The Absinthe Earl

by Sharon Lynn Fisher

  “Have they gone?” asked Caer.

  I nodded, lifting my untouched goblet to my lips. “They have,” I replied, not bothering to mask my foul mood.

  You were a fool to let her go.

  I drained my goblet and replaced it rather noisily on the table. The mead was strangely airy—more scent than taste—but it warmed my chest nonetheless.

  “You were wise to let her go,” said Caer, and I glanced up. “You need Finvara’s aid, and he was not inclined to join your cause.”

  “He’s only agreed now in hopes of somehow holding on to her,” I countered.

  “It was a price that had to be paid,” Isolde replied.

  I glowered at her.

  “Finvara has long loved Cliona,” said Caer.

  I shifted my glare to Diarmuid’s foster mother. Was this meant to comfort me? “Finvara has loved many.”

  Isolde snorted at this, and I knew that the hypocrisy was not lost on her. I resented my ancestor’s reputation and the fact I was now being conflated with him.

  “I don’t say this to anger you, my son,” replied Caer. “But he feels, somewhat justly, that we all have been led a merry chase.”

  “By you and your—” Isolde began.

  “My lady,” Caer interrupted, not unkindly and yet not gently, “peace.” Isolde returned to sullen silence.

  Turning to me again, Caer continued, “Edward, Earl of Meath, I cannot know what knowledge Diarmuid has shared with you and what he has kept to himself. But there are certain things that you—and he, whether he likes it or not—must understand.”

  I drew in a long breath, relieved to be granted even this temporary and hypothetical separation from the Danaan warrior. The warmth of the mead had spread out from my chest to my belly and even into my limbs, and I let my folded arms come to rest on the table.

  “Please, lady,” I urged in a more reasonable tone. “I shall be most grateful.”

  With a bow of her head, she continued. “The exile resulting from Diarmuid’s seal has not so much affected the Danaan. Our kind were in decline already, many of us with no surviving mortal descendants, and many of us content to leave Ireland to the Irish. Even those Danaan warriors who had survived the many battles had mostly faded to Faery by the time of the seal. But it has been hardest on the fairies.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “They do not thrive under exile, let us say. They blame you—they blame us—for their plight.”

  “The exile freshened an old resentment,” said Angus. “The fairies have ever felt that we viewed them as our inferiors.”

  “For good reason,” said Caer. “They are descended from the Danaan—and, in some cases, Fomorians—who were abandoned in Ireland when the immortals began to withdraw. We have ever regarded them as lesser beings. And yet, with a few exceptions …” Her gaze moved between Isolde and me. “… they are almost all that remain of us. Finvara, though Danaan himself, has become like a father to the fairies. He believes that Diarmuid has stirred up this ancient conflict with the Fomorians because he wishes to return to the glory days of the Danaan.”

  My lips parted as I stared at Diarmuid’s foster mother and worked at the puzzle she was trying to unlock for me. “Is this true?”

  The question was meant for my ancestor, but Caer replied, “That, Diarmuid alone can answer. And only Finvara can say whether he, too, might wish for the same. But one thing we can be sure he does not wish for.”

  I held my breath, waiting for her to continue.

  “He does not wish for the earthly union of Diarmuid and Cliona.”

  “Has that not already happened, lady?” My face grew hot, and I added, “Have Diarmuid and Cliona not returned to Ireland already, in the forms of Ada Quicksilver and me?”

  Caer nodded. “And Finvara has agreed to join us because he believes he has a chance to interfere with their union. It is necessary to the success of your cause that he believe he may be able to do so. Your lady glimpsed some part of this, Lord Meath, and so she agreed when you could not.”

  I felt all my own wrath and Diarmuid’s roiling within me, despite the soothing effects of the mead. “Then I have been a fool!”

  “You have done what was needful,” she asserted.

