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THIRTY-EIGHT

After a brief lesson in the geography of New York from the MacLeods the Scottish army marched over

moonbows towards Central Park. There were many of them there, fairies from the MacKintoshes and their

associates — the MacAndrews, the MacHardys, the MacPhails, the MacTavishes, and others; the MacPhersons had

brought the MacCurries, the MacGowans, the MacMurdochs, the MacClearys and more; the largest force of all

was the huge grouping of the MacLeods and their numerous allies.

Right at the end marched Heather and Morag, in blackest disgrace. After the fate of the MacPherson Fiddle had been admitted, Sheilagh MacPherson had briskly informed the pair that if they thought they were in trouble before, it was nothing compared to the trouble they were in now. Once they got back to Scotland, incarceration in

Dunvegan Castle would seem like a pleasant holiday compared to what she had in mind.

'Not that we will ever get back to Scotland, more than likely. Without the power of our three talismans we will be massacred here by Tala. Well done, Heather and Morag. Between you you have managed to end several thousand

years of Scottish fairy history.'

Morag and Heather trudged unhappily over the roofs of the skyscrapers, muttering to each other that it was just not fair the way they were blamed for everything. They weren't to know that any of this would happen.

'What's more,' whispered Morag, 'I don't even want to be involved in any of this. I'm not interested in clan warfare and feuds and stuff. I want to get on with our radical Celtic fairy punk band.'

'Me, too,' agreed Heather. 'Wait till I play you the Nuclear Assault album I stole for Dinnie.'

Morag nudged her friend in the ribs.

'Look,' she hissed. 'There's that wee scunner Maggie Mac-Gowan, showing off on the fiddle as usual.'

They glowered at Maggie. She was entertaining the marchers with a slow and beautiful air, 'The Flower o'the

Quern'.

'Boring bastard,' muttered Morag. 'If she tried that at the 13th Street Squat she'd be bottled off stage.

'And her version of "Tullochgorum" is rubbish, I don't care what anyone says. And look! She's wearing shoes!'

The pair were aghast. Shoes were almost unheard of among fairies.

'The precious little tumshie.'

The kilted hordes descended into Central Park, bagpipes skirling defiance. Ahead of them they could see the dark mass of Tala's army and nearby the small group of friendly defenders.

Everywhere claymores were unsheathed as the fairies made ready for their last hopeless battle. All around were grim-faced and serious. Morag and Heather decided to play a practical joke on the hated Wee Maggie MacGowan.

Johnny Thunders strummed a few tunes on Cal's Gibson, Magenta strode purposefully up Broadway, and Dinnie

could not sleep. He headed out to buy an egg in a roll.

Kerry was sitting in the deli, sipping coffee.

She told him that her day had been a failure. There was not another triple-bloomed poppy to be found anywhere.

'Never mind. Enter your alphabet in the competition anyway. I happen to know that Cal's production of

Shakespeare is heading for disaster, so you could still win.'

Kerry explained that she could not possibly enter her alphabet unless it was complete.

'I'm pleased that Cal's play is a disaster, but he will win.'

She sighed, and excused herself, saying that she was not feeling very well at all.

Dinnie munched his egg in a roll, and ordered another. Kerry had not looked happy, but at least she hadn't

mentioned the incident of the health food shop assistant.

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THIRTY-NINE

I'm not actually blaming you, Mairi MacLeod,' said Jean, her Clan Chief, 'but couldn't your second sight have warned us we were going to be outnumbered ten to one?'

Mairi shrugged hopelessly. Everyone else looked depressed. While some of the fairies were warlike most of them were not; and none of them, not even the fierce ones like Ailsa, had any idea of grand battle strategy.

'I am reminded of Bannockburn,' said Sheilagh MacPher-son, referring to a famous battle where a small Scottish force defeated a much larger English one.

'Indeed,' agreed Agnes MacKintosh. 'A grand victory. Do you have any idea how it was achieved?'

