Marie Brennan: In Ashes Lie

Eochu Airt’s expression darkened. “What he institutes is plantation .” He spat the word like the obscenity he no doubt considered it to be.

Had she really expected to divert him from that issue? Lune rose from her chair and rang a bell. “Some wine, I think, would lubricate this discussion.” The door opened, and her Lady Chamberlain Amadea Shirrell came in with platter, decanter, and goblets. Efficient as always. Lune waved her away, pouring the wine herself, and waited until the door had shut again, closing out the low rumble of the presence chamber. “I do understand your concern. The New English—”

“New English, Old English—they are all the same to me. They are English, in Ireland.” Eochu Airt accepted the wine from her hand, but paced angrily as he spoke. “They claim our lands for their own, driving off those whose families have dwelt there since we fae lived outside our hills. Our hobs weep without ceasing, to see their ancient service brought to an ignominious end.”

The ollamh’s voice flowed melodically, even spurred by anger. Lune answered him evenly, trying not to show her own. “I cannot undo England’s conquest of Ireland, my lord ambassador.”

“But you could act against Wentworth and his allies. Put a stop to this rape of our land.”

The figures chased in silver around the outside of the wine cup dug into Lune’s fingers. “I have acted. Charles confirmed the Earl of Clanricarde’s title against Wentworth’s challenge. His estates will not be planted with settlers.”

It only gained her a scowl. “Which helps Galway. But what of the rest of Ireland, madam, that still suffers beneath the English yoke?” He was an Ulsterman himself; she had chosen her defense poorly. With a visible effort, the sidhe moderated his tone. “We do not demand assistance for free. All of the Ard-Ríthe, and any of the lesser kings beneath them, would be glad to grant concessions in return. We have information you would find most useful.”

Neither of them had taken a sip of the wine. So much for lubrication. Setting hers down, Lune suppressed a sigh, and folded her hands across the front of her skirt. “What you desire is more direct manipulation, and that is not the policy of this court.”

“Once it was.”

She went very still. Here it came at last: the overt reminder. She had been wondering how long it would take, ever since his arrival after All Hallows’ Eve. This ambassador was willing to use more weapons than his predecessor had been. “Never under our rule. We will thank you to remember that.”

The formal shift to the plural pronoun hit him like a slap. Eochu Airt smoothed the hair out of his face, then set down his own wine and crossed back to the chairs, where he retrieved his golden branch of office. “As you wish, madam. But I fear the Ard-Rí will not be glad to hear it.”

“Tell our cousin Fiacha,” Lune said, “that we are not averse to cooperation. But I will not wrap strings around the mortal court and dance it like my puppet. I work for the harmony of humans and fae by more subtle means.”

“Your Highness.” Eochu Airt answered her with a stiff bow and exited, leaving her alone in the privy chamber.

Lune placed one hand against the silver-gilt leather covering the wall and gritted her teeth. Not well handled. Not well at all. But what could she do? The Irish were probably the only fae in Europe who missed the days when her predecessor ruled, when the Queen of the Onyx Court did not balk at manipulating anyone, mortal or otherwise.

No, not the only ones. But the most vexatious.

She had some sympathy for their desires. If her own land were overrun by foreigners, ousting those with ancestral claim, she, too, would fight tooth and claw to defend it. But this was not her fight, and she would not compromise her principles to win it for the Irish. Mortals were not pawns, to be shuffled about the board at will.

Lune composed her expression and went back out into the presence chamber. Her courtiers murmured amongst themselves; no one would have overlooked the departure of Eochu Airt and his warriors. Some of them had even accepted gifts to solicit her on behalf of the Irish. Nianna, the silly fool, was flirting with a ganconer the ambassador had the audacity to bring, trading on her position as Mistress of the Robes. If Lune gave them half a chance, they would all be seeking her ear.

She had no patience for it, not now. There were bathing chambers in the Onyx Hall, their waters heated by salamanders; perhaps she would go rest in one of those, and try to think of a way to mollify the High Court at Temair.

But she did not move quickly enough. While she hesitated next to her chair, the door opened again, revealing a man more out of place than even the Irish. Sandy-haired, solid of build, ordinary as brown bread—and wearing a determined expression entirely at odds with the blithe amusements of the chamber. The usher raised his voice again. “The Prince of the Stone!”

LONDON ABOVE AND BELOW: June 3, 1639

Threadneedle Street was an unmoving snarl of carts, coaches, horses, and men afoot, so Antony turned south, seeking a path through the lesser crowds of Walbrook Street, and then the much smaller Cloak Lane, where the jettied upper stories of houses overhung the mud of the roadway. In the shadow of the Cutlers’ Hall, he placed one hand on the thick, pitch-coated beam that separated two houses, and splayed his fingers wide.

Behind him, the people of London continued on their way, taking no notice of him—nor of the shadowed gap that appeared where none had been before, squeezing itself into the nonexistent space between the houses. Into this narrow aperture Antony stepped, turning sideways so his shoulders would not scrape the walls.

When it closed behind him, he stood at the head of an equally narrow staircase spiraling downward, with only faint illumination to guide him. Antony descended, careful of his footing on the steps—not slate, nor limestone, nor Kentish ragstone, but a slick blackness found nowhere in the ordinary structures of London.

For the realm he entered was no ordinary structure. It felt like another world, and so, in a sense, it was: London’s shadow, taken shape within the earth, and sheltering in its myriad of chambers and passages an entire faerie court, unseen and unsuspected.

Except by a few.

A vaulted gallery led out from the bottom of the staircase. Cool lights shone down from among the ribs that supported the ceiling, some wandering gently of their own will, so that the shadows shifted and danced. This place reflected the world above, but not directly; the Threadneedle entrance lay not far from him, though a goodly distance away as he had walked it. If Antony’s guess was right, he was near the place—and the person—he sought.

A liveried sprite stood at a nearby door, confirming his guess. The creature bowed deeply, threw the door open, and announced in a voice far larger than his body, “The Prince of the Stone!”

The sight that greeted him inside the chamber was a blinding one, an array of jewel-bright silks and fantastical bodies, sitting or standing at carefully-posed leisure. Long use had accustomed him to the splendor—but not to its centerpiece, the axis around which it all revolved.

Lune stood by her chair of estate, with the alert, arrested posture of a deer. The elaborate curls of her silver hair still trembled against her cheek, for she had turned her head sharply just before the usher’s cry. They outshone the cloth-of-silver of her petticoat, and made the lutestring silk of her bodice and looped-up overskirt a richer midnight by comparison. Sapphires winked in her circlet, each one worth a lord’s ransom.