Ill Met by Moonlight

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Where have you been?” she cried when he entered.

  Instead of saying he had been about his own business and he was not a slave to be always at her beck and call, he sank down on the carpet in front of her chair, in the place Aleneil had vacated, and took her icy hands.

  “I did not know,” he said. “I only came back to London this morning and … and they had not yet announced …”

  “My father is dead,” Elizabeth said, her voice trembling, her eyes staring into his. “It cannot be true. It cannot. He was the king. He cannot be dead. He ruled us all. He protected us. What will happen to us? What will happen to the nation?” And at the last, in a thin little whisper, “What will happen to me?”

  He raised her cold hands to his lips and kissed them. “Nothing bad will happen to you, I swear it.”

  She blinked slowly and repeated, “To me.” And after a moment added, as her eyes slowly lost some of that shocked look, “Yes. I believe you can protect me. But Denno,” she swallowed, and then continued, “Denno, for once I am not the most important person in the world. What will happen to England?”

  He hesitated, shocked, realizing that the girl-child was almost a woman now. “It will be different,” he said. “There is no one like your father, that is true, but there are good and clever men who love this country and served your father. And these same men will swear to and serve your brother. Elizabeth, there is still a king.”

  “Poor Edward.” She bent her head and began to weep. “I have lost him too.”

  “Lost Edward?” Denoriel echoed, horror in his voice. “What do you mean? He was hale and hearty when I saw him only a few days since.”

  “He is the king,” Elizabeth said, simply and sadly, raising her head and releasing one of his hands to wipe her eyes. “I will never again take him in my arms and kiss him when he cries or laugh at him when he makes a mistake. I will curtsey to the ground and he will tell me to rise and call me ‘dear sister’ but there will be a wall between us.”

  For a long moment Denoriel was silenced by this sad truth. Edward simply did not have the kind of spirit that would brush away the rules so he could expose his heart.

  “It is true that you will no longer be able to run to him and hug him,” Denoriel said, “but he will remember that you once did. And it is likely true that you will not be able to laugh when he makes a mistake, but even a king has times when he is at ease. He will call you to him then. You are his dear sister.”

  “Am I?” There was just a hint of color in her cheeks. “Am I really?” Then she sighed. “But it will not be the same. We will never again live together just as brother and sister.” She sighed again. “Where will I live?”

  “I am not sure which estates will have been assigned to you in your father’s will, but I know that you will have several manors and an income to support them … and if you need help,” he smiled past her at Kat, “you will have that too.”

  She looked at him, almost smiled, and then said almost in her old, petulant tone, “Will I? Lady Alana sent a messenger after Lord Hertford left with Edward and when you did not come … I was afraid that now that Edward is king I would no longer be of any use to you and … and your great lady.”

  He bent his head and kissed the hand he still held. “That is one of the silliest things I have ever heard you say. Why should you think such a thing when I have cared for you since you were a babe?”

  “Because there was a—” she struggled to say a word for a moment, could not, and went on “—a guard with Edward, like the lady that guards my sister Mary—”

  “What?”

  That was not only Denoriel’s voice, loud with shock and protest, but Aleneil’s also. Both started to speak again and stopped. Aleneil rose from the chair she had been sitting on. Elizabeth was beginning to look frightened and she swallowed hard, but she did not speak, only began to weep again. Denoriel rose from the rug.

  “Guard?” Kat Champernowne sounded surprised and puzzled. “But only Sir Robert Tyrwhitt and Sir William Paulet came in with Lord Hertford and the prin … oh! the king.”

  Elizabeth began to shiver again, and Denoriel leaned forward and hugged her briefly. “My dear, you are exhausted,” he said. “Why do you not go to bed now? Blanche will make you a tisane that will help you to sleep and sit with you so that you are not disturbed by anyone. Will this not be best Mistress Champernowne?”

  “Indeed it will,” Kat replied. “I have been trying to get her to go to bed since Lord Hertford left, but she wanted to wait for you to come.”

