Author's Note: This was originally written for Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels) in the Yuletide 2012 fanfiction challenge.
ALL PRAISE BE to ivy, who beta-read this at the very last possible minute.
Above all remember this: that magic belongs as much to the heart as to the head and everything which is done, should be done from love or joy or righteous anger.
- The Book of the Lady Catherine of Winchester
Catherine of Winchester was accustomed to many flavors of strangeness, but still, she was not well pleased when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a cloaked figure carrying a large bundle step through the large magician's mirror she kept in her study.
She had just come back from a long and wearying conversation with a hive of bees, for she needed a very particular sort of honey for a very particular spell she was planning, and she was not in the mood for unexpected visitors today. And so when she turned around, she expected to tell whoever it was that they could go straight back to where they came from or she would go out and have another, very different conversation with the bees - one about the evils of idiots who intruded upon a lady's study. Or, she supposed, she could just have Godwin throw them out, but threats of bees were much more satisfying.
Her visitor cleared his throat, evidently not realizing she had seen him arrive, but when she turned and saw him, and the bundle he was carrying, her words left her. "Oh," she said.
For there before her was Thomas of Dundale, looking soaked and scorched and very sorry indeed, and in his arms was the body of William of Lanchester, a dagger in his chest.
"Catherine," he said, laying William's body down as gently as he could, as if he did not want to disturb William's slumber. "Thank all the saints it is you."
"What happened to you?" she demanded. She had not seen either of them for at least three years, not since they had quarreled with the King.
"William - he - he's dead," said Thomas.
"I can see that, thank you," she said crossly. She looked over the corpse, which was cold and stiff already. "What happened?" she asked.
"They lay in wait for us, they must have," said Thomas. His voice was rough, and as soon as he spoke, he began to cough. "The demon Alrinach, it must have been her - there was a great fire, and we had to escape, so we went into Faerie - and there were three fairy soldiers, and - and - they must have waited for us three years or more, to go into Faerie. You must warn the King," he said, his voice shaking. "You must warn him not to set foot into the other realms - him and his allies - we are marked for death."
"Thomas," said Catherine, "the king has been in Faerie many times since you last parted. He is quite well. We are all quite well. We come and go as we like."
They looked down at William's stiff and silent corpse in silence for a moment. Then Thomas said, "They told us, when they killed him, that the King was to blame for this - that if we had not allied ourselves with him -" His expression grew angry. "Then it is his fault! William has died for him, and he no longer even counts us as allies."
Catherine frowned. "I do not think John would have wanted this. He always hoped you would return, I think, though he never said it so plainly. He loves you two so dearly. I will send him a message in the rain; he will want to know that his seneschal has died."
Henry Barbatus was a handsome man while he lived, and Thomas of Dundale knew it. "Should I be jealous?" William whispered to him after he'd shown Bararatus a particularly delightful trick of magic that made songbirds sing in three-part harmony.
"Should you?" Thomas asked, raising an eyebrow. "And if you are, how jealous shall I be? For I saw you peeking in while his squire dressed him for the last tourney, my love, and yet here you are, claiming I've the wandering eye." He grinned at William. "Besides, you saw my spell before he did, and helped me with it. I simply wanted to make him laugh. But his heart belongs to the miller's girl, I think, as does the rest of him. And as for my heart, there is only one man in it."
William himself laughed at this. "I fear you will be cross with me, Thomas, for there are two men in my own heart."
"Ah, but I know that one is the King," said Thomas, "and what sort of a magician would you be if you had no love for the Raven King?"
Catherine had no sooner sent the message than a cloud of ravens descended upon her study, and in another instant they were gone, leaving a dust of black feathers strewn across the floor, and a long-haired man in black. Though Catherine had been a girl of twelve when she'd first met the Black King, she was now fifty, and looked it. The King's face, however, had not aged a day. He looked from Catherine to Thomas to poor dead William, and knelt quickly to examine the corpse.
