The Raven Queen

by Jules Watson

  Just then a distant sound caught her attention—a baying like hounds at the hunt. The wonder spread among her men. Knee-deep in gore, the warriors of Cruachan lifted faces painted with blood, gulping the clearer air above the slaughter.

  “The other lords are come!”

  It sheared like a wind across the valley.

  “Donagh’s men, and Cormac’s! They come in their hundreds!”

  Maeve hobbled through the remains of Idath’s camp, stepping around bodies with spears sticking out of them. The muscles in her back and thighs cramped. She nudged someone’s pack over and dug out a water-flask. The stream nearby was choked with bodies, the muddy waters red in the sunlight that now shafted into the valley.

  Maeve held the flask, making herself gaze at them. The victory was hollow, for the slaying of men could never be a triumph. Men who would not come back to their families now, their eyes empty. How could this be triumph?

  Warriors were going to die in any battle for the kingship, she reminded herself, her hands shaking as she lifted the flask to drink.

  But I vowed to bring peace.

  And she would have sought it, proving herself through other strengths, if Idath had not betrayed her.

  Back and forth her thoughts went as she drank with unseeing eyes and wiped her mouth. She felt sick. If she had not taken the sword …

  “Maeve.” Garvan was making his way across the piles of shredded tents.

  All around him warriors dug through abandoned belongings for weapons. Others were hacking off enemy heads. Dead warriors must be honored, their skulls staked outside the houses to gift their strength to those brave enough to kill them.

  Garvan’s face was a mask of gore, his hair twined into stiff hanks. “Felim and Ardal are dead.” He was battle-hoarse. Maeve handed him the flask and he splashed his face. “We captured Idath—and Fraech.”

  Maeve rubbed her gritty eyes, her ears still ringing from so many shouts and the clang of iron. She could not rid her tongue of the taste of copper. “I will deal with them now.” She winced as she fingered the cut on her scalp.

  Garvan had bound a wound on his forearm, but another on his thigh streaked his torn trews with blood. “Rest first. I’ll bring Idath to you tomorrow—”

  “No. Our men are still chasing the ones who ran. The battle goes on.”

  “So?”

  “The brethim laws. Warriors can only kill in battle—druids alone take the lives of undefended men.” There was a deadness in her voice. “If I take Idath home alive, he might only be banished, and so remain a danger to us all.”

  She limped away, and Garvan fell into step beside her. “The men won’t like to see a defeated lord killed in cold blood, spitfire—no matter how traitorous.”

  Her gaze roamed over the twisted figures of the dead. Idath did this, she tried to hammer into herself. If he lived, it would happen again, and more men would continue to die, until the whole kingdom was drawn into that fight. An end had to be made this day—it had to. “The only oath I took was to protect my people from greedy bastards like him. I will give him his chance, but if he doesn’t take it, the warriors have to know I am stronger than any man.”

  Amid a pack of filthy, blood-streaked warriors, Maeve watched as Idath and Fraech were forced to their knees. Their hands were deliberately left unbound, for she would not shame them and thereby stir pity among the men. Hefty fighters pinned each one with a hand on the shoulder instead.

  Idath had put aside his rich furs and embroidered robes. His rotund belly was squeezed into a mail-shirt, the greased rings dark with blood. Gray hair straggled from a balding pate. Beneath a cut on the brow and a black eye, he was still scowling.

  Fraech’s brown hair had escaped its braids and hung lank with sweat. His back was proud, though, and he folded his arms behind him, staring through all the baying warriors into the distance, green eyes showing nothing.

  Maeve nodded at Garvan, who stepped before Idath and raised his voice to carry. “You broke a sacred peace, coming to attack Connacht-men joined as brothers under druid rule. You will now swear allegiance to the victor of this field—Maeve, daughter of Eochaid, King of Connacht—and accept her as your overlord.”

  Idath sneered. “By Manannán’s breath I will not.” Fraech’s gaze slid toward his father. “Did you not hear me?” Idath hissed at Garvan, avoiding Maeve’s eyes. “I will never serve that lying, thieving bitch. She might have cast her enchantments over you, but she’ll never enslave me.”

