And Less Than Kind

by Mercedes Lackey

  She got no direct response, but Talog gave her a firm shove with her nose and Rhoslyn turned sharply to face the sound of hooves approaching.

  "You don't want to live in a flat plain like this," Pasgen said.

  He came up to her with one arm over Torgen's withers, just as one male Sidhe might throw his arm over the shoulders of another Sidhe who was his friend, and the other arm around Hafwen's waist. Rhoslyn had never seen her brother touch Hafwen in public. Now his firm grip had a faintly proprietary air.

  Rhoslyn's lips parted, but nothing came out. The new Torgen, like the new Talog, was an elvensteed who had somehow absorbed her making. Elvensteeds chose where they willed, but Rhoslyn knew from bitter experience they only chose liosalfar. Surely that meant Pasgen, and she also, must be acceptable to the Bright Court.

  Rhoslyn knew that individual Sidhe might reject them, but the Court convened would not. There was a suspicious streak on one of her brother's cheeks, but Rhoslyn did not stare at it and his voice was very normal, slightly disapproving as he looked right and left.

  "You had better tell the mist—"

  Rhoslyn laughed, interrupting him. "Ask the mist, Pasgen. Ask. I do not think it wise or safe to tell this mist anything."

  "Yes, yes," he said impatiently. "Ask. Fine. Ask for some trees along the road."

  Rhoslyn also looked right and left. Some indistinct forms wavered along the road. Elizabeth came past Talog, giving the creature an absentminded pat on the croup. It was a fearsome looking beast with those red eyes, carnivore's teeth, and heavy, clawed feet instead of hooves, but Elizabeth was not afraid. Nothing mingling with elvensteeds would harm her.

  "You have to show it with a picture in your mind what the trees you want look like, Rhoslyn," Elizabeth said. "I had a picture in my mind when I asked for the lion and for the kitten. And, of course Pasgen is right that you will want trees and maybe a few low hills, but you had better pick the place you want for your house and the kind of house before you begin to change the land."

  Suddenly Rhoslyn put her arms around Talog and rested her head against the black hide. "It is too much," she said faintly. "I am so happy I feel I will burst with joy, but I can't think."

  "Come home with me," Harry said, coming up beside her and gently rubbing her back. "Denno has to take Elizabeth back to the mortal world and I think he wants to stop at Bucklersbury to talk to Clayborne. We'll have his rooms to ourselves."

  "But the mist," Rhoslyn said doubtfully, "will it accept me another time? Will it grow impatient? Will I need to begin anew?"

  "It always knew me each time I came," Elizabeth replied slowly, "but I don't know how much of what is here now it will retain. It did keep the lion, but . . ."

  "Tell it," Gaenor said, passing between Pasgen and Harry and putting a steady hand on Rhoslyn's shoulder. "Tell it that you are only Sidhe and now must rest. That you will soon come again to look for a place to build your house and that you hope the walls and the meadow will be here when you come again."

  So Rhoslyn turned her back on the company and looked out into the long distance where mist rolled over the meadow and she thought to the mist. Almost at once she felt a sense of relief and she saw a tiny image of the wall and the meadow, saw the image covered with mist and then the mist rolling back to show the image unchanged.

  She turned to Gaenor tears of relief filling her eyes. "You are right and not only about Sidhe tiring." She laughed faintly. "I think the mist is tired too. And I think it showed me that it would keep the wall and the meadow but cover them with mist."

  "Oh good," Elizabeth said with a deep sigh. "That means we can do the house and the furniture and the garden a bit at a time. I was wondering how we could ever build a whole domain in one day. I couldn't imagine, even though there were two of you, how you and Pasgen made the empty house all at once."

  "We didn't," Pasgen said. "Mostly we did one room at a time and then a stasis spell to hold it."

  Rhoslyn started as if prodded and then shivered. "No. No stasis spells. The mist doesn't like stasis spells."

