The Raven Lady

by Sharon Lynn Fisher

  “Well enough, I believe. I did not have time to look in on her before I left the castle. She is in capable hands with my sister-in-law.” When the king’s speech was low and gentle like this, it flooded my body with warmth, like the mineral pools beneath Skaddafjall.

  I recalled how Finvara’s sister had accused me of trying to drown her young friend, and how I’d hoped the king would know that it couldn’t be true. She had not been wrong—I’d known that Doro was planning to frighten the girl, and I was familiar with his methods.

  I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth of Finvara’s chest through his shirt. “Doro knows that we had planned to marry,” I said. “I managed to convince him it was only a trick, but he insisted I marry him in haste so that any future marriage to you would not be legitimate.” I felt the king tense, and his chest rose in preparation to reply. I continued, “I escaped him and the marriage with the help of my furies. I only mention this as a caution to you, Your Majesty, because I fear that in his desperation he may—”

  “Be easy, lady,” said the king, snugging his arms against me as he adjusted the reins. “You have done all you could. You must now allow me to do what I can for you.” He clucked softly, urging the horse to a trot. “We’re almost there.”

  I tried to doze against his chest, but the ride was bumpy, and I was growing anxious about the fact he would be leaving me soon. I told myself I would not be completely alone. I would be guarded, certainly, and perhaps he would allow Treig to stay. I had always been happy enough in my own company, though I had allowed myself to imagine what life would be like after we married, and the prospect of solitude had lost some of its appeal.

  The clouds thickened as we rode, and a soft spring shower was soon falling. Pressed against the king, I no longer felt chilled and I welcomed its cool caress. Soon I caught a glimpse of the huntsman’s lodge through the oaks—a stone and thatch cottage built on the bank of a stream.

  We rode up to the small gate and the king dismounted. He held out his arms to catch me as I slid down so that I could hold onto the cloak. I felt his warm breath against my temple for the space of three heartbeats before we were joined by the small party of guards that had followed us. The king ordered the firglas to set a patrol and watch schedule, and then he led me inside.

  The rustic interior was neat and clean, though the air was stale from disuse. The place had likely been owned by someone of means, as the floors were planked and the interior walls had been plastered. It was a single rectangular room containing a small cookstove, dining table and four chairs, a fireplace, and an iron-frame bed. The bed was not made, but the mattress was covered with sheepskins. It reminded me very much of the cottage I’d shared with my mother.

  I watched the king circle the room—making an inspection for vermin, I supposed. When he was satisfied, he glanced at me. “Take your rest, now, lady. There’s a shed outside and I’ll go see if any wood or turf has been put by.”

  When he left, I crossed the room to the tiny kitchen and opened a casement. Just outside, the stream whispered and burbled, and a breeze carried fresh air into the cottage.

  I glanced around, looking for a mirror, but found none.

  Without planning to do it, I flexed the muscles around my shoulder blades, and my wings lifted slightly beneath the cloak. I’m not broken. I felt a swell of excitement. Raising them as I had at the tomb required a great effort, yet I couldn’t help wondering if I would eventually be able to fly.

  I had begun to notice sensation too. Not only at the point where the wings joined my back, but in the wings themselves—I had felt the king’s arm brush against the feathers as we rode. I had also noticed lack of sensation: yggdrasil no longer burned. Could it be that the transmutation had broken my connection to my father?

  Were it not for the loss of Finvara, I could think of few reasons to regret passing through the Gap gate. It had saved me from being bound body and soul to a man I had begun to hate. Though it was a bitter piece of irony that now I was free to make my own choice, I no longer had one.

  I went to the bed and crawled onto it, lying down on my belly. The wool covering the mattress was pungent but soft, and I sank into it gratefully.

  When I woke, the light in the cottage had shifted, and a fire was blazing in the hearth. A salty, savory aroma filled my nostrils and my stomach growled.

  “My lady?”

  I sat up abruptly and found Treig standing at the foot of the bed.

  “Is it late?” I asked, my voice cracking. I realized I’d spoken Elvish and repeated the question in Irish.

  “No, lady. A little past midday.”

  I looked around. The king had gone, and some creature—a hare, I thought—was roasting on a spit over the fire.

  “Lady . . .”

  Treig held out a folded sheet of paper. Her expression was blank, but her eyes were bright. Whatever was in the note worried her. A farewell from the king, most likely.

  My mouth went dry as I took the paper with one hand, holding the cloak closed with the other. I waved it open and saw only a handful of words had been written.

  He won’t have you now. But I will.

  —D

  Something hot and acrid rose in my throat.

  “How did you come by this?” I asked her.

  “It was left on your dressing table, my lady.”

  I laid the paper on the bed. “Will you help me dress?” I asked, standing. “Though I can’t think what I have that will fit me now. I suppose there’ll be no more corsets in my future at least.”

  Treig was staring at me and I glanced up to find her smiling.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I’ve never heard you laugh before, lady,” she said.

  Could that be true? Likely it was. Even in the company of Finvara, who seemed to be amused by everything, I didn’t believe I had ever laughed. I’d never thought of myself as a mirthless person, but there were few I trusted enough to let my guard down in that way. Ulf had always been able to make me laugh.

