Fallowblade (70 page)

‘There are no debts, gentle queen,’ said Zaravaz, favouring her with an intense and hypnotising look that provoked a ferment of jealousy amongst some of the ladies looking on. ‘It is enough that abject superstition is quelled.’

‘In that case I myself owe you no obligation, sir,’ said Saibh’s consort, Fedlamid macDall, ‘though you freed me from thralldom to the Grey Neighbours. Yet it is beyond my power to express the depths of my gratitude, for without your intervention I would have been forever enslaved.’

‘Had Lady Asr
ă
thiel not petitioned on your behalf, Fedlamid,’ Zaravaz said mildly, ‘you would still be bound in servitude to the trows.’

MacDall made a low reverence to Asr
ă
thiel.

‘Is the Sanctorum’s curse entirely lifted, brave sir?’ Saibh asked. ‘Ronin sometimes wonders.’

‘Queen Saibh, there never was a curse,’ said Zaravaz, ‘but if it means aught to you, send a messenger to the Dubh Linn, the Black Lake on the moors of Slievmordhu. Let your envoy notify the fuathan infesting those waters that Zaravaz sent you. Command them, in my name, to cast out the four wooden toys that the flapping druid threw in, for dry Virosus stipulated that as the charms rotted away, so would the House of Ó Maoldúin. Keep the four sticks preserved in some strongbox, if it puts your mind at rest. I tell you this, Saibh, because you are temperate of spirit, and when you were a child you used to defend the songbirds’ nests in your father’s woods from your thieving cousins.’

Between surprise that he could have known so much about her, and delight to think that her son’s worries might be entirely swept away once and for all, Saibh stammered a suitable response before she and her consort retired meekly from the presence of the renowned and infamous visitor.

It was with much apprehension that Asr
ă
thiel formally presented her lover to her parents. Her father, who had not fought in the recent wars and who had never seen one of the Glashtinsluight—unless it had been a cavalcade of Ice Goblins he had glimpsed in the Land of Midwinter, and not a dream—regarded Zaravaz with suspicion, barely overlaid by a veneer of politeness. He took the measure of Zaravaz and, to the damsel’s astonishment, right in front of her eyes he appeared to soften his attitude. Indeed, she judged that at length he almost approved. To her surprise he said, ‘Methinks, sir, I have seen your face before, reflected in an ice crystal, or else I was bedazzled.’

‘In Ellan Istillkutl, Lord Weathermage, the boundary between illusion and reality can be ill marked,’ said Zaravaz, who appeared to know about Arran’s travels, though Asr
ă
thiel had not told him.

As for Jewel, when Zaravaz kissed her hand as suavely as a gentleman of the highest degree she was clearly entranced and intrigued, though at first she hung back, gazing searchingly at his countenance as if trying to place him. ‘I am astonished,’ she said frankly, and with some complaint, ‘to see that my daughter has found companionship with the lord of an unseelie race. Knowing what I do about goblins, I cannot help but be concerned for her welfare.’

A stir and a flurry went through the multitude when they heard Jewel pronounce this implied criticism. From past exchanges on the battlefield they knew well that the Glashtinsluight did not take kindly to adverse comments. Many held their breath in fright as they awaited Zaravaz’s response, and made ready to flee.

‘My lady,’ said the goblin king, regarding Jewel with a gentle respect they had not conceived was possible in him, ‘there is no need to fear me. I am no longer unseelie, and besides, your daughter has conquered me entirely. She has bested me, wherefore rightly you ought to be concerned for
my
welfare, for she has the power to overwhelm me with a word, or merely by crooking her little finger.’

Laughing, Jewel replied, ‘And that is as it should be. But I, too, have seen you before!’ she exclaimed suddenly, as forthright as ever. ‘I saw you in a dream, and in water. It was you!’

With an elegant bow, Zaravaz acknowledged that she was right.

Ever inquisitive, Jewel wanted to know how it had come to pass that she had experienced a precognition, as it were, of the goblin king; wherefore Asr
ă
thiel told the story of the urisk Crowthistle, while the entire assembly listened in. All the time they continued to watch Zaravaz in concentrated awe; every smile, every turn of his head, every flicker of an eyebrow was noted, and many longed secretly to exchange a few words with him so that they could later say,
I spoke with the goblin king
.

