The Raven Lady

by Sharon Lynn Fisher

  After I came of age and spent a few years on my mother’s crew, I too had chosen—and enjoyed—the freewheeling and masterless life of a sea captain. Until last year, when Ireland’s ancient enemies had threatened, and a fairy king of legend—one of the Tuatha De Danaan—revived his connection with his mortal descendants by invading my mind and body.

  Early on, he and I struggled for control of this earthly vessel. In the end we joined forces to defeat our Fomorian foes, and after the battle, we formed our own accord.

  As part of that agreement—and at the urging of my cousin, the Irish queen—I exchanged the life of a smuggler for the bonds of public service. I assumed my ancestor’s title as king of fairies. His centuries-long reign lived like the memory of a dream in the depths of my mind. Yet he and I parted ways—he moved on to the Land of Promise and no longer spoke in my mind, as he had done in the days leading up to the Battle of Ben Bulben. He would never again overpower my intellect, but I had acquired his magic, which drew on the elements and the land itself—though perhaps I would never be as adept at wielding it as he was.

  A life at sea is not without peril or adversity, but let me not understate how unprepared I was for what this transformation would entail. Until the seal between Ireland and Faery was broken at the Battle of Ben Bulben, the great king’s castle, Knock Ma, had been splendidly whole in Faery while only a ruin in Ireland. After the battle, the two overlapping worlds had attempted to merge—with varying degrees of success—and Knock Ma had manifested again in Ireland in its original glory. The very forest that surrounded its walls in Faery had regenerated, radically altering the Connacht countryside, creating all manner of difficulties with the local farmers. Even within the castle walls the worlds were merged, with corridors overrun by puck and sprite.

  Suffice it to say, my transition from smuggler to statesman had much occupied my time and energy. Truly, it was no wonder that I had forgotten about her—the goblin princess that had been foisted upon me, and whom I had narrowly avoided wedding.

  I was only reminded of her when a servant was sent from the kitchens to inquire about the dietary requirements of our guest, at which point a mad scramble ensued. Knock Ma was still working to establish relationships with local tradesmen, and I had no idea how a carriage was to be hired on such short notice. In the end, we paid a farmer for the use of his cart, and my household staff did what they could to make it comfortable. I understood the lady we were expecting to be somewhat savage, and I hoped that she would not be too deeply offended.

  Before Queen Isolde had returned to Dublin, she had advised me to appoint a steward to help manage my affairs. I had not liked the idea at the time, but I was beginning to see the sense in it.

  “Your Majesty?”

  I did not immediately glance up as a servant entered my study, where I’d been looking over an ancient map of Ireland. I had always loved maps, from the time my mother had taught me to read them. This one depicted an Ireland so ancient it was almost completely blanketed by forests, its contours suggesting the country had once been more mountainous—and far less boggy.

  “Aye?” I said at last, turning.

  The fellow was one of the servants from my family’s estate. My father had sent them “so that there might be familiar folk about you,” but I suspected it had more to do with keeping an eye on me. The earl had always been fond of me, but until the Battle of Ben Bulben, he had never taken me very seriously. Understandably perhaps, as I had never taken myself very seriously.

  “Princess Koli has arrived,” announced the servant. The man was ever grim-faced—I suspected he had not come to Knock Ma voluntarily—but at the moment he looked like he had swallowed a toad.

  A smile twitched on my lips at the poor fellow’s discomfort, but I managed to conquer it. “Very well, Keane. See that she’s escorted to her chamber, and that she’s made comfortable.”

  “Your Majesty,” the man cleared his throat nervously, “the lady is insisting—”

  He was interrupted by a flock of ravens sweeping in through the door, filling the study with the noise of their great flapping wings and gravel-throated cries. The servant shouted and stumbled, and I staggered back toward the open casement.

  Only a spell, I realized, fanning out one hand and murmuring, “Disperse.” The birds had been conjured, and it was a simple enough trick to wave them away.

