“And you don’t trust me?”
“We trust you to behave as we expect.” Midhir wore a kind but pitying look. “You always believe you are doing the right thing. But your history seems always to speak to the contrary.”
“Do not patronise me.”
“Do not forget your place,” Midhir snapped. Then he relaxed again. “Come, Tom. You must admit that your life thus far has been a string of mistakes and poor judgement. Break that chain. Stay here with us.”
Tom inclined his head. He certainly wasn’t going to bow. “Your Majesty.” With that he stalked off. He had felt his fists clenching and the urge to strike the smug little snake. That would be a mistake. The stories of what the fay did to those who tried to hurt them were as legendary as they were disturbing.
But now he was angry. He was in no mood to celebrate. The laughing and the cheering, the music and the clinking of glasses, it all grated on him. It seemed the fay did nothing but indulge themselves at every turn. But what would the Erhenni be doing right now? Tom imagined men and women chained together and forced to work while elfs roamed up and down the line, perhaps with whips. It seemed grotesque to celebrate while that could be happening. He shrugged off invitations to join groups, forcing a smile and a wave and hurrying past.
“Tom!” Another voice shouted his name, but this one was mortal. He turned and saw Six with a group of fay. “They do know how to have a good time here.”
“Yes.” Tom forced a smile. “They do.”
Six frowned and stepped away from the fay. “Are you okay?”
Tom shook his head. “But don’t let me ruin your fun.”
Six fell into step with Tom and they walked through the party together. “What is it? Is it what Oen said? You didn’t seem very happy about it.”
“Something to do with that.” Tom didn’t really want to talk about it.
Six nodded. He held a cup in his hands.
“That’s not Faerie wine, is it?” Tom asked.
“What? No.” Six showed him a hip flask hanging from a strap over his shoulder. “Water. I remembered what you told us. Though this is a fascinating place.”
Tom couldn’t help but smile. “Fascinating?”
“Oh yes.” Six gestured with his cup. “This place is filled with magic. Everywhere. You can feel it. More so than the Whispering Woods. And the people. When one of the fay touched me I could feel magic in them, too.”
Tom nodded. “Everything here is made from magic. Even the fay themselves.”
Six nodded. “I thought so. What I wouldn’t give to study them more.”
He had the same look in his eyes that Tom had often seen in Katharine’s. An excited, almost greedy look, an anticipation of new knowledge just over the horizon. “You could ask to stay,” Tom suggested. “I’m sure Maev would permit it.” Another mortal in Faerie might be a comfort. He imagined a camaraderie between them, a friendship of solace and respite from the fey antics of immortal beings.
But Six shook his head. “No.” He looked up at the twilight sky. “No, I wouldn’t stay.”
His words stung like a personal rejection. “Why not?”
Six gave him an odd look. “Why would I?”
Maev and Katharine emerged from the party before Tom could answer. His stomach clenched. What had they been talking about? Him? Swapping stories? Comparing notes?
“Ah, Queen Maev.” Six raised his glass and smiled. “Your Majesty, you have made us feel most welcome.” He offered a deep bow.
Tom looked askance at Six. When had he learnt a courtier’s manners?
Maev looked amused. “This elf friend of yours is most pleasant, sweet Thomas.”
“He is many things, my queen.”
Six grinned at that. “One of the benefits of being long-lived.”
Tom looked at Katharine. Her face was closed, revealing nothing. She looked at Six, didn’t spare Tom a glance.
“We were just speaking to your lady friend. She is an impressive woman. She has a keen insight.” Maev looked him up and down. He felt naked.
“She is a very special woman,” he replied.
Katharine’s face twitched. She wanted to say something. What?
“Indeed she is.” Maev laid a hand on Katharine’s shoulder and Tom saw her stiffen. She wanted to be anywhere but here. Touched by anyone but Maev. She knew.
“Might I take a moment of her time, my queen?” he asked. “I have a few things I need to discuss with her.”
Maev smirked. “By all means.” She ushered Katharine forward then turned to Six. “Master elf, do you dance?”
Six hesitated for just a moment. “I do, Your Majesty.” He smiled and extended a hand. “Would you care to?”
Katharine remained stiff under Tom’s touch as he drew her away. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She wouldn’t look at him.
“You can’t lie to me,” he said. Maev and Six were dancing behind her. He tried not to watch.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You’re upset.”
“And when did that bother you?” Her voice was dead and cold.
“It always bothers me.” Maev was laughing as she danced, cavorting around Six who still wore that charming smile.
He looked back at Katharine and saw she was watching him. “If you want to go to her then go.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“I suppose you are.” She pushed past him but Tom caught her arm. She tugged it out of his grasp. “Let go of me.”
“Katharine.” She stared at him, her eyes demanding something from him. All he could muster was, “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“And you thought this wouldn’t?” Anger and fury and hurt poured from her. “You lied to me.”
“No.”
“You didn’t care about the sword or the war or me,” she said. “You were using us to get back to that thing.” There was such hate in her eyes. “You were using me,” she said.
Tom stayed silent. What could he say?
“Deny it,” she said. When he didn’t respond she hissed, “Deny it!”
