The Raven Queen

by Jules Watson

  The flames of those bonfires were seen far across the dark land.

  The druids painted the white bull’s blood on the brows of Cúchulainn and Cormac, and the essence of the brown bull marked Maeve. Their oaths to each other’s kingdoms were thereby painted on their bodies, and recited thrice over by the bards.

  Cúchulainn sat and let the raucous celebrations swirl about him, taking ale for the first time in weeks. Something about his stillness kept everyone at arm’s length, even the Ulaid warriors, and at last he was able to slip away.

  On the edge of the camp, he took hold of the Gray of Macha and the Black of Sainglu, harnessed to his chariot, and led them up and around the shoulders of the great hill through the heather. In the back of the chariot lay Ferdia, strapped securely to the wicker.

  The horses were steady-footed, and labored as if they knew what burden they bore. High up, where Ferdia could see far across Erin, Cúchulainn gathered heather stems and rowanwood and built a great pyre. On it he laid his friend. The stiffness had gone from Ferdia’s body now, and ignoring the faint, sickly scent, Cúchulainn uncovered him.

  The Hound had bound the great wound and dressed his sword-brother in his own finery, and now Ferdia merely looked asleep, young and pale in the moonlight.

  Cúchulainn had given one of his most precious possessions to Naisi before he died, a dagger with a crystal hilt. There was only one thing left to give Ferdia. The Hound unbent his Red Branch arm-ring—the first time it had left his body. That Red Branch lived no more, even if he did create another. He bound it next to Ferdia’s own armband and kissed his cold brow. “Keep it for me until I come to you.”

  Then Cúchulainn lit the fire and sat on a rock to watch it burn. The flames roared and streamed away, higher than any pyre he had ever seen. His spirit was so bright … and thus it leaves us.

  As Ferdia burned, Cúchulainn curled his arms about his knees, glassy-eyed. He had given everything for the Ulaid, but the power of the Champion, that divine flame of battle Source, had also driven the gae bolga through Ferdia’s body.

  Cúchulainn sucked in a breath as if surfacing from a long dive. He got to his feet. The twisting flames of the pyre were orange now, no longer bright silver. The sky was merely dark and cloud-blown. And he was just cold, gooseflesh spreading over his neck.

  The Hound laughed for the third time that day. He was a man after all. Only a man.

  Late in the night, once Ferdia’s body was consumed, Cúchulainn led his horses and empty chariot across the rocky summit, away from the din and fires of the war-camp below. One thought alone quickened his step, a desire as old as the hills themselves.

  Emer.

  Behind him Ferdia’s flames reached for the other realms. But Cúchulainn knew nothing but the earth beneath his sore feet now, and the cutting wind on his cheek. Every muscle ached, and he was glad.

  He came off the mountain and disappeared into the woods, heading north to his wife and home.

  Maeve stood alone, gazing up.

  It was hard to see beyond the bonfires, but she thought she glimpsed another flame in the hills. She walked out into darkness, drinking in the mist above the nearby stream. As their senses had been joined, she understood now that Cúchulainn was gone.

  A shiver took her over.

  For days her mind, heart, and body had been consumed with the needs of the many—the fates of thousands in her hands. She had been focused on Finn, Conor, and then Cúchulainn. She had exhausted herself to convince her men this peace was right, dealing with those who argued against it, calming the concerns of others. The ritual of the bulls, the carousing of the men … they had drained everything from her.

  Now, for the first time, Maeve was alone. She was only now able to feel the pulse of her own body, her own heart.

  Her heart …

  It was thumping out of kilter, and had been for some time. The shadow she glimpsed, that strange chill … it came from inside her, not outside.

  At last she could feel the needs of the one. Her legs buckled.

  Ruán.

  Already armed and cloaked, Maeve raced to the horse-lines beside the baggage carts. The guards on watch started forward, then saluted with their spears.

  She dug saddle and tack from the cart beside Meallán, fumbling as she untied him and threw his bridle over his head. “Go to the princess Finn and the lord Fraech,” she ordered the guards. She had to bite her tongue to steady herself. “Tell them I am safe, but had to go to someone who needs me. I will rejoin the war-band as soon as I can.”

