Twelve Days of Faery (14 page)

“That,” said Markon, sighing with relief to be dry again; “Is a very long story. You’d better sit down.”

              Why was it, thought Markon in irritation, that whenever he wanted to talk to Althea, she was nowhere in sight? He’d slept later than he meant to, but he’d still been up and awake in time to allay the concerns of both his steward and Parrin, who seemed to be of the opinion that Markon was as feeble as a new-born calf.

“Thank you!” Markon had said acerbically, resisting Parrin’s solicitous attempts to help him into a dressing gown and shrugging a light jerkin over his shirt instead. “Parrin, I realise I won’t see forty again, but it’s really not necessary to treat me like a senile old man.”

“Not senile,” said Parrin soothingly. “Just a bit tottery!”

“Where’s Althea?”

“You couldn’t expect her to be here while you’re getting dressed!”

“I didn’t expect you to be here while I’m getting dressed, if it comes to that!” retorted Markon. “Why
are
you here? It’s not that I don’t love you, but I’d rather not be bundled into my dressing gown and slippers.”

“Althea said you might still be weary. She said to let you sleep.”

“That’s very kind of her,” Markon had said, and he’d gone in search of Althea despite Parrin’s protests. The amount of information that they’d gained from Faery was seeming increasingly less worth the risk of entering it, and he thought that he’d like to catch her before she gathered any more magic and made her plans for the forthcoming night.

              Unfortunately for his plans, the day was a busy one. Even after the midweek hearings were done with, small, petty problems sprouted from every conceivable task, stretching out the time he was obliged to spend on them; and when in frustration he at last sent for Althea, not even his steward could find her.

And that, thought Markon as he went down to dinner, was exactly like her! She was probably using a look-away type spell to wander the halls unmolested. His annoyance was only compounded by the fact that every person he met seemed to find it necessary to ask about his health, and after dinner he stole away to his library to get some peace and quiet. There was more work to do in the library, of course, but it was possible to ignore the paper-strewn desk if he wandered through shelves of books instead. The windows were a nice distraction, too. They looked out over the gardens, which at night were festooned with tiny pinpricks of light that managed to illuminate an improbably large area of greenery. Markon, smiling indulgently at the few pairs of lovers who were making use of the softly-lit walks, caught sight of a familiar couple and felt his stomach drop.

Althea and Parrin were in the garden, talking. Just like the day he’d interrupted them in the library, they were sitting very close together on the garden bench and leaning intimately toward each other.

I was wrong
, thought Markon, as Althea put her hand on Parrin’s shoulder and smiled at him.
I was very,
very
wrong.

There was a leaden weight around his neck that seemed to be slowly choking him as he turned blindly from the window. The contract...well, at least the contract wouldn’t need to be broken. Markon sat down at his desk, tidying a pile of papers and gathering his pens back into their holder. The ink bottle was missing, and that suddenly seemed important enough to merit a complete clean of his desk in order to find it. Slowly and methodically, Markon began to clean his desk.

              The clock system had already signalled the half past eleven when Althea burst into the library, her blue eyes glittering. Markon looked up from his spotlessly clean desk, wishing that his heart wouldn’t leap so betrayingly every time she appeared.

He said: “You’ve been busy, I take it?”

“I know who did it!” Althea said. “Come along, Markon, I have to show you something!”

“Where are we going?” demanded Markon, but she’d already darted from the library again, her feet quick and light. He gave chase but Althea flew down the corridor ahead of him, just out of reach, her laugh floating back to mock him.

There was a Door down the stairs and around the corner, though Markon’s guard was nowhere in sight. More worrying than that was the fact that Althea had obviously left the Door open while she came to fetch him. Had his man gone through?

Althea smiled at him from the cusp of the Door and stepped through without waiting for him to join her. Markon, unwilling either to be left behind or let her go by herself into Faery, stepped from the corridor and into a typically Seelie forest, the sun filtering through the trees above with a gentle glow. It looked familiar. Markon threw an uneasy look over his shoulder at the door and saw with that it had closed completely, the forest an unmarred expanse of green and gold behind him. He drew in a long breath through his teeth: let it out slowly through his nose.

“You’re not Althea, are you?”

Althea rippled slightly in the soft air of Faery, and was quite suddenly no longer Althea. Markon took in the aged face with its golden eyes and cruel mouth, and recognised the first fae he and Althea had encountered in Faery.

