Then she was washed, in water that had been heated to body temperature, and had hibiscuses afloat in it. Needle-toothed yakshis dried her down with impossibly fluffy towels and helped her into new garments. They were of elven make and did not cover her stomach, but otherwise they seemed decent enough. Finally she was led to a large oval cushion which, though it looked suspiciously to her like the sort of thing people had for their pet dogs or cats, was nevertheless so comfortable that she fell asleep almost immediately.
When Agnes awoke, the bed was rocking gently under her. She drew aside the bed-curtain and discovered that the armies were on the march again, and that her bed was being carried by two trolls. She swung her legs over the edge so she could climb down.
“I’d advise you not to do that, Missy,” one of the trolls said. He was a tusked grotesque with legs like a rhinoceros’s.
“If you did,” said the second, “we’ll reflexively stop you in the most painful available manner.”
“Which, truth be told, we’d really rather not.”
“You’re just another victim of elvish depravity, like we are, after all.”
“So just stay with the program, okay?”
Agnes scrambled back into the center of the bed. “Okay,” she said. And, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”
“You can’t get us in trouble, Missy.”
“Even if you could, what would we care?”
“We’re not self-aware.”
“Just bundles of reflexive responses, is all. It’s not as if we were actually conscious.”
So she spent most of the day, dozing off and on, being carried along with the trooping armies of Elfland. When at last they made camp, she climbed down and fed herself from one of the many tables overflowing with food of all kinds. Then Melisaundre sent for her.
“You are a green gemstone, I believe,” the elf-queen said. “So you shall be treated with jealousy.”
“Ma’am? I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand. Only to obey.”
Thus it was that for thrice a thousand and one nights in a row, Agnes served as the elf-queen’s cup bearer. Silent and attentive, she sat on a small chair in a shadowy corner while her liege lady consulted with scholars and annotated books. Slim in green livery, she watched the elf-queen practice her archery, and brought iced tea to slake her thirst between bouts. At banquets, she poured a sip of every libation into a shallow bowl and drank it down, to test for poison. Rarely did she speak. Always did she watch. In this way, she picked up something of an education in the ways of polite society.
Even more did she learn at night, when the elf-queen retired to her bed and comported herself with whomever had caught her eye during the long day. Agnes brought flagons of wine to set the mood beforehand, vials of aphrodisiacs when the queen’s lovers began to flag, and fruit-flavored ices to refresh them afterwards. She watched as the elf-queen coupled with warriors, scholars, poets, fauns, women by threes and men by the brace, with centaurs and imps as small as lapdogs and quilled apes with extra arms. It was the queen’s custom that her lovers should begin by entertaining her with oration and so, night after night, they related gesta taken from the history of Elfland, or ornate tales of bawdry stemming from their own experiences. Scholars taught her alchemy and astrology and the secret workings of the crystal spheres that moved the stars and planets through their complex dance in the night. Soldiers spoke of battles they had fought and heroic deeds they had seen.
Agnes watched. And she listened.
Sometimes, when Melisaundre was bored, she brought Richard out of his gem. He hardly noticed Agnes’s presence, so besotted was he with the elf-queen. Agnes, for her part, watched him steadily, but her stare was hard. Once, during the heat of passion, his eyes accidentally met hers and the elf-queen immediately plunged a hand into his chest and pulled out his living, beating heart. He arched and spasmed until she returned the organ to its proper place.
“You liked that, didn’t you?” Melisaundre murmured, looking Agnes straight in the eye.
“Whatever you want me to like,” he gasped, “I will.”
Agnes, as always, said nothing.
After the elf-queen had ridden him like a horse, Richard rolled over onto his back, and when Agnes emerged from the shadows with the ices, he looked surprised to see her. He grinned shyly and started to say something, only to be shushed by an imperious royal finger laid across his lips. “You two are not to talk,” the queen said. “Not now. Not ever.”
Then she turned to Agnes. “Do you envy me, little virgin? Do you envy how many men come to pay me court, your precious friend among them, and how avidly they do so?”
“Yes, your majesty,” Agnes said tonelessly.
“They’ll never do any of that to you, I assure you. He will never so much as touch you. I’ll make sure of that.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Oh, you don’t fool me. You may not want it yet, but already you know you will. And every night you’ll stand and watch, yearning, always yearning… Those whom I bring to my bed are a complaisant lot. They’d be only too happy to oblige you, especially your lovely, dimwitted Richard here. But you shall stand and watch and grow old and withered and filled with regrets, while I remain gloriously young forever. When you die, I’ll have your ashes made into a godemiché, which will rest near my orgies every night, with Richard immortal and at my service. But never — not even once! — will it be used.”
“As you please, ma’am.”
In a fury, the elf-queen seized a goblet and flung it down on the flagstone floor. It shattered, sending fragments of crystal everywhere. “You wicked, stubborn child! Do you think stunting your potential will make you happy? It will not! Embrace your anger, and it will bring you vividly alive. You will be an avid, thwarted, hopelessly vengeful avatar of spite!”
“As you wish, ma’am.”
Queen Melisaundre screamed in rage. Then she bade Richard mount her once more, as Agnes stood by.
But the prize of the elf-queen’s collection was Frederic.
“My rough little diamond,” the elf-queen called him. She dressed him in jester’s motley, and brought him out to amuse her guests at banquets. They would lie in triples, twains, and tangles, on chaises about the court, while Frederic stood in the center and harangued them.
“You have no emotions of your own,” Frederic said. He looked so solemn, Agnes thought, in those big round glasses of his. “That’s your greatest weakness, and someday it will be your downfall.”
The elves responded with gales of laughter.
“You made a terrible mistake when you destroyed almost all of my people. It made those of us who remain rare. It made us powerful. Without us, you wouldn’t even know you’re alive.”
“And what about you, little fool?” an elf baron shouted back at him. “What would you do without us?”
“I’d just go on living. I wouldn’t miss you at all.”
They howled.
Another time, Frederic said, “The Earth is a sphere that revolves about a spherical Sun. The Moon is spherical too, and it revolves around the Earth.” Then, as his audience convulsed, “How many years have you marched around this world without finding its boundaries? Always you search for the way back to your own world. The land you came from is as flat as a checkerboard and so ours baffles you. You stupids! You are trapped here forever by your own ignorance.”
Finally, Frederic said, “You think us your prisoners, but it is you who are held captive by the topology of your thoughts. I am free! Unlike yourselves, I can move as I wish in all Euclidian dimensions. The only reason I share this with you is that you cannot possibly comprehend it. Should I wish, I can leave at any time by simply turning from your plane.”