Fey 02 - Changeling (64 page)

The Danites trooped out of his room.
 
Another came toward him.
 
"Did you throw holy water on him, Holy Sir?" the Danite asked.

Matthias nodded.
 
"Why?"

"Because you had an empty bottle on the bed, and the blankets are wet.
 
We sent for an Aud to replace the blankets, but we weren't certain if the intruder had done something to them.
 
We can't be too careful any more."

"No," Matthias said.
 
"We can't."

"If you threw holy water on him," another Danite said, "then he wasn't Fey.
 
No smell, no body in the room."

"It startled him, nothing more," Matthias said.
 
It felt odd to lie to the Danites.
 
They had once had complete truth in the Tabernacle.

Porciluna was watching him.
 
Matthias felt his own skin crawl.
 

An Aud came up the stairs.
 
He was older, and took the stairs cautiously, hand on his back as he walked.
 
When he reached the Elders and Matthias, he stopped.

"They found nothing in the courtyard," the Aud said.
 
"It looks as if the intruder got away."

"We need someone to stay in the Rocaan's rooms," Reece said.

Matthias shook his head.
 
"No.
 
I'll remain alone."

"At least let us put an Aud on the balcony —"

"No," Porciluna said.
 
"He would like to be alone."

Porciluna was agreeing a bit too easily.
 
Matthias studying him until Porciluna squirmed and looked away.
 
Then Matthias turned to Reece.

"You're right, Reece.
 
An Aud on the balcony would be a good idea and two more at the door."

Reece smiled and touched Matthias's arm once more as if for reassurance.
 
"I will see to it, Holy Sir."

He disappeared down the stairs.
 
Despite everything that happened, Matthias still trusted Reece.
 
Porciluna was the one who looked guilty.
 
Of what, Matthias was not certain.
 
Perhaps he was just guilty of impure thoughts.

Thoughts of overthrowing the Rocaan.

Linus excused himself and peered into Matthias's rooms.
 
The Danites went down the stairs.

Matthias's heart rate had slowed.
 
An exhaustion like one he hadn't felt in years crept over him.
 
"It has never worked, you know," he said softly to Porciluna.
 
"No one has ever overthrown a Rocaan."

"But more than a few have left voluntarily," Porciluna said.
 
"You're the scholar.
 
What are the circumstances behind those?"

"If a Rocaan leaves each time the Elders find
 
his actions unpardonable, no Rocaan would have remained in office."

"No Rocaan has murdered before."

"You forget the 35th Rocaan."

"Tis said those deaths were an accident."

Matthias smiled.
 
"A happy accident then, facilitated by the arrow slits he carved in the old kirk worship room."
 
With his left hand, Matthias moved the hair off his face.
 
"Don't be deceived by history, Porciluna.
 
None of the Rocaans were saints.
 
They were all too human."

"I am aware of that," Porciluna said.

"Then don't punish me for taking the right action.
 
Elders have been forced to resign under less trying circumstances."

"The right action doesn't lead to assassination attempts in the middle of the night."

"Sure it does," Matthias said.
 
"That's why the Rocaan usually doesn't live on the same floor as the Elders.
 
Rocaans are always threatened by their assistants."

"Perhaps I phrased that wrong," Porciluna said.
 
"The right action doesn't lead to assassination attempts whose source can't be determined.
 
An Islander attacked you?
 
Was he from the King? Or did he have ties with the Tabernacle?
 
Or was he acting alone?
 
And those examples don't count what would have happened had the Fey been involved.
 
You didn't take the right action, Matthias.
 
Your action may have doomed us all."

"You have a flair for the dramatic, Porciluna," Matthias said.
 

Porciluna squinted at him.
 
"No, Matthias.
 
I have a penchant for truth."

"Really?"
 
Matthias said.
 
"Then you wouldn't pass yourself off as a believer, Porciluna."

Matthias pushed past him and went back to his own rooms.
 
The Danites had left the door opened, and the furniture moved.
 
The balcony doors were closed and bolted, and someone had pulled the blankets from the bed.
 

Matthias's heart pounded just upon reentering the room.
 
No green glow.
 
No man.
 
How odd he had been dreaming about it before the man appeared.
 
Perhaps the man had been glowing green even then.

Islanders didn't glow.
 
Neither did Fey, to Matthias's knowledge.
 
But he knew less about Fey than he wanted to.
 
He always believed he should understand his enemy.

