Brave little ducks don’t kill dragons, Felix thought, though he had the grace not to say it out loud. Instead, he said, “Why would you plot against your own husband? Don’t you want him to be king?”
“Oh no, certainly not,” said the baroness quickly. “Why would I want such a thing? Foxbrush is supposed to be king; he was dear Eldest Hawkeye’s choice. No one should gainsay the wishes of a dead man—even I know that—but people have a way of getting a little silly where crowns and kingdoms are concerned. But there,” she shrugged prettily and smiled again. “A spell up in the North Tower will set my dear baron right. Always does me a world of good when he sends me there during one of my little fits. Such a restful place, high above the noise of the rest of the house. It’ll clear his head, and when Prince Foxbrush returns, my dear baron will be the first to welcome him home. Him and my darling Daylily, of course.”
“I thought they were both murdered,” Felix said, somewhat tactlessly as the baroness’s sudden burst into tears proved. He stood by awkwardly as the poor baroness wept stormily into a perfume-scented handkerchief, wondering if he should summon one of her ladies. He’d even made two steps toward the door when the baroness caught his coattail.
“Wait,” she said. “I’m sorry. I have these moments now and then. I’m just a wee bit worried about my dear child, you see, and when people start saying dreadful things about murder and whatnot, it just . . . just . . . just . . .”
She was about to go off again. So Felix hastily knelt and took both her hands. Women were not within his realm of understanding or comfort. He’d been close with his sister, Una, but sisters are a different breed altogether and scarcely count as women. And of course, he was mad about Dame Imraldera, but that wasn’t the same at all.
Here was a woman, a real, strange, weepy woman in distress, and he, as the only man present, should do something about it, he knew. He simply didn’t know what.
“Please, baroness,” he said. “Why did you really want to see me?”
Tears still dampening her cheeks, the baroness smiled again. “Because you helped us earlier. You leapt like a tiger on that poor guardsman; gave him quite a shock, I’m sure. And as dear Sir Youngwood was giving me my restorative, I thought to myself, ‘That handsome young fellow would help us again.’ And we do need help, my dear prince Felix. We do need help.”
Felix nodded. Then he shook his head. “I don’t see how I can help. Lionheart has your husband trapped up in that tower where no one can get at either of them. How long is he planning to keep him up there?”
“That’s just it,” said the baroness. “We don’t know. We don’t know when Prince Foxbrush will return, and I don’t think anyone can be persuaded not to start killing anyone else until the Eldest’s chosen heir is present and no one can argue his right to the crown. So they need to stay up there indefinitely. I provided everything they could want . . . rope to tie up my husband, a chamber pot for . . . well, you know . . . a good sturdy bolt on the door, firewood in the grate, since the nights are turning chilly. I even put a set of playing cards on the bedside bureau in case they grew bored.”
“They’re ready for a long siege, then, aren’t they?” Felix said.
But the baroness’s eyes brimmed with tears yet again. “I just knew I’d forgotten something. I was thinking it even as the coronation began, even as I marched down the Great Hall. I couldn’t think what it was, though, until this evening, when I asked my goodwoman to bring me a snack.” She bit her lip and squeezed Felix’s hand ruefully.
“Dragon’s teeth,” Felix whispered. “You forgot to give them any food, didn’t you?”
The baroness nodded and sniffed loudly, pressing a hand to her quivering chin. But she composed herself with an effort and smiled again. “Now you see, my dear boy, that is where you come in!”
4
THE HAVEN WAS LARGE, with many lovely, comfortable chambers meant for hospitable refuge in the treacherous Wood. Into one of these—both a sylvan glade of green and a bedchamber with a large, sumptuous bed, depending on how one looked at it—Eanrin half carried the stranger, Imraldera hastening behind.
“Careful. Careful!” she pleaded.
Eanrin dumped the stranger on the bed, where he sank deeply into the blankets and cushions, his blood spilling over all. Eanrin stepped back quickly as Imraldera pushed past to bend over the wounded man. Her brow was stern as she inspected the wound in his leg and the scratches beneath his animal-hide shirt. Eanrin thought he glimpsed a bright gleam from the pouch at the stranger’s side, but his attention was diverted when the young man, his face gray and his eyes wide, suddenly clutched Imraldera’s hand.
