THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: August 30, 1666
“Your Majesty,” Valentin Aspell said, “an ambassador has arrived, and begs a grant of safety while he delivers his message to you.”
Safety? Lune’s curiosity came alight. I can think of few who would need to remind me of the safe conduct owed an embassy. And Valentin looks like he’s swallowed a wasp. “An ambassador from where?”
The Lord Keeper bowed, as if afraid she would strike him for his answer. “From the Gyre-Carling in Fife.”
It startled her more than angered. Startled, and somewhat encouraged: since when did Nicneven send ambassadors? Unless this was some diversion, meant to distract from an attack elsewhere—but that was the sort of thing Vidar would have planned, and he was firmly out of the Unseely Queen’s reach. “Is the ambassador here? ”
Valentin shook his head. “He waits beyond the border of your realm, and sent a gruagach in his stead.”
Politeness, even—or perhaps just prudence. Either way, the surprises continued. “Grant him passage,” she said, “and have him meet me…” Where? The great presence chamber would be the best place to awe him, but that would also make it far more public than she wanted. “In the lesser presence chamber. Have it cleared; we shall speak in private. No sense giving rise to more rumors than we must.”
Bowing, Aspell began to retreat. “Also,” Lune said, before he could vanish out the door, “send word to Jack Ellin, requesting his attendance.” He needed more seasoning in politics, and she had every intention of forcing the Fife ambassador to acknowledge the Prince’s existence. Just because Nicneven had chosen civil conversation was no reason for Lune to back down from those things the Gyre-Carling most hated.
With the Lord Keeper gone, Lune flew to her preparations, summoning her ladies to help her change into a more formal gown and adorn her curls with a crown. Sun and Moon, I hope Aspell’s messenger tells Jack what is afoot, and the man has the sense to dress for it. Surely he had learned that much already.
She knew to a nicety the time it would take a traveler to reach the wall from any northern approach, and the distance to all the closest entrances. Lune might have insisted on meeting the ambassador above, but beginning with an insult would hardly be auspicious—and besides, there was little to gain in hiding the doors to her realm. Nicneven knew them all by now.
Examining her own thoughts, Lune found in them no small amount of fear. Attacks, she understood and anticipated; the Gyre-Carling was trying something new. She had no idea what to expect from this.
Jack was waiting for her in the chamber, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps someone had taken clothes to him, for he had changed with tremendous speed. “Do you recall what I told you of Nicneven?” she asked, settling into her chair of estate.
He recited the basic facts back to her in a crisp tone that concealed any nerves he might feel. The man’s memory was well trained; he missed nothing. “Do not hesitate to speak if this ambassador says anything touching on the people of London,” Lune said when he was done, “but beyond that, I expect to handle this myself. The ambassador will acknowledge your presence, even if I must force him, but I doubt he will deign to speak to you.”
A hint of relief was in his nod. And that was all they had time for; Aspell entered, received Lune’s nod, and threw the door open. “From the Gyre-Carling of Fife, her ambassador, Sir Cerenel.”
Only her preformed determination to keep a serene countenance, no matter what happened, kept Lune from staring. It was no trick: her own former knight entered, approached the dais, and made his formal bow. To them both, she saw; whether it was in his instructions or not, Cerenel included Jack in the reverence.
“Be welcome to the Onyx Hall, Sir Cerenel,” she managed, and he rose. “We hope you are well?”
“I am, your Majesty.” He, too, must have resolved before coming that he would keep the whole encounter polite. Did he feel hostility toward her? Bitterness? Fear? The violet eyes showed no hint.
He had bowed to Jack; Lune decided to press that. “You have not met John Ellin, who is now Prince of the Stone.”
A slight tightening of Cerenel’s lips, maddeningly unreadable. “I had heard that Lord Antony died. Please allow me to offer the compliments of my condolence for your loss.”
His condolence; not theirs. So Nicneven had not been replaced by some soft-hearted human changeling. Oddly, Lune found it reassuring. She made the expected reply to his words, and indicated subtly to Jack that he should do the same; the physician exchanged empty courtesies with the knight, while Lune tried to glean any further clues from Cerenel’s manner. He dressed as a Scot again, but that might not mean much.
Or it might mean a great deal. Why was he, of all fae, Nicneven’s ambassador?
Cerenel at least did not keep her wondering long. “Madam,” he said, “my lord—I have been sent hither to bear you a message from my Queen.”
The phrase stung, even though she expected it. Nicneven is his Queen now. “We are pleased to receive it,” Lune said, and waited.
“She bid me say this: that although there has been much strife between your two realms, she will lay that aside and offer you peace, in simple exchange for the person of Ifarren Vidar.”
Not a demand. An offer. Trade. Jack was alive with curiosity; he knew Vidar’s name, but not all the tortuous details of that war. The man’s thirst for knowledge never ended, but now was not the time to sate it. Lune said to Cerenel, “You understand the cynical response this occasions, I trust. Nicneven’s hatred preceded Vidar’s arrival at her court. Why should she relinquish it now?”
A faint smile ghosted across Cerenel’s lips. “If I may speak plainly, madam—this very matter is why I begged her Majesty to send me as her emissary. I understand your suspicion. But the Gyre-Carling is a creature of passions, not politics. Her hatred was born the day the mortal Queen of Scots died, manipulated onto the scaffold in part by the machinations of this court. But Charles Stuart is dead as well, and her revenge complete; what cares she any longer for such matters? Her hatred now is reserved for another.”
“Ifarren Vidar.”
“He betrayed her, and she does not forgive that lightly. At his urging, she surrendered the Sword of Nuada to the Irish, believing they would help her destroy this place. And in the taking and retaking of the Onyx Hall, she lost warriors—fae she cared for, as any Queen must.”
The bitterness Lune might have expected in that last touch was not there. She found, to her surprise, that she sincerely wanted to lay aside this embassy, and speak to Cerenel in his own right. Perhaps they could mend the breach she had created. But Nicneven could not be laid aside, and so Lune answered his point. “I have no doubt of her hatred for Ifarren Vidar. But the substance of the Gyre-Carling’s words to me have not changed, have they? She may couch it in terms of offered peace, but that is simply the other face of the original coin. If I do not give her the traitor, then it is war between us once more, and the threatened destruction of the Onyx Hall.”
Reluctantly, Cerenel nodded.
“Then my answer is unchanged,” Lune said. “I have sentenced Vidar to eternal imprisonment, and there he shall stay.”
She could sense Jack’s uncertainty; no doubt Cerenel could, as well. Her new Prince did not yet understand these matters, for all he learned as quickly as he could. This was a poor time for him to come among them, as it would have been for any man. Cerenel’s reaction was the one that surprised her: disappointment, and worry. Even fear? He came because he wanted this to succeed, and trusted no other with it. And now he has failed.