Ill Met by Moonlight

by Mercedes Lackey

  Then he sighed. Every one of them was badly shaken, even Nyle. The youngest guard, who had come close and was waiting to speak to him, was shuddering slightly. It was unfair to expect Elizabeth not to snap at whoever approached her. He held up a hand toward Nyle, asking him to wait, and turned to beckon to Tolliver, who was not bloodied.

  “It’s only bruises,” Blanche was saying to Elizabeth, half embracing the child and half leaning on her. Tolliver stepped back respectfully, and Blanche tried to smile at the groom over Elizabeth’s head. “Thank you,” she said. “I will do now and I think Lord Denno wants you.”

  “If you need him, Blanche—” Elizabeth began.

  But Blanche shook her head and waved Tolliver away. Denno promptly told him to take a horse and ride for the sheriff.

  Nyle looked uneasy. “Pardon, m’lord,” he said, “but how do we explain this? I mean, there’s a man dead with his throat cut and I’m all over blood and Shaylor is nearly as bad. And Mistress Blanche is all beaten and so is Ladbroke.”

  “No problem. You tell the sheriff the truth.”

  “Yes, m’lord,” the young man stammered, “but I don’t know any truth that explains what happened. When me and Shaylor arrived, Ladbroke was out on the ground and Stover was crouched down just about to jump at Mistress Blanche. And her face was all bruised and bloody so we knew he had hit her before. We went for him, Stover, I mean. I ran to keep Stover off Mistress Blanche and Shaylor went to try to grab him. Stover was swinging that knife, maybe to keep me off and to threaten Shaylor, and suddenly he began to scream, like ‘No. No,’ and then he stuck the knife in his own neck. The sheriff will never believe me.”

  “I can make some sense of it,” Ladbroke said, a hand to his head. “Two days ago when Lady Elizabeth rode out, Mistress Blanche decided to wait for her in the stable. I went to get her a stool, and Stover made an indecent proposal to her. Mistress Blanche naturally turned him away cold. After Lady Elizabeth was back in the palace, I told Stover that I was going to speak to the steward and get him turned away if he even looked Mistress Blanche’s way. But yesterday I heard him muttering and mumbling all day long.”

  “Well, that explains most of it,” Denoriel said, thanking all the Powers That Be for so logical a reason for Stover to make an attack. “As for the rest—well, the man went mad, is all, and there is no explaining what the mad will do. He’s simply managed to cheat Jack Ketch of his hangman’s fee, and there’s an end to it.”

  “Yes m’lord,” Ladbroke said.

  Denoriel patted him on the shoulder. “There’s no reason why Nyle and Shaylor shouldn’t change their clothing and wash, if you feel well enough to wait for the sheriff, Ladbroke. I will take Lady Elizabeth and Mistress Parry back to the palace. If you need Mistress Parry to give evidence or even require Lady Elizabeth to explain what she saw, since she was the first to arrive, ask the sheriff to go up to the palace or send Tolliver to summon whoever is needed.”

  Rhoslyn saw the knife go home in Stover’s throat and used every obscenity in her adequate store as she backed away into the yew hedge and toward the Gate. They had failed again. The maid was unhurt … But possibly they had not failed completely. Possibly the incident had opened another path, a path to Elizabeth’s final doom.

  The young groom had encountered the shield Elizabeth had cast over her maid and was clearly frightened. He would talk about it. The older groom, who Rhoslyn knew had once lived Underhill, might even know what it was. Possibly he would talk too, but would he believe that Elizabeth, a mere child, could cast such a spell, or would he think it was the maid?

  Aurelia moaned when the Gate opened, and despite Rhoslyn’s support, began to slide to the ground. Rhoslyn gripped her more firmly, but was barely able to pull her through the Gate, and she slipped out of Rhoslyn’s grasp and fell heavily to the earth when they passed through. Rhoslyn stepped over her and hurriedly pulled her clear of the Gate. If it had closed before Aurelia had gotten clear … Rhoslyn shuddered and then paused, her brows furrowed in speculation.

  Just what would have happened, if Aurelia had not gotten clear? Well, in any case, it was too late to worry about it now. She went in search of their mounts.