  Climbing a dead stump, she leaped to Meallán’s back. He shied, and Maeve had to fight to hold him, wheeling him about. “Do you understand?” she demanded.

  The young warriors nodded, wide-eyed. “Aye, lady.”

  Maeve had to pick her way along a stream heading west, the trees blocking the moonlight. Once on the cart-road the war-band had followed, however, the light spilled over the track, making night as day, and she let Meallán break into a canter.

  Panic was making it hard to think; that sense of wrongness was suffocating. She pulled Meallán up at the edge of a marsh. Panting, Maeve cradled her belly and sent her awareness inside. The child’s spirit was a stronger flame now, pulsing in time with her blood. Reach for him, she cried to it, willing herself to surrender into the same sensation she experienced by the stream that dawn a few days before.

  The threads of her own soul wove through the glimmering waters and radiant air of Erin, the sparks of living things.

  The tiny life inside her flared, and Maeve caught a glimpse of her land as if she hovered above it. It was a vast cloth of many colors, the courses of the rivers marked out in silver filaments. A place at the core of that bright web was torn to her, all the light quenched. A dark rent.

  Her eyes flew open.

  Ruán, by a river …? The great watercourse that spilled through the Connacht lakes on its way to the sea.

  Sinand. A river guarded by the sídhe.

  Delirious now, Ruán struck out at the dogs that must be gnawing his leg. His fingers swung through empty air.

  He collapsed on his side, flickering back into consciousness for a moment. He was burning up, slick with sweat. His tongue stuck to his mouth. Something dripped down his face and he licked it, but it was only salt.

  I failed … blind again …

  He curled fingers under his chin, trying to burrow away from the pain. An otter … Maeve. Before the agony drew him back to his body, he felt her lift from despair. He remembered a glow inside her, and his wonder at its warmth. That must be the flame of her spirit. She would save people with it now. He didn’t fail.

  So it was done. The rush of power had consumed what was left of him. The river would take him into the ocean and the arms of the Mother Goddess. He thought he heard Her whisper at last in the burbling of the water through the reeds.

  Come to me …

  Ruán startled awake again. Beads of sweat ran into his mouth. “Where are you?” he slurred. The sídhe had always been with him when he was in pain. He just had to sleep, that was all, and then he would dream of them again.

  A druid chant rose to his tongue. His death-song.

  The sky take me … the earth cradle me … the waters welcome me.

  CHAPTER 40

  The world had become only shadow and light.

  Even in the day, Erin remained dark to Maeve now, etched with silver only where Source ran through the creatures, trees, and water. She withdrew from her body’s sight until there was nothing but the streaming of that Other sense.

  She met the banks of the River Sinand after two sleepless days and two nights of travel. Another day came, bleak and gray, a nightmare of gathering darkness in her heart.

  On the crest of a hill, Maeve pulled up her weary stallion. She was driving Meallán onward with a frantic mind, as if her fear could thrust the veils apart. But when she succumbed to panic, she lost the trail of bright threads. Where along Sinand’s course was he?

  The an
swer came unbidden. Ruán was of the wild, caught between Thisworld and the Other. So was their child, restless inside her. Animals also sensed the song of the sídhe through the veils.

  Meallán. Trust the wild itself. Trust the sídhe. She had to finally let go.

  Maeve closed her eyes and exhaled. She dropped her reins, holding out her arms to the wind. Meallán stood for a moment, used to her directing him, his ears twitching back toward her.

  Show me. Maeve drew an image of Ruán in her heart: his face, his voice. She pictured him standing at Meallán’s head, murmuring.

  Meallán’s ears pricked forward again, and with a snort he began to walk. Maeve grabbed his mane and clung on, her legs loose across his back, her belly warm against his flank.

  At daybreak Maeve knew she was close. At last, along a hidden bend in the river, she threw herself from Meallán’s saddle. She landed hard, jarring herself back into her body.