“You’d best come along to the cottage, human,” she said. “I’d rather not cross your lady, myself, but I’m Burdened to do so.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” said Markon. He had his iron bands; and more importantly, proof positive that they worked. He was rather weary of being told what to do by the Fae.

The fae made a sharp motion at him—a spell of some kind, Markon thought, with a faint smile—and her eyes grew as hard as chipped amber when it became evident it wasn’t working.

“Got you under protection, has she? Well, come or stay as you will. You’ll not get back to the human world now.”

              In the end, Markon went with her. She couldn’t harm him with magic, and it was unlikely that such an elderly fae could do him physical harm so long as he didn’t let her get behind him with a weight in her hand again. Besides, he had a feeling that someone awaited them in her cottage, and since it was most likely to be the woman who had summoned the fae, Markon thought it expedient to find out who she was.

The elderly fae didn’t speak to him as they walked, she merely muttered to herself and wheezed a little.

Markon helped her over a shallow stream at one point, somewhat ironically amused to find himself helping the fae who had been sent to kidnap him, and though the fae didn’t thank him she did stop her muttering. She also stopped glaring at him every time he walked a little too quickly for her, and when they reached the cottage she stopped him at the door with one claw-like hand.

“Not much I can do to you now,” she said, and Markon was surprised to hear so little bitterness in her voice. Now she only sounded tired. “That glamour I worked on you was almost the last of my power. But that girl– she’s the kind that’ll dig out your heart with a spoon if she’s not got a knife. Don’t show her your back, human.”

              There was a hooded figure by the fire-place when the fae showed Markon into her sitting room. As far as he could tell with her hood drawn, she seemed to be gazing into the ashes. One hand was propped against the mantelpiece, causing her cuff to fall back from her wrist where a plaited bracelet of faded red thread clung. A memory turned, whirred, and clicked in Markon’s mind: Parrin as a little boy, sick and bundled up so much he could scarcely move, plaiting bracelets with an upper maid.

“Nan!” he said. “It’s Nan, isn’t it?”

She turned to face him, shrugging off her hood. He remembered her from the upper kitchen as well, where she’d looked resentfully at Althea and made remarks about the kind of opportunistic women who tried to break Parrin’s curse.

Today she merely looked satisfied.

“Now you remember me,” she said. “Of
course.
Now that I’ve been forced to bring you here.”

“I’ll put the tea on,” said the fae, rolling her eyes. Markon felt a strong desire to laugh. She’d evidently had bear Nan company for some time now.

“You’re the one who’s been opening Doors to Faery,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have had to,” said Nan, with a look of cold dislike. “We were promised to each other, Parrin and I. But there’s always someone trying to take what belongs to me, so I did something about it.”

“Why did you send someone to get me? I’m no use to you.”

“I don’t care about
you
. But she’d go through all the cantons of Seelie and Unseelie just to find you, and I want
her
very much. She knows who I am.”

“Who are you talking about? Who is it you want to trap?”

“Me,” said Althea from the door. “It’s me you’re talking about, isn’t it, Nan?”

Nan’s face gained some animation in triumph. “I knew it! I recognised you because I’m just the same, and I knew you’d come.”

“Well, here I am. What do you want with me?”

“Kill her,” Nan said to the fae woman. “She knows it’s me.”

“So do I,” Markon said, as the elderly fae drew herself together wearily for a fight he was certain both she and Althea knew she couldn’t win. “Are you going to kill me, too?”

The girl’s eyes focused on him, and she said: “Yes, you’ll have to kill him too.”

“If she tries to harm either myself or Markon, it will kill her,” said Althea warningly. “Look at her! She’s got so little magic left that she can’t even regenerate it. She’s dying.”

“I don’t care,” Nan said sulkily. “The fairy godmother gave me the spell, and she
has to obey me.
”

Althea sighed. “All right, then.
Fae, I bind you!
”

The fae woman, white as chalk, stopped in her tracks with fear written across every line of her face.

“Good,” said Althea. “Now sit down and for pity’s sake drink some of that tea before you collapse! I’ll deal with you later.”

The fae said: “Ooof!” and sat down thankfully. “Don’t mind if I do.”

Markon passed her a cup and saucer because it seemed only polite, and poured out for her with the same faint feeling of hilarity that he’d had before.

“You’re a good human,” she said to him.

“
Don’t
feed the fae,” said Nan. “She’s meant to be doing her job. Why is everyone always against me?”

Althea, who had been watching Markon pour out with some amusement, said: “I can’t think why. I left you a little something at the door, fae. Markon, we should go now.”