  Treig brought me a bag she’d left by the door, and I smiled to find the mechanical raven had been lashed to the outside. I couldn’t think what had made her bring it. Perhaps she knew, as I did, that I wouldn’t be going back to Knock Ma and thought I might like to have it.

  Sorting through the bag, I found that there was not a dress among them that would not have to be altered in order for me to wear it. Anticipating this, Treig had also packed the chambermaid’s sewing implements, and we slit the back of an off-the-shoulder gown of light gray brocade. It had belonged to an elven relation and was at least three hundred years out of fashion in Ireland—and therefore designed before corsets. I had worn it at the Elf King’s court only when he entertained visiting dignitaries—or potential suitors. It had been a favorite of my father’s. I had no memory of packing it, or of seeing it after I arrived here. It must have been tucked between the modern dresses. I couldn’t help wondering if he had planned for me to wear it when Doro and I wed. Which would mean he’d made the decision, without telling me, before I’d even left.

  Sighing, I took up the needle and thread, folding under the fabric flaps left by our butchery and stitching the edges so they wouldn’t fray. I handed the gown to Treig, and she helped me to put it on.

  Smoothing the fabric with my hands, I said, “An odd costume for the occasion, but I am decent again.”

  “You look like a queen, my lady,” replied Treig, and again I laughed, though it pricked at my heart.

  “She’s right, you do.”

  My heart stopped. I turned to find the king standing in the doorway.

  “Forgive me,” he said, “I should have knocked. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I thought that you had . . .” My heart was in motion again. “I thought that you’d gone.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Should I have? You wouldn’t be the first lady to
say so, though I’d thank you not to punctuate your answer by flinging anything at my head.”

  I pursed my lips, suppressing a smile. “No, Your Majesty.”

  He stepped into the room, and I saw he was holding a bow and quiver of arrows—it was even a húnbogi, a recurve bow. More compact than a traditional longbow, but just as powerful.

  “I found this in the shed,” said the king. “I thought you might like to have it. I don’t know if it’s all right—I confess I know nothing about archery. It’s past time you had some means of defending yourself.”

  A smile now spread broadly over my face, and I saw it reflected in his answering grin. “That smile is answer enough,” he said. “I’ve worked hard for it, heaven knows.” He set the weapon against the wall and closed the door behind him. “Perhaps it will do for a wedding present, since it’s all I’ve got.”

  “I DEFY FAERY”

  Koli

  I stared at him. “Wedding present, Your Majesty?”

  “Aye, did you not agree to marry me?”

  “I—” I closed my mouth. My back muscles flinched, causing my wings to lift slightly. “I thought—”

  “Thought to renege, did you?” he asked, though I could hear the teasing note in his voice.

  Again I felt pressure in my throat, and my eyes stung. I turned from him and walked toward the hearth, where the roasting hare was dripping and sizzling.

  Treig made a small noise, like clearing her throat, and said, “I saw a patch of watercress near the stream, lady. I thought I would collect some, if you like.”

  “Yes, thank you,” I replied.

  I reached for the spit and raised the hare higher on the rack, so it wouldn’t burn. Then I faced him.

  “I have not changed my mind,” I said in a clear voice. “I only thought that you would have. And I would understand it, Your Majesty. I’m sure we can agree that things are not as they were.”

  “Aye,” he said, with a soft laugh and glinting eye. “There was a time when it was nearly impossible to get you to speak, let alone smile. I never knew whether you were actually listening to me prattle or casting spells in your head, hoping I’d combust.”

  I tilted my head, eyeing him dubiously. “I believe you know what I mean.”

  He sobered and took a step toward me. “I do, lady, and I am sorry for all you’ve endured since coming here. Regarding your most recent trial, as far as I can tell you’ve not changed in essentials. The priest waits outside, and I mean to go through with it, if you’ll have me.” He held out his hand. “I defy Faery or Ireland to produce a more beautiful bride.”

  My hand trembled as I reached out and grasped his. The strength and heat that flowed through his deliberate touch was like nothing I had ever experienced. I felt it in every part of my body, the energy of it even raising the tips of my wings.

  “I must tell you, Your Majesty,” I began in a voice that wavered, “from my conversation with Doro, I came to understand that a ceremony alone is not likely to provide the relief from his interference that we are seeking.”

  He frowned. “The marriage will not make him answerable to you, as you believed it would?”

  “Only if it is a true marriage.” I swallowed and waited, but the king only stared at me blankly.

  After a moment, his brow cleared and his lips parted. His fingers, still wrapped around mine, squeezed slightly. “I see.”

  I looked down, feeling hot and unwell. He squeezed my hand again, and he dipped his head to catch my eye.

  Smiling, he said, “If that’s meant to frighten me away, I’m afraid you’ve taken the wrong tack. Might I suggest, if it is not a sticking point as far as you’re concerned, that we take such questions . . . as they come?”

