The Raven Queen

by Jules Watson

  “Ferdia.”

  When Maeve reached for him, he slapped her away, an action that sent him sprawling into the wet ferns. Gods. If she shoved him before Cúchulainn like this, he would be killed before drawing his sword.

  With a curse, Maeve kicked the log. Bits of rotten wood scattered, grazing her cheek, though Ferdia barely flinched from his stupor. The kick drove another pain through her, and she wrapped her arms over it. A wild fear was rising in her, threatening to shatter the last of her sense.

  Everybody was going to die. The gates of Cruachan would fall. The people’s blood …

  Maeve flew back through the woods to her tent and called for Finn, who had been sitting with her brother’s body at the lakeside. Once they were alone, Maeve dragged her gaze from the blood on Finn’s tunic and the smear on her cheek. She must have embraced Ailill …

  Instead, Maeve looked at her bed, trying to breathe. The mattress was lumpy from her restless sleep, the sheets tied in knots she did not recall making.

  “Ferdia must fight Cúchulainn,” she forced out, “or more good men like Ailill will die. Only he knows every war-feat that Cúchulainn does, every stroke. He is not moved by promises of cattle, jewels, or a dun of his own—not even pride and honor.” Maeve began pacing, her nerves on fire. “There is only this: every time Cúchulainn returned to his wife, Ferdia was left alone.”

  Finn was shockingly pale. But as she absorbed Maeve’s words, the daze in her eyes faded and her cheeks flushed.

  Maeve tensed every muscle, bracing herself as she never had before. For all the children of Erin. “And so all I have left to turn him, Finn—all any of us have—is you.”

  Finn’s mouth dropped open.

  “Promise to become his woman,” Maeve ran on in desperation. “You will be the reward for Ferdia defeating Cúchulainn. He is a good man, young and handsome. He will make you happy, I know it.”

  “No.” Finn’s voice was unrecognizable, her brow lowered. “I will not be given in marriage to someone I do not love. Not … not now.”

  Maeve felt for the camp table, one hand beneath her ribs. “What did I say of love? This is an alliance, more urgent than any other—”

  “I do not care. I will not be given away.” The ice in Finn’s voice was deceptive, for her eyes kindled with a terrible passion.

  The throbs of pain were making it hard for Maeve to think. “People’s lives are at stake.”

  “My life is at stake!” Finn clenched her fists, throwing up her head. “And when my brother dies, it only makes me want to hold to mine more dearly. Others might suffer for duty, but I do not care for anything but love—and you cannot force me to!”

  Maeve groped for the meaning behind this outpouring, but terror was gripping her, sickening. “This is what happens to women!”

  “It is what happened to you. But I am not you!” Finn struck her breast, her eyes blazing in her stark face. “You never loved anyone, so you don’t understand I want this more than anything you can promise me.”

  Maeve could not see anything but Ailill before her. A boy’s face, beardless and shy. A dead thing, with florid cheeks and blood-flecked lips. “Men are dying.”

  “I did not bring them here,” Finn shot back. “And I will not be their sacrifice.”

  Maeve managed to straighten, limping toward her daughter. It was slipping away, after all she had endured. The loss of Ruán tore at her … it was all for nothing. “You will defy me?”

  Finn was a savage fox-cub now, teeth bared. “Yes.”

  With this, the specter of Conor rolled over Maeve, darkening her heart like a cloud over sun. It pushed terrible words out of her—Eochaid’s words to her as a girl. “Refuse this and you will be banished, stripped of name and rank, a kinless exile with nothing but the clothes on your back.”

  Finn’s laugh made the air shiver.

  Only then did Maeve realize what she had said. It tasted vile, as of something old retched up. In horror, she thought, What have I done to her?

  “You wouldn’t defy your father because you were afraid to lose him. Well, Mother …” Tears spilled from Finn’s eyes and her hand slashed between them. “I never had you when I needed you, and so I am not afraid to lose you now!”

  The blow thrust Maeve back. She watched Finn spin on her heel. She was leaving. Another one … never to be seen again. “No.” Maeve groped for her daughter. “No, I was wrong …”

  But Finn was no more than a shadow at the flap of the tent.

