Spoils of Vanity

* * Chapter 3 * *

The sun had long set and the cooling breeze turned into a chilling wind by the time they returned to Martin's cottage. The only sounds were the rustling of the trees and the occasionally distant sound of muggle traffic as they left the three bicycles against the wall of the cottage. A trio of cats lined up by the door to greet them, affecting that it was entirely coincidental they happened to be around when the door was being opened, but since it was, they may as well come in. Eddie found himself treading carefully, trying to place his feet without standing on the cats or the dog, all of which were weaving in and out of the humans' legs. Martin just walked forward and ignored them, unlocking the door with a long iron key, while Deirdre rubbed their heads and picked up a ragged looking black and white cat with one eye.

"Oh, Wee Pit, are you hungry? Have you been eating birds again? Why haven't you brought me back a pigeon? I haven't had roast pigeon in a while."

Eddie looked at her.

"You eat what the cat brings back?"

"Well, he wasn't going to and I'm not going to have a good pigeon go to waste."

Martin broke in.

"Terrible thing to waste, a nice wood pigeon. Sometimes he catches rabbits too, but the wee sod can't be bothered to drag them back so they just rot, or a fox gets them."

Grinning at Eddie's shocked expression, Deirdre scratched the battered looking cat's head and it flexed its claws and purred.

"And I get to startle friends by being able to say I've got a hunting cat. Aren't you Piteous? Wee Piteous."

The door opened and the animals dashed in. Martin shrugged off his coat and hung it on a nail inside the door before crossing to a cupboard and pulling out a pitcher of milk. The cats and the dog scrambled to gather around a patch of old linoleum in a corner with bowls and saucers on it. Deirdre let her cat drop and took off her jacket. Eddie closed the door and did likewise. The cottage smelt of Martin's waxed jacket, the dog, and smoke from the stove.

The stove was stoked back to life, the kettle set to boil and a pan filled with eggs, rashers, sausages and black pudding. While these fried away merrily the younger pair set a table with faded crockery from a wooden dresser. Martin walked into a back room, and returned with a rueful shake of his head. Deirdre looked exasperated. She answered Eddies questioning look.

"Another day at least before its safe to use magic again."

"How do you know it's still not safe?"

"It is too near the solstice still. The ley lines and old fae forts all along the coast are at their most powerful at the solstices."

"But how do you know it's too soon?"

"We put a bowl of cream in the sitting room. If the cats won't go in there, its too early."

"I see."

Eddie had seen the impressive collection of artefacts in the front room of the old cottage. Largely disused since Martin lived out of the kitchen and his bedroom, the sitting room was cold and piled high with the things he neither used nor wanted to discard. Filled sideboards were piled high with books, on top of which more things were stacked. Mixed in among old newspapers, boxes of empty whiskey bottles, portraits of his siblings - including Deirdres parents - and assorted bits and pieces both muggle and wizarding were spear heads, a shield, strange statuettes and pieces of pottery and bronze-work. Eddie was no expert on ancient history but anyone could see these pieces were old, and some were sized for inhuman limbs.

"Is it safe to have all those old things in the house?"

"Well, no one has come looking for them yet. I am sure the queen would say something if we had annoyed anyone."

Martin tipped the food onto three plates and filled the teapot. The teenagers lifted a plate each and sat to table. Martin carried across the teapot and his own plate. Eddie stomach growled as they all tucked in. As he cut and buttered slices of bread Martin spoke.

"Ach, sure the queen knows us. This land has been Macgowan land since the last of the giants was driven out. We never did wrong by the queen and we never held with those that did. Having these treasures here is better than having them in the hands of thieves and scattered."

Eddie chewed his dinner and listened as the old man spoke of the Sidhe and their capricious and easily offended natures. Long in decline, they grew more intolerant of the 'human invaders' as the decades passed. Their homes and forts stood all along the coast, the beachheads from their invasion thousands of years ago. The powerful curses and charms that had fortified their homes for so long still held true, waxing and waning as the ley-lines they tapped surged and declined with the seasons. At the heights of their power the disruptive, defensive and repelling wards radiated for dozens of mile inland and offshore. This seasonal disturbance rendered both magic and muggle technology wildly erratic. Muggles fearing electrocution and wizards unable to use even the simplest spells avoided the headlands and granted the remaining fae solitude.

