Blood and Iron (4 page)

Janet never would have won Tam Lin back from Queens so armed with bitter experience as the Mebd and the Cat Anna.

“Don't hum that,” Robin said, and Seeker jerked guiltily.

“Hum what?”

He glanced over his shoulder, then whistled a few quick bars of music, his mulish ears wobbling flat.

Seeker snorted. “Well, she knows better now, doesn't she?”

Robin Goodfellow answered her with a grimace, and picked up his pace. “She can see through the glamours, of course,” he said, with a rude gesture to her dress.

“Of course,” Seeker replied, “but she expects the courtesy. ”
And one day I would love to go before her in my robe and slippers. Especially when she insists on hauling me into court the instant I return, weary and salt-stained.

“Aye,” Puck answered, and fell silent until they stood before the dark Gothic doors leading to the throne room. An intricate relief worked into the panels cried out for hands to stroke its maidens and men at love and at war; hounds and horse in pursuit of wolves and stags; animal-headed spirals of three points, with the legs of hares or horses interwoven in the knotwork. On either side of the portal a grim guard stood, helm shuttered and a green-and-violet cloak slung around its shoulders, stiff as its own tasseled halberd. Seeker didn't know if they were men, Fae, or merely animate suits of armor. She'd never bothered to find out.

The Puck stepped away as she squared herself before the door, flicked illusory bell-skirts straight, and stiffened her spine. Mute on brazen hinges, the weighty doors swung open.

Her slippers chiming into the silence of a hundred broken conversations, Seeker entered the presence chamber of the Mebd of the Daoine Sidhe.

At first all Seeker saw was the jostle of silks and colors, the flutter of ribbons and cloaks adorning lords and ladies of the Fae—each taller and blonder than the next, and all taller and blonder than she. They had halted midstep in their dance, and as Seeker pressed forward into the vaulted hall the lines of the pavane parted before her. She stalked down their ranks, a solitary silver-clad figure amid a prismatic shimmer of green and gold and orange, of umber and periwinkle, ruby and cobalt. She heard the whispers as she passed, the rising murmur of voices over the rustle of stiff skirts and the jingle of her shoes. These were the high lords and ladies of the Fae, Elf-knights and green women—not the half-blood changelings that she was charged with returning to the nest, although even some of those rose among the ranks. Still, they drew back from her.
Word of the Kelpie has spread, I see.

She tasted a bitter nugget of joy at seeing them afraid.

The last rows parted before her, revealing the Mebd, imperious on her gilded chair of estate, robed in a luxury of emerald and aubergine. A mantle of darkest forest-green silk swathed her, so brocaded with embroidery that the fabric was almost invisible. A wimple of finest white lawn hid her throat, and although the Mebd's hair was concealed by the veil of violet silk, Seeker knew it was golden as wheatstraw.
And knotted with more knots and braids and bindings than there are stars in the summer night.
Concealed behind velvet drapes and under a velvet pall, the shrouded figure of her throne hulked at the back of the dais—rarely used and never uncovered.

The Mebd's pet curled on a velvet cushion beside her chair of estate. A naked human boy who appeared perhaps six, green eyes bright beneath a fetching mop of ebony curls, he fiddled idly with his golden collar. Seeker's eyes avoided him, and she'd learned to hide the sting of tears in her eyes. It had been the same engaging lad curled there for a quarter of a mortal century—longer, in Faerie. The Mebd had ways of keeping things as they suited her.

Seeker came to the foot of the dais and dropped a curtsy that puddled her gown like spilled quicksilver on the azurite-and-malachite-tiled floor.
Bound, like Whiskey. Poor little treachery.
Her throat burned with pity. Her eyes stayed lowered until the Mebd cleared her throat and said, softly, “Rise.”

“Your Majesty.” Seeker stood and looked into the eyes of her mistress. They shifted color when the Mebd smiled—perfect lips curving like a harvest moon—violet to jade and then violet again. Seeker was not invited to speak further.

The Mebd's voice was resonant as a dulcimer. “You've brought us charming gifts again, my Seeker, and we are well pleased with you. So well pleased that we have another task—one that, we think, will much challenge your skills.”

