Chapter 7
Seven
His skin shone translucent, pale as moonlight and nearly as luminous.
No human male had ever borne such sculpted cheekbones, like shards of glass that would cut you to touch.
His winged brows and the hair waving over his collar was black, but iridescent under the dim forest light.
He’d garbed himself in leaves—no, it was a prince’s cotehardie and hose, snug enough to conceal little of his lean, athletic form.
Somehow, his attire was both, and this suited him very, very well.
Though he wore no crown, this figure was so glorious, I knew at once who he must be: Faery’s own King.
I fell to my knees in awe. “My liege.”
He lowered the pipe from his lips and laughed. Though bell-like and as charming as his tune had been, the laughter was also pitying and cruel. “Oh, you have been long away, little changeling, if you would name me so.”
I straightened, uncomprehending. “My lord?” For he must be a nobleman, the highest among those who dwell in the sith.
And yet something about him was unsavory: the harsh set to his arching brows, perhaps, or the pale cast to his skin.
If he was a Seelie lord, there was something Unseelie about him, too.
A chill ran over my flesh.
The elf lord eyed me lazily, a smirk curving his sensuous lips. “Little half fae.”
I flushed, ashamed of my impure blood, misliking that he could sense it right away. I lifted my chin and pretended not to be bothered. “I am called Bess.”
His lips curled. “Bess.” A susurration, the barest whisper, as if this simple, briefest of Christian names nevertheless filled him with awe. “Not Bess Grieve, is it? Mairi’s daughter?”
I gulped, startled into the unvarnished truth. “So I am known.”
His hand came towards my face, and I flinched away, caught in the vision I’d just had of Mairi. But he cupped my chin, and turned my face from one side to another, grimacing at the birthmark on my throat. “What an unexpected pleasure.”
How could he insult me one moment and flatter me the next? I edged away from him, and his fingers dropped to his side. But now my skin longed for his touch, and if his hands should encircle my throat and squeeze the life out of me, I knew I would die in ecstasy, crying out for more.
I was not experienced with the charms of the other fae. I misliked this greatly. I needed to gather my pennyroyal and be on my way.
Yet somehow, I stayed rooted to the spot. “Who are you, then?”
“Amadan.”
My face grew hot as I translated. “You call me ‘fool.’”
“I call myself thus, or rather, thus I am called.” There was an amused twist to his lips, and his overlong fingers danced in the air.
“Of late, I was the King’s Fool and the Queen’s, and I am second only to Faery’s monarch in power.
With one touch I bring pleasure, with another, paralysis, madness, or death, yet my victims will crave it all in the end.
In short, I am called the Amadan Dubh, the Dark Fool, and I come and go at will. ”
My eyes narrowed as I assessed him. By appearances, I would name him the noblest and fairest of our kind, assuming this handsome face was truly his own. Yet he spoke of kings and queens with hardly any deference at all.
Such liberties are granted to Fools. They say things as other fae would not dare.
Like telling their mortal love about the midwife to the Queen of Faery herself?
My face twisted with disapproval. “Trickster.”
He made no denial. “And wanderer.”
“Deflowerer of innocent maids.” I nearly spat it out. Human thoughts, these were, full of human sympathy, the part of me that felt for Glenna because, in appearances only, we were much the same.
“Now there’s an idea.” Amadan’s eyes moved all down my body, then he sniffed. “Or maybe not. You reek of mortality.”
“Not me,” I gritted out. “You did father Glenna Baker’s bairn.”
He leaned against a tree, crossing his fine legs in their snug hose. “You must refresh my memory. There have been so many—”
“Imbolc,” I cut in. “Auburn waves, big brown eyes. . .”
“You sound as if you might have deflowered her yourself.”
My mouth dropped open, and my cheeks warmed again.
Amadan furrowed his brow, stroked his chin as if deep in thought. “Pretty, but dumb as a newborn calf? Mayhap I do remember her after all.”
I balled my fists, hating to defend someone I had always considered a daft git. Yet Mairi Grieve’s influence and openheartedness overcame me. “You sell her short.”
