Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
I stumbled back to the manor as dusk painted the sky in shades of lavender and rose. One could almost forget the storms of the night before, the sun shone that brightly, hitting the fallen leaves like a path of gold. I was footsore from the long journey, and yet my spirits remained light.
I brought new life into the world.
My hands, months away from the fieldwork that once had calloused them, had delivered a child.
I was like one of the gods in the old stories pulling life from the roiling chaos, like a farmer bringing a tree to blossom and flower all in one day.
Not even Mairi Grieve had always delivered a child successfully.
Queen Una, who wore her mortality so lightly, had lost her life when she gave birth.
Mairi, stolen from her own world to attend her, had been able to do nothing at all.
Except perhaps steal the child from those in Faery who would do her harm. A child born of a mortal father; as Amadan put it, “mongrel she might have been.” If she had survived, that child would be grown now, old enough perhaps to claim her throne.
If she had not thrown her lot in with a human shepherd. If she dared to cross the Veil.
Far too many “ifs.” My head swam with them, making it hard to think.
I wished only to stumble to my new chambers or, even better, to greet my shepherd king and fall into his arms. I would look in upon the boy Malcolm after I had a chance to clean myself and rest. If I succeeded in saving him, and I had no reason to believe I would not, Thomas Shepherd could be my life mate by mortal custom as well as the fae claiming.
We would never have to sleep apart again.
This was the life I chose. Everything I wanted was now in my view. A purpose, a place in the world, and a lover. I could not ask for more.
Harvest had come and gone. Michaelmas as well when the crops must be in.
Time it was now for the final ploughing of the fallow lands, followed by the sowing of the winter crops.
There was less traffic to the manor house these days, and the turning of the seasons was nigh.
My breath caught, and all the hairs on my flesh seemed to stand upright.
Not merely nigh. Here.
I had lost track of time. Yet nearly three months had passed since we arrived at the manor, and All Hallows’ Eve was this very night. The taste of winter was in the air, and my pulse raced despite my exhaustion. The Veil between the worlds was soon to part.
It is naught to do with me. Not anymore. I have made a life among the mortals, at Thomas’s side.
But did I speak this aloud, it would have caught in my throat.
I was meant to heal wounds and illnesses, to serve as Thomas’s helpmate and love. This land might be rough and unwelcoming to those of Faery blood, but I had become familiar with it and knew how to protect myself.
I could not say the same for the land beyond the Veil.
Queen Una’s mongrel child had not been safe there. Mairi Grieve had deemed it so.
Would she be safe now?
Come away, come away, the spirits called to me, as they had at Beltane. And then, Come away, you mongrel child.
“No.” I said it aloud and meant it firmly. My place is here.
If the guardsmen could be prevailed upon to let me in.
When I left, the rain had poured down heavily, thunder rolled, and lightning threatened to strike. The guards had been distracted, miserable and concerned with taking shelter from the rain. Now they stood, dour-faced and unmoving, daunting as the iron portcullis itself.
“I came from the manor just yestere’en,” I told them patiently. “His Grace will be expecting me back.”
If he had even noticed I had left.
“On His Grace’s orders do we make you wait,” one of the guards told me. “Only family and household are permitted in the manor at this time.”
A far cry from my first arrival, when it bustled with townsfolk, knights, and local nobility, readying itself for the harvest. As the year drew to its end, ’twas natural for things to slow down, time to be spent indoors and among one’s kin.
But I was different. I tended young Malcolm.
I was all but handfasted to the baron’s elder son.
Surely an exception would be made for me.
I left the manor only yesterday yet felt like a mortal who wandered into Faery and returned to find seven years had passed. Even in the brilliance of the autumn sun, the manor house appeared darker, emptier, colder, as if it stood cursed.
A harsh, metallic tang was in my mouth, and the stench of iron all around me.
What has happened? Why did a sense of foreboding creep up the back of my neck, slither down the surface of my skin?
Come away, come away. Samhain is nigh. The voices grew louder and more insistent.
“I am certain I am expected,” I said. “I was tending to young Malcolm . . .” I trailed off as the guards dropped their gazes to the ground. “Is something amiss with young Malcolm?” Despite my efforts, had he taken a turn for the worse?
The guards exchanged nervous glances, then one of them said, “Hold, mistress. Someone will be out to assist.”
