Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Monday morning, I decided to confront the Dark Fool.
Such a wearying presence he was in my life, toxic and cumbersome.
Would that I were a human priest, who could hold a cross in front of myself, sprinkle him with holy water, and bid him a not-so-polite farewell.
But no, not only was the Fool far too difficult to dispose of, now it seemed I must spend half the day traveling to Carterhaugh to give him a piece of my mind.
Thomas found me on my way out of the manor, protesting when I told him where I was going.
I would be waylaid by outlaws, he said. Eaten by wolves (if he could recall the enormous beast I had faced down already, he might not be so concerned).
Surely, I could wait, and he would accompany me, if all I needed was nuts and herbs.
I needed far more than nuts and herbs. I needed an explanation, and this was why Thomas could not come along.
Amadan had already broken Thomas’s leg. For someone who swore he could not threaten the shepherd’s life, Amadan managed to do a great deal of damage, nonetheless. I needed to understand why.
But I can’t say Thomas’s offer did not tempt me. “You wish to come along?” I touched the side of his face; I had not been permitted to do so in ages. “You can come along?”
“Indeed.” Thomas took my hand in his and brought it to his lips. The soft brush of them against my skin sent shivers of delight through me; the wish for them to run the length of my body, for him to explore me as he would.
The fantasy vanished when he added, “It will have to be when my father has no work for me, when I am not scheduled to meet with the master of the hounds, and when there is not so much to be made ready for the harvest boon.”
In other words, never.
I dropped my gaze, shoulders slumping. “You do have much to do around the manor these days. I am surprised your father managed without you for so long.” I tilted my head at him.
“I suppose Margaret will have been a great deal of help?” There was a bite to it, there would always be a bite to it, when I spoke her name.
Thomas opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by the clearing of a throat.
The baron watched us, his grey eyes the same as my love’s, but flat as stone. “Thomas,” he said, “there is a matter I must discuss with you. Come to my antechamber, please.”
Thomas looked to the baron, then back to me, guilt coloring his cheeks. “Please,” he said. “Do not venture into the forest without escort. I could not bear if you came to harm.”
I was so tempted to listen but pulled my hand out of Thomas’s grasp. From inside myself, I pulled forth warm essence, a fragrance as of honey and roses I allowed to wrap around him. “I will come to no harm in the forest. Do you not call me your wood nymph? Or you did.”
Thomas’s cheeks went pale; his eyes glazed over with enchantment. I hated myself just a little for this bewitchment I wove.
Turning away from him, I touched the arrowhead in my pouch. Such a modest thing it was, to cause such damage, small and carved from stone. And soon as I had pulled it out of him, Evander’s wound closed, as if it had never been.
“I have never known any to cure elf-shot,” Gib had said to me in awe.
No mortal ever has, perhaps. But a fae could. A fae did.
Now, let me see to its source.
Amadan.
I would not seek him by the sacred well this time.
Had he not found me in the baron’s own garden?
I must only make my way between the Yarrow and Ettrick rivers, and have the trickster meet me there.
I could already feel the closeness of Faery, and contrasted it with the closed-off tightness I had in the manor of Baron de Lyne.
You were not meant for such, the trees seemed to whisper. Return to where you belong.
In the lushness of the forest, surrounded by the rich scents of the late summer and early harvest, I could smell musk and moss, the rich loam and corrupted holiness that was the scent of the Amadan Dubh.
“Come out!” I cried. “By ash and yew, by willow and oak. Dark Fool, do you appear before me now.” It was not a request.
There came a rustling in the brush to the left of that juniper tree, a fluttering of ferns as though of wings. And out from the foliage he appeared.
Deep gold were his garments now, shading into red. Burnt orange and yellow, fading green, and deep crimson tipped the ends of his ebon curls. He was the autumn incarnate, so resplendent my breath caught in my throat, though his face remained as young as spring.
The mark I had given him was long gone now, more’s the pity. There was naught to distract from how handsome he was.
The Fool’s emerald eyes flashed with sickly fire, like the unholy gleam of ghost lights over the marsh. “Mairi Grieve’s daughter, as you seem.” He bit off the greeting, and barely even lowered his head.
We both know I am more than that. But I would not encourage him by speaking so aloud.
I smiled, with unctuous charm I had learned from the Fool himself. “What is the matter, my lord? Are you missing something? Say, perhaps, this?” And I opened my palm to reveal the bloodied arrowhead. He would answer for it.
Amadan barely even glanced at it. “Oh, you removed it. Good.” His eyelids were heavy with disdain.
I had not expected contrition, not from any fae, and certainly not from him. But this was underwhelming, to say the least. “Is that all? ‘You removed it.’ I did more than that. I saved a man’s life. Sir Evander Douglas was nearly slain!”
Amadan blinked. His long, dark lashes were tipped with gold as well. “Who?”
“The knight you shot.”
“Oh.” Amadan made a flourish of his hand, and there, he held another arrowhead, the twin to my own. He played with it, weaving it between his fingers, then flicked it away, so hard it imbedded itself in the trunk of a nearby tree. “I did not mean to hurt him.”
“I know who you meant to hurt.” And little did I appreciate it.
Amadan shrugged. “He is unworthy of you.”
“I am the one to decide that.” Let me choose this one decision in my own life at least.
Another elf-shot appeared between the Fool’s fingers, and he again flicked it towards the tree. Sap oozed, as from a wound. “You should be grateful your shepherd sat near the front of the church. I was outside the door. I could not shoot that far.”
