Summerkin (11 page)

Fifteen

Rook tried to shrug Fray's hand off his shoulder, but the wolf-girl was taking her duties very seriously. It wouldn't be easy to slip away, vigilant as she was. He watched as Fer stood talking with the other contestants.

Then Fer said loudly something about how using the glamorie to rule was wrong. Oh, the fancy ones in the nathewyr didn't like that. Rook could hear them exclaiming to each other, disapproving of Fer and her bid to become a Lady like them. Or, maybe, not like them at all.

The false one, Arenthiel, said something to her, and she glanced over at him.

Instead of meeting her eyes, he stared at the floor. He had a crown to steal. He couldn't afford to think about Fer right now.

After a short while, the double doors at the end of the nathewyr swung open, and the High Ones paced in. Everybody in the hall bowed.

Everybody except him, that is. He watched the High Ones carefully. He could feel their power, the way the nathewyr changed when they entered it, but their power couldn't command
him
.

The big bear-man stepped onto the platform and bowed. Again the gathered Lords and Ladies bowed.

Rook snorted. Stupid High Ones and their stupid formality.

The wolf-guard's grip tightened. “Steady on there, Puck,” she grumbled.

The bear-man surveyed the hall, then began to speak about the results of the race and the archery contest, and explained how the contestants' mastery of the glamorie would be tested.

As he spoke, Rook eyed the pedestal, where the crown was covered with a cloth. If he waited to steal the crown until Fer's glamorie was tested, all eyes in the nathewyr would be on her. Even the wolf-guard Fray would be distracted. A perfect moment to slip out of her grip and grab the crown. In his four-legged dog shape he could run to an unguarded doorway, through the nathe, and out to the courtyard. Once there he could shift into his horse form. After that, nobody would catch him.

Then he had a thought that made him feel hollow inside. After stealing the crown, he'd never see Fer again.

He shook his head, trying to shake that thought away. He was not bound to Fer. A puck and a Lady could
never
be friends. He just had to stop thinking about how she'd look when she found out he'd betrayed her.

But he couldn't. He stood with his head lowered, thinking. What if . . .

What if he didn't steal the crown after all? He could explain to his brothers, and they would understand. Wouldn't they?

Rook glanced aside and realized that Arenthiel was standing right next to him. “Hello, Dog,” he murmured, his false smile fixed on his face.

“Grrrr.” Rook bared his teeth.

Arenthiel leaned closer. “You, young puck, are about to be very useful to me.”

What?

On the platform, the bear-man was pointing at the cloth-covered crown.

“Ah,” Arenthiel whispered. “It's time.”

Rook felt his hackles going up. Time for what? Something about this smelled bad.

Arenthiel gave him a brisk nod, then whirled and paced past Fer and the other contestants and leaped onto the platform, striding past the bear-man and the High Ones to the pedestal where the cloth-covered crown rested.

Rook strained to see better.

Arenthiel reached out and lifted the cloth from the crown. Then he staggered dramatically back, his eyes wide. “My Lords, my Ladies!” he cried. He lifted the thing resting on the pillow and held it up so everyone in the nathewyr could see. “This is not the Summerlands crown!”

No, it wasn't. It was a crude circular thing made out of twigs and dried mud.

“The true Summerlands crown has been stolen!” Arenthiel announced.

The hall erupted in a babble of voices; the High Ones rose to their feet.

Rook stared, astonished. Somebody had gotten to the crown before he could steal it for his brother-pucks. But who?

Arenthiel dropped the mud crown onto the pedestal as if it was a poisonous snake, then strode to the edge of the platform. “Who would do such an abominable thing?” he asked, his voice ringing out over the crowded hall.

Rook's heart raced. Oh no. He could see where this was going. The wolf-guard was distracted by the scene; he jerked his arm out of her grip and stumbled away. He had to get out of here.

“The puck!” Arenthiel intoned, and pointed at him from the platform. “The puck stole the Summerlands crown, delivered it to his puck allies, and has returned to enjoy the chaos he created.”

Rook suddenly found himself at the center of a circle of staring Lords and Ladies. Fer stood at the edge, her face pale, eyes wide.

“I didn't—” he started to protest. He looked desperately for an opening, but he was surrounded. Nathe-guards were muscling through the crowd, closing in.

“He was
seen
!” shouted the lead nathe-warden from behind him. “Last night, my fellow wardens and I tracked this puck to the wall, where he met with three other pucks. We pursued him as he returned, but he managed to evade us.”

“He must have stolen the crown then,” Lord Artos, the bear-man, growled from the platform, “and brought back this false crown to put in its place.”

“Look there,” the nathe-warden added. She'd come to stand behind him, where she pointed at the long scrape on Rook's leg. “That was left by my arrow as he fled. There can be no doubt of his guilt.”

“No!” Rook started to shout, and the nathe-warden stepped closer and looped her willow-strong arm around his neck, choking off the rest of his protest. He whipped his elbow back, catching her in the face, and as she staggered away he dove for an opening in the surrounding crowd. Two other wardens jumped on him and dragged him back, seizing his arms. He struggled, and they gripped harder, lifting his feet off the ground.

“The puck must be punished for this crime,” the bear-man said from the platform. He pointed to the door. “Now, take him away!”

 

Fer felt frozen inside, even colder than the glamorie that covered her. Rook had really done it. She'd never really, truly, in her heart believed that he would, but he had. Betrayal. She should be crying now, shouldn't she? But her tears felt frozen; the glamorie wouldn't let them melt and fall.

She stood stunned at the center of a circle of Lords and Ladies. They whispered and stared.

And then the accusations started.

“That half-human girl brought the puck here,” Fer heard.

