Chapter Two #3
I didn’t understand why King Callum would have taken a mortal woman to live with him in the first place and then been so careless as to sire a child on her.
But then members of the Gorias tribe of the Sidhe Faeries were known to be rash and even foolhardy.
I’d heard that he had thought he’d be able to have many more children later on during his long, mostly immortal life.
Legitimate ones, with a more suitable mate, but it was not to be.
He’d had three subsequent wives, none of whom had given him a child, and his last wife had died trying to have his seventh attempt at one.
None of his children had lived more than a few hours past birth.
He said he often wondered if the mortal woman, who had called herself an enchantress, had cursed him in some way.
To lay such a curse, however, would mean she wasn’t completely mortal at all.
The specter of demon blood raised again in my mind.
Demons could be inhumanly beautiful, even more so than my own people, as Callum’s woman was said to have been.
She also often appeared to be unhinged with her wild and unpredictable behavior. As demons were said to be.
This woman—this Braden Wanderer’s mother—had thrown herself into a river after she returned to the mortal world, and it was said that she was “moonstruck.” If I decided to go through with this plan of King Callum’s, I’d have to be wary of the boy and watch him carefully for signs of demonic behavior and his mother’s madness.
Demons were common enough in Otherworld. Often their inhuman beauty allowed them to blend in with the Faeries and pass among us unnoticed. There were whole tribes of ogres living in Otherworld, and vampires were often seen as well. As long as they kept their distance, we allowed it.
Callum, king of the Gorias tribe, had been grievously wounded in an attempted coup two weeks ago. When the healers had admitted there was nothing more they could do for him, and he faced a long and lingering death, the king had asked me to come and see him, saying he had a proposition for me.
I went primarily out of curiosity to see what he had to say.
We were both kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann, meaning tribes or people of the Aos Sídhe.
The term was used to refer to the tribes that were the last to invade before they were driven away by the Milisians, an indigenous people of Ireland, and retreated into the Hollow Hills.
They had burned their ships once they reached the district of Corcu Belgatan (near Connemara), so that they should not think of retreating to them.
The smoke and the mist that came from the vessels filled the neighboring land and air, and therefore, it was conceived by the locals that the Aos Sídhe people, as we were called, had arrived in clouds of mist.
With their combined magic, the Aos Sídhe established four cities, entirely separate from each other inside Otherworld.
Murias, Finias, Gorias, and Falias were their names and they battled other indigenous inhabitants for dominion over the land for many years.
When they were finally victorious, the tribes each established their own separate sovereign kingdom, and each of them had their own king.
I was a descendant of the first king of the Murias tribe, an unbroken line down the intervening last three centuries.
King Callum could say the same with his own Gorias kingdom, and it turned out that now, in his final, dying days, he had an interesting proposition for me.
He had only a short time left to live, and he looked it.
His face was gaunt and pale, and the blood had soaked through his bandages and was oozing down the back of his neck in thin lines.
I fancied that I could see the bones of his skull inside his head through his pale skin.
I’d heard that his attackers had cracked that skull like an egg.
“I’ve been destroyed by the bastards, and I won’t get over this, no matter how much magic the healers apply. Yet I have no wish for the murdering gobshites who did this to me to prosper and take over the governing of my people.”
“Do you think it was the Finians or the Falians who did this to you, then? Which one of the tribes? Because I can assure you it was not the Murians.”
“It was both of the diabhal bastards,” he shouted, “The Finians and the Falians were working together!” Red flecks of blood flew from his lips and splattered the white sheet tucked below his chin.
“I intend to make sure they never prosper from it. I have no legitimate child to pass my kingdom on to, so in order to keep my bloodline on the Gorian throne, it will have to be the only child of my poor moonstruck enchantress, Niamh. I kept her with me once for over a year and the child is mine. I have no doubt of that. I’ve had my men track my illegitimate son to where he is now in the mortal world.
He lives and works in a place called Jorvik in the mortal kingdom of Northumbria, on a street called Shambles.
At least he was there three days ago. You must find him for me. ”
“What is it you want me to do about it? No one with mortal blood would ever be accepted by the people.”
“I want you to fetch him anyway!” he shouted, making the veins pop out on his forehead.
He reached out a shaking hand to me, so what could I do but take it?
His skin was clammy and cold, more than half-dead already.
“Do this for me, Fionn. Bring him here to his home and then make him your royal consort. If you will, I’ll give you my kingdom for it.
My armies and all the gold and riches in my coffers.
Since he’s only half-Sidhe, he can’t sit on the throne by our ancient and established laws, but the old gods and my ancestors will be satisfied.
The people will like having him as their Royal Consort with you as their king.
At least my blood runs in his veins and the old gods will perhaps be appeased and look favorably on me when I meet them.
They can rest easy then and allow me to do the same.
If you’ll do this for me, you can claim Gorias for your own and then with my armies and the gods’ help seize the other two—Finias and Falias.
You’re the only true warrior-king left anyway.
It’s up to you to make this right for Otherworld and our descendants. ”
I wasn’t fooled by all his talk of the old gods resting easy and being satisfied. The old gods were capricious at best and not inclined to do much that we Faeries asked of them. Or anyone else for that matter.
(Reader, this was the time of the old gods in Otherworld, though they’re long since gone now.
Maybe they left us or maybe they’re sleeping.
No one knows. Most of Britain at that time had moved on, but not the Fae.
They had adopted the old ways and the old religion while they were fighting the indigenous people here and had more or less kept up the tradition.
The Viking descendants and most locals of Jorvik now worshipped Haelend Crist, but in the old Romano-Briton religion, circa the first century, their beliefs didn’t have a specific, formal name like modern ones do, necessarily.
Historians later described it using terms like Romano-Briton polytheism or paganism.
In other words, a mixture of the old Roman gods, along with others—like Mithras, Sulis, Cocidus and many more.
It was a simpler time in a way, and the gods were less jealous.)
As for King Callum, he was a bitter, angry man, having been cheated out of a long life by avarice and treachery and wishing nothing but utter disaster on those he considered his enemies.
He was not called Callum the Vengeful for nothing, after all.
The only reason I was still here listening and agreeing with him was that the idea of becoming High King over all the others was appealing to me.
It had been the dream of my grandfathers’ once, and one I could fulfill in my lifetime. It was an intriguing idea.
Callum suddenly began to cough so strongly that the whole bed shook beneath him, and the healers hurried over to tend to him and asked me solicitously if I would mind leaving so they could bleed him again.
Since the procedure was nothing I wanted to stay around to see, I left, telling Callum I would do what I could for him and send word.
I had given him no outright promise that I’d do this thing—marry some unknown, half-mortal boy.
I’d merely said I’d see, but truthfully, I didn’t know of any reason not to.
Love was nothing I’d ever seen or experienced, so what did I know of it?
Indeed, what did I care? If I were to make this boy my consort, I could take over the throne of Gorias and realize my father and grandfather’s ambitions to become the king of all the Aos Sídhe.
At least I’d be one step closer. I decided then that I would at least go and take a look at this halfling child of Callum’s mortal witch and then make a decision.
Perhaps if he wasn’t too annoying, I’d bring him back to Otherworld with me and see about marrying him. Eventually.
After all, Gorias was a vast and wealthy kingdom. And I had my own prejudices against at least one of the kingdoms, the kingdom of Finias, the birthplace of my father’s second wife.
Since my own poor father had been killed two weeks before Samhain almost a year ago, in a skirmish with the ogres near our border, there had been some rumors of at least one pretender threatening my rightful claim to the throne of Murias.