Seeker concentrated on the formal rhythms of the Queen's speech. Where was the trap? “Your Majesty.”

The Mebd inclined her magnificently encumbered head. “We have learned that a Merlin has come into his maturity.”

She had thought herself ready for anything—any announcement, any task. Not so. Seeker's mouth fell open and she staggered back, tripping on the train of her gown. Silently, she cursed the bravado that had made her add chimes to her shoes; they jangled madly as a falcon's belled jesses.

The Mebd continued, imperturbable. “Your predecessors have had some success with previous Merlins, as you well know. Nimue, Viviane . . . their names are remembered. Merlins are rarer now than in days of old. One does not succeed the next so neatly. And
this
Merlin has not yet met his Dragon, has not yet grown into his power.” The Mebd paused, waiting for Seeker, but all she could manage was a dry-mouthed nod.

Patient, the Mebd waited until Seeker found her voice. “You wish me to entrap him. Your Majesty.”

The Mebd's smile warmed, reaching her eyes. “Bind the Merlin, Seeker, and we bind the Dragon. And
that
is a power that we have been too long without. You must hurry, of course. Doubtless our sister has taken an interest as well.”

Seeker tried a breath, the next question seasick in the back of her mouth. “Majesty . . .”

The Mebd waited, eyebrow arched, while Seeker swallowed hard and tried again. “Majesty. Is there a . . . one of the other sort, as well?” Seeker waited for the slow oscillation of her liege's head, but denial did not come.

“Bind the Merlin,” the Mebd said instead, leaning forward, “bind the Dragon. Bind the Dragon; bind the King.”

Keith MacNeill waited in a place out of the moonlight, his nose stinging with the scent of roses, and watched as the woman he had loved seated herself on the carven bone bench beside a sleeping man's bier. He had been awaiting his moment. He had been watching her for hours.

The Seeker had exchanged her glamoured gown for slacks, boots and a tunic, her elaborate hairstyle for a single thick black braid with smaller braids wound through it. Emeralds glittered in her ears. They were real emeralds, set in white platinum, wrought by a mortal craftsman. Keith remembered.

She bent over a book sewn into a doeskin binding, writing with a gold-pointed fountain pen. The little chapel was silent. Few came there anymore except attendants and caretakers.

Every so often, Seeker raised her head to glance at the bier, the moonlight falling through latticed walls across the sleeping man's face. Keith could see the sleeper clearly from his vantage place: a warrior in his middle years, perhaps, tall and broad of shoulder, no longer as narrow in the hip as a boy. His hair was reddish blond, graying beside closed eyes. Combed long and neat over his shoulders, it stirred in his breath where a lock lay across his face: his beard darker red and trimmed to follow the line of an arrogant jaw. Keith noticed the aquiline features and the fullness of his lips in repose, the way his big, scarred hands folded over the hilt of the bronze sword laid the length of his chest.

Bronze, and not the star-iron one he once had carried.

Seeker sucked the cap of her fountain pen and added a few more words. When she glanced up, her gaze fell on the sleeping man's face. She paused and marked her place in the book with the pen before standing. Moonlight caught on the twisted strands of her hair, casting her shadow like a stain on the alabaster floor as she came forward.

She laid her hands on the edge of the High King's bier and leaned forward, nostrils flaring. Keith's twitched in sympathy. A heavy funk of crushed roses surrounded the sleeper.

Tenderly, she brushed the disordered hair from his cheek. “Arthur, you son of a bitch.”

Her voice came out low, snarled as neglected ribbons. “You could have been the best of all of them. I know the price. But did it have to be the babies?”

Of course he didn't answer. His eyelashes lay against his cheek without fluttering, undisturbed by her voice. She let her weight rest for a moment on her hands before turning aside, reaching for her notebook.

Soundless on cool tile, Keith stepped forward. “Elaine.”

She stiffened, glancing back at the sleeping King. Keith bit down on a chuckle as Seeker raised her eyes to him.