  “I am sorry I was so slow to arrive, but I never got the message because I have not been home all day. But you will go to bed now, Lady Elizabeth, will you not? I promise you, your dreams will be sweet.”

  “Not with my father dead,” Elizabeth said, but she rose from her chair. “Still, I am exhausted and everyone else is, too. I will try Blanche’s tisane and try to sleep. And Kat, it is late and dark and cold, do you think it would be possible to find a bedchamber for Lord Denno?”

  “He may have my chamber,” Aleneil said, smiling. “He has been host to me often enough. I will go in with Blanche, if she will have me.”

  “Of course, my lady,” Blanche said, dropping a curtsey. “There is a trundle bed in Lady Elizabeth’s chamber, and I intended to use that tonight anyway.”

  The only thing that was not easy was building a Gate to Logres from behind the rack that held Elizabeth’s clothes. Denoriel and Aleneil were both nearly drained when Elizabeth at last covered her cross and they were able to bring her between them to the opalescent Gate on its pillars of chalcedony in Logres. Miralys and Ystwyth were waiting for them and in moments they were in Denoriel’s apartment.

  Aleneil, staggering slightly, collapsed onto the sofa. Denoriel, already much restored because of his spell for drawing power, took one look at Elizabeth’s face and sent an air spirit with a message for Harry. Then he sat her in one of the cushioned chairs near the fireplace and knelt down before her.

  “Now, my sweet, first things first,” he said, “And this is not because you are not still the most important creature in all your mortal realm to me, it is because you might have uncovered a danger none of us anticipated. You saw a Sidhe in the party with Prin—I mean King Edward?”

  “Yes, oh, I thought he was sent to comfort Edward as you have comforted and cared for me.” Her face was white. “Now—you tell me this means he was a danger? What will he do to my brother?” Her face crumpled. “Oh, why did I not protect him? It is my fault! All my fault.”

  Denno shook his head and tightened his grip on her hands. “Elizabeth, it is not your fault at all! How can it be your fault?”

  “When I first saw him by the door, looking about the room as if for any threat … I do not know why, but I was very frightened, and I invoked Tangwystl’s spell from my earring.” She blinked back tears. “And I thought I felt a blow upon it and that the Sidhe staggered and shook his head.”

  “Backlash,” Aleneil said faintly. She had propped herself in a corner of the sofa and looked a little less as if she would faint.

  “When he tried to attack me, I should have known!” Elizabeth cried. “I should have done more to protect Edward!”

  “More? What did you do?” Denoriel asked.

  “After the man with the Sidhe steadied him, Edward came rushing into the room and I was busy greeting him. But when Lord Hertford told us of my father … my father’s … death—” Elizabeth took a long trembling breath, and then continued, “Edward cried out that it could not be true and he burst into tears. I took him in my arms and I was crying too. Then all the people in the room came toward us, and I was frightened, and I cast my shield.”

  “Clever girl,” Aleneil said, sitting up straighter.

  “But that was why I thought he was a guard for Edward,” Elizabeth said on a sob. “He was one of the first to reach us, but he only patted my shoulder and then patted Edward’s, and then he drew back with the other men. I thought he meant no harm and
I dropped the shield.” She swallowed nervously. “Will he harm Edward?”

  “I doubt it very much, sweeting,” Aleneil said. “If he wanted to do Edward any harm, he had time in plenty while the party was riding from Hertford to Enfield. What easier than to make Edward’s horse bolt or otherwise cause him to fall and see that he died of it?” Then she turned toward Denoriel and smiled. “I say, Elizabeth may have the right of it. The Sidhe may be a guard for Edward. You know that the Unseleighe Court has been looking forward to Edward’s reign. They wouldn’t hurt him, but it is possible they feared we would interfere.”

  “God’s Grace, I never thought of that,” Denoriel said and hugged Elizabeth again. “But just to be on the safe side I think I will go and complain to Oberon about Elizabeth seeing a Sidhe among the new king’s gentlemen. Oberon will be livid. He knows that the barest smell of magic around Edward will set Hertford off on a ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ campaign.”