  Maeve’s cry broke out. “I will never force you!” She thought she saw Finn hesitate before the darkness claimed her.

  Maeve sank onto her bed, gripping the covers. The doors to the Otherworld must be open tonight, for the ghosts of the past came crowding in. Eochaid hovered before her—not his face, just his eyes. Gray flint, they were, strong and unyielding. And so he died bitter and alone, hated by his children.

  Maeve stared at him so hard her own eyes burned. “I am not afraid to lose you, Father,” she whispered. “So now I banish you—to be me, myself, alone.”

  Chin up, she defied that thickening of the air until it dissipated. At last her chest released and she slumped on the covers, a hand pressed to wet eyes.

  CHAPTER 34

  The early dusk of leaf-fall was creeping over the shore.

  The hillcrest on the eastern flank of the lake caught the last sun. The slopes on the west, where the war-band camped, were steeped in purple and blue shadows beneath Cullen’s Mount. All color was leached from the red bracken, the russet leaves, and the bright banners and furs of the warriors.

  All that remained was the gleam of iron, cold as the shadow.

  Fraech was with the guards on a knoll above the stream. Leaving the vigil over Ailill’s body, Maeve picked her war-leader out in the growing darkness by the particular way he always poised on the balls of his feet. He was very still, with erect head and back, and at the same time radiated a readiness to strike, to break into flowing motion.

  Maeve stood beside him. The rushing of the stream echoed off the rocks, a night-mist beginning to curl across its broken surface. On the opposite bank, a glow picked out Cúchulainn’s campfire. The Hound trusted this honor of warriors so much he would mark where he slept.

  A chill crept beneath Maeve’s cloak. She rubbed her arms. “I was an idiot,” she whispered, “and argued with Finn. You often know her whereabouts …” Her voice caught and she buried her chin in the fur ruff, inhaling woodsmoke. “Please don’t let her leave. I don’t want her to go back to Laigin.”

  Fraech gazed at her, his face indistinct in the dark. He turned back to Cúchulainn’s fire. “She will not leave.”

  His confidence … that odd note of … possession? Heat rushed over Maeve. “I see,” she said, more evenly than she felt. “It is you.”

  Fraech shrugged one shoulder.

  Maeve’s laugh was bleak. “Lugh’s balls. I am not only heartless, but blind and foolish as well.”

  “Not foolish. I remember how you fared when your brother sought your death. Cunning runs through your blood.” The lake glowed with the last of the twilight, and the silver caught his eyes. “You were blind to Finn and me because we do not threaten you, and that is all you see. And because this thing is not about you; it is ours alone.” He let that fierceness fall into silence, folding his arms and setting his face toward the Hound like a wolf scenting the air. “If she wants to leave, I will go with her afterward. But I will not abandon you like so many others, for you have always been honorable to me.”

  Maeve had to look away, focusing on a crow that crossed the pink sky, black wings flapping. Of all the things to unravel her … She cleared her throat and gave his arm a slap, leaving her hand there. “Then you’d damn well better not get yourself killed.”

  At dawn Finn emerged from the damp woods in which she had been hiding, and eventually found Ferdia huddled in his deerskins in a small glade.

  She emptied his ale and refilled the flask with water from a stream. Then she
squatted beside him. Dew spangled his black hair and lashes, sparkling on his cloak. His features were fine and drawn, beautiful even.

  Finn flicked droplets from the flask over Ferdia’s face, making him flinch in sleep. It wasn’t until the sun spread slowly over his face that he began to stir. He finally blinked awake and rolled on his back.

  She held the flask out and let him drink. “You should leave here,” she whispered, as if the twittering birds could hear. “You are a good man. You should leave and forget about all this—the greed, the blood.”

  His eyes were dark and deep now, his gaze slipping into wildness—as if he was finally shedding his human self and melting into the woods. The same trance took hold of Finn, that sense of a blurring of the worlds.

  Time out of time; a place of magic.

