Tithe

Page 24

 

  Nearby, at the edges of the gathering, a treewoman with skin like bark and fingers that turned to leaves at the nails was whispering to a mute apple tree, every so often turning her head slowly to glare at seven little men who were standing on each other's shoulders. They formed a faerie ladder that wove back and forth from base to top, where one little man was grasping desperately for a fat apple.

  A winged girl ran by with a very little boy toddling after her, his hair braided with flowers. A human boy. Kaye shuddered.

  Looking around again, she noticed more human children, none older than perhaps six. They were being brushed and petted, their eyes half-lidded and dreamy. One sat with a blue-skinned woman, head on the faerie's knees. A group of three children, all crowned with daisies, clumsily danced with three little men in mushroom caps. Faerie ladies and gentlemen clapped.

  Kaye sped up her pace, meaning to stop Roiben and ask him about the children. But then she saw where he was looking, and she forgot all her questions.

  Next to trees thick with spring blossoms even in fall, there was an auburn-haired faerie dressed in a deep emerald-green coat that flared like a gown. Kaye stopped walking when she saw the woman; she could scarcely remember to breathe. She was the most beautiful thing Kaye had ever seen. Her skin was flawless, her hair shone bright as copper in the sun under a woven circlet of ivy and dogwood blossoms, her eyes were as bright as the green apples that hung near them. Kaye could not just glance at the faerie woman; her eyes were drawn to look until the faerie took up the totality of her vision, rendering all else dull and faded.

  Roiben did not need to tell her that this was the Queen of the Seelie Court.

  Her women wore dresses in light fabrics of storm grays and morning roses. As they approached, one of the women inhaled so sharply it was almost a scream and covered her mouth with her hand. Roiben turned his head to regard her, and he smiled.

  Kaye tensed. The smile seemed to sit incongruously on his lips, more like a twitch of the mouth than any expression of pleasure.

  A knight suddenly interposed himself between them and the Queen. He was dressed in jointed green armor, and his hair was as the fine, pale gold of cornsilk. He held an interesting spear, so ornate with decoration that Kaye wondered if it could be used.

  "Talathain," Roiben said, inclining his head for a brief nod.

  "You are unwelcome here," the knight said.

  Lutie clamored out of Kaye's hip pocket and peered at the new knight with unfeigned fascination.

  "Announce me to the Queen," Roiben said. "If she does not wish to see me, then I will quit the grove immediately. "

  Kaye started to object, but Roiben laid a hand on her arm.

  "My companions, will, of course be free to stay or go as they please," he continued.

  Talathain's glance flickered to the Queen and then back to Roiben with something like jealousy writ in his expression. A motion of his gauntleted hand signaled several additional knights. A page came, listened to Talathain, then darted off to speak with the Queen.

  After bending gracefully to listen to the little page, the Queen stepped away from her ladies and across the grass, toward them. She did not look at Kaye. Her eyes rested only on Roiben.

  Kaye could see Roiben's face change as he looked at his Lady. There was a longing there that overwhelmed Kaye. It was the steady look of a dog, gone feral, but still hoping for the kind touch of his master's hand.

  She thought of the tapestry on his wall and all the things he had said and had not said. And she knew then why he'd drawn back from her kisses—he must have cherished this love all that time, hoping for a chance to see his Queen again. Kaye had been blind, too full of her own wishful thinking to see what should have been apparent.

  Kaye was grateful when Roiben knelt, so that she too could go to one knee and shield the pain on her face beneath a bowed head.

  "So formal, my knight," the Queen said. Kaye stole a glance upward at the Queen's eyes. They were soft and wet and green as jewels. Kaye sighed. She felt very tired, suddenly, and very plain. Kaye wished Roiben would just ask about Corny so she could go home.

  "Yours no longer," he said as though he regretted it.

  "If not mine, then whose?" The conversation had too many undertones for Kaye to be sure that she was following it. Had they been lovers?

