Blood and Iron (35 page)

Seeker backed away slowly, stopping only when the Mebd's chair of estate caught her in the small of the back. It screeched a half-inch across the tile; she winced as Kadiska shot her a sour look. Under the pall, the throne was a jumble of lance-pointed ivory, curves and arcs interconnected like the finest filigree, every inch covered with intricate spiral carvings. The whole gleamed softly in the filtered light, except where old blood stained the spear-tipped points with rust. Seeker felt the room should have been full of silence, but she heard a distant fiddle climbing up a jig like a child tumbling up stairs, laughing.

“Antlers, rather,” Seeker corrected herself, and, edging back, reached out to lay her bloody right hand against the smooth warm material of the throne. “Dear—” She stopped herself before she said the painful name of the Divine, some corner of her mind amused that she'd forgotten herself enough to even think of it.

Kadiska rubbed one hand across the curving row of scars on her breast. She touched a curved antler point, drew back a finger dripping red. “It's an implement of torture. How could it not have killed her?”

“Magic,” Seeker answered.

“Who could sit in such a thing?”

“The Mebd has done it,” she answered glibly, and then she swallowed bitterness and swore. “Oh, sweet hellfire. Ian.”

Kadiska blinked at her, not understanding at first. And then she laid a hand—the one that wasn't bleeding—on Seeker's arm and squeezed. The silence, broken by the distant strains of a reel—flute and that joyous fiddle again— cloyed. “It may be a long time hence,” Kadiska managed at last.

Seeker nodded. “I have to go back to the dance,” she said. “I'll be missed otherwise. Help me cover this up.”

Chapter Sixteen

Seeker came back to the great hall through the carved, heavy blackwood doors at the far end. Although it was still only midafternoon, Cairbre's impromptu party seemed a success. By the wall, the bard struck sparks from his fiddle; they scattered, hissing, to the green-and-rose-checkered marble floor. Hope stood behind him, fingers flying over the silver branch of her flute. Carel had left the dulcimer. Seeker scanned the crowd for her and found her dancing with the Kelpie, who guided her in the unfamiliar steps while she laughed and held her skirts high in her left hand, watching his feet.

Ian.
He sat on the steps beside the Mebd's chair, leaning back against the baroquely carven and gilded base. Her pale fingers moved idly through the glossy darkness of his hair. Seeker shivered at the relaxed pleasure in his face, seeing again the bloodstained ivory throne.
Of course she can't bind him,
she realized.
He has to outlive her.

But most of us won't.
She felt a kind of sick relief in that.
At least I'll never have to see him sit in that . . . thing.
Seeker walked forward, keeping to the edge of the hall so as not to interfere with the dancers. Cairbre caught her eye and winked as she passed; Hope might have, but she was leaning into the music, elbows up and eyes closed. Seeker saw the Mebd glance down at her and then steal a look at Ian.

Otherwise,
she saw Whiskey coming before he reached out gently and laid a hand on her arm. “Dance with me, mistress?”

Seeker's right hand still stung, although the bleeding had stopped. Whiskey let his hand slide down to her wrist, lifted it, and turned it over.

“I can smell the blood,” he said, and kissed the wound as if he kissed the open palm of her hand. His tongue rasped skin, slick and rough, and she shivered again—for new reasons.

“I hate you,” she whispered.

“Such a human passion. I thought you were delightful.”

“You provoked me on purpose.”

He smiled. She saw no trace of her violence on his face.

“I like a woman with the will to fight. Shall we dance?”

She let him lead her out into the midst of the dancers, the white linen and ivory brocade of his shirt and doublet like a slash of snow on the wildflower riot of colors. “You're wearing shoes,” she said, surprised. Low black boots covered his feet, soft suede falling in folds around the ivory silk of his hose.

“A doublet looks odd without hose,” he said. “And hose are awkward without boots.” They stepped into line as a pavane began, the slick floor hard under her soft-soled shoes, his hand warm as he raised hers high. Her skirts chafed her legs, starched gray cloth rustling against the tile. Whiskey danced well, surprising her, leading her forward in the pace, dip and sway. Their hands parted and linked as the moving columns bore them apart and brought them back together, a stately and decorous few feet separate. Seeker felt her face burning and wondered if the blush showed.

