Giant's Daughter

by Jennifer Allis Provost

  “No. She wanted to stay with Maelgwyn, and Da seems fine with it.”

  “Interesting. Do you believe that?”

  “Not for a moment.” We parted, and walked down the corridor hand in hand. “I think we should visit your sister.”

  “What happened?”

  “Perhaps nothing, but Da mentioned the Wild Hunt. Have you ever heard of that?”

  “Only in folklore. Wait, we live in a fairy tale.”

  “That we do. Anyway, it should be happening soon, but there’s no Seelie King or Queen to lead it. I’d like to ask Robert what he thinks of the situation.”

  Christopher rolled his shoulders. “Think we can leave your siblings unsupervised for a few while we go visiting?”

  I gazed at the palace I’d only recently gotten to rights. “It should be fine. They probably won’t demolish the place in one day.”

  “Even if they do, we can always rebuild.”

  With that, we opened the door to Glasgow.

  Chapter Six

  Chris

  I OPENED THE DOOR AND held it while Anya went through ahead of me, then I stepped out of the Winter Palace and into Glasgow. Much like the door that led to Elphame, this was a way to leave the Winter Palace without needing to teleport. Since I was a mere mortal living amongst supernatural creatures, I appreciated this door a great deal. Unlike the door to Elphame, the door to Glasgow opened into a pub called Remy’s Place, and that made me appreciate it just a little bit more.

  And what a pub it was. In the recent past it had been a vacant bank right on Buchanan Street, and the new owners had preserved all of the fantastic Art Deco details. The building featured gorgeous leaded glass windows, highly polished woodwork on the walls and ceiling, and ornate columns that looked like they’d been designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh himself. The new owners even kept the old vault intact, though now it led to the bathrooms instead of a hoard of cash.

  Anya and I emerged from the back into the main room, which was awash in dancer and rainbow-colored stage lights. On the far side two patrons sang karaoke, badly, but the crowd didn’t seem to mind. I couldn’t wait to visit this place during Pride Month.

  I followed Anya through the crush of people and saw one of the owners, a bear of a man named Remy and the place’s namesake, behind the bar. I didn’t know if Remy was his real name. Hell, I didn’t even know if he was human, but every time he saw Anya and me he pulled out his best whisky and poured us two glasses, and refused our money. I wondered if the drinks were a modern Scot’s tribute to the Queen of Winter.

  “What’s on the agenda today?” Remy asked as we accepted our drinks.

  “Bit of visiting,” Anya replied. “Family, you know it is.”

  “I certainly do. Be well, both of you.” Remy tipped an imaginary hat, then he moved on to his other customers. We finished our drinks and walked out into the bright sunshine and crisp early winter air.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” I said. “Did you have anything to do with that?”

  A coy smile. “Perhaps.”

  After a leisurely walk through Glasgow we knocked on the flat’s door. Technically it was our home, but Rob, Rina, Faith, and Colleen had been staying there while they had work done on their house in Crail. As far as Anya and I were concerned they could stay in the flat for as long as they needed to.

  Rob opened the door and smiled. “Come in, both o’ ye.”

  “Good to see you.” We stepped into the main living area of the flat, and I took in the many changes Rob and Rina had made over the past few months. For starters, the place was packed full of baby equipment. “How’s Faith?”

  “As bonnie as lass as there ever was,” Rob replied with a grin. Fatherhood suited him much more than his prior life as Nicnevin’s assassin. “Karina is just finishing her bath and puttin’ her down for a nap. Karina love, Anya and Christopher are here,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Be right out,” she called back.

  We followed Rob into the living room. Anya trailed her fingertips across a stack of books on the coffee table. “Karina is still researching Norse traditions?”

  I glanced at the books. The titles were Nordic Traditions, Northern Magic, and Asatru for Beginners, and on the side table were several reference books about Norse folklore. This research binge had come about after Nicnevin mentioned that our mother had been a volva, a type of Icelandic witch gifted with foresight. Granted, Nicnevin was the queen of lies, but she’d been right about Mom. Now Karina thought she’d inherited some of Mom’s abilities, which made me wonder why Nicnevin had told us in the first place. That one never did or said anything except for her own personal gain.

