2nd January #2
I gazed at him, feeling oddly tongue-tied.
Wendell’s grandmother had been of the oíche sidhe, and he had taken their form briefly, when he and Aud had rescued me from the Hidden king’s court.
He had looked a great deal like this creature—nearly identical, in fact, and I guessed that the vagueness of these faeries’ appearance also applied to the degree of difference between them. It was unsettling.
“I would like to ask a favour,” I said. “Somewhat unusual, perhaps, given your occupation.”
I half expected the creature to make some wry remark, as Wendell would have done, but naturally he did not. “As Your Highness desires,” he said again.
“You see,” I began, not knowing how to phrase my request in a politic manner. In the end, I simply allowed myself to be blunt. “I am in need of spies. Information. Mortals often overlook their housekeepers, who come to learn a great many of their secrets. I doubt the Folk are any different.”
“Worse,” the faerie said quickly. I had the sense that he was pleased by the direction the conversation had taken, and even eager to speak on the subject. But this was merely a guess; discerning any emotion in the creature’s subdued expression was difficult.
“Then you have served both mortals and Folk?” I said.
“I have served,” he agreed in his sparse manner.
I nodded. Here was a creature with as little use for small talk as I. “Do you know of anyone who might wish harm to either Wendell—the king, I mean—or myself?”
“Yes,” the creature said. And then he began to provide names and specifics.
When he came to the end of the list I found myself standing very still and staring at him. I shook myself and said, “I—thank you. That was—” More illuminating than I guessed it would be, I thought. “Thorough.”
“Your Highness.” The faerie bowed.
I pressed my lips together, uncertain. “You have placed yourself in danger by helping me. Do you desire compensation? I mean—of course I shall compensate you. Only tell me—”
“I have helped His Highness,” the creature replied. “I am compensated.”
The faerie had spoken softly and flatly throughout our exchange, but this remark seemed to have real emotion behindit.
“I see.” I considered him for a moment as I ran through what I knew of the oíche sidhe, which was a great deal, or at least more than most dryadologists, for I had made them a priority in my studies since I’d learned of Wendell’s lineage.
“And I suppose it was you who ensured his rooms were ready upon his arrival. Quite speedy work you made of it, for you could not have known he would prefer his old wing.”
“He is one of ours,” the creature said.
I gave a slight nod, and the faerie seemed to take this as a dismissal and bowed himself out.
—
Wendell was not difficult to locate. I simply followed the swirls and eddies of servants and courtiers flitting through the galleries on the castle’s main level.
Most of the nobility seemed to be availing themselves of the gardens, and of the sunny portico that gave onto them, and thus the servants hastened between there and the kitchens, bearing cups and trays piled with delicacies.
I stopped one and took a cup of coffee and a biscuit for myself.
It looked plain but tasted of sugared almonds and impossibly tart strawberries.
I found him standing alone near the centre of the gardens upon a hill festooned with lilies and foxgloves.
At the summit was a bench shaded by several neat rows of cherry trees and—to my dismay—an attentive oak.
It was smaller than the wild-growing ones I’d seen in the forest, but it glowered and gawked at me all the same.
Wendell rested his hand on one of the cherry trees in an absent sort of way, gazing over the landscape.
The tree began to flower, buds bursting forth in a riot of purples and blues, and the leaves grew so green they resembled crushed emeralds.
It matched Wendell’s expression, somehow, as he swept his gaze over the view, a contentment that seemed to radiate from him, cheering all in his vicinity.
Two servants carrying what looked like a newly minted silver mirror stepped more lightly, their faces brightening, and a fat leprechaun sprawled against a nearby boxwood chuckled in his sleep.
Wendell turned and saw me standing there, and if anything, the happiness in his eyes only grew.
“Em!” he exclaimed, and I am certain he would have seized me and spun me around again, if not for the cup in my hand.
“Well? Did you enjoy yourself? By that I mean, did the cottage provide the correct ambience for devouring stacks of old tomes and scribbling away in journals?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said. “Though you might have told me about the guests.”
“To tell the truth, I was a little nervous about your reaction. I felt you would enjoy seeing Lilja and Margret again, but last night I wondered if you wouldn’t have preferred solitude more.”
“You needn’t look like that,” I said, laughing a little at the worry that had stolen over his face. “I was indeed happy to see them. And I am glad you took the initiative of offering them a holiday.”
He smiled. “Well, how could I not, the poor dears? What a misery winter is in that accursed place! I don’t know how anyone stands it.”
I doubted he knew how anyone stood any clime different from his native realm, but I was not about to waste my breath on this. We had far more important things to discuss.
“We must go to see this curse your stepmother has inflicted upon the forest,” I said.
“It is far more important than any other problem we face—I am embarrassed I did not recognize it immediately. I know the stories of deposed faerie monarchs quite well. Working out what she has done must be our sole priority.”
“Emily,” Wendell said after a little pause, during which the only sounds were the wind moving through the leaves and the bloody oak blinking moistly at us, “as we have established, your thought process moves apace; I often struggle to keep up. You must learn to explain yourself.”