  The not-horse was near where Rhoslyn had left it, but its breast and muzzle were stained with blood. Apparently it had taken to heart Rhoslyn’s permission to eat anything but the tethered horse. “Wait,” Rhoslyn said to it and returned to see if she could rouse Aurelia.

  A few minutes of slapping and prodding, even an attempt to get the flask from Aurelia’s pouch—which Rhoslyn was unable to open—failed to produce any sign of consciousness. Aurelia simply lay there, uttering a soft moan with every outgoing breath.

  Rhoslyn was sorely tempted to take Talog and leave Aurelia lying there, but it was too dangerous to abandon her, no matter how tempting. Aurelia might not survive. There were inimical creatures roaming about Caer Mordwyn and she might be hurt or killed.

  Furious as she was at Aurelia, her injury or death did not matter much to Rhoslyn at the moment—except that the blame for it would fall squarely on her. It was likely that Aurelia had told others where she was going, why, and with whom. Also, there were the servants who had seen her ride off with Aurelia not long ago, and if Aurelia died, or was hurt, Vidal would soon come to know of it and of Rhoslyn’s involvement.

  Rhoslyn sighed. Not to mention that if Aurelia woke and found herself abandoned, her life might be as dedicated to revenge on Pasgen and herself as it now was directed against Elizabeth’s maid.

  Rhoslyn tried, but could not get Aurelia up on either her horse or the not-horse and eventually she had to appeal to Pasgen to come and help her. He was as swift in arriving as when she had first called him, but she knew he was not going to be pleased at what he found.

  She was right. He came riding through the Gate with fair brows drawn together in a ferocious frown and spells on his lips and fingertips because all she had been able to tell him through the lindys was that she was in trouble. When he saw Aurelia sprawled ungracefully on the ground, he looked as if he were about to spit down on her from Torgen’s back.

  “I’m sorry,” Rhoslyn said, meekly. “I just didn’t have the strength to lift her onto the horse, and I knew if I left her here—well, nothing but ill would come of it.”

  “Waste of time. She’d only fall off,” Pasgen replied, dismounting.

  He lifted Aurelia to the front of Torgen’s saddle where Rhoslyn held her steady while Pasgen remounted—once letting go with one hand to smack Torgen, who was snaking his head back, trying to take a piece out of Aurelia’s thigh. Then she unfastened the reins of Aurelia’s horse and took them in hand, mounted Talog, and followed Pasgen, who had already set out for the palace.

  To Rhoslyn’s surprise, Pasgen did not ride into the courtyard, but skirted the palace to a place on the rear wall that was roughly opposite the old Gate Rhoslyn had been using. There he dismounted, dragged Aurelia from Torgen’s back onto his shoulder, and walked a few steps along the wall where a sharp command caused a click. A well-concealed door opened.

  Rhoslyn, who had dismounted from Talog, swallowed her surprise to ask, “Horses in or out?”

  “In,” he said shortly. “There’s a small back garden where Torgen and Talog can wait. I hope we won’t be long. Holy Mother Dannae, this bitch weighs like a full tun of ale!”

  There was a small open area between the outer wall and the palace. Rhoslyn would not have called it a garden, but she thought that Talog and Torgen couldn’t do it much harm. Pasgen, rather breathlessly, said he would dump Aurelia in her apartment and asked Rhoslyn to take her horse to the stable in the front.

  “Right willingly,” Rhoslyn murmured, then turned to bid Talog and Torgen stay.

  When she looked back, Pasgen was gone. She was startled at his sudden vanishment, but then realized there must be another hidden back door, and reminded herself that Pasgen had ruled Caer Mordwyn for several years. He would certainly have set himself to discover everything there wa
s to know about the palace. It would have been very necessary because Vidal Dhu was just the kind to have put traps all over the place for anyone wandering about without his company or his instructions.

  By the time she had led Aurelia’s horse around the side of the palace, handed it over to the newt-servants, and made her way back to where Torgen and Talog were waiting, Pasgen was also there waiting for her.

  “What happened?” he asked, his voice ice-cold and not at all hushed. “Aurelia looks very much as you described her appearing after the battle in Elizabeth’s room.” Rhoslyn waved a hand for quiet, but Pasgen shook his head impatiently. “Vidal is not here. He is having a real holiday up in Scotland.”