"Your Highness," said Thomas. He seemed quite shocked, and frightened. "Why -" he started. "Why have you let him die?" he demanded.
"I have not let him die," said the King. "He is simply dead. It is no fault of mine."
"It is!" snarled Thomas, his fear leaving him. "Three fairy soldiers lay in wait for us, when we slipped from London to Faerie, and the demon Alrinach-"
"The demon Alrinach?" demanded the King. "She should not have found you. She should be incapable of - oh."
"'Oh,'" said Thomas, mockingly. "The bane of the brilliant magician - 'oh.' Tell me, my mighty King, what have you forgotten? What have you done to kill William?"
"Oh," repeated the Raven King. He stood, without explanation. "I protected my allies. You were not among them then. I - it is my mistake to rectify. I will be back."
"William may have had patience for your sudden absences," started Thomas, "but I -" But the rest of his sentence was drowned out by a cacophony of cawing and the flapping of black wings.
"I wish he would stop doing that," Catherine said, once the birds were gone again. "It does leave the room in such a terrible state."
"John, think about this for a moment," said William. "Have a little human kindness. Catherine, can you not sway him?"
"I have tried, William," she said wearily. "But he does not listen to me anymore than he does to you."
Thomas, for his part, knew such entreaties would not work on the King, for he'd known the man in the brugh, and human kindness was no longer part of his character. He watched as the King's grave-diggers burrowed through the earth towards the corpse of their friend, and remembered how the pretty miller's daughter had wept at his grave three months prior.
"I am the Raven King," he said. "Such nonsense is beneath me. Besides, is it not fitting? Black magic for a Black King?"
"This is wrong," Thomas told him. "The magic will turn against you. For magic cannot go against nature."
"Your sentimentality is entertaining," said the King loftily, "but Barbatus plans treason, and I cannot ignore that on the word of two soft-hearted fools."
There was a thud, like the blade of a shovel hitting a coffin. "Sire!" said one of the gravediggers. "It's here."
"Very good," said the Raven King, and the gravediggers yelped as the casket floated out of the earth of its own accord.
Against her better judgment, Catherine had left Thomas alone with the corpse in her study. Her methods of travel were not quite as fast as her tutor's, and they were certainly less showy, but still, when she sought John Uskglass at his scrying-bowl, she knew somehow that he would be expecting her.
"I cannot make it work, Catherine," he told her. "There is something missing. There always was. The first time I tried it, there was. It was a great act of hubris."
Catherine had not the slightest idea what he was talking of, but she knew that self-pitying tone of voice. "You are the Raven King," she said. "Such nonsense is beneath you."
"Do not mock me!" he shouted, turning to glare at her, and the ground shook.
Catherine watched him impassively. His little tantrums had frightened her as a girl, but she knew that if he'd been expecting her, he had allowed her to come to him, and that he must want her advice. Even if, perhaps, he did not know it yet. "What exactly is it you are trying to do?" she asked.
"I need to bring him back," said the King. "He's William! What am I supposed to do without a seneschal?" He ran one hand through his wild hair.
"I believe, sire, that traditionally after one seneschal dies, the King can find a new one," said Catherine. "That is how we do it on this mortal plane, at least."
"I don't want a new seneschal," snapped the King. "Do you know, the people swear by Bird and Book? I am a mystical force to them, but William - he is reliable. He has always had a better understanding of these - these strange human things I cannot grasp. As you have, Catherine. I have many palaces in all my kingdoms, but I am, I fear, a man without a home. I have remade England in my own image, for otherwise I think I would - why, I think I would fall through it as though it was ice on a pond."
"Sire," said Catherine, gently, "it is the most human thing in the world, to wish to bring the dead to life. You are sad and angry."
"I cannot afford to be either," said the King. "I must always be right." He swept his scrying-bowl off the table with a dramatic gesture, though rather than fall to the floor, the water and bowl hung suspended in midair, for the King's convenience. "Why is this so difficult, when everything else comes easily?" he demanded.
