The Absinthe Earl

by Sharon Lynn Fisher

  Edward raised Great Fury, eyeing the Morrigan incredulously. “So we’re to be slaughtered now? You have been in this for them all along?”

  She raised the tip of her bone staff and knocked it three times against the ground. With each knock, the earth rumbled and shook, stopping the enemy’s charge and causing us to stagger backward. I lost my footing on loose, snow-dusted stones and tumbled close enough to the edge for a dizzying view of the plain below. Edward caught me around the waist and hauled me back to firmer ground.

  When the mountain stopped shaking, the earth before us suddenly broke open. The soil rose in small hillocks, and sticks of wood broke suddenly through the loosened earth.

  Not sticks, but skeleton-thin limbs with leathery brown skin.

  “Stay back!” warned Edward as the corpse men clawed their way out of the earth.

  When the creatures were free, they reached back into their holes and hauled out six bulky burlap sacks, which they tossed in a heap at my feet.

  Glancing up, my eyes met those of a bog man wearing a rude crown woven of twisting roots. I stepped forward with a curtsy. “King Máine Mór, I am your servant.”

  “The king is thine, lady,” rasped the bog man, and he made a courtly bow. He and his two-dozen followers leaned their frail weight against ancient spear shafts. In the other hand each held a wide, leaf-shaped Celtic blade.

  The foes on the opposite end of the table were stirring, recovering their footing, and again Balor let loose a savage battle cry. If I had questioned whether these bog men had the strength to raise their weapons, I now received an answer.

  Shouting their own earsplitting challenge, the leathery figures rushed across the barren tabletop toward the Fomorian guard. Blades crossed time-hardened spears, and sparks flew.

  Edward raised Great Fury and stepped onto the field.

  The Fomorian king, baring his teeth in gruesome mockery of a smile, raised a massive double-bitted ax. His deadly eye was closed and crusted over with dried blood. It would affect his aim, would it not? I was no student of physiology, but so I hoped.

  “When I have bled you, Danaan princeling,” bellowed Balor, his voice shuddering with rage, “I shall take my time with your woman. Small cuts, one by one. How many before her fair flesh begins to peel apart? How many drops of blood before her heart stops?”

  Edward let out a roar of hot fury and charged across the field. Ax and sword clashed, their blows again shaking the ground beneath our feet.

  Once this one-on-one struggle commenced, I could no longer keep track of the bog men’s battle, though several times the air rang with the screams of goblins plummeting over the side of Ben Bulben, and I thought I glimpsed more of the skeletal hands poking up through the ground, grabbing at goblin legs. I was also vaguely aware that another Gap galleon had appeared in the sky next to Death Rattler, and the two vessels were trading catapult shots.

  But Edward, along with Diarmuid, was locked in the fight of his life.

  And your Edward has but one.

  My throat tightened. My ancestress was not taunting me. She was understanding something about me. Something about us. Diarmuid and Cliona would never lose each other. Edward and Ada had this moment in time.

  “Edward!” I cried, my voice raw from emotion and the strain of the day. “Remember the story of us!”

  Halfway through this rallying cry, the world slowed down. I watched as the bog men, running with a strange, suspended motion, made a final charge across the field, driving half their remaining foes over the edge with unearthly screams of terror.

  A huge stone struck the figurehead of Death Rattler, knocking it, along with a chunk of the bow, clean off the hull. The ship crackled and groaned, tipping backward and tossing crewmen overboard. The aft end struck the edge of the tabletop, sweeping the last of the Fomorian fighters over the edge before rolling and tumbling down the side of the mountain.

  Horns called out from the battlefield—a clear signal the enemy was routed—and from our high vantage point I saw them turn back toward the sea.

  And in the only yet undecided battle, Balor raised his ax in the air, preparing to strike a final, deadly blow.

  The Morrigan bowed her head, and her body sprouted the feathers of transmutation. She spun in place, levitating from the mountaintop, and shot straight into the air like an arrow, soaring higher until naught but a speck, and then, finally … nothing and nowhere.

