Blood and Iron (39 page)

“He's about as much use as one,” Seeker commented dryly. “May I borrow your sword?”

“Useful or not,” Keith said, “I can't have you lopping his head off.”

“Ah. I didn't mean to. Keith . . .”

“Yes?”

“Ian came to talk to me. About the baby. And—” She forestalled Keith with a raised hand when he leaned forward, a smile cracking his face. “He told me he thought of a way to deal with the Magi.”

Her tone carried the message. “I'd rather not know.”

“But you have to know,” she said, pitiless. “He says he knows how to summon the Hunt.”

“Jesus Christ!” Seeker flinched, covering her ears. Keith, instantly concerned, took her wrists in his hands. “I'm sorry. Oh, no.” He stroked her cheek before he backed away. “So you think Arthur is an alternative?”

“I—Keith, you're many things. You're not a general.”

“I know. Fyodor Stephanovich is, however.”

“Who is Fyodor Stephanovich?”

“My rival,” Keith said bitterly, leaning back on the alabaster rail. “The wolf who should be Prince of the pack. The wolf, in point of fact, that Mist once asked me if I would follow, were he the Dragon Prince.”

“And would you?” Seeker caught herself nibbling her lip and forced herself to stop. Instead, she pulled a single yellow rose from the bush and shredded its velvet petals, wet gilt marking her fingertips.

“In a heartbeat.”

“And will he follow you?”

He wouldn't look up from his careful perusal of his nails. “That remains to be seen. It should be his, Elaine. He was made for it—”

“But you were born to it.”

“Can a man be born into the wrong role in life?” He turned to track the flight of a raven—the same one? another?—across the cinder-colored clouds. “Sometimes I wonder if you would have been happy if I had not found you.”

Seeker pressed her fist against her chest to ease the pain. “Kadiska probably would have stolen me away to serve the Cat Anna,” she attempted. She reached out and brushed her fingertips down his arm. “And then there would be no Ian—”

He swallowed hard. “Our son. He'd unleash something like that?” Like a bee drawn back by the scent of honey, he returned to the thought. “I've heard stories.”

“Get Cairbre to tell you.” Seeker breathed deeply, taking in the scent of roses that surrounded the sleeping King. “When they ride, they destroy whatever falls in their path. Hamlets. Villages. Towns. Entire civilizations.”

“I'd like Faerie to survive this,” Keith said. “But not at that price. If they're awakened, can they be put down again?”

Seeker shrugged. “If I'd been chained for a few hundred years, I might wake up a tad cranky. They were put down once.”

“Mist was chained under the earth too.”

“Exactly. Now may I have Caledfwlch? Please?”

He drew the short, dark spatha out of its sheath and offered it to Seeker. She palmed the leather-wrapped hilt and felt the thing's weight in her hand. When she looked up again, he regarded her, something that wasn't a smile folding the corners of his eyes. “What are you going to do with that?”

Seeker grinned into the blade. It didn't reflect her smile. “I'm going to cut the King's hair,” she said, and walked toward the bower where Arthur lay.

“Wait.” Keith laid a hand on her shoulder. She turned toward him, frowning. “Elaine.”

Her lips thinned. She started to shake her head, until he brushed the sword to one side and palmed her cheek, holding her gaze. “Is this just a political marriage?”

“We're going to get killed,” she answered. “Or you are.”

“So I'm selfish,” he said. “If I were dying of cancer, would you still marry me?”

“If you were dying of
cancer
. . .” She sucked her lip, letting her voice trail off. “I wouldn't know what you're going to do. What I'm going to do.”

“So life sucks. So what.” His mouth twitched. “We do the good we can do on the way to the gallows. Tell me something. ”

“Yes?”

“How are our geasa, how is our wyrd, any different from that of any man who struggles and is probably defeated and dies, except that ours is more manifest?” He sighed, full-chested, and scratched at his beard. “Will you feel better if I promise not to trust you?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Keith, it's not fair to you.”

“Crappy excuse,” he answered. “It'll be harder on you. I get to die messily. And probably young. Now, if you want to spare yourself the pain . . .”

