The Raven Lady

by Sharon Lynn Fisher

  Finvara’s voice trailed off, and I sang the last lines of what had become a lullaby, urging the stones to return to their rest.

  “We make a good team,” pronounced the king.

  “Odd,” I said.

  He laughed, and it jolted me out of the trance that had led me to such an honest reply. “Thank you for saving my life,” he said. “I hope you’ll not regret it.”

  This was an exchange that could not help being uncomfortable. Besides being enemies, we now had Doro between us.

  Shrugging, I said, “I couldn’t have done it had you not provided a distraction.”

  “I count it among my many useless talents.”

  My eyebrow shot up. “Conjuring lightning is not a useless talent.”

  Again he laughed. “That was an outright miracle. I’ve never done it before and doubt I could do it again. It was desperation.”

  The king seemed to enjoy laughing at himself. It was not a common quality among my people, and I believed my father would call it a weakness. Your own vulnerabilities were to be concealed, and those of your enemies exploited. There was a lightness to the king’s character that was outside my experience. I had to admit I was intrigued by it.

  Turning to study the results of our combined spells, I said, “With your assistance, Your Majesty, I think I might attempt the climb now.”

  He frowned. “We have the other side to descend as well. Would you not rather wait for my steward? The fellow is uncommonly resourceful. I can’t help but think we might make use of the Gap to abbreviate our return to the castle. I avoid it if I can, as accurate Gap navigation seems to be a combination of magic, luck, and blind faith, but I’m willing to—”

  “No,” I said, probably too quickly. “There’s no need, Your Majesty.”

  Finvara eyed me doubtfully. “As you like.”

  He came closer, and again I took his arm. Even in the chill air, his skin was warm. I let my fingers slide half an inch so I could feel its texture, then wondered what in Freyja’s name I was doing.

  When we reached the steps, the king offered a smile of encouragement, though I could see the worry in his eyes. Worry about me.

  His binding of the wound had helped to ease the pain of walking, and by leaning some of my weight on him I was able to climb all the way to the top. The descent was trickier, and by the time we made it down to the forest path I was breathing hard and sweating.

  Awaiting us below were more of the king’s guards, who’d marched out to meet us—and, I was grateful to see, a sturdy little dapple mare. The king gave instructions about the wounded still on the hill above, and one of the firglas led the mare over to me—her small and stocky build reminded me very much of the ponies in my homeland. No sooner had I gripped the saddle—taking a deep breath to fortify myself for the step up into the stirrup—than broad hands wrapped around my waist and lifted me to the mare’s back. I landed in the saddle with a startled exhalation.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said as our eyes met. My heart raced, and where his hands had squeezed me, the skin tingled. I watched as he checked the girth and claimed the reins from his servant, placing them in my hands.

  Resting a hand on the mare’s neck, he said, “It’s an easy ride back, my lady, and you’ll soon have a more qualified surgeon.”

  My leg wound was not insignificant, but it would mend. Yet I worried over what other mischief may have been wrought this day.

  Finvara

  Doro met us on the drawbridge, and before I could reproach him for ignoring my summons, he offered an apology. Despite the fact I had appointed him my steward, he was still magically bonded to the fairy queen—he could only leave the castle by her order. While the office was vacant, he was trapped here. I felt a pinprick of guilt over the discontent I’d experienced earlier, at the vantage point—separated though I might be from the life I loved, for the most part I was still my own master.

  After explaining what had delayed him, Doro informed us that the surgeon from Tuam was not coming.

  “What?” I demanded. “Why not?”

  “I believe he is afraid of Knock Ma, Your Majesty.”

  “Damnation,” I muttered, though perhaps it should not have come as a surprise. “What is to be done for the princess? I’ll not send her six miles on horseback to him.”

  “It does not signify, sire,” said Doro. “I would have saved your man the trouble had I known his errand. What we want is a fairy doctor, and that we have.”

  By his tone, I understood him to mean himself. Was there anything he couldn’t do?

  “You can treat her injury?”

  “With her permission, sire.”

  Doro glanced at the princess, and she nodded.

  “Very well,” I agreed, studying her. The color had not returned to her face, and her eyelids were heavy. “I think rather than have her attempt the tower stairs, we’ll open a chamber on the lower—”

  “I can make it, Your Majesty,” she insisted.

  I was unconvinced, and when Doro excused himself to collect the supplies he needed, I accompanied her back to the tower. As we mounted the stairway, I could see that she was weaker, and the palm of her hand felt ice-cold on my arm.

  “I believe you are chilled, lady.”

  “I am tired,” she said. “That is all.”

  “Be that as it may, you do not look well. With your permission, I will carry you the rest of the way.”

  She froze, turning to study me with wide eyes.

  “Have I your permission?”

  She measured the remaining distance with her gaze. Then she glanced at the steps behind us. We were about halfway to the top. Her hand stretched toward the stone wall for support, but before her fingers made contact, she swayed.

  I reached for her, and she let out a surprised cry as I scooped her up in my arms. Before she could protest, I had started climbing again.

  “I’ve got you,” I said in what I hoped was a reassuring voice.