“Starflower! You are alive!”
“Yes, yes, but you won’t be for long if I don’t see to this,” she said sharply. She shook her hand free, but Eanrin saw that it trembled as she returned to her examination of the wounds.
“Your voice,” said the stranger. “I always wondered . . . it is so . . .”
“Hush!” said Imraldera. She turned to Eanrin and barked, “Make yourself useful. Fetch me water and bandages.”
The cat-man did not think to argue but dashed from the room with all speed, casting only one last glance over his shoulder. He glimpsed her kneeling down beside the bed, her hands pressed into the gaping leg wound, and heard her sing in her low, throaty voice:
“Beyond the Final Water falling,
The Songs of Spheres recalling.
Won’t you return to me?”
This was all he observed. But he muttered under his breath as he rushed to do her bidding.
As the song flowed over him, Sun Eagle relaxed, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply. He then gazed at the young woman beside him, wondering if he beheld a dream brought on by the pain. He had never before heard her sing; could he truly dream that?
“I thought you were dead,” he said when the song ended. She remained kneeling, her hands pressed against his leg to stop the bleeding, though blood oozed between her fingers. He reached out and touched her face, but she drew back quickly and stood, her head bowed, her hands still holding the wound. “I never thought I’d see you again. Not after the cord broke.”
“Nor I you,” she replied, her voice near a whisper. “I believed you lost forever.”
“I was,” he replied. Then he laughed a mirthless sort of laugh. “I have slain a Faerie beast. More than one!”
“Hush, please,” she begged.
“That was the rite, was it not? A boy enters the Gray Wood, kills a beast, and returns a man? A man fit to take his bride.”
She shook her head, refusing to look at him, but remained where she stood. “Where is that cat?” she growled.
Sun Eagle turned his face away, grimacing at the pain. Then both of them startled and stopped breathing as a horrible roar erupted in the Wood beyond the walls of the Haven. Lioness had followed the trail of blood this far and found she could go no farther, but there was no sign of her prey. Furious, she roared again and again.
Joining that sound came the high, childish, merciless voice of Nidawi.
“Knights! Knights of Farthestshore! Give back what you took from me!”
Eanrin appeared in the doorway, bringing bandages, a large bowl, and a carafe of water. Imraldera took them and set to work cleaning the wound, even as the lion and the child continued shouting and circling the whole of the Haven, their voices fading and returning with each round. Eanrin stood back and maintained an aloof silence, his head tilted to catch the threats and roars without. But as soon as Imraldera tied the last bandage and stepped back to drop blood-soaked rags into the bowl, Eanrin leaned over their guest and said:
“All right, my friend, time to own up. How came you to irk the lion so?”
“Eanrin!” Imraldera protested and grabbed his shoulder. Sun Eagle looked away, his warrior’s face a stoic mask.
“Don’t try to be coy,” Eanrin persisted, shaking the young man none too gently. “Those are both Faeries out there, if I’m not mistaken, and I
smell mortality on you, however long gone it might be. My first instinct is to trust them and not you. Don’t take it personally; it’s just my way. But if you want me on your side, best to tell all now, or I’m half inclined to give them what they want.”
“Eanrin!” Imraldera pulled her comrade back, dragging him across the room, where she glared up at him furiously. Her hair escaped from under her scarf, falling in black coils over each cheek, but she pushed them back with hands that still trembled. “How dare you? Is this not a house of succor? Of sanctuary?”
Even as she spoke, her voice was nearly drowned out by Nidawi’s screech of, “GIVE HIM TO ME, OR I WILL REND YOU!”
“Here’s the thing, Imraldera, old girl.” Eanrin shrugged as casually as though he remarked on the fineness of the weather. “I’m a Faerie man, born and bred, so to speak, and I’ll trust a Faerie’s word sooner than a mortal’s most any day. That’s a Faerie out there, and an angry one if I’m not mistaken—”
“REND YOU, I SAY!”
