In Ashes Lie

by Marie Brennan

  The guards let the sprite through into Lord Antony’s chamber. The furnishings had been ravaged during the occupation; the hobs of the court had swept out the detritus and brought in a new bed, but it was still one of the only furnishings in the room.

  The bed, and the chair beside it, where Lune sat like an alabaster statue. “I beg your pardon,” Irrith said softly, regretting the interruption, “but Lady Feidelm sent me with word.”

  One slender finger lifted, indicating she should continue.

  “She has word from Temair. They found the sword—the Claíomh Solais—and King Conchobar is in a great deal of trouble for it.” Feidelm had used an earthier phrase, but the fine manners of this court were beginning to curb Irrith’s tongue.

  Besides, vulgarity seemed out of place in this room. The Prince of the Stone lay unmoving beneath the coverlet, as he had for the last week. Breathing was the only motion Irrith had seen from him in all that time, and even that was barely discernible. He might as well have been dead.

  Nearly everyone behaved as if he already was. The courtiers arrayed themselves into complicated factions, and several groups were grooming candidates for Lord Antony’s successor, mostly from the mortals who participated in the battle.

  Lune spoke, and it took Irrith a moment to realize she was not responding to Feidelm’s news. “I do not know what to do for him.”

  Irrith blinked. Conchobar—no, Antony. What response could she make to that? “Age happens. Mortals tire of life. Their flesh breaks down.”

  “It is more than age.” Lune moved at last, leaning forward to straighten the pristine counterpane over the Prince’s body. “Neither of us had ever called on the Onyx Hall so intensely. It has drained him, as it drained me.”

  But the Queen was an immortal faerie, and could survive what killed a human—especially an old one. She doesn’t want to admit that she must let him go. “Perhaps...” Irrith began hesitantly. How to make it clear—without being unforgivably rude? “Perhaps what he needs is to be among his own kind. Away from all of this.”

  It would no doubt kill him, but that would be kinder than this living death. And Lune’s eyes widened, as if Irrith had lit a candle in the dark room of her thoughts.

  “He is lost,” she whispered, hands hovering in the air. Then she stood in one swift motion, showing more vitality than Irrith had seen in her since the invasion. “Go find the Goodemeades. They will know where Antony’s wife is. Have someone bring her to London—we’ll move Antony to his house.” Lune dismissed those words with a sharp cut of her hand. “No, his house is gone. We will arrange for another. But find Lady Ware.”

  ST. MARTIN’S LANE, LONDON: August 10, 1659

  Jack Ellin reached for Sir Antony’s wrist, less out of need than a desire to be doing something. The unsmiling woman who lived in this house had forbidden him to feed the unconscious baronet any medications; she was sterner than Lady Ware.

  He did not actually believe she lived here. Anne Montrose, as she called herself, didn’t show any of the comfortable familiarity that characterized a woman in her home. But Jack was familiar enough with conspiracy not to question it. The woman wanted Sir Antony to recover—despite her orders regarding his treatment—and that was enough to make her Jack’s friend for now.

  Mistress Montrose stood sentinel in the corner, hands clasped across the hard front of her bodice. Her steady, gray-eyed gaze made Jack uncomfortable: another reason to attend to Sir Antony. He picked up a basin, wet a cloth, and used it to dribble more water into the man’s mouth. How long he had been in this coma was another thing no one would tell him, along with how the baronet came to be in this condition to begin with.

  Footfalls on the staircase, the frantic steps of a woman who couldn’t clear her skirts enough to take them two at a time, as a man would. Jack rose from his chair just in time to get out of Lady Ware’s way.

  She drank in the sight for long moments, while Jack held his peace. He’d endured enough letters from her over the last few weeks, demanding to know where her husband was, that he understood how much it meant for her merely to see him. Only when that need was filled did she begin to see, to take in the slack limbs, the gray-tinged skin, the dry, cracked lips.

  Then, right on cue, came the anger.

  She whirled on Jack first. “What has happened to him?”

