22 #2
“Ah,” Emerlyn said. She fell back in her chair, and her shoulders slumped.
Her attitude was one of dejection and defeat, and Braithe felt the swell of shame from her.
“I should have guessed. In this I have failed you.” She made a small, deprecating gesture with one hand.
“She is one of our most difficult delegates, obsessed with the Rule.”
“That misbegotten Rule!” Morgana exclaimed. “You should abolish the thing.”
Emerlyn nodded wearily. “That has always been my position.”
“Tell me, Emerlyn,” Morgana said. “Do the delegates know there is no queen?”
Emerlyn shrugged. “Some suspect, I think.”
“Why not just tell them?” Braithe asked.
“There are reasons.” Emerlyn paused. “I would prefer to discuss this later. We have problems to solve that can’t wait.”
It was frustrating, but Emerlyn was right. They had to put an end to fae interference with Lloegyr, and do it as swiftly as possible. Braithe said, “Where is Gwen?”
“At my house. She has asked to be one of my servants.”
“Not to leave the White City?”
“No. It’s the only place she has known since she was very young.”
Braithe couldn’t see the sense in that, but she supposed Gwen was too defeated, too damaged, to want to start her life over again. She could imagine there was no one left for her in her home, no one who would remember her or would understand what had happened to her. It was a heartbreaking thought.
Morgana said, “We need to go in search of this Dama Ursula now.”
Emerlyn said, “Yes, of course.”
“Very good. Braithe, you will need to stay here with Idhri.”
Braithe wanted to protest, but she didn’t.
Morgana had said it out of kindness. It was a precarious moment for Idhri.
The awful events he had remembered were as fresh in his mind as if they had just happened.
From his perspective, his mother had been murdered yesterday.
He needed time to heal, and it would have been heartless to expect him to do it alone.
She said, “Of course,” but she knew it would be easier to go after Ursula than to share Idhri’s pain.
Emerlyn put her hands on the table to push herself up. “I know where she lives, but I warn you. This will not be easy.”
Morgana asked, “Does she not respect your authority?”
“She respects nothing, and no one. Sadly, she is not the only delegate to think that way, but she is one of the worst.”
“You think she is dangerous,” Morgana said as she rose.
“She will become dangerous the moment she knows she is caught.”
When the councillor’s servants arrived, they were pulling a sort of covered cart behind them, a vehicle Morgana had never seen before. “Emerlyn, what is that?”
“It is called a palanquin, and I asked for it to be brought,” Emerlyn said. “Long walks are not easy for me, and this will be much faster.”
“But how did you know you would want it?”
Emerlyn folded her hands into her sleeves, the way the priestesses so often did, and led the way out of the house and into the lane. “I can still scry, my dear,” she said, with a small, sad smile. “I have not lost all my magic.”
A little abashed, Morgana climbed into the cart after the councillor.
It had a padded bench seat, and there were cushions on the floor for their feet.
Emerlyn spoke directions to her servants, both half-blood men, and they set off.
“Our elder priestess would like this mode of travel,” Morgana said. “She often complains of stiffness.”
“You can’t help her? Your remedies are famously effective.”
“You have heard that? That surprises me.”
“Word reaches me here,” Emerlyn said.
Morgana waited a moment, but when Emerlyn offered no further explanation, she said, “In Priestess Niamh’s case, I think she is too proud to accept my remedies.”
“I can understand that. I suffer from an excess of pride, too, Morgana.”
“And I have often been scolded for arrogance.”
Emerlyn gave a slight chuckle. “Who dares scold the priestess Morgana?”
“Our mage, Emerlyn, as you could have guessed.”
“I should have. The Blackbird has always been stern.”
“I think he is getting tired,” Morgana said, thinking of the Blackbird’s slowing steps, his increasingly hunched back.
“I suppose he must be,” Emerlyn said.
“I believe you are also growing weary, Councillor.”
Emerlyn cast her a sidelong glance. “Weary unto death, Morgana. But respite is still far in the distance.”
“I hope it comes for you soon.” Morgana spoke with sincerity. She had found little to like in the White City, but despite their fundamental disagreement, she felt an unlikely kinship with Emerlyn. Such a feeling was not a common event for her.
As the servants pulled the cart along the boulevard, Emerlyn said, with evident sincerity, “I wish you would help me to understand, Morgana. What is there about humans that has earned the devotion you show to them?”
Morgana felt a prickle of unease on the back of her neck. “I find that a strange question, Emerlyn. Perhaps I should turn it around. Why should I not work to improve the lives of the humans who come to me for help?”
Emerlyn gave a small shrug. “They are not your people.”
“I thought I was human for a good portion of my life.”
“Did you? Why?”
“Because the Blackbird thought it best to wait to tell me who my mother was. For a time, I thought I might be a half-blood.”
Emerlyn gave a visible shudder. “No, no, my dear, there was no chance of that.”
“You sound very sure.”
Emerlyn turned her face away, and the prickle on Morgana’s skin intensified. “I am,” Emerlyn said. “I—let us just say, I knew your mother.”
“Did you? And so you know who my father was?”
“No, that I do not. She was not in the habit of confiding in me.” Her mouth twisted, as if the memory irked her. “But I know he was fae. She chose him deliberately.”
“Emerlyn—” Morgana wanted to know more, much more.
But the councillor turned to look ahead, where a high garden wall circled a large house that looked over the boulevard. “Ah. We are almost there.”
The servants pulling the cart turned into a short cobbled lane. The ride turned bumpy, and Emerlyn gripped the side of the cart to steady herself, as if the jolting pained her. The cart stopped at the top of the lane, and the servants set down their poles.
Morgana helped Emerlyn out, then looked up at the grand house with its forbidding wall. The gate was of carved and scrolled bogwood, oiled rather than painted. It gave the impression of opulence.
Emerlyn followed her gaze. “Ursula was the only child of two delegates who chose to partner. She has lived in this house her whole life.”
“She has no partner of her own?”
“Few of us mate anymore, I’m afraid. I wish I could change that.” Emerlyn straightened her shoulders with visible effort. “I dread this,” she said in an undertone, and started up the walk.