My blood curdled, and words escaped me. The Fool did not even pretend to innocence. Did not deny what he had done, or at least attempted to do. I gulped down air and exhaled slowly, until at last I felt calm enough to speak. “Yet you hurt an innocent instead.”
“I hurt a mayfly.” He held open his palm, and three mayflies landed upon it, fluttered delicately for a moment or two. Then he blew upon them, and they disintegrated into dust. “How much longer will he last anyway? Another thirty or forty years? You and I are infinite compared to such as these.”
“That is beside the point.” Heat rose inside me; I stamped it down, like crushing down weeds. “You said you would not threaten the shepherd’s life.”
“Nor did I.” He smirked. “What threat could there be with such a cunning woman on the premises?”
His flattery did not appease me. “I have never treated elf-shot before! You took an unreasonable risk! If the mortals should find out—”
“Find out what?” he asked, considering his long fingers. “That the elf-shot was, indeed, what, shot by an elf? How terribly shocked they would all be.”
My mouth dropped open, closed again, opened again, several times.
“I knew you would save him,” he continued with a smirk. “And then you would come find me.”
I recalled the strange scent upon the arrowhead: like moss and musk and unholy things.
Amadan had played me, like he might have played his own flute.
“You had an innocent shot, just to bring me here?”
“I told you, I meant the arrow for your shepherd.”
“He is an innocent, too.”
“Is he?” Amadan raised his eyebrow. “I find it very hard to tell.” He made a broad sweeping motion with his arm, summoning visions in the air.
Thomas sat with Margaret at the baron’s table, lifting her food to her lips that she would not spill on her gown.
The image vanished, and she bent to greet Cullen, the puppy she had given Thomas many years ago, whom he loved so dearly.
Cullen had only just begun to give me any warmth of greeting at all.
“No.” At my words alone, the vision vanished.
Amadan swooped in like a hawk, bedeviling my ears and perplexing my mind. “The shepherd can never love you as long as you will him.”
“He will love me for the rest of his life,” I said, with great certainty.
It did not make Amadan’s words a lie.
“The shepherd is my business, not yours.” I straightened, boldly meeting his eyes. “I did not ask for your advice.”
Amadan stepped closer, undeterred by my words. Dangerous heat rose off his body. “Then take it as a gift.” He placed an overlong finger beneath my chin, lifting it. “I am an ancient and powerful fae. You should be flattered I even bother advising a half-blood like you.”
My heart clenched, and I shuddered involuntarily. His long fingers. I envisioned them, or fingers like them, reaching for the side of Mairi’s face. “No,” I said, backing away from the touch that might have led to her eventual death.
And Amadan had never actually harmed me.
The vision vanished, yet Amadan remained too close, clouding my senses. His scent got in my head, making it difficult to think. “Step away,” I said quietly.
He edged closer. “I am not yours to command.” It was a dangerous whisper, seductive as the call of the woodlands, sliding beneath my skin. “Not until you take what is yours.”
“Step away.” I repeated it and placed my hand against his chest.
I did not shove him away from me. I did not have to.
From my fingers, green spread across the gold of his tunic, threadlike tendrils, green veins, green vines.
The tips of his curls shone verdant as the vines grew up his torso, changing his garment to green.
Autumn became spring in an instant, and even the gold and russet around him turned pale green.
Only for a moment, and it was gone. He was autumn perfection again.
Amadan blinked and shifted his weight. Seemed almost awkward, as if he did not fill his entire skin. “Would you command the very seasons?”
I supposed I would. I just had.
My liege, the wolf growled in my head.
“Bess-you-seem,” Amadan breathed at the same time. “You are wasted healing the scrapes and scratches of these gnat-like creatures.”
Power still thrummed in my veins, overwhelmed my senses, even more than did Amadan’s intoxicating scent and seductive ways. “You stay away from Thomas Shepherd,” I commanded, while it still flowed through me.
Amadan opened his mouth in protest.
I cut him off before he could speak. “I will keep him away from your forest. Should Thomas venture there, I understand he is fair game. But you will not seek him out to do harm. I order you to leave him be.”
“I will leave the shepherd be,” Amadan consented, “until you are done with him, and care not whether the wild beasts should tear him limb from limb.”
Never will that happen.
He was not finished. “In return, I want you to deliver Glenna Baker’s child.”
I blinked in surprise. This was why he brought me here? “Of course. She is my friend.” And who else could do the job? Glenna carried a half-fae child.
“You promise to deliver it?” Amadan repeated, very carefully.
“I have said so. But where are they living?” Had Rufus Baker not cast her Glenna out of his home? Had she found one who might give the infant his name?
Amadan’s lips curled without parting, as if he held something back that amused him greatly. “You let me worry about that. Only promise, when I summon you for the birth, you shall come.”
My face twisted in confusion. “I shall.” As I said it, I felt as though heavy chains now bound me, heavy as iron and only slightly less toxic.
What has just transpired?
The Dark Fool did not appear to notice. “Good. I will not have my offspring baptized. Who knows what it would do to a child of the fae?” His smile was crooked and his eyes danced with malice. “Mab forfend one of my blood brought to harm.”
“Of course.”
“We are agreed, then. I will not harm the shepherd, and you will deliver my child.” But he didn’t seem finished. As he spun away into radiant nothingness, he continued to stare at me, like I was a puzzle he had yet to solve.