  “She is, for all that I wish she’d leave it be,” Rob replied. “In my day witches of all sorts were persecuted. Sit, both o’ ye, and I’ll fetch some drinks. Tea, Anya?”

  “Please.” After we sat on the couch, Anya leaned close to me and said, “In all my days I never thought I’d have the gallowglass standing in my kitchen and making me a cup of tea.”

  “I heard that,” Rob said from the kitchen.

  “He hears everything,” Rina said, joining us from the nursery. “He probably hears Faith’s dreams.”

  “What do babies dream about?” I wondered.

  Rina shrugged. “Bottles?” She turned to Anya, and said. “So. Today was the day?”

  “It was, and it went perfectly,” Anya said. “Da and all of my brothers are free.”

  “That’s awesome,” Rina said. “Did your dad see Beira? And does he know about Maelgwyn?”

  “Yes, and yes,” Anya replied. “I took Da to the Unseelie Court, and he and Mum had a nice visit.”

  “You brought Bod to the Unseelie Court?” Rob asked as he set a teapot and cups on the table. He poured the tea, then he returned to the kitchen and brought out two mugs of coffee for myself and Rina. “It’s a wonder Elphame’s still standing.”

  “Angus, Bod’s eldest, is the bigger threat,” I said, then I sipped my coffee. When I raised my eyes three people were staring back at me. “What?”

  “My brother is not a threat,” Anya said.

  “But he is someone to watch,” I said. “You should have seen how interested he was in the Ninth Legion.”

  “Of course he was interested,” Anya said. “He was stuck in a hole for over two hundred years. After that anything is interesting.”

  I smiled. “True.”

  “What do you mean, your parents had a visit?” Rina asked, steering the conversation away from Angus, and my opinion of him. “Beira didn’t go home with Bod?”

  “She did not,” Anya said. “She has elected to stay with Maelgwyn, for now.”

  Rina and Rob gave each other a look. “I do hope Maelgwyn kens what he’s getting himself in to,” Rob said. “What with the Seelie throne vacant we can no’ have the Unseelie Court collapsin’ into chaos.”

  “That’s partly why we’re here,” Anya said. “Da mentioned the Wild Hunt. It’s coming up next month, correct?”

  “Aye, so it is,” Rob said. “Here I thought I’d never hear tell of it again, not since Karina rescued me from that life no’ once, but twice.” Rina smiled and leaned against his shoulder.

  “I actually rescued you three times,” she said.

  “The last time was no’ from Elphame.”

  “Still counts.”

  “Is the Wild Hunt really a parade of the soulless dead?” I asked.

  “Yes and no,” Rob replied. “Ye ken, no god can actually condemn a body to hell. Ye can be sent to one o’ the hells, I am living proof o’ that. But if an outside force sends ye, that means ye can always make your escape.”

  “Are you saying that some people send themselves to hell?”

  “Oh, most definitely some, and possibly every resident o’ the hells is theire ‘ their own doing. Guilt, shame, remorse... They’re all powerful emotions. If a person truly believes themselves to be beyond redeemin’, they will never move on as they should.”

 
; “Move on?” I repeated. “Move on to what, exactly?”

  “Ah, well. That’s another conversation entirely.” Rob set down his teacup. “As for the Wild Hunt, ‘tis a sad thing, really. Once every seven years Fionnlagh would set out on his stag, a beacon of light and hope if there ever was one. Those who’d damned themselves would see his light and assume their savior had at last come for them, but in reality Fionnlagh brought them to his court.” Rob paused, studying his fingernails. “Some said those souls became the fuath, but we ken better than that, now don’t we.”

  “I guess we do.” I leaned back and considered Rob’s tale of hells and redemptions. “What happens to these souls if no one rounds them up? Will they move on to wherever they’re supposed to be on their own?”