  “Do you not think I should be the one to complain?” Elizabeth asked, looking from Denoriel to his sister and back again.

  Denoriel and Aleneil consulted each other in glances. Her evidence would be more convincing than hearsay, but there was the danger that Oberon would be attracted to such a pretty mortal girl. Before they could come to any conclusion the door opened and Harry ran into the room.

  Elizabeth leapt to her feet, crying, “Da, oh, Da, such a terrible thing has happened.”

  “As long as you are alive and well,” Harry said, hurrying to her and taking her in his arms, “I don’t care.”

  “Father is dead,” Elizabeth wailed, sounding for the first time like the child she truly was.

  Harry’s arms tightened and then slackened. “F-father?” he repeated. “The king? King Henry is dead?”

  A kaleidoscope of memories rushed past him, memories of Henry’s warmth and humor, memories of Henry’s selfishness and cruelty, memories of Henry’s cleverness and stupid stubbornness. All the memories, however were endowed with the huge vitality of the king, a king who seemed more than any mere mortal. Elizabeth was crying again.

  “Dead?” Harry repeated, hugging her closer with one arm as he turned his head to Denoriel. “How is that possible?” And then with real ferocity, “Does he need to be avenged?”

  “He was not strong as you remember him, Harry,” Denoriel said. “He has been failing for years now. He could not take as much exercise as in the past but ate as well or better because he had so few other pleasures. He had grown immense, so large he had to be wheeled about in a chair; he suffered from putrefying sores that would not heal. His heart could not sustain him, I think.”

  The tenor of the conversation had communicated itself to Elizabeth and she realized that her Da was all ready to go to the mortal world to take revenge on anyone who had harmed his father. But Da could not live in the mortal world, and besides that, Elizabeth herself knew how close her father had been to death several times recently. His body had simply failed to rally at last.

  She hastily wiped her eyes and said, “He has been very ill for months, Da. No one did anything bad to him.” She smiled tremulously.

  Harry led Elizabeth back to her chair and drew another close to it. He kissed her and hugged her, then patted her shoulder and began to talk to Denoriel about what would be likely to happen in England. At first Elizabeth sat quietly, staring into the colored flames leaping over the crystal logs. Once she held out her hands to them as if to warm them, because even the magic of Underhill could not warm the cold within her. But no heat came from the flames and she bit her lip.

  “I can make them give off warmth,” Denoriel said.

  The soft words showed that though her Denno was talking to her Da he was still very much aware of her. And Da looked at her again and touched her cheek. The feeling of total emptiness, that with her father dead she was lost and alone, began to ease. She shook her head to Denno’s offer and folded her hands together in her lap.

  “Sweeting,” Harry urged, “will you not have something to eat, or a glass of wine heated with spices? You are so pale. Are you not tired, love? You could sleep for a while.”

  “No,” she said. “It is terrible to think that King Henry is dead, but when you and Denno talk about who will manage the affairs of England, then I know that life will not end. It will go on and I with it. And I still have you, Da, and Denno, and … and Blanche and Lady Alana and Kat. No, I am not all alone.” She lifted her chin a little. “Indeed—I am not alone.”

  “Then do you think you can eat something at last?” Denoriel asked. “You have had nothing since you broke your fast this morning.”

  Some of the cold inside her ebbed. She managed a real smile—albeit a sad one. And a thread of hunger replaced the cold nothingness that had been in her stomach. “Something warm?” she asked.

  So they adjourned into the dining room and were served by the invisible servants, who made Harry grin and Elizabeth frown, and the talk soon drifted away from English affairs to problems Underhill.

  And it was as if all of her life in the real world became, for a little while, something like a dream—while her life here took on the solidity of reality. Usually, she fought that feeling, but not now. Not today. Today—she wanted to forget that on the other side of that Gate was an England in which the name of the king was not Henry, but Edward. When she returned, it would still all be there, after all. Just because she was forgetting it for a little while didn’t mean she was shirking her duty—no more than if she had drunk some hairy old doctor’s potion and was sleeping away some of her grief.