“I can't be faithful. I can't be anything.”

“I'm not making any promises,” he said, and bent to kiss her. “Why do we have to talk about this?”

She permitted the kiss but couldn't bring herself to soften into it. “What's the alternative? Ignore it?”

“Why not? Live in the moment. We wouldn't be the only ones ever to do so.”

Live like wolves. Why not, indeed?
Seeker nodded, feeling edgy and brittle. “I see.” She drew away from him, turned, and looked down at the sleeping King. Caledfwlch's tip dug a careless furrow in the floor stones; she lifted it, swearing.

“What's your plan?”

“Just a hunch. Did you ever stop to wonder why the Gwragedd Annwn trim his beard, but never cut his hair? Lift him, please.”

Keith removed the bronze blade from Arthur's chest and took him by the shoulders, pulling the sleeping King into his arms. Seeker reached up and combed her fingers through Arthur's waist-long hair, feeling the frayed ends frizzy against her palm. She lifted Caledfwlch and braced it against the edge of the bier, pulling Arthur's smooth locks into a rough ponytail.

Keith supported him like a sleeping child, too big to carry. “Watch the sword,” he cautioned.

“Well, don't drop him on it.”

The werewolf rolled his eyes. “Heaven forfend.”

The strands seemed hard as wire. The point of the blade bit into stone, but she had to saw the ruddy gold of Arthur's hair back and forth across the black iron blade, and still it resisted. Frustrated, she yanked harder; Keith held Arthur's head steady, knocking his golden circlet to the floor.

One by one, strands parted, curling away from the blade. Seeker stepped back, Caledfwlch cold in her right hand, Arthur's hair clutched like a flagging banner in her left. The sleeping King shuddered, and Keith laid him down. “Poor bastard.” He reached to smooth the ragged edges of hair from Arthur's face.

A hand latched onto the werewolf's wrist before even Seeker could have reacted, and Arthur's eyes opened as if on springs. “Cei,” he said, in a voice that gave no hint of his long sleep. “Shake me no more. I've had the strangest dream.”

And then he blinked, sat up, and released Keith's wrist. “I beg your pardon, sir. My sight was blurred, and you're not who I took you for. What is this tongue I'm speaking?”

“Fae,” Seeker said. She dropped a curtsy, ridiculous in trousers. “Ard Ri. Welcome back from your rest.”

Arthur's eye lit on the sword in her hand. “I was dying,” he said with the air of one remembering. He swung his legs over the edge of the bier. “Bedwyr said he'd give that blade back to the Faeries.”

“He did,” Keith answered. He extended his hand and helped the Ard Ri to his feet. “You slept. You did not die. Morgan and her sisters brought you here, Your Majesty, and it is some fifteen hundred years since you shut your eyes. You're in Annwn, where you have slumbered while the world went on without you.”

We should have told him that while he was still sitting down,
Seeker thought. Arthur staggered, and Keith caught him. Seeker stepped back to keep the blade out of the way.

“Fifteen—
hundred
.” His eyes were the blue of cornflowers, and he was of a height with Keith. “Is there still a Britain?”

Keith nodded.

“Good,” Arthur said softly. “Then I'm not King anymore. By the grace of God.”

“No,” Keith answered, his fingers whitening on Arthur's wrist as Seeker flinched and looked quickly away. “I am. A King of sorts, though not of England. And I need your help, Ard Ri.”

“Yes,” Arthur said. “I imagine.”

Arthur regained his strength quickly on the walk back to the palace. He shied from the blade at Keith's hip after Seeker returned it, but seemed otherwise steady, occasionally running his hands through his tattered hair with a wry little frown. “Gwenhwyfar?” he asked Seeker as they came within sight of the castle, in a voice without hope.

“Only you,” she answered, letting him lean on her arm.

“How did she die?”

“In a convent, the legends say. Old and not alone.”

“That is . . . good. What of Lance?”

She stopped in her tracks and turned to meet his eyes. “Arthur.” She shook her head. “Dead in battle. All gone but for you. And Morgan.”

