Strangeness and Charm

by Mike Shevdon

  Mullbrook appeared with vintage champagne and glasses, and the seven thrones and the single chair were moved away so that the other guests could spill into the hall. There was an urgent hubbub of conversation, speculation and deliberation, which was brought to a temporary hiatus by Yonna, who clapped her hands loudly for silence.

  She stood in front of Blackbird.

  "Child of the Court of Fey'ree," said Yonna. "Do you wish to be released from your vows, and let free of all obligation, let or lien, such that you no longer receive the protection of the Court or any of its bounty or benefit. You will be a free woman. Is that your wish?"

  "It is," Blackbird said.

  "Bring me a knife," said Yonna.

  Mullbrook appeared with an ancient wooden handled knife, crudely made, but with a keen edge that glinted.

  Blackbird offered her hand and Yonna drew the knife across her palm without hesitation.

  "By your blood you are released," said Yonna.

  "I am released," said Blackbird.

  "By your heart, you will serve none but your own, and owe allegiance to none."

  "I will owe no one allegiance," said Blackbird.

  "By your mind, you will abide by your own consideration, saving the advice of those you trust."

  "I will," said Blackbird.

  "Your power is your own," Yonna said. "None may bind you, none may hold you, and may none stand against you."

  She stepped forward and kissed Blackbird on both cheeks again. "You are free, sister."

  Blackbird looked pale, and for a moment I thought she might faint. I moved quietly round behind her to catch her if she fell, but she rallied as the cheers rang up around her from the assembly.

  "Is there a vow to swear me into the High Court?" she asked Yonna.

  Yonna shook her head. "No my child. We are owed allegiance, but we offer none." She turned to face the assembly. "Your Lady has sacrificed much, this night. More than many of you know. Vows will be made later, oaths that bind and promises that hold. That is for tomorrow. Who will come forward this night, and offer allegiance to the Eighth Court?"

  There was a muttering among the assembly. I saw Garvin glance across at me as if I might lead, but as a Warder my allegiance was to all the courts, not a single court.

  After a moment, Andy stepped forward. "I would offer my allegiance," he said. "How do I do it?"

  "A simple bow will suffice," said Yonna.

  He came and stood before Blackbird, who turned to face him.

  "I would offer my allegiance, Lady." He knelt on one knee and bowed his head.

  "Accepted," said Blackbird. "We will engage in formalities in due course, Andy, but for now be welcome to the Eighth Court."

  There was a round of applause, then a shuffling as others came forward.

  As they did, Garvin made his way around the group to stand next to me. Others copied Andy, descending to one knee before Blackbird.

  "You must be very pleased for her," he said.

  I glanced at him, then back at Blackbird. "Maybe when I find out what she's volunteered for," I said.

  "You will have plenty of time to think about it. You went against my wishes, this night," said Garvin. "You put the High Court in danger and you prejudiced a decision that will affect the balance and harmony of the High Court for years to come. You're suspended."

  "I'm what?"

  "From this night, you are suspended from duty pending consideration of your conduct."

  "Garvin?" said Kimlesh. "Is there a problem?" She appeared at Garvin's shoulder in the middle of his last statement.

  "Warder business, Lady. No cause for concern," he said, making sure he had eye contact with me.

  "Did I hear that you were suspending Warder Dogstar?" said Kimlesh.

  "My Lady, as always, your hearing misses nothing."

  "On what basis, may I ask?" she said, lightly.

  "On the basis that he went expressly against my wishes, and brought a group of people of unknown disposition and unqualified power into the High Court, placing the High Court in danger," said Garvin.

  "You believe I and my colleagues are endangered by a beekeeper and his friends?" said Kimlesh.

  "Any one of them could have been an assassin," pointed out Garvin.

  "Sent by whom?" said Kimlesh.

  "That doesn't matter."

  "I believe, that you expressly asked Warder Dogstar to bring the escapees from Porton Down before the Court as soon as possible," she said.

  "As ever, Lady, you are well informed. I asked for that, yes," he said.

  "Did you specify that they were to be brought individually?" she asked.

  "No, not exactly," he said, "but common sense dictates that…"

  "So he was following your orders," said Kimlesh, "which were unfortunately phrased."

  "I suppose," said Garvin, "but…"

  "And do you serve all of the courts of the Feyre," Kimlesh asked.

  "Indeed, Lady, but…"

  "I think you may reconsider the suspension, in the light of the decision of the High Court to recognise Blackbird as the Lady of the Eighth Court, which was undoubtably facilitated by Warder Dogstar. We are grateful for his unorthodox approach, and there was no actual danger, was there Garvin?"

  "The bees, Madam…"

  "…were an irritation at worst, and an excellent demonstration of how things are developing," she said. "Of course, the disposition of the Warders and the duties assigned remain entirely a matter for you, Garvin."

