Ill Met by Moonlight

by Mercedes Lackey

  “I hope you don’t mind, my lady,” he said as she settled herself, “if Tolliver rides with you today. There was some funny business in the stable yesterday.”

  Elizabeth replied sharply, “Funny business?”

  Rhoslyn pulled Aurelia farther back, away from the opening in the hedge. They could no longer see what was happening, but they could hear.

  “Don’t know, my lady. I just felt … something was in the air, like many years ago in the place I worked before I came into His Grace of Richmond’s service.”

  There was a pause. Rhoslyn could imagine glances meeting over words that could not be spoken. Then Elizabeth said, “Very well, Ladbroke. Do you think I should send a message to Lord Denno?”

  Another pause, then Ladbroke said, “Don’t want to take up his lordship’s time. I couldn’t find nothing wrong in the stable and nothing strange happened. Maybe the feeling was just in my head.”

  “Very well,” Elizabeth repeated, and then, “stay here.”

  Rhoslyn cocked her head. That had sounded like an order rather than permission. Rhoslyn hoped it was for the maid so this unpleasant experience need not be repeated. Through breaks in the hedge she could see that one guardsman had already ridden out of the stable yard. Elizabeth followed, and the other guardsman and the groom called Tolliver rode out after her. Rhoslyn watched them and then nodded at Aurelia, who was just capping her flask after taking another drink from it. Before Rhoslyn could caution her about using too much of the potion, Aurelia started forward.

  Fortunately Aurelia seemed alert and aware as she slipped around the side of the stable. The maid, who was talking to Ladbroke, suddenly stiffened and looked around.

  “Something’s here,” she said. “You weren’t imagining it yesterday.”

  Rhoslyn stopped where she was, not wanting to increase the feeling of magic caused by the Don’t-see-me spells and set Ladbroke to feeling around with a pitchfork again. She frowned, now sensing a different kind of magic than that created by Aurelia and herself, but before she could seek it out her attention was distracted by Aurelia, who slipped past the two standing in the doorway.

  The maid’s head followed the Sidhe, but Aurelia disappeared into the stable. Rhoslyn did not dare call out to warn her to wait, that Elizabeth’s party was still too close. As quickly as she could, Rhoslyn now followed Aurelia. She kept as close to the wall as she could, but the maid’s head snapped around toward her.

  If she intended a warning to Ladbroke, it was too late. Aurelia had already found Stover lurking nearby in the stall vacated by Elizabeth’s horse. She crossed right in front of him, stepped aside, and touched him—again on the neck, below and behind the ear, muttering, “Dyna ben!”

  Stover, who had been staring at Blanche with red-rimmed, burning eyes, roared like a beast freed from confinement and leapt forward. His mad rush knocked Ladbroke to the ground, and he seized on Blanche with a grip that drew a scream from her. He could have killed her in that moment, but killing was not enough to sate the pain and hatred that had been churning and building in him all day and all night.

  Aurelia had followed Stover. Almost salivating with eagerness to absorb Blanche’s agony and terror, to sate her need for vengeance and drink in power, she drew close to watch Stover beat, mutilate, and kill the maid.

  Ladbroke began struggling to his feet. His movement distracted Aurelia; then she took on an expression more like a rictus than a smile, and she raised a hand to stop his heart.

  Chapter 23

  Not so far distant in the park, Elizabeth tensed in her saddle and drew rein. She was not certain what was bothering her. She thought she had heard a faint cry, but it was not repeated. A glance around told her that the air spirit had not followed her and had obeyed her command to stay at the stable, but yet … She could not feel it!

  Well, but they were much farther apart now than she usually was when she felt for the creature.

  No. No, that was not right; it didn’t feel right. There was something wrong.

  Shaylor, becoming aware of the absence of the sound of hooves behind him, turned his horse and came back. Nyle and Tolliver closed in from behind.