  "No one's, Silarial," he said deferentially, a small smile on his face and wonder in his eyes. He spoke as one who was afraid to speak too loudly, lest some fragile thing—too dear to pay for—shatter. "Perhaps my own. "

  Her smile did not fade, did not change. It was a perfect smile—perfect curve of lips, perfect balance between joy and affection—it was so perfect that Kaye couldn't help getting lost in it, losing the thread of the conversation so that she was baffled when the Queen spoke again.

  "And why do you come among us then, if not to come home?"

  "I seek Nephamael. There is a young man with him that my companion would restore to Ironside. "

  Silarial shook her head. "He is not among my people any longer. When the Unseelie Queen died and the solitary fey went free…" Here she paused, looking at Roiben. Something about her face was unsettled. "He seized her throne and has set himself up as King upon it. "

  Kaye's neck snapped up. Wide-eyed, without thinking, she spoke. "Nephamael's the King of the Unseelie Court?" She bit her lip, but the Queen turned her gaze on her indulgently.

  "Who have you brought to us?"

  "Her name is Kaye. She is a changeling. " He looked distracted.

  The queen's auburn eyebrows rose. "You are aiding her in the recovery of the mortal boy Nephamael has spirited off?"

  "I am," Roiben said.

  "And what is the price of your service, Roiben who belongs only to himself?" Her hand came up and idly toyed with an amulet around her neck.

  Kaye could not bear to look at the perfection of her face. Instead she looked at the Queen's necklace. The stone was milky-pale and strung on a long chain. It seemed very familiar.

  A rosy stain tinted Roiben's cheeks. Could he really be blushing? "There is no price. "

  Kaye did remember that necklace—Nephamael had worn one just like it. He had had it around his neck the night he'd come to take her for the Tithe.

  The Queen leaned forward, almost conspiratorially, as though Kaye was long forgotten. "Once you told me that you would do anything to prove your love for me. Would you still?"

  His blush grew deeper, if anything, but when he spoke, his voice was steely. "I would not. "

  What did that mean, Kaye wondered. It meant something, surely, something that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with the dead Queen. That was what this conversation was about, she realized. His Queen had treated him like a toy she had grown tired of and traded him, not caring whether his new owner would be careless with him, not even caring that his new owner might break him. Clearly, she had plans that included needing her toy back.

  "And what if I told you that you had already proven it to my satisfaction? Come, tarry a time with us. There is honey wine and crisp, red apples. Sit by my side again. "

  Kaye bit her own lip, hard. The pain helped her accept that he was not hers, would never be hers. And if it was much too late to pretend that didn't hurt, she could at least shove it down so deeply inside her that he would never know.

  Roiben stared at Silarial with a mixture of longing and scorn. "You must forgive me," Roiben said, "but the smell of apples makes me want to retch. "

  The Queen looked shocked, then angry. Roiben seemed to watch those emotions flit across her face impassively.

  "Then you had best make haste," the Queen said.

  Roiben nodded and bowed. Kaye almost forgot to.

  When they were a few paces away, the white-haired woman caught Roiben's arm, pulling him to face her, laughing.

  "Roiben!" It was the woman who had gasped before. Her hair was to
her knees, some of it swept up into heavy braids on her head. She wore the costume of one of the Queen's handmaidens.

  "I was worried about you," she said, again, the smile wobbling on her face. "The things I had heard—"

  "All true, no doubt," Roiben said, a touch lightly. He ran his fingers through the girl's hair, and Kaye shivered sympathetically, knowing how those long fingers felt. "Your hair is so long. "

  "I haven't cut it since you left. " The woman turned to Kaye. "I heard my brother barely introduce you to the Queen. My question is—is Roiben trying to protect us from you or you from us?"

  Kaye laughed, surprised.

  "Ethine," Roiben said, nodding to one and then the other, "Kaye. "

  The woman's tinkling laughter was like breaking glass. "You've discarded your courtly airs. "

  "So I have been told," Roiben said.

  Ethine reached up among the branches of the apple tree and broke off a single flower.

  "All that matters is that you are now home," she said, tucking the flower behind his ear. Kaye noticed the slight flinch when Ethine touched him and wondered whether his reaction had hurt her.

  "This is no longer my home," Roiben said.

