Ill Met by Moonlight

by Mercedes Lackey

  This time it was his knowledge that she must not be pandered to over languages that saved him; she would need to be faultlessly fluent if she came to rule. So he appealed to her pride this time; what would others think of her, her learning, and her intelligence, if she presented a flawed translation to them? While she was still blinking from that, he added another argument: if her teachers were thought to have indulged her, they would be taken from her and replaced with others who were harsher. And a third, before she had entirely comprehended the second—she wished to perfectly understand what those around her were saying, and if he did not correct her, then she might find herself making flawed assumptions.

  Her eyes flashed at that, and he thought that he had rendered her entirely speechless with rage, and wondered if he had overstepped the bounds this time.

  But again, when he thought she was so angry she would turn her back and leave, she suddenly smiled her brilliant smile and begged him to come again, come again soon.

  He thought, as he traversed the Gate, that it had been the last argument that had convinced her. The appeal to her pride was one thing, but that she might miss some clue, some hint that could reveal further danger, or assure more safety—that was what had won her. And it was so sad to think that she, so young, so small, knew the awful truth that (in the mortal world at least) there was only one person she could absolutely rely on.

  Herself.

  Denoriel made a mistake in delivering Elizabeth’s letter to Harry openly. Mwynwen did not take in good part the idea that Harry should maintain any close association with the mortal world.

  “You idiots,” she fumed. “Can you imagine what would happen if anyone should see a letter from the duke of Richmond, who has been dead and buried these four years? What clearer betrayal of the existence of Underhill could there be? Oberon would put us all in frozen sleep until the sun grew cold.”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to sign the letter ‘Richmond,’” Harry said, but the way his eyes slid away betrayed that without the reminder he might have done so.

  “I doubt Princess—no, Lady Elizabeth—will be satisfied with a note signed ‘Harry.’ It isn’t as if she could remember your handwriting. She was only three.” Mwynwen rounded on Denoriel, pent-up fury flickering in her eyes. “And you are the ultimate fool Denoriel, to remind the child about her half-brother. Could you not leave her memories alone?”

  “I?” Denoriel protested. “I did no such thing! The first thing that little devil said to me when we were private is ‘Where is my Da?’ Even then I tried to put her off, but she was having none of it. She accused me of lying and said Harry was dead …” Denoriel swallowed and said more softly, “But her voice, her face, it was as if the last hope to which she had clung was gone.”

  “And would that not have been better?” Mwynwen snapped. “To let her grieve and put away that hopeless hope?”

  “No!” FitzRoy exclaimed. “No! I will not have my dearling Elizabeth grieving for me when I am hale and well.”

  “Yes, you are hale and well so long as I draw the elf-shot poison out of you. Harry, you cannot go back and live in the mortal world.”

  FitzRoy stepped closer and put his arm around her. “Go back to the mortal world? Mwynwen, my love, how did you ever get such a mad notion? I haven’t the smallest desire to live Overhill. Without the hunts? Without Lady Aeron? Above all else, without you?” He kissed her mouth, softly, tenderly. “It is not because you keep me alive that I remain Underhill. I love you, Mwynwen.”

  Four years was long in mortal time. Fitzroy had entered Underhill as a callow boy. Now he was a man, with a man’s emotions, which had grown far past his early dependence on the Healer. He did not lie. If anything, the simple words did not give near enough of truth. And she? She was elven, famed in tale and song for having no hearts. He sighed. “Do you even know what love means?”

  She turned to him with distress, and a hint of tears in her voice. “I know that without you my life would be empty. Is that enough?”

  “Ah! A time-filler. That’s what I am.” But FitzRoy laughed as he spoke, pulled her closer, and kissed her again. He was careful, too, to tuck the letter away into one of the wide sleeves of his gown without bothering to read it. Instead he began a conversation with Denoriel about a domain that had brought a new patient to Mwynwen—a Sidhe almost torn apart by tooth and claw.

  Through the malfunction of a Gate, the patient had chanced upon a forest like those traders to Afrique had seen or heard of, so lush it was almost impenetrable. Unfortunately for the accidental arrival, the undergrowth was not at all impenetrable to the beasts that had attacked him, though he could not guess whether they had come at him by mischance or deliberate malice.

