Song of the Fairy Queen (6 page)

Although some few had demurred, most of Gwenifer’s people had sworn to follow him into exile, even as they grieved for their mistress. As he did when he could. It was a constant ache, a burning pain around his heart. Everything here reminded him of her but he had no time for personal grief. Not yet. And there was more grief to come, as the missive in his hand proved…

“Messengers from Haerold went out to all my vassals within hours of the fall of the castle,” Oryan said, “demanding they surrender. Cavender folded almost immediately but both Dorset and Delaville have sworn to fight, or so they claim.”

Their own messengers had gone out on their journey here, Morgan trying to balance the loss of fighters against the need for more men and information reluctantly. More of Kyri’s people, had arrived to fill the gap until Morgan’s own people caught up.

Cavender should have been no surprise and yet Oryan still was.

He sighed.

Cavender’s lands were the closest to Haerold’s, so he was the most immediately at risk and he would have known Haerold well.

His brother was wasting no time securing his claim to the throne, such as it was. So long as Oryan and Gawain lived they threatened his hold on it.

They’d had no word as yet from the others, those who also owed fealty to him.

Haerold wouldn’t have attempted his coup without support from more than just his pet wizards. He’d gotten those men from somewhere, there had been too many to be no more than his own personal levies, Remagne and its surrounds couldn’t have raised so many as had struck Caernarvon. Oryan hadn’t been foolish enough to give his ambitious brother that much power. It had taken a sizable force to defeat the city and King’s Guard, though.

With no enemies on his borders, Oryan had kept no standing army save for Morgan’s Marshals, relying instead on the levies he could call from the various demesnes that owed him fealty – and save for the first years of his reign, there had been little need of them so that had sufficed.

As boys, Haerold had frequently expressed his resentment with their birth order and Oryan’s fitness to be king. With maturity he’d seemed to become resigned to his position, content with his own lands. There had been times, though, when Haerold had clearly disagreed with Oryan’s policies and hadn’t hesitated to say so, advocating much harsher, more draconian practices – tighter controls on the populace, higher taxes, more conscription and a firmer hand against everyone, not just criminals.

Yet neither Oryan nor Morgan had heard in the years since that Haerold had been so dissatisfied he would take up arms. Neither had seen this coming, and he knew Morgan was taking the responsibility for that onto his own shoulders. As was he, truth be told. Search his mind as he would, though, he could remember no overt sign of danger.

Oh, there had been tales that had drifted from Remagne, stories of Haerold and his wizards and what they did there. Some wizards had stayed, clearly of their own will, but there were rumors of others who hadn’t. It wasn’t enough for Morgan to take action, although he’d investigated.

Those missing were missing, but none could say that Haerold had aught to do with it. It had troubled them both but without more proof, there’d been little either of them could do. Within his own domain Haerold also practiced many of his harsher policies stringently, with the result Oryan had anticipated – no few fled and made their way into the rest of the Kingdom. That hadn’t eased the tension between the brothers.

There had been other problems, though, to take his and Morgan’s attentions away from Haerold, the city of Remagne and Harold’s lands around it.

Raiders had come down out of the North – by both land and sea – to bedevil those along their border there and that had required much of Morgan’s attention, drawing him away from Caernarvon often.

Those raiders had been no light threat, striking out of their lands to the north to lay waste to whole villages. They’d carried the unarmed women and children off, killing all the fighters. It had taken some time for Morgan to set up a patrols and a warning system along the northern coasts.

Oryan certainly couldn’t fault Morgan for failing to see what he himself hadn’t. After all, Haerold was his brother. Or half-brother.

What was done, though, was done. Now it remained to be seen whether he could take his throne back, how long it would take to do it and what it would cost in lives and coin.

“Of the two,” Morgan said, in response to his comment, “I would trust Dorset more.”

Oryan nodded. “I agree.”

A tallish gangly man with thinning brown hair, Phillip of Dorset was a good man, solid and dependable, devoted to his family and lands, where Delaville was a man of appetites, liking the finer things of life, his gold and silver, his satins and his fairy silks.

Pushing away from the desk, Oryan shoved to his feet to come around it. He looked at Gawain sitting in the window seat with a book. Gawain was a handsome boy, old enough to have been given his own sword. He and Gwenifer had presented it to him on his last birthday. That was lost now, too.

As difficult as it had been, he’d explained to Gawain that his mother was gone. How much Gawain actually accepted or understood that knowledge Oryan didn’t know.

The hunt for both father and son had begun in earnest. He had no doubt Haerold’s men were even now fanning out across the country looking for them, a contingent was surely on their way here soon. Painful memories hovered, but now wasn’t the time.

Haerold might have the Crown, but it wouldn’t be secure so long as Oryan and Gawain lived to threaten his hold on it.

Neither would be safe so long as Haerold had power.

