Gossamyr (28 page)

"But the pin man—" How strange to refer to one she
had loved in such a manner!

"I searched after you fainted. There was no sign of him. You
really think that strange being can lead you to the Red Lady?"

"I know he can. And he isn't strange!"

"He was there for the essence, wielding pins like a porcupine
beast. His hair...it was unnatural red."

"That tells little of his alliance."

"Speaking of hair." Ulrich sat beside her on the bench
and moved the tangled snarls of her hair back over her shoulder.
"I've a comb. Mayhap I could plait your hair? I used to twine
Rhiana's little braids. Even so young she had lots of hair."

His smile started in his eyes, attracting her to the pale blue
iris like a flower to the sun. Impure, Ulrich would be termed by the
fée. A mere mortal.

A mere mortal who had tended her and taken her to safety. And now
he offered to tend her hair, as would a servant. It was odd to think
it, but he reminded her of Shinn. A man who loved his daughter,
though Ulrich's love manifested in tangible touches and emotion. Yet,
they both regarded their daughters as the world. Did he offer that
side of Shinn she would never have? The loving part?

"I think you will not find what you're looking for in my
eyes."

Blue, so blue, and drowning in
stark white.

Gossamyr startled, following with a chuff of mirth. "What
makes you think I am looking for anything beyond the Red Lady?"

"How can you not be searching for something more? You've no
home, no family, no place to call your own. And what of this
wanderlust mother? Surely you must search for her?"

"There is no need to quest for a mother who did not love me."

"Mayhap she simply did not know how to love."

"Faeries are the ones who rarely love. Veridienne was mortal.
She left Faery of her free will, leaving me behind."

"Yes, you mentioned something about a strange call?"

"The mortal passion. It is what called my mother away from me
when I was yet so small."

"I am sorry you were not given the unconditional love you
desired. Every little girl deserves love."

Gentled by his statement, Gossamyr nodded an agreement she wanted
desperately. She had known love. From her father. Had she desired
more than what she'd been given? Never. Until it had been taken from
her arms. "Shinn loves me."

"Ah yes, so much he sent you off to your death."

"Death will not be mine." A grip of the air at her side
did not place the staff to hand. It stood propped by the wall next to
the door. "I will return home after the succubus is defeated."

And now there was Avenall to consider. Could she connect with him,
make him see beyond the red gloss that filled his eyes? Would he
remember her if she Named him? Of what use would the Naming serve if
banishment would hold him for ever a prisoner of the Otherside?
Unless the Red Lady had discovered a means to return. Why else would
she collect the essences if not to gain enough glamour to serve her
return to Faery?

A glance to the black cloth wrapped about the alicorn. So much the
Red Lady could do with this powerful symbol of Enchantment. That
Ulrich had damaged it...

Ulrich stood and went to a small carved box placed on the hearth.
Drawing out a wooden comb he displayed it, his eye twinkling.

"Tip back a cup of aleberry wine, and let me work the tangles
from your nest."

Before going at her hair he poured her a cup of wine from a dented
pitcher. Inside sloshed a pale liquid that smelled of berries. It
tasted weak but not awful.

Gossamyr closed her eyes. To the alicorn. To her immediate
troubles.

The sensation of Ulrich's careful fingers touching upon her scalp,
easing a comb through her hair, calmed. He started with the ends and
combed so carefully she did not once wince from an aggressive tug. So
many kindnesses he had offered to her.

He began to whistle a quiet tune, not waking the slumbering old
man. Gossamyr could picture the soul shepherd sitting with a
youngling on his knee, tending her curls. And the lightness returned.

She lifted one foot from the floor and pointed her toes,
stretching out her muscles. Closing her eyes, she held out her right
arm and tilted up her palm to wiggle her fingers.

"Feeling better?"

Stirred from her lull, Gossamyr reached for the aleberry wine. She
swallowed back the wine and swiped her forearm across her lips.
Lifting her right foot to fold across her left thigh, the brown wool
rode up to her knees. She guessed her exposed legs were not seemly
and stomped her foot back down.