  Chapter 34

  Wise in making, Rhoslyn never expected to build her domain in a few days. Actually it took all the remainder of 1554 and into the spring of 1555 to complete the place. The wall and entry gates remained unchanged. From the gates, the wide graveled path now wound through a gently undulant landscape, well-treed and with an underwood of flowering shrubs. There were also occasional open areas in which from time to time the alarming Talog and Torgen could be glimpsed. They made Rhoslyn comfortable, at home.

  Unlike the classical empty house and the fantastic faerylike castle she had lived in with her mother, when the dwelling came into view it was a plaster and beam English country manor. The patterns of the dark beams against the white plaster were complex and elegant, and the red tile roof gleamed in the Underhill glow.

  From the moment the manor appeared, Harry was at ease in it, and long before it was completed he had taken an affectionate leave of Denno, made one room habitable, and moved in with Rhoslyn. Together they planned the layout of the chambers, Harry telling Rhoslyn how his favorite lodging was arranged and Rhoslyn picturing the chambers to the mist.

  Elizabeth imaged much of the furniture for the mist. She had good taste and a strong desire to be comfortable. Grateful for keeping Elizabeth busy and safe Denoriel did the gardens. Harry laughed, remembering that poor Denno had pretended a passionate interest in gardens to disguise his visits to the child he had been assigned to protect.

  Over the years, the interest in gardens had become genuine; the illusion one saw through Denoriel's parlor windows had a well-defined garden. Now he was the one who was best able to visualize the garden down to the individual stalks and the blooms upon them.

  To amuse himself and astonish visitors, Denoriel did not simply choose the flowers he wanted and bespell them to bloom all the time. He worked out when each species would blossom in the mortal world and arranged for his bespelled plants to do the same. Thus Rhoslyn's gardens were unique Underhill, changing from the sere of cold-killed annuals and the dark green of evergreens to the bobbing, colorful beauty of narcissus, daffodil, and hyacynth. Before those were gone, the richer blooms of summer came, to be capped by the brilliant foliage and ripened fruits of autumn.

  Harry was enchanted. "I'd almost forgot what it was like," he muttered as Denoriel ran the whole cycle through for him. "It was nice," he said, with the first touch of wistfulness for his lost life that Denoriel had ever heard, "to feel the seasons come and go." He came and hugged Denoriel. "And now I'll even have that."

  Elizabeth hardly gave the garden a glance. Gardens that changed with the season were an everyday experience of a life mostly lived in the mortal world. However, as her work in the house neared completion and Mary came closer to the day of her delivery, Elizabeth was becoming more and more restless.

  She had begged permission to write to congratulate Mary as soon as the pregnancy was officially related to her. Permission was denied, but when Bedingfield reported to the queen and Council, he described what he thought honestly how cheerfully Elizabeth had received the news and mentioned that she had willingly joined in his prayer for the progeny of the queen's excellent person.

  Elizabeth was undecided about what to do and for once Harry was equally undecided. One thing he assured Elizabeth of was that she was not forgotten. Stephen Gardiner was again agitating for a Bill in Parliament that would disinherit Elizabeth once and for all. To say there was no enthusiasm for his proposal was a vast understatement. No one would listen to him at all and the idea was quietly dropped.

  The queen was soon to bear a child and neither she nor the child might survive. No one dared even hint at such doubts, but it was at the back of everyone's mind and right there with the death of Mary and her child was Elizabeth, clearly named in the Act of Succession, heir presumptive for years, young and healthy.

  Harry's sources were servants, ubiquitous and ignored. It was from them he learned that Elizabeth had
a new and very powerful friend. Philip, who cared nothing for Mary's old hurts and hatreds, was all too aware that his wife, frail and not young, might not survive childbearing. If the child lived, Philip had been heard to confide in an intimate, all would be well because he would be Regent; but if the child did not survive, he might be torn to bits by a population that hated him and all his kind.