Taking a breath, Oryan looked to pretty Kyriay where she stood by the other window, her wings tucked away beneath the loose silken shift her people wore – the magic of Fairy – so that, with her hair covering her ears and flowing down her back she looked much like one of his own people. Her finely featured face was uncharacteristically still, her large aquamarine eyes watchful and curious, waiting – unlike the merry, mischievous expression with which he was more familiar. Here then was the steel hidden beneath the silk, and what had made Kyriay Queen of her people. Each day that passed since his castle had fallen had made Oryan all the more grateful for such a staunch and able ally, in so unexpected a person and manner.

For this, though...

“Are you sure you can do this?” Oryan asked.

Kyri turned to look at him more straightly. She knew what it cost him to ask. He’d already lost his wife and now, in effect, he would lose his son. Her heart ached for him.

She nodded reassuringly, as that was what he needed to see.

“It’s a simple magic, Oryan,” she said gently. “It won’t harm him. In time, his hair will return to its normal color, growing darker as he ages, as happens with your children. Nor will the memory spell injure him nor will it fade until he’s of age. He’s young yet, it’s a simple matter to tuck those memories away. He’ll create new ones.”

Knowing Gawain would be safer made the prospect of parting from his son no easier for Oryan, nor that it had been his own idea.

Haerold would hunt them and if he caught them together, they’d both die and the throne would be Haerold’s unchallenged. Separated, there the chance that one of them might survive. It would be the choice of a life on the run, or a chance for Gawain to grow up somewhat normally. Safe. Or at least, safer.

Time was growing short, Oryan couldn’t put the decision off much longer and he knew it.

He looked to Morgan.

“Liliane will keep him safe,” Morgan assured him. “She’ll love him like her own. She’s been my strong left arm almost from the day she joined the Marshals. Her skill with sword and bow are undeniable, even while she’d mothered all of us.”

Even me,
he thought with a mental chuckle.

For Oryan and for Gawain whom she’d grown fond of, as she did with all children, she would change her name, her life, and so keep the boy, their prince, safe.

Having no wife or children of his own, Morgan couldn’t know what it cost Oryan to do this, he only knew it did.

Kyri did know what it cost Oryan as she could ‘hear’ it. She’d ‘listened’ to Oryan brood over it in the days they’d spent riding here, turning it over and over in his mind, battling with himself until he’d finally brought himself to speak of it. She could sense his heartache clearly, but it was in his eyes as well. She had no children of her body, only the thousands of her people who looked to her, but still, some part of her understood…

The time was now then.

Going to one knee, Oryan ran a hand over his son’s hair and his heart ached as Gawain looked up at him and smiled. Oryan’s heart caught at the simple innocence in his son’s gray eyes – eyes so much like his mother’s.
Gwenifer. Sweet Gwen
. The need to keep his son safe warred with the need to have him close. Sending him away would be safer, but neither would Oryan be able to watch his son grow, become a man. He wouldn’t guide him…

Morgan looked to Kyriay, although somehow he’d been aware of her from the moment she’d arrived.

Their eyes met.

He could see the compassion for Oryan in her gaze.

“Oryan,” Kyri said, hearing his pain.

She’d expected no less and so come prepared, as much as she could.

He looked up.

“You may have to be parted, but you can watch him in this…”

It was only a little thing, but at least it would be something, that she offered him. She’d taken a page from their enemy.

Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew a small silver bowl, only slightly bigger than her palm. She set it in his hand.

Puzzled, Oryan looked at her and frowned slightly.

“It’s a scrying bowl, such as Haerold uses to track you,” she explained, “but used another way instead. This too, is simple magic. It’s so simple you can do it yourself.”

She reached for the ewer of water on the nearby table and poured a little of the water into the small bowl.

“It’s keyed to your son. To Gawain,” she said.

From the same pocket, she took out a small bag, drawing out a pinch of the finely ground herbs to sprinkle them over the water.

Morgan watched them together, the small, seemingly delicate Fairy, her golden hair streaming over her shoulders in a rippling fall and his tall spare King, his darker close-cropped head bent toward her golden one.

A touch of hope lightened Oryan’s eyes, eased the weight on his shoulders.

Grief had weighed heavily on him, the parting from Gawain even more so.

Morgan couldn’t help but be glad that some little bit of that weight and worry would be lifted.

“Think of him,” Kyri said, cupping Oryan’s hands around the bowl as the herbs sifted through the water. She cast a small breath of magic, no more than Oryan would use to light a candle. “Concentrate, focus…and look into the water.”

Oryan had known of such things but he’d never used one.

An image appeared in the cup, watery but clear, of Gawain sitting by the window.

Oryan looked from the image in the cup to the real boy across the room.

For a moment he was nearly overcome as he cupped the small bowl in his hands and looked at the image of his son within it.

Perhaps he couldn’t be there but he could at least watch.

In a way, Kyri had given him his son back. He struggled for control, taking one long breath.

“Thank you,” he said, simply.

She nodded, gravely for once, her lovely, long-lashed sea-foam eyes soft, understanding.