This Scepter'd Isle (45 page)

"It isn't a secret. I want to learn how to pass between the worlds unGated. The elvensteeds do it."

The kitsune's eyes gleamed, Denoriel suspected with a mixture of mischief and avarice. He wondered if he were doing the right thing in allowing Matka Toimisto to accompany them. It would save time and effort if they could get to the Badger's Hole without a dozen stops for directions and misdirections, but letting loose a kitsune on the unsuspecting mortal world seemed an unnecessary addition to its problems.

Then again, so long as a kitsune could find a Gate, he was loose on the mortal world anyway.

They had all stepped down from the platform while they were talking. As soon as they were clear of the semicircle of chairs, the elvensteeds appeared. Denoriel asked if it were worthwhile to mount and the kitsune shook his head.

"You can't go any faster than me," he pointed out. "And I'm afoot."

His smile was very cheerful and he started out across the parklike lawn with apparent confidence. Denoriel decided his shoulders were not broad enough to support the problems of the mortal world. Magus Treowth was no fool, and knew what the kitsune were. Likely he wouldn't give Matka Toimisto what he asked for without some safeguards—if what the kitsune wanted was possible at all.

Their progress across the lawn was by no means direct. It was necessary to stop and dodge the myriad of playing children who were running and jumping, sometimes on two legs, sometimes on four, sometimes on more, occasionally rolling themselves along like hoops. Blankets were spread and every variety of animal-human mix seemed to be indulging in games, picnics, and foreplay for lovemaking. Denoriel didn't know whether to tell Harry not to look or just hope he wouldn't notice. At the moment the second choice seemed safe enough. The boy was staring up into the "sky."

"Lord Denno," he said, sounding bemused, "that can't be a real sky. Look at the sun. Oh! It winked at me!"

The sun was a round, bright yellow saucer with a face painted on it, except that the features were mobile. It was surrounded with petals, which occasionally waved as if in a breeze and also occasionally gave off bright sparks. The blue sky surrounding it made no attempt to seem real. It looked painted, and the white clouds visible here and there did not move and looked painted too.

"No, it's not real," Denoriel said, and laughed. "I think it was a committee that made Furhold. One of them must have had a sense of humor."

Harry squeezed his hand. "It's nice here. Really nice. The people are so friendly."

He waved at a party of bearlike beings wearing short leather pants with straps over their shoulders. They were playing some complex game laid out on a board between them, but they looked up and waved back at Harry as he passed.

A group of boys—well, none were wearing obviously female dress, although it was hard otherwise to tell gender or even kind—ran past rolling hoops. Harry looked up hopefully.

"Could I ask if they'd let me play?" he asked.

"I suspect we're going to have to explain how you were out all night as it is," Denoriel said. "I'm not sure I can think of a way to explain your being 'lost in the woods' with nothing to eat or drink for a couple of days. Somehow I doubt Sir Edward would believe primroses and violets . . ."

Harry laughed and they walked a little faster. Soon a darker rim to the lawn appeared, which resolved itself into buildings as they came closer. Matka Toimisto pointed off to the right and they turned in that direction.

Vidal Dhu had summoned his court—every single being that owed obedience to him was present in his huge black-pillared throne room. The floor was the red of blood, and sometimes those who needed to cross it felt as if they were wading in blood; the walls were red-patterned gold. Mage lights glowed from skull holders affixed to the pillars and walls; heads, huge things not remotely human but with some recognizable features that made them more loathsome, hung from the ceiling burning green and purple, the mouths working in silent agony.

At the forefront of the repulsive mixture of creatures were straight golden chairs with bloodred cushions on seats and backs. In those sat the Unseleighe Sidhe, some as fair as and nearly indistinguishable from their Bright Court kin, others as dark as night—hair and eyes and sometimes even skin. Right at the front Rhoslyn and Pasgen sat rigidly erect. This prominent positioning could not harbor good news; they knew that in their bones.

In knowing that, they were better informed than Vidal Dhu himself. He had not admitted it to anyone, even to Aurilia, who now sat beside him—in a slightly smaller throne, but a throne, not merely a chair, nonetheless—that he had not the faintest idea of why he had sent out the summons. When she had asked, he had shaken his head at her, as if he had a secret he did not wish to divulge. Now, however, he had nothing to say to the assembled horde—

And just as he was wondering if he should concoct something, the great black doors to the hall slammed open.