The dishes were cleared and scrubbed, reminding Eddie of the only other time he had cleaned things through brute force which was during detention with Snape. The bustle of Hogwarts seemed improbably distant from the slow trickle of days here. The only similarity between Martins cottage and Eddies home was that they were both a few hundred yards from the shore, though Eddies house stood in the wood above a lake, and was always busy with his father and step-mother running their business, and his step-sisters haring about. He grinned; the only time his home was quiet was when the girls were up to something and had not been caught yet. Here the quiet was peaceful.

Hot towels were fished out from the oven to ease Eddie's over-exerted calf muscles. The fire snapped and crackled in the opened stove as Martin settled down in his armchair for his evening pipe. Deirdre dropped into the other old armchair that had been enlarged. The cats were asleep in a collective ball by the foot of the stove and the dog lay at Martins feet. Eddie had thought he would go spare from boredom when he had first arrived and realised that his girlfriend and her guardian both considered an hour spent staring at the fire time well spent. After that first evening he had radically considered his position. Time spent with Deirdre curled up in his arms was never time wasted and watching the flickering flames allowed him to collect his thoughts after the day and clear his mind.

He understood where her poise came from now. While others panicked she had always displayed near unshakeable calmness. Staring at the fire, in the warn dimness of the cottage with only the wind outside to break the silence he felt a deeply rooted sense of belonging, newcomer though he was.

Martin finished his pipe and set about retiring for the evening. Deirdre stretched and stood up, tugging Eddie's hand to make him stand.

"Come on, we're going to go look at the castle tomorrow. It's a bit of a cycle, you'll want your sleep."

"More cycling. Good-oh."

"Well, if you don't want to see the Macgowan ancestral library, and the other things up there, you're welcome to stay here with the cats."

"No, no, much as I love Piteous and all, I prefer my company in.... you-shaped. Damn, that was supposed to be cleverer."

Deirdre grinned.

"You need to get out more."

"More? I've had more fresh air this summer than ever before, I'm shocked I haven't keeled over from oxygen poisoning!"

Eddie sighed and stretched.

"Its just the journeys that get me and that's no ones fault but my own. Actually seeing the Tuatha De Danann fort is incredible. So different to what I've seen at home."

"Lets get some sleep, you'll be sorry tomorrow otherwise."

Eddie's bed was small but comfortable, piled high with blankets. When he had settled in and pulled up the sheets, the two other cats jumped up and settled onto the bed near his feet. Eddie was glad of their purring company, overlaying the eerie noise of the wind blown tree branches rattling against the roof. He fell asleep wondering how far Deirdre considered a 'bit of a cycle' to be.

* * Chapter 4 * *

The Macgowan castle stood on a hilltop overlooking the sea and the winding road leading to it had been a taxing final stretch to a long cycle. Grey stone walls rose from a sparse woodland, cracked and pitted and overgrown with ivy. As Eddie and Deirdre climbed the approach it appeared long abandoned and gone to ruin. Eddie hoped that Deirdre was going to show him some sort of surviving crypts or dungeons, because there appeared to be nothing of worth left above the ground. He gave up any ideas that this was a cunningly crafted illusion when they left their bikes and walked across the dry moat into the old keep.

Birds nests on the shattered remnants of stairs to nowhere seemed to be the only thing that had been built in the castle ground and not fallen to decay. As they walked across the flagstones, cracked and covered with mosses Eddie saw signs this had once been a stout castle overlooking the coastline but all that remained were parts of the walls. Deirdre led him through the keep and outside again. Only the tumbled stones outlining a long oblong gave any clue there had been a courtyard. A dolmen stood in the center, a huge rock atop three others, sloping to the west.

Deirdre stepped up to the dolmen and put her hand on it.

"Deirdre Fitzsimon is ainm dom, Maire Macgowan mo mhathair i. In ainm mo chlann agus an rianna na Sidhe."

Eddie stared as nothing obvious happened, then Deirdre beckoned him forwards and pointed through the slanted archway formed by the great rocks supports. Beyond he could see the same hills and at Deirdres slight push, he climbed through. Stepping out the other side, he saw no difference. When he turned around to say as much to Deirdre he suddenly saw the keep once more but now in immaculate condition and obviously lived in.

