“Are we free to offer our service where we wish?” Hafwyn asked, her head raised just enough to look up at the queen.
“Yes, but if you wish to go to the princess’s service my order stands. To serve her, you must truly serve her in the way that the guard has always served my blood and my house.”
It was Biddy who said, “Prince Essus did not force us to serve him and only him.”
Andais looked at her, and shook her head, then looked at me. “What would you do with your guards if I allowed it?”
“I would free the women of the celibacy since, as you pointed out, they cannot get me pregnant. After I am with child and know who the father of my child would be, I would free the men from their celibacy, as well.”
“And if you never get with child?”
“Then I would keep those I preferred in my bed, and let the others find lovers. A half-dozen men, give or take a few, is enough for me, I think.”
“And what if I said that any you did not keep must come back to me?”
“You told me once that you made the celibacy rule because you wanted their seed for yourself, but if you cannot be pregnant, then why not let them see if there are other women in the court they could get with child?”
“So fair, so evenhanded, so like Essus.” She gave us her back and began to walk toward her throne. “Take the guards you have around you and go. And know this, your ill truths will make our traitors’ punishments all the more fulsome. For my anger will need flesh and blood to be stilled.”
To that there was only one thing to say. “I will go and do as you have bid, Aunt Andais.” I bowed to her back, and we got Hafwyn to her feet and left. I did not need anyone’s urging to know that I had pushed her about as far as she’d be pushed this night. We left her caressing Kieran. The last sound we heard before the doors closed behind us was Madenn’s scream. I started to look back but Frost and Galen had too firm a grip on my arms. There would be no more looking back tonight.
CHAPTER 26
THERE WAS A STORM OF BUTTERFLIES OUTSIDE THE DOOR TO MY room, as if someone had broken a kaleidoscope and thrown the colors into the air, and those colors had stayed, floating, whirling. For a moment I didn’t see the tiny hands and feet, the gauzy dresses and loincloths. I saw only what their glamour tried to show me. A cloud of insects, rising like beauty itself into the air. I had to blink hard and concentrate to see them for what they truly were. Galen pulled back against my hand, stopping all of us just short of that rainbow cloud.
Galen’s reaction made me remember another time when I’d seen such a cloud of the demi-fey. Galen had been chained to the rock outside the throne room. His body was almost lost to sight under the slowly fanning wings of the demi-fey. They looked like butterflies on the edge of a puddle, sipping liquid, wings moving slowly to the rhythm of their feeding. But they weren’t sipping water, they were drinking his blood. Galen had shrieked long and loud, his body arching against the chains. The movement dislodged some of the demi-fey, and I glimpsed why he was screaming. His groin was a bloody mess. They were taking flesh as well as blood.
Galen’s hand tightened painfully around mine. I looked up at him now, and found his eyes a little too wide, his lips half-parted. I knew now why Cel had bargained with the demi-fey to try to ruin Galen’s manhood. At the time it had simply seemed like another of his cruelties.
The kaleidoscope of butterflies and moths parted curtain-like, and Queen Niceven hovered in midair on large pale wings like some ghostly luna moth. Her dress sparkled silver; the diamonds in her crown were so bright in the light that the dazzle of it obscured her narrow features. I knew what she looked like because I’d seen her thin, near skeletal beauty before. Though only the size of a Barbie doll, she was thin enough for Hollywood. Looking at her all asparkle and pale white, I understood why people had thought the fey were spirits of the dead or angels. She looked like both and neither. Too solid to be a ghost, too insect-like to be an angel.
If Galen hadn’t been clinging to my hand I would have moved forward to speak with her, one royal to another, but I couldn’t ask him to go closer to that pretty, bloodthirsty cloud. Doyle saw my dilemma, and went forward, to bow before her. “Queen Niceven, to what do we owe this honor?”
“Pretty words, Darkness,” she said, and her voice was like evil, tinkling bells, “but a little late, don’t you think?”
“A little late for what, Queen Niceven?” he asked in his polite, empty court voice. The voice that he used when he didn’t know what political storm he had fallen into.
“For courtesy, Darkness, for courtesy.” She flew a little higher so she could see me better over Doyle’s tall form. “Now I am not even good enough for the princess to address me directly.”
I called to her, as Galen’s hand convulsed around mine. “You know full well why Galen doesn’t want to come closer to you and your kin.”
“And are you attached to your green knight? Are you one with him in flesh, so that you cannot come closer without him coming, as well?” She’d moved her head to one side, and I could see her pale eyes now. She wasn’t even trying to hide how angry she was. I’d seen her crown a thousand times, and never seen the jewels catch the light so brilliantly. Only then did I realize that the light in the hallway was brighter than normal, closer to the brightness of electric lights.
“See, she pays no attention to us. The roof of the hall holds more interest for her than my court.”
I blinked and looked back to the flying queen. “My apologies, Queen Niceven, the brilliance of your crown quite dazzled me. I have seen your beauty many times, but it has never been so eye-catching as tonight. It made me realize that the light in this hallway is finally bright enough to do you and your finery the justice it deserves.”
“Pretty words, Princess Meredith, but empty ones. Flattery will not wipe away the insult you have laid against me and my court.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. Was I so tired that I had forgotten something important? For I was tired, an aching tiredness that comes after being up too long, or after too many things happen in too short a space of time. I had no idea what time it was. There were no clocks in faerie. Once it had been because time moved differently here than outside. Now there were no clocks allowed because they would work. Just another reminder that faerie wasn’t what it used to be.
“What insult has been done to your court?” Doyle asked.
“No, Darkness, she did the insulting, let her do the asking.” Her wings looked like some great moth, but they did not move like moth wings, not when she was angry. They blurred and buzzed as she flew past Doyle to hover in front of me.
Galen pulled back so hard, I stumbled against him. He caught me automatically, but that put him closer to the tiny hovering fey. He seemed to freeze against me, his arms pinning mine.
Niceven hissed, flashing tiny needle-like teeth, and darted in. I think she only meant to land on my shoulder, but Frost put his arm in her way. He didn’t try to hit her, but her guard reacted, flying toward their queen. They descended on us like a swirl of rainbow leaves, with tiny pinching hands, and sharp biting teeth.
Galen yelled and threw up a hand, turning so that he used his own body as a shield against them. He started to run, but he tripped and fell, landing on the ground with me underneath him. He caught himself with one arm so that I didn’t take his full weight. My face ended up buried in the rich green smell of crushed leaves. I opened my eyes and found myself nearly buried in greenery. I thought for a moment that Galen and I had been transported, but my fingers found the bareness of the hallway stone underneath. I looked at the far wall, and saw the other guards still standing around us. Plants had sprung from the naked rock.