  Merely shadows, they flew out the window and dissipated the moment the light struck them. But the last of the birds raked my head on its way out, sharp talons scraping the edge of my ear.

  “Blast,” I swore, swiping at the wound with the back of my hand. Glancing at it, I saw a smear of bright blood. There was something unfamiliar in that spell. Nothing deadly, certainly, but something angry.

  When I turned again to the servant, I encountered a figure clad in mourning crepe, her veil obscuring her features.

  “Koli Alfdóttir?” I inquired. She was straight and narrow as a reed, and nearly as tall as I.

  “Your Majesty,” she spoke sternly, in perfect modern Irish, “I understand that neither of us is pleased by these circumstances, but was I to expect less than common courtesy from the king of fairies?”

  “Forgive me, lady,” I replied, feeling truly repentant despite the stinging wound on my ear. “We’re topsy-turvy here, as you can see, and I quite forgot you were arriving today.”

  I realized belatedly that I had perhaps been more frank than necessary. The creature snatched the veil away from her face, and her gaze burned into me.

  “Did you,” she said, a quiet rage simmering under her words.

  I had little experience with elves, though I had seen them at Ben Bulben. My ancestor’s impressions also resided within me, and they were tinged with both fear and scorn. Fierce though she was, the princess was more womanly than I had expected—her ears were curved and pointed, but there was no sharpness to her other features, nor were there antlers or long teeth. Her skin did not appear to be inked with designs—though it was impossible to guess what there might be beneath that ghastly dress—nor did she wear the face paint of a warrior.

  “My apologies, also, for your . . . for your mode of conveyance. My court is newly established, and I had not—”

  “I understand that I am despised by you, sir,” she seethed. “You have made that plain enough.”

  How I wished she would shout, or outwardly storm. This barely suppressed violence was far more troubling. There were both light elves and shadow elves among the Hidden Folk, and my ancestor had had little use for either—he considered them all to be arrogant and untrustworthy. They were said to be descended from Loki, the Norsemen’s lord of mischief, who had disguised himself and fled the wrath of Odin after causing the death of one of his sons, discovering Iceland in the process. But the shadow elves had earned the reputation of goblins, sometimes murdering mortals in their beds. An Irish fairy might play a cruel or even gruesome prank, but the fairies were answerable to me. This woman was not.

  “I hope, lady, that I have done no such thing,” I said in a conciliatory tone.

  But I had rejected her hand outright, and her father would have told her so. The lady’s pride would of course be wounded. And lady she was, I could see that now. I began to feel ashamed of the various ways I had humiliated her.

  There was aught I could do but try to smooth her ruffled feathers. Fortunately, my ancestor and I both had considerable experience in managing ruffled females.

  “Come now, madam,” I continued. “You must be fatigued from your journey. I will escort you personally to your chamber so that you may refresh yourself.”

  Koli

  Something about me had surprised him, that much was clear from the way he was staring. Was my appearance such a shock to him, or was it that he had expected to find a wart on my nose and a hump on my back? Hooves, perhaps, or a tail? I, too, had been surprised by his appearance. He was not the fair a
nd golden lord that I had anticipated based on the stories my people told about the Irish. His skin was brown, and his head was covered by tight curls that had been burnished reddish gold in places, presumably by the sun. It reached down past his shoulders, but he wore it tied back from his face. His lips, framed by his dark beard, were an ashy rose color and shapely as a woman’s. His eyes, like many an Icelander, were an unclouded blue.

  Though he did not look like my idea of an Irish king, he was every bit as arrogant as I had expected.

  “No, sir, you shall not,” I replied. “I prefer the company of the servant.”

  I turned then, not bothering to ask his permission to withdraw, and walked straight out into the corridor. I heard him mutter something to his man, who scurried after me. I eyed the servant impatiently and he ducked his head in submission, or fear, or perhaps both, and then scurried around me.

  “This way, my lady,” he murmured, walking ahead.