And “She was working with the puck to steal the crown.”

And then, “Arenthiel was right—she is a puck, herself.”

Up on the platform, the High Ones were whispering together. Then one of them held up a hand, and Fer felt a wave of power wash over the room. Instantly all the whispers stopped.

Lord Artos, the bear-man, stepped forward. His close-set eyes scanned the room. Seeing Fer, they narrowed. “The High Ones have spoken.” His rumbling voice filled the room. “To prove their fitness, the contestants must wear their glamories until morning. The puck will be dealt with then, and the contest will go on. The contestant who recovers the crown will be named the new Lord or Lady of the Summerlands. That is all.”

As the Lords and Ladies left the nathewyr, Fer stood alone, like a rock on a beach with the waves drawing away from her.

Gnar and Lich lingered. “Well, Strange One,” Gnar asked. “Is this another strange thing you've done?”

“You were working with the puck?” Lich asked in a low voice.

“No,” Fer whispered. “I wasn't. I trusted him, and he betrayed me.”

“Of
course
the puck betrayed you,” Gnar said, as if Fer was the stupidest person she'd ever met. “It is their nature to betray all but their own kind. It is what they are, as we are what we are, and humans are what you are. You put a burden on him expecting differently. You should have known.”

“A
true
Lady would have known,” Lich added. He and Gnar left, Lich casting one last look at her over his shoulder.

Maybe she should have known. She had been too trusting. Too slow to figure out how things really worked here. Too . . . human.

And then she was alone in the echoing hall. She looked up at the silvery branches holding up the ceiling. She couldn't possibly win the contest now, no matter what the High Ones had said to her about winning and losing. If the contest really was a test, as they'd written, then she'd failed it. If the High Ones really believed she'd been working with Rook, they'd cast her back into the human world and close the Ways to her forever. What was she going to
do
?

“They will kill him for this,” came a smooth voice from behind her.

She turned. Arenthiel had closed the double doors leading into the nathewyr and stood leaning against them.

“The puck deserves death for what he has done, don't you think?” he went on.

Fer shook her head. Rook was a puck, and she was pretty sure she understood now what that meant, but he didn't deserve to die for it.

Arenthiel straightened and paced toward her. “I can save him for you.”

She stared at him. When she spoke, her lips felt stiff. “What?”

“I will ensure that the High Ones do not pronounce a sentence of death upon the puck.”

She frowned. Arenthiel was not her friend; he couldn't really want to help her, or Rook. “How will you manage that?”

“I am not a Lord, but the High Ones and I are kin, of a sort.” He gave a graceful shrug. “I can speak for your puck, and they will listen.”

Fer took a deep breath, letting the glamorie spark a chill over her skin, welcoming the way it helped her think more calmly, more clearly. “Why would you help me?”

“Ah.” Arenthiel pointed at Fer's head. “That crown you are wearing.”

Fer reached up with cold fingers; she felt leaves, twigs, the leafy crown still on her head.

“It is a true crown,” he explained. “You are meant to be the Lady of the Summerlands. You would already be the Lady if you had accepted your people's oaths. The High Ones, I suspect, know this, but they do not know what to do about the lack of oaths between you and your people, or about your human side, and so they called us all here, not to run a true contest, but to test you. To be sure that you really are worthy.”

The contest is a test
, they'd written. In her bones, Fer felt the rightness of what he said. She
was
the true Lady. “But I'm failing,” she said. “I lost both parts of the contest.”

“Do you think so?” Aren gave a graceful shrug. “Maybe, maybe not. It is difficult to know what the High Ones are planning. You think in lines, and they think in circles; you are a fool, and they are wise. Yet we are kin, of a sort, and sometimes I can perceive their meaning. It has occurred to me that perhaps you are winning, after all. I am willing to take the chance that you are. For it would not be a bad thing at all, to have the true Lady of the Summerlands owe me a favor.”

Again what he said made a cold kind of sense. “All right,” she said slowly. “A favor for a favor. I could do that.”

Arenthiel raised a slim finger, as if chiding her. “But Gwynnefar, you know the rules that govern our lands. I know that you do not like oaths. Still, you must swear.” And then he smiled his beautiful smile, but now it had an edge on it like the sharpest of knives. With his clear puck-vision, Fer realized, Rook had seen the knife in that smile all along. “You must swear an oath,” Arenthiel went on, “to owe me this favor. This one little service. Will you swear?”

Swear him an oath? Oh, he'd backed her into a corner, hadn't he? But it was to save Rook's life. She really didn't have any choice. Did she? Her thoughts whirled, and then, thanks to the chill of the glamorie, calmed. She shook her head. “I, um . . .” she said slowly, “. . . I need some time to think about it.”

For a second it seemed as if Arenthiel was furiously angry, like the moment before lightning flashes out from a thundercloud. Then the moment passed. “Well, then!” he said brightly. “You will tell me in the morning, when the punishment of the puck is to be decided. If you will swear to owe me this one service, you will not have to see the puck die.”

 

The nathe-wardens dragged Rook through the nathe's passages and then hustled him down a narrow, winding staircase that burrowed like a root deeper and deeper underground. Only a few dull crystals lit the stair; the wardens hulked up like shadows before him and after him, their grips like iron on his arms. Fer's bee came too, tickling where it clung to his neck, but he couldn't get a hand loose to brush it off. The walls were wood, and then, as they went deeper, they were packed dirt, and the air grew damp and heavy.

At last the staircase ended in a hole full of shadows.

They weren't going to put him in
there
, were they? Horrified, he yelled and hit out, and the wardens grabbed him and shoved him, still struggling, off the end of the stairs.