  She curled an arm around the back of my neck and locked her hands together, and this small, trusting gesture triggered a movement of my heart.

  “This is unlike me,” she assured me in a ragged voice. I could feel her trembling. “A few minutes ago I felt fine.”

  “It’s a deep wound,” I replied, and my chin brushed the top of her head. “You’ve lost a good deal of blood, and it’s caught up to you.”

  “Maybe so, Your Majesty.”

  “Undoubtedly so,” I insisted. Despite the confidence of my tone, I was impatient for Doro’s return. Her head fell against the arm she’d wrapped around my neck, and she murmured something in her own tongue.

  “Lady?” I said.

  “Hurts,” she replied faintly.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, I walked to the bed and set her down on the coverlet. Her eyes were closed, and she was shivering visibly.

  “Lady?” I repeated as Doro and the princess’s maid joined us.

  She didn’t reply.

  “Her condition has worsened,” I said to my steward. “She’s badly chilled.”

  Doro instructed the maid to build up the fire, and he began arranging his materials on a nearby tea table.

  “Is there something dangerous about this wound?” I asked him. “More so than it appears?”

  “There is,” he confirmed. I watched him place a handful of dried leaves and twigs with the bark removed in a mortar. Then he began crushing them. “The scratch of such a creature is bound to putrefy. I must treat the wound before necrosis sets in. If I fail to do so, it will spread.”

  “Necrosis?” I stared at him. I didn’t know the word, but it sounded ill enough. “Do you mean to say her life is at risk?”

  “Only if I delay. Let me work, sire.”

  I watched as he assembled a poultice from his crushed leaves and carried it to the bed. I
bent over the princess and unwrapped the makeshift dressing, which was soaked with fresh blood. When I saw the injured flesh, I swore under my breath and stepped back. The skin around the wound had gone gray, with a pattern like strange, feathery veins beneath.

  Doro bent over her and applied the poultice, murmuring what sounded like a healing spell in an old form of Irish. Not blood magic, I didn’t think.

  I studied her face. She looked peaceful enough, though she was frightfully pale. It had not occurred to me that she might die, and I was suddenly, acutely aware that it mattered to me.

  “I WILL CONQUER THIS”

  Koli

  When I woke, I found that the king had gone, but I was not alone. My maid was asleep in the chair by the fire, and Doro stood at the window gazing out at the forest.

  There was a water goblet on the bedside table, and I picked it up and drained it. Doro turned.

  “There you are,” he said, smiling.

  “How long have I been asleep?” I asked hoarsely.

  “Nearly twenty-four hours,” he replied, and I sat straight up, groaning as pain knifed through my injured leg.

  “Rest, lady,” he urged. “It’s the best thing for you.”

  My maid had begun to stir in her chair, and I called to her, “Sorcha, could you bring me something to eat?”

  “Yes, lady,” she said, jumping to her feet and smoothing her hair back. The poor woman was still frightened of me. “I’ll fetch some soup from the kitchen.”

  I watched her go, and when the sound of her footsteps on the stairs faded, I said, “It was your doing, wasn’t it?”

  Doro lifted his eyebrows.

  “The wight—it was your own creature.”

  “Ah, so it was.”

  “Did you not think that it might be dangerous?”

  “Certainly, I did.”

  “Then why? Why produce such a thing? It might have killed us both.”

  “Might have,” he said, moving closer to the bed, “but did not.”

  His gray eyes were round, very light, and as thickly lashed as a woman’s. They offered a pleasing contrast to the strong lines of his jaw and long nose. His expression was smug and serene. At the moment, I was finding the whole luminous, mysterious package of him decidedly irksome.

  “I will thank you to speak plainly, sir. What are you playing at?”

  He looked surprised by my anger. “I am furthering our interests, as I have promised to do.”

  “By nearly killing me?”

  “You were never in real danger. I trusted in the resourcefulness of both you and the king. You would not be defeated by one such creature. And I knew that should one of you be injured, even gravely, I could heal you.”

  I stared at him, aghast. “You seem to be saying that the wight’s attack was planned. That it was intentional.”

  He smiled blandly as my ire increased. “And so it was. The king believes you saved his life, and he now trusts you. He bore you to the top of the tower himself, and he expressed genuine concern over the severity of your injury.”

  Most if not all of these things were true, but I was not reassured, as he had probably intended. Instead, I could not help contrasting the king’s actions with his. Doro appeared to have saved my life, but he was also the reason it had needed saving.

  If I’d understood my betrothed correctly, today’s adventure had been contrived to induce the king to trust me so that I could kill him at a time of Doro and my father’s choosing. It was a dangerous game. If the wight had killed the king, it could very easily have been blamed on me—a malevolent creature like that, rising out of the ground to attack the king only a day after my arrival. Was Doro confident to the point of arrogance?

  I studied him like the answer would suddenly appear in his face.

  His expression began to lose its smugness, and he sounded slightly wounded when he replied, “Can you not see that this is proof of my regard for you? I never doubted your actions.”

  I frowned. “Could you not have at least warned me?”

