Rowankind (3 Book Series)

by Jacey Bedford

  “Magic,” the king said.

  “Very astute, Majesty,” I said. “Please allow me to introduce David, who is Fae, though not very fairy-like, I’m afraid.”

  David gave the king a wicked grin and didn’t try to hide his heritage under a human glamour. I was sure Larien would give us hell for exposing David to the king, but we needed an advantage.

  “Tell your man you’ll undress yourself today,” David said.

  “I will do no such thing. I am the king and—”

  “All right, I’ll do it,” David said.

  “I can climb in through the window, Majesty,” the king’s man said.

  “No, fetch a locksmith, I’ll wait.” David’s impersonation was rather good. When I turned from the door, I saw the reason the king had not cried out again was a magical gag.

  I searched my little brother’s face. He’d never liked violence and I could see that he was unusually pale.

  “Let me watch him,” I said. “You do what you have to do to open the gate.”

  He nodded.

  I indicated the king should sit on the bench. “I know it’s hard to believe, Majesty, but we really don’t wish you any harm. On the other hand, we have to protect ourselves from your people.”

  The king grunted deep in his throat but wisely didn’t try to speak.

  Creating a gate wasn’t flashy magic, but as David faced the door which gave the king egress to the sea, he placed his palm on the wood and a green shoot sprang forth. He placed his other hand just so, and a second shoot sprang up from it. Where his feet were, grass grew, fresh and green.

  David let the magical gag fall away.

  The king neither moved nor spoke. Where David’s hand hovered over the bench a tiny, perfect woodland orchid grew. The king touched a finger to its drooping head.

  “What illusion is this?”

  “No illusion, Your Majesty,” David said. “Welcome to Iaru.”

  He pushed open the door at the front of the machine. It should have led out onto a platform about three feet high, from which the king could lower himself to his dipping ladies, but now it was on a level with a grassy path and all around were the stately trunks of trees in the full leaf of summer.

  27

  Kingnapping

  THE KING STOOD, mouth slightly agape, and stepped to the doorway. David skipped out, his face a mask of relief.

  “After you, Majesty,” I said.

  The king took two cautious steps forward, feeling with his foot for the edge of the platform in case it was illusion and the chilly waters of Weymouth Bay were waiting to claim him. When he realized the ground was real, he followed David along the grassy path, and I followed him.

  “What is this place?”

  “Iaru,” I said. “Home of the Fae. Some call it Orbisalius.”

  “The other world. How can that be?”

  “It exists in the same space, but entirely separate from our world. There are places where the two worlds overlap, and that’s where it’s possible to cross from one to the other.”

  “How did we get here?”

  “David made a gate. If you go out of the door you entered by, you’ll be back on Weymouth beach, and, indeed, I promise we will deliver you back safely once you’ve listened to what we have to say.”

  “More threats. Where’s the other?”

  “Not here, today. David’s here, instead. We need to persuade you that this threat is real, Majesty, but it’s not a human threat. All I’m doing—all I was trying to do when we approached you in Windsor—was to tell you the Fae take their responsibility to the rowankind seriously. Many of the rowankind have returned to Iaru, but those who have stayed behind need your help. The hangings and abductions are still happening. The Mysterium cites grounds that the rowankind are using magic.”

  “The Mysterium has my utmost confidence.”

  “It shouldn’t have. In this, the officers are wrong. The rowankind aren’t using magic, they are magic, just as their ancestors were when Martyn the Summoner called them forth from Iaru. Is it right to kill people for what they are rather than what they do?”

  He looked as if he was going to cut me off.

  I decided to try another tack. I conjured a witchlight, a softly glowing ball in the palm of my hand. “Here, Majesty, hold this.”

  I held it out.

  “Me?”

  I put my head on one side and waited.

  The king reached out and touched his index finger to the light and then jerked it back again. “It’s not hot. I expected—”

  “It won’t burn you.”

  He held out his hand, palm upward, and I tipped the witchlight into it. It rolled into the center of his palm and sat there.

  “Now, Majesty, you make one in your other hand.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. Imagine it comes from the core of your being. Take the light inside you and mentally make a ball, like making a snowball. Pat it into a round shape, but without using your hands. When you have the shape in your mind, imagine it’s a ball of light. Let it surface from your core, up to your shoulder and down your arm to the palm of your hand.”

  And there it was, a tiny glowing ball, no bigger than a pearl. I let my light fade.

  “You couldn’t do that if you didn’t have magic, Majesty. That’s proof if you needed it. Would it be right if someone decided you should die for what you are rather than what you do?”

  “I can’t. I truly can’t.” He closed his hand on the pearl, and his own light died. “Do you know what would happen if the king admitted he had magic? What an uproar there would be in Parliament. Maybe riots in the streets. I can’t even begin to think what would happen to the country.”

  “Magic is no great and terrible thing.”

  “Yes, it is. It’s great and terrible beyond all reckoning. The king must be above all reproach. The best of men. The best of kings.”

  “And can’t you be the best of men if you have magic?”