  So for once, she let this place take hold of her, and for once, she lived in it, as her dear Da lived in it.

  Harry told Elizabeth that the Unformed land which Elidir and Mechain used to use had drifted near an Unseleighe domain and that the mists were behaving even more strangely.

  “Oh, my,” Elizabeth said. “Oh. I hope I did no wrong there. Did Mechain or Elidir ever dissipate that lion?”

  “What lion?” Aleneil asked.

  So she heard the story of Elizabeth’s abduction and how she rescued herself by creating an eternally hungry lion.

  “It almost ate me!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Only the Gate opened and Elidir or Mechain or both got it closed just as the lion was poking its head through.”

  “It didn’t attack us when I went with Elidir and Mechain or when you came with us, Denno,” Harry said. “Likely it fell apart. After all, Elizabeth didn’t have much practice as a maker.”

  “But I didn’t really make it,” Elizabeth pointed out. “I asked the mists to make it and I thought of how it should look and should be hungry. The mists made it.”

  Now Harry began to look troubled. “And the mists could keep it alive. I don’t know. They really acted very strange when we saw Pasgen—if it was Pasgen—and if Pasgen has reformed and is staying there to avoid Vidal, don’t you think we ought to warn him?”

  “Or get rid of the lion,” Elizabeth said. “I want to go too. Maybe it will be easier for me to do it because I made it. I mean, I could explain to the mist that it was dangerous to have that lion running loose.”

  Elizabeth sounded almost cheerful and Denoriel and Harry exchanged glances. Both had been wondering how to find an excuse to keep her Underhill for several days, until the first shock and grief of her father’s death wore off. She would have refused to go to one of the markets, they were sure. It would seem frivolous to run around a market when one’s father was lying dead. Ridding an Unformed land of a dangerous lion, however, seemed quite justifiable.

  “I’ll have to get word to Elidir and Mechain,” Harry said. “We had a terrible time finding the place the last time and I’m sure I couldn’t find it alone. And I’ll have to go home to get my gun.”

  Harry was back before Aleneil, Denoriel, and Elizabeth had finished their meal and they settled down to discuss how to accomplish their purpose without exposing Elizabeth to too much danger.

  “But you will all be with me,” Elizabe
th pointed out impatiently. “Da has his sword and gun, Denno has his sword, and I’m sure Lady Alana is not defenseless, not to mention Elidir and Mechain. And I have my shields for my head and my body. And I know stickfoot and tanglefoot and cilgwthio and gwthio which will probably be stronger Underhill. What could hurt me?”

  * * *

  The imp bearing the news that Henry would not live out the twenty-seventh of January arrived at a terrible time for Vidal. He was not free to act on the information. The leaders of Scotland were in almost as great uncertainty as those of England. Angus and Albany and Mary of Guise all knew that Henry was dying and they could not decide whether to continue with their internecine strife, attack England, or just be quiet and hope that when the intransigent king was dead his ministers would be more reasonable and make peace.

  Vidal could have arranged for spells to be cast on all of them, but he did not know what spell to cast. In this delicate situation a blanket spell for hatred or rage or spite would not be sufficient. He really needed to be in Scotland, watching each move and countering it or furthering it to suit his purpose. No matter the dying king in England, Vidal had to delay two days more in Scotland to set everyone along the right path … he hoped.

  But he could delay no longer. He also needed to be in England where the confusion and panic that would follow the king’s death would open all sorts of possibilities for him. If the confusion was sufficient, could he engineer a civil war between Edward’s supporters and Mary’s? He would prefer Mary on the throne; the FarSeers showed that her reign would be a rich feast for the Unseleighe.

  No, there had better be no civil war. There was too good a chance that Edward’s supporters would win. Reasonably enough, the English preferred a male ruler. In that case, Mary would have committed treason and would be executed. No, she was too valuable to lose. Let the boy come to the throne unopposed; his reign would be almost as good for the Unseleighe as Mary’s.