  “I assure you, the endeavor would not have been as successful had you known in advance—according to the account of the firglas, you performed beautifully. More to the point, I had no way of knowing when circumstances would be right for the barrow-wight to be woken.”

  Sighing, I leaned against the headboard. “How was it done?”

  Doro brightened—he liked to talk about his work. “Blood magic is used for reanimation of earthly creatures, but the barrow-wight was something completely new. Due to natural decay of the body, revenants are usually quite physically vulnerable. By combining blood magic with alchemy, I made him stronger.”

  I failed to suppress a shudder. “You told the king you are unable to leave Knock Ma. Is that true?”

  He gave a grim nod. “I can slip into the Gap, as you have seen, but I cannot travel in either Ireland or Faery unless I am commanded by Finvara’s queen.”

  I began to see how he had come to covet the crown. It was hard to fault him for wanting to change his circumstances.

  “Your bond will be broken when you become king?”

  He hesitated, and I could see the thoughts working behind his placid eyes. “My bond was forged by magic more powerful than mine, yet that is my hope.”

  And if not? To be free from the more distasteful restrictions of his bond, he would need a queen he could trust—or perhaps even control.

  It struck me that I had traveled all the way to Ireland to live in an extension of my father’s court—complicated relationships, shifting allegiances, constant spying, and eventually, assassinations. Why would it be any different, or why would I want anything different? It was a life I’d been raised to and understood. For some reason it gave me a sinking feeling.

  Doro was watching me closely, making me even more uneasy. I could not afford for him to question my loyalty. Fortunately, I had been paying attention and had learned a sure way of distracting him.

  “Who was the barrow-wight in life?” I asked.

  “A very ancient Fomorian king, killed in battle by the Tuatha De Danaan.”

  “How did you use alchemy to make him stronger?”

  He sat down on the edge of my bed. “Do you recall me telling you of the vein of magic that opened when the seal between Faery and Ireland was broken?”

  I nodded.

  “There is a Gap gate inside the barrow—inside the king’s tomb. Anything that passes through it is altered and comes out an amalgamation of Faery and the modern world.”

  I stared at him, thinking about the inhabitants of Knock Ma’s dungeon. “Expressions of magic in a mechanical age,” I murmured, echoing Finvara’s words. “The little machines in Knock Ma, you said they were not of your making. Did they somehow—”

  He held up his hand and I paused. The sound of Sorcha’s footsteps carried along the stairway.

  “We must continue this discussion at a later time, lady,” he continued. “Have I your forgiveness for adopting extreme measures, in light of our success?”

  There was no arguing with the fact that our plans were more likely to succeed if the king trusted me. Whether or not I agreed with Doro’s methods, he was holding up his end of our agreement. The question of whether I trusted him would have to wait for further evidence, and I was thankful he had not asked me. One thing I did trust in—if he caused my death and my father learned of it, he would pay with his life.

  Unless he’s more powerful than Father.

  But that could not be.

  Doro was eyeing me expectantly, and the maid had reached the top of the stairs.

  “You have it,” I replied.

  Finvara

  With each passing hour, I felt more grateful for my new steward. Not only had he handily sorted the chaos in my court, he had prevented an international incident by saving the life of the Elf King’s d
aughter. A trustworthy first mate was worth his weight in gold.

  But as I watched him apply his arts to healing the princess, I realized I knew very little about him.

  Doro was present in the memories I had acquired from my ancestor—he had long served Knock Ma’s queens. I knew that under their orders he’d been involved in some shady dealings—in one memorable instance, a mortal woman the king had abducted and married had ordered Doro to steal the daughter of a nearby chieftain to serve as her maid. At the same time, the fairy servant had also been responsible for such menial tasks as fetching tea and attending the queen when she rode out with hunting parties. There was a note of disdain associated with those memories—I sensed my ancestor considered Doro beneath his notice.

  As soon as the princess was deemed out of danger, I left her in the care of my steward and her maid and returned to my study with the intention of writing to my learned friend, Miss Ada Quicksilver. Miss Quicksilver was in fact Lady Meath now, the wife of my cousin Edward Donoghue, earl of Meath. She was a student of Faery, and like myself and Edward, was connected to Faery through her own ancestry. She and her banshees had helped defeat our enemies at Ben Bulben. I composed a brief message inquiring whether she had ever encountered a fairy called “Doro” in her studies. I then placed the letter in the hands of a courier, instructing him to carry it to the telegraph office in Tuam and remain there until a reply was received.

  With that accomplished, and with my steward otherwise occupied, I tried to focus on preparations for my family’s arrival, which was only a few days away. But I was preoccupied with the attack in the forest. Queen Isolde had, after all, left me squarely in charge of safeguarding the west of Ireland, which, in addition to being the location where the Fomorians had always historically attacked, still felt so remote in comparison to Dublin that it might be another country. I doubled the number of firglas watching from the battlements and ordered additional patrols into the rolling green countryside west of Knock Ma—even to the very borders of the vast bog land beyond. I also resolved to appoint a marshal to help me manage our defenses and military affairs.