The driver deposited him on the icy ground in front of the Angel Inn. After paying the man, Galen deposited his foot-warmer in the inn; then it was back out into the cold, ostensibly to do business with someone in town.
His path, however, took him away from the houses, to the back of the coaching inn, and the winter-dead rosebush that stood behind it.
Rubbing his hands together in a vain attempt to restore circulation, Galen said to the bush, “I don’t suppose a lost and freezing traveller could beg for a hot drink?”
The rosebush didn’t answer him. After a moment, though, the branches shifted and wove themselves into an ice-gilded arch, over steps that beckoned him inside.
The warmth of the chamber below enveloped him like a loving embrace. Galen let his breath out in a moan of pure pleasure. “Ladies, I would steal you for my father’s house if I could. Or, better yet, make my home here, and never leave.”
Galen’s fashionable friends would have dismissed this place as “rustic,” and so it was. Fashion had never touched the furnishings here. Bare wooden beams held up the ceiling, and the furniture was heavy oak, its primary decoration being the years of oil rubbed into its surfaces. The chairs were ridiculous things, their upholstery stuffed with far too much padding, but Galen doubted more comfortable seats existed in all of Britain. Flowers bloomed here and there, despite the cold above, and the smell was of all good things: fresh-baked bread, gentle woodsmoke, and the sweet honey of the sisters’ excellent mead.
The sisters themselves looked like a pair of poetic country housewives, rendered in three-foot miniature. At least until Gertrude Goodemeade advanced on him with the demeanour of an overwhelmingly friendly army sergeant. Then Galen laughed and fumbled with numb fingers at the neck of his cloak, surrendering it with a bow.
Her sister Rosamund, almost Gertrude’s twin save for the embroidery of their aprons, handed him a cup of mead once his gloves were gone. “Drink that up, Lord Galen, and come sit by the fire. You look frozen through.”
Dr. Andrews’s belief in the curative powers of coffee was nothing next to the sisters’ opinion of the mead they brewed. It warmed Galen down to his toes. These were, in his estimation, the two kindest fae in all of Britain. A pair of Border brownies, resident here in Islington for long enough they should have lost their northern accents, Gertrude and Rosamund Goodemeade called nearly everyone friend, and suited action to word.
While he drained the cup, Rosamund stoked the fire, and Gertrude fetched out the tea set. With her resolutely country mode of dress, it was comical to watch her go through the refined ritual of serving the tea, for all the world as if she were the Duchess of Portland, and drinking from porcelain bowls. He would not have laughed at her for all the world, though.
Because these two were his best support, better even than Cynthia, who could only advise him in one half of his life. Ever since his investiture as Prince, had had relied upon the sisters to teach him the many things about the Onyx Court he should and did not know. Galen hardly imagined the Prince of Wales ever turned to countrywomen for such things, but the Goodemeades were different. Beneath their cheery and provincial exteriors lurked two very alert minds indeed.
“Now,” Rosamund said when they were all supplied with tea, “what shall it be this month, Lord Galen?”
He’d been sitting on this question for nearly a week, awaiting his chance to ask it. “What can you tell me about that sprite from Berkshire, Dame Irrith?”
“Oh, we’ve known her since the end of the war,” Rosamund said. It took Galen a moment to realise which one she meant. Would he ever grow accustomed to their habit of referencing the previous century’s civil wars as if they were recent memory? They cared little for battles in foreign lands, but remembered those at home quite well. “She’s been by to see us once—”
“Twice,” Gertrude corrected her. “Oh, but you were in the city the second time; I’d forgotten.”
Galen frowned over the dark surface of the bohea in his tea bowl. “I… Dame Irrith found the Calendar Room. I convinced the Queen it would be better to admit the place’s existence than to punish her. But there seemed to be something between them, and I was hoping you knew what it was.”
That last was merely a bit of politeness; sometimes he wondered if there was anything in the Onyx Hall the Goodemeades didn’t know. Rosamund sighed unhappily. “Aye, we do. Old history, from your perspective, and not a piece we share with most people; it can lead in dangerous directions. But since it’s important to the safety of Lune’s throne, you should probably know.” Her brow furrowed. “Indeed, Lune should’ve told you. I wonder… well, no matter.”
She wondered why Lune hadn’t. There’d been no reason to, of course, before Irrith’s return. Since then—“I think her Grace is more concerned with the comet.”
Two curly heads nodded acceptance, if only for the sake of his pride. Rosamund said, “The nasty details of it are neither here nor there, but the heart of it is this: some troublemakers in the Onyx Hall almost tricked Irrith into telling them the location of the London Stone.”
Galen’s heart skipped a beat. The London Stone… it was easy enough to find, if one meant the ordinary lump of limestone that stood on the north side of Cannon Street. Nowadays it was more an obstruction to passersby than anything else, its history as the heart of London forgotten by most. In the Onyx Hall, however, its function as the site of oaths saw very specific use, every time a new Prince was crowned.
The Stone held both Galen’s sovereignty and Lune’s. Whatever oaths the chosen man swore, whatever rituals the Queen conducted, no one became Prince in truth until he laid his hand upon the faerie reflection of the London Stone. That was why it was hidden away, concealed from all eyes: if someone gained access to it, he could, in theory, try to take the Onyx Hall for himself.
Rosamund was nodding. “You don’t need me to tell you the danger. This was right after we had word of the comet’s return, and right after they passed that law making England and Scotland one kingdom, too. Which Lune’s enemies used against her. They—”
“Wait,” Galen said, startled. “The Act of Union? How could that be relevant?”
Gertrude made a huffy noise, and crossed her arms. “It got rid of the Kingdom of England, and you think it’s nothing?”
She wasn’t really angry; he’d never seen either of the brownies truly angry. She did seem offended, though. Still baffled, Galen said, “But the two lands have been ruled by the same monarch for over a hundred and fifty years. It hardly makes any difference, except in government.”
He regretted the words as soon as he spoke them. Galen never would have thought such friendly hazel eyes could blaze, but there Gertrude was, arms clamped down hard, lips pressed white, and child-size though she might be, there was nothing childish about her expression. This was real anger.
Rosamund laid a calming hand on her sister’s knee, for all the good it did. “Faeries are… provincial creatures, Lord Galen, even those that live in London. And Lune’s whole purpose—well, part of it, anyway—is to protect England. So how does it look if suddenly there’s no England anymore?”
Galen was still half-distracted by the seething Gertrude. He managed to catch himself, though, before he pointed out there was still an England; it was just part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, now. He also managed to catch the undoubtedly disastrous impulse to ask what they thought of Britain’s new German kings. Though had the Scottish Stuarts been any better, in their eyes?