  “Seeing how you and your obsession with this woman have played games with all our fates,” retorted Isolde, “it was the very least you could do.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, cursing my ancestor for this ghastly mess. He had raised the woman from death, never considering whether she would have consented. He had agreed to help preserve the descendants of her mortal daughter, not out of love but out of guilt for stealing her mortality. Now, not liking the fate to which he had consigned them both, he had seized this opportunity—not to save Ireland, but in hopes of returning to his old life.

  Why does she love you? I wondered.

  Only Dana knows, came the answer. But everything I’ve done, I’ve done for her.

  “For yourself!” I countered, not realizing I’d spoken the words aloud until I felt a cool hand covering mine.

  “Recall, my good Irishman,” said Caer, gently squeezing my hand, “that many of your countrymen were saved by Diarmuid’s actions, whatever might have been his motive. If you’re to make that count for something, you have no choice but to join this fight.”

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting there, silently observed by the others, when I finally glanced up at the tapestry and saw a scene of battle. Four armies, three smaller and one seemingly innumerable, met on a field. At their heads were Diarmuid, Maeve, Finvara, and a large one-eyed figure out of nightmares— Balor Evil Eye. A whitish film covered the eye, and it came to me that when the film lifted away, destruction would rain down on all he beheld. I had at first overlooked a smaller group in a corner of the tapestry nearest the Fomorians—Cliona and her banshees. These luminous beings seemed imprisoned in this tableau of violence.

  Studying the tapestry, I could feel Diarmuid’s eagerness for battle. As a lieutenant aboard the flagship of the Irish Royal Navy, I had seen battle, though only with Spanish pirates. The outcome of the fight now impending was by no means certain. I was no coward, but I knew I could never keep Ada clear of it, not without locking her away. Her ancestress was, of course, immortal, but if there was truth in these stories that Ada had made her life’s work (and little doubt remained that there was), “immortal” did not equate to “cannot be killed.”

  This is why you must enable me to protect her.

  I frowned and set a guard on my thoughts. I was in no mood to negotiate with the Danaan warrior. And there was a thought that had not quite crossed my mind … I pushed it away and returned my attention to the others.

  “It seems there is no avoiding it,” I said at last. “From what the Morrigan has told me, the battle will come, with or without my joining it. And if Isolde’s forces are to join it, it must take place on the fields of Ireland.”

  The queen released an audible breath, and her posture eased. “Agreed. For that, the exile must be lifted.” She fixed her gaze on me. “The seal must be broken.”

  Nodding, I glanced again at the battle scene on the tapestry. “What is the status of our armies?”

  “As you have heard, Finvara has committed his forces,” said Caer. “As has Cliona.”

  “As we speak, my army is crossing to the west by train,” said Isolde. “My navy is taking up a position in Sligo Bay.” She leaned forward, resting the palm of her hand on the table. “Let the battle commence on the plain below Ben Bulben.”

  I noticed movement behind her and glanced at the tapestry. The scene now depicted was that of my death—of Diarmuid’s death—gored by a wild boar while hunting with his old chieftain and former enemy, Finn, whose bride-to-be he had once stolen.

  “Ben Bulben was the site of your betrayal and death, I know,” the queen continued. “But th
ere is a fairy door there, and that hill has ever been part of the country of Finvara and his subjects. The Fomorian raiders will certainly approach from the Atlantic. It makes sense.”

  Let it be the place of my rebirth, came the voice of my ancestor.

  “Very well,” I agreed, as I had no practical argument against it. Moreover, symbolic significance could be a deciding factor, as even an amateur historian knew. “What can we say of numbers? Ours? Theirs?”

  “We made calculations while awaiting your return,” said the queen, limiting her disapproving expression to a slight frown. “We expect our combined numbers to be as many as fourteen thousand, though I must reserve at least a thousand to guard the other known Gap gates, lest they sneak up from behind.”

  “Will that be sufficient, I wonder?”

  “The other gates are less accessible. But Captain O’Malley and the others under her command will watch them from inside the Gap. As for the Danaan, we have no way of knowing how many will answer the call.”

