Chapter 41
Forty-One
The year turned, and soon Beltane was upon us, festivities I would preside over with Amadan the Master of my Revels.
I could almost let myself relax. Enjoy how the wood nymph pampered and petted me, how Lileas combed my hair.
I passed my hands over my gown, pale-green spider silk gathered at the shoulder and tied with a girdle of ivy.
My branched crown bloomed with flowers; I looked like a goddess of old.
If only I could forget Mossgrow and that damned foxglove.
Foxglove is a fairy weed. Would Elidor think of it as a poison? If not, what did he intend to do with it instead? I could think of no answer to that.
Nor had I time to devote to it, for there was a knock at the door of my bedchamber.
“Oh, my little man is ready to escort me to the feast!” And I opened the door with a wide smile upon my face.
Only to find the sight that greeted me was not Jamie but Amadan himself.
Flowering vines crisscrossed the front of his tunic, which was deep green as forest shadows; his shapely legs wore hose of lighter green.
The tips of his ebon hair were brilliant green tonight, bright enough to outshine his eyes.
Everything about his appearance called to mind the day I confronted him in Carterhaugh and turned his autumnal attire to the garb of spring. This was deliberate, I was certain.
Amadan held out his arm, raising his brow in a quizzical fashion.
I responded to neither. “Where is Jamie? What have you done to him?”
Amadan patted his chest, his expression one of mocking alarm. “Why, I have done nothing to him. I believe he is with the little goat boy and the other children, playing.”
“I had thought to make him my escort.”
“I hoped I might do the honors.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“At Beltane, our merrymaking does ensure the fertility of the lands both sides of the Veil,” Amadan said.
“And so, there is a little something I, as your Fool, have prepared.” He swept down low, voluminous sleeves dipping in a grandiose fashion, then gazed up at me through dark, curling lashes.
“Allow me to show you such revels as you have never seen.”
I thought back to the Beltane celebrations I had witnessed on the other side of the Veil: the rolling of our bannocks down the hillside, driving the cattle between the bonfires and leaping over them to improve one’s luck.
How the young people clustered, bodies mingling beneath their plaids with great license and vigor.
“Fine words,” I said with a laugh. “Let us see whether you can deliver.” Because I needed the feasting, and the dancing, the drinking and whatever should come after. These might at last drive the shepherd king from my mind.
I had publicly castigated Amadan for his absence at my coronation feast. I could not ignore him when he was actually doing his job. With a deep sigh and a slight eye roll, at last I took his arm.
He led me beneath shady oak trees and ash, beside silver rivers and brooks babbling in words I nearly understood.
My senses filled, and my body appeared to extend outward, pulling wonder from the air.
I recommitted myself to Faery and She embraced me; tingling radiance shot like sparks across my skin.
“You seem at ease tonight, Your Majesty,” Amadan said casually. “I am glad.”
I smiled up at him, eyes heavy with sleepy pleasure.
Oh, let us play at being friends then. Forget what animosity has been between us.
Forget that I still do not trust you. One might as easily ask a bluebell to blossom green, or a redcap not to stain his hat with blood, as to require Amadan to leave off his games and trickery.
That had no bearing on our relationship now.
“Faery is beautiful in the springtime.” In Faery, it would be ever spring, if I wanted it to be. Until She became a desert, nay, not even that, but barren rock, with naught to creep or bloom or flourish on Her terrain. Until She starved and suffered, and at long last became no more.
Blood is easily come by. But Faery starves for want of souls.
I shook away the memory of Amadan’s words.
These thoughts were too dark for a time like this.
I had a handsome fae beside me, I was young and full of life—and the years of man would never stain me.
I was Faery’s queen, it was Beltane, and I felt as a girl at her first maying, ready to drink and feast and yes, make love, if so my spirit inclined.
My eyes fluttered towards Amadan. How would those sculpted arms wrap around me, what would he look like, if I saw all his revealing garb hinted at?
The land grows most fertile at Beltane, both in the Underhill and the world above.
And I, who was Faery as She me, never experienced it so much as I did now.
A sudden warmth washed over my cheeks, and my chest grew tight.
