Marie Brennan - Midnight Never Come

That should be enough to bind her. He hoped. He dared not press for more. Yet he had one further request, unrelated to the first. “I am most grateful,” he said, and bowed his head again. “You have already given me more than I ever dreamed of, bringing me here. But though it be presumptuous of me, I do have one more thing to ask. Your voice, lady, is beauty itself; might I have the privilege of gazing upon your face?”

Another silence, though this time his escort did not take it as strongly amiss.

“No,” the lady said. “You shall not see me tonight. But on some future day — if your service pleases — then perhaps, Edward Kelley, you shall know who I am.”

He wanted to see her beauty, but she had surmised correctly; he also wanted to see whom he was serving. But it was not to be.

Was he willing to accept that, in exchange for what the fae might teach him?

He had answered that question before he ever agreed to accompany them beneath the streets of London.

Edward Kelley bowed until his forehead touched the cold marble and said, “I will serve you, Lady, and go to Doctor Dee.”

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: February 5, 1590

The night garden of the Onyx Hall had no day garden with which to contrast, but still it bore that name. It was enormous, comparable in size to the great presence chamber, but very different in character; in place of cold, geometric stone, there was instead the softness of earth, the gentle arch of branches. The quiet waters of the Walbrook, the buried river of London, bisected the garden’s heart. Paths meandered through carefully arranged beds of moonflower, cereus, and evening primrose; angel’s trumpet wound its way up pillars and around fountains. Here and there stood urns filled with lilies from the deeper reaches of Faerie. Night lasted eternally here, and the air was perfumed with gentle scents.

Lune breathed in deeply and felt something inside her relax. As much as she enjoyed living among mortals, it was exhausting beyond anything else she knew. Easy enough to don human guise for a trip to Islington and back; living among them was a different matter. Being in the Onyx Hall again was like drinking cool, pure water after a long day in the sun and wind.

The ceiling above was cloaked in shadow, and spangled with brilliant faerie lights: tiny, near-mindless creatures below even a will-o’-the-wisp — barely aware enough to be called fae. The constellations they formed changed from time to time, as much a part of the garden’s design as the flowerbeds and the delicate streams that rippled through them. Their shape now suggested a hunter, thrown through the air from the antlers of a stag.

That was troubling. There must have been some recent clash with the Wild Hunt.

Lune was not the only one in the garden. A small clutch of four fae had gathered a little distance away, under a sculpted holly tree. A black-feathered fellow perched in the branches, while two ladies gathered around a third, who sat on a bench with a book in her hands. Whatever she was reading aloud to them was too quiet for Lune to hear, but it sparked much mirth from her audience.

Footsteps on the flagstones made her turn. Lady Nianna Chrysanthe hurried to her side, saying breathlessly, “You must have come early.”

“I finished my business sooner than expected.” Vidar had not questioned her nearly as closely as he might have. Lune was not sure whether to find that worrisome, or merely a sign that he was not as competent as he liked to believe. “What do you have for me?”

The honey-haired elfin lady cast a glance around, then beckoned Lune to follow. They went deeper into the garden, finding their own bench on which to sit. They were still within sight of the group beneath the holly tree, and now another pair at the edge of a fountain, but the important thing was that no one could overhear them.

“Tell me,” Nianna whispered, more out of excitement than caution, “what does—”

“Give me your news first,” Lune said, cutting her off. “Then I will tell you.”

Pushing Nianna was dangerous. Lune’s work among mortals had gone some way toward restoring her status, but not her former position in the privy chamber, and Nianna alone of her former companions there deigned to speak with her much at all. Lune did not want to lose her most reliable source of information. But she knew Nianna, and knew how far the lady could be pushed. Nianna pouted, but gave in. “Very well. What do you wish me to begin with?”

Lune pointed at the faerie lights in their constellation. “How stand matters with the Wild Hunt?”

“Not well.” Nianna deflated a little. Her slender fingers plucked at the enameled chain that hung from her girdle. “There are rumors they will ally at last with the Courts of the North—”

“There have always been such rumors.”

“Yes, but this time they seem more serious. Her Majesty has formed a provisional agreement with Temair. A regiment of Red Branch knights, to fight the Wild Hunt — or the Scots, or both — if she uses her influence on the mortal court to affect events in Ireland on their behalf. They’re willing to consider it, at least; the unanswered question is how much aid she would have to give them in return.”

Lune let her breath out slowly. Red Branch knights; they would be quite an asset, if Invidiana could get them. The English fae could hold their own against Scotland, even if the redcaps along the Border took the other side, but the Wild Hunt was, and always had been, a very different kind of threat. The only thing that kept them at bay so far was their absolute refusal to fight this war on any mortal front. And Invidiana was not foolish enough to leave the safety of the Onyx Hall, buried in the midst of mortal London, and meet them on their own terms.

“Has there been an active threat from the Hunt?”

“An assassin,” Nianna said dismissively. “A Catholic priest. I believe he is still strung up in the watching chamber, if you wish to see him.”

She did not. Would-be assassins, and their punishments, were a common occurrence. “But from the Hunt ?”

“That is why everyone thinks they may have a true alliance with the Courts of the North.”

If true, it was worrisome. The Scottish fae had no compunctions about using mortals in the fight; they had been forming pacts with witches for years and sending them south to cause trouble. The leaders of the Hunt all claimed kingship over one corner of England or another; they might have decided they wanted lands and sovereignty badly enough to look the other way while their allies soiled their hands with mortal tools.

Lune doubted it, but she wasn’t in a position to judge. “What else?”

Nianna put a painted fingernail to her lip, considering. “Madame Malline has been asking around, attempting to discover how the bargain with the folk of the sea was struck. I do not know what the Cour du Lys would want with such knowledge, but there must be something. You should stay away from her.”

That, or barter with her. If she could do it in a way that wouldn’t anger Invidiana. “Continue.”

“That is all I know about her aims. Let me see… there have been a few more fae in from country areas, complaining that their homes have been destroyed.” Nianna dismissed this with a wave. She had been a lady of the privy chamber to Invidiana for a long time; the travails of country folk were insignificant to her. “Oh yes, and a delegation of muryans from Cornwall — they just arrived; no one knows yet what they want. What else? Lady Carline has a new mortal she’s stringing along. She might get to keep him for a time; Invidiana has taken Lewan Erle back to her bed, so her attention is elsewhere. Or not.”

Bedroom politics did not interest Lune. They might be of consuming fascination to some, but they rarely affected the matters she attended to. What had she not yet asked about? “The Spanish ambassador?”