Thank Mab for that. In the pit of my belly, sourness roiled. An unwelcome chill befell me, the cold seeming to come from my own heart.
Presently, a figure emerged from the manor.
Thomas.
His garb today was dark and fine, like unto a very prince, albeit a somber one. He stood rigid, like a bundle of twigs propped against each other; move one even slightly, and he would fall completely apart.
For a moment, he stood as if there were bars between us, cold iron neither one of us could touch. The portcullis might have fallen right there, locking him inside and me out. This I could not endure. I all but threw myself at him, pressing against the familiar contours of his broad chest.
Does he not recall our bond, that he owes me his life?
At first, Thomas did not move. Then his arms came gingerly around me, as if I might shatter from the contact. As if he might break around me.
His embrace tightened, and he held me like a drowning man holds the floating remnants of his boat. Anything to keep his head above water.
I will always be your savior, Thomas. Though the way I clung to him, I might have been drowning, too.
“Ah, lass,” he finally breathed, and kissed the top of my forehead. “Too much has happened since you left, and I have little time to explain. Come.”
I had no choice but to do as he bade me and followed him into the unwelcoming, iron-tainted manor, wondering all the while what became of my merry shepherd king.
Thomas led me into a small storage room off the great hall.
Knights had not slept in the hall for weeks, but only now did I notice the emptiness of the manor.
The warmth of humanity, their needs and hungers, their living so fully and dying so quickly—all these things that had helped distract me from the foul trappings of Christianity seemed to dull now, like a guttering flame.
The manor house became all bare bones, naught but iron and crosses, assaulting my senses on all sides.
A shadow fell across me, not of the fae this time. ’Twas pure mortal heaviness and sorrow.
“I apologize for the accommodations,” Thomas said as he ushered me in. “I needed someplace we could be alone.”
Once my heart would have leapt at the word “alone.” I hungered still for the shepherd’s touch. But not here.
The room was bare. Two small stools were all there were for us to sit upon; we faced each other over crates and boxes, cobwebs and dust. The stench of tallow and mouse droppings assaulted my nose.
Thomas’s eyes were upon me.
I took his hand. “It is wonderful to see your face.”
It would have been more wonderful to see his smile.
“And yours,” he told me. “I missed it—and you—so much.”
Yet his fingers slipped out of my grasp.
Thomas glanced around the room. “I could not risk Father seeing you.” He swallowed hard, and passed a hand over his forehead, disrupting his curls. “Family and household alone in the manor at this time.”
“So the guards did tell me.” I cocked my head. “They did not tell me why.”
In the dim light, something glistened on his cheek.
“Thomas?”
His voice shook as he spoke. “My brother Malcolm has passed on.”
I heard the words without taking their meaning. His brother Malcolm had passed on.
His brother Malcolm.
My charge, Malcolm.
The baron’s legitimate son and heir.
I left him alone. The Dark Fool played me, pulled me from his bedside.
Sweet Mab, I had failed.
The manor closed in around me. My skin prickled like nails poking at my flesh.
A sob caught in Thomas’s throat.
Purely mortal shame thrust its way into me. I thought only of my failure. Had I no thought for Thomas and his grief?
“Oh, Thomas.” I was torn between my need to comfort him, and the overwhelming sense of unwelcome from the manor itself. I had been tolerated while I might have been of use. But I had failed. Sweet Mother Mab, I had failed.
How did I fail? How was I not enough?
I took Thomas’s hand. “He was so young.”
He placed his hand over mine. “Not yet thirteen.” He sniffled. “I did not know, did not think . . . I had come here only to say goodbye.”
There were no words. I am no Christian who can speak reassurances of salvation and the world to come. I do not believe these things. Death is cruel and unfair, and it comes upon mortals too eagerly and too quick.
This should not have failed. My efforts, mine, could not have failed.
Absently, Thomas stroked my hair. “I barely knew him. I was younger than he is—was—now when I left home.”
The shepherd king was kept from his family, all for the stupid lines humans draw in the dirt. Wed or unwed, born on the wrong or right side of the bed, what does it matter anyway? It made me so angry; I struggled to keep that out of my voice. “You two missed out on much.”
Thomas took a deep, shuddering breath. “I had thought I might bring Cullen to meet Malcolm. He would have liked that, do you not think? Boys like dogs. Or was he too old?”