  “The Mysterium—”

  “Was created because Good Queen Bess saw what the rowankind magic did to the Spanish Armada and feared that same magic could also be wielded against her. It was a reaction born of fear. Her spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, was charged to make sure rowankind magic was never wielded again, and he began to hunt down Martyn the Summoner, who first called forth the rowankind magic. But the Summoner was in hiding, and all his family with him. That didn’t stop Walsingham, and all the many successors who inherited his name and his position, from hunting my family down the generations.”

  “Your family?”

  “I’m the last of Martyn the Summoner’s direct line.” I didn’t tell him there might be a new generation soon, or that I’d been the one to return magic to the rowankind. “I put it to you that the Mysterium was created not only to suppress magic, but to make use of the magic they could control.”

  He didn’t deny it. He cleared his throat. “When I first came to the throne, Newcastle led the government. Untrustworthy sort. Never liked him.” He shook his head. “But he did me one service, and that was to introduce me to Walsingham and to tell me about the Armada, and the rowankind. It was my duty from then on, to make sure my first ministers knew the whole story, for if I were to die suddenly, or . . . or to lose my reason, the minister’s duty would be to pass on the information to my successor.”

  “You haven’t told the Prince of Wales yourself?”

  “Good heavens, no. That’s not how it’s done. Besides . . .” He shrugged. It was an open secret that the king did not get on with his firstborn. “Where was I? Ah . . . Walsingham. There have been three Walsinghams in my reign. Eleven years into my reign my first Walsingham died for his country. The next presented himself to me—a young man with a pockmarked face, who barely looked stout enough to take on the duty. But he served me for thirty year
s and then disappeared, presumed dead.” He shook his head in sorrow. “A new Walsingham came to me. I probably shouldn’t have appointed him head of the Mysterium as well, but it was his suggestion. A thruster of a man. It made him a bit too visible. Always best to let the Walsinghams work in the shadows. If he had, he might not have died.”

  “Did you know he used dark magic? Spells, that is.”

  “I’ve never inquired about any of the Walsinghams’ magical leanings. Better not to ask, you know. They have always had a free hand to do whatever was needed to fight against magic dangerous to the realm.”

  “Do I look like a danger to the realm?”

  “Well, you have kidnapped your monarch.”

  “Fair point. You were telling me about Walsingham.”

  “Yes, by God, the Walsingham I thought dead reappeared after his successor had been appointed. A wreck of a man, but still alive. Couldn’t reinstate him, of course—there’s only ever one Walsingham at a time—so I appointed him as a special adviser. I swear the man has nine lives. Captured by the French after that, but now he’s back again.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Surely he has retired with such dreadful injuries.”

  “You know about his injuries?”

  I backtracked quickly. “You said he was a wreck of a man.”

  “So I did.” The king frowned as if trying to remember exactly what he had said. “No, he’s too useful to let him go, though he has a man to help him get about. His eyes, you know.”

  I did know.

  Walsingham had lost half an arm and was blind. The king obviously regarded his knowledge highly or he would have been pensioned off.

  “You made him your Walsingham again.”

  “He gave me thirty years’ service, I owed him that much. Had he wanted to retire, I would have allowed it, but he didn’t.”

  I knew why. Walsingham had a personal grudge to settle—against me and mine.

  “When he returned, I quizzed him about your Fae,” the king said.

  “You took notice of what we told you at Windsor?”

  “Young lady, I wouldn’t be much of a monarch if I ignored threats to the realm. Walsingham assured me that Fae magic had faded from the world.”

  “Did he? Then how do you explain Iaru?” I spread my arms wide to indicate the canopy of trees and the balmy summer breezes.

  “A potent illusion, I must admit.”

  “It’s no illusion.” David spoke for the first time. He’d let the glamour drop that enabled him to walk around Weymouth like any human, and now he positively glowed.

  The king turned to him and narrowed his eyes.

  David continued. “The Fae Council of Seven has resolved to protect the rowankind still living in Great Britain.” David didn’t use the king’s title but spoke to him as an equal. “Walsingham is wrong about the Fae and about magic. We have not interfered in the matters of men for millennia.” He sounded like his father. I suspected he was drawing on Larien in a way I couldn’t begin to perceive. It was as if Larien spoke through David’s mouth.

  “That was why, when the queen asked for our help against the Armada, we refused. We thought the matter closed, but we should have been more watchful. Martyn the Summoner drew the rowankind, our helpmeets and soulmates from Iaru and sucked the very magic from their bones. We did our best to help them, knowing it would be cruel to return them to Iaru as empty shells. We looked to the Summoner and his family to provide the solution and return the stolen magic.”

  David was even beginning to look like Larien. He had the same haughty delivery. “Time is not the same for us as it is for you. We live a long time. Our elders were living here in Iaru before your Christ walked the earth. Two hundred years was as the blink of an eye before the Summoner’s descendants returned the stolen magic. But we have a duty to protect all the rowankind, even the ones who have chosen not to return to Iaru. We made them from the trees in the forest and our own essence. They are of us.”