  “My lady?” Shaylor asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said fretfully. “I don’t know—”

  But before the last word was clear of her lips, she felt a terrible wrenching and a tremendous pressure on her throat and breast. Crying aloud, she pulled her mare’s head around, kicked her, and struck her with her little whip, starting the horse in a leap back to the stable. Blanche! Something was terribly wrong with Blanche!

  Blanche was in trouble. Blanche was in danger!

  * * *

  The thrust that had sent Ladbroke sprawling struck the maid with such force that she staggered back before Stover could grab her. Instinctively she reached for the necklace of crosses and gripped one, trying to pull it loose. She had it in her hand, but Stover was on her before she could try to sense the Sidhe who was directing him. He struck her a backhanded blow with his fist and she staggered back with the force of it, out into the stable yard where she tripped on her skirt and went down on her back.

  Aurelia followed, giggling and licking her lips. Her hand was raised to fling a death spell at Ladbroke if he interfered again, but she was so entranced by Blanche’s growing fear that she found it harder and harder to pay heed to anything else. The maid was not yet frightened enough to exude much life force, but the energy that came from her pain was so sweet, so intoxicating, that Aurelia was drawn closer and closer, her attention riveted.

  Stover blundered after Blanche, red-faced and growling like a beast. This time when he caught her, he seized her by the arm and hauled her up, wrenching the limb as if he intended to tear it off. Blanche screamed with the pain, struck at him with her other fist, and tried to kick him. She was hampered by her long, full skirt, but the toe of her shoe did catch him on the shin, which hurt enough to make him roar again and batter her with his free fist.

  Ladbroke scrambled to his feet, and rushed at Stover, unconsciously swerving slightly to detour around Aurelia. He barreled into Stover with his shoulder, but the man was heavier, and already braced against Blanche’s struggles. Ladbroke literally bounced off him, then came around swinging and hit him hard on the side of the head. When that had no effect, Ladbroke seized Stover’s arm and tried to pull Blanche free.

  He might as well have tried to pull the castle wall apart with his bare hands.

  When he could not break the groom’s grip, Ladbroke battered at his thick body with both fists, but Stover ignored it all. He gave Blanche another backhanded blow that she managed to fend off with her free arm and then pulled her close, baring his teeth as if he intended to tear at her with them.

  Aurelia’s eyes had been glazing with pleasure, but she snarled at Ladbroke’s interference and again raised her hand to cast a spell at him.

  The pounding of hooves in the distance told Rhoslyn that the plan had miscarried. If it wasn’t to turn into a disaster, she would have to get Aurelia away—now!

  Rhoslyn seized her arm and shook the Unseleighe sorceress, hissing urgently at her, “Elizabeth is coming back! We are undone! Give over, curse you! She will see us—come away now.”

  Stover now seemed to notice Ladbroke’s attack. He flung Blanche to the ground so hard that the maid gasped as all breath was knocked from her. Drawing his big knife from his belt, he slashed at Ladbroke.

  Ladbroke saw the danger in time to jump aside.

  But the moment Ladbroke was out of range, Stover lost interest in him. He whirled on the half-stunned Blanche, and lunged at her, his knife stabbing down at her.

  Though winded, she managed to roll aside so that he just missed her.

  Ladbroke again launched himself at the bespelled groom and knocked him sideways so that his next thrust at Blanche also missed. The two men rolled on the ground, grappling, Ladbroke struggling to hold off the larger and heavier man’s knife hand, Stover fixated on getting back to Blanche. All
that was saving Ladbroke was that he was only something in the way.

  Aurelia had wrenched herself free of Rhoslyn and again hovered on the edge of the battle between the two mortals, hissing and moaning with satisfaction. She was like one drugged now, and nothing mattered but the intoxication. She was far too entranced with the power of hate and fear and pain pouring out of the three to hear the sound of the thudding hooves, too involved with her own voluptuous pleasure to hear Elizabeth’s voice, high and childish with terror, shriek, “There, Blanche, there! In front of the yew hedge beside you!”

  Battered and bruised though she was, Blanche forced herself upright and threw the cross in her hand at what she hoped was man-height toward the opening of the yew hedge. It would never have hit anything, if Aurelia had not been so very close to her, bending forward the better to suck in what flowed out of Blanche and the nearby men locked in combat.