  “They will answer,” I said, feeling the conviction of my ancestor in this statement, though still with no idea how I was to summon them. “What of the Fomorians?”

  Isolde shook her head, sighing, and Caer replied, “We have no way of knowing that, either. Many thousands, certainly.”

  “Have you considered approaching Queen Victoria?” I asked. “I daresay she’d not favor a takeover of her nearest neighbor by outside forces.”

  Isolde shook her head briskly. “This is our battle. If we invite them here, we shall never be rid of them.”

  There was foolish national pride in this assertion, yet I wholeheartedly agreed. Also, we could ill afford to waste precious time persuading the English queen to believe a story we ourselves could scarcely believe, even with new evidence arising hourly. The two queens were strong-minded, their relationship tenuous and mistrustful at the best of times.

  “Irishmen for Ireland, then,” I said.

  Isolde raised an eyebrow. “And Irishwomen.”

  I glanced over her shoulder at the tapestry, which bore a solitary image: a woman gazing out the window of a high tower. I scrubbed my face with my hand and reached for the pitcher of mead.

  A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

  Ada

  The bog water was frigid, but this I hardly noticed, because mere inches from my face was the hide-covered skull of the bog man. There was no focus to his pupilless eye, and yet there was no question he was looking at me. His head was strangely oblong, as if it had been pressed inward at both ears by heavy weights.

  My lips parted, breath clouding as I involuntarily made a soft stammering sound.

  Finvara’s boots plunged into the water beside me, and Enbarr neighed and bolted. The king knelt, his arm at my back. “Are you injured, lady?”

  “Does it suit thee, fair lady—the bitter cold of my watery hall?”

  The bog creature was speaking to me, though the mouth opening, with its thin dark lips, hardly moved. His speech was halting and ragged.

  “Let me help you,” urged Finvara, trying to raise me.

  “He is speaking,” I hissed, resisting. Though heaven knew, my preference would have been to return to the relative safety of Enbarr’s back and ride away from here.

  Finvara stopped pulling at me but did not let go. I watched the shrunken features for other signs of life and found one I had not been looking for: a shiny beetle crawled out of the bog man’s ear, across his cheek, into his mouth and back out, before disappearing on the far side of his head. My body shook with revulsion.

  “I see that it does not,” continued the bog man, making a rasping sound that I strongly suspected was laughter. “If not for my hospitality and comely visage, why is it thou hast roused me?”

  “By order of King Finvara,” I replied, a tremor in my voice. “For the sake of the people of Ireland.”

  The bog man’s head shifted as he turned his eyes to the belly of dark cloud overhead, and I breathed easier. He made a sound like drawing breath, accompanied by a rattling in his chest. “Why is Máine Mór to be moved by the cares of a people so distant?”

  Why, indeed? I thought about what Finvara had told me. “Did you not make the ultimate sacrifice for the hope of ending plague? To save your people?”

  “Mmm. To appease the gods. To save my own sons.”

  “Your sacrifice was not in vain,” observed Finvara. “Your sons and their sons ruled Connacht for centuries. The mighty O’Malleys trace their roots to the warrior women of your line.”

  I looked at Finvara. This man was also Duncan’s ancestor? I recalled Diarmuid’s “bog crawler” taunts.

  “Who can say what purpose it served?” replied the bog man. “But it gave them hope, and sometimes hope is all that is required.”

  “For the cause of which I speak, we will need more than hope,” I said. “Your descendants face a plague to end all plagues. A famine, in fact, that will end the lives of more Irishmen than any battle in ancient or modern times. If you cannot aid them, I fear that no one can.”

  The skull rolled slowly as he again turned his gaze upon me. “What is it thou thinkest I may do for thee? Raise a blade? Lead an army?”

  I glanced at Finvara, who nodded encouragement. So I told the ancient king my tale of blighted potatoes, and my suspicions about the broad scope of the plot.

  When I finished, he remained silent for so long that I wondered whether he was still with us.