‘Why, you were the little urisk!’ said Jewel, upon the closing of the tale. ‘I am glad to meet you, sir, for although you were a laggard when it came to housework, you did my family a good turn in the Marsh.’

Two or three courtiers almost swooned with horror at this presumptuous address, expecting the goblin king to bring the castle down around their ears in retribution, but Zaravaz laughed. It was such a striking and musical laugh that one of them fainted anyway and had to be revived with hartshorn.

‘Not only in the Marsh, Mother,’ said Asr
ă
thiel, ‘for it was the urisk who recognised that you still lived after the mistletoe arrow struck you down—he who caused you to be raised up.’

‘Then, sir, you have my gratitude in full quantity,’ cried Arran, his wonder plain to see.

Albiona, however, was scandalised. ‘The urisk!’ she cried. ‘What, the selfsame urisk that plagued our house?’

‘The very one, madam,’ Zaravaz said with aplomb, turning to address Dristan’s wife. ‘I availed myself fully of your hospitality. Your cook is to be commended for her succulent fruit preserves and seedcakes. In the hiring of staff, madam, your taste is impeccable.’

Much mollified and taken aback, Albiona blushed.

‘Pray convey my greetings to your estimable brownie,’ said Zaravaz.

Murmuring platitudes, Albiona let the matter drop, being too flustered to take it further.

‘Your family,’ Zaravaz said to Jewel, ‘has a habit of offering me gifts. Generous of you, certainly, but I myself have a habit of returning property to its rightful owner. To whom does this belong?’ He held out his hand, and in his palm lay glittering the silver-white treasure from the Iron Tree.

At once Asr
ă
thiel said, ‘It belongs to my mother.’

Beaming with delight, Jewel accepted the stone. ‘My father’s jewel!’ she exclaimed, caressing it admiringly. ‘There was a time I disliked it for what it represented, but it seems to me that its meaning has changed. This thing has become a symbol of hope and joy, and I am glad to have it back.’ At her request, her husband fastened the chain around her neck.

While Jewel continued to question Zaravaz about the urisk’s life in the Great Marsh of Slievmordhu, and to reflect on the brief conversations they had held together, Arran asked Asr
ă
thiel whether she would draw aside to speak privately with him. She agreed, not without casting an anxious glance at Zaravaz who stood coolly alone in the midst of his foes, with the king’s household guard and the Knights of the Cup glowering at him on all sides, and she his only ally.

Her lover smiled, as if reading her thoughts, and said softly. ‘Do not vex yourself, ladylove.’ More loudly, and to the indignation of the warriors, he added, ‘I could take this football team as if brushing off a speck of dust,’ then in polite tones, as if to rub salt in the wound, ‘though tricked out so prettily and no doubt proud of their mothers’ best cutlery from the kitchen drawer.’

‘Are you still immune to iron and steel?’ Asr
ă
thiel asked.

‘That I am,’ he conceded somewhat more reluctantly, and she had to be satisfied.

When they had secluded themselves out of earshot on the far side of the chamber, Arran whispered to his daughter, ‘Are you happy?’ and when she assured him she was, he appeared somewhat more content, though still unconvinced.

‘I can only surmise that this extraordinary attachment began during your incarceration at Minnith Ariannath.’

‘You are right.’

‘And you never told us.’

‘How could I?’

‘Fridayweed?’ said Arran, and the impet, which had been curled up inside his collar, thrust its long nose through the curtains of his hair.

‘Wot?’ it said.

‘Can you tell me whether my daughter is under a spell?’

‘Not if that one there would take umbrage against my doing so,’ said the little wight, peering, awe-struck, across the room at Zaravaz. ‘That there swanking bogle’d claw up both my mittens and use my kneecaps as a pair o’ cutty spoons if I fashed him.’

‘He would not mind,’ said Asr
ă
thiel. ‘In any case, there is no spell.’

‘Aye, then, I’ll do it,’ said the wight, and it proceeded to recite a short rhyme in a language unknown to either Asr
ă
thiel or her father. ‘Now man,’ Fridayweed said to Arran, ‘look through the crook of my elbow and see whether the colour of her eyes has changed.’

