Sigurd’s face twisted in agony and he shook his head.
“Then we may be doomed. Take him home.” She moved away with her equally aged companions.
***
“I will not have a mortal working here. Surely one of our own can do the job far better than a human.” Lady Cian sneered at Sigurd. “Cover this window; I will not have him on display for any low born to see.”
Sigurd had endured weeks of the takeover while guarding Dion in a glass casket. No one could bear to have their beloved King hidden away, and the protests were so loud and angry that Lady Cian had acquiesced to their need to see him. They came in droves, walking around his casket and touching it. They lay flowers and small gifts until the coffer was almost hidden beneath them. Miss Dearn came in every evening and cleared the gifts away, giving the flowers to churches or hospitals and the small gifts of stones, feathers, shells, and gemstones she took home to make mosaics out of. It was on one of these evenings that Lady Cian had given her the order to leave and not return.
“I can barely stand these disgusting low-borns coming to mourn and weep without having a pile of old rags moping about the place. Go home and do not return. I will replace you with someone more worthy.”
Sigurd followed her to the back entrance. “I am sorry, Miss Dearn. She is running the place into the ground and has no idea how to blend in with the crowds or work with ordinary people. If I can’t find someone to replace you, we will lose everything Dion worked so hard to build. Please stay safe on your way home.”
“Thank you, Sigurd.” Her mousy little squeak of a voice was barely audible. “Everyone loves him so much. Why? He is so arrogant and aloof and he doesn’t keep promises. I…”
Sigurd’s face took on a stiff anger and she flinched back from him.
“You have no idea what you speak of, Miss Dearn. You have worked here all this time and learned nothing, nothing, of this man. Maybe it is a good thing you are leaving if you are so blind. Good night.”
Miss Dearn scuttled out of the door and heard it slam behind her with a whoomph of air. The door had a hydraulic closer; it would take an immense amount of physical strength to slam it.
It was cold out in the early autumn night, and she huddled under her thin cardigan as she boarded her usual bus. A spatter of rain hit the glass and slid down the pane. She felt the emptiness of space where Sigurd had so often hid to watch over her. Recently, it had been someone else if Sigurd was not too distracted by Lady Cian to remember to send a body guard of sorts.
Cashile found herself thinking morbid thoughts on her short walk to the apartment building. She was distracted and hardly noticed when two shadows detached themselves from an alley. She stopped in her tracks and turned to face the dark silhouettes.
“What do you want? Pain or money?” She began to untie the frumpy wraparound skirt she wore over leggings.
The shadows started laughing, one nudged the other. “Look she’s stripping to give us a bit of fun.”
They shuffled closer and were far too slow to dodge the kick to the head or the fingertips to the throat. The foot slamming into a knee cap had the face crumbling to the ground roaring. The other was gasping for air. Cashile, picked up her now damp skirt and retied it. Pulling her phone from her handbag, she dialled the emergency number.
“I was attacked by two unknown assailants and need an ambulance and the police, please.” She calmly gave her name and address and waited. The ambulance turned up before the police, but both were reasonably swift. Once her attackers were on their way and the police had taken their initial statement, she walked the rest of the way home in the downpour.
Once inside she began to shake. “I am sorry, Umama. I hurt those men. They wanted to hurt me, but I know that is not right. I must be responsible for what I do. I hurt him too. I didn’t kill him, but I might as well have. It will be a long slow death, and I don’t know how long that will be. I think I was wrong. Sigurd loves him so fiercely, and all those others keep coming and bringing gifts. They sing for him, and they make spells and charms. Was I wrong, Umama? Was I blinded by my anger and my need for revenge?”
Cashile took a long, hot shower and wrapped herself in a simple, green cotton sheath and began to examine the latest gifts. She had been working on a mandala and stood back from her art to see a pattern forming she had not been aware of.