“?‘The Tale of the Bard’s Stolen Dirge,’?” I said. “?‘The Robin Lord’s Reckoning.’ Just to name two examples—there are a dozen more. Don’t you see?” [*2]
“I know my stepmother must be dealt with,” Wendell said. “My uncle has sent scouts—”
I shook my head. “That’s not good enough. We must see what your stepmother has wrought, and without delay.”
Wendell gave a breath of laughter. “Well, naturally we will, then.”
“Oh, and you must remove the Lady East Wind from your Council,” I said.
“And, if possible, banish her from court. She had a series of clandestine meetings with the head of the queen’s guard before he was executed.
Apparently, she helped your stepmother plot the assassination of your father and siblings. ”
“What!” Wendell exclaimed. “But we won’t have an even number now. I shall have to find somebody to replace the Lady with, and there is nothing more tedious than dealing with councillors, as I have recently discovered. I am out here hiding from them, in fact.”
“You should also banish Lord Carlin and someone who calls herself the Keeper of the Secret Brook,” I said. “They too are plotting against you.”
“How I hate politics!” Wendell heaved a sigh. “Oh, well. All this is useful material for your book, is it not?”
I could not help smiling at this. “Indeed, though I would rather said material did not come in the form of people wishing to kill you.”
He made a noise of agreement. “Well, Em, I am now convinced that your stay in Corbann has done you good. You are quite yourself again, ink-stained and full of schemes to burden me with, as if I do not already have enough to do.”
I paused. “You do not wish to know how I came by this information?”
“Yes, but only because you clearly wish to tell me,” he said, smiling.
I blushed under the warmth in his gaze. “The servants proved exceptionally knowledgeable,” I said.
“The oíche sidhe . I have asked their leader to report to me should they learn anything else of note. I believe this should solve the assassination threat. The courtly fae either ignore the little ones or treat them with condescension, particularly the servants. That they might be listening in on their conversations seems barely to cross the minds of the nobility, even when they are plotting regicide.”
Wendell stared at me, and then he began to laugh. “Of course,” he said. “The common fae have come to our rescue again, have they?”
“The head housekeeper,” I said after a short pause. “He—seemed to feel some affection for you. He said you were theirs. ”
Wendell’s amusement faded, and he looked momentarily disturbed, then a little lost. “Did he?”
“Have you had any contact with that side of your family?” I said.
“None. It was not—” He sighed. “Well, I suppose I could make excuses and say that I never knew my grandmother. She died long ago. The oíche sidhe are prone to injuries, given the nature of their work, which compound with age and wear away at their health. But the truth is that I never wanted to know them. It is not usual for my kind to mingle our bloodlines with the common fae. The resulting children are aberrations.” He amended, “That is how most Folk see us. Of course, as one in line for the throne, I was insulated from much of this sentiment. Few dared insult me to my face. Generally it was a thing that most at my father’s court went out of their way to ignore. ”
“Which is not the same as saying it was accepted,” I noted.
Wendell shrugged, looking moody and unsettled. “It is kind of so many of the common fae to help us.”
“You are their king, too,” I said.
He seemed not to know what to do with this, and I reminded myself that it was uncommon for the courtly fae to bestow any consideration at all upon the small Folk of their realms. Had Wendell, over the course of his life, had additional motivation to avoid giving them much thought? I decided to change the subject.
“Have you been to see Deilah?”
“My sister?” Wendell wrinkled his nose. “What has she to do with this? Yes, I visited her this morning—briefly, but that was long enough. The brat merely spewed insults and laughed in my face when I suggested she renounce her wretched mother and swear fealty to the new king and queen. She’s convinced her mother will have her revenge upon us somehow.
My uncle wants to execute her, naturally—that is his solution to everything. ”
“In this case, it is sound advice,” I said. “She attempted to have you assassinated, after all. But I am glad you haven’t taken it. In many of the Irish stories, faerie monarchs who murder innocents are punished for it in some way. It would strengthen your stepmother, more likely than not.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that, ” Wendell said, frowning at me. “I haven’t killed her because she is a child, Em. Let her stew in the dungeons a fortnight or so, and we shall see if her vindictiveness holds.”
“I have another idea,” I said.
Wendell groaned and put his face in his hands.
Skip Notes
*1 Danielle de Grey’s article “A Landscape Model for Classifying Faerie Currency: Case Study of a Highland Market” ( British Journal of Dryadology, 1857) argues that this form of faerie trickery varies by country and region.
Glamoured leaves, which tend to be favoured in the South, maintain the illusion of coinage for a few days, on average, while the hardier pinecones and pebbles more commonly employed in Scotland and Northern England may hold on to their glamours for years.
*2 Both of these Irish stories recount the gruesome revenge wrought by deposed monarchs.
“The Robin Lord’s Reckoning” is perhaps the less disturbing of the two; the Robin Lord, likely the king of the northernmost Irish realm, the Montibus Ventus, is overthrown by his son, and hides himself away for three years.
During this time, he abducts his son’s beasts one by one—hunting dogs, horses, and falcons—enchanting them with an insatiable blood lust. He then lets them loose upon his son’s court, where they devour the usurper, his family, and everyone who ever aided him.