Anne Kelleher - Silver's Edge

To what purpose, wondered Timias, as his gaze fell on the back of Vinaver’s head, where her thick copper braids hung massed in jeweled caul. What mischief had the witch planned in his absence?

“And what’s in it for us, Timias?” put in Gorlias, interrupting Timias’s train of thought. “It’s not as if we could expect their help against the goblins—except as bait.” This time the laughter was longer.

Timias shook his head, suddenly weary with frustration. “Laugh at me if you must, Gorlias. I tell you all, if the war in Shadow expands across the entire mortal world, we will disappear—like the lost land of Lyonesse.” There. He’d said it. He straightened and folded his arms across his chest.

An awkward silence fell across the table while the courtiers exchanged shocked glances and Delphinea shifted uncomfortably in her seat. This time she avoided his eyes. Alemandine rubbed her temples as if her head ached. Vinaver snorted. “If this is all the tidings you bring my sister, Lord Timias, you might consider a stint on the perimeter, yourself. A few weeks and you might begin to understand what we face. If you hadn’t been off indulging yourself in Shadow, you’d have been here to hear Finuviel speak of the situation himself. We have not the troops to spare to such a dangerous distraction.” Her green eyes flashed in a manner so reminiscent of her mother that Timias took a step back. Vinaver raised her head and her wings quivered.

No one could accuse her of not being utterly loyal to her sister, thought Timias.

But now she was rising, bending like a copper lily over Alemandine, her skirts rustling with a soothing swish. “Come, sister, soon we’ll be away from all this. Allow me to make you a posset. ’Twill soothe your head and we’ll talk about what to pack.” Glaring in Timias’s direction, she rose, edging him aside with her skirts, drawing Alemandine to her feet. “You foolish, blind old man. Come, dear sister.” With gentle murmurs, she drew Alemandine from her chair, allowing the Queen’s head to droop against her shoulder, as she led the Queen away. The breeze raised by the trembling of their wings swirled past Timias’s cheek like a voiceless reproach.

“I hope you’re satisfied, Timias.” Hudibras bit savagely into the apple.

“I shall not be satisfied, my lord Consort, until everyone at this table, within this entire realm, understands the gravity of the situation we face.” He looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “Our Queen is no Gloriana. We all know it—Alemandine herself knows it. She needs more from us than a nod of approval. Alemandine needs our help, our guidance—”

“Diverting our own forces to the Shadowlands when we know we will need them here is scarcely the way to do it, Timias.” Philomemnon folded his arms over his chest and shook his head.

Timias tightened his grip on his staff, drawing himself up, wondering how to impress upon them the reality of the threat. But then he caught the Lady Delphinea’s look once more. Her expression did not change, but she raised one eyebrow infinitesimally. He swallowed the words, and shrugged. Something about her appearance nagged at his awareness. Perhaps an opportunity to speak to her privately might be arranged. If he could persuade her, there might be a way Philomemnon and Berillian could be brought to his side. And there were others. A majority of the Council would outweigh the voices of Vinaver, Hudibras and Gorlias and help convince the Queen he was right. Better to let it go now. So he spread his hands and only said, “Think on it. But think not long. Events in Shadow proceed apace. Already it may be affecting Alemandine. If we linger too long, our decision may well be made for us. Remember Lyonesse.” He bowed to each of them, turned on his heel, and walked slowly from the room, leaving them sitting in a flood of silent light, gasping audibly that he should have once again invoked the forbidden name.

The news that a mortal maiden, carrying a goblin’s head in a sack, had arrived at the outpost awakened Artimour and brought him blinking, upright, barely two hours after his head had first touched the pillow just before dawn. “A goblin’s head?” he repeated, as Dariel, his body squire, moved about the room, shaking out fresh underlinen, opening a shutter to let in enough light for him to dress. “Are you sure it’s a goblin’s head?”

“There’s no mistake about that, my lord. I was in the kitchens when they brought her in—you could smell it coming half a league off.”

“And how’d she find her way here?” Artimour dragged himself out of bed, and splashed cold water from the pitcher on the table into a basin and onto his face. He looked up to take the towel Dariel proffered.

“The scouting party you sent out after that last raid, my lord. They found her just as she crossed over the border.”

“They’ve all come back?”

“No, my lord.” Dariel handed him hose and underlinen and did not meet his eyes. “The captain of the watch sent them out again. There are three of the company missing.”

“Missing.” He sank down onto the edge of the bed. The word punched through the fog of his exhaustion like a fist. Something had happened last night, something had shifted, changed. He could smell it, like a flake of pepper just under his nose; feel it, like a tiny piece of gravel in his boot. There was a difference in the goblins last night—they had attacked with a ferocity he had not experienced before. He wondered bitterly how far away Finuviel—Finuviel, his nephew and his junior and his newly appointed Commander—was with the much needed reinforcements. The thought of Finuviel automatically made him even more bitter, for it was difficult to accept that the much less-experienced, much younger sidhe had been rewarded with the title of High Commander of the Queen’s Guard, which meant that he was now Artimour’s commander-in-chief and while he had not yet begun to meddle with Artimour’s carefully constructed plan of defense for the outer wards, there was no doubt at all in Artimour’s mind that once Finuviel arrived, he would begin to question everything that Artimour had done up to now. The line was holding, he thought. But something’s changed, something’s different, and will Finuviel listen and understand? Or would he simply assume that Artimour’s half-mortal blood interfered with his competency, as the Queen and her Council so obviously did?

But Dariel was continuing, relaying the mortal woman’s story, “—and what’s more, my lord, she’s insisting she intends to show it to the Queen.”

“Great Herne, that might kill her.” He accepted the shirt Dariel held out, pushing away all thoughts of resentment and Finuviel. He had to deal with this latest crisis with a clear head. “The Queen, I mean. Not the mortal.” He shoved his arms into the sleeves of his shirt. Before last night, they might have laughed. Now not even the ghost of a smile bent either of their mouths. “Any word from—” he hesitated, loathe to speak the name of the rival who’d supplanted his command “—Finuviel?”

“A dispatch came in for you shortly after dawn. I had thought it better not to disturb you.”

“I appreciate that, Dariel.” And he did appreciate it, for there’d been very little rest for anyone lately. And after last night, he doubted there would be more until Finuviel arrived with the reinforcements. And once Finuviel arrived, who could say what changes he’d insist on? The mortal was right in one respect—the Queen and her Council might not need to see the goblin’s head to believe it, but they had to be made aware that a goblin had somehow crossed the border into the Shadowlands. For such a happenstance could only mean one thing. The magic of the Caul—the Silver Caul of lore and legend and song—forged by his mortal father and imbued by his mother Gloriana with her sidhe magic, had somehow—momentarily at least—failed. It was the only thing that could upset him more than the possibility of losing three more of his troops after last night. If only Finuviel were here—it might be amusing to watch him struggle with this unexpected development.