“Umama, it is beautiful? Did you give me this picture?” Her hands ran over the colourful patterns and a tightness inside her loosened. “I have always hidden from them, they never see me if I don’t want it, they never even think about me unless I wish it. You were my whole world, but you send me this message.” Cashile felt tears slide down her cheeks and wiped them with the back of her hand. “I must learn more. I will go and work for them as one of them. You tell me I am also one of them, Umama, so I will learn to be one of them.” She pushed herself up from the wall and went to inspect her limited wardrobe. “Shopping tomorrow, then.”
***
Sigurd watched her enter through the front doors. She moved with such grace, he caught his breath. He observed her walk across the empty dance floor, each step a moment of poetry.
Her suit was high class conservative; silk shirt, indigo jacket and pencil skirt hugging toned thighs and riding above long, long legs that ended in matching stilettos. No sensible pumps on this woman. Her hair was drawn back in a chignon with a mother of pearl clasp holding it in place. The glasses were an affectation—no Fey needed optometry. It went nicely with the outfit, though.
Sigurd crossed his arms as she ascended the spiral stairs, particularly noting the play of muscle in her calves and admiring the shimmer of light on her stockings.
Lady Cian sat at the desk behind him, and they both waited for this woman. A peremptory knock was instantly followed by the door swinging open.
“Lady Cian. Sigurd.” She nodded acknowledgement of them both but did not bow. “You can show me the accounts, and I will take over from here.”
Lady Cian rose from her chair with a smile and glided over to the newcomer. The two women contrasted in every extreme except one—both were beautiful.
“It is so good to have one of our own kind. Thank you for coming at such short notice. I abhor these human time frames, but if we must live amongst them then we must... Oh, I don’t know how my son does it.”
“Lady Cian, I would like to begin.”
“Oh of course, Miss Insimbie. Come this way.”
“Please, call me Amandla.”
Sigurd watched both women walk to Miss Dearn’s old office. Something tugged in his mind, but he could not catch it, and he had no time to ponder it.
“Dion, damn it, I am not cut out for this job, you should be doing it. I’m swamped.” He patted the casket in one of its rare quiet moments and sat to contemplate his friend.
***
“Thank you, Lady Cian. I can take it from here.” Cashile wanted to get the other woman out of the office to make sure that things were not in the disorder she feared to find, but Lady Cian continued to pace the room. “Is there something I can assist you with?”
Lady Cian was wringing her hands. “I can’t stand being here. I want to go home, I want my son back.”
“Lady Cian, I am new here, and it seems odd for you to confide in a stranger. Please sit down. I would be pleased to offer you an ear, but I doubt I can add any helpful insight for you. What exactly is wrong with your son?”
Lady Cian looked at her for a very long, calculating time, and then seemed to make a decision. “My son has been poisoned. It happened on midsummer eve.” Cashile sucked in a shocked breath as was expected of the statement and Lady Cian nodded approvingly. “The poison has put him in a trance, and only the traditional cure will break him from it.”
“Traditional, as in a kiss? That old nugget! Surely there are alternatives in this modern era. What kind of medical possibilities do the humans have?”
It was a mistake, Lady Cian reared up from her chair and glamoured herself with thunde
rous flashes of light. “Not just a kiss, true love’s kiss. The humans are imbeciles. He has no true love, just some lowbred creature he pined for once. I disposed of her, sent her on her way with lies, promises and few silly trinkets. They are so easily tricked” Lady Cian’s voice sounded bored, and she calmed when she realised Amandla was not reacting to the show.
Amandla, in fact, looked stunned.
“I know, dear. It is very sad for a King to be indisposed with no chance of the curse being lifted. So, now I must think of a way to make the Kingdom my own. I must rid myself of his people first; they are far too loyal to him. That should be simple. I am quite the expert at manipulating when I want something. Now, Amandla, can I count on you to keep my court in peak financial condition?”
The young woman seemed to shake herself out of a trance and smiled in a businesslike fashion. “Of course, Lady Cian, that is why I am here.” She switched on the computer and began to click the keyboard, totally ignoring her companion.
