Asrăthiel smiled, and inclined the weight of her body against her lover’s, heedless of the sheer drop from the window at their backs. ‘Zwist promised to send me a sign if you lived . . .’
‘I am that sign.’
She laughed, realising that Zwist had not specified when he would send the sign. ‘My father has returned, and my mother has reawoken,’ she said. ‘All my dreams have come true.’
‘I know. But are you happy here?’ he asked.
‘Not without you.’
Taking her hand in both of his, Zaravaz raised her fingers to his mouth and kissed them. ‘On my oath, it went hard with me to lose you. Come away with me,’ he said, bending closer so that the sweet warmth of his breath fanned her cheek like a feather. ‘Come away to the lands and seas that exist beyond these borders. I will show you marvels, and excitement enough that you shall never tire of immortal life.’
‘Of that,’ she said, ‘I have no doubt.’
‘As you know,’ he said, ‘the Glashtinsluight possess anti-gravity capabilities.’
Lifting her head, Asrăthiel stared at him in bemusement. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It means you have the ability to move quickly through time. Also, I have noted, you tend to laugh more readily than humankind.’
He added, ‘Also we can fly.’
And he let loose his goblin wings.
Four dark vanes of energy flared from his shoulders; shadowy, diverging rays forming the sharp shape of an X with the fulcrum centred between his shoulderblades. They faded at their tips to a heat shimmer.
The goblin king gathered the damsel in his arms and flew down from the turret.
In the blue drawing room of Wyverstone Castle, where the weathermasters and the royal family congregated with the foremost knights of Narngalis and other noble guests, a take-as-you-please supper had been laid out. Silver glittered everywhere; encrusted on the walls and the heavy frames of the paintings that adorned them, on the embroidered chairs, the ornate ceiling, the firescreens. Tiered chandeliers depended from the ceiling on long brass chains, sparkling like spiral galaxies. The floor was thick with priceless creamy carpets. About the walls, cabinets inlaid with semiprecious stones housed objets d’art. Tall doors at the far end of the chamber gave onto a torch-lit balcony overlooking the gardens. Before these portals posed graceful marble statues, and tall vases of lapis lazuli overflowing with ferns and delphiniums.
Though the architecture and furnishings remained as serene as ever, the feelings of the aristocratic crowd who milled about in the room had soared to an exorbitant pitch of awe and terror, amazement and expectation. The princesses, flushed with agitation, had come running to spread the word; the goblin king was amongst them, and he was about to enter that very room.
The news caused a sensation. Pulses quickened, nerves tingled, tongues wagged and people began looking nervously over their shoulders. He was here—they repeated—in the castle itself; the famous Zaravaz, whose reputation as a despoiler and heartbreaker, augmented by gossip and imagination, had reached the status of legend. People were incredulous that after seeing and hearing so much about this wicked creature they were about to find themselves occupying the same room. The princesses vowed he had promised to do them no harm—and they must believe him—but men, though not armed for battle, found their hands straying to the hilts of their ornamental daggers and dress swords. Speculatively they eyed the candlesticks, looking for traces of gold inlay, and some said, ‘’Tis pity the barbarian is not to enter the crimson drawing room, for it is choked with gold.’ Others muttered, ‘If one of the horde could steal in so easily, without being spied by the watchmen, how many more might be waiting to storm the gates?’ Many women glanced critically not at weapons but at mirrors, all the while smoothing stray wisps of hair, rearranging their garments and covertly practising their most fetching poses.
In great alarm Arran, Jewel and Avalloc descended on the princesses, asking, ‘But where is Asrăthiel? Was she not in your company? Surely you would not have left her alone with him!’
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Winona, suddenly uncomfortable, ‘but she wanted—that is to say, they were—’
Lecelina cut short her sister’s stammering. ‘She is with him,’ she said, ‘as is her wish.’ Lowering her voice she added, ‘Methinks some understanding exists between them.’
‘Understanding!’ Avalloc shouted incredulously, heedless of the surprised looks from those who surrounded him. ‘How could that possibly be?’ Jewel abruptly sat down on a chair, fanning her face with an embroidered serviette.