  Finally his jaw opened slightly and he said, “So many generations under the earth, and still the Fomorians threaten. The Plague Warriors, we called them in my time. Fortunate we were that they hated the Danaan more than they hated us. Yet it was they who poisoned our villages.”

  “Can you help us, sir?” I asked quietly.

  Again came the rasping laugh, and he replied, “His Lordship of the Bog will serve thee if he can, fair lady. If there is a thing I do know, ’tis dark earth, sour bog water, and the ways of the mud creepers. Passionless are they, and a thing that has been touched by ill intent is a thing that does not escape the notice of a bog crawler.”

  “Do you think there are others who may help us?” I asked.

  “Aye, could be. I will do what I can to enlist them.” His attention shifted to Finvara. “You say there is to be a battle?”

  The king nodded. “Almost certainly.”

  The bog man made a sound very like a sigh. “Would that I could join it.”

  I reached toward his arm but froze before making contact with the withered flesh. “You will, sir, in your own way,” I said. “I earnestly thank you.”

  He seemed to study me a moment and then said, “I could not guess how many years since I felt the touch of another.”

  I shivered, and my stomach twisted. But it was not a moment for squeamishness. Bending over him, heart racing—fighting reflexive revulsion—I pressed my lips against the damp, rough hide that stretched over his skull. Though my very flesh crept at the idea of it, the reality was not unpleasant. No smell of decay reached my nostrils, and mercifully, no insect crept forth.

  When I sat up, the bog man said faintly. “Thank you, lady.”

  And before I could reply, his body began to sink back into the bog.

  “Máine Mór,” I whispered, recalling the name Finvara had used for him.

  Finvara rose, helping me to my feet, and I watched the water wash over the ancient king’s remains. My hand trembled on the fairy king’s arm, and as the frantic beating of my heart subsided, I realized I was desperately cold.

  “Call Enbarr, lady,” said Finvara. “Let us return to Knock Ma so we may wash and change clothes before we catch our death.”

  As Enbarr bore us back across country, Finvara’s warmth against my back helped counter the frigid blast caused by the mare’s breakneck speed.

  When we reached the glade at Knock Ma, a bright, glinting winter su
n had broken through the clouds, and mist rose as it burned off the morning dew.

  “Perhaps we should ask her to carry us to Brú na Bóinne,” I said as Finvara slid down from Enbarr’s back.

  “Indeed,” he said, but he reached up to help me dismount. “But let us travel warm and dry, and meanwhile, I may show you my home. I also have business to discuss with my people before our return.”

  Something about his words ignited a warning flare in my chest, but before I could voice my concern, I found myself slipping into the king’s waiting arms. He lowered me gently to the earth, and a ray of misty sunlight fell across his face. His eyes were the clearest blue I had ever seen, or so it seemed to me now. I felt his arms encircle my waist.

  Have a care, daughter, came the voice of my ancestress, from seemingly far away.

  I imagined then that I heard the keening of the banshees. I say “imagined” because this, too, seemed to come from far away and, a moment later, was gone.

  A moment after that, so were we.

  The ground dropped from under me, and the heavens above me spun. When the dizziness abated, I found that we did indeed stand on solid ground, before a proper fortress. All hard lines and dark stone, it was a stark departure from the comfortable hall at Brú na Bóinne, though the surrounding woodland was just as picturesque. The oak trees crowded in closer here—right up to the fortress walls, which, I was certain, broke a basic rule of defensibility.

  Nothing sneaks past us, lady.

  The sound was like a thousand whispers, and I spun about, heart jumping. I had the sudden and sinking sense I was not supposed to be here.

  “Duncan?” I called.

  “I’m here,” he said, suddenly beside me. He took my hand.

  At his touch, I felt a rush of warmth, like sinking into warm bathwater. Something tickled my cheeks, and I wiped a hand over my face. I forgot what had disturbed me only moments ago.

  “Is it you, Duncan?” I asked.

  He smiled. “Trust me, lady. I won’t let anything happen to you.”