  "Of course, my Lady."

  "Good. Then we understand each other." She moved away to join the group that had already pledged their allegiance to Blackbird.

  I was tempted to speak, but held my tongue.

  "Warder Dogstar," said Garvin.

  "Yes?" I placed my closed fist over my heart.

  "The Eighth Court will be needing close attention in the months to come. Do you feel able to provide that protection."

  "I do," I said, making sure I didn't leak the least trace of a smile.

  "Then get to it," said Garvin. "I hold you responsible."

  "Indeed," I said, repeating the gesture.

  "And Dogstar?"

  "Yes, Garvin?"

  "I want you to remember that this was your choice. This isn't the end of it, not by any means, and I want you to remember that I tried to keep you out of it."

  "I don't want to be kept out of it," I told him.

  "As long as you understand," he said, turned and walked to the double doors. Fionh fell in beside him.

  As they left, I saw Yonna talking quietly with Mellion. Yonna shook her head and Mellion made a complex hand gesture ending with an opening hand stretched wide, palm down.

  They spoke for a moment more and then separated to speak with others. I was pulled away into a collection of people with questions for which I had few answers. More champagne was poured and Mullbrook and the stewards appeared with trays of snacks to keep the party going. It was a celebration to remember, and Blackbird was at the centre of it. I think she spoke with everyone there – fey, mongrel fey, warder and steward alike.

  Lesley appeared with our son, bathed and fed, and Blackbird held him for a while and then tried to gently pass him to me, but he clung to Blackbird and would not be parted, so she had to carry him around a while longer. He earned much comment and gazed at everyone intently as if he must remember them all.

  Finally people dispersed, with Tate and Amber shepherding people out and back to their lives after promises to return and swear allegiance to the new court, and Mullbrook finding rooms for those who said they had nowhere to return to and would stay. I was surprised when Angela said she would remain at the courts, though she did check first to establish that she wasn't going to be locked up again before she let one of the stewards guide her to a bed.

  "I'm exhausted," said Blackbird as the last of the visitors left, "but you're still ready to play aren't you?" she said to our son. She handed him to me, and he finally allowed himself to be passed a
cross. He must have been a little tired because he rested his head against my shoulder, watching the stewards move around the room.

  "I think we could go to bed," said Blackbird, "before it's morning and this one wants feeding again."

  "Where's Alex?" I said.

  Blackbird smiled. "Still fretting after all she's done? It's OK, she hasn't disappeared again. She just said she needed some air and said would take a walk around the gardens."

  "But it's raining," I said.

  "Then she is in her element. Come Warder Dogstar, take me to my bed before I fall asleep standing up. It's tomorrow already, and it's going to be a long day."

  She took my hand, and I carried our son up to the suite where he graciously allowed that he might sleep for a few hours. When I finally left him, I found Blackbird awake, staring at the ceiling.

  "How goes it with the Lady of the Eighth Court?" I asked her.

  "She's still trying to figure out whether she's done the right thing," she said. "How is our son?"

  "He's asleep, as we should we be. Oh, by the way," I asked her, "what does this gesture mean?" I copied the opening hand gesture I had seen Mellion make earlier.

  "Where did you see that?" she asked.

  "Mellion made it in conversation with Yonna at the gathering this evening."

  Blackbird frowned, a little wrinkle appearing in the centre of her forehead. "It's a gambling expression," she said. "It means to make your play, roll the bones, or something like that."

  "What a strange thing for him to say," I said.

  "Especially for Mellion, who does not indulge in games of chance," she remarked. "But that, along with a host of other problems, can wait until tomorrow."

  I switched the light off and climbed into bed, glad of the opportunity to rest.

  "There is another thing Mellion could have meant," she said into the darkness.

  "What's that?" I said, rolling over onto my side so that I could see the outline of her face in the moonlight seeping around the edge of the curtains.

  "He could have meant, the die is cast. We are in the hands of fate."

  "Why would he say that?" I asked her.

  "That," she said, "is the question I've been asking myself."

  "Go to sleep," I told her, laying back down. "Even the Ladies of the High Court of the Feyre have to sleep sometime."

  "Yes," she said. "For the day will come soon enough, and who knows what surprises it will bring."

  "Good night, Lady."

  "You don't have to call me that," she said.

  "Oh, I think it quite suits you." I smiled in the dark.

  She nudged me gently in the ribs. "Good night, Warder Dogstar."

  "Sleep well," I told her.

  I listened for her breathing to deepen as a sign that she slept, but was quickly overtaken by tiredness myself, and slipped into a deep sleep.

  I knew immediately that I was dreaming, mainly because I had no idea how I got here. Come to that, I had no idea where here was.