“Granted, we’re a temperamental lot as a rule,” Eanrin added. “But we don’t usually offer rendings unless provoked. So I suggest, before this Faerie lass and her toothy companion begin an assault on our doorstep, we’d best find out what they want him for.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Imraldera, her face and voice tense. “He is our guest, and he is wounded. Wait at least until he heals—Eanrin! Where are you going?”
For the cat-man had turned on heel and now strode from the room, his red cloak flapping behind him. Cursing under her breath, Imraldera hurried after and caught up just as he opened the front entrance of the Haven and looked out into the Wood.
“Very well, renders all!” he called in his merriest voice. “Come plead your case, and we’ll see who is rending whom tonight.”
Immediately the great white lioness leapt into the space before the door, her whole face and body twisted with a terrible roar. Eanrin watched through half-closed eyes, his arms folded even as Imraldera startled and ducked behind him, trembling, though she was no coward.
When Lioness had finished her piece, Nidawi appeared. She was a child still, wild and sexless, flashing teeth as vicious as the lion’s, if not more so. “Exactly!” she cried. “Everything she said and more!”
“Well, that’s not very friendly, tearing limbs asunder and so forth,” the poet-cat replied blandly. “And I’m certainly not going to stand by and watch you do it—”
“Thank you,” Imraldera whispered.
“—unless, of course, you have good reason, in which case all options will be considered.”
Imraldera smacked his shoulder, which served only to broaden his grin.
Nidawi stared up at him, her eyes as wide and feral as Lioness’s, panting fast in her ire. Then she drew herself up and became a tall queen, beautiful and severe, strong and sorrowful. Both Eanrin and Imraldera were surprised by this, and even Eanrin took a step back. He felt Imraldera grab hold of his arm, her fingers warm, her body near and trembling with something other than fright.
“I am Nidawi the Everblooming, Queen of Tadew-That-Was,” said the Faerie woman. Her hair grew thick about her face, moving as though with its own life as flowers twined green shoots through the tangles, blooming and fading in moments. “That creature you harbor within your walls murdered my people.”
“What? All of them?” Eanrin said, his eyebrows up.
“All of them,” said she. She extended a long arm, strangely muscular for her femininity, and her fingernails were long like claws and tipped with Sun Eagle’s blood. “Murdered my people and razed my demesne until nothing is left that is green or growing, and I am alone.” Her hand was palm up, as though expecting a gift or an offering. “His blood is mine. Send him out to me.”
“No,” said Imraldera fiercely. “You’ll not touch him!”
“Easy now, old girl,” Eanrin said, putting out a restraining hand even as Imraldera pushed past him and stood, shoulders squared and feet braced, small before the might of that terrible queen. Nidawi took a threatening step forward, and with that step her face aged, her black hair streaked with white, her eyes sank into hollows, and deep pits formed in her cheeks. But she was more terrible still, and her eyes were orange-gold in their hollows, all trace of demure shadows fled.
“I demand in the name of the Lumil Eliasul that you give him up!” she cried.
“No!” said Imraldera again. “Such is not our way or the way of our Lord. Don’t use his name lightly and expect us to concede.”
“Are you not Knights of Farthestshore?” Nidawi said. “Are you not sworn to defend the weak against the predators of the Wood?”
“Well, my dear lady,” said Eanrin, stepping forward to take hold of Imraldera’s shoulder and draw her back, for she looked as though she might fly at the powerful queen, “you certainly don’t make a great case for yourself, demanding blood vengeance one moment and protection the next. You’ve said your piece, however, and we will consider it—”
“Consider it?” The Faerie queen shrieked and tore at her own hair, her fingers ripping away the vines and flowers and leaving cuts in her scalp. “I want rest for my people! He must die, I say! Murderer! Parasite! Life-sucking leech! Send him out to me! ”
With that, she flung herself at them, her mouth gaping wide and black, her eyes too round and too huge to be human. Arms raised above her head as though she would snatch them all and tear them apart, she flew at the door, her hair streaming like white smoke behind her. Eanrin hauled Imraldera back and slammed the door in the wild woman’s face; just in time, it would seem, for she struck with such force that the whole of the Haven echoed with it. But the Haven was built for protection, and none could breach its defenses (save perhaps dragons, though that had yet to be tested).