The King licked his lips, and then he turned his head and spat. “Morgan. And where has she been for fifteen hundreds of years? Still fancying herself a Queen?”

“No,” Seeker said, watching Keith's back as the werewolf strode ahead. “But you should know she's my grandmother. And my father's sire was Lancelot.” She felt the old King stiffen against her grip. She didn't turn to look at his face.

The scent of Elaine's concern blew from her in tatters on every breeze, but that wasn't the chief source of the worry stiffening across Keith's shoulders as he walked. That honor went to the raw, rank scent of hidden fear that dripped from Arthur like cold sweat, provoking Keith's hackles to rise even in human shape. If he'd been a wolf, his ears would have been pinned against his skull. He jumped when Arthur spoke:

“Do you hear the Dragon?” The King's voice was level as frozen water.

That's what an Ard Ri should sound like. Even when he's shaking in his boots.
“Not recently,” Keith answered.

“It's because I stood up to her,” Elaine said. “She won't interfere now, the way she would have.”

“Are you certain of that?” Keith glanced back.

Elaine's weight shifted as Arthur straightened, standing upright under his own power now. “No,” Elaine said. “And what are you certain of?”

He stopped completely and turned to face her, frowning, though he couldn't keep the twinkle out of his eye. He could feel it there, beating its wings below the surface; it broke free quickly and turned itself into a grin. “I've missed that.”

And as if Arthur of Britain were not standing beside her, she blushed and said, “So have I.”

Arthur held his peace, and without another word they found their way to the Mebd's retiring-room, where the door was again propped open. The Queen looked up as they paused in the doorway, and Keith laid a hand on Arthur's elbow, honestly concerned the King might pivot on his heel and bolt.

“Welcome,” the Mebd said, standing and laying her sewing aside. If she were surprised, it vanished under her porcelain mask. “Welcome, Arthur of Britain. And you, Seeker of the Daoine Sidhe. And you, Dragon Prince. We greet you all.”

“Your Majesty,” Arthur said, and went down on one knee before her. Elaine curtsied more slowly, and Keith stood his ground. “I am Arthur of Britain no longer, or so I am told.”

“But it matters what you were as much as what you are.” The Queen smiled and gestured Elaine to her feet. “Seeker,” she said. “There are clothes and servants in your quarters. You must go and make ready for your wedding. Dragon Prince, you as well.”

Keith glanced sideways at Arthur. “Ard Ri—”

“Arthur,” Arthur said, without taking his eyes from the Mebd. “I've had enough of the other. It's all right, Dragon Prince. Her Majesty and I have things to discuss.”

Elaine surprised Keith when she pressed him back against the wall in the corridor and kissed him hard, a little catch in her breathing as if something hurt her. “Tonight,” he said, checking the hang of the short-sword at his hip.

“Tonight,” she agreed, and turned away so fast it almost looked like flight.

Keith closed his lips over a promise he couldn't have kept, and went to find a page to tell him where he was supposed to report to be groomed and dressed.
From pack wolf to show dog,
he thought, as young Wolfsbane showed him to the chamber that had been reserved for his use. There were servants already within, and Keith braced himself to be fussed over, but the first words out of the pixie valet's mouth were, “A messenger came for you, Your Highness.”

“A messenger?” Stupidly, shrugging out of his borrowed jacket. “And do you know where to find Fyodor Stephanovich?”

“He is with the messenger—”

“Send for them.” Sharper than he meant it to be. He drew a breath. “Please.”

“As you wish.”

They had him down to his trousers and barefoot by the time the door opened again, and it was only a few moments. Keith spent the time counting fragile breaths, knowing before he caught the mingled scents from the hall who would enter the room at Fyodor's side. Knowing what the message would be.

“Elder Brother,” Ivan Ilyich said, holding the door for Fyodor as he came in.

“Vanya. Welcome.” The darkness in the blond wolf's eyes confirmed his panic; perversely, his roiling gut settled once he knew. “It's my father.”

“Come soon,” was all he answered.

“I am to be married in a very few hours, Vanya.” A struggle to keep his voice level. “Will he last the night?”