In Ashes Lie (52 page)

He blinked. “On Gracechurch Street. Is that what you came here to ask?”

She laughed quietly. He heard the faintest undercurrent of tension in it; was she nervous, too?
Something
had ruffled the faerie woman’s composure, beneath the mask of her mortal face. “No. But it’s a necessary prelude. As is this: how much do you know of Antony’s relation to my court?”

“Fragments,” Jack said honestly, and took a gulp of his wine while he considered. “I heard a few call him ‘the Prince.’ ” Though a man less like a faerie prince, he was hard-pressed to imagine.
I suppose a Puritan would be less like.

“Prince of the Stone,” Lune said. “You will hear some call that the title of my mortal consort, but the...intimate relationship the word
consort
implies was no part of my dealings with Antony. I swore years ago to always rule the Onyx Court with a mortal at my side, and the Prince is the man who fills that role.”

Jack listened with a distracted ear; half his attention was taken up by the light this shed on Antony’s behavior, particularly with regards to Kate. Consort and yet not to a faerie Queen—no wonder he feared to confess it to his wife.

“If you wish it,” that selfsame faerie Queen said, “the title shall be yours.”

He blinked. Then blinked again. Then fought the urge to clean out his ear, as if its physical state could be blamed for what he’d just heard. “I beg your pardon?”

Lune met his gaze without flinching, though her hands were wrapped tight around the wine. “There has been no Prince since Antony’s death. Already some of my courtiers whisper that my vow was but a passing fancy, and that henceforth I will rule as our kind usually does—alone, or with a consort more fitting to my nature. Some would like it to be true. But I promised Antony before he died that I would do everything in my power to help London and its people, and I cannot do that without someone to speak for them.”

Words fled like startled cats when he reached for them; Jack became aware that he was gaping, and tried to stop. “So—” He trailed off, unsure where to begin. “You need a consort, and so you come to me.”

“I need a
Prince,
” she said. “I do not offer it to you out of desperation; were you not suitable, I would search until I found another.”

“Suitable?”
The word came out on an undignified laugh. “I’m no Prince. My unsavory habit of dabbling in surgery and other such matters even tarnishes my name as a gentleman. And I know nothing of your world.”

She smiled, with more than a touch of sadness. “Your predecessors learned. I have no doubt that you shall, too.”

Did she calculate that response for its effect on him, or speak it without thinking? Either way, its effect was undeniable. The strangeness of that world seemed so distant as he sat here, advising patients on their ills, but it haunted him again and again in dreams, and every morning he woke up with a head full of unanswered questions. Now Lune sat before him, offering the answers to them all—or at least the unfettered opportunity to ask them.

The sudden light in his eyes must have given him away; either that, or he’d begun to visibly salivate at the thought. Lune raised a querying eyebrow, and he responded with a lopsided grin. “Are you familiar with the Royal Society?”

“I have heard the name,” she said cautiously. “Some group of learned men.”

“Some group of men who
wish
to learn. To increase their store of knowledge, to test it against the world around them, and to share that knowledge with others. I could tell you such stories—”

But his eager chatter cut short at the look on her face.

Lune said, only slightly unsteady, “Have you told them of us?”

“What? Certainly not. When have I had the chance?”

She breathed more easily, but not all the tension left her. “Then I must beg you not to. We live here in
secret,
Dr. Ellin. I wish it were not so; it would be a great victory indeed if we could walk the streets in safety. But yours is a world of iron and faith, and these weapons may easily be turned against us. People, some of them, are content to know that the fae live in hollow hills and shaded glens, old peel towers and other remote places. Those same people would not likely rest well if they knew we went about beneath their very feet.”

He had never stopped to give it particular consideration. Now that he did...

She spoke of a threat to her kind, but that was not the only danger in play. Though Lune might look like an ordinary gentlewoman, she was not. She was a queen, and if he threatened her realm, he had no doubt this quailing fear would all too quickly turn to action. He did not think the fae would let him speak before the Royal Society.