‘Enchantment, more likely!’ Arran roared, his brow dark with anger. ‘He will not get away with this!’
King Warwick gave orders to seal off the blue drawing room, scour the premises for other intruders and double the guard at the castle gates. The sentries posted at the drawing-room doors were instructed to allow only the Lady Asrăthiel and her companion to enter. To avoid uproar and sudden headlong stampedes, the news of the mysterious new arrival was not permitted to spread to the multitude of revellers thronging the castle’s lower levels; their carefree festivities remained undisturbed.
‘Precautions are unnecessary,’ Lecelina insisted. ‘The unseelie lord vowed he meant no harm.’
‘And he cannot lie,’ appended Winona.
Saranna cupped her hand to her sister’s ear. ‘But I should certainly like him to lie with me,’ she whispered brazenly, whereupon Winona could not help giggling.
‘Such eyes,’ she whispered back. ‘So unusual. The colour of royalty; the colour of wine.’
‘Such stature,’ said Saranna in an undertone. ‘Such noble demeanour!’
‘Oh, where is Asrăthiel? What has happened to her?’ said Jewel anxiously.
‘This will be some trick, some vicious snare,’ said Sir Huelin Lathallan, adjusting the sword-belt concealed beneath his tabard.
The three princesses assured him that it was not so. ‘He has not come here to work us ill,’ they said, unable to bring themselves to speak the name of Zaravaz, it being so laden with significance. ‘He has not come here to make war.’
‘Why, then, has he come?’
But Warwick’s daughters refused to conjecture.
The Companions of the Cup drew themselves up in two rows on either side of the closed doors, like a guard of honour, as if showing esteem to the expected visitor but ready to spring to the defence of the household if he should attack. In quiet suspense the gathering waited, all attention fixed on this entryway. So intent were they that they barely noticed when the torches on the wide balcony behind them flickered, as if blown by a sudden draught, but when they sensed a sudden shadow falling across the stars they all turned to look.
Two figures alighted on the stone balustrade and leaped soundlessly down, he with his arm about her waist. Together the Storm Lord’s granddaughter and the goblin king walked through the open portals into the room.
The waiting concourse had reckoned on beholding the lord of wickedness, having been forewarned, but the actual sight of him, so close at hand, was both terrifying and exhilarating. Half the assembly could not get close enough; the other half could not get far enough away. All attention was riveted on him. People glanced in a casual manner, peering from the corners of their eyes, feigning indifference, pretending not to be utterly fascinated. Some had never set eyes on him before, but had heard much of him in legend. Many had only ever seen him on the battlefield, their avowed foe whirling in a dance of death, slaughtering men with vigorous enjoyment. Now he stood within their very halls, a supernatural knight whose torn-shadow hair framed a face so handsome that those who gazed upon him narrowed their eyes as if dazzled by a brilliant light, yet they could not look away.
As for the fact that the ancient enemy stood side by side with the Storm Lord’s granddaughter and it was patently obvious that close affection bound them together—this was too much to countenance. A wrathful murmuring filled the chamber, punctuated with exclamations of shock and horror. Some believed Asrăthiel mu
st have been bewitched and others were enraged at the notion that she had traitorously allied herself with the foe, but most knew not what to think or feel.
The Companions of the Cup stepped forward at once, drawing their blades a couple of inches, but King Warwick waved his hand, saying, ‘The guest code applies. Do not touch him.’ His gesture brought the knights to a halt, and they returned the blades to the scabbards with some violence.
Though there was nothing normal about him, the King of the Argenkindë behaved as if he were a normal visitor. He bowed. ‘I am Zaravaz,’ he said.
‘And you have bewitched my daughter, I see,’ Arran said with hostility. ‘Asrăthiel, come away. Lidoine will know how to lift this spell.’
Avalloc glowered. Jewel had turned pale.
‘Father,’ said the damsel, ‘you underestimate me. I am no dupe. Before I am generally censured for having formed this attachment, pray hear me out.’