She examined Whiskey through the arch of their arms. His eyes stayed forward, face impassive; she studied the weight of his lower lip, plump with a faint frown. She almost stumbled, and returned her focus belatedly to the dance even as it ended and Whiskey swept a cold, mocking bow, precise as ice sculpture in his softly shining white. Seeker matched him with a curtsey, hand raised high and her head bowed and tilted, her own gown gray as drawn steel among the tumult of greens and blues and rose-petal colors worn by the Fae. Whiskey straightened, that frown still bending his lip, and released her hand. “Remember this,” he said, and stepped back into the laughing crowd.

"Whiskey—”

“Seeker.”

Seeker turned to the Merlin's touch on her sleeve. Carel's autumn-colored robe hung in folds from her shoulders, soft pleats bending around her breasts and hips like the curve of a caress. “Care to scandalize the room? Cairbre promises a waltz, which seems to be his idea of modern dancing.”

Whiskey, you sly son of a bitch.
But seduction was his stock-in-trade, after all.

As if led on a rope, Seeker turned to Carel and took her hand. Her movements were smooth, assured as Whiskey's had been—and almost involuntary. A stranger in her own body, she smiled. “For him, it was invented practically yesterday. And two women dancing won't be as much of a scandal as you might wish,” she said. “The rules have always been different in Faerie.” She tucked a braid behind her ear. “You know I'm charged with your seduction.”

“Again, you assume I am innocent,” the Merlin said and laughed. “Have I no agenda of my own? Is it still seduction, when aid is given willingly?”

I guess it happens now,
Seeker thought, and surrendered to her geasa, taking the Merlin into her arms.
It never rains but it pours.
She giggled inwardly, a sound that would have been tight and shrill if allowed past her lips.
If it ever rains at all.
She remembered cold droplets of water brushing her face, cold lips brushing her skin.
I can't do this. I can't do this.

I don't have any choice in the world.
The Merlin smelled of peppermint and lavender, this time. Nothing like Whiskey. Nothing like Keith.
I wish the Mebd had torn my heart out, as she threatened Tam Lin. Give me a heart of stone; if I must be Fae, let me be Fae, and no more of this death by inches.
The music swelled up around Seeker. Carel led, a little awkwardly, and Seeker closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see the faces of her family, her friends, her Queen or her servant.
No more.

But she'd pretended that, hadn't she?—almost thought she had become what was demanded of her, become what she needed to be to survive in the loveless lands. Jealousy, rage, fear, possessiveness, desperation. A distant and elemental sort of joy. Those things, she was sure, surged in the breasts of the Kelpie, of the Mebd. But love? Compassion?

Maybe Morgan can feel them. But how I wish, myself, that I could not.
The music was crisp, sharp, bittersweet, and Cairbre gave it a touch of a reel under the stately rhythm of the waltz. The Seeker of the Daoine Sidhe turned her head, nuzzled warm braids and cool twisted beads aside, kissed the silk-soft neck of the legended magician. Through stiff silk and lace and folds of petal-thick velvet, she felt Carel's body press against her, heard a whispered hum on the other woman's breath.

Through
otherwise
eyes, Seeker saw Fae looking—or very carefully not looking, as the case might be: saw Cairbre frown as he bent backward, lifting the bow and the fiddle high; saw Kadiska in the shadows, silent as a coiled and waiting snake, shake back her hair and wink through half a bittersweet smile; Whiskey's hair-tossing headshake as he stole a look around the shoulder of a lady to whom he paid court, and Ian's casual glance and dismissal.

Oh,
Seeker thought.
Oh, oh, oh.
And tasted salt and the faint oily flavor of moisturizer, Carel's ever-changing scent filling her senses with the aroma of lilac now. The Merlin leading her, the geasa moving her, Seeker danced in the arms of the one she was ordered to bind and betray, unable to taste the tears burning her eyes. Carel tossed her braids aside, nudged Seeker's cheek with her nose, and gently, gently, gently caught Seeker's lower lip between teeth like a tightly knotted strand of pearls. And then the Merlin smiled wistfully and said, “Shall we give them what they expect, my friend? Or merely something to talk about, for now?”