  David shook himself as if awaking from a trance. I raised one eyebrow at him and he cleared his throat, sounding more like himself again. “Dantin, my uncle, lost someone he cared about when the rowankind were stolen away. He has no great love of humans, and he has a loud voice on the council. If you can’t change your laws to protect the rowankind, he—and the council—will demonstrate that it’s unwise to go against the Fae.”

  “Your Majesty, you need to take this seriously,” I said. “The Fae are powerful. They could reduce London to a smoking ruin as a demonstration of their powers.”

  “They wouldn’t dare.”

  “I think you’ll find we would,” David said. “Though there are some of us who would rather not. We don’t want to make our presence known, but we will if we have to, and I guarantee you won’t like it.”

  “Majesty, you should return to the bathing machine now,” I said. “Talk to Mr. Addington. Persuade him to bring a bill before Parliament to protect the rowankind. That’s all the Fae ask. For myself and for all the magicals in the realm, I ask that you include us in the bill. Think of your family. You have magic. It’s likely that some of your children have magic, and it will pass down through the generations. Protect them as well. We will meet again, and when we do, the progress you have made will determine what happens next. Let’s say six weeks from today, the eighth day of June in Richmond Park, but, please, no traps this time.”

  I guided the king back toward the open door and into the bathing machine.

  “It’s been an honor to meet you, Your Majesty.” I curtseyed formally. “Please know my magic is at your service and . . . ”

  “Yes?”

  “Your own magic—if you continue to deny it, it could harm you. Your illness could have been caused by fighting it.”

  “You think magic will drive me mad?”

  “I think it might harm your health if it doesn’t have an outlet.”

  “What will be, will be. The king does not use magic.”

  I couldn’t argue. It was his decision, but at least, now, he knew.

  I opened the door to the bathing machine. The inside had sprouted vegetation like a glasshouse. It draped from the ceiling, crawled across the floor, and twined up the walls. Blossoms abounded. One of the vines bore grapes, and another branch offered ripe cherries.

  The king touched a leaf on his way in. “I should talk to your Fae about farming,” he said. “We’ve had too many poor harvests in the last few years. The people have gone hungry, and that’s never a good thing.”

  I closed the door behind him and heard the other door open and voices expressing relief to find him well and in good spirits, and amazement at the small jungle that someone had obviously taken great pains to decorate the bathing machine with. One asked if he should clear it all away, but as the voices faded, I heard the king say, “No, leave it. I like it.”

  28

  Plymouth

  DAVID AND I waited where we were. I reached out with my summoning sense and drew Corwen in the right direction. Three sets of hooves on the track announced his arrival.

  I felt a rush of relief. No bullet holes this time.

  “Did you get away from the dangerous hounds?” I grinned at him.

  “They had no great liking for the sea, and when I changed back to a man in the waves, they got very confused. I felt sorry for them. How did you get on with the king?”

  “He seemed less antagonistic. I think Iaru stunned him. I gave him a deadline—six weeks, in Richmond Park. It’s up to him now.”

  “He’ll have a hard time convincing his Parliamentarians.”

  “If he doesn’t, the Fae will.”

  David went still for a moment as if listening. “My father says he has news for you, from the Caribbean.”

  “The book?”

  “It seems likely.”

  We quickly mounted up and followed David to th
e grove where Larien was waiting. I flung myself down from Dancer. “Have you news of the book?”

  “Not directly,” Larien said. “But there’s evidence someone is using spell-magic.”

  “Where?”

  “The Dark Islands, centered upon Auvienne.”

  Gentleman Jim’s headquarters. I put two and two together. “Is Nicholas Thompson involved?”

  “I can’t say. Auvienne is a small island. There are no resident Fae.”

  “Thank you, Larien. Do you give me your word you’ll not move against the king before the six-week deadline we’ve given him?”

  “I doubt I can hold off Dantin and his followers any longer than that. You have six weeks. Don’t be late.”

  “We’ve done all we can,” I said when we were safely back in the Okewood once more. “We have six clear weeks to look for Walsingham’s notebook.”

  “Is six weeks enough to get to the far side of the Atlantic and back again?”

  “It is when there’s a weather witch on board ship.” I grinned at him. “The Heart’s off the south coast. I can call her to Plymouth.”

  “You’re a wanted woman in Plymouth.”

  “So I am, but you didn’t say that to me when you wanted my lockpicking skills in the Citadel. Besides, your illusions have proved very effective.”

  “If brief.” He shrugged. “We’ll get some sleep and ride at first light.”

  I wanted to be off immediately, but it made sense to wait until morning.

  * * *

  As we were preparing to ride to Plymouth in the half-light of dawn, Annie appeared in the grove, clutching a bundle to her chest. I looked around for David, but she was on her own.

  “Going somewhere?” I asked.

  “Back to Plymouth,” Annie said. “Anyplace where she’s not.”

  “Has Calantha been bothering you?”

  She was about to answer when David hurtled into the grove at a run, causing Timpani and Dancer to throw up their heads in alarm.

  “Annie.” He sounded out of breath, which was unusual for a Fae. It might have been more distress than exertion.