"Why surprised, Darkness?" His voice didn't sound so much like joyous bells now.
"I did not know that Niceven could spare her favorite lover."
"No more that, Darkness, and well you know."
"I know that Niceven had child and husband by another, but I didn't think the demi-fey cared so very much for the niceties."
Sage flew a little higher, a touch closer. "You think because we are not sidhe that we do not know the law." The anger could have sounded impotent coming from that tiny chimelike voice, but it didn't. It was the sound of chimes when storm winds strike them, a frightening music.
"So," Doyle said, "no longer queen's lover. Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Sage?" I had never heard Doyle so chiding before. He was deliberately baiting Sage. I'd never seen Doyle do much of anything that didn't have a purpose to it, so I let it go. But it all had a personal feel to it. What could this minute man have done to the Queen's Darkness, to earn such personal attention?
"I have had the whole of our kingdom's women to please me, Darkness." He flew almost into Doyle's face. "And you, one of the queen's eunuchs, what have you been doing with yourself?"
"Look at what lies in the bed, Sage. Tell me that that is not such a bounty as man or fey would sell their soul for."
The fluttering man didn't even bother to turn around. "I did not know that you liked goblins, Doyle. I thought that was Rhys's peculiarity."
"You can be deliberately obtuse, Sage, but well you know the meaning of my words."
"Rumors are swift things, Darkness. They say that you guard the princess but do not share her bed. There has been much speculation as to why you would pass by such a bounty, when the others have partaken of it." The little man flew close enough that his wings almost brushed Doyle's face. "Rumor whispers that perhaps there was more than one reason Queen Andais never took you to her bed. Rumor would have you eunuch in truth and not merely in lack of use."
I couldn't see Doyle's face through the rapidly beating wings of the demi-fey. I realized that though his wings looked like butterfly wings, they beat much faster, and the physical motions weren't identical to the insect he mimicked.
"I give you my most solemn oath," Doyle said, "that I have taken the pleasure of Princess Meredith in the way that a man may take pleasure with a woman."
Sage hovered for a wing beat, then his entire body dipped as if he'd almost forgotten to fly for a second. He regained himself, fluttering up to meet Doyle's eyes again. "So, you are no longer the queen's eunuch, but now the princess's lover." The voice sounded low and evil, a tinny hiss. Whatever was happening was definitely personal.
"As you say, Sage, rumor runs rife, and rumor whispers that Niceven took a page from Andais's book. You were her favorite lover before her one-night tryst with Pol got her with child. When she was forbidden from your bed, you were forbidden from anyone else's. If she could not have her favorite, then no one would."
Sage hissed at him like an angry bee. "Much pleasure must you take in our two places being switched, Darkness."
"Whatever do you mean, Sage?" But Doyle's voice was low and held a note that said he knew exactly what the demi-fey meant.
"I taunted you and yours for centuries. The great sidhe warriors, the great ravens of old, reduced to court eunuchs, oh, yes, I taunted you all. I boasted of my prowess and my queen's delights, like an evil whisper in your ears."
Doyle just looked at him.
Sage flew a little distance from him, doing a circle in the air like one might pace on the ground. "Now what good does my prowess do me? What good is it to see her in all her beauty but be unable to touch her?" He turned back to Doyle. "Oh, I have thought long these many years, Darkness, on how I didst torment you. Do not think the irony of it is lost upon me, simply because I am not sidhe." He got very close to Doyle's face, and though I knew it was a whisper, the hiss of it filled the room. "Irony enough to choke upon, Darkness, irony enough to die of, irony enough to kill to rid myself of it."
"Then fade, Sage, fade and be done with it."
The little fey winged backwards. "Fade yourself, Darkness. Fade and be done with you. I am here at Queen Niceven's command to act as her surrogate. If you wish cure for the green knight, then you must deal with me." His voice was thick with menace.
Galen came to the still-open door from the living room. "I wish to be cured, but not at any price." His usual smile was gone, his face somber.
"Enough of this," I said, voice soft, not angry.
They all turned to me. I glimpsed the rest of the men, including Nicca, crowding just outside the doorway. "I bargained with Niceven, not Doyle. And I alone bargained for Galen's cure. The price for that cure was my blood."
Sage fluttered over the bed, not quite over Kitto and me. "One drink of your blue blood, one cure for your green knight, as my queen has bid me." His voice wasn't the ring of bells anymore. It was almost normal, small, thin, but a man's voice.
His dark eyes had become flat and black like the eyes of a doll. There was nothing particularly friendly on that pretty toy-size face.
I held up a hand, and he alit upon it. He was heavier than he looked, more solid. I remembered Niceven being lighter, more bone than muscle. She felt as cadaverous as she looked. Sage was. . meatier, or rather his slender body held more substance than Niceven's seemed to.
His wings went still, showing them as huge perfect butterfly wings. They fanned softly as he stared at me. I wondered if the wings beat in time to his heart.
His butter yellow hair was shaggy, thick, straight, falling in careless strands around his triangular face. The hair brushed his shoulders in places. There was a time when Andais would have punished him for letting his hair grow so long. Only the sidhe men were allowed to have hair long as a woman's. It was a mark of status, royalty, privilege.
His hands were no bigger than the fingernail on my smallest finger. He put one of those hands on his slender waist, the other hanging by his side, one foot in front of the other, a defiant pose.
"If we are given privacy, then I will take payment and give you the cure for your knight." He sounded petulant.
It made me smile, and the smile made his face fill with hatred. "I am not a child to be looked upon with indulgence, Princess. I am a man." He made a sweeping gesture with both hands. "A small one by your reckoning, but I am still male. I do not appreciate being looked upon as you would smile upon a naughty child."
It was almost exactly what I'd been thinking, that he looked cute standing there so defiant, so tiny. I had been treating him like a doll, or a toy, or a child.
"I apologize, Sage, you are correct. You are fey and you are male, size notwithstanding."
He frowned at me. "You are royal and you apologize to me?"
"I was taught that true royalty lies in knowing when one is wrong or right, and admitting the difference; not in false perfection."
He turned his head to one side, an almost birdlike movement. "I have heard from others that you deal fairly with all, like your father before you." His thin voice sounded thoughtful.
"It is good to hear my father spoken of still."
"We all remember Prince Essus."