Lady Cian felt dismissed and left the room unusually subdued.
Cashile began to explore the entire network of the nightclub. For years, she had simply kept the books for the financial life of the club and had not had access to anything else. She had wanted to ingratiate herself, so she could find a way to exact revenge on Dion for abandoning her mother. She had promised her mother she would wait until she was an adult to do anything, and she tried to recall the exact words.
“You must do what is in your heart. Wait until you are full grown, so you can decide with wisdom.”
All this time, she had been angry and vengeful, not stopping to look at what else was going on. Lady Cian’s words had ripped her beliefs to shreds. Had he abandoned her mother? Had he even made the promises, or had that been his mother’s glamour? Now she didn’t know, and the man she could ask was in the Fey equivalent of a coma, and she didn’t know how to fix it.
She worked her way through the finances, finding them in reasonable—shape all things considered. She needed access to Dion’s personal computer. She strode into the other room declaring, “Sigurd, I need access to your king’s computer. Where will I find it?”
“This way, but I don’t know his password. None of us do.” He led her to the desk beside the casket.
“That could be problematic if I am to work with his whole finance base. How are you managing if you have no access?”
“With great difficulty.”
She nodded sympathetically, and he smiled. She found she quite liked his smile. When the Fey were not blocking everything with glamour, they were just like people. She would never say that aloud, of course.
Sitting in Dion’s personal chair, her fingers hovered over the keys. “What password would a man like Dion, a King and a Seelie Fey, use to protect the heart of his operations?” Cashile didn’t know she had said it aloud until Sigurd spoke.
“If we knew the name of that woman he loved or loves, I bet that would be it, but don’t say that near Lady Cian.”
“She mentioned he loved a woman. She also said she made sure to rid him of her.”
Sigurd studied her closely, blinking his eyes a few times. “Did she now? Why did it never occur to me?”
A dawning excitement was building in Cashile and she watched the play of emotions on Sigurd’s face. “Did he still love her?” She had never wanted and not wanted to hear an answer so much as this one.
“Sigurd, what is she doing in Dion’s chair?”
They both started at Lady Cian’s voice, but Cashile recovered quickly. “Lady Cian, I am attempting to access the King’s full records, so I can serve you more fully. This is the only terminal set to his private password and complete records. If you will give me some moments, I believe I may be able to break his code.”
“Upstart. No one has been able to break that code in all these months. What makes you think you could?” Lady Cian’s sneer made her beautiful porcelain features look ugly.
Cashile wondered if her own powers enabled her to see past the glamour of flesh to the truth beneath. She felt a wave of guilt and shame wash over her, and knew she would avoid mirrors for some time to come.
“I think, I think he....” She looked over the beautiful man who was her father lying in the cask and pulled her shoulders back. “A new set of eyes may prove successful, and we should do everything we can to try.”
Sigurd looked puzzled and Lady Cian stood for long moments before flicking her hair over her shoulder. “Well that is what we pay you for. Get to it.”
Cashile nodded and looked again at Sigurd. She withdrew her glamour on him, and his eyes went very wide. He did not move as she typed her mother’s full name into the password box. The computer remained closed to her.
“I thought not.” Lady Cian flipped her hand and left the office.
“He liked flowers and was always wondering about some little flower.”
Cashile heard the soft whisper behind her, and with shaking hands, she hovered her fingers over the keyboard again. “Do you know what my name means Sigurd?”
“Amandla or Cashile?”
“Cashile.”
“What does it mean?” his breath brushed the back of her neck.
“Hidden; concealed birth.” She heard him draw in a sudden breath, and she began to type in her own nickname for her mother, Mbali.
“It’s the word for flower in my mother’s tongue.”
He rested a hand on her shoulder as the computer screen lit up. “Change the password now. Something only you will know. Quickly, before she finds out, then take this one and swap it for the one in your office.”
