The Raven Queen

by Jules Watson

  Garvan’s eyes bulged. “What …?”

  “My skills are untried. But I hid those I had, wondering if one day I might need them.” Her breath gusted out. “This day.”

  “But … I’ve fought with you …”

  “My friend, you fought a part of me. For the rest, I sparred alone. It is not the same as warrior training … but it will have to be enough.” Her sight unfocused, she saw that utterance ripple out through the silver sea.

  “Balls to that.” Garvan’s green eyes were too bright, his mouth screwed up like a dried cherry. “I’ve dug up something for you.” He put his lips against her ear. “Innel’s knee was sliced on a raid many years ago, and though he keeps it a secret, he still bears the weakness.” At last he managed a smile. “Target the left, spitfire.”

  Maeve nodded, and turned toward Innel, the wrapped blade still clasped to her breast. She strode to Tiernan, who stood between her and her brother at the heart of the sea.

  Tiernan raised his stave.

  “You will pay for your treachery,” Innel hissed beneath the druid’s prayers to the gods. Her brother held his shield over his chin. “My sword will rip open your bowels, and you’ll burn on a pyre I build with my own hands.”

  A slow, knowing smile spread over Maeve’s face. Innel faltered. At the last moment she yanked the last wrappings from the bundle and clasped her father’s hilt. Innel’s eyes widened, a curse leaping to his lips, but no one else was close enough to see what blade she bore.

  Tiernan’s staff plunged between them.

  Maeve dived into the depths of light, and was freed.

  Innel stabbed in with the weight of muscle and thick bone. Maeve twirled out of his way, lithe and swift. The delight of that weightlessness, the thrill of that glide, lifted her heart. It was true … she swam through air. She laughed with delight.

  Her brother roared and swung, unable to twist at the waist because of his bulk and armor. His feet churned up mud, splattering Maeve as she darted out of reach.

  Over the years, Maeve had sought out not the brutish fighters, but the swift and skilled. She’d coaxed from them the sword-edge flips, tumbling runs, salmon leaps, somersaults, and spear-springs, practicing until she wove those patterns into the very fibers of her muscles, honing nerves and sinew.

  Now the aura that had trailed her from the lake gathered into a glowing nimbus about her. It was a sleek creature, its quicksilver grace added to her own litheness. Pulses of alien instincts wound through her own reflexes. Her mind was not hers; it was liquid, flowing.

  She gave herself up to that alchemy, and was Maeve alone no more.

  Innel saw her delight, and his fury crushed all his remaining sense. It made him swing wildly, losing control so his shield dropped. Maeve spun through radiant seas, leaping to his side behind the shield’s arc and trailing her blade across his mail-shirt. Innel cried out at the metallic ring and lunged over his left knee to reach her. Maeve heard his breathless grunt of pain, saw his face spasm.

  Innel sliced in again, and Maeve sent herself into a high vault at dizzying speed, digging her sword-tip into the earth. She landed behind Innel, making him shake his head like a baffled bear. Warriors did not skulk behind their opponents. The honor code made them charge at each other face-to-face.

  But Maeve had been barred from taking warrior oaths.

  She darted around again while Innel was still turning, forcing him to lunge left once more. Her blade nicked his elbow before glancing off his mail-shirt. Innel’s angry yelp echoed off the trees.

  “First blood, first blood!” Garvan shouted.

  Innel growled in denial, tossing the shield away. Shock passed over the crowd, the exclamations appalled and thrilled. Panting, Maeve nodded. She knew this would not end at first blood, for if they both lived, the fear would never die.

  She smiled, weaving their father’s sword before Innel with the same undulations of the creature who inhabited her. Come, that smile said. Innel’s features contorted as his eyes followed the blade, blood running down his arm.

  And something unexpected came.

  The currents around Maeve rippled. A brilliant arc swept through the watery veils a heartbeat before Innel actually moved. She saw his intent, his thought, as if it was made of light.

  Maeve had already ducked by the time Innel’s sword passed over her skull, missing her by a hairbreadth.

  Innel swept his blade back on its return swipe. With a sinuous twist, Maeve undulated onto the back side of his sword. While he was still lumbering to turn, she finished her spin with a cut across the side of Innel’s neck. A seam of blood opened up, and Innel gargled his fury.

