Meredith Gentry 6 - A Lick of Frost

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "The princess is not here, officers," said a second guard. "Please go back to the press area."

  "The princess is here," Lady Elasaid said, "and in need of human medical attention."

  You could feel the increased tension in the group of nobles, like a spring that had been wound once too often. To the human officers, they would be beautiful and unreadable, but I felt their energy rise like the first spark of heat from a match. The guards at the door would feel it, too.

  The great black dog moved up on one side of Hugh. It didn't make me feel better. Weaponless against the might of sidhe guards, all he could do was die for me. I didn't want him to die for me. I wanted him to live for me.

  "We have doctors with us," Major Walters said. "Let them look at the princess, and we'll go from there."

  "The king has ordered that she not be given back to the brutes who injured her. She cannot go near the Unseelie again."

  "Did he forbid her going near humans?" Agent Gillett asked.

  There was a moment of silence while the murmur of power began to build among the sidhe around me. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, as if they were whispering their magic.

  "The king said nothing about humans looking at her," a new guard voice said.

  "We were told to keep her away from the press."

  "Why would the princess need to be kept away from the press? Agent Gillett asked. "She will tell them firsthand about being rescued from the evil Unseelie by "your brave king."

  "I do not know…"

  "Unless you think the princess will have a different story," Major Walters said.

  "The king has given his oath that it is so," the talkative guard said.

  "Then you have nothing to lose by letting our doctors look at her," Agent Gillett said.

  The guard who had sounded agreeable said, "If the king is true to his word, then there is nothing to fear, Barri, Shanley. You do believe him, don't you?" There was the first real doubt plain in his voice, as if even among the king's most loyal the lies were becoming too heavy to bear.

  "If she is truly here, then let her come forward," Shanley said. He sounded tired.

  Hugh held me closer as the nobles parted like a glittering curtain, Only Hugh's hounds and the blond guard stayed in front of me. Doyle stayed to our side. I think that he, like me, was worried that the already suspicious guards would figure out who he was. They might let us go into the press room, but if they suspected that the Darkness was inside their sithen, they would go wild.

  Finally, Hugh said, "Let them see."

  Both the guard and the great dogs moved. Doyle moved a little behind Hugh so that he blended in with the other dogs, aside from his color. He was the only black one among them. To my eyes he stood out almost painfully, so black among all the Seelie color.

  I must have looked even worse than I felt, because both the men were wide-eyed. They controlled it after that first glimpse, but I'd seen it. I even understood it. And it was as if that look let me feel again. I don't know if it was the magic, the fear for Doyle, or the fear that Taranis would find us. Or maybe the little screaming voice in my skull that had been growing louder. The voice that finally let me think the thought all the way through, to ask in my own head at least, "Did he rape me? Did he rape me after he beat me unconscious?" Was that what the great king of the Seelie considered seduction? Goddess, let him have been confused when he thought it possible that I carried his child.

  It was like knowing that you were cut but only feeling pain after you saw the blood. I'd seen the "blood" on the faces of the police. I saw it in the way they moved toward me. The left side of my face ached and was swollen. I knew that it must have hurt before, but it was as if only now could I feel all of it.

  The headache came back in a roar that closed my eyes and brought a fresh wave of nausea. A voice said, "Princess Meredith, can you speak?"

  I looked up into Agent Gillett's eyes. There was that old compassion there, that look that had made me trust him when I was a young woman. I looked into those eyes and knew it was real. I'd felt used by him recently, realizing that he'd kept in touch with me in hopes of solving my father's murder not for me, but for some purpose of his own. I had told him to stay away from me, but looking up into his face now, I understood what I'd seen in him when I was seventeen. For this moment, he cared, deeply.

  Maybe he was remembering the first time he saw me, collapsed in grief, clutching my dead father's sword as if it were the last solid thing in the universe.

  "Doctor," I whispered. "I need a doctor." I whispered because the last time I'd felt this sick, talking had hurt my head. But I also whispered because I knew it would make me seem more pitiful and if sympathy would get me in front of the press, I would play that card for all it was worth.

  Agent Gillett's eyes hardened, and I saw again that purpose that had made me believe he would find my father's killer.

  Tonight, that was all right. I carried my father's grandchildren inside me. But I had to get to safety. Strength of arms and magic are so often what the sidhe rely on, but they have never been weak. They do not understand the arsenal of the powerless. I understood, because I had lived in the land of the helpless most of my life.

  I stopped fighting to be brave. I stopped fighting to feel better. I let myself feel how hurt I was, and how frightened. I let myself think the thoughts I'd been shoving back. I let them fill my eyes with tears.

  The guards at the doors tried to move in front of us, but Major Walters used his officer voice. It echoed in the marble room and into the open door beyond. "You will move aside, now."

  The talkative guard said, "Shanley, we have no healers who can cure this. Let the humans treat her." He had hair the flame color of autumn leaves just before they fall to the ground, and eyes of circles of green. He seemed young, though he had to be over seventy, because that was Galen's age, and he was the next youngest sidhe to me.

  Shanley looked down at me. His eyes were two perfect circles of blue.