  "Of course it is. Where else would you go?" Her eyes traveled to Kaye, questioning for the first time. "She hurt you, I know that, but you will forgive her in time. You always forgive her. "

  "Desires change," he said.

  "What did they do to you?" Ethine looked horrified.

  "Whatever has been done to me, whatever I have done… as surely as blood soaks my hands, and it does, the stain of it touches even the hems of the Queen of Elfland. "

  "Don't speak so. You loved her once. "

  "I love her still, more's the pity. "

  Kaye turned away. She didn't want to hear any more. It had nothing to do with her.

  She stalked off toward the car. One of the human children was on his toes, reaching for an apple just out of his grasp. He was wearing a green tunic, tied at his hips with a silk cord.

  "Hello," Kaye said.

  "Hi. " The boy grinned up at her imploringly, and she plucked the fruit. It came free from the branch with a snap.

  "Where's your mother?" Kaye asked, shining the apple on her coat.

  He scowled at her, one lock of dark brown hair covering his eye. "Gimme. "

  "Did you always live with faeries?"

  "Uh-huh," he said, eyes on the apple.

  "For how long?" she asked.

  He reached out one chubby hand, and she gave him the apple. He took a bite immediately. She waited while he chewed, but as soon as he had gulped down one bite, he started gnawing on it again. Then, as if he just remembered her, he looked up guiltily. He shrugged and mumbled through a full mouth. "Always. "

  "Thanks," Kaye said, ruffling the chestnut hair. There was no point in asking him anything. He knew about as much as she did. Then, she turned back to him. "Hey, do you know a little girl called Kaye?"

  He wrinkled up his face in an exaggeration of thinking, then he pointed toward one of the blankets. "Uh-huh. Prolly over there. "

  As though all her blood rushed to her head, she felt a flush of heat and dizziness as if she'd been hanging upside down. Her fingers were like ice.

  Leaving the boy to his apple, she walked among the cloth blankets, stopping each little girl she passed, no matter what they looked like. "Is your name Kaye, sweetie?"

  But when she saw herself, she knew. The almond eyes sat oddly against the mop of blond hair, making the child look fey despite her chubby body and round ears. Asian and blond. Kaye could manage nothing more than staring as the girl—far, far too young to be Kaye in any reasonable world—picked a weed and, wrapping the stem carefully, flung the head in the direction of a pretty faerie lady who laughed.

  All the questions Kaye wanted to ask choked her. She turned on her heel and stomped back to Roiben and Ethine, grabbing his arm hard.

  "We have to go now," she shouted, furious and trembling. "Corny could be dead. "

  Ethine was wide-eyed as Roiben swallowed whatever he might have said and nodded. Kaye turned on her heel, stalking back to the car, leaving Roiben to follow her.

  Chapter 14

  "In the hills giant oaks fall upon their knees

  You can touch parts

  You have no right to—"

  —Kay Ryan, "Crown"

  She didn't make it to the car.

  "Kaye, stop. Just stop. " Roiben's voice came from close behind her.

  She paused, looking through the trees at the minivans and the highway beyond. Anything to not look backward at the Seelie Court and the ageless children and Roiben.

  "You're shaking. "

  "I'm angry. You're screwing around while we have stuff to do. " His calm was only making her angrier.

  "Well, I'm sorry for that. " He didn't sound sorry exactly, his voice hovering on the edge of sarcasm.

  Her face was hot. "Why are you here?"

  There was a pause. "Because you just wrested me from a conversation with a none-too-polite scolding. "

  "No… why are you still here? Why are you here at all?"

  His voice was quiet. She could not see his lace unless she turned and she would not turn. "Shall I go, then?"

  Her eyes burned with unshed tears. She simply felt overloaded.

  "Everything I do…" she started and her voice hitched. "Shit, we don't have time for this. "

  "Kaye—"

  "No. " She started pacing. "We have to go. Right now. "

  "If you cannot becalm yourself, you'll do Cornelius little good. "

  She stopped pacing and held up her hands, fingers splayed wide. "I can't! I'm not like you!"