  Good, I thought. Let them be frightened of me. If the servants kept their distance, it would make my task easier.

  Had I still thought it possible that I might be regarded as a guest rather than a prisoner, I would have been disappointed when the servant escorted me not to the keep, but to the very top of the castle’s nearest tower. Still, its chamber was spacious and comfortable, and its barred windows offered sweeping views of the rolling hills, which were thickly wooded, with ghostly columns of mist reaching into the low clouds.

  It would be a relief to finally be alone after the long voyage. If I could arrange for my meals to be brought up, I’d never need to leave—and perhaps that was just what they had hoped for. But I would not fulfill my purpose here by hiding in my chamber. Nor did I believe I could endure such confinement for long. At home, I had spent as little time as possible inside my father’s stronghold.

  I noticed an unfamiliar object in one corner of the room, across from the bed. It was a tall cabinet with a clock case at the top—a grandfather clock. This was something outside the experience of an Icelandic villager—I recognized it from books I’d been given by my English tutors. But it differed from other grandfather clocks I had seen in that it looked to be made of an oil-stained metal rather than wood, and its gearworks were not contained behind the glass door of the cabinet. Rather, it appeared to have spilled its inner workings on the outside—toothy gears of all sizes were affixed around the base of the clock, and their movement produced a rhythmic chorus of clicks. There were even small pipes that occasionally released snake hisses of steam. The clock case contained two faces, one for displaying the time, and one for displaying, I believed, the phases of the moon.

  “I will have that removed at once, my lady,” the servant assured me, and I could hear the shudder in his voice. “Such oddities have been popping up all over the castle.”

  I turned to study him. “Popping up?”

  “Yes, my lady,” he replied, nervously dropping his gaze. “We don’t know why. Captain O’Malley—” He broke off and cleared his throat. “His Majesty believes that with recent changes—with the ancients walking among us again—time may have become confused. No longer knows what belongs where—or when—if you follow.” He cleared his throat again. “One can only hope it is a temporary condition. I will have it removed at once, my lady,” he repeated.

  “You will do no such thing,” I countered, moving to stand as a barrier between him and the clock. It was the only thing in Knock Ma that had captured my interest, and I felt a sort of kinship with it. Ugly and unwanted, ominous in its mystery. Unmoored from time and place.

  The servant looked bewildered, but he bowed his head in assent. “I will send a maid to help you unpack your things.” Then he withdrew.

  I turned and grasped the small knob on the clock cabinet’s door, tugging it open. I felt a movement of warm, strangely scented air against my face—it reminded me of incense, but tinged with something bitter. Inside, the clock was empty—a shadowy recess with no workings. I supposed it made sense, as the machinery had taken up residence on the outside.

  I slipped my hand inside slowly, reaching to feel the back of the cabinet.

  My arm passed through all the way to my shoulder before I yanked it out and staggered backward.

  CURIOSITY

  Koli

  “Odin’s eye!” My hand should have met the back of the clock, or at least the wall, by about my elbow. I bent and peered into the empty case.

  There’s some enchantment at work.

  I stood, hands on hips, pondering the mystery. Sensing movement near the tower stairway, I turned to find a maid entering the room.

  “My lady,” she said, curtsying.

  I almost ordered her away so I could continue my examination of the clock. But now that my earlier anger had faded, I realized the servants might very well be my only source of information in this place. I couldn’t afford to make them hate me. My curiosity would have to wait.

  Over the course of the next few hours, I suffered a series of indignities that at home I would never have tolerated. The lady’s maid, who introduced herself as Sorcha, was so frightened of me that I did finally have to dismiss her. Another servant then came to ask about my dietary requirements, and based on her questions, I became convinced that they had believed I dined on toads and spiders. And after I was summoned to dinner by yet another servant, I went down and discovered a sentry had been posted at the foot of the tower’s stairway. I paused to study the stern-faced woman, and after the briefest glint of surprise when our eyes met, she continued staring straight ahead as if I were not there.