He stood casually naked behind the bier and raised both hands to smooth back hair disarrayed by his previous run. Quarter-moon, and he could do as he pleased. Elaine would know that. He saw her glance at the sky. “ ‘The wind from one door closing opens another,' ” she said, and the savagery in her voice as she quoted his own platitude pushed him a step back.

Keith drew a breath like boiling lead and looked down at Arthur. “He tried so hard, poor bastard. It's just not fair.”

Seeker glared. He flinched; it had not always been so. “What are you doing here?”

His small, hopeful attempt at a smile slid from his lips. “I've a word for you, Seeker,” he said, formally.

Her chin rose, her jaw etched in moonlight. “Your word?”

“A message.”

“What's that?”

“Mist requests you attend her. Tonight.”

“Mist . . . requests? How do
you
know what Mist requests? ”

Keith began turning, his form blurring as he spoke. “It came to me in a dream.” And nails clicked on pale marble as a powerful red-pelted wolf trotted back into the night.

Jane Andraste was already waiting when Matthew arrived. She held the door to her penthouse open, a rail-narrow woman with silver-streaked hair twisted precisely in a chignon to complement her pearls. Her suit fit as if tailored for her.

It probably had been. And only Jane would be so carefully dressed, even at home in the middle of the night.

Matthew glanced down at her shoes, fingering his rings. Jane caught him at it and winked . . . and then looked down at her own hand as she extended it to him. Her skin was soft with age, the bones and tendons visible.

“My apologies, Jane,” he said, as she extricated her hand from his and turned to latch the door. “My failure—”

“Not a failure.” She smiled. “Call it a qualified success.”

Matthew wasn't quite so ready to forgive himself, but the tightness across his chest eased at her words.

“Are you hungry, Matthew?” Always gracious, even in declining to answer.

“I could eat,” he admitted, as she led him over antique rugs toward the modern stainless steel and white-tile kitchen. “I laid hands on her, Jane.”

The archmage shrugged, running water into the coffeepot. “Frustrating,” she said, and then fell silent as she measured the coffee into the filter and turned the switch. She came back to the counter. “But anticipated. Trust an old wizard when she says you did well. Cream, no sugar, yes?”

“How do you manage to remember things like that?”

“Talent,” she said, and tipped her head toward the breakfast table in the corner. “Sit, Matthew. If you hover, you're going to make me spill your coffee.”

“I see.” He pulled out a padded chair and sat, leaning against the back support gratefully. Despite the aroma of brewing coffee, his eyes kept trying to drift closed. “The Seeker—Elaine Andraste—”

“You'll have another chance at my daughter yet, I expect, ” Jane said. “We have rituals to set up, a spirit-trace on her and on the pointy-toothed Unseelie Seeker as well. Would you like the milk warmed in the microwave?”

“The hotter the better,” Matthew answered, pressing fingertips to his throbbing temples. He loosened the elastic on his ponytail and finger-combed the chin-length locks that fell free, sighing in relief. A warrior or a wizard bound his hair and fastened his clothing and left no unknotted strings about his person when he went into battle, but the ponytail always gave Matthew a headache. “Please don't play coy, archmage. I'm too tired for guessing games.”

“Unfair of me,” she conceded as the microwave beeped, and poured his coffee into the cup, atop the steaming milk.

“That's a speedy coffeemaker. Why the spirit-trace?”

“Isn't it great?” She slid the cup in front of him and started assembling her own. If she hadn't splashed the counter, he never would have known her hands were shaking. “The Unseelie Seeker has been in and out of North America on mysterious errands for the past two months. And now Elaine has joined her—”

“Elaine was strong enough to bind the Kelpie.”

Jane cupped her coffee in both hands and blew across the steam so it curled from her lips like a musing dragon's breath. “Their competition can only help us,” Jane said. “But whatever they're both seeking is something we must find first.”

“Something? Or someone?”

“I suspect the latter,” Jane Andraste said. Her cup clicked on the white-tile counter as she reached behind herself to set it down. “Soup or sandwich?”

“Soup and toast?” he said hopefully. She grinned.

“I envy a young man's appetite.”