  I lay in Hugh's arms and gazed up at him through tear-soaked eyes, and a swelling bruise that covered me from temple to chin.

  Shanley spoke quietly, "What story will you tell the press, Princess Meredith?"

  "The truth," I whispered.

  A look of pain went through those inhumanly lovely eyes. "I cannot let you into that room." His words were his admission that he knew that my truth and Taranis's truth were not one and the same. He knew that his king had lied, and given oath on it. He knew, and yet he had made oath to serve Taranis as guard. He was caught between his vows and his king's treachery.

  I might have pitied him, but I knew that Taranis would not be distracted forever in his bath. Not even with servant girls to abuse. We were inches away from the press and relative safety. But how to travel those last few inches?

  Major Walters pulled his radio from a coat pocket and hit a button. "We need backup out here."

  "If they come through, we will fight them," Shanley said.

  "She is with child," the healer said. "She carries twins."

  He looked suspiciously at her. "You lie."

  "I have few powers left me, that is true, but I have enough magic left to sense such things. She is with child. I felt their heartbeats under my hand like the fluttering of birds."

  "You don't get heartbeats this quickly," the guard said.

  "She entered this sithen pregnant with twins. She was forced into the king's bed to be raped, pregnant with someone else's children."

  "Do not say such things, Quinnie," he said.

  "I am a healer," she said. "I must speak out at last. If it costs me all I am, all I have, I swear to you that the princess is at least a month gone with twins."

  "You will take oath on it?" he asked.

  "I will swear any oath you wish me to take."

  They stared at each other for a long moment. There was pounding on the door behind the guards and the sounds of struggle. The rest of the police and agents were trying to come in. The Seelie guards didn't want to injure
the police in front of the press, with live cameras on them.

  It sounded like the police didn't have the same compunction about the guards. The door shuddered under the weight of bodies hitting it.

  The talkative guard went to stand by his captain. "Shanley, listen to her."

  "The king took oath, too," he said. "And nothing came to brand him an oathbreaker."

  "He believes what he says," the healer said. "You know that. He believes, so he does not lie, but that does not make it true. We have all seen that in these last few weeks."

  Shanley looked from his fellow guard to the healer, then finally to me. "Were the Unseelie raping you when our king saved you?"

  "No," I said.

  His eyes glittered, but not with magic. "Did he take you against your will?"

  "Yes," I whispered.

  A tear trailed from each of his beautiful eyes. He gave a small bow. "Command me."

  I hoped I knew what he wanted me to do. I spoke as loud as I dared with my head pounding. "I, Princess Meredith NicEssus, wielder of the hands of flesh and blood, granddaughter of Uar the Cruel, command you to step aside and let us pass."

  He bowed lower, and moved aside still in that bow.

  Major Walters spoke on his radio again. "We're coming through. Repeat, we're bringing the princess through. Clear the doors."

  The sounds of fighting grew louder. The blue-eyed guard spoke into the air. "Stand down, men. The princess is leaving."

  The fighting slowed, then there was no sound. The blue-eyed guard nodded at the other guards, and they opened the great doors.

  Doyle moved up closer to me as Hugh carried me forward. For a moment I thought it was a magical attack of light, then I realized that it was lights for moving cameras and flashes for still ones. I closed my eyes against the blinding glare, and Hugh carried me through the doors.

  CHAPTER 29

  I WAS BLIND FROM THE LIGHTS. MY HEAD FELT LIKE IT WAS going to explode from the assault of it all. I wanted to scream at them to stop, but was afraid that would only make it all hurt worse.

  I closed my eyes and tried to shield them with one hand. There was shadow against the light, and a woman's voice. "Princess Meredith, I'm Doctor Hardy. We're here to help you."

  A man's voice. "Princess Meredith, we're going to put you in a neck brace. It's just a precaution."

  There was a wheeled stretcher beside us suddenly, as if it had just sprung into being. The medical team started to swarm me. Dr. Hardy was shining a light in my eyes, trying to get me to follow it. I could follow it, but the other hands that I couldn't see lifting me, starting to do things to me, panicked me.

  I started to slap at them, to make small helpless sounds. I don't know what it was about what they were doing, but it was too much. I couldn't see who was touching me. I couldn't see what they were doing. I didn't understand what was happening. I could not bear it.

  "Princess, Princess Meredith, can you hear me?" Dr. Hardy asked.

  "Yes," I said in a voice that didn't sound like me at all.

  "We need to get you to a hospital," Dr. Hardy said. "To transport you there are things we need to do. Can you let us do those things?"

  I wasn't so much crying as tears just seemed to be sliding down my face. "I need to know what you're doing. I need to see who's touching me."

  She looked behind me at the barrage of media, The police had moved in to form a wall against them, but they would hear most of what we said. The doctor leaned very close to me. "Princess, were you raped?"

  "Yes."

  Major Walters bent close too, "I am sorry, Princess, but I have to ask. Who did it?"

  A sidhe guard by the door said, "The Unseelie did it, as they raped Lady Caitrin."

  "Shut up!" Major Walters said. Then he turned back to me. "Is that true?"

  "No," I said.

  "Then who?"