  Her eyes were drawn to what looked like a fallen tree washed up on the banks, its bark bleached white. Ruán.

  Heedless of her own safety, she skidded down the riverbank through a fringe of mossy alder trees, stumbling over stumps embedded in the wet earth and reeds. Below, Ruán’s stillness was unearthly, his arms flung wide, his hair encrusted with mud.

  Maeve fell to her knees at his side, and at first could not even unclench her fists to touch him. She glanced up. A place on the bank above had given way, and he had brought down a slip of soil and sticks. There were furrows all around him in the mud, delved by his hands. A sliver of bone on his thigh showed through torn trews. By its smell, that wound had turned.

  Bending over, Maeve could see no movement in his chest. “No.” It was a growl. She grabbed his wrist. His filthy skin burned, but there was a slight flutter of a pulse, hard to feel amid the storm of her own heart.

  Maeve filled her flask from the river, though when she prized his chapped lips open, most of it ran back out. “Ruán.” For the first time ever, she dragged up his blindfold, exposing his ruined eyes. His eyelids had fused over sunken wounds, the hollows knotted and red. She smoothed his temples, gripped by a senseless instinct to kill the person who had harmed him, to throw herself over and protect him with her body, though it happened long ago.

  All of him, at last. Beautiful to her.

  Maeve gazed down, cursing her helplessness. She could do little to heal his leg wound, for she did not know how. A breath leaked from Ruán’s lips, as something ebbed from him.

  Maeve clutched him and breathed her own life into his mouth. “Ruán, you will wake now and you will live.” She thumped his chest. “Wake now! You will wake now …” Her voice cracked and she could not go on.

  His skin was pale beneath the dried mud, his lips bloodless.

  Maeve bowed her chin to her chest. She could see nothing now, tears blurring his face as if he was already receding from her. She caught that thought in her breast. No. She wiped her wet face. There must be a way to force her own strength into him.

  She got beneath Ruán, her legs on either side as she rested him against her, clasping his matted head to her breast. She kissed his brow. “I am here now, mo chroí.” My heart. Why did she not say it when he could hear her? “All that you told me, I felt. I saw the light of the sídhe. I made peace with the Ulaid.” She rocked him. “There is a baby, a stór. Come back for the child, Ru … for me …”

  Her words slid into a senseless crooning. She gazed at the sunlight on the river, the ripples sending up splashes of light. Help me. Maeve ground it through numb lips, pleading at last with the sídhe.

  She sought in her heart for everything she knew. When the otter came, and when she fought Cúchulainn, she had melted the boundaries of her body into the water, releasing her spirit.

  Her hands shaking, Maeve got on her knees and eased Ruán over the mud another hand-span into the shallows. There she lay back down, cradling him.

  Seek the goddess of life, the Great Mother, in a river.

  Become a river …

  She let herself sink into the mud beneath them, her head tangled in reeds. The water closed over Ruán except for his face, cooling his fever.

  Maeve sank. The river murmured.

  She brushed Ruán’s scarred eyes, and it came to her that nothing mattered, not beauty nor ugliness. We wear mantles of flesh, but they are not what we are … We are light …

  Maeve breathed out along Ruán’s cheek. And because there was nothing left to give but her love—because at last her whole being was bent upon him—she slipped from her shell and there was no struggle at all.

  The cold of the river faded. Maeve lost all sense of her body, and drifted toward a veil of brightness. A moment of terror came, for that unknown.

  But he was there somewhere, and she needed him.

  Maeve stood naked and waist-deep in a broad river—swifter and darker than the real Sinand on whose bank her body lay. The deep green water curled about her, sinuous and alive, tugging at her flesh and slapping white-edged waves over nearby rocks.

  She reached out her hands, and upwellings rose to the surface as if to meet her palms, gurgling with bubbles. Her hair streamed through the water like river-weed. Though she was spirit, she had clothed herself in a memory of her body, and her heart beat faster as her toes sank into silt and she felt it sloping away into unknown depths.