"Have you seen fairies raise the dead?" Catherine asked.
"Of course not! A fairy death is cause for celebration in the brugh," said the King. "It means one less mouth to feed, one less rival for power. Catherine, I cannot do to William what I did to Barbatus, but I cannot let him stay dead. I must give him his life back truly, and not simply reanimate his corpse. What am I doing wrong?"
Three months was a long time for a corpse, and Henry Barbatus was beautiful no more. His eyes were gone and his face ravaged, but by some miracle his tongue remained, and the King put a glowing pearl of light into his mouth, and he awoke.
When he heard the voices of the King and William and Thomas and Catherine, he smiled a horrible corpselike smile, and it was awful, for he seemed to think he was alive again.
But when he spoke, they did not understand him - they knew it was some Infernal dialect. The King, though, understood perfectly, and he began to shout at the corpse and make grave and terrible threats, so poor dead Henry Barbatus betrayed his father, weeping with eyes that were no longer present, and when he had told them everything he knew, the King's gravediggers threw him into a fire and Thomas turned away, for the screaming would give him nightmares enough.
But William - dear William - had been braver. "I cannot be loyal to such a cruel man," he shouted. "For even the Raven King himself must obey the laws of God and nature, and you have shown no respect to either." And he stormed out, and Thomas, glad of an excuse to leave the dying dead man, followed him.
Hours, or perhaps days, or even weeks later - Catherine could not tell - she and the King stood over a dead rabbit, unhappily.
"Why does it never work?" demanded the King. "I have gone over all the formulas - you have gone over all the formulas! And seven of my fairy vassals have found no errors! Why should it not work?"
Catherine looked at him, and though the situation was grim, she could not help but smile. He was hollow-eyed and looked dreadfully ill, but he was at the most human-looking she'd ever seen him. And suddenly, the magic clicked. "John," she said, taking his hand, and using the only human name she'd ever known for him. "I know what it is. You are using only your head, but you must want this more than anything, I think - you must open your heart to it."
"Women's foolishness," he snorted. "You learned that from a hedge-witch, Catherine, not from me."
"I learned that from a madman," said Catherine, quietly, "and also from you. But the two are not so dissimilar, I think."
He laughed. "That is treason, Catherine, but I like you all the more for it. I must open my heart?"
"Yes," said Catherine. "Think on - think on William's nature. Think on what you loved about him, and what you despised."
"I don't want to deal with all that, Catherine," he said. "I have been very angry with him for three years!" He frowned to himself. "Come to think of it, why do I want him back? He was always a contrary sort of man."
Catherine smiled wryly. "It would seem you have wasted a great deal of time, then, to do something you never wanted to do."
"Ah, well, when you put it like that I suppose I had better make it worth my while," he grumbled. "Very well, then."
There was a sudden chaos of ravens, and they were back in Catherine's study. She realized, with a shock, that there had hardly been any time at all between her leaving and their arrival, for there was Thomas of Dundale, still cradling the corpse in his arms.
"Thomas," said the King. "Give him to me."
"Why?" he demanded.
"Because I need to forgive him," said the King. "It will be easier to do so when I can see the results of my own thoughtlessness."
Thomas, with great reluctance, moved away from the corpse, and the King eased the dagger out from between William's ribs. "William," he said, "I was wrong. I should have listened to you."
"And me!" said Thomas, a little insulted.
"Yes, Thomas, but you're not dead," said the King. "Obviously. William," he continued, addressing the corpse, "you are an infuriating idiot and I need you, I truly do. These past three years -" His voice broke, suddenly, and Catherine was as shocked as any of them to see that some of his words had hit him, finally. "These past three years, well - I have learned that I need you, William, as ridiculous as you are."
He took a small glowing pearl of light from his mouth, then, and placed it in William's, and the corpse shifted and shuddered and opened its eyes, and it was not a corpse - it was William of Lanchester, by Bird and Book.