Soft fingers strode along the surface of her scalp, following the
wake of the comb. A prinkle fluttered along her neck. Ulrich weaved
lovelocks into her hair. A mortal prince imprinting his favor with
every twist of his fingers.

Would her future husband ever be so gentle? Could Desideriel open
his heart to a wife that could never be what he wanted?

"So, Faery Not, tell me about your family. There is your
father and mother. You left behind no... other? A... fée man
you cared for?"

"Mayhap."

Gossamyr again closed her eyes...

Three suns and three consecutive moons witnessed her
heartbreak. Tears flowed from her eyes, trailing warm streams down
her cheeks and into her clothing. When her fine arachnagoss gown had
saturated, the bed linens took on the sad liquid.

When on the third day Shinn finally entered his daughter's
bedchamber, tears dripped from the bedframe and into a puddle upon
the blue marble floor. No shimmer sparkled in the pool. When Shinn's
toe brushed the edge of the liquid a mournful cry echoed up from the
floor.

Her tears flowed without effort; mayhap she could no longer
stop them. She did not know; she did not care.

"Please, child of mine, cease your mournful tears."

Gossamyr lowered her head and studied the pool that had begun
to spill across the floor. So much then she had loved? Yes love, not
the false love faeries know.

"I now know how you felt when Veridienne left," she
said.

"Nay, you do not." Shinn's weight settled beside her
and Gossamyr allowed him to lift her hand into his.

"I loved h-him."A choking sob pushed out a rapid purl
of teardrops. "You will never understand."

"It is done. I...reacted," Shinn said. "I should
have first listened to you."

"And
then
banish my lover?"

"Gossamyr." He pressed his forehead to the back of
her hand.

Tentatively Gossamyr touched her father's head, trailing a
finger over the short horn and around it as she had done so many
times when she was younger, curious and fanciful.

Fancy had been murdered three days earlier by her father's
ruthless lack of regard. The attribute that had made him a lauded
warrior and commander of the now-defunct Glamoursiege troops also
made him a devastating foe to his own daughter's heart.

"We are both alone now," she said finally, resolute
in
her courage.

Unwilling to forgive him, yet feeling in her heart the need to
keep her family close, Gossamyr tilted Shinn's face up to look at
him. "Perhaps love is not so favorable after all."

"Gossamyr?
Mon Dieu,
I wager Faery Not
did
leave
behind a lover. Oh, Gossamyr?"

She blinked out of her state and homed in on the singsong tone of
Ulrich's voice. He stood close. "Too close," she said and
stood up and pressed her combed hair from her eyes.

"You left a lover?" He tipped the comb to his lips in
thought. A nod confirmed some knowledge she could not know. "Mayhap
that is what has hardened you so."

"What mean you?"

"Well, you are a warrior. Emotionless. Set on your course and
ready for fight."

"One must dampen emotion to retain battle instincts."

"I see. Yet, so young and pretty to become a warrior. Pity."
He patted the bench before him. "Sit and allow me to braid your
hair. Just one braid down the back, yes?"

His hand, flat on the bench, asked so much of her. To sit. To
place herself in his hands. To trust.

"So long as 'tis out of my face, it is bone." She did
trust him, and so sat with her back to him, both legs to one side of
the bench, as she deemed proper for a lady in a gown.

He started at the back of her head. "Tell me of this
abandoned lover."

"He is—" swallowing at the sudden dryness at the
back of her throat, Gossamyr pressed a palm along the cut on her jaw
"—the pin man."

"What? You mean..."

"Yes, the man with the pins and the unnatural hair."

"But—truly? He is a faery?"

"Yes. Shinn found us together and banished him."

"For having relations with his daughter?"

There was a hint of tease in his voice. That he should ask such a
bold question!

"We were not...having relations. But close. Shinn had refused
Avenall's request to court me."

"Why?"

"Because he is a Rougethorn."

"Your father doesn't like Rougethorns?"

"It is like your Armagnacs and Burgundians. Of the same race
but with differing beliefs. It is known they dabble in magic. After
the Netherdreds, the Rougethorns are the most scorned tribe in
Faery."

"I see. And yet, you continued to see Avenall?"