They say that what the Faeries touch cannot be trusted. Soap bubbles and glamourie, deception and dis-ease. There was so little truth in that, and so much.

Seeker leaned against the wall, one glass of wine more than she should have had inside her and another one in her hand, and watched the Faeries dance. The Mebd had left, with Ian. Carel had gone back to the musicians. Seeker could still taste the sweetness of the Merlin's saliva and the nibbling caress of her lips, and she swirled tart, tannic wine over her tongue to drive the taste away.

Seeker snorted into her goblet. Carel smiled along the wall at her, and Seeker's lips curved in an answering smile whether she willed it or not.
Bind the Merlin and bind the Dragon.

Experimentally, Seeker finished her wine and set the glass aside, just as the musicians finished a slip-jig and moved into a more martial tune. “Ah,” she said under her breath. “So ‘Johnny Cope' it is.”

She let her bootheels rattle on the stones, pivoting on one foot to walk beside the wall, heading for the black wooden doors at the bottom of the hall. Hope handed off her flute and fell into step a few feet behind Seeker, hurrying. “I've a meeting with the Queen,” Seeker told her, lengthening her stride.

“I need your help,” Hope said softly, catching up. “Five minutes. Just five.”

“All right.” Seeker didn't slow, but she glanced at the earnest girl. “Follow me.” She pushed the door open, old wood waxed smooth against the palm of her hand, the panel heavy but perfectly balanced. Her footsteps sounded decisive, and she wrinkled her nose at the irony of that.

Can I trust her any further than I can trust him? What the Faeries touch . . .
She turned and caught the broad flared tippet on Hope's sleeve, pulling her to one side and into a small room off the hall: little more than a niche behind the stairwell, but outfitted with a window and a short pair of benches. Seeker dropped the girl's cuff and shook her own skirts wide before she sat, leaning against the polished stones, turning her face to the misted glass.

The gardens beyond seemed brighter under the overcast, the colors more saturated than in sunlight. Seeker let the side of her face fall against the cold window, breathing the cooler air beside the glass, and watched as Hope spread out her dress and settled herself opposite, humming a little air of warding to keep their conversation private.

“I'm pregnant,” Hope said, without preamble. “Did you know about Ian and me?”

“Yes,” Seeker answered, everything she'd thought of saying dying. “Does he know?”

“Not yet. Tonight.” Her tongue protruded between her lips, like a child's in concentration. “I needed to tell you something first. Look.”

Hope gestured out the window, and Seeker followed the line of the girl's wrist, leading her arm.
The Mebd has had her in deportment lessons . . .
which was not so surprising. Not as surprising as the way the clouds boiled and tore, a thin ragged slit letting a glimpse of sunlight through, a single beam that tumbled to earth, struck a rainbow along the way like a spark from flint, and then vanished. Seeker caught her breath.
I thought so.

“You did more last night.”

Hope coughed, concealing her mouth with the cupped palm of her hand. A sheen of sweat, fine as the silk she wore, covered her forehead. “It's easier when I'm . . . emotional. Sometimes, then, it's not so easy to control. And it's been better, I think, since . . .”

“If it's a boy,” Seeker said, “pretty soon you'll start to smell things. Hear things. He will make you alert. Give you a taste of his senses. That will go away when the baby is born.”

“And if it's a girl?”

“She won't be a werewolf,” Seeker answered. “Only the boys. Only the men.” Her heart caught in her throat.
She'll just be of my blood, and Morgan's. And the Mebd's.

And Uisgebaugh,
an inner voice reminded her.
Did you forget that he's your great-uncle?

She answered herself without irony.
You do what you were going to do anyway, and then cloak your actions in the justification of right and wrong because you cannot face the truth.
Hope's hand rested over her belly.

“I need you.”