The Raven Lady

by Sharon Lynn Fisher

  Glancing up at the servants, who were awaiting my direction, I said, “Leave those things and wait downstairs.”

  When they’d gone, I asked, “Act how, lady?”

  “He is bound to your queen. He must do as she commands. You only need fill that office.”

  I stared at her. “You are suggesting I marry?”

  “You—or she—will be able to stop his mischief in an instant.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not prepared for . . . I haven’t even a candidate.”

  “Do you not, sire?”

  For the space of a startled heartbeat, I believed she was thinking of herself. She was of course referring to Elinor.

  Of the two unmarried ladies, there was only one that I would even consider marrying.

  “I do not wish to cause you more pain,” I replied, “but I think before I consider such extreme measures, I must have more information.”

  Leaving her bedside, I fetched the absinthe bottle and a glass from a tray Treig had brought. The anise fumes rose to my nostrils as I poured half an inch and held out the glass to the princess. “It may provide some protection. It may not.”

  When she had swallowed the pale green spirit, grimacing at the strong flavor, I wet one of the towels the maid had brought, wrung it out, and laid it across her back.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she murmured.

  Returning to her, I asked, “Can you tell me Doro’s purpose?”

  She took a deep breath, bracing herself. “To turn your people against you. To take your place as king.” A good old-fashioned mutiny, it would seem. “He has been working against you since I met him. Perhaps even before. He needed me because . . .”

  At first I feared the pain was returning, but then I realized she had simply hesitated. “Because?”

  “Because of his bond to your family.” Again, she hesitated. Then finally: “He cannot kill you.”

  The knife—of course. “You can.”

  The princess sank deeper into the coverlet, replying, “Except I find that I cannot.”

  I knelt beside the bed to better see her face. “And why is that, lady?”

  She closed her eyes, and a quiet sigh escaped her lips. “You have been kind to me. You have been my friend while others have sought to use me.”

  Others. Her father, and Doro. It pinched at my heart, as did seeing such a stout-hearted lady reduced to this state.

  “There is more,” she continued, opening her eyes. “Doro formed an alliance with my father. As the fairy king, Doro would join forces with the Elf King to take Ireland. I was promised to Doro, as his queen, to seal their agreement.”

  Her dark eyes held mine, and I saw the moment the Elf King’s punishment returned. Her cry was feeble this time—either she was exhausted or our methods were providing some relief.

  Another tear slipped onto her cheek and I thought about all she had just given up for me. Merely because I had been kind to her for a handful of days.

  “I will do as you have advised me,” I said, bending closer to her, “if you agree to become my queen instead.”

  Koli

  “Your Majesty! Have you not heard a word I’ve said?”

  “On the contrary,” he replied, and there was a smile in his eyes that had not yet touched his lips. “I’ve heard all of your words, and I can think of no better way to foil the plans of my enemies.”

  I stared at him, incredulous. “I had intended to assassinate you.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “And were not equal to it, and warned me of the plot, and pointed out a way to prevent it. I can’t think of a single other creature in this godforsaken place who has done more to earn my trust or been more genuinely helpful.”

  I rolled onto my side to better see him, careful to move slowly and not dislodge the wet dressing. My heart was beating wildly.

  “I think you must be in jest, Your Majesty.”

  “I know you have no high opinion of me, lady, but even I would never jest about a marriage proposal.”

  I let my gaze drift to the window, my thoughts racing. I had made a choice—a very dangerous one—to take no more part in Doro and my father’s schemes. And there was no point in denying I had come to respect and admire Finvara—I was beginning to suspect it could be more than that, Freyja help me. But marry him?

  “Please don’t be alarmed,” said the king. “It need only be a marriage in name. You can think of it as a political alliance, if you like, to protect Ireland’s treaty with your father, as was originally proposed. Can you not see how much better a solution it is than for me to marry Elinor? Doro would have her eating out of his hand in a matter of minutes, magical bond or no.”

  He was right. About all of it. Except— “What of yggdrasil?”

  He frowned—I’d used an Elvish word.

  “The ash tree mark,” I said.

  The hopeful light in his eyes dimmed. “Aye. That is an obstacle. Has anything we’ve done made it more tolerable?”

  I nodded. “The cold cloths. The drink you gave me—it does seem to have dulled the effects. And your spells.” I couldn’t help recalling the gentleness of his voice—only moments after I’d admitted to betraying him.

  “We will simply have to continue with all of it,” he said with characteristic optimism. “And when we are wed, you will order Doro to discover a way to counter it.”

  Doro, of course. I had only thought to neutralize the fairy steward. I realized now, under my control, he could become a powerful ally.

  “Only you may say, lady, whether you can bear it,” said the king. “Both your father’s punishment, and a lifetime of my company.”

  I studied the gentle upward curve of his full lips.

  The king might not be in love, but he was certainly in earnest. And there was only one answer I could sensibly give.

  THE ALCHEMIST

  Koli

  “Very well,” I said at last.

  His smile broadened. “Is this an answer?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” I said more decisively, and felt a giddiness in my chest that overcame the pain in my back. “I hope you’ve no idea of a prolonged engagement, or another fete.”