Even if I did so, I would be laughed out of the room.

Faeries in London—the very thought was preposterous. And yet there they were; and knowing that, Jack could hardly walk away from them. Not with Lune offering this chance to know more. “I hope you would not forbid me to indulge a personal curiosity, at least.”

Her eyes weighed him to the last ounce, but she shook her head.

Curiosity had come first, hard on the heels of her offer; now the more sensible part of his mind caught up, and brought with it a question insufficiently answered. “But why me? I’m no great citizen of London, as Antony was. Until I came into your realm, I had never set foot in a royal court. I know little of such grand ways—or such intrigues.” He assumed they had intrigues. Every court did.

Lune accepted the protest without concern. “I could answer you at greater length, and I will, if you choose to join me. But for now, I shall put it in plain terms, for they are the most powerful I have:
You love London.
You have stood fast by her side, even in the face of a disaster that surpasses any in living memory. If I am to fulfill my promise to do the same, I will need assistance.” A quiet shadow darkened her eyes, and for a brief moment, she looked away. “Each Prince teaches me something new. I should like to learn this dedication from you.”

What had she learned from Antony? Jack was not about to ask. For his own part, he felt supremely unqualified to teach anything to a faerie queen, but he believed her words sincere.

She wanted to learn; so did he. Her curiosity was a simple one, his rather more voracious—but they both betokened open minds, and that was not a bad foundation upon which to build.

And a whole world lay beneath his feet, waiting for him to explore it.

An unrestrainable smile spread over his face, as much rueful as amused.
No sense fighting myself, when I’ve clearly already decided the point.

Jack drained his wine and said, “Tell me, then—what would this require?”

Why he expected the creation of a faerie prince to be much less complicated than the coronation of a king, Jack didn’t know. Simple-minded hope, perhaps. Lune’s visit to him in Monkwell Street, without so much as a single attendant shadowing her heels, had made it seem like all that was needed was the offer and acceptance.

Of course not.

The antechamber he stood in now was too small for satisfying pacing; he could go barely three strides before reaching a wall. At least his boots didn’t squeak, for all they were new. Whatever cobbler elf had made them, he knew his craft. The supple leather encased his legs like a glove, and was far from the richest part of his garb.

Fortunately, Jack had won the fight over the style of his clothing. The beauteous lordling in charge of dressing him had fallen victim to the excesses of Charles’s court, and would have put Jack in a frothy confection of multicolored ribbons, petticoat breeches, shoe roses, scented curls, and worse. Jack could not imagine anyone had ever forced Antony into such nonsense, and stood his ground. Three shouting matches later, Lune ordered Lewan Erle to dress Jack as the physician pleased, so long as the material was rich.

And so it was. Jack ran one nervous hand down the emerald-green moire of his doublet, fingertips catching on the silver lace that edged it. The buttons on his waistcoat were diamonds—
diamonds,
which the fae accounted not the most precious of their jewels. The brooch on his hat glittered with starlight itself, somehow caught in crystalline form. And the silk of his shirt was so fine, it might have been woven of wind.

He hoped the finery would stand him in good stead today. Jack knew full well that many of Lune’s subjects were less than happy at the thought of his elevation.

Somehow, I managed to convince myself there would be no politics.
Willful blindness on his part. How could a Prince
not
get tangled in politics? Aside from the simple fact of his mortality, he was not high-born enough for the courtiers, who considered Antony’s baronetcy scarcely acceptable. They would prefer a peer. Jack tried to imagine Lune making her offer to the Duke of Albemarle, and snorted with suppressed laughter.

Lewan Erle gave him a reproving look. The elf ’s curls hung in golden perfection, and his clothing was even in good taste; it would not be seemly for him to outdo the future Prince in extravagance. He took such matters very seriously, even if Jack did not.

A twinkling light slipped beneath the door and flitted into the center of the room, where it dimmed and brightened three times.
Our cue.
The ceremony had begun some time before, Lune speaking in memory of her late Princes—Antony, and the one before—but the time had come for its final scene.