Markon looked up just in time to catch the flat, poisonous look that Nan directed at Althea.

“I won’t go with you,” she said sullenly.

“You’ll have to,” Althea told her. “That poor fae is at the end of her magic: there’s not a thing she could do to stop us going back to the human world and taking you with us, even if I
hadn’t
bound her.”

“And there’s the little matter of facing trial for murder, conspiracy, and treason,” said Markon grimly.

“Well, I won’t,” Nan said again, but when Althea prodded her forward in the small of her back, the girl trotted along ahead of them resentfully. Markon wasn’t entirely sure that she had any idea of the kind of trouble she was in: she seemed content to mutter of their perfidy as she was slowly but surely edged back outside the cottage.

              “We’ll all go through together,” Althea said, when they were in sight of the Door again. No, not
the
Door.
A
Door. It wasn’t the one by which Markon and the fae entered Faery. “This Door opens in Nan’s room, and I don’t want her darting away either here
or
there.”

“I won’t run away,” said Nan. “I didn’t do anything wrong. People are always trying to take away the things that are mine, and it’s not fair.”

“Did Annerlee try to take away what was yours?”

“She was talking to you. She shouldn’t have done that.”

“She didn’t tell us anything,” Althea told her, propping the Door open. “She was too afraid of you. You didn’t have to kill her.”

“I’ll take her arm,” said Markon, sick to his stomach at the girl’s utter indifference. He reached for Althea’s hand with his spare one.

“All right,” said Althea, as Markon stepped through the Door. “But we’ll have to watch out for–”

Markon arrived in Nan’s room while Althea was still speaking, and found that he wasn’t alone. There was something box-like sitting on Nan’s bed, and at the foot of the bed was Pilburn.

As Althea segued from Faery with Nan, Pilburn said: “Please don’t move. The spell is poised to start at the
least
quiver of my finger, and I assure you that the fae it summons has more power in her little finger than is in the entirety of this puny kingdom.”

              “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” said Althea regretfully, while Nan scuttled away behind Pilburn. She closed the door to Faery with a casual sweep of one hand and added: “He’s the one who gave Nan the summoning spell, aren’t you, Pilburn?”

“Amongst other things,” said Pilburn, with a sharp, toothy smile. “You should take better care of your subjects, your majesty. Dissatisfaction in the court can get very messy, can’t it?”

“So can spells,” said Althea. “I
really
wouldn’t start up that spell if I were you, Pilburn.”

Nan said disgustedly: “Don’t listen to her, she’s just trying to frighten you.”

“It’s unfortunate,” Pilburn said. “I didn’t want to kill you, your majesty. Not yet, anyway. But at least Parrin is poised to take the throne, even if the poor boy will never be married.”

“Why kill the Doctor?” asked Markon. It was clear that Pilburn was on the point of starting up the spell, and it was possibly best for all concerned that he didn’t manage to do so. “You’re both on the same side.”

Pilburn gave a short, impatient shrug. “That man! He actually thought he could stop the curse! I had to come along to make sure that he didn’t interfere with Nan; which was unfortunate, since it put me back in a position to be discovered.”

“He came into your room that night without knocking, didn’t he?” Althea said. “He was pompous like that, sailing in and out of apartments without notice. I’d say he walked in to find you and Nan with the spell in front of you.”

“Close enough,” said Pilburn. “He would have recognised what it was immediately. The fool thought we were really trying for peace with Montalier! He thought he was helping! At least he was easy to kill: I called him over to look at the spell and slit his throat before he even saw the dagger.”

Nan, fidgeting with her fingers, said: “He shouldn’t have bled all over the rug. There was blood underneath and it wouldn’t all scrub away.”

“You took the sheepskin rug from the opposite room to cover up the stains,” nodded Markon. “Did you carry the Doctor to his room by yourself?”

“He was too heavy,” said Nan. “Pilburn helped me and then he went away with the rug. He should have stayed and slit
her
, too.”

There was that flat, venomous look again, thought Markon, chilled.

“Nan was arranging Doctor Romalier’s body when Parrin and I walked in,” said Althea, unaffected. “It was a clever idea to pretend to faint: it hid the blood on your apron. It was only this morning when I thought about it that I realised you were a recurring thread in the tapestry. You were there when the doctor was murdered. You were Annerlee’s closest friend—did you know she was holding the quilt you tatted together when she died?—and when I asked Parrin last night about the upper maid who played with him when he was sick, he remembered you very well.”