  Maeve was going to wear him down.

  For what seemed like an age she ebbed and surged with the silver tides, making Innel’s bad leg thump down over and then again, the knee twisting. His pudgy face soon streamed with sweat, his chest working like a bellows.

  At last he surprised her by contracting his body halfway through a swing, changing direction to slice across her bare thigh. Innel’s men let out a great cheer, and Maeve looked down in a daze as blood trickled over her knee. The pain was distant, its fire quenched by the silky waters.

  In defiance, the glowing wave swept her up with renewed force.

  She sprang from her injured leg and spiraled around Innel, stirring the currents with the speed of her leaps. He was limping, his movements labored. Soon his arms, neck, and jaw were crisscrossed with glancing wounds. He never managed to land a blow on her with all his weight behind it.

  Mumu’s champion had shown Maeve a daring feat. If Innel’s knee slowed him, she could do it and unbalance him further. She flung her sword in an arc and dived beneath it, cleaving the silvery sea.

  A twist under Innel’s grasping arms, a tumble past his feet. He lunged for her, and then suddenly his leg spasmed and gave out. Innel collapsed, crashing to the ground with his bad knee bent beneath him. Plucking up her sword, Maeve bounded onto his back, pinning him down. She curved her bare toes to grip the wings of his shoulder blades.

  He will kill me.

  Nothing existed but that primal terror, a savage flood that drowned all else.

  She kicked up the flare of the neck-guard on his helmet. There was a place below the dip in the skull …

  He will kill me.

  Innel bucked, trying to twist her off. If she’d been shod, he would have managed it, but she clung on with toes and the arches of her feet. Sucking in a breath, Maeve lifted the sword and stabbed down two-handed, throwing her whole weight on its length so the stag hilt dug into her belly.

  The tip drove between the gaps in Innel’s spine.

  His scream pierced the air, his limbs thrashing. Senseless, Maeve straddled Innel’s head and hacked his neck again, and then again.

  She didn’t know when he died. Only when his stillness was complete did she halt. Blood was dripping down her chin, the taint of copper spreading over her tongue.

  The bating of the audience had died out. Maeve was now enveloped by a great silence. The silvery tide drained from her, rushing out to sea, and she began to sway. Garvan’s arms were about her when she sagged to the ground.

  Maeve returned to herself. The cut on her thigh throbbed, and her muscles burned.

  Innel’s men were bellowing their anger, others roaring to release pent-up bloodlust. Garvan’s pleas for help were drowned out by the clamor of the warriors as they broke the sacred bounds of the ring, swarming over the blood-soaked ground.

  Maeve stared at her dead brother. Someone had turned him over, and now they lay in the same pose, arms out. His eyes were glazed, though, his coarse skin smeared with gore.

  Maeve’s throat bobbed, then spasmed. “Water …” she gasped. “Wash it all away …”

  Garvan barked orders, and cool liquid poured into her parched mouth. She beckoned with a feeble hand until Garvan sluiced it over her face, arms, and legs, too. He was mumbling incoherently, stroking her wet hair. Shouting warriors were milling about. A druid
bent over her wound, prodding it until she batted him away. She groped for Garvan’s arm. “Get me … up.”

  “We have to stanch this bleeding.”

  “The show of the sword,” she croaked.

  “Spitfire—”

  “Help me up!” It had to be now. Garvan looped an arm under her and hauled her back up. The pain made the daylight flicker, but she shook it away. Blood trickled down her shin; water dripped from her face.

  As the press of men drew back, Maeve stabbed her father’s sword into the sky. The lowering sun kindled it into a flame in her hands. A hush fell again, so that only her scream of triumph echoed over the plain of Cruachan.

  At last the warriors recognized the stag on the blade, and their shouts crashed in upon her. Eochaid. The king’s sword!

  Garvan yelped and, taking her wrist, shoved her sword-arm higher. Dazed, Maeve’s knees buckled again, Garvan’s grip alone holding her up. Perhaps it was all over, after all. Innel was dead. She was safe. It could end now; she could turn from this path, find somewhere quiet and still.