  There was a loud scream and Aurelia became visible to all, her hands to her head where the broken link that had held the cross to the necklace had caught in her hair so that the cross dangled over her forehead. She shrieked and gibbered, batting at the cross, making abortive attempts to tear the torment off her head.

  But every time her hand touched the metal it burned like a white-hot poker. The pain was so intense she could not grip the iron. She was losing herself in the agony. Aurelia began to sink down on the ground, howling, angry red blotches and blisters appearing on her forehead.

  Although no one else noticed, Elizabeth perceived a woman (who was hard to see clearly) rush forward and catch the one who was falling. An expression of horror crossed the face of the one coming to help, and she swatted at the cross tangled in the fainting woman’s hair. She pulled her hand back as if it had been hurt, but then she tried again, and this time she slapped the iron cross out of the other’s hair to the ground, crying out involuntarily with pain when she touched it.

  Even as the cross hit the ground, Stover threw Ladbroke over and was atop him, banging his head against the ground. As Ladbroke’s grip on Stover’s knife hand loosened, Stover wrenched free and raised the knife. However, his head was still turned toward Blanche and before he struck, he saw her trying to get to her feet. Slamming a last blow into Ladbroke, Stover raised himself into a crouch and prepared to launch himself at Blanche.

  The guardsmen and Tolliver were just entering the stable yard. All of them shouted aloud when they saw the blood, Ladbroke and Stover struggling, Blanche sprawled on the ground, trying to get up amid a tangle of skirts, and the upraised knife in Stover’s hand.

  They scrambled off their horses, but Elizabeth could see they would never reach Blanche in time to stop Stover from plunging his knife into her. Even if he missed a vital spot, that was death—a more horrible death than a clean blow that stopped the heart. A wound from a groom’s knife nearly always ended in a terrible death—screaming through locked jaws from the pain of arching one’s back to breaking, a death that could take hours, even days to finally come.

  In desperation, praying that the magic could do something, Elizabeth cast the spell for a shield over her beloved nursemaid. The knife in Stover’s hand came down with all the force he could muster as the shield snapped into place.

  He let out a howl of mingled rage, frustration, and pain as the knife bounced off Blanche’s belly and flew out of his hand. Blanche had cried out too, as she saw the knife descending. Now she screamed again, as if she had been stabbed, and rolled away.

  Stover lurched forward on his knees and scrabbled for the knife. He caught it up in his hand and jumped to his feet, but it was too late. Nyle and Shaylor had dismounted and run toward him. Nyle blocked his path to Blanche, who Tolliver was trying to assist, exclaiming as his hands would not touch her. Shaylor attempted to seize Stover, trying to grab his arms from behind. Stover struggled, wrenching the hand in which he held the knife free, and slashing wildly with it.

  From the opening in the yew hedge to which she had supported Aurelia, Rhoslyn muttered and gestured.

  Stover seemed to try to stab at Shaylor, who was behind him, but he was screaming now—and not with rage—as the knife turned in his hand and slashed into his own throat.

  Blood fountained out, spraying over Nyle who was coming to aid his fellow guardsman, spotting Shaylor’s arm and hand, gushing down Stover and dying his dirty clothing crimson—

  —pooling on the ground as Stover fell forward.

  In the moment of stunned silence that followed, Elizabeth looked toward the opening in the yew hedge, but no one was there now. She felt a swell of magic, almost urged her mare forward to look at the hedge more closely, but at that moment Miralys came thundering along the path and burst into the stable yard. On Denoriel’s shoulder, the air spirit cried, “Help! Help!” in a thin, shrill voice.

  Denoriel’s glance skipped over the dead groom, who was no longer a threat, saw Tolliver trying to take hold of Blanche, who was wavering on her feet. But Tolliver’s hand would not close on Blanche, and his face showed an expression of growing fear.

  Elizabeth was just sliding down from her saddle on her own, but before her foot was free of the stirrup, Denoriel was there, catching her and setting her gently on her feet. However, his face was not gentle.