  The street looked ordinary enough; a wide suburban row of semi-detached houses and bungalows, a few cars parked on the road but most pulled onto driveways or tucked away for the night under carports or into garages. The street was lined with the skeletons of trees, stripped of their greenery by autumn chill – somehow the seasons had slipped and the leaf-fall was upon me. Deep piles of papery autumn leaves rustled against fences in the night-breeze and swirled around my feet in spiral dances.

  I was standing beneath one such tree, looking across the road at a bungalow that had been extended into the roofspace so that warm light spilled from the upper window out onto the roof. A figure darkened the window, a middle-aged woman, who turned to make some remark behind her and then drew the curtain closed so that they glowed with inner warmth. I saw her shadow drift away behind the drapes.

  A car travelled down the street, a large grey saloon, headlights brushing across me. It rolled smoothly past, the driver's gaze fixed on the road ahead, neither accelerating nor decelerating until its rear lights glowed harsh red before turning the corner at the end of the street.

  From the room beneath the bedroom, the flickering bluegrey glow of a TV came through the lace curtains and I could hear the faint sound of canned laughter. Drifting with the breeze came the lingering scent of boiled vegetables and baked pastry.

  Upstairs, the light flicked off, leaving only a faint glow. After a moment the lights came on in the downstairs room, and I could see the woman moving around before pulling the curtains closed on that scene too.

  I wondered again what I was doing here, watching this play of domesticity, when the curtains in the upper room drew back. The glow from a hallway door caught across a small face that I recognised. It was Lucy, the girl who had hidden from the beast beneath her bed, the girl I carried across the rooftops. Was this her new home, then?

  She vanished for a moment, and pushed the bedroom door closed so that even that small light was extinguished. It seemed to me then that this was a strange act for a girl that knew there really were monsters.

  Is that why I was here? Was there some new threat? I scanned the gardens to either side, looking for a white flash of long tooth or the ripple of sable fur. The long yowl of a cat startled me, but it was merely an ordinary moggy, claiming territory against its neighbours. No slinking nightmare emerged from the shadows.

  Perhaps there was another reason I was here. I never did discover whether she was the child of the man who carried a beast within him. If she was his child then she might carry those genes, and perhaps discover as I had, that not only were there monsters, but that she was one of them. With the founding of the Eighth Court there could be a place for her. Was that why I was drawn here?

  But then why borrow trouble against the future? Right now she had a home, a life, and people who cared for her. It would be some years before her path was decided, and by then the Eighth Court might have a more secure future to offer her. She deserved the chance of a normal life, if she could have one.

  Looking up to Lucy's room I found that she had opened the window to the chill night air, though she wore only a nightie against the cold. She leaned out of the window and looked up, straining to see something far above her.

  I moved out from under the tree to see what it was she was looking at, and saw that the night was crisp and sharp, so that stars barely glinted. There was no aeroplane or flying owl. I could see no comet, and the moon was absent. The dark was as deep as it could be, here in the suburbs. What then was she looking at?

  Then a sound drifted across to me through the darkness, and I understood.

  In her small voice, she was naming the stars.

  About the Author

  Mike Shevdon was born in Yorkshire, grew up in Oxfordshire and now lives in Bedfordshire, so no one can say he hasn't travelled. An avid reader of fantasy since his early teens, he has a bulging bookshelf going back more than forty years. His love of fantasy started with Edgar Rice Burroughs and C S Lewis and expanded rapidly, spilling over into SF, crime fiction (usually called mystery in the US), thrillers, the back of cereal packets, instruction manuals and anything else with words on it.

  Mike is a technologist by profession, which is the nearest thing he could find to Sorcerer in the careers manual. He has also studied martial arts for many years, including Archery and Aikido, and is a keen cook (his wife would use the word 'messy' but that's another story). He is the proud inventor of Squeaky Cheese Curry, particularly loves food from South East Asia, and is on a life-long quest to create the perfect satay sauce.

  His favourite books include Barbara Hambly's Darwath Trilogy, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov and any of John Le Carré's George Smiley books. He is a big fan of Robert Crais and the Elvis Cole series and loves all the Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum novels. He believes Sir Terry Pratchett's knighthood is richly deserved.

  Mike draws his inspiration from the richness of English folklore and from the history and rituals of the UK.

  You
can follow him on Twitter with @shevdon.

  shevdon.com

  Acknowledgments

  Once again, I am indebted to the Shevdon Irregulars, that band of dedicated helpers who read my drafts and offer invaluable feedback, ideas and comments. I am particularly grateful this time because the deadline coincided with Christmas which is a busy time for everyone, putting everyone under pressure. Bless you all, you still came up with the goods and dedicated the time and energy to making this book better.