He couldn’t. It was all true. Better to say nothing. Better that she hear silence than the ugly truth.
“You’re sick,” she said. “To love something that isn’t even alive. And to lack the courage to even say it out loud?”
He had expected tears. He could have dealt with tears. But her hatred frightened him. He couldn’t stand the thought of it. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “You’re a liar and a coward.”
She turned and walked away. Tom didn’t argue. His honest tongue wouldn’t let him.
Chapter 16
Calgraef was almost over. The air felt darker, a little more malevolent. The fay were changing. They eyed Tom with grins that suggested evil tricks and plans. It had worried him once. Now he paid it no mind.
The Hooper was no longer drifting over the lake. Instead he had changed into the Blue Man, swimming through the waters with the speed and menace of a shark. Soon he would return to Tir and seek out ships to wreck. Say what you liked about the fay, you knew what you were getting with them.
Ankou was changed, too. Its name remained the same but the white robes were gone. Now they were dark, not black but an absence of light. They seemed to leech colour out of the world, making the air around it seem pale and wan. Its face was still hidden but the skin and flesh on its arms were gone, bare bones clicking against vials and stone as it tended to Emyr. Ankou gave Tom a solemn nod that sent a chill down his spine. He nodded back and the fay drifted away.
Emyr opened his eyes at the sudden silence.
“Ah, Tom.” He smiled. He seemed tired. Weaker than before. “Tired of the celebrations?”
“You could say that.” Tom sat in the wooden chair by Emyr’s head. Just like old times. “How are you?”
“The same as last time, the same as the time before that
.” Emyr sighed. “They tell me I’m getting better. I don’t feel it.”
Could the fay be lying? Could they be keeping Emyr here for some other reason? He wished he could say that he looked better. He wished he could lie.
“You know, Tom, it really is a pleasure to see you again.” He reached out and took Tom’s hand. His skin was cold.
“You too, my king.”
Emyr grunted. “I told you, I’m not your king.” He looked back into the sky. “I’m not anyone’s king.”
“You were,” Tom said. “Some still think of you as such.”
“Waiting for me to return to bring peace to all of Tir once more.” Emyr sighed.
“Something like that.”
“My reign wasn’t some golden age of harmony and goodwill. People still stole and cheated and lied. We still had wars. We just called them rebellions and uprisings instead.”
“I know.” Emyr had told him the stories. He knew why the old king had fallen.
“So why do the people think otherwise?” he asked. “Why do they want me to come back?”
“I suppose they want to believe that things were better,” he said. “No, they want to believe things will get better. You’re not a king or a leader to them. You’re just a symbol they can hang that dream on.”
“Your bedside manner could use some work.” Emyr’s smile took the sting from his words.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Emyr took a deep breath and winced. “People have been hanging all sorts of dreams on me for most of my life. I’ve given up arguing with them.”
“You don’t mind people making you out to be something you’re not?” She’d called him a liar and a coward.
“They made a king out a farmer, son. Once they’ve done that to you?” He waved a hand as if to brush anything else aside. His movement was weak. Blood dripped onto the white stone.
“You make it sound like they strapped you down and forced the crown on your head.” Tom picked up a cloth and wiped away the blood.
The other man took a sharp breath. “Not far from it,” he said.
“Do you need anything?”
But skeletal Ankou drifted over to them before Emyr could answer. He picked up a few bottles, poured some into Emyr’s mouth and something else into his wound. Emyr hissed and then relaxed. Ankou retreated again.
“I’ll say one thing for the fay,” he said. “Their pain relief knows no peer.”
Tom took Emyr’s hand. It was rough, callused, the hand of a man who wielded tools and weapons. The opposite of Regent’s, whose hands touched paper and soft silks. They sat in silence for a long while as his breathing slowed. Perhaps he’d fallen asleep? Tom was relieved to have avoided the conversation and embarrassed at that relief. A coward.
“You’re wearing new clothes,” Emyr said.
No reprieve after all. “No, my king,” he said. “I was wearing these earlier.”
“But they are from her, no?”
Tom said nothing. Emyr already knew, didn’t he?
He grunted. “Have I ever told you how I became king?”
Tom shook his head then realised Emyr’s eyes were still closed. “No.”
“I was the second son of a farmer,” he said. “I don’t know how things work now but, back then, the first son got everything. He inherited the land, property, all the worldly goods of his father. Any other children got nothing. It was the way of it.”
“It still is,” said Tom. Then he stopped talking. He wanted one of Emyr’s stories, as they’d been told to him before. Emyr would talk to while away his time on his stone bed and Tom would listen, silent.
Emyr fell into this pattern too; he didn’t seem to hear Tom’s interruption. “While I was being shown how to muck out the pigs, my older brother was being shown how to run the house, work with money, organise the farmhands. He’d have made a better king. But when the soldiers came, they were looking for bodies. Not kings, not even recruits. Just people to use as shields. They took both of us. I was just a boy and I was scared.
“The elfs were on our doorstep, from the west and from the east. We were the last resort. They gave us broken old armour, swords made of rust and they lined us up on a field. The elfs flattened us. But they were supposed to. While they were busy cutting our throats, the real army attacked their rear. Smashed them to pieces. A victory.