  He nodded at Mistress Montrose. I would lay odds Lady Ware did not even notice her. “This good woman brought him to me, as you see him now.”

  After dealing with that uncommunicative presence for the last day, Jack took a certain pleasure in unleashing Antony’s wife on her. “What have you done to him?”

  Katherine Ware needed no watching, except insofar as she might employ her claws; Jack kept his attention on the stranger. He therefore caught the brief tightening about her eyes. Guilt? I do believe so.

  It went no further than that fleeting sign, though. Mistress Montrose answered, in a quiet, unremarkable tone that nonetheless checked the lady’s incipient harangue. “If you act quickly, you may yet be able to gain the answers you seek from your husband. I sent for you, Lady Ware, because Antony needs you. Indeed, you may be the only one who can help him.”

  Which piqued Jack’s curiosity enough that he almost overlooked her unadorned use of Sir Antony’s Christian name. Physicking now; questions later. “I don’t know what ails him,” he admitted, coming forward a step. “He’s been weakening for as long as I have known him; now, his body seems stronger, and yet...”

  “His mind is lost, I fear.” Mistress Montrose also left her post, holding up one delicate hand to forestall Katherine Ware’s frightened response. “I do not mean madness. I mean that he has gone far away, and what it needs is for someone to call him back. This is something no physician can do for him. You have been the foundation of his life, the means by which he keeps himself grounded in this world; you, I believe, have the capacity to bring him back to himself.”

  Katherine looked unwillingly down at the motionless body on the bed, as if she could scarcely believe it belonged to a living man. “How?”

  The other woman shook her head. “I do not know. Your instincts, not mine, must guide us now.”

  Lady Ware’s hand descended slowly, then took Sir Antony’s limp fingers into her own. Her other hand clutched the air behind her until Jack realized she was reaching for the chair; he pushed it forward, and she sank down beside the bed. “Antony,” she whispered, hesitant but determined, “I am here.”

  They withdrew from the room, granting the two some privacy. Jack looked in from time to time, bringing wine to wet Katherine’s throat when her voice began to flag. But he was not above discreet eavesdropping, and through the door he heard her speaking of anything that came to hand, from their children to politics. This world, Mistress Montrose had said. Another wife might have read to Sir Antony from the Bible, but they did not want him thinking of God and Heaven—not if the goal was to keep him here. It was not, perhaps, the best course of action for his soul, but Jack didn’t fault her tactics.

  Except they produced no change. Sir Antony’s body lived, but his spirit might as well have departed it for another realm. Jack was there when Katherine looked up at their hostess and said, ragged and despairing, “I do not think he hears me.”

  The gray eyes regarded her, and Jack was more sure than ever that they hid a wealth of thought and feeling. Who was this woman, to whom Antony was important enough to save—and yet Jack had never heard her name? He understood that the baronet had other allies, but he couldn’t fit this one into any position he knew, and that bothered him.

  As did the words she spoke at last. “He must be called by a human voice. What distinguishes humanity from the soulless beasts of the field?”

  “Love,” Kate whispered. “But I have said it a dozen times, and he does not hear.”

  “Then don’t say it,” Jack said. A strange, unspoken communion of urgency breathed among the three of them, in this candlelit room, with the noise of the St. Martin’s
Lane tenements distant and faint. We all want him back. We refuse to lose him in such fashion.

  He knelt at the side of the bed, taking Antony’s other hand. Discarding the delicate touch of before, he gripped the unresisting fingers, hard enough to feel the bones beneath. A friend may love, as well. Capturing Kate’s gaze, he said, “Speak to him by means other than words.”

  Understanding sparked. Bending over her husband, Kate took his face in her hands, cupping the line of his jaw, brushing his thinning hair back with one gentle thumb. The devotion in her eyes was uncomfortable to see; such things were meant for private display alone. Jack felt like an unwelcome spy. But he held fast to Antony’s hand, and stayed as Kate lowered her head and kissed her sleeping husband.

  Time might have stopped. Or perhaps it was only Jack’s breathing, held tight in his chest, for fear of shattering something fragile. Kate pulled back at last, and whispered her husband’s name.

