The Raven Queen

by Jules Watson

  Maeve got up. Her brother always stiffened his ruddy hair into spikes and wore his scars, broken nose, and butchered ears as battle spoils. She must be wary, but she was also trapped. Her husband King Conor’s famous Red Branch warriors—the elite fighters of the Ulaid war-bands—could be coming already to drag her back to their fortress.

  She curled her hand at her neck, hiding her pulse. For the safety of her people, she could not stay silent. “I have run away from Conor.”

  Innel grimaced and grabbed her wrist, pushing her against the slope of thatch. His breath reeked of ale. “You stupid … willful … bitch.”

  Maeve arched a brow, breathless. “Surely I cannot be all of those, brother. It takes sense to be willful, after all.”

  He growled, his grip biting. “Father sealed the Ulaid alliance with oaths—with you. You’ll draw the wrath of Conor and his Red Branch upon us at the very moment he is weakened. Do you care nothing for our people?”

  “I care only for them, which is why I’ve come back!” She dragged herself free, rubbing at the welts he had left. “I lived among the Ulaid for two years. I know their heroes, their war-bands. I know the mind of Conor the cunning.”

  Innel paced, plucking at his ruddy moustache. “We must hand you back to them without delay.”

  Maeve’s nostrils flared as she sought for her only weapon. She cocked her head. “So already you make Father’s decisions for him. You hover around his sickbed like a crow on a carcass.”

  Her brother clenched his fist.

  Maeve watched it, readying herself to duck.

  Just then King Eochaid groaned, and his body stirred beneath the coverlet of wolf fur. Fear darkened Innel’s face.

  Ah, Maeve thought. She traced the bedpost with a shaking finger. “If Father is ill, other kinsmen will be gathering, as hungry as you to rule. So you will send your thugs to drag me back to the Ulaid now, leaving you here alone?”

  Innel scowled, knuckling his temple as if her words strained him. At last he stalked past her. “You will soon be begging my favor, sister—when I am king.”

  After he left, Maeve sank onto a stool at her father’s side and rested her brow in her hands. Her jerkin of toughened hide dug into her ribs, making it hard to breathe. What have you done? But sometimes she had to act, or she felt she would burst open …

  A cracked wheeze. “You … broke … my alliance?”

  Maeve sprang straight. Eochaid’s good eye was blazing.

  Her gaze flew to his hand, and out of habit Maeve flinched. Only then did she realize it still lay limp. “Yes, Father.”

  “Conor’s warriors will fall upon us … battle and ruin …” Spittle gleamed on his lips. “Traitor!”

  Maeve was on her feet. “Three times you married me off to kings and princes, Father, and you broke two of those alliances yourself.” Just as I finally scrounged some scraps of peace. She gulped that down. Eochaid hated defiance but admired bravery. How to walk that line? She lifted her chin. “None of them made war once you returned their bride-gifts. They all had other women, and Conor does, too. He is already betrothed to someone else, an orphan girl he has raised as kin. He will soon have other wives …”

  “You are his wife! You were given to him to seal our oaths, his and mine.”

  A cow to be bartered away. She swallowed that, too.

  “You would not dare defy me if I was well,” he slurred, withered fingers knotting the blanket. “A raven, you are, come now to pick over my bones.”

  Maeve’s nails dented her palms. No, she was merely desperate. And this close to him—listening to his labored breath, seeing his helpless limbs—she could not think of anything save when he first made her feel this same way.

  Paralyzed.

  Maeve turned from him, trying to fill her lungs. But she was there again anyway, sixteen years ago … as if yesterday. The day her father first gave her body away.

  The firelit lodge of the aging King of Laigin, Ros Ruadh. Once more she tasted the sting of vomit in her throat, felt the drag of robes too heavy for a twelve-year-old. She heard the bracken crackle as she cowered into the bed, too shocked to whimper; remembered the gleam of sweat on the Laigin king’s brow as he labored over her, wheezing.

  Maeve’s will had long ago conquered the pain. It was the invasion that was so hard to banish, the sense of her own bright self being ground away into nothing.

