Marie Brennan - Midnight Never Come

It came back full force as he left, though. Handing off his poleax to Colsey, he suffered Ranwell to feed him some concoction the man swore would cure even the worst hangover; less than a minute later his stomach rebelled and he vomited it all back up. “Feed me that again,” Deven told his new servant, “and you’ll find yourself sent to fight in Ireland.”

Colsey, who still did not appreciate having to share his master with an interloper, smirked.

Deven cleaned his mouth out and took a deep breath to fortify himself. He wanted little more than to collapse back into bed, but that would never do, so instead he addressed himself to the business at hand.

It made no sense to ask Hunsdon about the permissibility of acquiring another patron, if he did not have such a man already friendly to him. Deven hoped he did, but until that was confirmed, best not to broach the subject with Hunsdon at all.

Squaring his shoulders, Deven gritted his teeth and went in search, hangover and all.

But luck, which had preserved him through the morning’s ordeal, was not on his side in this matter. The Principal Secretary, he learned, was ill and thus absent from court. His inquiries led him to another man, ink-stained and bearing a thick sheaf of papers, who was attending the meetings of the privy council in Walsingham’s absence.

Deven made bold enough to snatch a moment of Robert Beale’s time. After introducing himself and explaining his business, at least in broad outline, he asked, “When might the Principal Secretary return to court?”

Beale’s lips pressed together, but not, Deven thought, in irritation or offense. “I could not say,” the Secretary said. “He requires rest, of course, and her Majesty is most solicitous of his health. I would not expect him back soon — for some days at least, and possibly longer.”

Damnation, again. Deven forced a smile onto his face. “I thank you for your time,” he said, and got out of Beale’s way.

He could hardly go asking favors of a man on his sickbed. He could send a letter — but no. Better not to press the matter. As much as it galled him, he would have to wait, and hope the Principal Secretary recovered soon.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: October 20, 1588

Tens of thousands of mortals lived in London, and more in the towns and villages that surrounded it. In the entirety of England, Lune could not begin to guess how many there were.

Except to say there were too many, when she was trying to find a particular one.

She had to be discreet with her inquiries. If Tiresias was to be trusted — if he truly had a vision, or overheard something while lurking about — then this Francis Merriman knew something of use. It followed, then, that she did not want to share him with others. But so far discretion had availed her nothing; the mortal was not easily found.

When a spindly little spriteling came to summon her before Vidar, her first thought was that it had to do with her search. There was no reason to think that, but the alternatives were not much more appealing. Concealing these thoughts, Lune acknowledged the messenger with a nod. “Tell the Lord Keeper I will come when I may.”

The messenger smiled, revealing sharp, goblinish teeth. “He demanded your immediate attendance.”

Of course he did. “Then I will be pleased to come,” Lune said, rising as she mouthed the politic lie.

In better times, she might have made him wait. Vidar’s exalted status was a new thing, and Lune had until recently been a lady of Invidiana’s privy chamber, one of the Queen’s intimates — inasmuch as she was intimate with anyone. That freedom was gone now; if Vidar said to leap, then leap she must.

And of course he kept her dangling. Vidar’s rise to Lord Keeper had made him a most desirable patron, rich in both wealth and enchantment, and now his outer chamber thronged with hopeful courtiers and rural fae begging some favor or another. He might have demanded her immediate attendance, but he granted audience to a twisted bogle, two Devonshire pisgies, and a travel-stained faun in Italian dress before summoning Lune into the inner chamber.

He lounged in a chair at the far end of the room, and did not rise when she came in. Some fae held to older fashions of clothing, but he closely followed current styles; the crystals and jet embroidered onto his doublet winked in the light, an obvious mimicry of Invidiana’s clothing. Rumor had it the black leather of his tall, close-fitting boots was the skin of some unfortunate fae he had captured, tortured, and executed on the Queen’s behalf, but Lune knew the rumors came from Vidar himself. It was ordinary doeskin, nothing more. But the desire for that belief was telling enough.

She gave him the curtsy rank demanded, and not a hair more. “Lord Ifarren.”

“Lady Lune.” Vidar twiddled a crystal goblet in his bony fingers. “How good of you to come.”

She waited, but he did not offer her a seat.

After a leisurely study of her, Vidar set aside the goblet and rose. “We have known one another for a long time, have we not, my lady? And we have worked together in days past — to mutual benefit, as I weigh it. It pains me to see you thus fallen.”

As a stag in season was pained to see a rival fall to a hunter’s arrow. Lune cast her gaze modestly downward and said, “’Tis kind of you to say it, my lord.”

“Oh, I have a mind to offer you more kindness than just a sympathetic word.”

She instantly went on guard. Lune could think of nothing Vidar might gain by offering her true help, but that did not mean he would not. As cut off as she had been from the inner circles of court gossip, he might have some gambit in play she did not see. But what would she have to offer him?

No way to find out, save to walk farther into his trap. “I would be most glad to hear anything your lordship might extend to me.”

Vidar snapped his fingers, and a pair of minor goblins hurried to his side. At his gesture, they began unlacing the points of his sleeves, drawing them off to reveal the black silk of his shirt underneath. Ignoring them, Vidar asked, “You once lived for an extended period of time among mortals, yes?”

“Indeed, my lord.” He raised one needle-thin eyebrow, and she elaborated. “I was a waiting-gentlewoman to Lady Hereford — as Lettice Knollys was known, then. Her Majesty bid me thence to keep a daily eye upon the mortal court, and report to her its doings.”

The skeletal fae shuddered, a twitchy, insectlike motion. “Quite a sacrifice to make on the Queen’s behalf. To live, day and night, under a mask of mortality, cut off from all the glory of our own court… Ash and Thorn. I would not do it again.”

It might be the first sincere statement he had made since Lune entered. Vidar’s own mortal masquerade, the one that had earned him his new position, had been more sporadic than sustained, and he had not enjoyed it. She said temperately, “I was pleased to serve her Majesty in such a capacity.”

“Of course you were.” He let the cynical note hang in the air, then offered, “Wine?”

Lune nodded, and took the cup a goblin brought to her. The wine was a fine red, tasting of the smoky, fading light of autumn, the flamboyant splendor of the leaves and their dry rustle underfoot, the growing bite of winter’s chill. She recognized it from the first sip: surely one of the last remaining bottles brought as a gift to Invidiana when Madame Malline le Sainfoin de Veilée replaced the old ambassador from France. Some years hence, that had been. Madame Malline had remained at the Onyx Court when the ambassador from the Courts of the North departed, but relations were strained. There would be no more such gifts, not for a long time.