  In that case, the servant confided to another servant who whispered Philip's thoughts to a third, who had an odd wizened and dwarfed friend who traded him small, exquisite things in exchange for Court news. In that case, Philip had said, it would be most useful to have Elizabeth near him in the palace as a hostage.

  Naturally he could not hold her hostage long, but if he had already made her his friend and made her grateful to him for his support against her enemies, like Gardiner, who knew what he might accomplish. If he could get her married to a good Catholic prince subservient to Spain, he could secure the English alliance.

  Elizabeth said very unladylike things when Harry reported what Philip planned among his own friends, but Harry did not laugh as he usually did when she waxed obscene.

  "Do not you dare offend him!" he exclaimed.

  "I fear I will never be allowed near him," Elizabeth snapped.

  "That you will, and in no long time. He has already convinced Mary to bring you to Court. It is necessary, he told her, that you publicly acknowledge the child. The queen is expected to be brought to bed in the first week of May. I warrant you will be sent for in a few weeks, certainly before the end of April."

  To Elizabeth's mingled delight and terror, Harry was right to within a few days. On the seventeenth of April Bedingfield received a letter from Mary bidding him bring Elizabeth immediately to Hampton Court for the lying in. Bedingfield was beyond delight, he was ecstatic with joy to learn that his long purgatory as Elizabeth's keeper was to be ended.

  Elizabeth was equally happy but afraid, too. "What if, with the imminent birth of an undisputed heir, Mary decides to be rid of me," Elizabeth said looking from face to face as she, Denoriel, Harry, and Rhoslyn sat together in the parlor of Rhoslyn's new house. "Bedingfield was honest and truly tried to protect me. In Hampton Court . . . who knows? I might not be allowed to keep my own men about me. I could fall victim to an accident."

  "You have your tokens?" Denoriel asked anxiously. "I will set an air spirit to watch also. Your shields will protect you until I can make a Gate."

  Harry was shaking his head. "I am not worried about your physical safety. I am worried about what impression you will make on Philip. Bessie, listen. It is really important that he believe you a fool." As the words passed his lips, he shook his head sharply and bit his lip. "No, that will not do. Too many know you to be clever and, in any case, you would surely say or do something that would expose you."

  "Why should I act the fool?" Elizabeth asked resentfully. "This will be the first time many in the Court have seen me for almost a year. I do not want to seem to have lost my wits."

  "No, not a fool," Harry said, obviously not having paid the smallest attention to Elizabeth's angry protest. "Innocent. Yes. You must be innocent and ignorant of politics—more than ignorant, uninterested."

  "That I could do," Elizabeth said grudgingly. "I always pretended not to care about politics. But why, Da? Would Philip not be more interested in an ally who could help him?"

  "Philip does want protection from the populace of England. You know the people blame him for the burnings—"

  Elizabeth shuddered and Denoriel put an arm around her and hugged her. She leaned her head against his briefly. The cruelty of the death did not trouble her so much as the political disaster Mary was creating.

  "But more even than his own safety," Harry continued, "Philip wants the assurance of England's steady and unwavering alliance with the Empire. It was for that he married Mary. He wants to win your trust and confidence so that when you are queen you will lean on him as Mary leaned on his father."

  Elizabeth made a disgusted snort, and Harry looked at her with reproof.

  "No more cynical sniffs. For Philip to believe he has achieved that goal, you must play the admiring innocent. As long as you do, no harm will come to you while the life of Mary's babe is in doubt. Philip will be very tender of you, I am sure."

  "There is no babe," Rhoslyn said very softly, lifting her head from Harry's shoulder. "I looked in the black pool of ForeSeeing again—"

  "Rhoslyn!" Harry protested. "It is dangerous for you to go to Caer Mordwyn. What if Vidal should seize you? You must smell of the Bright Court now. You might be set upon and hurt."

  She shook her head. "Talog took me. She does not like the Dark domains, but she knew what was in my mind and would not let me go alone. I was safe." Her large, dark eyes glistened with tears. "There is no babe, nothing at all . . . nothing but Mary's so-passionate desire for a child that her body responded to it."