  The gears of time spun free, Balor swung his ax, and in the last moment, Edward dropped and rolled closer, throwing off his one-eyed foe’s already handicapped aim. Then Edward launched to his feet and swung Great Fury, lopping off the ax-wielding arm. The giant teetered, and Edward hurled his weapon, the blade plunging into the middle of the massive chest.

  The Fomorian king crashed to the ground like a toppled monolith.

  THE GREEN HILLS

  Ada

  Edward pressed his boot against his fallen enemy and pulled his sword free, then let its tip sink against the earth. He hunched over the weapon, taking great, heaving breaths of frigid air. He scanned the field until he found me; then he closed his eyes and let his chest and shoulders go slack. His hair hung in sweaty waves around his face, which was smeared with enemy blood. The day’s violent exertions had wrought deep, dark furrows in his countenance.

  Drawn to him, as I always was in his moments of vulnerability, I stepped forward. But Máine Mór stepped into my path. Holding his sword before him, the bog king bowed his head.

  “We’ve brought thee sacksful of ill intentions, lady,” said the king.

  For a moment, the significance of these words eluded me, and I studied his bog-tanned visage warily. Then I recognized the reference to our first meeting.

  “Potatoes,” I replied with a smile. Though glancing down at the burlap sacks resting beside me, I saw that other forms of blighted herbage—beets and turnips, stalks of wheat and oats—had spilled or protruded from their openings.

  Words came to me then, taught by Finvara to my ancestress.

  Wisp’s light, burn bright, elfin charm against the night.

  I turned, raising my hand over the pile of tainted food, and softly spoke the incantation—for a spell was to be coaxed, not commanded. Blue flame sprouted from my hand, and I watched it burn a moment before tilting my palm and letting it slip onto the sacks. The burlap caught despite the damp air, and soon a fire was blazing.

  The snow had changed—big, soft flakes replaced the icy grit and gave off a faint hiss as they touched the flames.

  I looked at the bog king. “Perhaps one day I shall do something for you, my lord.”

  His lipless mouth curved in a smile. “Perhaps, and perhaps not.” He lifted his chin, appearing to sniff at the air. “’Tis enough to walk the green earth once again. To feel the snow on my face.” His gaze settled again on me. “To feel the lips of a beautiful lady.”

  I curtsied again, and he made a noise that sounded like a chuckle. “Now we must go, before the battle crow’s spell fades away. I care not to rest my bones in unknown ground or in such a high and lonely place. Fare thee well, lady.”

  “Fare thee well, King.”

  With that, the bog men crept back into the ground, slowly pushing bony limbs into the broken earth, until at last the soil closed over their heads. All accounted for but a few, who must have fallen from the mountaintop in battle. I hoped we would be able to find them and at least return them to the ground.

  I joined Edward by the side of his fallen enemy.

  “So he is dead,” I said as the earl reached for my hand.

  “For now,” he agreed.

  I did not like the sound of this. “You believe he will return?”

  Edward shrugged. “Diarmuid has defeated him before. But this blow was severe. He will fade away for a time.”

  “Let us hope it is a long time.”

  He offer
ed a weary smile. “Shall we board the Queen of Connacht and return to the others?”

  We glanced up at the one remaining Gap galleon, holding her position above the mountain.

  Flightless mortals stranded on the summit of Ben Bulben, we had to yell to attract Captain O’Malley’s attention. She lowered a rowboat and her crew hauled us aboard.

  As her ship carried us down to the plain, we congratulated Captain O’Malley on her defeat of Death Rattler, and she told us her story of guarding the Gap gates, and the three Fomorian galleons she had destroyed before joining our battle. She appeared to have high hopes that the spiritual scales would now balance in her favor, but it was difficult to imagine such a person retiring quietly to the Land of Promise, which I rather imagined to be a place of peace and rest.