  The sentry’s features were similar to my own. She was tall, her hair long and dark, but a glossy brown. The backward curving tips of her ears parted her hair on either side of her head, while I had twisted up my hair in a way that left my elven ears in plain view. But her complexion was woody—mottled and faintly lined in a way that reminded me of the bark on a twig.

  When I started down the enclosed corridor toward the keep, the sentry followed a short distance behind me. But after a moment I halted, sighing. I didn’t know where I was going.

  “I’ve been summoned to dinner,” I said without turning. “Could you help me find the way?”

  “When you reach the next corridor, turn right,” the sentry replied in a neutral tone. Her voice had a husky quality, like my own. “Then left at the next one. After that, you’ll find the door on your left.”

  I was ashamed of how relieved I felt to be acknowledged by her. Why should I care? The attention of the other servants had annoyed me.

  When I reached the hall, I found it empty, and I wondered if there’d been a mistake. Or perhaps he intends to keep me waiting again.

  But I was glad to have a moment to compose myself and look around. The hall was a comfortable size, neither cramped nor cavernous, with room for a long table. I had passed a much larger hall when I first arrived, just inside the castle’s main entrance, which was probably used for more formal occasions. At the head of the table was a fireplace, hearth ablaze, and at the foot was an alcove with a window looking out onto a courtyard garden. The casement was open slightly, and I was almost certain I glimpsed flowers in full bloom—in March. The scent of roses wafted in.

  I moved to the window and leaned out, breathing in the aroma. The garden was enclosed in a conservatory that butted right up against the exterior of the hall. It was a modern structure, light and open, with numerous glass panes and detailed ironwork. Night had fallen, but tiny blue lights flickered among the greenery, and I wondered whether they were living creatures. It was exactly what I had imagined a fairy garden would look like. I was puzzling over how the plants kept warm in a climate that saw so little sun, when I sensed movement behind me and turned.

  “Only two days ago, you could not have enjoyed such a view.”

  “Your Majesty,” I said, cursing the breathless note in my voice. I turned and curtsied, bowing my head t
o cover my sudden fluster.

  “I’m sorry if I startled you,” he said.

  He should not have been able to startle me.

  The king wore a dinner jacket that reminded me of a naval uniform—long, with a wide lapel and folded cuffs—and a wine-colored waistcoat. His boots were tall and polished to a high sheen. His appearance was very distinguished, but now I could see that the king, too, was uncomfortable. And there was also something odd about his eyes—in the low light of the hall, they seemed to faintly glow, as if lit from behind.

  “What did you mean about the view, Your Majesty?” I asked, mostly to bridge the awkwardness.

  He nodded at the window. “The conservatory. Two days ago, there was no such place.”

  That did not seem possible. I glanced again at the garden and noticed a rose now resting on the windowsill, where my hand had been only a moment ago. The bloom was so deeply purple it was almost black. I recalled the servant’s uneasiness over objects “popping up.” Clocks were one thing, but structures? No wonder the staff was skittish.

  “Will you join me?” asked the king.

  Servants entered the hall carrying steaming bowls and covered platters. I had expected the king would take the head of the table, but our places were set across from each other on the long sides. It was gracious of him, I had to admit. Perhaps he did regret his earlier treatment of me—or at least wished me to believe so.

  “I’m not sure what you’re used to, lady,” began Finvara, “but we’re rather sad here at present. There is no court to speak of. Queen Isolde has promised a visit, but with the upheaval, I think it will be some time before she’s able to leave Dublin.”

  I assumed he referred to the aftermath of the recent battle. Much as I had dreaded the hateful gazes of his courtiers, this was worse—we could not but make awkward dinner companions. I wished that he had not felt obligated to entertain me.

  “I have no expectation of becoming a true member of your court, Your Majesty,” I said, hoping to spare us both further discomfort. “There is no need for you to take pains such as these. Will it not be better for us to be honest with each other?”