  "Taranis knocked me unconscious and I woke naked in his bed with him beside me."

  "Liar!" the guard behind us said.

  Shanley, who was in charge of these men, said, "She took oath on it."

  "So did our king."

  "I cannot help that," he said.

  "Taranis hurt me. He and no other. I swear it by the darkness that eats all things."

  "You are mad to make such an oath," a voice I didn't know said.

  "Only if she lies." I think that was Sir Hugh. But there was so much noise, so many voices. The press had begun to yell at us. They shouted their questions, their theories. We all ignored them.

  Dr. Hardy began to speak quietly to me, to explain what was happening to me. She began to introduce me to her team. She would explain, and only then would they touch me. It began to help me lose that edge of hysteria.

  Only when a voice sounded on the microphone that I still had not seen did I make them stop. The voice said, "We have told you what happened to the princess. The Unseelie guard who were supposed to protect her beat and raped her. Our king saved his niece from them and brought her to sanctuary here."

  It was too much. No matter how I felt, I could not let them ship me to a hospital and leave that lie in the ears of the media.

  "I need a microphone, please. I need to tell the truth," I said.

  Dr. Hardy didn't like it, but Hugh and others backed me up, and they rolled me to the front of the room. They insisted that I keep the choking closeness of the neck brace on. I was already hooked up to an I.V. Apparently my blood pressure was low and my body was a little shocky.

  The doctor stepped up to the microphone.

  "I am Dr. Vanessa Hardy. The princess needs to get to a hospital, but she insists on talking to you. She is injured, and we need to get her to a hospital. This will be quick. I hope that is clear?"

  Several of them said, "It is clear."

  The press secretary was all pink and gold and sidhe beauty. She didn't want to give up the mic. She'd heard enough from the doorway to worry her.

  It was Agent Gillett who took it from her, and held it for me. You could feel the eagerness of the press like a sort of magic of their own.

  A voice called, "Who hit you?"

  "Taranis," I said.

  There was a collective sigh of eagerness and an explosion of flashes. I closed my eyes against it.

  "Did the Unseelie rape you?"

  "No."

  "Were you raped, Princess?"

  "Taranis knocked me unconscious and kidnapped me, and I woke nude in his bed. He says we had sex. I will be taking a rape kit at the hospital. If it comes back positive for an unknown, then yes, my uncle raped me."

  The police were holding the press secretary and some of the sidhe back by force. Some of the nobles and the dogs were helping them mind the crowd. I heard growls around me. The loudest was next to me. The great black head touched my hand. I raised fingers to stroke Doyle's fur. That one small touch was more comfort than anything else had been.

  Dr. Hardy yelled above the chaos, "The princess has a concussion. I need to get her to X-ray or a cat scan to see how serious it is. So we're leaving now."

  I said "No."

  "Princess, you said you'd go quietly if you told the truth."

  "No, it's not that. I can't have an X-ray. I'm pregnant." Agent Gillett was still holding the microphone close enough that the room had heard that. If we thought there had been chaos before, we'd been wrong.

  The press were yelling, "Who's the father? Did your uncle make you pregnant?"

  Dr. Hardy leaned close and whispered/shouted above the cacophony, "How far along are you?"

  "Four to five weeks," I said.

  "We will treat you and your baby like gold," she said.

  I would have nodded, but the neck brace kept me from doing so. I finally said "Yes."

  She looked up at someone I couldn't see and said, "We need to get her to a hospital now."

  We began to push our way toward the door. There were two main reasons we were having problems moving. One was the press.

  They all wanted one last image, one last questi
on answered. The second was the Seelie guards and nobles who opposed Hugh. They wanted me to stay with them. They wanted me to recant.

  Inhumanly beautiful faces kept hovering over me, saying things like, "How can you lie about our king? How can you accuse your own uncle of such a crime? Liar. Lying bitch," was the last one before the police got very serious above keeping the golden throng away from my face.

  They tried to chase away the black dog, but I said, "No, he's mine."

  No one questioned it. Dr. Hardy only said, "He doesn't go in the ambulance."

  I didn't argue. Just Doyle beside me, in any form, was an improvement. Every brush of his fur against my hand was better.

  There were so many people around the stretcher, so much light that the only way I knew we were finally outside was the brush of night air against my face. It had been night when Taranis took me. Was it the same night, or the next night? How long had he had me?

  I tried to ask what day it was, but no one heard me. The press had followed us outside the sithen. They trailed us with shouted questions and mobile lights.

  The wheels of the gurney didn't like the grass. The bumps made my head ache more. I fought not to make small sounds of pain, and was able to do it until the medics closed around us so that I could no longer touch Doyle's fur. The moment I lost contact with him the pain was worse.

  I spoke his name before I could stop myself. "Doyle," I said softly, a plea.

  The huge black head shoved its way under the doctor's arm. It made her stumble. She tried to shove him away, saying, "Shoo."

  "I need him, please."

  She frowned at me, but she dropped back a step so the dog could be closer to me. Close enough that my hand could caress his fur on most of the bumpy ride. I'd never realized how uneven the grass around the mounds was until smoothness was what I needed. It had always seemed like such level ground until this moment.