  When she was sixteen, her father plucked her from the household of the stern and indifferent Ros Ruadh, only to marry her again to Diarmait, prince of Mumu. He pinned her with brute arms and a heavy belly, to make her writhe so he could strike her and stoke his lust.

  She eventually found a way to make him leave her alone, though: claiming a say over her body by rutting with men of her choosing, and many of them. She had to endure worse beatings at first, but finally Diarmait’s rage turned to repulsion, as she had hoped. He sought other wives and kept the alliance with Connacht in name only.

  So again Maeve carved out a sliver of peace for herself, this time for ten years. It was then her father went after his greatest prize yet: kinship with the Ulaid, the most powerful kingdom in Erin. Two years ago Eochaid broke his oaths with Diarmait of Mumu and she was sent away for a third time, to be Conor’s queen.

  Of all her husbands, it turned out to be Conor, with his sardonic smile and opaque eyes, his stiff body and dry, cool hands, who alone sought Maeve’s bed every night.

  It was not she, though, that made him want to plow that field. At twenty-six when they wed, Maeve was already too old for his tastes. Though graying and wrinkled himself, he liked fresh maids who had never been broken by another.

  No … Conor wanted an alliance with Connacht, so his western flanks would be protected. And more. In an ancient war, Connacht had taken the hill that was the sacred heart of Erin. Since then it was said that with their bodies, royal daughters of Connacht bestowed upon their mates the blessings of all the goddesses of Erin.

  That was why Conor so fastidiously folded aside his embroidered robes and lined his rings up on the dresser while his guards tied her wrists, taking no chances. And why, as he thrust atop her, he stared at the wall with such fierce determination—not for her, but to possess Connacht’s sacred blood for himself.

  Now she knew why.

  Maeve closed her eyes, blinked to clear them, and turning around, sat by the bed. The movement made the lamp flame dip, and shadows reached for her. “Father,” she said in a low voice, “I came back because I heard you were sick, because I want to look after you.”

  So you will let me stay, and for once be Maeve alone. His little warrior, bold and fearless, who had once made Eochaid laugh with pride … before she grew breasts and he remembered that he could use her for better ends.

  No more marriages. No more bodies crushing her. No one but her own self.

  The king’s good eye narrowed.

  Maeve took a breath. “And I came back to bring you urgent news of Conor mac Nessa.” Maeve covered her father’s paralyzed hand with her strong one. “Conor does not want an alliance with Connacht. He wants to take us over.”

  Eochaid gargled in the back of his throat.

  Maeve’s knuckles went white. “That is why I ran from him, to tell you before it is too late!”

  Eochaid struggled to wipe away his spittle with his other hand. “You heard him say this? What proof?”

  Maeve hesitated. “I heard … whispers, asides … remarks I did not at first understand. But they have built a certainty within me.”

  He hissed under his breath, one side of his mouth pulling down. “So you know nothing.”

  Maeve clung to this lifeline. She had thought that if she could lay some great triumph at his feet, he might free her and let her stay here at his right hand. Safe … at last. “I know that Conor wants to rule all of Erin.”

  “Know?”

  She suppressed a shudder. “I … feel it. Sense it. He wants to rule everything.” Her body had been conquered by Conor mac Nessa. His bones ha
d caged hers. Of course her instincts sensed more than anyone could ever know. And then, only days ago, she had heard his whisper in the night … she was sure it was not a dream … that he would wrench a son from her and use him to make Connacht his own.

  Men might use her, but not her child.

  Never again.

  Maeve’s belly cramped and she bit her lip. “We must gather fighters and attack before he does—”

  “Bah.” Eochaid struck her away. “The four kingdoms have stood for many ages; the gods hold this as sacred. We are well-defended, and Conor is powerful. It would be madness to attack him without proof or reason. Unless you have just given him one.” His lip curled. “I did not ask you to spy, I sent you to be a queen to him, to bind me to the Ulaid throne. And instead you insult him and run away? I will pack you back off to him with no delay!”

  Maeve endured this torrent, but she would not endure Conor mac Nessa again. One day he would come for Connacht—her people, free and proud—and she would be here to defend them when he did.