  “I suppose it’s a possibility,” Rob said.

  “I don’t think they do,” Anya said. “If they did, there would be no need to collect them. It’s not like Elphame has ever wanted for mortals; if anything too many mortals find their way underhill. No, there must be a reason why the Seelie desired these souls in the first place.”

  “Maybe Fionnlagh feeds them to the fuath,” Rina suggested.

  “Or Nicnevin,” I added. “Beira never collected souls?”

  Anya shook her head. “Never a one. Whatever would she do with them all?”

  Before any of us could speculate what a winter deity would do with a surplus of souls, Wyatt appeared in the center of the coffee table. “Mistress Anya, please forgive me but your father is doing something unwise!”

  Anya leapt to her feet. “What happened?”

  “He and your brothers found where the kegs of ale are stored, and after they tapped them—”

  “Where are they now?” Anya demanded.

  “They are at the Unseelie Court, singing ballads to Mistress Beira,” Wyatt replied. “The king is most displeased.” Wyatt glanced at Rob, and added, “While I do not presume to offer you advice, you may wish to bring the gallowglass.”

  Anya looked at the clock on the wall and threw her hands up in the air. “Twelve hours! He hasn’t been loose for twelve hours and already he’s drunk and causing a ruckus!”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “We can handle this.” I looked between Anya and Rob. “Can’t we?”

  “If they’re already drunk, most likely.” Rob kissed Rina’s cheek and stood, his armor materializing onto him as he did so. “Wyatt, please stay here with Karina. Come get me if I’m needed at home.”

  “Yes, Master Kirk.”

  “Be careful,” Rina said. “All of you.”

  “I feel like I should have a weapon,” I muttered.

  “I am weapon enough,” Anya said, then she teleported the three of us to the Unseelie Court.

  Chapter Seven

  Anya

  ROBERT, CHRISTOPHER, and I arrived on the plain below the Unseelie Court. From the look of things all was well, with the palace perched atop its crag as it always was, and the obsidian armored guards standing at proper attention in their proper places. For a moment I let myself breathe, and assumed Wyatt, nervous little creature that he was, had worried me for nothing.

  Then I heard the singing.

  “Och, that’s dreadful,” Robert said.

  “It’s like all the cats in the world are in heat at once,” Christopher added.

  “They certainly weren’t practicing their singing these past years,” I said, remembering the many drunken concerts my brothers had subjected me to as a wee bairn. I raised my chin and set my shoulders. “Let’s round them up before they do something awful.”

  “This singing is awful enough,” Christopher said, covering his ears with his hands. “Are you immune to it?”

  Someone hit a particularly high note, so high I could feel the sound vibrate my molars and cut through my brain. “No.”

  I ascended the narrow steps up the mountainside and into the palace, Christopher and Robert following close behind me. I could have blinked us right into the thick of it, but I needed a few moments before I was confronted with my family’s latest indiscretion. Twelve hours. Da and the rest couldn’t even wait a full day before they were back to their old tricks. My gut instinct was to scream at the lot of them until they decided to behave themselves, but that was something the old Anya would have done.

  I am the Queen of Winter now, and I needed to handle these matters accordingly.

  The guards opened the front doors, and the full volume of the screeching hit me like a massive wall of sound. “Angus, I’ll have your hide for this,” I yelled, decorum be damned. As if I could ever embarrass myself more than this lot already had.

  “You think this is Angus’s fault?” Christopher asked. The singing paused, and for the barest moment I hoped they’d all passed out—then they started up again, this time a lament about a woman mourning her lover, who was long ago lost at sea.

  “I certainly don’t think he’s innocent.” I looked at Christopher, noted his pensive face. “You were right, earlier. Angus is the one to watch.”

  He nodded. “Then we’ll watch him.”

  “After we silence him,” Robert added.

