The boy’s attention returned to her, and for the first time Deven noticed what he should have seen from the start: that Antony Ware met Lune’s gaze without flinching. Her eyes might have been two new-minted shillings, a pure silver never seen among humans, and most mortals found their shine disconcerting. If Ware shared that apprehension, he showed no sign of it.
Instead he asked, “And the price for this?”
“None,” Deven said, knowing no sensible human would believe it from a faerie. “Nor any consequence to you afterward. Think of it as paint, such as an actor wears upon the stage. Once washed off, it is gone forevermore.”
Ware’s body had tensed again, as when first he confronted Deven, with his hands curled tight into fists. But this time, the cause was not anger: he stood as a man at a precipice, nerving himself for the leap.
“Do it, then,” Antony Ware said. “For my brother.”
The Onyx Hall, London: 29 July, 1623
Henry’s laughter bubbled out of him, his cards momentarily forgotten. “You cannot be serious. Immortal creatures, the very air they breathe the stuff of enchantment—and they care what drunkard James and his ministers do?”
“Not all,” Deven said, gesturing for his friend to continue the game. “But her Majesty, yes, and many of those she keeps about her. Less for the King and his ministers in their own persons; I think what personal loyalty Lune felt died with Elizabeth.” For a myriad of reasons, he suspected, ranging from the kinship of one Queen for another, to the simple fact that Elizabeth had been English. “They shape the fate of England, though, and for that she cares a great deal.”
“But she does not live in England,” Henry pointed out. He made a careless discard, then sank back into his chair. “She has her own realm. And you yourself speak of worlds, this one separate from ours.”
He was not entirely wrong. They sat in one of the Onyx Hall’s smaller gardens, surrounded by a careful pattern of tulips, ordinary flowers alternating with stranger breeds from other faerie realms. The mortal flowers, lovely as they were, sat motionless; the faerie blooms gently flexed their petals in the still air. They did not hail from the same soil, and it showed.
Deven said, “Not separate. The fae have more distant realms, to which that word might be applied; when a story or song tells of a man riding to Elfland or a mariner coming upon a strange island in the sea, that is Faerie itself. But the hollow hills, and the hidden glens, and this palace here—those stand adjacent to our own land. The Onyx Hall is part of England; ’tis London’s shadow. And that has a certain consequence. The roots of Lune’s sovereignty lie in this place, but I have often suspected that even her ordinary subjects feel a similar bond. They rarely travel, you know.”
“But they have ambassadors, you tell me.”
Deven smiled. “I said rarely, not never. It may well be that those fae who crave a change of place volunteer themselves for such tasks; I have never asked. And, of course, those who dwell in this court once came here from somewhere else.”
Henry grinned as he pondered Deven’s most recent move. “Like rural knights, coming to London for Parliament, but always pining for their country homes.”
“Worse,” Deven said, feelingly. “We humans are nothing on the fae for such attachment.” Strangers had arrived in the years following Lune’s accession, curious about her new ways; thirty years on, many of them still spoke as if they were only visiting. Once converted, though, they were steadfast.
“So they care what happens to England because they’re connected to it?”
Also because it gives them a game to play—one that endlessly changes. “They helped thwart the Armada, back in Elizabeth’s day,” Deven said, studying his cards. “And the Duke of Buckingham is not the only one providing James and his ministers with reports on the situation in Spain, these endless negotiations over Prince Charles’ wife.”
Henry made a sound of disgust. “Buckingham. He will sink those negotiations, right when they should have been concluded.”
It was the popular opinion, but also uninformed. “Spain has no intention of concluding anything—not until the Second Coming or Charles’ conversion to papistry, and I know which one they hope to see first. Buckingham is the Prince’s steadfast shield against the seductive arguments of the priests. And Spain, in the meantime, is doing its best to ignore the question of the war in the Palatinate, and James’ pleas for aid to help the Elector regain his throne there.”
Henry’s eyes widened, and for a second time the cards were entirely forgotten. “But without Spain’s aid, what do we gain from taking a Catholic viper to our bosom?”
“Very little,” Deven admitted. He laid down his cards and reached for the wine. “If this marriage collapses, we may be the better for it—save that Charles is twenty-two and yet unmarried, with his father ailing, and the succession not secured beyond that single heir.” Dangerous words; in the world above, to speak of the King’s death—even as a possibility—could be accounted treason. But Deven had not steered the conversation in this direction out of mere idleness.
Valentin Aspell had a mortal client in the Onyx Hall, the bastard son of a baron. Lady Carline had her own candidate. And they were not the only ones putting men in Lune’s path. But in two and a half years of searching, Deven had not found anyone he favoured more to succeed him than Henry Ware.
The young man wasn’t perfect. Henry was politically naïve; he took most of his opinions from the likes of Robert Penshaw, who was more than happy to influence an impressionable mind. Lune depended upon Deven—upon the Prince of the Stone—to keep her informed of the mortal court and its doings, and that required a mind that would not be swayed by every eloquent gentleman who opened his mouth.
But Henry had his own merits. He had a good place at court, and—thanks to his father’s wealth and connections—every chance to rise higher. He also made friends easily, both here and in Westminster, which laid solid foundations for alliance.
And Lune enjoyed his company.
That last consideration, perhaps more than any other, persuaded Deven. If I must contemplate surrendering my place to another, I would rather it not be the cut-throat protégés the others put forward. He could trust Henry to have a care, not just for England, but for Lune’s happiness.
The politics could be learned. That could not.
Now Deven was the one neglecting his cards and the ongoing game. “If her Grace would help England,” Henry said, apparently oblivious to his distraction, “then she should contrive Buckingham’s downfall. He is corrupt beyond the telling of it. And who can say what he has been whispering in Charles’ ear while they gambol about Europe?”
“Lune can,” Deven answered him, grinning. “Her knight Sir Adenant is among their train.”
Henry’s eyes widened. “A faerie knight—riding with the heir to England’s crown?”
“Not that any among them know. ’Tis a risk,” Deven acknowledged. “Lune sent him with a goodly supply of bread, but Charles and Buckingham have been in Spain long months now—far more than anticipated. Adenant has been forced to negotiate with the Spanish fae for protection, at no little cost to this court. But Charles is, as you say, the heir. If he insists on being mad enough to put himself into Spain’s hands, she must do what she can to protect him.”