"Of course! He did not dabble. Avenall had come to
Glamoursiege with his family when he was very young. 'Twas merely a
fact of his birthplace that my father claimed him unfit to court me.
Such ignorance!"

Ulrich tugged gently on her half braid, bringing her eyes back to
stare up at him. "If you were my daughter I would have locked
you up and tossed out the key."

"I would have screamed."

"Of course, Shinn could not deny you a thing, my spoiled
faery princess—and I mean that in the kindest manner. So, to
remove his one sore spot Shinn had no choice but to send away your
lover."

"My father claims not to believe in romantic love. But I do."

"Is love such a unique concept to one from Faery? Do not the
fée love? Or do they simply mate and exist?"

"I have told you they seek their life mate, and live together
ever after. I feel sure love is mortal. How can it not be? But it is
different for royalty and the upper caste—our mates are often
chosen for us. And yet..." She thought of her father's choice.
"Shinn chose Veridienne to wed."

"So he must know romantic love. To sacrifice for the love of
a mortal? Was he not looked upon sorely for such a choice?"

"I had never noticed such when I was younger. It would not be
wise to question the lord of Glamoursiege's actions."

Ulrich's fingers stopped, his palms resting upon her shoulder.
"And yet your father is alone now?"

"Indeed."

"Perhaps a punishment for his loving a mortal woman?"

"I...had never thought of it that way." Had her father
sacrificed for his love? He'd never implied that Veridienne's leave
had been required, or forced. No more so than the resistance of the
mortal passion made it a forced leave.

That this mortal man could conjure her to question her beliefs
startled more than a little. So much he did claim to know of love.
And to have it stolen from him.

Ulrich's touch called to her in a manner that did not trouble so
much as intrigue. The light steps of his fingers working the braid
down her back made her pause, counting each twist. Faster than her
heartbeats; he had mastered the skill most impressively. Best not to
pay attention to such a call.

"Think you there is a stable close by that will sell me a
fine mount?"

"Just around the corner. Your faery coin still shiny?"

"It is."

"That's bone. And I am finished. Pluck that leather cord from
the saddlebag and I'll secure it to keep you from spilling these
luscious tresses."

Gossamyr smiled. The man should watch his words and the breathy
tone with which he pronounced them. On the other hand, his comfort
and lack of discretion around her made him real. No falseness to this
man.

She twisted to draw out the leather cord, but Ulrich laid a hand
over hers and settled onto the bench beside her. He still held her
braid, and laid that hand upon her shoulder. "I don't know that
this will matter at all to you." He clasped his fingers about
hers and pressed it over his chest. Soft brows straightened and he
bowed his head so close to hers, he might nudge her with his nose if
he moved too quickly. "You have become the world to me,
Gossamyr. You have been my companion for mere days, you have stood
boldly and faced danger, and you seek a noble goal without veering
from your path. For as confusing as you faeries make love to be, I
love the woman that you are. It is a mortal love, mayhap more
companion-like than romantic. As it should be."

"Ulrich."

"But...it could become romantic, should you allow." He
kissed the back of her hand and with a sigh, stood and began to
gather his things into the saddlebag. "Hungry?"

"Yes." Tracing a finger around the warm portion on the
back of her hand where he had kissed her, she kept her silence. There
was nothing to say. Her Faery heart protested his easy mortal
confession.

But her mortal blood verily ached for the passion that had led her
to journey to the Otherside.

After finishing a trencher of morning sops offered by the old man
with wisdom spotting his face, Gossamyr pushed the empty wood bowl to
the center of the table and, clasping her hands, bowed and rested her
forehead there. She drew in a deep breath. Wine and burnt bread. Her
mind aswim, she could not think to hold conversation with Monsieur
Armand, for thoughts of her confession to Ulrich still haunted.

Never before had it occurred to her that Shinn might have
sacrificed Veridienne for the crime of loving a mortal. Not a real
crime, a punishable offense. But certainly those who did take a
mortal mate were shunned. Unless, the fée was a great lord,
wise and noble, who commanded respect no matter his liaisons. Shinn
had loved. Deeply.