“My brother and I survived through luck. There was no other word for it. I lost my sword as soon as I needed to raise it, then an elf died and fell on me. He was wearing full plate armour and I couldn’t lift him. So I listened to the fighting and the dying with an elf on my back. Do you know what it sounds like? The sound of a blade cutting through a man like he’s a piece of meat? Or the shameless sobbing of an elf holding his own innards in his hands? The screams, the whispered prayers, the panicked nonsense that comes out of a man’s mouth when his life is slipping away.
“But I survived. It didn’t seem possible. It didn’t seem fair, either. I felt guilty, that I had lain there while others had died. My brother looked after me. Made sure I was kept safe. The next time we fought together. I kept my sword because he had shown me how. Killed an elf. Just one. I jumped him when he was killing another man and cut his throat. He was so surprised. He looked between me and his own blood on his hands like he couldn’t make the connection. Then he stopped looking at anything.
“I kept surviving. My brother didn’t. We’d fought maybe half a dozen times before he died. A dozen more and most of us were dead. But the strategy worked. The king had destroyed the Eastern march. While the elfs licked their wounds, he rode to the west to stop them, too. He left one of his dukes in charge. He put us in with the regular troops. Now we had real armour, real weapons. But we were lost. We’d gone from being veterans to recruits again. And no-one would train us. So we trained ourselves. It wasn’t pretty, but it did the job.
“I began to earn the respect of the real soldiers. I began to understand what being a soldier was. I began to get good at it. Then our captain died. And they looked to me. I was promoted to captain and, when the duke fell, I took his place as commander of the troops. We were only meant to hold our position, but I hadn’t known that. I began to push the Easterners back. So when the king returned he was angry with me; he’d hoped to broker a peace and told me I’d ruined that hope. I’d angered the elfs by taking back our own lands.
“He demoted me and sent me and my closest men to the west while he took command in the east. But his duke in the west wanted my advice. He wanted to push back the Westerners too. And that’s what we did. As we took back our lands, we heard news the king was losing ground in the east.
“Then he fell.”
Emyr stopped. He was out of breath. He’d been talking too long.
“Tell me another time,” said Tom.
“No.” Emyr took hold of Tom’s hand and Tom was surprised at the strength in his grip. “You need to hear this now.”
He took a few more breaths, readying himself as if he was about to run for his life.
“The dukes and the commanders went to the capital. The king’s son had been killed in battle months ago. There was no clear line of succession. The dukes began to squabble over the throne and we were forced to watch. We knew every moment we were there, we were losing the war. We were giving our enemies time to regroup, to reinforce. But the dukes seemed to have forgotten that. The crown was all that mattered. Each man wanted it for themselves. They’d forgotten our soldiers dying in the fields, our people under elfish rule and our people starving in our own lands. All of them waiting for us to bring this war to an end.
“One night we decided we’d had enough. I proposed returning to our troops. Let the nobility argue over their crown, I said. We will do the work that needs doing. The other commanders agreed, but said the issue of the crown needed to be settled. So we marched on the dukes. Gathered them in the throne room. I told them the squabbling needed to end. And then Cei, the first of my men, told them that none of them would wear t
he crown; I would.
“I was as shocked as the dukes. But my men fought with words as expertly as they fought with swords. By the end of it, they were all agreed. I would wear the crown.”
Emyr rested. He looked up into the sky above them and Tom followed his gaze, the beautiful twilight sky shining down at them. The only sound was Emyr’s laboured breathing. Tom felt at peace. The story had reached its end; Emyr had found his right and proper place on the throne. There was a comfort in that. In finding where you belong and in getting yourself there. It echoed in Tom’s resolution to stay.
“Every battle I’d fought, every plan drawn up, every time I’d strapped on armour and every elf I’d killed, I knew it would all end and I’d go back to my father’s farm. Muck out pigs, bring in the harvest, and maybe marry the girl from the neighbouring farm.”
Tom smiled at the image of a farmhand, covered in hay and manure, being offered a crown. “And now you had lands, castles and riches. All your dreams come true.”
“I was terrified.”
“What?”
“There’s a lot of things a man can hold onto to get him through a war. Hate. Revenge. Righteousness. But the best one is the desire to go home.” Emyr sighed. “I wanted to be a farmer and they were asking me to be a king.”
It was like a slap. Like being told night was day, gold was worthless, that Tir was made of bread. It was like being told that his basic understanding of the world was wrong. Emyr was meant to be king of Tir. The greatest king of Tir. It was his destiny. It was who he was.
“I don’t understand. They were offering you riches. Power. The chance to make Tir right.”
“Let me tell you something, son.” Emyr looked him dead in the eye. “Find me a farmer who gives a fig who sits on a fancy chair in a fancy castle hundreds of miles away and I’ll find you a fay who can give you a straight answer.” He was serious. But it wasn’t true. Was it? “All the people care about is food, warmth, shelter and love. They care about fair taxes and they care about not being massacred by invading armies. They don’t care who provides those things as long as they’re provided. And I was the same as them.”
The Realm Rift Saga Box Set Page 23