  “Indeed not,” he replied.

  He went to the stairs and called the servants back up. Then he took out his watch. “Ach, it’s not long until sunrise. Do we dare sleep a few hours?”

  “We risk our plan being discovered.”

  He nodded. “Find Keane,” he said to Sorcha. “Tell him we need the parish priest as soon as he can get here. The man is to be brought directly up. No one else is to know.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” she said, and left us.

  “Will you stand up with the princess?” he asked Treig. “As soon as the priest arrives, we intend to marry.”

  The firglas woman’s gaze moved between us and then came to rest on me. She and I recognized this question as a test of her loyalty, even if the king did not. Eyebrows raised, she replied, “If she wishes it.”

  “I would be honored,” I replied, “and grateful.”

  She nodded briskly and let the butt of her pike rest against the flagstones.

  “Keane will have to stand up with me, I suppose,” said the king. “We don’t want word to get out until the thing is done.”

  I could not imagine how Finvara’s father was going to react to his son marrying against his wishes, almost right under his nose. From what little I’d observed of the O’Malley chief, he was a proud and stern Irishman. Still, it was a shame for the king to stand up with a servant when both his father and brother were currently sharing the same roof.

  The pain in my back had faded to a hot throbbing. I pushed myself up to a sitting position and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

  “Take care, lady,” said the king, reaching out to steady me. “Hadn’t you better remain wh
ere you are?”

  “If I’m to be wed,” I replied, “let it not be from my bed, or in my nightdress.”

  He squeezed my fingers, and I stood up.

  “If you’ll leave us a moment, Your Majesty, I will dress.” Would this be the last time I’d have privacy for my toilet? The idea of sharing a bedchamber with the king occurred to me now for the first time, causing a not-unpleasant sensation in the triangle of soft flesh below my belly.

  But then I recalled his words: It need only be a marriage in name.

  The king turned to comply with my request. “I’ll wait for the priest below. Call out if you need me.”

  When he had gone, Treig took my direction about what I wanted from the wardrobe and helped me to dress, speaking only the few words required to do so—and for that I was grateful. I passed over the modern gowns in favor of my archer’s dress, which had been cleaned and repaired since our encounter in the forest. It was by far the most comfortable item of clothing I’d brought. Moreover, as I had been wearing it when the king and I faced our first common enemy, I hoped it might bring us luck.

  As I stood before the mirror trying to digest this drastic change to my circumstances, Treig came up behind me, picked up my brush from the dressing table, and began pulling it through my hair. The spontaneous kindness of this gesture drew my attention to her face, and I wondered again about the similarities between us.

  “Do you know anything about your ancestry?” I asked her. “Perhaps you too have noticed how alike we are.”

  Our eyes met in the mirror, and she smiled. “It is said that long ago there was a migration of Tuatha De Danaan to northern lands, and that there they intermixed with other immortals. They and their descendants were eventually driven out.”

  “Northern lands” could very well refer to Iceland, and if it did, it would help explain the enmity between the fairy and elven peoples. It would also confirm the distant relation that I had suspected.

  “Could be that we are cousins,” I replied.

  Treig nodded. “Could be. I confess from the time I first saw you, I have thought there was something familiar about you.”

  She returned the brush and reached down to unclasp a delicate silver chain from around her waist. After doubling the chain to form a smaller circlet, she raised it and secured it in my hair. The silver links gleamed in the firelight as I turned my head from side to side.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “It’s not every day a lady is married,” she replied. “You deserve better than this rushed ceremony, though I believe I understand the reason for it.”

  “It makes no difference to me,” I assured her, but I couldn’t help wondering what our wedding might have been like if it had happened as originally planned.

  It was better this way. We would not begin as enemies.

  Yggdrasil began to burn, and I reached out and gripped the back of the dressing table chair. The pain was tolerable now—would it continue to be? I hoped the king was right, and that Doro might discover a way of severing this connection between my father and me. I would have an opportunity to ask him soon enough. Had I more of my father in me, I might be looking forward to our first meeting as mistress and servant—the Elf King relished any opportunity to turn the tables. But I was dreading it.

  “Lady?” said Treig.

  I looked at her.

  “Black druid! Torturer!”

  The tinny, grating exclamation drew both of our gazes toward the source—the west-facing window. Yet there was nothing to see on the other side of the bars, save the moonlit tops of the trees. On the sill rested the mechanical raven. The bird’s formerly dead eyes now glowed with a fiery light. Suddenly its neck rotated and the gleaming metal head cocked to one side.

  I stepped toward it, and the light in its eyes went out.

  “Before you take this fateful step, Koli Alfdóttir—” I spun at the sound of this second unexpected voice “—I would speak with you.”

  Doro stood in front of the grandfather clock. Treig raised her pike, but the fairy steward hissed a spell and the weapon burst into flames. She shouted, dropping it, and Doro rushed toward me and locked arms around my waist. Then he dragged me into the clock cabinet.

  I fought him as we plunged into darkness, but a moment later we tumbled onto the deck of his ship. I scrambled away as he got to his feet.