  “Let’s be gone from here anyway,” Rhoslyn said, still feeling uneasy. Vidal might not be here himself, but who could tell what was listening? “Come to my house. I am delighted that Vidal is busy in Scotland. Long may he make trouble there. And if Aurelia was hurt as badly as I hope, with luck, neither of us will be troubled with the affairs of the World Above for some time.”

  Pasgen looked at her with raised brows and, seemingly taking in the expression on her face, simply nodded.

  They went through the back gate, which Pasgen sealed again so that it was totally invisible, and then made their way to Rhoslyn’s domain. The girls opened the door for them. Lliwglas, she of the blue ribbon, gestured toward the stair with her head. Rhoslyn saw one of her mother’s maids peeping down at her and she shook her head infinitesimally. She did intend to speak to Pasgen about Llanelli, and her mother’s hopes to practice as a healer, but she had some things to explain first.

  Pasgen sank into a deep, soft armchair and sighed. “Well, what has put your nose so out of joint, sister?”

  “That mortal brat Elizabeth was surely begot of the Great Evil,” Rhoslyn snarled, sinking into the corner of the sofa at right angles to Pasgen’s chair. “Anything to do with her is a disaster.” She blew out an exasperated breath and added, “Although there is no doubt that Aurelia contributed to the catastrophe.”

  “How was she hurt?” he asked.

  “By cold iron, in the craziest accident you could imagine.” She shook her head. “It should never have happened.”

  “Accident?” Pasgen repeated.

  Rhoslyn shrugged. “The plan Aurelia made should have worked. It was simple and sensible. She bespelled a mortal to attack and kill Elizabeth’s maid. The maid is Talented, there can be no doubt of that. Aurelia thought, and I agreed with her, that if we could be rid of the maid, Elizabeth would be much more vulnerable.”

  Her brother nodded. “That does sound reasonable, and Oberon would not be much interested in the death of a maid. I agree too that it was a good idea. So what went wrong?”

  Furious at the catastrophe that had unfolded, and fully as angry at Aurelia as at the miserable mortal child, Rhoslyn gave Pasgen a blow-by-blow description of what had taken place in the stable yard of St. James’s Palace.

  She ended with, “We would have been safe away if Aurelia had not virtually bent over the woman to suck up the power that leaked from her fear and pain. That was when the maid threw the cross and it stuck in Aurelia’s hair and touched her forehead. She screamed and lost the Don’t-see-me spell, and we were utterly undone. The idiot! If she had not gone to the struggle like a moth to a flame, naught would have come of this and she and I would be safely back by now!”

  Pasgen sighed. “The fresh pulses of power from agony and terror are irresistible to some.” He cocked his head inquisitively, watching Rhoslyn. “But not to you, sister?”

  “Not to me.” Rhoslyn’s voice was flat, and she shivered slightly. “I must find another source of power to feed on.”

  Pasgen smiled and his eyes gleamed with mischief. “You can try my way,” he said, “but if it does not suit you … we can steal from the Seleighe. I will go with you. With Vidal totally immersed in making trouble in Scotland and Aurelia incapacitated, we will be free to do what we like.”

  That distracted her from her anger for a moment. “What is going forth in Scotland?”

  “I do not know the details—those who watch for me are not much larger, or cleverer, than the lindys—but Vidal has set strong hooks into Cardinal Beaton. Beaton is one of the rulers of Scotland now that King James is dead—as much as anyone can be said to rule so brawling and contentious a people—and he is opposed to the government set up by King Henry, which agreed, albeit most reluctantly, to a treaty with England in which the Scottish queen, little Mary, would marry Prince Edward.”

  “I can see why Vidal would be opposed to that.” Rhoslyn raised her brows and nibbled on her lower lip, intrigued by all the possibilities of meddling with such a tangled situation. “It would mean peace between England and Scotland, not only now but in the future. No war, no death, no misery—and no sour power for the Unseleighe.”

  Pasgen shrugged, but one corner of his mouth quirked. “Well, the Scots would be unlikely to give over border raiding and such, but there would be no major invasions with total destruction. And with Henry’s grip on England so firm, there is quiet in England and little chance of the kind of chaos Vidal needs. Thus, Vidal must be sure that Scotland resists and that the war continues.”