  Fraech colored and kept his attention on the trees by the river. Maeve was distracted by the swiftness of his breathing, which his stony face did not betray. Was he afraid, or did his father’s behavior disturb him that much?

  She withdrew her sword and approached Idath. “I gained this blade by the favor of the sídhe and my father’s spirit. He chose me.” She gestured at the guards to release Idath, and extended her sword toward him. “You have one last chance to swear on it.”

  Idath’s mouth twisted, and he hawked and spat at her. His phlegm dribbled down Maeve’s trews, mixing with the crust of blood as he struggled to his feet. “I am Idath, son of Gabran! I will never subject myself to this traitorous, kin-slaying whore!”

  Maeve’s back stiffened. Her gaze rose to his face.

  The invisible armor she summoned before the battle must still cloak her, for she felt no fear now, only a burning will to never be subject to a man like him again.

  Idath was clenching his hands, ready to snap. She must goad him. She curled her lip. “The only traitor I see is the one who murdered his own clan, not just out of greed, but utter stupidity.”

  Idath spluttered and began to turn purple. The slightest gesture to strike was enough, and so it came. Idath curled a fist and braced his legs, then lunged.

  A jolt went through Maeve, and with a final spurt of energy she strained her leg once more to throw herself unexpectedly to the side. Taken by surprise, Idath unbalanced, flailing. Maeve gritted her teeth past the pain, flicking her wrist back on itself in a clever sword-feat she learned among the Ulaid. It used up the dregs of her strength, but with a sudden pivot her blade nicked the vein in Idath’s neck.

  He toppled to his knees, his hand clapped to his throat, his eyes wide.

  Fraech choked back a cry and caught his father, lowering him to the ground. Idath groped the wound, blood pouring between his fingers. His fading gasps were drowned out by the mutters of the warriors. No one moved until those faint noises stopped and Fraech’s murmurs ceased.

  Maeve faced the men with head up, hiding her trembling, her palm slick around her hilt. “I swore to make our kingdom strong by forging us as one. This is the vow Idath broke.” Her voice cracked and she had to swallow again. “Every man of his still alive will be spared. Those who swear to me will be forgiven, and those who refuse will be subject to druid judgment. That is all.”

  Fraech’s head was bent over his father, who was now motionless in his arms.

  Exhaustion descended over Maeve as she forced her legs to limp to a lone ash tree beside Idath’s camp. The mutters of her men behind her turned into exclamations and it was a tense few moments as some of them argued among themselves.

  Maeve did not look over. After a while the tone lightened, the few voices of dissent silenced. They remembered the taste of glory, that they lived to feast and drink, and bed their women again. The banter resumed as they drifted away, seeking more spoils.

  Garvan slipped to her side. “Fraech?”

  Maeve kneaded her cramping thigh where the old wound had weakened the muscle. “I will see him when I have cleaned myself up. At sunset—but this time bind his hands.”

  Maeve and Fraech walked along the stream, trailed by Garvan a step behind with a drawn sword.

  Trails of fire-smoke now blended with the haze of dusk. Maeve took a breath of churned ferns and the fresh scent of water rushing over rocks to clear her nostrils of blood. She still hobbled from the leap that killed Idath, her brow pummeled by the aftershock of th
e hilt-strike. No one spoke of the pains that dogged a warrior after battle.

  Perhaps because relief lightened everything—for them.

  She stole a glance at Fraech. He was tall and graceful, walking with such nobility he didn’t look as if his hands were bound behind him at all. Whenever his face sagged into grief, he firmed his mouth, head up.

  She blinked and tried to straighten her aching neck, too. Her promise to her people was to heal Connacht rifts. Dazed, she prized her cracked lips apart. “Most of your warriors surrendered. And … a hundred deaths do not fracture a people.”

  Fraech came to a halt, and Maeve faced him. “Everything your father and uncle said about me was a lie, and before Lugh in his temple, you knew it. I would not have attacked you. I would have been true. But the sword god bore witness to their treachery, and this was his punishment.”

  Fraech searched her raw, bruised face. There was no fury in his eyes; perhaps he possessed the wisdom his sire lacked. “My instincts believe you.” He was red-eyed from smoke and hoarse from battle. “This way was not my choice, but my father owned my loyalty.”