“Perhaps I do.” Amadan shifted his weight and gestured at the basket of pennyroyal. “At least she knew who to go to in her time of need. Mairi Grieve’s daughter.”
Ugh. I had no time for faithless elfin swains. “You’d never give the bairn your name.”
Amadan wrinkled his nose in amusement. “She can call him ‘fool’ if she wants to. Seems like a pixie telling a brownie ‘You’re wee,’ but what business is it of mine?”
His manner called forth the storm beneath my skin.
Humble changeling I might be, yet I met his eyes, while anger roiled inside me like a cauldron bubbling over.
“And when her father learns she’s with child, where will you be then?
When he kicks her out of her own home, where will she go?
Glenna knows naught but the baking of bread.
How can she support herself? How can she raise a child on her own?
Did ye even consider that?” I spoke as if I were defending myself.
Amadan’s lips curled, but he made no other response.
“I thought not.” Such is the way of faery swains in all the ballads and stories. “Glenna would have to do it all on her own.”
Amadan did not argue but glanced again at my basket. “It may not be so easily dealt with.” His eyes were downcast, his tone surprisingly mild. I almost wondered if he spoke from experience.
Pennyroyal was hardly easy. I could kill Glenna if I mistook the dose.
I crossed my arms before me, but the storm inside me subsided, to be replaced with mere bluster. “Are you going to stop me, then?”
Amadan tilted his head and considered me for a moment. “Come stand beside me.” He held out his long-fingered hand. “I have somewhat to show ye.”
These were not instructions one should follow, when accosted by a stranger in the woods.
“So, I’m not too plain for ye, after all?” I retorted. But I saw no lust in Amadan’s eyes.
He beckoned again, and for all my reservations, I placed my hand in his.
He pulled me against him, putting an arm around my shoulders.
Not flirtatious, not the gentle invitations I had known from the shepherd; something pressing upon me with far greater need.
I breathed in forest moss, woodsmoke, deep animal musk, and the hint of something holy turned dark and profane.
Amadan whispered against my ear, sending goosebumps rippling across my skin. “Look out and tell me what you see.”
I saw the forest of Carterhaugh, the bonny woods between Faery and the realm of man.
But bonny it was no longer, nor woods anymore.
The loam had turned to rock, dry as bone and full of crevices.
Flowers drooped their heads like hanged men, the gentlest of breezes ravaging them into dust. The rust-colored sky filled with the cries of carrion birds, and the baying of unearthly hounds.
With a start I cried out, for all the life gone to ruin and all the beauty turned to death.
I looked up at Amadan’s face, the fragrance which had once been so seductive now choking me like dust. His hair lay sparse across a mottled scalp, and his skin stretched too thin over the bones of his face.
I thought it might tear at the slightest touch. His green eyes had gone pale as fungus.
I pushed away from him, my belly churning, a scream choking in my throat.
All at once Amadan was bonny again, and the forest verdant, as if my nightmare vision had never been.
“You saw it,” he said. “You saw what many others miss. How the land starves, while the Teind we pay in blood yet goes unpaid. How can you be only the midwife’s daughter?”
My cheeks burned. “You know I am not, but a changeling left in her place.” I shook my head in confusion. “And I know nothing of this Teind.” The only teind I knew was what Eamon grumbled to pay the churchmen once a year. “Or the land starving. We had a fine harvest, this year past.”
Amadan stared at me again; his eyes seemed to strip me bare, not only of clothing, but of skin, and my own sense of who I was. Without a touch, he poked and prodded at me, taking my measure and finding me lacking.
Finally, his gaze dropped. “If you know nothing,” he said, “then you are no use to me at all, little half fae. I suppose mortal blood will out in the end.”
So had Morven said.
It stung a great deal more coming from him.
Amadan sighed and swiped a hand across his face. In that moment, he looked mortal, and very young. Almost did I place my hand upon his arm, like one might comfort a tired friend.
But Amadan was the barest stranger, with an emphasis upon the strange.
He moved away from me, in spirit, if not in physical space. “Run along home, Bess-you-seem. You are not ready, or you are not the one. Either way, we have no business here.” Was it disappointment in his voice? What had he expected of me?
I did not dare to ask.