  Maeve looked down. Her skin was not cold anymore. It glowed from within, and the same luminescence was coming from all around her, flowing from the water and radiating from the air. The trees on the riverbanks were spires of silver.

  That wash of light seemed endless … timeless. It made her thoughts slip away. She began to forget. Why was she here …? She was the river itself; she would stream away now and be Maeve no more. She took a step, fingers out. The curls of water reached back, beckoning her in.

  A movement caught her attention, and she lifted her head.

  Someone stood on the opposite bank, a naked child of almost three years old. His hair was as russet as a stag’s coat, and his eyes looked straight into hers. They were Maeve’s own, dark blue and intense for one so young.

  They held the solemnity of an older soul. Her babe to come. Then his eyes filled with an urgency that rooted her there, and he raised his arm and pointed upstream.

  Maeve turned.

  Drifting down the middle of the river came a long narrow boat with a curved prow. The rails were carved into curling wave-crests, the prow painted with spirals. Two maidens clad in deerskins paddled the boat. They were small, with feathers wound through their dark hair, but their heads were proud and limbs graceful as they drew the boat through the water with a flowing rhythm.

  The maidens showed no recognition of Maeve, paid her no attention.

  Maeve peered into the boat, and a shock of ripples passed through the water from her flesh.

  Ruán lay at rest on a bier, his hands folded over his breast. His hair was tangled on bracken, the red twining with green fronds. His face was unmarked, his eyes whole but closed as if in a peaceful sleep. It was not his body slipping away, then, but—

  “Stop!” Maeve tried to reach out, but her foot slid on the riverbed and she nearly plunged in before scrabbling upright.

  The Otherworld maidens appeared not to hear, the wind drawing back their unbound hair. Downstream they headed, toward the ocean, into the arms of the goddess waiting to claim him.

  A darker surge filled Maeve. I will not allow it.

  Without hesitating, she launched herself into the depths, flailing toward the boat. The water choked her as it closed over her face, but she would not let that vessel pass. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed the child, leaping along the riverbank to keep up with her as she swam closer to the boat.

  With the last of her strength, Maeve caught its side. Her feet found purchase on a sandbank and she dragged on the prow. Ruán lay there just out of reach.

  Still the maidens paid her no mind, their faces turned away. Maeve struggled to her feet in the shallows, the water
streaming from her. She blinked as she held the vessel against the current, gasping, “He is not for you yet—let him go.”

  There was no flicker of acknowledgment that she existed from the sídhe, though they did stop paddling, as if waiting for something.

  Maeve gripped the rail and leaned over it. “He was coming to help me, to find peace for Erin. He did this for the people—he deserves life!” She glanced at Ruán. His skin was bright now, his lips no longer cracked, but full and blush-red. “I … need him. I give myself to him, and him alone … I will never fail him again, never …” It poured from her in broken gulps, and she could not stop that torrent. “We deserve this life!”

  Only then did the sídhe maiden at the prow turn her graceful head. Maeve gazed into her eyes and it was like plunging through a night sky. They were dark and full of stars, opening onto worlds vast and deep.

  Maeve lost her footing on the riverbed, clutching the side of the boat. Terror swept her, that if she did not remember who she was she might fall into that glory and be consumed. With every scrap of strength she possessed, she held that starry gaze with her own. Her courage would not fail now—not for him.

  The sídhe-maiden smiled. “So, battle queen. Have you come to bargain with us at last?”

  Maeve’s speech failed her.

  “Here we are.” Despite her merry smile, the maiden’s voice welled up from immense depths. She waved at the sleeping Ruán. “But if we do restore to you a life together, what will you do with it?”

  Maeve swallowed, licking her dry lips. “Anything you want me to. What is your bargain?”

  The maiden at the stern dipped her paddle in, and the river current died and it became still as a pool, the boat rocking from side to side. The veils of light hung in the breathless air.

  The sídhe-maiden at the prow rested her dripping oar between Maeve and Ruán. “So you still think us tricksters, always trying to trap you? That game would have palled many ages ago!” A rippling laugh. The sídhe swished her hand through the glowing air as one would water, watching it swirl into spirals.