Free The Unicorn Hunter by Che Golden Page B

Maddy could hear Granny singing to herself as she washed dishes. The fire popped and crackled and the clock ticked loud, but not a sound crossed Maddy’s or Meabh’s lips.
    After a minute or two, Meabh threw back her head and roared with laughter.
    â€˜Oh, I do like you, Maddy!’ she said. ‘You really are beginning to learn our ways, aren’t you? Sitting there, waiting for me to say the first word, to give a hint as to why I am here, what I want.’
    â€˜I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Maddy.
    â€˜Yes, you do,’ said Meabh, still smiling. ‘You know, I never thought you could be this clever. All the time I’vebeen watching you, I thought Roisin had all the brains, and you and Danny were just bringing along brute force. But you are learning, and that gives me hope that you can play the game.’
    â€˜What game?’ asked Maddy.
    â€˜The best game of all,’ said Meabh. ‘You’re going to help me play a game of chess, with real kings and queens and knights and castles. If you’re nice to me, I won’t make you a pawn.’
    â€˜Chess is boring,’ Maddy said.
    â€˜Maybe in your world,’ said Meabh. ‘But in our world it’s life and death. Four courts, equally matched in power – what stops us from wiping each other out? We play games.’
    â€˜I don’t understand,’ said Maddy, shaking her head.
    â€˜Do you know the story of Oisín and Niamh?’ asked Meabh.
    Maddy frowned. ‘I think so. He was a musician and a singer, thousands of years ago, and he was taken to Tír na nÓg by Niamh, the faerie queen—’
    â€˜The Queen of the Summer Court,’ interrupted Meabh. ‘Go on …’
    â€˜But after three hundred years he grew homesick and wanted to return to Ireland to see his friends. Niamh didn’t want to let him go but he insisted. So she gave him a white horse and told him that as long as he didn’t getdown from the saddle he could leave and still come back to her. But when he was in the mortal world he leaned down to help some men move a rock, the girth broke and he fell to the ground …’
    â€˜Where the most beautiful man in Ireland turned to dust before their very eyes,’ finished Meabh in a singsong voice.
    â€˜That really happened?’ asked Maddy.
    â€˜Yes, but not quite the way the storytellers say,’ said Meabh. ‘Niamh did indeed fall in love with the mortal Oisín and she did spirit him away to Tír na nÓg. But her husband was not impressed by how besotted she was with her new pet.’
    â€˜Her husband was Aengus Óg – the god of love?’ said Maddy.
    â€˜Exactly.’ Meabh nodded. ‘And didn’t it make him look foolish, his wife infatuated with a creature far inferior to himself! But what could he do? Niamh is a bubblehead, but she’s still a Tuatha regent. Aengus did not want to provoke his queen’s anger by killing her mortal lover.
    â€˜What the storytellers do not say is that Aengus Óg looked outside his court for someone who would help him and keep it a secret, one who owed no oaths of loyalty to his wife,’ continued Meabh. ‘Niamh would never have let her lover leave, so it was me that broughtOisin that pure white horse – Embarr, my very own mount – and told him that he could leave and be back before his queen even knew he was gone. All would be well, I promised, as long as he did not get down from the saddle.’
    â€˜But the girth snapped,’ said Maddy. ‘It was an accident!’
    â€˜Well, it doesn’t take a genius to fray a girth to the point of breaking,’ said Meabh, spreading her fingers out and admiring her nails. ‘And even if it didn’t break, I could trust Embarr to throw him to the ground.’
    â€˜That’s murder,’ said Maddy, her voice flat with anger.
    â€˜No, it was a convenient