“He was supposed to be
mine
,” said Nan. “You don’t understand. We loved each other. We would have been married but the king arranged for an advantageous marriage instead. What was that to our love?”

“Parrin chose his own bride,” Markon told her gently. She looked at him without recognition, and he wondered if she remembered he was the king. “There was no arrangement, just love.”

“Liar,” she said. “I know he loved me. We were promised to each other.”

“All those girls, Nan! The ones that died, or were injured, or stolen!”

“It’s no use talking to her,” said Pilburn, with a rude laugh. “She’s as bent as a cornerstone.”

“So that’s why you were in Annerlee’s room,” said Markon. “You thought she’d hidden the spell there and you were afraid she was getting too unstable.”

“I did the right thing,” Nan said serenely. “I know, because my fairy godmother gave me the spell, and she wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t in the right.”

Pilburn muttered in disgust: “
Fairy godmother!
You addled little wench,
I
gave you the spell!”

There was a malevolent gleam to Nan’s usually dull eyes. “You’re a liar, too,” she said. “Open, open,
open!
You’re summoned!”

              They seemed like nonsense words until Markon realised that a Door to Faery was once again opening right there in Nan’s room. His stomach dropped in dismay and he looked instinctively down at Althea, who smiled calmly at him and threaded her fingers through his. She wasn’t afraid. But why–? No,
who?

The door opened fully, and when the fae stepped through Markon recognised the Lady of the Revels.

“Here I am again!” she sighed. “Heigh-ho! Did I not warn you of the consequences of summoning me again, humans?”

“You’ll do as you’re told,” said Pilburn. “You’re Summoned and Burdened. You’ll take your instructions from me.”

“No she won’t,” Nan said, with an angry light in her eyes. “She’ll take them from me!”

Althea said: “I don’t think she’ll take them from anyone, actually.”

“What have we here?” said the Lady of the Revels. She was looking at the spell intently, her eyes avaricious and cruel. “Little one, did you do this?”

“Yes,” said Althea. “They’re all yours. If you want them.”

“Oh yes, I think so!” the lady said, her voice coldly amused. “You,
come here.
You:
pick up the spell and come with me
.”

Pilburn, who had been watching them bemusedly, picked up the spell with stiff hands and marched toward her on legs that were just as stiff, his face draining of colour. Nan was there before him, her face very red and puffy, her eyes dark with anger.

“You can’t have me!” she squealed. “My fairy godmother–”

“Be silent,” said the Lady of the Revels; and Nan, her eyes bulging, was silent.

Althea said: “It’s no use taking the spell. I’ve already ruined it and it wouldn’t work from your side, anyway.”

The Lady sighed. “I feared as much. Heigh-ho, one must take the day with its successes, after all! Farewell, little one: I appreciate your troubles. Humans: with me!”

              She opened the Door again and vanished through it, dragging Pilburn and Nan behind her. The last Markon saw of Faery before Althea shut the Door behind them was Pilburn’s despairing face and Nan’s furious one, lit by the silver light of the Unseelie moon.

“That’s that, then,” she said, with the smallest huff of a sigh.

“You
sabotaged
their spell,” Markon said, grasping for understanding. “You knew it wasn’t going to work the whole time.”

“Exactly.”

“But I was trying to distract him from starting it up!”

“It was very clever of you,” said Althea apologetically. “And you did a wonderful job, but I must admit the whole affair stretched out a lot longer than I was hoping for.”

“
When
did you sabotage it?”

“When I finally realised that it had to be Nan,” Althea told him. She looked rather annoyed. “I could kick myself, Markon! Imagine being taken in by a pretend faint! By the time it fell into place for me and I’d thought to ask Parrin about Nan, she’d already gone into Faery. She left the spell here in her room, and it seemed obvious that if we got back either she or her benefactor would try to use the spell again to deal with us. So I tweaked it a little bit to make things fairer and came right after you.”

“And Pilburn? How did you know it was him?”

“It wasn’t very exciting,” Althea said. “I went back to his suite late yesterday because it seemed ridiculously unhelpful of him not to give up his rugs to Sal and I, considering he likes to be thought of as helpful. One of the rugs had quite a bit of watered down and dried out blood beneath it. I don’t think Nan knows much about scrubbing.”

Markon found himself smiling. “Possibly not. Nor does Pilburn, if it comes to that.”

“Will you wake Parrin to tell him the good news?”