Deirdre stepped through to join him and smiled.

"Welcome to Macgowan castle. Hidden in the realms of the fae by the queen of the Sidhe herself. We set up the gate because otherwise you have to circle the hill three times at midnight to find your way in. Let's go inside."

Deirdre pushed open the iron studded oak doors to the keep and led him in. The interior of the keep was scrubbed and airy, with bright tapestries covering the walls and beautiful stained glass windows casting shafts of lustrous light across the halls. Eddie realized his jaw had dropped and he closed it with a snap. From both Hogwarts and Carmicheal Castle, Eddie was no stranger to large buildings, but the sense he got from this was something far different. The squat square design spoke of a building that predated the towers and spires of either Hogwarts or home. The walls were decorated with spears and shields; the floors were covered with the furs of creatures he knew were long extinct, the tapestries depicted bare-chested warriors unarmored but for a helm and a shield, wizards and druids summoning lightning storms and gigantic monsters. Something far more savage than the standard paintings he saw on the walls of his friend's homes. The huge central hall radiated an ancient heroism. He could easily imagine a chieftain tattooed and draped in skins sitting in the carved throne at the end of the hall. The tables running the length of the hall were empty but he could almost hear the raucous feasts that had once happened here.

"This is incredible Dee."

Deirdre turned to look at him. Her eyes were filled with tears. Eddie felt a hideous wrench inside him. He stepped across and pulled her into his arms.

"What? What's wrong?"

She sniffed loudly twice, leaning against him, then pulled back. Wiping her eyes with her fingers she smiled wanly.

"Oh you must think I'm so weak."

"What? No, of course not."

Deirdre gestured around at the great hall, stepping through shafts of green and gold and red light.

"It's just, all this." She sighed. "This is my heritage, and I'm all that's left. After Uncle Martin, there's only me." She stood staring at the throne at the end of the hall. "Its mine, all this is mine. That's where I could sit if I wanted. There's no one else. Look at it, look what I have to live up to."

Eddie saw the tapestries of warriors and wizards fighting men and giants, savage battles, lone heroes vanquishing hordes of enemies, sorcerors banishing monsters that towered above them, others casting back invading fleets.

"You should be proud of this."

"I am, oh I am, but how can I equal their deeds? How can I ever live up to all this? There are no armies left, they died long ago, and I have to be the Lady Macgowan, defender of the coasts, servant of the Queen of the Sidhe, protector of the lands. Uncle Martin is old and my parents are gone. Soon there will be only me. Oh, Eddie, its so much."

Eddie stared at her. Standing in rich light shining through the windows proclaiming the deeds of her ancestors she had never looked so beautiful.

"You don't have to do this alone."

Deirdre shook her head.

"I can't ask you to do this. If Uncle Martin wasn't alive, I wouldn't even be able to leave here to go to Hogwarts. This isn't a job you get time off from, this isn't a hobby, this is a blood obligation Eddie."

"Let me do this. Not just for you, let this be something worthwhile I can do."

"Eddie, don't. This is forever for me. Until I die."

"Or until your children take over."

She laughed dully.

"Yeah."

Eddie stepped up to her and hugged her.

"You don't have to sort this all out now, do you?"

He felt her sigh against him, and then straighten up.

"That's true."

"Okay. Let's take a look at the rest of the place, and get out of here, right?"

"Let's do that."

"Okay."

They stood holding one another and staring into each other's eyes for long moments. Her eyes flicked down to his lips.

"We promised Uncle Martin."

"I know."

He stepped back lifting her hand to his lips.

"When we're back in Hogwarts."

Deirdre smiled and squeezed his hand.

"I don't think out tour today will include the bedchambers."

"No, that might not be wise."

"We need something distracting. Lets take a look at the library."

"Books. Perfect. Are they dry and dusty?"

"Some of them are in languages you don't understand."

"Excellent! That sounds like just what we need."

They grinned at one another, before Deirdre broke away and dashed towards a stairs, tossing a wink over her shoulder.

"Well come on then, lets go look at these fusty old tomes!"