  As Eochaid paused, wheezing, Maeve leaned her arms on the bed. She put her chin close to his on the pillow, like she did when he loved her like a son.

  Before he sold her body to an old man.

  She dropped her voice. “If you order me back, Father, I will make sure that all the bards of Erin sing of the heartless king who crushed his loyal daughter, and so was punished by the gods.” Her finger shook as she pointed at his frozen legs. “Can you survive that with your hold already weakened?”

  Wrath twisted Eochaid’s body up, rucking the blanket as his face flushed. All at once his eyeball rolled back. “Ah! Dagda and Lugh … lords above …” His gaze wandered across the roof-beams, suddenly untethered from all sense.

  The hairs on Maeve’s neck rose.

  Her father chuckled, his eyelid twitching. “Aye … my strength … my true blood. The one to come after me …”

  Maeve’s shoulders went rigid. “What?”

  Her father’s head tossed on the pillow. “No … I …”

  As Maeve gripped his arm, Eochaid’s good eye flared and blinked. Sense gradually crept over it again, the pupil sharpening, the mists driven back.

  “I heard you.” Maeve was breathing swiftly. “I am the only one with your courage, your strength! Set me in a place of honor beside you!”

  A trusted adviser. Devoted daughter. Anything.

  With a stony face, Eochaid gathered the blankets and stared at the roof. “You speak madness because you think me mad. You have no allies or sword-brothers. You are nothing, a woman. You have no power.”

  Maeve stood, a knot gathering in her chest. “You could give me that.”

  Give me my own, so no one can hurt me ever again.

  Not even you.

  Eochaid’s bark of mirth turned to a coughing fit. Maeve did not stir, and eventually Eochaid thumped his breast, wiping more drool away. “If you were truly mine, you would not need me to give you anything.” His lips thinned. “If Conor demands you back, I will tie you up and send you to him. If not …” His eye darted aside, and Maeve read a fear there that, for now, was greater than Conor of the Ulaid. For Eochaid’s seizure had struck a dangerous blow to his kingship.

  “I will keep you, for now. My kinsmen circle, waiting to snap me in two; waiting for my mind to falter along with my body. You will tell me everything they say. And if you amuse me, and feed me my slops, and bathe away my filth, I may keep you here even longer.”

  The bitterness was so sharp Maeve could taste it. Scraps, and never more.

  With heavy steps Maeve returned to the stable in the rain to unsaddle Meallán and shoulder her baggage. The dusk shadows had gathered inside the round thatch building, with its two wide doors separated by a cluster of blackened oak posts. Her instincts flared when she saw her stallion’s ears turned back, but it was too late.

  “So you’ve dragged yourself away from the old bastard at last?”

  Maeve spun around, reaching for a blade she did not bear. Conor never let her wear one … but gods, her hand itched for a sword.

  Her brother Innel was astride a mounting stone beside the other door, a dagger in his scarred hands. Frowning, he dug dirt from his broken nails with the blade, then leaned over to sharpen the edge on the stone again.

  Maeve decided to leave, then return later with someone she knew. Innel would not hurt her horse, of that she was sure.

  Her brother was a heavy brute, but his warrior skills were better-honed than that blade. Even as Maeve turned, his shoulder knocked her against the stable wall. Before she could twist away, his dagger hand thumped down beside her head, the other catching her wrist as she struck at his belly.

  “Why are you here?” he hissed. “You think, after all this time, you can be Father’s favorite again?”

  Maeve could not stop the flare of her eyes. A strand of wet hair was caught across her mouth.

  Innel laughed. His skin was ale-veined and thickened into folds by the sun. Up close, the oil that curled his red hair smelled rancid. They were both born to be tall, with strong, sharp bones, but Innel’s had been overlaid with flesh from too much rich food and mead. “You stupid bitch.”

  “You really should think up some new curses, brother.”

  Innel’s brows knitted, one dragged down by a ragged scar. He had placed the knife along the wall, and now the cold tip brushed Maeve’s neck. She swallowed. Conor had kept a dagger like that beside her when he rutted, barely touching her throat, as if it was not really there.

  “You endanger us with this habit of running from your husbands, sister. Father will not stand for it again.”