Then Asrăthiel, with rapidly beating heart, pronounced the names of all the people in that chamber so that Zaravaz would know them, although evidently he knew them already, and at the same time she tried to allay the fears of her kindred. She explained how Zaravaz had been burned in the Aingealfyre while saving the life of Prince William, and how all his wickedness had been destroyed, and he had paid in the fullest and most rigorous way for his offences. Finally, she told them that he was her chosen companion.
‘Your chosen companion?’ Arran repeated in amazement, shaking his head. ‘I do not hear aright.’
With more tolerance than Arran, Jewel looked upon Zaravaz, marvelling, and murmured, ‘So this is a goblin. So much for the old tales!’
Avalloc merely gazed at Asrăthiel. She averted her head, unable to endure the bewilderment and distress in his expression.
When she had made everything clear, King Warwick stepped forward, his heavy robes rustling as he moved.
‘You rescued my son,’ he said stiffly to Zaravaz, quite unable to bring himself to address this traditional enemy by any title, honourable or otherwise, ‘therefore I thank you, unless your eldritch mores define thanks as an offence. If it is true that you are completely free of wickedness and have atoned for your crimes the way Lady Asrăthiel describes, then I cannot do otherwise than receive you beneath my roof.’ The king’s stern expression indicated an unspoken adjunct: In consideration of our history, it is not easy for us to accept your kind as hearth guests.
‘Warwick Wyverstone, I will not much longer presume upon your hospitality,’ said Zaravaz, ‘for regrettably the decorative scheme of your home is not to my taste.’ He glanced disparagingly at a lightly gilded fruit dish that adorned the supper table. The king nodded tightly.
William bowed courteously to the eldritch lord. ‘I am grateful,’ said the prince, ‘that you risked your life for mine.’ As the mortal and the immortal stood facing one another, some who viewed them fancied they glimpsed some ineffable bond of kinship between them. William might have shared that opinion, for he added, gravely, ‘It appears we may have become Brothers of the Flame.’
Zaravaz winced, and effected a strained smile. He made no reply, whereby Asrăthiel suspected he did not trust himself to speak as courteously as the occasion required. She could see it cost him much effort to restrain himself amongst his erstwhile enemies; he was like some wild animal on a tether.
One by one the members of the royal families and the weathermasters formally greeted their unexpected visitor, though they stopped short at welcoming him. King Warwick adhered to tradition, impeccably playing the part of host and suppressing his feelings of outrage and condemnation. Avalloc only bobbed his head curtly; disapprobation clouded his brow. There was now no open censure or hostility, though the air of the chamber virtually crackled with tension.
The only royal personage manifestly pleased to salute Zaravaz was Queen Saibh. ‘Bold sir,’ she said timidly, ‘I believe I am in your debt. You made the druid primoris say he lifted the curse from the House of Ó Maoldúin, and my sons’ days are the better for it.’
‘There are no debts, gentle queen,’ said Zaravaz, favouring her with an intense and hypnotising look that provoked a ferment of jealousy amongst some of the ladies looking on. ‘It is enough that abject superstition is quelled.’
‘In that case I myself owe you no obligation, sir,’ said Saibh’s consort, Fedlamid macDall, ‘though you freed me from thralldom to the Grey Neighbours. Yet it is beyond my power to express the depths of my gratitude, for without your intervention I would have been forever enslaved.’
‘Had Lady Asrăthiel not petitioned on your behalf, Fedlamid,’ Zaravaz said mildly, ‘you would still be bound in servitude to the trows.’
MacDall made a low reverence to Asrăthiel.
‘Is the Sanctorum’s curse entirely lifted, brave sir?’ Saibh asked. ‘Ronin sometimes wonders.’
‘Queen Saibh, there never was a curse,’ said Zaravaz, ‘but if it means aught to you, send a messenger to the Dubh Linn, the Black Lake on the moors of Slievmordhu. Let your envoy notify the fuathan infesting those waters that Zaravaz sent you. Command them, in my name, to cast out the four wooden toys that the flapping druid threw in, for dry Virosus stipulated that as the charms rotted away, so would the House of Ó Maoldúin. Keep the four sticks preserved in some strongbox, if it puts your mind at rest. I tell you this, Saibh, because you are temperate of spirit, and when you were a child you used to defend the songbirds’ nests in your father’s woods from your thieving cousins.’