  Jostled by warriors, her eyes fell upon Eithne, her hand over her mouth as she stared at Maeve’s dead brother. And little Líoch, gazing wide-eyed as Innel’s supporters stormed around, howling with wrath.

  Maeve’s pulse drummed in her ears. It was not over. Fraech and his kin would see her as an enemy now, as would others. They would come after her.

  And Conor … The rest of her people could not run and hide from him.

  Tiernan strode to Maeve’s side, making the yelling warriors fall silent and peel back. “You took this blade from your father’s body?”

  With his shaven hairline pushing his gray mane back to his crown, there was nothing to distract from the high arches of the druid’s brows or blade of his nose. His domed eyelids gave him the look of a temple idol, except that at this moment his eyes blazed with a very human wrath.

  Panting, Maeve nodded.

  “Why?”

  She had to force her trembling legs around, lifting the sword across her palms. Still she wavered, her belly sinking with an unknown dread. She yearned to curl up in a hidden den now that no one would ever find, but there would be no peace for her people while Conor stalked the land, and Idath and Fraech brooded in their mountain fort.

  And there was only one true way for her to be safe from them all—and that was to be stronger.

  Maeve breathed in, looked over all the fighting men, the lords, the crafters, women and children. “Because I would be Queen of Connacht, if you will have me.”

  The world fell quiet.

  “My father was struck down before he could announce me his heir. He said I was the most like him, the only one who would do what is best for you.” It wasn’t a lie, she told herself fiercely. He meant that; it was truth.

  “You have dishonored the sídhe,” a druid stammered.

  “Sacrilege! You will bring calamity on us all!” others babbled.

  Tiernan’s gaze had turned glassy, as if he sought an answer inside himself.

  Maeve leaped in. “I am a royal daughter, sacred consort of kings. Only I had the courage to brave the sídhe, to prove my worth.” Her sight wavered as she remembered touching the strange druid, the rush of it.

  She blinked, her gaze seeking out the warriors and noblemen one by one. Now she must touch a burning brand to the tinder she had been gathering for so many moons. “I defeated my brother in combat—a man whose folly would have led us to disaster. I am the ruler my father wanted you to have!”

  The crowd was thunderstruck once more into silence. She had this one chance. Maeve ignored the pain, taking a deep breath. Her words flowed from her on the last wave of light.

  Every man of the derbfine had as many enemies as allies, but she was above these old feuds. She wouldn’t turn warrior against warrior, or put her own greed or pride first. She had worked beside them for moons; she understood the concerns of the lords, crafters, and herders in a way no one else could.

  Finally she loosed the specter of Conor—a humiliated king who would soon seek to prove his strength to his men again. She argued the need for a ruler who could forge all of Connacht into one blade to lift against him, rather than those who would weaken the kingdom with the battles of clan against clan.

  At last Maeve paused, panting, her bare foot slick with blood.

  “No woman will rule us!” one of Innel’s warrior’s shouted. “Abomination!” others cried. “Shameful!”

  Maeve’s gaze pierced the throng to seek for one man. The chieftain, Donagh.

  Your promise, her eyes demanded. The murderer of his daughter lay dead at her feet, by her hand.

  Donagh’s cheeks grew florid above his beard and he hesitated. Glowering, he at last made his way through the ranks of sword and spearmen. He was a powerful lord, and the men fell silent as he limped to the front. “The Lady Maeve has been steadfast when we needed her, unlike her brother. Innocent people lost their lives because of his hot blood; flocks and herds were stolen. She is not too proud to realize the strength of Connacht lies in its cattle-lords.” He stared about him, defiant.

  “The lady brought us grain when our harvest failed,” one of the bolder noblewomen put in. And so on they came, a tide of all those Maeve had exhausted herself to court over sun-season.

  “We have many strong warriors who could be king,” an older chief argued. “The lords will choose one, as we always have.”

  “Fraech is an honorable man,” Maeve agreed, hoarse with strain, “but his uncle and father have many enemies among you. How will you fare under their rule? They only want to possess the king’s hall and the king’s cattle!”

  Fear clouded their faces, and Maeve rested the sword on her shoulder. “I married into Laigin, Mumu, and the Ulaid. I lived among them, watched their warriors train, know their lords, their lands, their trade routes, their wealth. Does Fraech know so much of these kingdoms? No.”