  Maeve nodded, kicking pebbles from the stream-bank to dislodge them. She bent and gathered the stones, intently rubbing the mud away and splitting them between her fists. “I have the loyalty of many lords.” She lifted one hand. “You have the rest. If we fight, we break Connacht apart.” She flung both handfuls into a pool in the stream beside them. They pocked the surface, the rings shattering the reflection. “Or … we stay one.” She looked up at him. “Swear allegiance to me now and I’ll make you my war-leader.”

  Fraech’s breath hissed out. “What?”

  Maeve squinted at him through her headache. “You fought honorably, and I spared you. I can rise above this for the good of the people.” She pushed back her matted hair with a wry smile.

  Something kindled in his young face, smoothing the etchings of pain. “You toy with me.” His voice was unsteady.

  “I don’t have that in me right now.” She scrubbed her palms on her thighs, resuming their walk. “I cannot kill you, for you are a brilliant fighter and well loved. People will say you had no choice but to follow your father. I can’t let you go, either, for men will rally to you, and we’ll be mired in the same problem.” She cocked her head, loosing a smile that startled him. “So what can you rise to, cousin?”

  His face went still for a moment, before his nose cut the air. “Peace, yes. I have my father’s honor to renew.”

  “Good, but that is still not enough. I do not want men whispering that I cheated your clan of the kingship.” Flipping her dagger out, Maeve stepped behind him and with one swipe cut his leather bonds.

  Garvan looked at Fraech’s unbound hands and sighed through his nose, leaning his sword over his shoulder.

  Maeve glanced at him, then faced Fraech. “So, cousin, I will also name you my heir, to rule after me.”

  As the words left her, Maeve was surprised by a pang of yearning, to let go now of something that already lay so heavy upon her. Only when they are safe; when we are all safe.

  Fraech’s teeth showed between his lips, half smile, half snarl of disbelief. “You will give me everything we fought for?”

  “To rule after me. Either endure a momentary defeat, or a total defeat—though I sense you have a wisdom lacking in all those old war-lords put together.” She reached out in the fashion of a warrior hand-clasp.

  Fraech stared at her arm, then gripped her wrist. Relief washed across his features, making him look even younger, his green eyes vivid. “If we’d known you were mad, cousin, we would have challenged you long ago.”

  That was too raw. They dropped the clasp, and Maeve pointed to the barrow of stones. “Before your ancestors and every man on this field, you will now swear allegiance to me on your clan, your honor, and your place beside the gods on the Blessed Isles. If you break this, you lose the glory of your own name now.” She appraised him, her head pounding more urgently. “I hazard a guess you treasure that rather dearly, cousin Fraech.” She needed her bedroll. She needed to collapse.

  Fraech loped straight to the barrow and began to climb the stones.

  By the time darkness fell that night, Maeve’s tent had become a safe womb, not a trap. She listened to the soaring sounds of the warrior laments. Sometimes the songs were mournful, like wolf howls … indeed she wondered if the wolves joined in, far away.

  Beyond that came snatches of revelry. The victors had built enormous bonfires to spew out plumes of sparks, forcing back death and darkness. Their shouts soon became drunk with relief, and the reek of burned bodies was overlaid by the homely scents of roast deer and juniper smoke.

  Garvan crawled in and flopped on his back beside her, stinking of burned wood and ale. “They will curse my name when I turf them out of their bedrolls at dawn.”

  “Why dawn?” Maeve mumbled, her eyes drooping. She thought she might never move again.

  Garvan’s reply wound into Maeve’s dream as she began to fall.

  “Because you have a king’s hall to claim.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The wind whipped up the eastern sea, slapping spray over Cúchulainn and Ferdia where they clung to the rocks. The wild gusts tore at their cloaks and tried to push them over. Out on the ocean, the iron-gray of the clouds merged with the water.

  “You cannot go in this weather,” the Hound growled, eyeing the boat bobbing in a cleft in the low cliffs. It was a long, leaf-shaped curragh of tarred hides and hazel frame—light enough to fly over swells but still seeming fragile against those broken waves.

  Fishermen were packing Ferdia’s belongings between the oar-benches; another lashed the sail to the mast. Cúchulainn’s war-spoils had bought these men to deliver Ferdia alive to the stronghold of Skatha on an island off the coast of Alba, across the straits.