  He looked like a thundercloud, and hissed in her ear, “Cursed fool! Remove that shield at once! What madness is this?”

  Responding to the urgency of his tone, Elizabeth gestured and the shield was gone. Tolliver’s hand caught Blanche’s arm, and she sagged against him.

  But now Elizabeth turned on Denoriel, quick as a snake, hissing back, “I cast that shield to save Blanche’s life!”

  He looked around, but Nyle and Shaylor were staring at the dead man, Tolliver was talking to Blanche, who was leaning heavily on him, and Ladbroke was shakily getting to his feet, rubbing the back of his head.

  Though they were paying no attention to him, Denoriel did not think they were careless in their protection of Elizabeth. He had no doubt that all of them had ascertained who he was immediately and were content to leave Elizabeth in his hands.

  So he kept his voice low, but he took advantage of the moment to say, “And put your own life in danger, you little fool. Do you want to be accused of being a witch?”

  “By whom?” Elizabeth snapped back. “Do you think Tolliver will accuse me? Or Nyle? Or Shaylor? Ladbroke perhaps? Blanche?”

  “Of course not! But what of the women who were here?” he demanded fiercely.

  “How do you know anyone was here?” Elizabeth asked. “They were gone by the time you arrived. You said you would not come for several days. Are you spying on me?”

  “Spying? Is that what you call my care for your safety?” he snapped back, livid. “But this time I was not attending to you. The air spirit came for me, crying for help. As to how I knew about the women, I felt them just as Miralys brought me into the stable yard. Then they were gone.”

  Her face was as stormy as his. “If they were gone, they were … of your kind, and I do not think they are likely to complain to a priest or the sheriff!”

  Denoriel grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Will you stop acting the fool, which I know you are not? One of those women, I am sure, was my half-sister, Rhoslyn. She has several personas that she uses when she is … here. And I am sure she has access to Lady Mary. I would not be surprised if it was by her connivance that Mary came upon you when you were in the garden with Harry!”

  “Then I hope you will be able to stop her from accusing me or save me if she does,” Elizabeth spat, “because I will not permit Blanche to be killed to save me from accusations! What good are the shields if I cannot use them?” she demanded passionately.

  “You were not supposed to use the physical shields! They were to be invoked only as a last resort to protect yourself,” he said angrily. “It was the mental shields that are important. And no one can see those, so you may use them freely.”

  Denoriel’s rebuke was automatic, but his brow was creased by a frown. It ha
d not previously occurred to him that the next Unseleighe ploy might be to remove Elizabeth’s trusted servants. The servants were not under protection, and it was quite clear that Rhoslyn had intended Blanche’s death to be brought about by an attack from a mortal man. No one would cry magic or believe it if anyone did complain.

  The loss of Blanche would be a disaster, the loss of Kat Champernowne less so but still dangerous. Particularly now when Elizabeth was on a thin edge of self-blame. If anything should happen to her close companions, those few that she trusted and believed she could depend upon to protect her, it could push her over into behavior that would end in disaster. At the least, she might find herself banished from the succession. At the worst—

  He did not want to think about the worst. Better such a thing should be prevented. But there must be simple spells she could use. She could have pushed the mad groom away from Blanche, perhaps made him run headfirst into a wall.

  “Perhaps—you were right—” he began.

  “Oh, thank you,” Elizabeth said, sarcasm dripping from every word as she wrenched herself free.

  She ran to her maid, clutching Blanche’s arms as the young woman did her best not to wince away. “Oh, my poor Blanche! Your face!” she cried, and burst into tears.

  Denoriel’s teeth set, and he suppressed a desire to turn her over his knee. Still, what she said made good sense. She could not, being Elizabeth, stand by idly while her own people were in danger. And she should not have to. It was up to him to find something she could use as a weapon that would not betray her Talent. As soon as he could arrange it, he would take her back Underhill and have Tangwystl teach her a few spells for active defense. But he wished she would not try to flay him every time he offered her advice.