17
It was a dispirited group that trudged back into the city.
Emerlyn was visibly tired, her steps uncertain.
Morgana wished she could stride ahead, but she made herself walk slowly, matching the older woman’s pace.
It was clear that Idhri also wanted to hurry, but darkness had settled over the streets.
The faerie lights twinkled among the houses and along the boulevard, enabling them to see the cobblestones they walked on, but it was not enough light to identify an unknown house.
Morgana was forced to accept that it was too late to begin their search, but the concession went against her every instinct and made her head ache with tension.
It didn’t help that she was concerned about Emerlyn as well. “Perhaps you should rest with us tonight,” she said to her. They had reached the guesthouse. Morgana murmured the new cantrip for the door, then turned for Emerlyn’s response.
Emerlyn was shaking her head. “Thank you, but no. The council meets tomorrow, and I need to be there.”
Idhri said, with touching gallantry, “I will escort you home, Councillor.”
Morgana approved of his courtesy, but she said, “I worry for you, Idhri. I think it would be better if I walk with the councillor.”
Emerlyn gave them a halfhearted smile. “You are both very kind, but that’s not necessary. One of my servants is coming. He will meet me halfway.”
“How does he know?”
Emerlyn cast an embarrassed glance toward Idhri and gave a little apologetic shrug. “He is a half-blood. He always knows when I need him.”
Morgana gazed at her, trying to judge how strongly she should insist. “Is it safe for you to be on your own in the streets?”
“Oh, yes,” the councillor said. “No one would bother the queen’s councillor.”
“You seem very sure.”
“It’s one of the Rules, and everyone observes it. It’s a point of honor.”
“It seems the White City’s code of honor is somewhat unevenly applied.”
“And so it has been since I can remember.”
“I do wonder, though,” Morgana said. She longed to be alone with her worries, but Emerlyn seemed very frail in that moment, and she couldn’t help fearing for her. “Surely the fae have enemies, with so many humans in the White City. What stops them from harming you or one of the others?”
Emerlyn’s mouth pursed, and Morgana understood she would have preferred not to answer the question. Just the same, she said, “It has happened, sometime in the past. The retribution was swift, and—I’m sorry to say—brutal. Such a thing will never happen again. The cost was too high.”
Appalled, Morgana could barely collect herself to bid Emerlyn good night.
She kept her in sight until she reached the boulevard and disappeared, and then, weary beyond bearing, she followed Idhri into the house.
It was not fatigue of the body that so afflicted Morgana but the weight of her worries that exhausted her.
Fear for Braithe was her principal concern, but there was Mordred, with the Romans nipping at his flanks.
There was the Blackbird, even more greatly aged than Emerlyn, yet trying to do the work of a young man.
There was Idhri, dealing with baleful glances wherever he went in this cruel city.
And there were the people of Lloegyr, longing for peace but forced to be on their guard.
And Lancelin. He had dedicated his sword to the service of the boy king, and he risked his life with each war party that rode out from Camulod. She must lay her fear for him aside, of course. She had done what she could. Sir Lancelin would have to take care of himself.
She wondered if he still wore the charm she had made for him.
Idhri, despite his anxiety for Braithe, was relieved to see that food had been left for them on the table in the guesthouse.
He knew he should wait for the priestess, but he couldn’t resist snatching up an apple and biting into it.
While he chewed, he arranged the bread board with its fresh loaf, the dish of butter, the vegetables, and the small wheel of cheese.
He laid two plates, and two notably dull eating-knives.
No doubt whoever had prepared this meal was under orders not to provide the unwanted guests with anything that might be considered a weapon.
The priestess came in and sat, and though every line of her face spoke of her tension, she appeared to be hungry, too. She reached for the bread board and looked at the now-empty tray. “We have no bread knife.”
Idhri spoke without thinking. “There’s one in the drawer beside the sink.”
Priestess Morgana stared up at him. “How would you know that, Idhri?”
He stared back, a chill creeping over his scalp. “I—I—”
“Look and see.”
He walked around the end of the table to the sink and pulled out the drawer. The bread knife was there, a solitary utensil in a kitchen that held little else. He lifted it and held it out to the priestess. In a small voice, he said, “Here it is.”