  It made a fine way to deflect Mwynwen from Elizabeth’s letter. Should they go look at it, Harry asked, eyes alight? Should they seek out the ruler of the domain and protest the danger to innocent passersby? Just the two of them, or should they form a party? Mwynwen now had something much more immediate to alarm her—the idea that Harry and Denoriel would hare off unaccompanied into a place of danger. Denoriel seemed to understand exactly what Harry was about, and soon alarmed Mwynwen even further by teasingly being enthusiastic about the idea.

  Fortunately, before the subject ran dry, Mwynwen was called to attend a patient. FitzRoy and Denoriel left the house hurriedly; Miralys and Lady Aeron were waiting and they mounted and rode away. By silent mutual consent, they begged their elvensteeds to carry them to FitzRoy’s favorite place, the tiny domain they called Shepherd’s Paradise.

  Both often speculated about the maker. They had left a message the second time they came, begging pardon for the intrusion, thanking the owner for devising a place so wondrously peaceful and pleasant and begging permission to come again. But there was no reply to the message and they never met anyone nor was there ever any sign that anyone had been there except them. The sky was always blue with puffy clouds; the grass was always green and lush; the sheep were always placid; the lambs frisked and frolicked and were always friendly.

  Shepherd’s Paradise had become a haven for them when they wanted to talk, particularly about the mortal world, because Mwynwen did not like to hear about it at all. She seemed to feel that FitzRoy’s entire life should be forgotten—as if he had been raised by her as was the changeling Ritchie, who was now buried in FitzRoy’s grave. But FitzRoy did not want to forget. He enjoyed many of the memories of his childhood and young manhood and he was very interested in the welfare of the friends he had left behind and in the nation he still loved.

  He knew he could not return, and honestly, he did not want to. He was not a child; he knew very well that if anyone ever caught sight of him, and he was recognized, he would be taken at the best for a ghost, and at the worst, for a demon or evil seeming. He also remembered the restrictions under which he had lived, the guardsmen, the constant oversight of his every word and gesture. He knew, too, that if he were alive in England now, or if he could by some miracle reenter the World Above, he would be watched ever more closely, constantly suspected of treason toward his baby half-brother. No one would ever believe that FitzRoy did not want to be king.

  And those who wanted power—or the throne—would never give up trying to use him as a pawn in their plots. There would be no peace for him, no freedom, ever.

  They dismounted, and Miralys and Lady Aeron moved toward the flock of sheep and began to graze on the ever-lush grass. FitzRoy sank down on a convenient log with a great, curved branch to support a sitter’s back and eagerly pulled the letter from his sleeve to read.

  “What a child,” he breathed, when he had read the letter for the second time. “How can she have remembered that?”

  “What?” Denoriel asked, making himself comfortable on another natural-seeming seat.

  FitzRoy elaborated. “The whirligig I gave her soon after Anne’s … death. It would have been in July, I think, and she was no more than two years and ten months old. The toy had a central shaft that could have been t
aken for a figure and, oh, perhaps ten curved, upright bars that spun and rotated around the central shaft—”

  Denoriel grinned suddenly. “I remember that whirligig now. It was worthy of dwarf making, so subtle and complex a toy. I confess I was considerably impressed.”

  “Well, yes, but you were a good deal older than three when you saw it!” Harry laughed. “And do you remember what she said when I gave it to her?”

  Denoriel frowned and shook his head but felt no shame. The likelihood was that he had not been with FitzRoy when he gave the toy to Elizabeth.

  “At the time she said that it was the perfect toy for her, to remind her of her father at the center of the world and everything and everyone going round and round him. I remember because it made me feel cold inside. As if she knew he had murdered her mother and she must never forget he was the most important and dangerous being in her world. My heart ached for her that day. In the letter she asks if I remember—as if I have forgotten anything about her. She was a light in my soul from the day she was born.”

  The young man’s eyes were bright with remembered joy and Denoriel shook his head. “She and that world are gone from you.”