'None at all. Of course, they had Robert the Bruce to lead them, which was a help. Personally I have never studied tactical warfare.'

Neither had any of them. When it came right down to it, what the good Scottish fairies liked doing best was sitting with pleasant company in pleasant surroundings, playing music and drinking heather ale and whisky.

And this was fine, as until now that had seemed to be the main preoccupation of the English fairies as well. It would have been unthinkable for them to assemble such a huge host and go to war, before Tala took power.

'What is the matter with that King? He just does not act like a normal fairy.'

'I blame the hole in the ozone layer,' said Agnes. 'I knew the humans would do for us eventually.'

'Terrific,' grumbled Maeve to Padraig. 'These Scots arrive with grand tales of three mighty weapons to repel the English, and what happens? They mislay one of them. Ha!'

The park that evening had an evil atmosphere quite unlike the aura of peace the fairies had been spreading around previously, and while Tala's army was there, many crimes were committed in the area.

The Cornish army began to advance. The defenders braced themselves.

'Help is at hand,' called a robust human voice. It was Magenta, marching in with a small fiddle in her hand.

'Freshly repaired by my good friend Hwui-Yin. You should have mentioned before that it was important to you.'

It seemed like a miracle. The MacPherson Fiddle had arrived at the very last moment.

Sheilagh MacPherson touched the violin lovingly. In her mind she had a picture of its long history, and she knew now how it had come to be in America; MacPherson the Robber's heart-broken mermaid lover had borne it over

the seas after he was hanged.

Jean MacLeod unfurled the banner. Agnes MacKintosh brandished the sword. Sheilagh MacPherson kissed the

fiddle and handed it to Wee Maggie MacGowan.

'Right, Maggie. You are the finest fiddler in Scotland. Play "Tullochgorum" and watch the enemy flee.'

Maggie took the fiddle and stepped forward proudly in her red and black MacGowan kilt. Unfortunately Heather

and Morag had tied her shoelaces together. She fell flat on her face and the fiddle smashed into pieces.

'If we can make it to Grand Central,' whispered Heather, 'we might get a train to Canada.'

The ambulance took a long time to come through busy traffic and when Kerry was loaded into it she was very ill.

She was retching continually and though her stomach had emptied of food she was still bringing up some greenish liquid which dribbled down her chin on to her chest. Sweat dripped from her forehead and her face was deathly pale.

Eventually she reached St Vincent's Hospital. When the doctor examined her he pronounced that the disease had spread from her large intestine to her small intestine and there was nothing to do but perform an ileostomy, which meant cutting it out. Kerry then began to cry because she had been told in the past that if this happened it would be irreversible and she would always have to have a colostomy bag.

The doctor marked a cross on her right side with a thick blue felt-tipped pen where the surgeons were to cut, and the nurses made Kerry ready for the operation, giving her the first of her injections and strapping a little name-tag to her wrist. Kerry moaned and retched painfully as the poison from her ruptured intestines spread throughout her file:///Users/lisa/Downloads/Martin%20Millar%20-%20The%20Good%20Fairies%20of%20New%20York.html

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body. She brought up more greenish fluid which splashed horribly into the plastic bowl at her side.

Dinnie sat beside her in the ward. He had found Kerry in the street, too sick to open her front door. He called an ambulance and travelled with her to hospital. Although the doctors had no time or inclination to give him

information, he had learned about the disease from a more sympathetic nurse. Seeing Kerry looking like death he felt very sorry indeed.

There was no need to ask who had tied Maggie MacGowan's shoelaces together. Before Agnes MacKintosh could

actually run the culprits through with her sword, Magenta intervened.

'Excuse me, fellow warrior chiefs,' she said, 'but are you all just going to stand here in a bundle waiting to be attacked?'

'What else is there to do?'

'Form squares, of course. Have you no idea of tactics? I have just led an army through hostile territory against vastly superior forces. Of course, my troops are experienced Hoplites and Pelasts and you are small fairies, but perhaps we can save the day anyway.'