  We joined Queen Isolde and Duncan, who had borrowed a farmer’s nag and returned to us, all boisterousness and high spirits. There was much to discuss now that we had rejoined the others, and I began to fear that Edward and I would never get a moment alone.

  In truth, I feared that our moments alone had been doomed from our very first meeting. But we were alive and whole, and that counted for much.

  “Ada,” said the earl, as if reading my thoughts. “Could I speak with you?”

  Our party had assembled inside the castle, before a roaring fire. Servants of the queen were preparing a feast so we might break our day-long fast, discuss the outcome of the fight, and make plans for honoring and burying the dead. Drumcliff Castle was of recent construction and offered all the modern comforts. We all had washed now and taken a glass of whiskey or wine and were resting and awaiting the call to dinner.

  “Come,” said Edward, and I followed him up the stairs to a library in the top of the tower, where we could gaze out at the moonlit snow on the slopes of Ben Bulben. On the plain below, the banshees kept silent vigil over the fallen. But the fires from the soldiers’ encampments, and the lively music that drifted across the battlefield, were cheering reminders of the day’s victory.

  The earl and I stood before the window, neither hands nor gazes touching. His dark countenance was somber and thoughtful. He touched his hand to the breast of his jacket, then smiled thinly and lowered it to his side. A crutch he had leaned on so long, he reached for it out of habit.

  “I have been very wrong,” he said.

  I took a deep breath. “You have, my lord.”

  He flinched at my honesty but replied, “I know it. And I have no excuse for it, though I will tell you that when I saw you and your women on Caer’s tapestry, all of you standing in the shadow of Balor, I felt a dread that I could not master.”

  Ah, the reason for his betrayal. For his sudden decision to encourage the very thing he had most feared: Finvara locking me away in Knock Ma.

  I studied his profile, waiting for him to continue.

  He turned to me. “And yet it was you who saved my life this day. It was you who saved many lives. From the eye of Balor. From the malice of the dead. You managed even to win the respect of a malevolent redcap and an ancient, withered king. No one has underestimated you, in fact, but I.”

  “And why is that, do you think?” There was no accusation in my tone. I did not intend to punish him. But I needed to understand. I believed that I had begun to, but I needed to hear him say it. “What was it about me that so convinced you I could not manage without your protection?”

  “Nothing,” he admitted with regret. “Nothing at all. You and my cousin are the most self-sufficient women I know.” He laughed dryly. “In truth, you are more capable than most of the men I know.”

  He sighed as he stared out at the night. The snow had stopped falling, but a pristine white blanket covered the mountain, and in the clear moonlight it glittered like diamonds.

  “It was a gentleman’s upbringing, in part,” he continued. “A soldier’s instinct to protect the vulnerable. An Irishman’s inclination to look out for a traveler.” Turning and fixing his eyes on me, he said, “In the end, it was no more than a man’s instinct to protect the woman he loves—a woman who could be carrying his child.”

  Heat spread across my cheeks and breast, and I dropped my gaze.

  “I believe this is the first time I’ve discovered you in uncertainty today,” he said gently.

  My throat felt thick as I replied, “About some things, I am not uncertain.”

  “Tell me what it is that worries you, Ada.”

  Edward

  Color had stolen into her cheeks, and she shivered as I pronounced her name.

  Could bode well or could bode ill.

  Indeed. Was it possible for her to forgive such a betrayal? Could she trust me again?

  I bent my head, trying to catch her gaze, and suddenly she looked up at me.

  “I understand you very well, Edward,” she said, but her voice trembled and her expression was sweetly confused. “As much as you have frustrated and even infuriated me, I can see that your misguided choices have stemmed from a …” She wrung her hands, and I resisted the urge to take hold of them. “… have stemmed from a warm regard,” she concluded.

  I held my tongue, waiting for her to collect herself and continue. I would not have interrupted her for the world.

  “My concern is, what will become of us now? Half mortal and half other? What of these beings that are both part of us and separate? How are we to go forward from this?”