So Arran held the tiny creature on his palm, and Fridayweed placed its paw on its hip with its elbow akimbo, and Arran squinted as if looking though a keyhole. Presently the weathermage breathed a sigh. ‘The same,’ he said, lowering his hand.

‘Set me on the table,’ said the impet. When Arran had placed his fist on the snowy cloth Fridayweed scampered down his arm and hid behind a tray of comfits, where it plunked itself down, cross-legged, and began to munch with relish on the dainties.

‘Do not be tellin’ him I am here,’ it said, between mouthfuls.

‘Why not?’

‘I’m mortal frittened o’ t’ Mountain King. I’ll drink a brimmer to his health at a good distance.’

‘You were not afraid of a snow troll,’ Arran pointed out.

‘Man, that’s a long way different.’

Asr
ă
thiel returned to the other side of the room with her father, whereupon Arran, who had been casting many a protective look in his daughter’s direction, said to the singular guest, ‘What is your intention by coming here tonight?’

Zaravaz replied, ‘The Argenkindë deserted your realms many weeks since, but I returned alone, because there was something I had left behind, which I wished to take with me.’

Jewel, Arran and Avalloc all turned to Asr
ă
thiel, who smiled at her beloved family. The joy that shone upon her countenance was apparent to all.

‘And have you found what you sought?’ Avalloc Storm Lord enquired somewhat abrasively.

‘That I have, noble sir,’ said Zaravaz. ‘As for whether she will come with me, that is for her to decide.’

‘Aye,’ burst out Sir Huelin Lathallan, who could no longer contain his wrath, ‘you would seize the flower of us all, having already taken the lives of the best men in Narngalis! You reaving firebrand! It pains me to stand by and hear you garner gratitude, shielded as you are by guest code, when what you deserve is to be hanged, drawn and quartered.’

‘Hold your tongue, sirrah!’ King Warwick barked.

The shocked onlookers retreated from Zaravaz and many rushed from that chamber as swiftly as protocol would allow, in terror for their lives. Those who remained cast their fate in the lap of providence and fearfully fixed their collective gaze on the goblin king.

He smiled.

There was something about that smile which did nothing to ease their apprehension.

‘Sir Huelin,’ said Zaravaz pleasantly, ‘the work of soldiers is to kill or be killed. For the sake of the Lady Asr
ă
thiel and her honourable kindred I will not bandy words with you. Nor will I bandy blows in this place, for I keep my word.’

‘You would not dare fight man to man,’ retorted Lathallan, ‘not without all your conjurings and cantrips and your unfair advantage.’

Tucking up his sleeves to his elbow, Zaravaz looked away as if wearied by tedium. ‘If you challenge me I shall be overjoyed to meet you on equal footing, at a time and place of your choosing.’ He smoothed back his hair, like a wrestler about to enter a bout, and glanced enquiringly at the knight as if waiting for an invitation.

‘There will be no challenges, Sir Huelin,’ said King Warwick. ‘Not beneath my roof.’

The knight had no choice but to acquiesce, and did homage to his sovereign to acknowledge it. The crowd’s tension abated, though Lathallan scowled, as if bandying blows were the very thing he most desired. ‘Had we met elsewhere,’ he said to Zaravaz, ‘it might have been different.’

Ignoring him, Zaravaz turned to Asr
ă
thiel and said, ‘It is time for me to depart.’

‘Are you going with him,
a mhuirnín
?’ Jewel asked anxiously.

‘No. Not now.’ The damsel gave her parents a look full of significance. Arran and Jewel read her unspoken message,
I will discuss this further with you later, in private.

Corisande tugged at the hem of Zaravaz’s cloak. ‘Are you going away?’ she asked, gazing up at him. ‘But I want to know why your eyes are purple.’

Albiona made to grab her daughter by the hand and impel her away; however, Zaravaz crouched on his heels to bring his face level with the child’s. Corisande did not tremble, but instead looked at the goblin king with shining eyes.

‘Did you know that purple is the final colour of the visible spectrum?’ he said. ‘Purple’s mystery is that it lies between the known and the unknown.’

The child seemed content with that, although Albiona muttered in her husband’s ear, ‘He still has not told her why his eyes are that colour.’