Marie Brennan - In Ashes Lie

“Your Majesty,” the knight said, “I beg your indulgence to bring a guest to this occasion.”

In Antony’s absence, Lune glanced around and gestured for Benjamin Hipley to approach. “Who is he?”

Cerenel glanced sideways at the unwashed stranger, then up at her. “I found him in London, madam, where I had gone to call upon a lady. Though I was well masked in a glamour, and protected against its failure, this fellow saw my true face through that concealment.”

“A lunatic,” she said, straightening in her chair. No one had brought such a mortal below for quite some time, though they used to be fashionable. “Escaped from Bedlam?”

“More likely he was permitted to leave,” Hipley said, when she looked to him for clarification. With her permission he approached the man, who flinched back, but did not run. “The violent ones are chained, and not likely to escape. Did he have a small bowl?” That last was directed to Cerenel, who nodded. “Licensed to beg, then.”

He did not look happy at the madman’s presence in the Onyx Hall, but whether it was because of the stranger’s mean status, or Cerenel’s notion of entertainment, Lune could not say. She herself was not fond of lunatics; she remembered too well how this court had once abused them. But this one would not be mistreated now—and it might be useful to welcome him. Let her subjects see that she favored those who dealt kindly with the mad. “Has he a name?” she asked.

“None I can get from him,” Cerenel said. She believed him, too. He had not always been concerned with mortals as people, but he was one of Lune’s better converts; over the years since her accession, Cerenel had come more or less to share her way of thinking. Not quite with such fervency, but she counted it a victory.

The allemande had drawn to a close, the musicians playing out their final measures long after most of the dancers had ceased to move. Courtiers jostled for position, trying to see the stranger.

“He is welcome among us,” Lune declared, loud enough for all to hear. “As an honored guest. Food and wine for him, from Lord Antony’s store.” Addressing the madman, she said, “Be of good cheer. Tonight, you need not beg for your supper.”

She did not need to tell Hipley to watch after the man. Nor, she was glad to see, did he do so alone; while several ladies flirted with Cerenel, feeding on the minor status he had just won, Lady Amadea devoted her attentions to the lunatic, keeping him safe from the more predatory of courtiers. As for the madman, he gorged happily enough on the sweetmeats and candied fruit brought for him, though he watched the room through skittish eyes.

Her supervision was interrupted when the usher at the door announced the Prince of the Stone. Everyone paused in their places, bowing to Antony as he entered, but no one approached him; the black look on his face forbade it.

He came straight for Lune and spoke before she could even ask what was wrong. “He has dissolved Parliament.”

It struck like a blow, less for her own disappointment and frustration than his. Antony had struggled so hard to achieve this, and now it was taken from him, after a few short, wasted weeks. “We passed acts concerning the pointing of needles,” he said through his teeth, “while Pym and his men forced us toward business they knew would alienate the King. Indeed, they wished it! The Puritans among them have no desire to see the Covenanters suppressed.”

The notion that they would deliberately undermine the King was disturbing. “That,” Lune said, “is just shy of treason.”

“Or past it.” Antony dropped without looking into the chair a hobthrush hurried to place behind him, and glared away the fae who were unabashedly eavesdropping.

Lune recognized the bleak hardness in his eyes. It had grown over the years she’d known him, from his first arrival in this court as a young man with scarcely enough whiskers to call a beard. She made him her consort because she needed his stubborn loyalty to the mortal world; he accepted because he dreamed of changing that world for the better, with faerie aid. But he was a single man, whatever aid he had, and all too often his efforts ended in failure.

It saddened her to see him thus, growing older and grimmer, year by year. How old was he now? How much longer would he last?

I will lose him some day. As I lost the man before him.

She smiled, a practiced mask to conceal the inevitable grief. “There will be another opportunity,” she said. “Charles is not the ruler his father was; he has no skill at playing factions off one another. I have no doubt that circumstances will force him to convene Parliament again.”

“But how long will that take?” Antony muttered, and lapsed into silence.

She left him to it, recognizing the need to let a mood pass. Her own subdued spirits demanded distraction, not contemplation. After the next dance was done, she left the dais and went to join an energetic courante, her slippers flickering along the marble floor. All around her was a mass of paned sleeves and flying curls, courtiers moving flawlessly through the quick, running steps of the dance. For a few moments, she was able to lay her thoughts aside.

Until a chill sharper than winter’s breath gripped her bones.

Without warning, the dancers faltered. They staggered against one another, weak and nauseous, and Lune’s foot caught the hem of her skirts; she stumbled and almost fell.

Pain stabbed through her shoulder, locking her entire body in paralysis, so she could not even cry out.

A roar came from behind her, and then the transfixing spike ripped free, leaving her to crumple in a boneless heap to the floor. Rolling, weeping in agony and shock, Lune saw her attacker.

He, too, was on the floor, pinned under the weight of the elf-knight who had thrown him down. The madman laughed in unintelligible triumph even as the knight smashed his hand against the marble, shattering bones and knocking free his bloodstained iron knife.

And then the laughter stopped, lost in a wet gurgle when the knight plunged his own dagger through the mortal’s throat.

Antony slammed through the nauseated fae an instant later, interposing himself between Lune and the dead man. “What the devil is going on?”

Followed by another, earthier curse, as Antony saw the iron blade. He didn’t hesitate; with the knights of the Onyx Guard closing in to protect their Queen, he snatched up the weapon and tossed it to Hipley, who ran for the door. Lune breathed more easily with every step he took, though she would feel its presence until he removed it from the Onyx Hall entirely.

Even then, the taint would remain, poisoning her body. Had she not stumbled… Lune wavered to her feet, trying not to lean too obviously against Antony for support. “I will fetch a physician,” he murmured in her ear.

“No,” she whispered in reply, and forced her back straight. He was right: the poison must be drawn, and soon. But that would take time, and since she was not dead, it was imperative that she first deal with the situation. She dared not show her weakness.

Her rescuer had likewise risen, behind the protecting wall of her bodyguard. The golden-haired elf was not of their number; his name was Sir Leslic, come perhaps five years ago to her court, and up until this point she had taken little notice of him. Blood spattered his face and darkened the sapphire of his doublet. He was wiping his skin clean when he saw her and went instantly to his knee. Space had cleared for a good three paces around them, excepting the bodyguards who ringed her. “Your Majesty. I beg your forgiveness, for drawing a weapon in your presence.”

She would hardly punish him for that offense, when he had saved her life. “What happened?” she asked, and managed to sound authoritative instead of shaken.