“Oh, let the lad sleep,” said Markon. He felt suddenly tired and very, very old. “I’d best start on the interminable paperwork if I want to find a tactful way to let Wyndsor know that we found the spy they planted in our court, and that he was the one who murdered Doctor Romalier.”

“Shall I come with you?” asked Althea. She was looking rather thoughtful, and her blue eyes rested on him with a questioning air he didn’t understand. “I think it may be time we discussed our contract.”

“No!” said Markon, more harshly than he’d meant to. More carefully, he said: “You should get some sleep, too. Bring Parrin to the library at ten o’clock this morning and we’ll discuss anything you want to discuss.”

              The morning sped by in a series of bells from the internal clock system until Markon, who was still doggedly working on an official report for Wyndsor’s edification, realised that it had just sounded ten bells.

With the last bell the library door opened and Althea entered in a decisive kind of way, trailing Parrin behind her. She was too pale again, with deep purple crescents beneath her eyes. That, coupled with the fact that she was still wearing the same unassuming frock she had been wearing earlier in the morning, told Markon that she hadn’t been to bed at all.

What had kept her awake? It occurred to him that his brusqueness earlier in the day might have led her to think that he wasn’t going to honour the contract, and a searing sense of remorse burned through him. Was that what she’d spent the morning fretting about?

Willing to atone for his mistakes, he said with a smile: “Ah, the affianced couple! Shall we make the announcement tonight, or are there to be special arrangements for a celebration?”

“Ah,” said Althea, exchanging a look with Parrin. “So
that’s
– I don’t think you quite understand.”

Parrin, meeting her gaze with what seemed to Markon to be distinct horror, said: “Good grief, no! I’m not marrying Althea!”

“There was a promise made,” said Markon sharply. “You won’t refuse to honour your obligations!”

“Actually,” said Althea, her eyes light and bright; “You might want to look over the contract again. You can go, Parrin. I don’t think we’ll need you after all.”

Parrin left swiftly: too swiftly, in fact, for Markon to either call him back or dismiss him as well. While Markon was still staring perplexedly after his son, Althea wandered away to the window and gazed out at the view with her back very straight. Without looking at him, she repeated: “You might want to look over the contract again, Markon.”

He looked at her back with narrow eyes and strode over to his desk. The contract was at the top of the first drawer where he would catch a sight of Althea’s neat handwriting every time he opened it: one of those things that he’d not consciously done and now regretted.

“Read the last section,” Althea said.

“I’ve already read it,” said Markon, but he read it again nevertheless. “
‘In the event that the aforementioned Althea of Avernse shall break the aforementioned curse and succour His Royal Highness Parrin of Montalier, she shall be recompensed as follows: at a time of her own choosing, to be made Queen of Montalier by marriage to the
–”

Markon stopped abruptly, his mind spinning.

Althea said: “Keep going.”

“
‘–by marriage to the king.’
But this is nonsense: Parrin
is
to be king. You are to be queen.”

“That’s not what the contract says,” said Althea, to the window. “It says
at a time of my own choosing.
I choose now.”

Markon, his breath coming a little faster than he was used to, said: “Why me?”

“In Avernse there’s word of a coming trouble,” Althea said, still to the window. “Something so vast that it would reach even to the corners of the wild lands. Avernse and Montalier have always been good friends and the Queen thought it would be helpful to have one of us here when the trouble comes. She suggested that Parrin and I might do well together. Then I met you and you were rather nice, and I’ve never much cared for boys so I decided I’d rather marry you.”

Markon felt a dull pain at the back of his throat. He said flatly: “You decided that you’d...
rather
...marry me?”

“I didn’t expect you to be so lovely,” said Althea, and Markon thought he saw the smallest trace of a smile in the reflection she cast in the window. “I thought we’d suit very well. And then I thought that maybe you were a little bit fond of me and that was nice and a little bit odd.”

“Fond,” repeated Markon slowly. “You thought I was
fond
of you.”

“Well, I hoped so,” said Althea’s voice, through the pounding in his ears. “I got rather fond of you, you see, and that made it harder to tell. I did draw some redundancies into the contract, just in case you’d rather not marry me. The– the contract– well, it mentions
the curse
, and since there never was a curse as such–”

“You thought I was
fond
of you?”

Althea, her shoulders very stiff, said: “The Queen will be happy enough just to keep an Avernseian in your court. You needn’t feel that you have to marry me if you’d rather not.”