"Holy Sir?"

Matthias whirled, his heart already in his throat.
 

An Aud stood at the door, blankets piled high.
 
"Should I remake the bed, Holy Sir?"

"Please," Matthias said, although he doubted he would be getting any more sleep this night.
 
"And when you're through, I would appreciate it if you could start a fire as well."

"As you wish, Holy Sir."
 
The Aud went into the bedroom.
 
Another Aud knocked on the door.

"You want someone on the balcony, Holy Sir?"

Matthias nodded.
 
He half felt like checking the Auds for weapons, but he knew better.
 
No one would dare attack him with his own guards.
 
Still, he would play it as safe as he could. He would remain on guard until he figured out the best way to protect himself.

The Aud left his bedroom and two more stationed themselves in the hallway.
 
The Aud on the balcony closed the doors behind himself and sat in one of the chairs in the shadows.
 
Matthias pulled the tapestries, and closed the doors to the hallways.
 
He couldn't bear to let the Auds watch him pace in fear.

And he was frightened.
 
Whoever the green man was, he had accomplished his mission.
 

He had frightened Matthias very badly.

But Matthias wouldn't stay frightened for long.

THIRTY-FOUR

The tapestries were pulled back, letting the early morning sunlight into the nursery.
 
Arianna cooed in her crib. The wet nurse had just left, and Sebastian's nurse had just finished feeding the lump.
 
The fire had gone out in the night, but the coals were still warm.

Another morning in the palace.
 

Even though Solanda was in her cat form, she ignored the warmth.
 
Instead she had gone to the window and let the cool breeze ruffle her fur.
 
Three stories below her, the garden glistened in the early morning dew.
 
She licked her whiskers, remembering how, years before, the cooks used to leave out milk for the cats.

Those days were gone now.
 
Long gone.
 
She hadn't even left the nursery since Arianna was born.

She didn't dare.

And still no one trusted her.
 
The nurse never left Solanda alone with the baby.
 
So Solanda had to spend her time in the nursery with the lump of clay Nicholas insisted on calling a son.
 
She had tried to tell him, but he hadn't listened.
 
He insisted on believing that Jewel would have known if the lump was not her son.
 
Jewel hadn't known.
 
Fey couldn't see everything.

If he wanted to remain loyal to his dead wife, fine.
 
Let Rugar keep Nicholas's real son.
 
It didn't matter to Solanda.
 
All that mattered to her was keeping Arianna alive.
 
She would stay as far from the Islander King as she could.
 
She didn't need to get involved in his life.
 
If he couldn't see that what he called a child was nothing more than an animated hunk of stone, then he probably couldn't see other things.
 

Solanda didn't need to be mixed up in that.
 
She would take care of Arianna and nothing more.
 

She glanced over her shoulder at the baby.
 
From her perch on the sill, she could see into the crib.
 
Arianna's pudgy baby hands were grasping at air, her laughter making Solanda purr.
 
These quiet moments were rare, and they made Solanda uneasy.

Arianna was proving to be a difficult child, more difficult than Solanda had imagined.
 
Solanda hadn't left her side since she was born.
 
Thankfully, the nurse was afraid of Solanda's Shifting, so any order Solanda gave her the nurse would fulfill.

She fulfilled the orders faster when Solanda gave them as a cat.

But the nurse also threw Solanda out of the baby's crib when she was in cat form.
 
Old superstitions died hard.
 
The nurse believed that cats would suffocate babies.
 
Maybe real cats would.
 
But this child was more Solanda's than anyone else's.
 
She wouldn't harm a spot on Arianna's delicate body.

So far, Arianna had Shifted twice since her Birth Shift.

Neither time had she done so in response to stress, which frightened Solanda.

No.
 
It seemed Arianna was playing.

The first Shift had been major.
 
One moment the little girl was staring at the ceiling with her tiny eyes open.
 
The next she was a puddle of water in the crib.
 
Shifters did not survive as water outside of the womb.
 
Solanda had had to reform the baby herself, using Shifting techniques she hadn't thought of since she was a little girl.

The nurse had not seen that one.

But she had seen the second.

Arianna had grown a tail, just like Solanda's.
 
It was even calico, like Solanda's tail, with the same markings on the end.
 
Solanda had unswaddled her, and found that tail and fur had ended at the baby's bottom.
 
Arianna had added it so that her tiny fingers had something to hold.