  Antony’s eyes fluttered open.

  His pupils were wide and drowning, his gaze unfocused. Then it sharpened, and Antony seemed to be looking past the two of them, to the figure that stood at the foot of his bed.

  But when Jack turned to see, Mistress Montrose had vanished.

  ST. MARTIN’S LANE, LONDON: August 11, 1659

  Kate held her peace while Jack Ellin fed Antony beef broth, while he rose and walked a shaking circuit of the room, while he drifted into the embrace of true sleep, restorative as his previous stupor had not been.

  But when he woke in the small hours before dawn, she still sat in the chair, and in the light of the one candle he saw the questions she had suppressed for so many years.

  His wife, noticing he was awake, poured him a cup of wine and helped him drink. Red wine and beef broth—meat as soon as he could manage it—for Jack had told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to strengthen his blood. At least he was spared any foul-tasting potions.

  When he was done, Kate set the cup aside and asked, very controlled, “Who is she?”

  “A friend,” Antony said. What else can I call her, that will not open a Pandora’s box of trouble? Once he had been certain that God had placed the fae in the world to show humanity what they might be, without their immortal souls and the salvation of Christ. Capable of both great good and great evil, but lacking a guiding star by which to steer their choices. That certainty, like so many others, was long gone. And in its absence, he did not honestly know if he could explain his association, to Kate or anyone else, in a fashion that would render it into sense.

  Kate’s expression hid in the shadows of her face, fragmented and unreadable. “How long have you...known her?”

  The brief but telling hesitation wounded him. “She and I have served the same cause for years. Since before the wars.” A dangerous admission; the face Lune had showed here was young. But Antony was loathe to tangle himself in more lies.

  “And what cause is that?”

  Antony flinched. What could he tell her, to ease the pain she held behind those walls? “Kate...” He reached out and took her hands. “The Sealed Knot serves Charles abroad. They operate in secrecy, working underhand to achieve a restoration of stability for this land, and it is not for those who aid it to speak openly to others. The woman who was here...she is part of another group, one that has existed longer, and for a simpler purpose: the well-being of England. When Charles declared his personal rule, they worked for the calling of a new Parliament. When Parliament arrogated royal authority for itself, they struggled to restore the ancient balance. And now that the Army stands over England with a naked blade, they do as we do: they seek the sanity this land has lost.”

  His fingers tightened on hers. “And I swear to you, in the name of the Lord God and His most holy Son, that she does not hold my heart—nor I hers. You are the only one for me, Kate, and I have ever been your faithful husband.”

  Her chin hardened, a sure sign that she strove to keep her lips from trembling. “Faithful to me in body—perhaps even in heart. But this woman, this Mistress Montrose...you have given her a piece of yourself withheld from me. I have not even been permitted to know it was gone.”

  He had known it for years: Kate hated secrets above all. By keeping this one, he had betrayed her trust.

  All he could offer her now was his own truth, simple and insufficient as it was. “I am sorry.”

  She stared at him, and then the hardened jaw gave way; Kate buried her face in his shoulder, tears soaking through his linen shirt to chill the skin below. Antony held her close, laid his lips on the kiss-curls at the back of her neck. Forgive me, Kate.

  He would not say it. Forgiveness was not his to ask.

  “I almost lost you,” she whispered.

  His arms tightened around her shaking body. “I know. I—I fought so hard for my cause that I almost lost hold of my purpose, my reasons for fighting. I was so tired...it would have been easier to let go.”

  She came up, then, and gripped him hard. “Do not say that. If it is rest you need, then you shall have it—if I must carry you out of England to find it.”

  How long had it been since he laughed? Kate knew as well as he that such exile would be the end of him, not because of the Onyx Hall, but because he could not abandon London. But he believed with all his heart that she would throw him over one shoulder and drag him bodily onto a ship if she thought it necessary. His Kate was a fierce one.

  “I love you,” he said, tucking an errant strand of her hair behind her ear.

  “And I you,” she replied.