  FitzRoy smiled. “I do not regret the world for a moment. Only Elizabeth …”

  “Do not say it where Mwynwen can hear you—do not even think it near her,” Denoriel warned. “She has some power to know what is in another’s mind. It is natural to a healer. And she does love you, Harry. She is jealous of Elizabeth.”

  “A woman cannot be jealous of a child! I love Elizabeth as a daughter or a baby sister.” He flushed slightly. “I assure you that is not how I think of Mwynwen.”

  Denoriel laughed. “I should hope not, as she is old enough to be your great-grandmother ten times over. No, you need not be angry with me. I know you do not think of her that way either, only as a desirable woman. But she is aware of your youth, and that you are a mortal, drawn to mortal things. It would not be the first time that a woman of the Sidhe had lost a mortal lover to a mortal woman. Have you never heard the tale of Tam Lin?” Denoriel shook his head. “You would say her fears are groundless, but a woman in love can be jealous of anything—specially a Sidhe who is denying her nature.”

  Harry pursed his lips, and frowned. “She wants me to be Ritchie, but I cannot. I am a man. I think. I reason.”

  Denoriel shook his head. “Never mind that, Harry. She loves you. You wish to please her. She will gradually come to accept you as you are. And once she believes that you can be a man, a mortal, and still love her and be contented Underhill, she will be satisfied. Meanwhile we can only hope not to make her uneasy by our talk of the mortal world.”

  Harry closed his eyes briefly, and nodded.

  “In the meantime,” Denoriel continued, “I have a problem you might be able to help with. Elizabeth’s maid, Blanche Parry, ran down to the stable to tell me that a few days ago Elizabeth had wakened in the night crying that something was watching her.”

  FitzRoy jerked upright. “Something was watching her? The Unseleighe? More than watching? Threatening? You know she could always see the horrid things that evil black prince sent to harm her.”

  “Vidal?” Denoriel replied, with a lifted brow. “But you shot him with an iron bolt. Surely you told me that. He must be dead.”

  “Must he? He was armored.” FitzRoy sighed. “I saw him fall, that was all. Surely they have healers in the Dark Court.”

  Denoriel replied skeptically, “Well, I will ask about his fate to be sure, although I know I heard that the Unseleighe Court was running wild and that Oberon had ordered Pasgen—you remember, my half brother—to bring order, lest they lead angry mortals Underhill, seeking revenge. Hmmm. Would Pasgen …” He shook his head. “No, he would never hurt a child.”

  “Would he not?” FitzRoy snapped.

  Denoriel thought for a moment and then shook his head. “No, because Rhoslyn would never forgive him.”

  “She tried to abduct me.” FitzRoy’s lips were thin.

  “But she would not have harmed you,” Denoriel insisted. “She would have raised you, as Mwynwen raised Richey—ah, perhaps with rather different principles. But once the changeling had died in the mortal world and they believed Richmond was dead … Well, I am glad I stopped her. Life in the Unseleighe Court is not as pleasant as that in the Bright Court.”

  But that raised a new concern in FitzRoy’s mind. “Will they try to seize Elizabeth?”

  “I cannot think why Pasgen should want to do so,” Denoriel replied. “Simply to take her would truly bring Oberon’s wrath down upon him, and unlike you, she is two removes, maybe more, from the throne, especially if King Henry should marry and beget a child again. You might have been the heir. You were the firstborn son. Bastard sons have been put on the throne before this; baseborn daughters, never.”

  FitzRoy shook his head violently. “Not me. I would have fled to Ireland before anyone could put me on a throne. But—they could not know that, could they?”

  “No, they could not.” Denoriel narrowed his eyes in thought. “And Rhoslyn swore she would make no more changelings, not changelings like Richey, who could really have been mistaken for you. So they cannot hope to substitute a construct for Elizabeth.”

  “Then why are they watching Elizabeth?”