Every head turned, and from most came gasps and grunts of surprise, of fear, of anger. A brilliant light put to shame the witch-lights in the skull holders and the ghastly colors of the burning heads. In the center of the clear brilliance stood Lord Ffrancon, the waterfall of his white hair interwoven with chains of diamonds, his white tunic and trews embroidered in gold, and sprinkled with more diamonds.

"Well, well," Vidal Dhu said, his lips curving into a sneer, "the messenger boy from the High King. All alone, are you?"

"Messenger, yes," the High Court lord said, smiling very slightly, not in the least discomfited by his reception. "Boy . . . ah, alas, it is a
very
long time since I was a boy. At about half my lifetime, I can remember you as a puling infant, Vidal Dhu. And alone . . ." He paused a moment, significantly, his smile broadening. "I am never alone. The Thought follows me."

Before he could control it, Vidal's breath sucked in. Now he knew why he had summoned his court. The Thought had touched him, ordered him, and he had obeyed, without even being aware of it.

Aurilia laid a hand on his arm. "We are here assembled. What message do you bring us from High King Oberon?"

"First, that the mortal boy, Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond, is under King Oberon's personal protection and may not be harmed or abducted." A single elegant eyebrow lifted, awaiting Vidal Dhu's reaction.

"A High King who is not just, who is not impartial, does not deserve his honors!" Vidal spat.

"Take them from him then," Ffrancon's voice was soft and smooth as if it had been oiled, his faint smile betrayed no real emotion. He paused, waiting for some reply and when none came, shrugged and continued. "Three times you tried to take the child and failed. And twice you used other-planar creatures, chancing exposure of our existence here—"

"Three times!" Vidal exclaimed, looking past Lord Ffrancon to where Rhoslyn and Pasgen sat.

"None of the tiny goblins we used were captured. Most of the mortals thought they were mice or rats," Pasgen said. "Your watchers failed us, Lord Vidal. We were told the boy would be in the carriage with his nurse. The plan was to have her carry him away. But he was not in the carriage. He was mounted before my half-brother on an elvensteed."

"You cannot call it a failure when the High King sends one of his minions to foil my servant's plan," Vidal said to Lord Ffrancon.

Pasgen's teeth snapped together when Vidal called him a servant, but he had no chance to speak because Lord Ffrancon laughed heartily.

"That was no doing of King Oberon's. He and the queen have only just returned from a very long journey. He knew nothing of this boy over whom you are quarreling or he would have put an end to the quarrel sooner." Now Lord Ffrancon showed a little—a very little—emotion. A cold, clinical anger, and a hint of distaste. "In the name of Dannae, Vidal Dhu, the boy is the king's
son
. Did you think he would not be missed, sought after, questions raised if he were not found?"

"I had a changeling . . ." Rhoslyn began. "And Denoriel killed it! How did he know I was coming? How?"

"Yes, how did Denoriel always 'happen' to be there when we arranged to capture the boy?" Pasgen added.

"I am not sure." Lord Ffrancon was smiling, now rather sadly. "Nor do I—or more importantly, the High King—care. It was none of King Oberon or Queen Titania's doing. It is, I think a mortal thing, one of the results of a mortal . . . ah . . . sickness called love. Denoriel is bound to the boy, and the child to him, I believe. Denoriel senses when the boy is in danger. Surely you have seen that before?"

Vidal snarled softly. He had seen it before. It was not unknown, although it was not common, for the Hunt to be disordered, sometimes even driven away, by those who loved the victim coming out with crosses and weapons of cold iron. He made no other reply, however, and the High Court lord shrugged.

"In any case the boy FitzRoy is now off bounds. Feel glad that you did not succeed in taking him and making it needful for King Oberon to retrieve him and cover your blunders." Again, that cold, elegant look of disdain. "Attempting to meddle with so valuable a mortal child would have been costly to all the Sidhe, Seleighe and Unseleighe alike. The High King might well have visited a worse punishment on you for using Unseleighe minions to attack the traveling party. Your underling-creatures can be slain. What if one had been?"

"They were not true Unseleighe!" Rhoslyn exclaimed. "I am no fool. They were constructs, good for only a few hours, and if they were killed they fell to dust immediately. No one would be able to bring an otherworldly corpse as evidence of an otherwise unbelievable tale. The High King is being unfair. He is tilting the board toward the Bright Court."