  She did not need to say she forgave him. The message was there, unspoken. And with that, Antony could truly rest.

  THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: August 13, 1659

  From Lune’s elevation on the dais, the greater presence chamber was a sorry sight. The rubble of the ceiling lay in piles beneath the arcaded galleries along the sides, and raw earth showed above. The intricately laid patterns of the floor were cracked almost into gravel, and stained with Sir Kentigern’s blood.

  Nor was the damage confined here. Bedchambers had been ransacked, and gardens despoiled. The obelisk in the night garden was shattered, the apple trees burnt—but some force in the Onyx Hall, still loyal to its former master, held firm; the soil had refused to yield up Michael Deven’s bones to desecrating hands. That one salvation, amidst all the destruction, reduced Lune to tears.

  They came so close to destroying it.

  Not just his grave, and not just the palace. With the help of her allies, she had saved the Onyx Hall—but what of the Onyx Court?

  The battered, broken remnants of that stood before her as well. Looking out over them, Lune could not delude herself into thinking she had won some great victory. At best, she had regained the ground she held ten years ago: mistress of her realm, still threatened by enemies without. But along the way she had lost friends, power, and the Kingdom of England itself.

  Vidar had escaped. Nicneven sat untouched in Fife. Conchobar was in check, facing the wrath of Temair, but that was small consolation for the wounds inflicted on this court. Her people were fragmented now, divided from one another, no longer the unbroken fabric she had once believed them to be.

  But that had always been an illusion. Traitors lived all this time amongst them, and their betrayal had torn rents that would be years in the mending.

  Their common purpose had united them long enough to retake the palace. But it did not make them whole.

  What can?

  “Stand,” Lune said, and her voice carried like a bell.

  Her subjects rose. There, the surviving remnant of the loyal Onyx Guard, under Sir Peregrin Thorne’s command. Clustered around one of the fractured pillars, the Berkshire fae. A glowering clump of goblins, Bonecruncher’s followers—she would have to watch them carefully. They had tasted blood, and wanted more.

  Lune curled her fingers around the arms of her throne and spoke. “We shall address three matters today.

  “First: the succession of the Prince of the Stone.” Severa
l fae shifted at her words; a few had the temerity to look eager. Lune wielded her contempt like a whip. “Those who have eagerly anticipated Lord Antony’s death shall be disappointed to hear that he yet lives. Let me make myself clear: those carrion crows who think to profit when he passes shall find no favor in this court. The Prince is no pawn to be manipulated by those seeking advantage. When the time comes for a successor, he and I will choose that man ourselves—or I alone, should he be gone. None other.”

  Some looked abashed. Not all. They would continue to place humans in her path, hoping one would catch her eye. The prospect curdled her stomach. She was determined to take none of their candidates, when the time came.

  How soon that would be depended on Antony.

  “Second,” Lune said, when the last whispering echo had faded from the chamber. “We shall hear a plea from the traitor Prigurd Nellt.”

  The doors were still warped and unusable. Prigurd simply appeared in the opening, flanked by Bonecruncher and an escort of tough goblins. She had to send them; the Onyx Guard, betrayed almost as badly as Lune herself, might have chosen to expiate their failure by murdering its architect.

  The giant advanced slowly, hobbled by rowan-wood chains that gave him barely enough freedom to shuffle his feet. No strength could break those chains, not even his. They were one of the less pleasant objects Vidar had brought out from the treasury for his own use—things Lune had ignored for years, to her detriment.

  When he fell to his knees, the graceless impact shook the floor.

  Lune gazed pitilessly down upon his head. “You are a condemned traitor to your Queen. For years, you worked to undermine the Onyx Guard by bringing in disloyal knights at the behest of your exiled brother Kentigern. Your betrayal led to the deaths of our loyal subjects, both mortal and fae.” Of this, everyone was aware; but the litany of his sins stoked their anger, against the pitiful sight of his bowed shoulders. “Why should we grant you mercy?”

  His voice was a broken rumble, audibly wracked with guilt. “Your Majesty—I helped you escape.”