  Denoriel shook his head. “I cannot be sure, but Aleneil says the FarSeeing is unchanged, that it is not settling on one ruler. All three futures manifest, and Elizabeth’s is as bright as ever. It might be that there is a party, quiet now because King Henry is alive and well, that will push for Elizabeth to rule if Prince Edward should die. They would be those that profited most from the dissolution of the monasteries and fear a return to Catholic rule under Mary.”

  “And the Dark Court desires Mary to bring in the Inquisition.” FitzRoy shook his head sadly. “I can hardly believe she would do that. She has a sweet nature and was always kind.”

  “I only know that Aleneil and her ‘sisters’ see the fires and hear the screams of the dying.” Denoriel shivered, as if a shadow had touched him for a moment. “Nevertheless, it is not my part to meddle with Mary. My part is to protect Elizabeth. I will see that Blanche has an air spirit who can fetch me in case of need.”

  FitzRoy’s head came up, like a hound scenting a hare. “If there is a fight, take me.”

  Denoriel laughed. “Oh, no. Whatever the result of the encounter, I doubt I would long survive it if Mwynwen learned I had taken you. Still, I do not think the purpose of the watcher is to do harm. But I need to be closer to the court than when I watched over you. I fear that Elizabeth will be in more danger from the parties around King Henry, and perhaps from Henry himself, than from Unseleighe enemies. I have been away and lost all my contacts. George Boleyn is dead.”

  “But most of his friends are still in favor—or are in favor again. Wyatt certainly.” FitzRoy thought a moment, hmmming to himself, then nodded. “Go to Norfolk. He is not as powerful as he was because the Seymours are closer to the king than he is now, but he still knows everyone and if he is willing to talk to you …”

  “Norfolk does not like foreigners,” Denoriel objected, making a face.

  “Perhaps, but I think that was mostly because he feared I would be king and bent awry by your influence. Now that he is your object, he may think your foreign knowledge is of value.” FitzRoy chuckled. “And he will not fear your influence on himself. He will be sure he is far too clever to be trapped by any scheme of yours.”

  “Which will be perfectly true,” Denoriel said, also chuckling, “since my only scheme will be to hear the news, and that he will give me to prove his knowledge and influence has not waned significantly.”

  Pasgen went home after his meeting with Prince Vidal and tried to put it out of his mind. He was not very successful, because a summons for him and for Rhoslyn to attend Vidal’s court was deposited in the elegant and empty house in the small domain where he and his sister were supposed to live. He knew that there was no choice; they
had to attend to lull Vidal into believing that they were still his shivering pawns.

  The court session some days later made it no easier for Pasgen to reestablish his equanimity.

  Vidal was at his worst, sneering and condescending, casting little nuisance spells at the dark Sidhe and at some of the Unseleighe beasts. There was a growing mutter of rebellion, snarls, even a few catcalls, and more than once Pasgen felt the glances of the dark Sidhe and the other creatures of the black ways sweep over him. He guessed that if he nodded his head or made a single gesture at Vidal that the would-be Unseleighe prince would soon be dead. Alas, after that would come “Long live the new prince,” and Pasgen had no intention of accepting that role, for the moment he took Vidal’s place, the others would begin conspiring against him.

  Thus he sat quiet, head bowed, although his stomach roiled and his bowels cramped. He even jumped and winced when one of Vidal’s little ribbons flew at him. He did not allow it to touch him—that was too dangerous just for verisimilitude—but he made it seem that Vidal had only intended to force him to show fear. After that the rebellious mutters died away. The court knew Pasgen’s strength; he had demonstrated it more than once. If he accepted Vidal’s insults, they had to believe that Pasgen felt he would have no chance to defeat the Black Prince.

  Nothing transpired at the court. Vidal set in motion several projects that Pasgen knew he had been contemplating before the attempt to take Elizabeth, but they had nothing to do with England’s royal family. And aside from demonstrating that Pasgen would bow to his rule, Vidal seemed to have had no purpose in summoning him.

  For several days after that event, Pasgen pretended it had not taken place. It had gone sorely against his grain not to reply in kind, not to show Vidal how little power he truly had. But after his first fury and frustration had abated, Pasgen realized that sooner or later Vidal would have to demand more of him than meek silence.