Cashile’s fingers flew across the keys, nothing opened fast enough for her racing heart. Sigurd stood guard at the doorway and motioned her to hurry. She closed the lid and raced to the other office, pulled cords and cables, swapped the two over and then raced back to put the ordinary laptop on the main desk. She plugged in cords with haste and fumbling fingers.
“Well?” Lady Cian glided into the room.
“No luck, you were right, I was overly ambitious. I will get back to my other work.” She stepped past Lady Cian without a backwards look.
“The girl shows promise, but she really is an upstart.” Lady Cian’s voice floated after her.
Sigurd made no reply.
***
“Cashile?”
She looked up from the screen. Sigurd leaned against the doorframe. She didn’t know how long he had been there, but he held a tray with some food and a cup of something steaming.
“You’ve been in here a long time. Thought you might like something to eat.”
“Please call me Amandla. At least until I figure this mess out. Did you know someone is trying to break up the great forest, or what is left of it?”
He sat down and handed her an ordinary sandwich. She smiled around the grainy bread and gave him a very human thumbs up.
“We can’t dance midsummer without a forest to protect us and give us energy from the earth. What else did you find?”
“So much, there is so much. He took care of so many things, Sigurd. He was protecting rainforests and wetlands, and he had numerous trust funds set up to support wildlife groups. Every cent from this place, and all the others he has running, fund environmental causes and a few human ones. He is brilliant at this. Did you know, Sigurd?”
Sigurd smiled and her chest did a little constricting thing.
“He is my King and my best friend. I know this about him. Not the fine details, but enough. He is a good King, C...Amandla, and a good man. I want to ask you a question.”
She nodded and bit her sandwich, so she didn’t have to say anything for a moment.
“How do you do that glamour? It took me completely by surprise.”
The colour drained from her cheeks.
“Yes, I know it was you. I had forgotten as soon as I took my eyes off you, just like all the years you worked here. You just slide out of awareness. I never had a headache with a glamour before. Of course, all those me
mories kept tap, tap, tapping inside my skull, but none of them would hold hands long enough to make sense until you took it off me. That’s years of sustained glamour with no let up. Not even the ancients can do that. You are amazing.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, except him. I had it all wrong.” Her eyes were huge and shiny with unshed tears.
Sigurd held open his arms, and she nestled in them. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed into his shirt.
“So, it was the both of you conspiring to kill my son. You, Sigurd, I never thought you would be behind treachery, and with her of all people. Who is she? Some excess daughter of a foreign kingdom trying to muscle in on mine? Guards, get them!”
The guards were unfamiliar and armed with bats, swords, knives and broken broomsticks.
Sigurd leapt in front of Cashile, ready to defend her as he always was. She leaned back and shut down the laptop, then threw everything on her desk at the guards, trying to get through the door past Sigurd’s kicks and punches. They managed to get into the corridor between the offices, but were slowly backed toward the room containing Dion.
Cashile fought as hard and solidly as Sigurd, with equal skill in using her body to its greatest effect. They were outnumbered ten to one, only because the corridor was too small for any more. Lady Cian screeched like a banshee from behind them all, urging the others to ‘get the traitors’ and ‘kill my son’s murderers’.
They were soon covered in blood from cuts and scratches and gave threefold for every one they sustained. The fighting continued into Dion’s mezzanine office. The viewing window lasted until the third impact, shattering onto the floor below. Glass and guards rained down with clinking and thuds. Sigurd was crushed under a weight of bodies, and Cashile was knocked into the casket. As it slid off its stand and fell to the floor, more smashed glass was added to the cacophonous melee.
Cashile rolled over Dion, trying to protect his body from stray kicks and sword thrusts. She had a sudden, gut feeling they would try to kill him too. An irreverent thought slipped into her mind and made her giggle hysterically. Old fashioned swords we have a chance against. She pulled Dion along the floor behind what was left of the desk and held him close to her chest as the remaining guards closed in on her.
Tales of the Fairy Anthology Page 3