  That must be why she, a mere girl, gripped the shoulder of one of the greatest warriors in Erin as if they were equals. “Follow your heart’s desire,” she whispered. “Love is all that matters as we stand before the gods.”

  Ferdia’s awareness groped up toward her, as if he was drowning and she was air. At last he surfaced; she felt their souls brush. His mouth formed a word, and Finn did not know what it was.

  Or perhaps it was just love, after all.

  The wind whipped up the little lake below the temple mound of Emain Macha. It battered Conor’s head, blowing away the reek of the sick men that still clung to him.

  His new chief druid and the older priests had also fallen ill now. The healers had run out of poppy-syrup, and the warriors were being dosed with more Alban ale to keep them from leaping up to fight with the fire-shadows.

  The little flock of gangly novices beside Conor were all the priests he had left.

  “Hurry,” he croaked. The pain in his gut made it hard to straighten, and he was plagued with dizziness. He wanted to stay in bed, but he had to drag himself out for another sacrifice. At least it gave him some respite from the screams in his hall.

  The young druids on the shore shivered, four of them holding long, curling trumpets. Others waved smoldering branches of rowan, sending up blue smoke. The bronze horns had hung in Conor’s hall for years uncounted, and were blown at the crownings of kings. He was running out of offerings for the gods. “I said hurry,” he spat, narrow-eyed.

  The chanting quickened, until the priests were stammering over their pleas for the divine ones to heal the Ulaid warriors. Conor had instructed them to address the Dagda, Lugh, and the sea god Manannán, but not Macha. Father gods might be more inclined to heal warriors.

  The last blessings tumbled out, and the horns were given to the lake. The early sun traced their graceful curves with flame, which went out as they sank.

  One of the novices looked around, his hearing keen. Conor turned. A man on horseback was streaking down the track from the temple. Conor clutched his sodden robes and waded back through the reeds to dry land.

  The rider was a boy, sweating and coated in mud, his teeth and eyes the only pale streaks in that filth. He stammered it out. A war-band had attacked the Gates of Macha in the West. The western lords were barely holding them at bay—the enemy kept swarming over the ramparts before being beaten back.

  The ground fell away beneath Conor, and he lurched to one side, the dizziness returning.

  The boy murmured, “My lord?” and nudged his horse closer.

  Conor grabbed for the pony’s mane. He stared at its gray coat between his swollen fingers. It was as mottled as burned bone. As gray as the ashen face of the goddess. You will die by the hand of Woman.

  Conor pulled his cracked lips apart. “Who leads this war-band? A woman?”

  The boy shrank from his bulging eyes, his clawed hand. “I do not know.”

  “Useless! Off with you!” Conor slapped the horse in frustration, sending it flying back up the track.

  The Ulaid king wove a broken path toward the sacred temple of Macha. The spire of smoke from the sacrifices was torn into rags by the wind. Bleats floated to him—the last goats being killed, to plead for mercy with the divine ones. He had few animals from his own flocks left.

  Conor glared at the great thatch building. Macha. He had ruled the Ulaid justly, and in return been scorned by faithless maidens, strutting bucks, and jealous lords. He barely stopped himself from cursing.

  Macha of the Red Hair, ruling over his fate. How often had he knelt before her statue in the temple and raged at the empty hollows of her eyes? He only heard that deep, gentle voice, felt that godly light that one time, in the Dagda’s shrine.

  The Father God.

  Buried in his fox-fur cloak, Conor turned his back on the goddess and clambered into his chariot to return to his hall. Inside the cavernous building, his sick Red Branch warriors no longer screamed. The air was filled with an endless moaning, like wind through a rent in the thatch.

  He crawled back in his bed and snuffed out the lamp. In the dark he did not know who hovered about him: Levarcham with hatred in her eyes, Maeve with a sneer of contempt, or Deirdre arch and fey, always dancing out of reach.

  “I will not let you win,” he muttered, his fury filling him with strength. He would conquer Woman still.

  Maeve took to watching the fights from a cart drawn up beneath an ash tree. Its leaves were already falling in gold about its feet. As if god-blessed, the days remained clear and sunlit. Connacht eagle banners were tied to the bare branches above her, drooping around her head. Her warriors spread up the hill, wedging themselves in trees and crouching on rocks.

