leans forward and covers his eyes with a hand, like I’m giving him a headache, but says nothing. I probably shouldn’t have said that bit about how I was sure he’d get me killed.
“Argh, I cocked up me apology, didn’t I?”
“Maybe a little,” he says.
“Feck it, look here: I’m sorry, Siodhachan. Truly. I’m sorry, and that’s it.”
“Well—”
“No, that’s not it! I just thought of something else. It’s me who’s been your student for a while now, and you’ve shown me it can be done with kindness.” I have to clear me throat before I can continue. It got unaccountably tight all of a sudden.
“I can see the man you’ve become, and it’s a good man. A man who seeks peace but can win a fight once he’s in one. I’ve never found peace meself, but I’ve also never felt particularly moved to search for it, if ye know what I mean. So I’m grateful to ye too, lad, for showing me that path through the woods. I think I’d like to try walking it. There might be something like happiness at the end.”
He nods, letting me know that he heard what I said, but he doesn’t reply for a while, maybe thinking I’d start up again. But I’d said all I wanted to say, and it felt good.
He’s quiet when he speaks, and I almost don’t catch it. “Thank you for all that. It means a lot to me.”
I nod back at him and think he’s talking about more than just the words. When Siodhachan was wee, his da got his arse killed in a cattle raid, and I was the closest thing he had to a father after that. What a shite da I turned out to be. I can’t remember ever giving him a soft word until now.
“You mean a lot to me too, lad.”
Funny thing happens after that. We both sigh together, as if we had laid down a burden after a long journey, and then we smile and laugh, as if we’d just escaped death. And, I don’t know, maybe we had. Neither of us had any business seeing a sunrise in this age. The gifts that Gaia gives are boundless.
I meant to ask him again to bring some help along with us to Tír na nóg, but I let it go. I’d try the peaceful route and see what happened—and if it was the worst idea ever, why, we had made a good run of it.