  We followed my brothers’ off-key voices as they echoed along the corridors. The throne room was vacant, save for a few terrified servants. I wondered if any of them had been with Maelgwyn since his time as the Summer King, and if they remembered when Da had burst into the Summer Court and effectively destroyed it. Those poor souls must wonder if Da had returned to finish the job, and brought his sons along for good measure.

  A footman caught sight of me and cringed, then he whispered to his companion that I was the Bodach’s daughter. Some did remember, then.

  “I’m not a threat to you and yours,” I said to the footman. He turned white as a sheet. I shouldn’t have said anything, since I had more pressing matters to deal with than a few nervous men. “I’m not the Bodach’s daughter, not really, but he raised me all the same. I am going to him now, and I am going to fix this. No one will be harmed by him or the boys, on that you have my word.”

  “We thought you were Maelgwyn’s child,” the less terrified of the two sputtered, much to the footman’s horror.

  “Can I not be both?”

  I turned away from the men and continued on toward the wailing, all the while thinking about what I’d said. Could I be the Summer King’s child, a giant’s daughter, and the Winter Queen? Were the parts of me so incompatible that I must choose one aspect of my nature and ignore the rest? And what of Da, was there still room for him in my life?

  “What is that saying about parts and sums?” I asked Christopher.

  “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” He paused, and asked, “Are you saying we need to divide and conquer your brothers?”

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking, but it is an excellent idea.”

  At last we reached the royal apartment’s antechamber, and I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry. My brothers were spread about the area, as were mugs of ale and flagons of whisky, some fuller than others. Many of the boys were passed out cold while those that remained bellowed half-forgotten lyrics at the top of their lungs.

  Gods below. It had only taken a handful of them to generate this soul-numbing wail. I must ask Sarmi to make the next batch of ale stronger, or perhaps she should add a sleeping draught to casks.

  In the center of the noise and chaos stood a much harried Maelgwyn.

  “Anya, I am so glad you’re here,” he said when he saw me.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind, but I brought reinforcements.”

  Maelgwyn nodded toward Robert and Christopher. “A wise choice. Normally I don’t have such difficulties with drunkards and merely have them tossed out of the palace, but I though your brothers might be in need of a softer touch.”

  “And Da?” I asked, since certainly no one thought the Bodach needed anything soft.

  Maelgwyn grimaced. “He is inside my private chambers, pleading his cau
se to Beira.”

  “Gods below,” I muttered, then I turned to Christopher and Robert. “Could the two of you see to the boys? I’ll handle Da.”

  Christopher cracked his knuckles. “Sure. It’ll be just like when I was a resident advisor in college and broke up dorm parties.”

  Robert drew his sword. “University has changed much since I was a student.”

  “Is the sword really necessary?”

  “We’ll see.”

  I left them to it, and approached the closed chamber door. I debated opening it, but one of my brothers may take the opportunity to rush inside, thus further complicating the situation. Closing my eyes against whatever mess I may find within, I blinked past the door.

  Once inside, I cracked a single eyelid. The room was quite jumbled up, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. I saw the library door abruptly close, but that wasn’t where Da was. My da wasn’t a man to avoid being noticed. If anything, he reveled in the attention.

  “Da?”

  “Is that my best lass?” he replied, then he started mumbling about families and obligations. I followed the sound of Da’s voice and found him sprawled across the bed, soaked in ale and tears.

  I sat next to him, and for all that I’d been furious a moment ago, seeing him in such a wretched state made my heart ache. “I see you found where we keep the ale.”

  “I built that alehouse,” Da mumbled. “Built it with my own two hands, I did, back when the Winter Palace was naught but a twinkle in your mother’s eye.”

  “Where did you live before the palace was built?” I asked, even though I’d heard the story a hundred times before.

  “Why, on Beinn na Caillich,” Da replied. “Times past it served as your mother’s throne, so high up the mountain she was crowned with clouds.” Da opened his bleary, bloodshot eyes. “I miss her something terrible.”

  “I believe you,” I said. I cast my gaze around the room, and saw the library door open up a crack, and a flash of movement beyond. “Is that why you came back here, to see her again?”