  One by one her warriors strutted down the slope, armor greased and hair spiked, as if that would make them fight better.

  They did not all die.

  Cúchulainn deemed some unworthy of even bloodying his sword. If they gouged furrows in the turf with foolish blows, or tripped when trying to run, or preened too long before the crowd of warriors, he attacked them only with the flat of his blade, delivering a beating as to a child. He could shear clumps of hair without drawing blood, sending them away bruised inside and out. “Begone!” he cried to them, lip curling, “for I have drawn ridicule upon you.” That was the worst defeat of all for a warrior.

  As time marched on, though, Cúchulainn began to spear those witless ones before they even reached the stream. Then, Maeve detected a frustration in the Hound’s throws, a desperate weariness of spirit.

  When braver men barreled into Cúchulainn with swords held high, the fights were bloody and snarling from the start. Cúchulainn let them be carried from the field in honor, limbs hacked, bellies rent.

  Finally there were the warriors, well-trained in their kingdoms, who put on shows of war-feats.

  They launched themselves into tumbles and springs, horse and chariot feats, fights with slings, lances, daggers, clubs, and finally swords. These games got the audience excited again, as they could pretend they were on the sparring green, pitting their skills against each other for the glory of the gods.

  At those times, the cloud lifted from the throng, and they forgot death for a while.

  With such opponents, Cúchulainn also changed. He shrugged off his stoic manner, this grim dispatching of doomed targets. The sun breathed along the crest of his boar helmet again, and flickered around the Hound’s head.

  He and his opponents would hurl insults, the poetry of warriors—lewd chants about their ability to please their wives and their prowess. The men watching would roar with a release of laughter, and as Cúchulainn matched feat for feat, his movements quickened and he grew in stature until Maeve could barely see his face for that glow.

  Soon after dawn on the second day of fighting, the crowd grew hushed as Cúchulainn’s latest opponent was borne past Maeve.

  Maeve stared down from her cart. One of the dead man’s arms flopped out and swung from the bier. The other was missing, the stump obscured by his blood-soaked cloak. His head was back, neck ringed by a gaping rent.

  Since the fights began, she had felt every wound as a stab in her own body. Now she tried to ignore that
pain, touching her forehead with a shaking hand. May the gods bear you swiftly, with honor on your brow.

  The men had stopped cheering now. They watched in silence, a spell fallen over them, making time stand still. Expectation and awe trembled in the air.

  Maeve looked at Cúchulainn on the other side of the river.

  Since delivering the last death-blow he had been still, barely breathing. His head was uncovered, the helm on the ground. The sun no longer shone from his hair because it was lank and bloodied, his armor and weapons streaked with gore. Coming back to himself, the Hound gave a bow toward the dead man then plunged into the stream, scouring all the filth from his face and hair and gulping water.

  The sun kept climbing. More men breathed their last.

  Defeat bore down on Maeve, and she crouched in the cart with arms under her knees. She turned her cheek toward the lake to take a breath that was not sour with death. Tiernan must be wrong, she decided. The savage fire in her must be wrong, too. She wasn’t going to use the power in her for any good at all … not for the helpless ones of Connacht.

  She had not tried to turn the warriors’ minds again—fate had them all in its jaws now.

  Her eye fell upon Fraech on his horse. Despite the deaths, he was as straight in his saddle as the ash tree beside her, and did not look away from the slaughter. He was determined to bear witness to the fate of every warrior under his command, as a matter of honor.

  Maeve realized a man like that would keep Finn safe, always.

  She had not seen her daughter face-to-face since they argued, and would not hurt her further by seeking her out now. She could at least give Finn some peace amid all this death. She was only grateful the girl had not left with those taking Ailill’s body back to his father.

  Maeve closed her eyes on her knee.

  At first she did not stir when the silence was broken by the progress of yet another warrior through the crowd. But then the whispers of the men grew into disbelieving murmurs. Maeve’s eyes flew open.