  More arguments broke out, the din rising until another of Innel’s swordmates stormed, “A queen of Connacht is impossible!”

  “Why?”

  People peered around to see who had answered. It was a dark-haired young female druid called Erna, one of those Maeve had sent to heal the babes with the coughing sickness. “The tales speak of ruling queens, do they not?” Erna gazed up at her chief druid with opaque brown eyes.

  Tiernan’s mouth was pursed, his knuckles white as they clutched his staff. “There were queens of the Tuatha de Danann, when our gods walked this land. Other tales speak of queens among our ancestors, yes.”

  One of the boisterous young warriors who had been trailing after Maeve for moons now jabbed the air. His face was alight with the thought dawning over many of them: that when she became queen, they would be favored. “There are queens among the Britons and Albans, and they are strong peoples. We need the best ruler. That is all that matters!”

  “The goddess Macha was also once a human queen, I believe.” Erna added a respectful bow in Tiernan’s direction. “Is there not another tale of her as queen among the Ulaid?”

  With a scowl, one of Innel’s cubs gestured toward King Eochaid’s aged bard. The old man was sitting on cushions beside the ring. “You tell us this Ulaid tale, honored brother. We would hear it from you.”

  The bard unwound his wiry body and stood, white hair stirring in the wind. He bowed to Tiernan, draping his cloak over his arm in the bardic stance. “It is called Macha Mong Ruad; Macha of the Red Mane.”

  People exclaimed, swinging toward Maeve and her own fiery hair, now stiff with blood. Her heart skipped. This she had not foreseen. She wiped sweat from her lip, taking the weight off her leg. Garvan went to help her but she shook her head, and frowning, he folded his arms.

  “Macha’s father was a great king of the Ulaid,” the bard intoned. “After he died, Macha sought the throne. Her cousins would not let a woman rule, and so battle ensued.” The bard closed his eyes. “Macha killed one of her cousins with her own sword so she could be queen.”
r />   Eyes darted toward Innel’s body, forgotten in the chaos. Maeve’s mouth went dry again.

  “She married the second cousin and built the great fort of Emain Macha with her own hands. Afterward, she ruled well for many years—a blessed age for the Ulaid when their streams ran with gold. Their herds multiplied, and when she passed back through the veils she left a land richer than it had ever been.” The bard bowed his head, his aged, swollen fingers clutching his cloak. “The Ulaid have revered her in song ever since.”

  Maeve’s throat closed up. A rustle of wonder ran over the crowd. The Ulaid had a red-haired queen, and see how strong they became! The Tuatha de Danann had many queens. We have all heard the stories.

  Breaking through the crowd, Garvan strode forward, waving his own sword before stabbing it into the turf. “Have your wits deserted you? No one has ever braved the veils of the sídhe for a king’s sword. And they did not strike her down! They chose her, for she is a hero from the old tales. Imagine this story of Connacht’s queen being told at every fireside in Erin. The Ulaid will think her this Macha Red Mane come back, but to us. They will think we are favored now, and that will put the fear upon them!”

  Maeve’s supporters among the warriors began to echo Garvan. As one pack, they whipped up the people’s blood with ever-louder whoops. They brandished swords and spears over their heads, and the children shrieked, goggle-eyed.

  Tiernan pierced the racket, striking his staff on Innel’s discarded shield. “Enough!” he roared. “All you say may be true, but she has dishonored the sídhe. The Shining Ones are the spirits of rain, the seeds, the forest, and seas.” He pointed at Maeve, his hand shaking. “Their wrath may not have fallen upon you, lady, but it might descend upon us and the land be laid waste—grain withering, cattle sickening!”

  Maeve lowered her father’s sword, her mind racing. There was no other way, lest the chance slip away all together. “I am chosen, but if you doubt, let us see what the long dark brings. The land slumbers then, and the raiders of the Ulaid, too. If the sídhe are wrathful, the land will show it at leaf-bud. If I am blessed, we will also know it. For now, Conor’s troubles keep him close to home … We have a little time for the nobles to choose the best ruler for Connacht.”