Between surprise that he could have known so much about her, and delight to think that her son’s worries might be entirely swept away once and for all, Saibh stammered a suitable response before she and her consort retired meekly from the presence of the renowned and infamous visitor.
It was with much apprehension that Asrăthiel formally presented her lover to her parents. Her father, who had not fought in the recent wars and who had never seen one of the Glashtinsluight—unless it had been a cavalcade of Ice Goblins he had glimpsed in the Land of Midwinter, and not a dream—regarded Zaravaz with suspicion, barely overlaid by a veneer of politeness. He took the measure of Zaravaz and, to the damsel’s astonishment, right in front of her eyes he appeared to soften his attitude. Indeed, she judged that at length he almost approved. To her surprise he said, ‘Methinks, sir, I have seen your face before, reflected in an ice crystal, or else I was bedazzled.’
‘In Ellan Istillkutl, Lord Weathermage, the boundary between illusion and reality can be ill marked,’ said Zaravaz, who appeared to know about Arran’s travels, though Asrăthiel had not told him.
As for Jewel, when Zaravaz kissed her hand as suavely as a gentleman of the highest degree she was clearly entranced and intrigued, though at first she hung back, gazing searchingly at his countenance as if trying to place him. ‘I am astonished,’ she said frankly, and with some complaint, ‘to see that my daughter has found companionship with the lord of an unseelie race. Knowing what I do about goblins, I cannot help but be concerned for her welfare.’
A stir and a flurry went through the multitude when they heard Jewel pronounce this implied criticism. From past exchanges on the battlefield they knew well that the Glashtinsluight did not take kindly to adverse comments. Many held their breath in fright as they awaited Zaravaz’s response, and made ready to flee.
‘My lady,’ said the goblin king, regarding Jewel with a gentle respect they had not conceived was possible in him, ‘there is no need to fear me. I am no longer unseelie, and besides, your daughter has conquered me entirely. She has bested me, wherefore rightly you ought to be concerned for my welfare, for she has the power to overwhelm me with a word, or merely by crooking her little finger.’
Laughing, Jewel replied, ‘And that is as it should be. But I, too, have seen you before!’ she exclaimed suddenly, as forthright as ever. ‘I saw you in a dream, and in water. It was you!’
With an elegant bow, Zaravaz acknowledged that she was right.
Ever inquisitive, Jewel wanted to k
now how it had come to pass that she had experienced a precognition, as it were, of the goblin king; wherefore Asrăthiel told the story of the urisk Crowthistle, while the entire assembly listened in. All the time they continued to watch Zaravaz in concentrated awe; every smile, every turn of his head, every flicker of an eyebrow was noted, and many longed secretly to exchange a few words with him so that they could later say, I spoke with the goblin king.
‘Why, you were the little urisk!’ said Jewel, upon the closing of the tale. ‘I am glad to meet you, sir, for although you were a laggard when it came to housework, you did my family a good turn in the Marsh.’
Two or three courtiers almost swooned with horror at this presumptuous address, expecting the goblin king to bring the castle down around their ears in retribution, but Zaravaz laughed. It was such a striking and musical laugh that one of them fainted anyway and had to be revived with hartshorn.
‘Not only in the Marsh, Mother,’ said Asrăthiel, ‘for it was the urisk who recognised that you still lived after the mistletoe arrow struck you down—he who caused you to be raised up.’
‘Then, sir, you have my gratitude in full quantity,’ cried Arran, his wonder plain to see.
Albiona, however, was scandalised. ‘The urisk!’ she cried. ‘What, the selfsame urisk that plagued our house?’
‘The very one, madam,’ Zaravaz said with aplomb, turning to address Dristan’s wife. ‘I availed myself fully of your hospitality. Your cook is to be commended for her succulent fruit preserves and seedcakes. In the hiring of staff, madam, your taste is impeccable.’
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