  “It seems my faith in you was misplaced.” His irises were bright as a lightning strike.

  I forced myself to stand up slowly, smoothing my skirt. “The situation is more complicated than it might appear, sir.”

  In fact, it was not. I had betrayed him, just as I had tried to do to the king. But unlike the king, I found it easy enough to lie to Doro.

  “I hardly blame you,” he replied, condescension in his tone. “You are not the first woman to be dazzled by Finvara. His enchantments are legendary. I did, however, believe that your mind would be stronger.”

  “There has been no enchantment,” I said, matching his tone. “After his cousin was attacked, the king made a guess about our alliance. I had to do something.”

  Let him chew on that.

  Doro studied me, and a host of dark wings whipped the inside of my ribcage. Not yet, I pleaded.

  He folded his arms. “You suggest your acceptance of his proposal was subterfuge?”

  My thoughts fired like arrows. He didn’t know everything—seemed not to know the marriage was first proposed by me. So he had not somehow eavesdropped on our conversation—he’d perhaps overheard Sorcha sending for the priest.

  “He suggested I might prove his allegation false by accepting him,” I replied. “What else should I have done, my lord?”

  Doro was a master at guarding his expressions, but I could see the calculation in his eyes as he considered my explanation.

  “What of the skean I left for you?”

  The damned knife! “I discovered it. I knew the timing of its use was critical, and I hid it when he came to accuse me.”

  He nodded, seeming to accept this, and I let out a breath. “It’s unfortunate that we’ve been discovered. There was always a risk of it. While I have never before crossed Finvara or his queen, aspersions have been cast on me in the Faery histories, and he may have somehow learned of it.”

  Or maybe you were overconfident and got careless. “What shall we do?”

  “There is a way to repair the damage. If your loyalty is unchanged, you will have no objection to marrying me instead of the king.”

  My hand came to press against my chest in what I hoped would be interpreted as a gesture of earnestness rather than what it really was—an attempt to hold back my furies.

  “I do not, my lord. Have I not pledged myself to it?”

  “Indeed you have. It will have to be done now.”

  I pressed my chest harder, swallowing loudly.

  He took a step toward me. “If we marry secretly, before you return, your marriage to him will be invalid. It will buy us time.”

  “But I must return immediately,” I countered, “The king only stepped away long enough for me to prepare.”

  Doro waved his hand, dismissing this concern. “You will tell him that I came for you, but that you escaped—even better, that you’ve killed me. We only need a little more time. Everything is in motion.”

  He waited for my reply, and I nodded. Turning his head to one side, he called, “Bran?”

  My gaze flitted to the rocky tunnel above us—I had wondered about it the first time I boarded Black Swan. I noticed that a ladder ran up the ship’s mast and then climbed a few meters in open air before reaching a stone stairway inside the tunnel. I didn’t know where the tunnel led, but Doro had mysterious ways of moving around Knock Ma.

  I’ll never make it. Doro had hardly taken his eyes off me. Yet it seemed like my only chance.

  I heard a whirring noi
se, and a series of clicks, and my gaze was drawn to a mechanical creature approaching us. It was childlike in size, tin face gleaming in the lamplight, eye sockets empty. The mouth was no more than a slit—a roughly cut opening in the tin. A rust-red cap sat upon the creature’s head, and I noticed that the pointy tops of fleshy ears protruded on either side of it.

  Part flesh, part machine, like the barrow-wight.

  “Another of your creations?” I asked, shivering.

  “Indeed,” Doro replied, smiling fondly at the thing. “A crude and incomplete transmutation, but he signifies an important breakthrough. Bran was the first to emerge truly animate, and from that I learned of the importance of iron.” He looked at me, fervor animating his expression. “Fairy creatures are light-bodied and mercurial. Our blood contains no iron, no earthly grounding. But Bran was a vicious breed of fairy called a redcap, and for centuries they have drunk and washed themselves in mortal blood.”

  I thought about the mechanical raven. A real raven’s body contained red blood—and the mechanical one had most certainly come to life, if only for a moment.

  Doro had made it sound like he was not involved in creating the little machines at Knock Ma—like they were once-living creatures that had passed through the Gap gate unwittingly. But Doro created Bran, and he also created the wight.

  I recalled the raven’s shrill warning—torturer. Had the raven, along with the others in the dungeon at Knock Ma, been failed experiments?

  “You told me you use the Gap gate for transmutation,” I said. “How does that work?”

  He smiled. “I confess I’m not exactly sure. I believe when we met I told you I was Ireland’s last druid?”

  Last and most powerful. “You did.”

  “I was once called on by an immortal to create a seal between Faery and Ireland. Centuries later, another immortal asked me to create gates that would allow the seal to be circumvented, and that would allow navigation inside the Gap. The gate in the wight’s tomb was the first and most experimental of those gates. After the seal was broken at Ben Bulben, Faery and Ireland tried to merge, and it eventually broke every gate but the first. That one, altered by the collapse of boundaries between the ancient and modern worlds, began to function in a strange and fascinating way. I have been conducting experiments ever since in an attempt to understand it.”