This is Amadan I am thinking of. He who nearly killed Thomas Shepherd, who impregnated Glenna Baker, and strung my changeling self along like a wooden toy.
I envisioned his long fingers stroking the side of Mairi’s face, causing her illness and death.
But faery passions go where faery passions will; logic plays no part in it.
One does not need to like or even tolerate someone to share their bed.
I plucked a golden fruit from the trees hanging o’er us and offered Amadan a bite, taking delight in how his eyes closed with the taste of it, and he made a deep moan low in his throat.
I bit into the fruit, and licked away its sweet juice, eyes spearing Amadan’s face. Would his lips taste sweet as fairy fruit or sharp as bitter greens on my tongue?
Why was I so eager to find out?
Amadan smiled and reached a hand to my shoulder. A tiny butterfly climbed onto his finger, then swiftly took flight.
“They all wish to be near you,” he said softly, and his eyelids lowered in pleasure, as if to say, I know the feeling well.
It burned in me then, a lust unkindled by affection, which the Christians had always taught me was sin.
There were no Christians here now.
Heat bloomed beneath my skin, and my heart began to pick up speed. Flutters began deep in my belly, the kind once only my shepherd king was wont to bring. I could not decide whether I was grateful or disappointed when we finally arrived where the banquet was to be held.
In the courtyard stood a magnificent pavilion, gleaming white like an opal, its columns twisted round with flowers and vines.
The tables beneath it were set with fine linen, clusters of flowers and fruits scattered up and down its length as ornamentation.
On a dais in the middle stood a silvery throne carved into intricate knotwork, cushioned with what appeared to be moss.
My throne. I stared at it a moment, thinking I might prefer the arms a bit wider, to allow for my billowing skirts, and, attentive to my will, it complied.
I clapped my hands with delight.
Amadan chuckled, deep and rich as fine wine. “I am glad Your Majesty approves.”
Beside the throne I had taken as mine stood another chair, nearly as ornate, if not as high. Wound round with carvings of fruits and vegetation it was: grapes on the vine, ripening wheat, bluebells and comfrey and cattail wands. “Who is that one for?”
Amadan leaned close to me, wafting loam and musk as always, his breath warm against my ear. “Your little friend is to sit there, of course. I know how you dread to leave him alone.”
A very human reaction almost poured out of me then: the words “thank you,” which we of Faery will not say and dread to hear. Instead, I simply squeezed Amadan’s arm, and was rewarded with perhaps the first genuinely warm smile I had ever seen on his face.
I steered Amadan away from the pavilion. “Quite a crowd has assembled. I should make my rounds.”
He nodded, and we traversed the courtyard, waving in greeting to Aos Sith and redcaps, goblins, and sylphs alike.
Fae children chased after each other with willow switch swords, catching pixies and shaking them until their shimmering dust floated all about.
The goblins argued with one another viciously, but paused to greet me as I passed, then raucously went back to their clamor and fighting.
We had circled the entire courtyard and come back again to the fine pavilion.
By now, my advisors and courtiers had gathered round: Sith nobility and ministers from all over Faery.
Lileas stood waiting to be seated, and her brows dipped at the sight of the Dark Fool, though her face quickly turned placid and lovely again.
Every chair except mine had someone standing behind it, waiting for me to take my seat.
Every chair, that is, except the smaller of the two thrones.
This one was occupied by a small person in a crisp linen tunic and a surcoat of green velvet, a far cry from both his brothers’ cast-off clothing and the diaphanous tunic he wore here in the Underhill.
His cheeks shone with health and his eyes were merry; he’d been freshly bathed as well, from the look of his damp curls.
Yet, he was a child still, and had already spilled down the front of his fine clothing—berries, I decided, though for a brief, alarming moment I took it for blood.
I smiled at Jamie. “How handsome you look. And so grown up.”
He did, growing by the moment, it seemed. Soon he would not be a little boy anymore. Yet I remembered holding him in my arms, a wee bairn stumbling about the cruck house, the smell of green grass and sweet porridge when I comforted him once upon a time.
Because of me, the boy is happy and healthy, need never fear his mother’s neglect nor his father’s rod again.