This was obviously a woman who knew what she was talking about. The defenders were quickly organised into

two hollow squares. Given time, Magenta would have issued precise instructions for the central squares to

withdraw in good order when attacked, thereby drawing the enemy in and trapping them in a pincer movement

with her flanking forces (much as Hannibal had done at Cannae), but she knew the fairies would not be able to do this sort of thing at short notice.

When the Cornish army attacked with an ear-shattering roar, the plan seemed to work. Despite the large disparity of forces, the squares held. The Italians, Chinese, Ghanaians, Scots and Irish all stood firm, jabbing with their swords, and the undisciplined attacking horde was unable to break through.

High up in the sky Aelric and his rebels looked down at the scene.

'The Goddess damn that Tala,' exploded Aelric. 'Now he's trying to massacre these poor fairies as well.'

Aelis did not reply. She had noticed that for the first time the Cornish had no scouts flying high in defence.

Up at dawn, Cal checked his scenery, some of which had been damaged during Magenta's last assault on the

theatre. What was left of his cast would arrive during the morning, as the performance had to be judged at noon.

Cal dreaded to think what it would be like. His carefully rehearsed play was now full of emergency understudies, some of whom had never even read the script. He himself was playing the part of Lysander after the actor had said he would not work in a building where fairies jabbed at him with little claymores.

Outside on the steps sat Joshua, drowsy but unable to sleep properly. Without his cocktail his body did not feel right. He swore that he would kill Magenta if he did not die first.

FORTY-ONE

Dinnie sat in the hospital restaurant. It was not a pleasant experience. He hated being surrounded by sick people, particularly old hopeless sick people with dressing gowns and bored-looking relatives.

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Every so often he would take the lift to Kerry's ward and enquire after her, but the operation was a long one and the nurses had no information. After this Dinnie would go back to the restaurant, each time feeling that he should have done something more, like demanding loudly that the nurses stop keeping the truth from him and tell him

everything they knew. Unfortunately the nurses seemed rather intimidating close up. Presumably they developed their muscles hauling patients in and out of bed. Dinnie remained polite, but fretful.

Time never goes so slowly as when waiting in a hospital and after a few hours Dinnie felt as blank as the hopeless cases in dressing gowns.

'We have held them off once, but I do not think we can do so again.'

Jean MacLeod, as dark-haired, beautiful and dangerous as the MacLeod sisters only even taller and fiercer, held the newly repaired green banner high in defiance and prepared to try.

'To hell with this,' muttered Morag, somewhere in the middle of a defensive square. 'Could we not sneak away

somewhere?'

Heather was in full agreement but surrounded on all sides as they were, it was impossible.

'We'll just have to stay here and be massacred.'

'I don't want to be massacred. I want to have fun in the city. I like this city. I like all the pizzas and delis and shops open all the time and gigs and nightclubs and bright clothes and bright people and huge buildings. In fact, apart from the poor people dying on the streets, I like everything about it. I am even getting used to the funny sweet whisky.'

'Me, too,' agreed Heather. 'Although it is not a patch on the braw malt the MacKintoshes brew. We could have fun here if all these fools would just behave peacefully for a change. Did Kerry finish making me my Red Indian

headband?'

209

'Yes, and it will look very very fine indeed, if you ever get a chance to wear it. What's that?'

Tala's army was readying itself for its second attack when, from far above on the still visible moonbow, more fairy figures appeared.

'Do you really think this will work?' asked Aelric, emptying out handfuls of propaganda leaflets.

'It might,' replied Aelis, flying beside him. 'I have a talent for propaganda, though I say it myself.'

'WORKERS FREE YOURSELVES', read the leaflets, spinning down from the sky in their thousands.

Kerry was being wheeled back into a quiet ward after her operation. The nurses informed Dinnie that it had not been necessary to remove her small intestine after all. Once she had been opened up the damage had turned out not to be as serious as was thought. This was something that could happen with Crohn's disease, attacks appearing worse than they actually were. So Kerry still had some hope of the reversal operation.