  Three pairs of eyes fixed on her in horrified disbelief. For a long moment no one spoke or moved.

  Then Elizabeth said, "Thank God." But as she spoke, her eyes also filled with tears."Oh, but poor Mary. My poor sister. Better there had been a babe and both died."

  Rhoslyn nodded sadly. "The shame will be terrible. I will need to go back to my service with her. I will be able to soothe her spirit a little, give her a little ease."

  "That is very good of you, Rhoslyn," Harry said. "It will not be a happy Court."

  "No, it will not."

  Vidal Dhu learned that Queen Mary would not bear a child almost at the same moment that Rhoslyn told Elizabeth, Denoriel, and Harry. While they sat in stunned amazement, Vidal erupted in rage. He sent an imp to drag Albertus Underhill, roaring loudly enough about what he would do to that false mortal that Aurilia heard him. She listened until the roaring of uncontrolled fury died into a peevish hissing, and then she slouched into Vidal's chamber.

  "I heard you," she said, smiling at him and sliding a hand down his arm as she seated herself on a stool by his side. "What has put you out of temper?"

  "Mary is barren!" he snarled. "I thought we were all set for an eon of rich misery from the mortal world. "The babe—"

  He stopped speaking abruptly, his mouth still formed for the following words, and then he said them, slowly, almost tasting each word.

  "The babe was to be invested with Evil."

  "Evil?" Aurilia repeated. "Where . . ."

  "Alhambra," Vidal said, almost absently.

  He now remembered fully the ruined domains, the mutilated and senselessly destroyed Dark creatures, and the carrier of that Evil, in whose feeble body It had stupidly imprisoned Itself. Now he remembered how he had trapped Dakari and his inhabitor. He remembered, too, how he had planned to use the Evil.

  Vidal caught his lower lip between his pointed teeth. How could he have forgotten? Surely his memory was not as faulty as it had been before enforced contemplation in the Unformed land of the silken bands had restored him? No, his memory was not at fault! It must have been that Evil, lashing out to muddle his thoughts before it was fully contained. Half-laughing, half-snarling Vidal felt the Thing had got what it deserved for meddling with him. It had been imprisoned for almost two years.

  Aurilia watched the expressions chase each other over Vidal's face in puzzled disbelief. "Alhambra," she repeated. "You sent Dakari with a witch and werewolf to clear Alhambra of the devices of the Bright Court. Are you telling me that Dakari was successful? That that pallid nothing captured the Evil?"

  Much calmed, and not about to admit to Aurilia that the Evil had muddled his mind, Vidal laughed. "It is a moot point who captured whom, but yes, Dakari and the Evil are now inextricably bound together. But it was I who captured them and held them."

  "How very wise," Aurilia said, looking admiring. "We do not need to loose the Evil now. Your chosen queen has provided enough misery to make us rich all on her own." Then she frowned. "Although there has been altogether too much good feeling since she got with child—"

  "Curse the woman,
she is not with child!" Vidal bellowed, his good humor disappearing. "It was my intention that the Evil be transferred into the child Mary was about to bear. It was to breed widely so that the Evil could be spread abroad and infect the entire country. We could have had an eon of hatred, murder, war . . . and that stupid bitch convinced herself and all around her that she was increasing so that my plan came to nothing. Wait. Wait until I get my hands on that lazy, stupid physician . . ."

  From the moment Vidal told her Mary's pregnancy was not real, Aurilia guessed Vidal intended to kill Albertus in the most prolonged and painful way he could. She did not intend to allow it. Albertus was hers. Not only did he make that blue, cloudy potion that soothed her so well, but he was so deliciously frustrated and terrified in her presence. She was not going to permit Vidal to destroy her toy. And when Albertus's usefulness was ended, she would drink the power that flowed from his dying. She tried to think of something soothing to say.