  Now I did take her hands in mine. “Do you recall reminding me about ‘the story of us’ on the peak of Ben Bulben?”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  “I know that you intended to rally my courage, but did you mean what you said, Ada? Do you want such a story to be written?”

  Her lower lip trembled, and she steadied it with her teeth. A single tear slipped onto her cheek, and she nodded. “Yes, Edward. I want that more than anything.”

  I drew in a great breath, breaking the constriction in my chest. My heart swelled and my blood sang. I pulled her into my arms. “Then let us speak with them. Let us find out under what terms they will permit that to happen.”

  Her body was warm against my chest. How I had longed to hold her just like this after striking down Balor. I had been bloodstained and sweating, stinking like a great beast—and mostly I had not been sure whether she would have me. Now that I was sure, my heart could scarcely contain it.

  “No terms,” she murmured against me.

  I stood back from her so that I could see her face. Her complexion glowed as if from within, and her eyes were bright and intent. “Ada?”

  “No terms,” she repeated.

  Cliona. “My lady?”

  “Diarmuid?” she replied.

  I felt him come forward, moving like a shadowy presence between us. My vision dimmed, and my instincts urged, as always, that I resist him. But I knew that I must accept this meeting between them were we to have any hope of compromise. I could not spend my life fighting him for the woman I loved.

  “Acushla,” whispered Diarmuid, taking her into his arms.

  Their lips met, caressing lightly. The gentlest of reunions. But something enormous was building, like snowmelt raging down the mountain to inundate a meandering stream.

  Her mouth opened, inviting him in, and he clasped her against him. His hot hands moved over the curves of her body, pulling at her clothing.

  We had become a channel for centuries of hunger, and now came a moment from which I knew we could not return—the physical union the two immortals had longed for must come, as no power on earth could stop it.

  Yet in that moment, she went still in his arms.

  His breaths came hard and fast, and he trailed kisses down her face and neck. She reached for his hands and pressed her palms against his, lacing their fingers together. She murmured sweet, soft words against his cheek—tender words of sorrow and regret. A plea for forgiveness, and a pledge
of ageless love.

  Eventually, his confusion got the better of his passion, and he drew back to look at her.

  “We are going,” she said to him. “We have had our story, and they shall have theirs. I’ll not be responsible for taking it from them.”

  Despair crashed within me like waves on jagged cliffs. Yet in that same moment came relief, like still waters after a storm. If I needed further evidence that it would be a maddening existence sharing my body with him, here it was. Yet I would have done it happily had it been the only terms we could agree on.

  Already I could feel him drawing away, and the light in Ada’s countenance was fading.

  “Where will you go, lady?” I asked her.

  She smiled at me. It was a kindly smile, and yet unlike the smiles of Ada’s that I knew so well.

  “We shall wander the green hills until all the green hills are gone. Then we shall wander only in men’s memories.”

  The sweet wistfulness of these words tugged at my heart. “Will we see you again?”

  She closed her eyes, the smile fading from her lips, the last of her light draining from Ada’s face. “Time will tell.”

  I glimpsed a movement on the ground below the window and bent closer to the glass. Two shadow figures strode into the garden, hand in hand, their backs to us. They left no tracks in the snow and passed through the gate without opening it.

  Ada

  “They have gone,” I said in wonder.

  Edward wrapped his arms around me. “They have gone,” he agreed.

  “It feels strange. There’s a spaciousness in my mind that I had forgotten. And yet the memories she shared with me, the stories she told me—all of them remain.” I looked into his eyes. “I shall miss her. In a way, she was family, something I have not had for years.”

  He raised his hand to caress my cheek. “I should like to remedy that.”

  My heart thrummed, warm and eager in my chest. I smiled. “How so, my lord?”

  “May I once again offer you a husband, my dear Miss Q?” He bent forward, kissing my lips. “And perhaps, one day, a child?”