Erle bowed and opened the door. Jack took a deep breath, steeling himself, then went through.

The antechamber stood just off the entrance to the great presence chamber, where a pair of burly creatures like very small giants stood at the bronze doors. At his nod, they grasped the handles and hauled the tremendous weight toward them, creating an impressive frame in which Jack stood for a moment, letting everyone see him.

I am, without doubt, quite mad.

Everyone
was gathered inside. Not just Lune’s courtiers, but all her lesser subjects as well, and ambassadors from every realm that bothered to maintain relations with the Onyx Court. Half the creatures there, Jack had no name for. They came from all over England, from Wales and Ireland and Scotland, even from the continent. The room was packed to the walls, and rippled with a respectful nod as he passed down the narrow aisle left for him in the center. Nods, no more; he was not Prince yet.

To remedy that, Lune waited on the dais at the far end. She was a splendid sight, attired in a midnight-blue gown that harmonized beautifully with his own green, with her formal crown upon her head. Silver, surprisingly—he expected a richer metal—but it might have been poured from the moon itself. Perhaps it had. In this world, Jack could take nothing for granted.

Feeling like an explorer greeting some foreign potentate, Jack ascended the dais to a spot one step below the Queen, where he knelt. Her voice rang clear in the silence of the hall. “John Ellin. Do you give your sworn word that you are a mortal man born of London, within hearing of the Bow Bells?”

“I do so swear, by Oak and Ash and Thorn.” No invoking God, here; they would not thank him for that. And the “ancient Mab” the fae swore by was apparently not for him.

“John Ellin, do you give your sworn word that you intend no harm to the faerie folk of this court?”

“I do so swear, by Oak and Ash and Thorn.”

“John Ellin, do you give your sworn word that you will serve faithfully the interests of the Onyx Court, seeking harmony between the races of London, mortal and immortal alike, speaking on behalf of the humans of this City, and ruling at my side?”

There came a time in every man’s life when he had to wonder what he was doing, kneeling in a faerie court, swearing to carry out a strange double existence on behalf of creatures for whom the entirety of his lifespan would be no more than an eyeblink.

Satisfying my curiosity,
Jack thought wryly.
And serving, not them, but the ordinary souls who have no idea they’re here.

“I do so swear, by Oak and Ash and Thorn.”

Did he imagine the tiny sigh of relief from above? “Then be welcome in our halls, John Ellin, as a knight of our court,” Lune said, and a heavy weight struck each of his shoulders, stinging him even through the layers of fabric. He’d seen the sword, waiting in the hands of the captain of her guard, but he hadn’t expected Lune to wield it quite so firmly. It seemed she wanted those oaths to leave a mark.

So now he was a faerie knight. Jack felt no different as he rose to his feet. But they were not done; Lune’s Lord Keeper, a snakelike fellow, brought forward his burden without Lune having to gesture. The cup he held must have some significance, or someone, Jack imagined, would have repaired its dented rim—or chosen a richer piece to begin with.

Lune took the cup from the Lord Keeper, so smoothly that the wine inside barely trembled. “No man can serve Faerie without knowing its nature,” she said. “If you would stand at my side, then drink of this, and bind yourself to us of your own free will.”

Until this point, all their ceremony had vaguely amused Jack, unaccustomed as he was to such ritual. Now, looking into the dark wine, he shivered. The months spent wrangling over his elevation had given him time to read, and all the stories told him what an appallingly bad idea this was. Men who tasted of this other world could never leave it again. Lune swore to him he could still go above, that he would not crumble into dust—but the binding was real. It had almost killed Antony during the Protectorate, and the exile of this court.

He could walk away from those oaths just sworn, if he had to. But once he drank, he was trapped forever.

The many eyes on him exerted palpable pressure, weighing every instant of his hesitation. Jack forced himself to reach out and accept the cup, rippling the dark surface.

What price knowledge?

Ah, Hell. Here’s to my health...