  “We’ve got one excuse to explain my disappearance, and a flimsy one at that. If we back out now, we’ll only rouse the king’s suspicions.” Ferdia stretched his mouth in a grin that would not fool Cúchulainn. “First a sore saddle-arse, now I have days of puking to look forward to, before being tossed into that den of cubs all stinking of grease and trying to shave my eyebrows off with a sword. Oh, the joy.”

  Skatha, a warrior-queen, ran a famous battle school on her island. Warriors traveled there from the Amber Coast, Britain, and Gaul, and even Roman lands. Like an armored spider, Skatha sat at the heart of this web. She might have news of the sons of Usnech if they had surfaced in Alba.

  “I should go to Skatha,” the Hound argued. “You’ve been scouring Erin for Naisi and his brothers for moons. You haven’t slept in one place for more than a few nights.”

  Ferdia handed a bundle of spears to one of the fishermen. “If you go, Cú, those bloodthirsty pups will be falling all over themselves to take the head of the great Champion of the Ulaid.”

  Cúchulainn stared at the waves, nostrils flexing. What he could smell on this wind, Ferdia did not know, but the Hound’s body unconsciously strained toward the east across the ocean. It was unbearable, Ferdia knew: the loyal sons of Usnech—Red Branch heroes—exiled in Alba among hostile tribes. Ferdia saw in Cúchulainn’s face the longing to take wing, swoop down, and bear them to safety. But even the great Hound of Cullen did not possess that power.

  A stray thought darted through Ferdia. But I can. I can bring them back in glory. Face hot, he crushed that. “We were so close to disaster at Samhain,” he reminded Cúchulainn. “You have to stay and keep the peace. If Illan and Fiacra can come to blows over Naisi, the rot is weakening us. Gods, that’s like you and me fighting each other!”

  Cúchulainn frowned as a surge knocked the boat against the rocks. “Do not say such things, even in jest. You tempt the gods to mischief.”

  Ferdia tossed the last pack into the hull, his stomach already beginning to churn. “If the king has sent so many trackers onto trade ships now, he also believes the brothers have abandoned Erin.”

  “Then we must get to them be
fore he does!” Cúchulainn’s outburst made all the fishermen look up. Cúchulainn turned Ferdia a few steps away over the rocks, his blue eyes dulled by the low, racing clouds. “I have never seen Conor’s mind fracture like this,” he whispered, shaking his golden head. “How is it possible this danger can be wrought by a maiden, a child?”

  It was wrought by Conor.

  Not for the first time, another thought rose in Ferdia—a rebellion to topple the king. Yet whenever he let it in, he saw fire over the hills of Emain Macha, a great blaze reflecting on the clouds.

  Many chiefs supported Conor because of the cunning web of obligations he had woven over the years. Under him, they retained their petty powers, even if it meant turning a blind eye to his excesses. Unseat Conor, and war would break out in the Ulaid. The other three kingdoms would watch hungrily while the most powerful in Erin tore itself apart, and then dart in to gobble up the scraps.

  There was a pale line about Cúchulainn’s mouth. He was unshaven, the stubble pale, and there were rings beneath his eyes. Such fears could tarnish even the gold of the great Hound. “And if we think this is bad, brother, what calamity will befall us if he manages to kill them?”

  Grazing nearby, the Hound’s gray stallion raised its head and whinnied, tied into Cúchulainn’s heart as always. It was a bugle of alarm, and Ferdia’s tender belly flipped over once more.

  Cúchulainn glanced at his horse, his forehead plowed with furrows. “For thirty years Conor was a good king. Selfish and wily, yes, but he built up the Ulaid, our wealth and strength. He was a builder. Now …” His gaze sharpened on his friend. “Now, you must go, and outrun this wind.” He drew Ferdia into a hard embrace. “Take care of you as you would of me,” he murmured.

  That was always their farewell.

  Maeve heard the cheering from afar.

  Scouts had gone ahead to Cruachan, and as she trotted through the fields on Meallán’s back she could see that the ramparts around all the mounds were lined with people. Vivid cloaks and blankets fluttered from the walls as makeshift banners.