Chapter Twenty-Six
Twenty-Six
Duncan sat rigid.
Thought and revelation and memory, splintered in jagged pieces around him on the as-yet-uncarpeted floor here at Adept House.
I’m a princess, Mimi Rush had said that the Huldu told her. And he’d ignored it—too wrapped up in his own personal bitterness and rage and the needle match with Mebhuranon to pay close attention where it was needed.
Even the grindylow had heard enough to say the child was no plaything, no simple thrall, that she was rumored to be of high worth, of noble blood…
“Mr. Silver?” Bainbridge, watching him shrewdly.
Duncan got a grip. “Aye. I’m listening.”
“A thousand years, for a species as long lived as the Huldu, really isn’t the awful span of time we mortals feel it as.
It is almost recent history for them. Of course, I cannot speak to how strongly that Fae blood heritage may still flow in the child’s veins, in other words how much of a—what’s the term?
—a throwback to former pedigree she may represent.
But you have seen the mother, have you not? ”
Flash recall of Irene Rush’s fey, filmic good looks. Numbly, Duncan nodded.
“Did she tell you who her husband is?”
“No. She kept that quiet. I only found out this morning.”
“Hmm. Susan, the maid, I imagine.”
Duncan said nothing. Bainbridge nodded.
“Loyal. And tight-lipped with it. I like that. Well, then. I can’t be sure how much Susan—or whoever—told you, or indeed is party to.
But I imagine you will also know, or have deduced, that Sir Michael Endershall is very much determined to track down his errant wife and daughter. Has offered quite a reward, in fact.”
“And that’s where you come in?”
Bainbridge shook his head.
“Wrong again, Mr. Silver. Rest assured, I do not work for Endershall, in that capacity or any other—despite his very best efforts to recruit me.”
“But Hardy does?”
“Colonel Hardy and the officers of the Forestry Commission are part of a concerted effort to handle the Unbinding for the greater good of nation and empire, however that may be achieved. Realpolitik, as I believe I mentioned. At times, they believe, this will involve open war with the Huldu. At other junctures, it may require…diplomacy. Miriam Rush was to be that diplomacy made flesh. A tentative olive branch, if you will. Emissaries were sent into the Forest, talks offered, and, as far as I can tell, some kind of meeting took place. An attempt to…open channels, as it were. Poorly handled, I would think; these are not men versed in magic, after all. Had I been there…” Bainbridge shrugged.
“Well, no matter. I am not privy to exactly what was discussed, what offers or strategic demands were made, but I think we can guess at least one of them.”
“Endershall gave up his own fucking daughter for that?”
“Yes, I imagine that must seem brutal to you. Given what I…suspect of your past.”
Duncan left that one where it lay. “Any man who won’t protect his own child deserves a slow death in a ditch.”
“Yes, that is one way of looking at the matter, I suppose. However, it’s lacking in some distasteful but necessary nuance.
You see, in addition to being an esteemed member of our landed gentry, Sir Michael is a career diplomat of some standing, a man who has made it his life’s work to serve the realm.
He’s also an arrogant, hidebound fool, but that’s not really the point at issue.
He was knighted for services to his country during the run-up to the war.
He lost two brothers and his son by a previous marriage during the hostilities, and then his wife by subsequent suicide on the death of the son.
In short, he is a man familiar with sacrifice, and quite willing to see such sacrifices through.
You will doubtless have met men like this before now. ”
“Not often. They mostly stayed a long way behind the lines, sacrificing other men.”
Another of Bainbridge’s thin smiles. Duncan ignored him, still churning through the enormity of the deed.
“It didn’t occur to anybody,” he said, mostly to himself, “that a mother might value her child above some diplomatic settlement with fucking elves?”
“Oh, I’m sure it did. Which is probably why, as far as I can tell, Sir Michael never troubled to inform his new young wife of these intentions.
He is—how shall I put this?—a man cast very much in the Victorian mold.
Not a lot of room for the…lesser perspectives of women, even less where those might clash with the needs of king and country.
” Bainbridge seemed to grow aware of his increasingly snide tone.
He cleared his throat. “In any case, it seems the mother somehow…intuited these dangers ahead of time. Perhaps the strength of throwback in the bloodline did not begin with Mimi. Perhaps the powers of the Huldu are strong in the mother as well.”
…summat strange about thy lass Irene Rush, Garner had told him in Macclesfield.
Folk at Caulders were very happy with her, everyone I spoke to anyway…
lovely girl, delighted to have her…but when tha push any of them for detail, there’s nowt.
For a lass that made such a good impression, they don’t remember a whole lot about her…
And somehow, according to Susan, no one had ever noticed her real name on the paper qualifications that opened the doors to employment.
The midnight flit. And years in hiding. Charm and beguile and cope, then move, move again, move on, whenever you somehow sense the closing in of the hounds.
Draw fogging veils of glamour in your wake, to cloak the path, to cover your retreat.
Perhaps you are not even aware you do these things, open up these jewelry boxes of heirloomed power, put on what glitters within, the way you’d turn unconsciously in your sleep, huddle away from a cold draft, creep an arm around the softly sleeping bundle at your side…
“How much of this do you know for certain?” Duncan asked.
“Of what has happened here in what we might call the mortal realm, I now know quite a lot. As I told you, Sir Michael, through the Forestry Commission, tried to engage my services, and they briefed me in some detail. That is not to say everything they told me was true, or that they told me the whole truth about any of it. There again, as I also mentioned, I do not care to remain in the dark about much.” Bainbridge gestured at the table, the papers and opened books it held.
“My research is ongoing. Answers are beginning to accrue. Lady Ada’s family, the Ulvers, have what you might call a long association with the otherworldly.
Some whisper that it’s what has brought such ill fortune upon their house—the illnesses, the losses at war, their financial woes.
It is said that a scion of theirs was once sent by royal decree to abduct a Faerie maiden—or perhaps several, the legends vary—and so bring magic into the line of descent of their clan.
Sometimes the tale is couched in romance—the young knight wins the heart of his elfin bride—sometimes, it is rather more, shall we say, Roman in tone.
In any case, there seems little doubt that the Ulver clan were, for generations, raiders into Fae territory, or at least the borderlands that surrounded it.
Decorated for their daring exploits, gifted lands and title, even recruited for their expertise and eldritch blood.
The rise and hubris before the fall, you see. ”
“Recruited?”
“That is correct.” Bainbridge smiled. He liked to lecture, you could see.
Appreciated a good, attentive student. “You see, Mr. Silver, during the Stuart era, King James I established a number of secret orders to look into witchery and magic. Amateurish stuff, for the most part—it was an enthusiasm of the monarch, and thus richly indulged. If you’ve ever wondered why there are three witches at the beginning of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, wonder no longer.
The Bard knew which side his patronage was buttered on.
Anyway, a lot of innocent lives were snuffed out, witches and unversed women both.
Contrary to some of the Communist cant you’ll hear on street corners these days, this new century of ours did not invent senseless wholesale slaughter.
But memories are short, history rapidly forgotten, and anger tends to seek local focus.
” Bainbridge grimaced. “And we are digressing, I fear. So yes, as I said—a great number of secret orders under royal charter. One such cabal, the King’s Flame in the Forest, was charged with handling matters regarding the borders of Faerie and any leakage into our world.
The Ulvers were called to it, and remained preeminent for hundreds of years.
Though now that influence is faded, like the family fortunes, almost to nothing.
They, at least, are a spent force, clinging to what remains of their ancestral title. ”
The obvious implication hung in the air between them.
“But the cabal? That’s still in business?”