  I was not, and had never been, squeamish about the sharing of bodies. None of my father’s people were. I had been of age for many years, though it was only after my mother died that I ever acted on such urges. While I was still living with her, she had grown more and more devout. Our otherness became a source of suffering for her, and I was unwilling to do anything that might deepen the divide between us and Pastor Jón’s other parishioners. Once I joined my father’s court, I enjoyed my newfound freedom. On long winter nights the bleak landscapes called to me, and there were other solitary souls that ranged as I did.

  What the king and I now spoke of was something different. We were neither countrymen nor strangers, but enemies who’d somehow found ourselves on common ground. The ways my body responded to him—they had stolen upon me. I had never before encountered a man whose mind I respected, whose companionship I enjoyed, and whose touch I craved more than I had ever craved anything.

  He was waiting for me to answer. I picked over the words that he had used and replied, “No, not a sticking point, Your Majesty.”

  He smiled, and it occurred to me that soon I would have license to touch the lines that formed at the corners of his eyes, like bird prints in the sand. I would have license—would I have nerve?

  “Let us join the priest and have done with the formalities,” he said. “Afterward we can break our fast.”

  Finvara

  The parish priest, like the surgeon, had refused to call at Knock Ma. But a second messenger, leveraging the O’Malley name, had better luck persuading the holy man to attend us at the lodge that morning.

  It was an easy matter to press Treig and the priest’s driver into service as witnesses. The holy man, though not warm, was civil, and at least outwardly demonstrated the respect due a son of the Earl of Mayo, if not a king of fairies.

  The princess’s appearance did give him pause—when first his eyes came to rest on her, he crossed himself and murmured a prayer. I had to bite back an angry retort, though I recalled that my own first reaction to her had not been much different, and that was before she had wings. At least this meeting had involved no furies.

  I introduced her as the daughter of a powerful Icelandic ally, and a new member of my court. I also told him the marriage had been sanctioned by my cousin, Queen Isolde, but that for reasons I could not disclose, must be kept secret. Whether he bought any of this, I had no idea. It was a time of transition in Ireland, and not an easy one. Some members of the clergy—particularly those imported from continental Europe—viewed the sudden influx of fairies as a threat to Catholic beliefs and teachings. This fellow was thoroughly Irish, was rumored to have secretly married his housekeeper, and, thankfully, was inclined to mind his own business. He accepted my explanation, and the whole affair was conducted with unsettling efficiency.

  No longer sure whom we could trust, the ceremony—a brief exchange of Catholic vows—was conducted in the privacy of the cottage. We had a moment of difficulty over the bride’s vows—her eyebrows rose half an inch higher for each of the words “obey” and “serve”—and I directed the priest to replace her vows with the ones I had spoken.

  When he had gone, I sent Treig outside to watch, and I bade my bride—my wife and queen, though it had not really sunk in—sit at the table while I served up our wedding feast. I split the rabbit and placed it, along with the watercress, on two plates. I found two tankards, blew out the dust, and poured into each a healthy measure of whiskey, which I’d found in a trunk at the foot of the bed.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said.

  “I think you had better stop calling me that,” I replied, “or no one is going to believe we are married.”

  A smile tugged at her lips as she began pulling the rabbit apart with her fingers. “What shall I call you?”

  “Finvara, if you like,” I said, going to work on my own dinner. “Or if you prefer, the name I’ve answered to my whole life.”

  Glancing up from her meal, she said, “Duncan.”

  I smiled, enjoying the intimacy of my name on her lips. “That’s right.”

  Chewing a bite of rabbit, she closed her eyes and sighed. If s
he’d not eaten since before the ball, she must have been famished, and I felt a pang of guilt for making her wait. But I was relieved to have the ceremony behind us.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “You are a king. Your subjects, your family, your neighbors, even your servants—they are struggling to accept this. You are Finvara, whether they like it or not.” She pointed her fork at me. “Whether you like it or not.”

  It was gratifying to have my choice of queen so promptly validated. “Finvara it is, then.”

  She smiled her approval. “And you will use my given name?”

  “Aye, if you permit me.” I drank from my tankard, feeling the whiskey burn its way down to my stomach. “Koli. Does it mean something?”

  “It’s Elvish,” she replied, “or what the English call Old Norse. My mother chose it. It means ‘little dark one.’ ”

  It was a name that carried a mother’s affection. “You were close to your mother?”

  A shadow passed over her face, and she stopped eating. She nodded.

  I hesitated, not wanting to cause her pain. Yet she was my wife now, and I still knew so little about her. “May I ask what happened to her?”

  Her gaze lowered, she rubbed at the edge of her plate with her thumb. “My father let her die.”

  I froze. Then I set my fork down. “How?”

  When she looked at me I could see the pain and anger in her eyes. “The villagers hated us. They blamed us for anything bad that happened—illness, accidents, even soured milk. When a house collapsed and killed a whole family, they came for revenge. They drove us off a cliff.”

  I stared at her in horror as she lifted her tankard and sipped the whiskey before continuing. “I was always meant to live at my father’s court eventually. She kept putting him off. He did not care for her influence over me. His men—they were always watching us. The warrior who later became my protector, Ulf, arrived in time to save me that day . . . but not her. It’s not Ulf I blame.”

  Her relationship with her father was even more complicated than I realized.