Marie Brennan - In Ashes Lie

“Well,” the little brownie said philosophically, “times aren’t what they used to be. Can’t just go flying through the air on a bit of straw anymore; someone might see. Perhaps the roads were bad.”

Perhaps. Lune fretted, though. Had the oath been enough? Or had the knight found some way to betray her?

Or been discovered and killed.

She worried without cause. Scotland was far away; Cerenel might, as Gertrude suggested, have misjudged how long the journey would take. Or perhaps he could not slip away so easily. They were assuming, regardless, that he would go first to the Angel, and from there Rosamund would guide him. Cerenel might be planning a more public return, testing before the court Lune’s promise that he would be welcomed back.

A year and a day. A year and a day of the Ascendants rising in power, and brawls between courtiers about the proper relations of mortals and fae. No attacks as obvious as the murderer or Taylor’s attempt on the alder tree, but one of her more idealistic knights—one come to the Onyx Court after her accession, drawn by her rhetoric of harmony—was found dead in the streets, while wandering in mortal guise. Chance accident? Or a deliberate weakening of her support?

She hoped to find out today. Lune breathed more easily when the door opened, and Rosamund bowed Sir Cerenel into the room.

He was just as he had been; they were not mortals, to be aged and worn by their trials. True, he wore barbarous fashion—a loose, belted tunic laced at the neck and sleeves with leather thongs—but then, he had taken nothing with him in his exile save the clothes and sword he wore. Studying him, though, Lune saw stiffness in his posture. Whatever else happened, this banishment had forever changed how he would serve her.

I hope it was not in vain.

Cerenel knelt, the curtain of his black hair falling forward. When Lune offered her hand, he kissed it with dry lips. “Rise,” she said. “And tell us what you have learned.”

She settled into her chair as he began, hands clasped behind his back. “As commanded, your Majesty, I have been to the Gyre-Carling’s court in Fife. You have weighed her heart to an ounce: her animosity to you and yours is unequaled.”

Sun and Moon knew where the Goodemeades had vanished to, though Lune was sure they would be ready to hand if she needed them. Cerenel had not appreciated their presence before.

“All of this is known,” Lune said, trying not to show her impatience too obviously. “Who is the architect of our troubles?”

“I suspect one they call the Lord of Shadows,” Cerenel said. Lune’s mouth twitched at the ostentatious title. “He is newly come to Nicneven, though his arrival there seems to have preceded the attacks by some span.”

Hardly an argument against him. Unless Nicneven were a fool—and would that she were—she would weigh the merits of any newcomer before deciding to follow his advice.

“How stands he in the court? Who are his allies?”

“Kentigern Nellt,” Cerenel replied, not at all to Lune’s surprise. “The giant rails against the subtlety and slow progress counseled by the Lord of Shadows, but their goals are in accord. My brother keeps more free of him, wishing to be rid of all politics in his life. But others fled from this court are there, and many declare themselves his followers.”

Lune curled her fingers into the point that edged her cuffs. Was Cerenel understating his brother’s involvement to protect him? It hardly mattered. If she could remove the head of the snake, the body, if not dead, would at least be robbed of its fangs. “And what can you tell me of him? His name, where he came from—”

But Cerenel was already shaking his head. “Madam, I know not. He is never seen at court. Nicneven has many grottoes and glens that form her realm; some are her private retreat alone, and there she keeps him. Her closest advisers have been to see him—Sir Kentigern now commands her guard—but she has claimed him for her own, and leashes him tightly.”

“Is he her lover?”

“The only one she keeps, at present.”

Another reason for her to hate me, when I rob her of him. But how to do it? Lune could not simply invade Fife; her military strength might top Nicneven’s, but first she would have to get it there. And anyone subtle enough to send hired knives after her would be on guard for the same.

She was interrupted in this planning by Rosamund suddenly throwing open the door. “Madam,” she said, “The Pr—”

The hob didn’t manage to get the title out before Antony was past her. “Who of your people went above, to watch the execution?” he demanded.

Lune was on her feet, startled. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Cerenel concealing a knife in his sleeve once more. He had come armed, and was nervous enough to draw when surprised: both worried her. But first, Antony. “I do not know,” she said. “No doubt several, but they were not forbidden to attend. Why?”

“I know a glamoured faerie when I see one,” Antony said. His breath came fast, and the chain of his office had been knocked askew. “One was in the crowd, speaking sedition.”

“Sedition?”

“Strafford’s own words, when he heard Charles had signed for his death. ‘Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, for in them there is no salvation.’ ” Antony spat the words out.

Lune’s blood ran cold. Men said such things, yes, from time to time—but not in public. What a man condemned to the scaffold might say, a man on the street could not. Or should not. “Are you certain it was a fae?”

Antony paced the small room restlessly. He was speaking more freely than she might have wished, given Cerenel’s presence, but whatever idea had possessed him would not let him go, and to send the knight away would only offend him. “I had a thought,” her consort said. “These mobs, this controversy and bloodthirst that fuels the strife against the King—what if it is no accident?”

Alarmed, Lune said, “No one could possibly have created it all.”

“No,” he said, mouth twisting. “Our grievances are our own, born from a history of ill-usage and divided opinion. But what need is there to create them? All it takes is a spark. Someone to help them along. A bit of muttered sedition here; an accusation of papistry there. Rumors spread, or encouraged in their spread, to sow chaos and discord throughout the City. I thought it Pym’s doing, and perhaps it was—but not alone.”

Cerenel shifted his weight. Lune rounded on him, skirts flaring. “Did you know of this?”

“Madam,” he said, holding his hands out in placation, “I was coming to that. I—”

“Does this Lord of Shadows strike against London, as well as the Onyx Court?”

He flinched from her hard voice. “I think it likely, yes. But it was rumor only; I cannot be certain.”

She should have suspected. But Lune was accustomed to thinking of her own court as the only one that worked in two worlds at once. This was precisely the kind of interference Nicneven hated, when it cost the Queen of Scots her life. She had assumed that meant the Gyre-Carling would eschew it herself.

And perhaps she did. But the Lord of Shadows did not.

If Nicneven wanted to hurt Lune, then she could hurt London—and through it, all of England. Charles Stuart crippled by his own Parliament, in vengeance for Mary Stuart’s death. They were halfway there already.

“Who is the Lord of Shadows?” Antony asked. Confusion distracted him briefly from his own anger.

Lune was more grateful than ever for the oath, now. It would make this easier, if not more palatable. “I do not yet know. But Sir Cerenel will be returning north, to find out.”