Lord Ffrancon turned slightly, and fixed her with a chilly gaze; she paled beneath it, and the unspoken rebuke. "Child, do not presume to instruct your elders in the matter of—politics. The High King does not mete out his judgments lightly. And do not presume that what you have seen in your visions is unknown to him. He knows that the boy FitzRoy will never rule—and yet interfering with him further endangers all of us. In any case the High King is not pleased by your meddling so close to one of the thrones of the mortal world. His order is that
none
of those close to King Henry, or the king himself, of course, are to be physically harmed or abducted. You have been fortunate, in that the mortals have not sought to discover the truth behind their legends. There will be an end to them."

Vidal Dhu started to rise, but Aurilia held tight to his arm. Her nails dug into the black velvet sleeve so deeply that she cut the cloth.

While Vidal was still choking on his rage, she said, "We hear and obey."

And the brilliance that had enveloped High Lord Ffrancon winked out, leaving the whole throne room by contrast, dark, and those in it blinking.

The High Court emissary gone, Vidal turned on those at hand. "Three times!" he roared, staring though the dimness to where he had seen Rhoslyn and Pasgen. His anger lanced out in physical form, hot enough to burn.

"That was very wrong." Aurilia's voice was as smoothly cold as Vidal's had been hot. "You should have told Lord Vidal of your attempts and failures."

"Three failures!"

Vidal lifted his hand; Aurilia pulled it down again. "But Vidal, in a way, they did us a favor. They fixed the High King's attention on physical removal or damage. Thus, all is not lost, my love. No, indeed." She smiled placatingly at Vidal Dhu. "We will, as I said, obey to the
letter
the order of King Oberon."

He looked at her at last, and she murmured softly, "Dismiss the court, my lord. Order them to stay out of the mortal world, unless they Hunt with you, for the time being . . . until Oberon sticks his nose in someone else's business. One day . . . one day he will anger enough lords so that—"

Vidal's hand came over her mouth, and she dropped her head. He rose to his feet and virtually repeated what she had said, only omitting the remark about King Oberon. Obediently, still somewhat dazed by a power that had not permitted even the most unruly of them to make any kind of attack on their visitor, though some had tried, they began to leave. Vidal looked at Rhoslyn and Pasgen.

"Not you two," he said. "I am not finished with you."

Aurilia smiled and nodded. "You are so clever, my love. They can be used and punished at the same time. But before we get to that, tell us how the Princess Mary progresses."

A nasty refinement of cruelty to make them wait and waste power by needing to support full shields lest Vidal lash out at them while Aurilia was occupying them. Aurilia's doing, that; Vidal could never wait to apply a torment. She could not only wait, but be interested in what you said, while she made
you
wait.

"I have not seen the princess in several months," Rhoslyn reported. "One of King Henry's ways of tormenting Queen Catherine to make her compliant to his desire for a divorce or an annulment is to forbid her to see her daughter. I used to go with the queen quite frequently when she visited Mary, however, and at that time the princess was shaping just as we desired."

"I have no direct contact with the princess, but I am in the confidence of Chapuys, the Imperial ambassador. He knows me as the human mage, Master Fagildo Otstargi, a Christianized Turk. After that disaster perpetrated by Mendoza—the previous ambassador—and his mage Martin Perez, I felt that I had better be available to direct any plans for the use of magic. Perez has returned to Spain." Pasgen's lips twitched. "His grimoire was stolen."

"There is some point to all this digression, I presume," Vidal said.

"Let him talk, love," Aurilia purred. "This and that idea has come to me. When you have heard them, of course you will decide what would be best to do."

Pasgen kept his face blank, but he felt uneasy. He had forgotten for a moment that Aurilia was not the perfectly exquisite and perfectly empty-headed she-Sidhe she appeared to be. To cover his anxiety, he made a half bow.

"To come to my point. Chapuys visits the princess regularly, sometimes bringing letters, sometimes bringing verbal messages from the queen. I attend him as often as I can. I would say that the princess has continued in the correct direction. She admires, almost reveres, anything Spanish; she thinks her great-uncle, the Emperor Charles, is the most perfect of men and a perfect example of the best ruler. Her faith in the Church is absolute—" his lips twisted "—
but
only when the Church agrees with her mother."