  “And he must actually be there most of the time?” she asked, wondering why, but glad that it was true.

  Pasgen nodded. “If he wishes to keep the pot boiling, I think so. You see there are three strong parties and Vidal’s grip is only on Beaton. There is also the government that Henry placed in power and then there is the greater part of the Scottish nobles, who are of no party but their own and shift back and forth, making alliances and breaking them, seeing only the needs and wants of their clans and nothing beyond the benefit of the moment.” His voice was full of scorn for such shortsightedness.

  Rhoslyn nodded. “I see. If Henry’s agents should offer enough, it might even be possible for that middle party to seize the queen and deliver her to England.”

  But over that, he shook his head. “Not likely. More likely that the middle party—or enough of it to seize a preponderance of power—will make alliance with one side or another and the fighting among the Scots themselves will die down. Then when England sends an army, there might be a sharp defeat of the English, which will certainly mean the end of war until the king returns from France. The only way to keep things unsettled is to keep those nobles from bringing a majority to one side or the other. And for that, Beaton must be most carefully directed.”

  “Then Vidal’s attention will remain in Scotland. Very good. And Aurelia may well have no attention to give—” Rhoslyn’s voice checked and she bit her lip, thinking back on how terrible the Unseleighe sorceress had looked. “Could you tell how badly she was hurt?” she asked, feeling guilty. “I did try to help. I struck the cross out of her hair.” She held out her hand where red burn wheals and blisters marred her fingers. “But not soon enough to save her, I fear.”

  “I don’t know whether she was seriously damaged or just stunned by shock and pain,” Pasgen said. “When I brought her in, her servants called her mortal physician, but he seemed totally confused. I suppose sooner or later one of the servants will find sense enough to summon a true healer.”

  “That may not help,” she pointed out. “It is the mortal physician who has been most successful. He provided the potion that she uses. Likely he was puzzled by what caused her collapse.”

  Guilt dulled the last of Rhoslyn’s anger at Aurelia and warred with her desire to avoid Vidal’s consort. But on the other hand, although Rhoslyn did not like Elizabeth, she still hated being driven to cause the misery, perhaps even the death, of a child who had never personally hurt her—and all for the sake of an outpouring of power that sickened her. Pasgen watched her silently.

  Rhoslyn shrugged. “At least I can stay away from the World Above until Aurelia demands my help. I will tell Mary that my brother needs me again.” She hesitated, then sighed. “I wish we could leave Elizabeth alone for good.”

 
; There was another brief silence during which Pasgen stared past his sister at nothing. “She has escaped harm so often,” he said softly. “Sometimes I think there is something that does not want Elizabeth to die or be ruined. And—” he hesitated, then added, slowly “—I am not altogether certain that her most powerful guardian is High King Oberon.”

  Chapter 24

  The sheriff of London came himself to respond to the call from St. James’s Palace, because it involved the Lady Elizabeth. It took several hours to find him but once he had been informed of the circumstances, he arrived promptly. And it took every bit of that time to bring Elizabeth to the point where she would promise not to use her ability to shield any person except herself.

  In the end, it was only Denoriel’s assurance that he would take her Underhill again and have her taught other methods of defense that convinced her. Truthfully, Denoriel was greatly alarmed by the gleam in her golden eyes when she finally offered her promise that as soon as she was sure she could save her people by other means she would never use her shield. He had a strong impulse to demand that she also promise not to push those she did not like down a flight of stairs or strike them with flying objects, but he clamped his teeth over the words. It was possible she had not yet thought of that mischief; to put it into her head was lunacy.

  The sheriff made no problems. His clerk took Nyle and Shaylor’s evidence and made note of Ladbroke’s explanation of Stover’s behavior. He did come to the palace to question Blanche to make sure her tale agreed with what Ladbroke had told him. Since both were telling the truth, Blanche only added confirming detail. Elizabeth, whom he did not ask any questions, offered voluntarily what she had seen when she arrived at the stable yard.

  “I thought he was a madman,” she said, in a little-girl voice, blinking back tears. “Blanche has been with me since I was born and I thought he was going to kill her. I was too frightened to give the men any order, but I assure you I would have bid them do everything to save her, so you may say I ordered my men to defend Blanche.”