“You knew where it was.”
“I would have said I didn’t, but then…” His legs felt suddenly weak, and he fell into his chair with a thump.
“When we first came to this house, I felt as if I had seen it before. And I felt as if I shouldn’t come in, as if it were someplace awful!
” He put down his half-eaten apple. “What does it mean?”
Morgana looked down at the knife, remembering that Emerlyn had said Skye used to live in this house. That meant Idhri could have—
An unexpected pain shot through her middle, breaking off her thought. She groaned and dropped the bread knife so she could press her hands to her stomach.
“Priestess? What is it?”
Morgana shook her head and heaved a shuddering breath. “I feel—I cannot explain it, Idhri—I feel as if someone has stabbed me!”
“But there’s no one here!”
“I know,” Morgana said, her voice cracking. “I fear—I am so afraid—that it is Braithe. Someone is hurting her, and I can only pray they didn’t actually stab her.”
Braithe had resolved never to step foot in the chamber next to Faolin’s, but he had other ideas. She hoped he was in his own chamber for the night, but he reemerged as full darkness fell over the city. “Gwen, go to bed. Braithe, go into the chamber I’ve given you. Sleep—if you can.”
She wanted to refuse, but the memory of the pain in her belly and the threat of even worse pain in her head overcame her resistance.
Like an automaton, she rose. Keeping her head down in imitation of Gwen’s posture, she edged past Faolin and into the dreaded chamber.
As soon as she stepped inside, the door closed behind her and she heard him speak the cantrip that would lock her in.
It was the same cantrip he used for the front door. She guessed he was too lazy to create different charms for different doors. Or he assumed it wouldn’t matter, if no one else in the house had any magic. He was, she thought bitterly, probably right.
Braithe turned to survey her prison. It was attractive enough, but bland.
The bed was unmade, but a blanket and a pillow lay on it, ready for use.
There was a washstand, and the ewer was full of water, probably thanks to Gwen.
The basin was of polished granite, and a pottery cup stood next to it.
There was a chamber pot beneath the bed, and she supposed it would also be poor Gwen’s task to empty that, unless Faolin would let her do it herself.
A nightdress hung on a hook beside the washstand, but when Braithe touched it, echoes of the ones who had worn it before shot through her, making her snatch her hand away.
She thought she had never felt such evil as she felt in Faolin’s house, not even when the Romans and the Saxons were savaging innocent villages.
That was always terrible, but this somehow seemed worse.
This was not about greed, or even about power.
It was cruelty for its own sake. It was pure sadism, and it ran deep in this place, a hot black current of evil that seemed to spill from the very tiles of the floor and beams of the ceiling.
She thought it might choke her as she tried to sleep.
Braithe spread the blanket over the mattress and set the pillow at its head.
Removing only the scarf that had hidden her hair, she lay down.
Braithe had been slapped just once in her life, a brutal blow from the changeling queen, but that pain had been nothing like this.
Her stomach still ached with the memory of Faolin’s attack.
Even her head, though the pain had been brief, felt tender.
She would bear no visible scars from his attack, not the way Gwen did, but she could not imagine she would ever forget the feeling of being assaulted by someone whose intent was to inflict as much pain as possible.
She curled up on her side, cradling her sore belly, and closed her eyes.
She doubted she would sleep, but she could think.
She could try to imagine ways to escape the trap she had fallen into.
She had no sigil and no charm, thanks to Umer.
Just the same, she laid her empty hand on her breast and prayed to the Lady for inspiration.
Braithe was surprised, when she heard the door of her prison unlock, to realize she had slept after all.
She sat up, instantly awake as she recalled where she was, gripped anew by the peril of her situation and her fear of what might come next.
She went to the washstand to splash water on her face and rinse her mouth.
She was about to pick up the dull brown scarf she had been wearing, but then she dropped it on the bed.
There was no point in it now. She had no mirror, but she ran her fingers through her cropped curls and straightened the hated tunic and leggings.
There was nothing else for her to wear. She avoided the chamber pot in favor of a trip to the privy at the back of the house. That, surely, would be acceptable.