Nevertheless, Nidawi hurled herself at the door again and again, scrabbling and tearing and pulling at the locks, her voice shifting from a crone’s to a woman’s to a child’s and back, each more chilling than the last. And over all this cacophony, Lioness roared.
Eanrin and Imraldera stood in the passage, clutching each other and staring at the door. Then Eanrin, still grasping Imraldera’s upper arms, turned her to him and said in a low voice:
“Well, we’ve heard her side of the story. Best to get his now, so we can decide what to do.”
“It does not matter,” Imraldera said. “He is our guest.”
“According to our other guest,”—with a nod to the door—“he’s a murderer.”
“It’s not true.”
“He’s a savage enough chap, you must admit.”
“He’s a warrior. But he would not murder.”
Eanrin studied the face of the young woman before him. She would not meet his gaze. He drew back, letting her go, and crossed his arms, still watching her intently.
“All right, out with it, my girl. Who is this fellow we’ve got bleeding on our furniture even as we speak? This man who calls you Starflower.”
Nidawi screamed fit to shatter glass, and Imraldera jumped and shifted on her feet nervously. She pressed her lips together as though wanting to refuse to speak. Then reluctantly, she said, “His . . . his name is Sun Eagle. He was my . . .” She cast about for something on which to fix her gaze, anything but the cat-man’s face. “He was my intended husband.”
“What? You were married?”
“No!” Imraldera shook her head. “No, you idiot, we were betrothed.”
“You never told me!”
“You never asked.”
Eanrin threw up his hands. “Right! Because I should have out and said one day, ‘By the by, Imraldera, have you ever promised to marry some fool chap?’ Why would I ask such a thing?”
“I don’t know why you would.” She glared at him. “And I don’t know why I would tell you.” Then she drew a long breath, and her face relaxed into a gentler, tired expression. “It was a different life, Eanrin. And it was so long ago, before my voice, before my knighthood. . . .”
Her voice tra
iled off, vanishing behind Nidawi’s screams of, “REND! TEAR! BLOOD! FIRE! KILL!” each word punctuated by the thump of her shoulder hitting the door.
Eanrin’s head tipped to one side, his eyes golden slits on his face. “So that savage in there . . . he means nothing to you?”
“You are not giving him to Nidawi.”
“Who said I was?”
Imraldera marched back to the sick chamber, where Sun Eagle lay. The cat-man followed, but she turned in the doorway and raised a warning hand. “Stay out,” she said. With that and nothing more, she shut the door in his face. Not one given naturally to following orders, Eanrin put a hand to the latch. But he thought better of it and stepped back, staring at the door as though it would open by magic. Then, with a curse, he stalked down the hall.
Imraldera waited until she heard his footsteps retreating. She turned and found Sun Eagle watching her.
“What’s to be my fate, Starflower?” he asked. “Am I to be given over to monsters?”
She shook her head and moved quietly to the bedside. He reached out to her, but she pretended not to see and sat instead on a nearby stool. For a little while, she studied her own hands folded in her lap. Then she said, “She claims you murdered her people.”
Sun Eagle shook his head. “I never saw her. Not until some few months past, by mortal count, when she and her lion set upon me in the Wood.”
Imraldera looked up and found that Sun Eagle was no longer watching her but had turned his gaze to the ceiling. It was an unusual enough ceiling, for in the shifting of moments it could seem to be made of molded plaster painted in a mural of leaves and sky; then, without altering, it was leaves and sky in truth, gently blowing in a breeze. Such was the way of the Haven, built in the Between but linking the Far World and the Near, existing both in and out of Time.
Sun Eagle’s eyes were bright with tears.
“Do you remember that day?” he said softly.