  “He broke my other marriage oaths himself.”

  “But you tried to run from Diarmait of Mumu once, I seem to remember. That nearly cost us dear at the time.”

  No one knew the reason for that flight but her father, Maeve, and Diarmait himself. “I went back to Diarmait,” Maeve forced past the pain in her breast, “and was a wife to him for many years. It was Father who took me away for the Ulaid—”

  “Then you should have stayed there! Instead, you risk our kingdom and think Father will love you for this? If you have come to lie, and plot, and take anything from me—”

  “Have a care, brother.” Maeve’s voice was unsteady as she drew her heels together, pushing her back up the timber wall. “I bring Father important news of the Ulaid.” She peeled the hair from her face, improvising wildly. “That is why he made me wed Conor—to spy on his Red Branch warriors.”

  Innel snorted, holes gaping in his grin where he’d lost two teeth. “You mean spread your thighs for the Red Branch.”

  She turned her flaming cheek aside. “It was our plan all along, mine and Father’s. So you will not harm me or that plan will be ruined, and Father will blame you for it.”

  Innel’s smile flickered, but though his lip remained curled beneath his long moustache, he drew the knife away and sheathed it. “Liar.”

  Her nostrils flared. “Try him, then. But remember you are not the only kinsman with a right to the throne. Others gather at his sickbed, lords with more allies than you.” She bared her teeth. “So I wouldn’t make any mistakes about my loyalties, and what powers I hold.”

  It was a desperate throw that seemed to work.

  Innel’s mouth spasmed and he swung his hand. Maeve held rigid as he stopped short of her cheekbone, but he contented himself by pushing her temple with the heel of his palm, as if they were still children. “I will be watching, sister.”

  He lumbered away. Maeve did not move, though her blood was racing. Innel flexed his burly shoulders, his head swinging to either side as he searched the darkness that gathered between the squat houses, their roofs of thatch now dripping with rain.

  He was afraid.

  They all were, for what might come now that Eochaid’s iron grip was weakening.

  Maeve shouldered her pack and made her way to the women’s lodge beside the king’s hall. There she sought out an older serving ma
id who knew her from before. The little woman gripped her fingers with floury hands, touching her face and damp hair and marveling that she had not changed. No one had taken Maeve’s bed-place yet, she told her.

  Maeve climbed the stairs to the sleeping ledge beneath the roof, shifting aside the piles of furs and baskets tossed on her mattress. The lumpy pad of bracken and linen was musty, but she did not care.

  Scraping a little hurdle of willow across for privacy, she threw deerskins over the bed and, climbing in, drew a beaver fur over her. She settled on her back, groping either side for the mattress as if she was in a boat on a stormy sea.

  She was alone.

  Her body could spread across the bed and meet no rigid flesh or clenched muscles. No harsh breath would stir the darkness that cradled her.

  As her fingers reached the rails of the bed-box, and still the space was hers, Maeve’s shoulders at last lowered. There, she let her breath out for the first time in days.

  In years.

  Later that night Maeve wrapped herself in furs and curled up on the earthen ramparts around the mound of the warriors.

  Despite the frost, the hall doors behind her were slightly ajar. A sliver of firelight spilled across the turf, along with shouts and a ragged tune from bone flutes. The roar of warriors was pierced by the shrieks and laughter of women.

  Maeve sat with a rod-straight back, clasping her knees. As a child she often pretended she was a shield, arms bound around legs like toughened hide to wood. One shield was not enough now, though, for Cruachan was a royal fort like no other in the four kingdoms.

  Mumu in the south was safe behind its mountains. The rocks of the Ulaid, in the North, yielded so much iron and gold that Conor had built the strongest war-band. In the east, Laigin boasted rich fields of barley and wheat. Close to the sea-routes, Laigin exchanged grain, furs, and hides for wine and other treasures from Gaul and the Middle Sea, and the other kingdoms relied on that trade.

  Connacht in contrast was all pasture, soaked with marshes and rivers, the meadows sprouting lush grass that fed the greatest cattle herds in Erin. It was rich in beef, hides, milk, butter, and honey. These lowlands, though, were vulnerable.