A Shiver of Light (Merry Gentry #9)(41)

Galen took my hand in his; he looked grim. Doyle, Mistral, and Rhys had all moved up around my chair, but they were still behind the wall of guards. In a real battle we might lead from the front, but in moments like this princes and kings did not stand in front of their bodyguards. I had spent months learning this lesson as I watched the men I loved risk themselves again and again to keep me and the unborn children safe. Now, they were having to learn the lesson. I looked at my three warriors standing so certain, so ready, and hidden from the threat. I knew that it would chafe on them more than it had on me, because a year ago they would have stood between the danger and Queen Andais; now they stood beside me.
A voice even lower than Doyle’s came from that tall wall of guards. “We are goblin; you cannot call us back to your side, Queen Andais, for that has never been our place.” It was Jonty, the leader of the Red Caps. He was smallish for his people, only a little over eight feet tall; some of the men in the line were closer to thirteen feet, like small giants, or average-sized ogres. Their skin color ranged through every shade of gray, yellow, and two golds that were almost brown. The sidhe warriors, so tall and commanding, looked small interspersed between them.
“You are Kurag the Goblin King’s problem, not mine, but the men and women you stand beside—they are mine.” Her voice went down another note to a purring, sexual depth, but it didn’t excite any of us who were sidhe, because we knew that it promised violence, not sex, at least for us. I’d begun to realize that violence was a kind of sex for my aunt. She was truly like one of those sexual predators who are wired so that images of violence hit the same centers of the brain that “normal” sex does for the rest of us.
I projected my voice to be heard. It would have been more impressive if I hadn’t been hiding behind my guards, but it would have to do, because Andais wasn’t the most stable person, and I wouldn’t risk myself betting that, one, she couldn’t do magic through the mirror, and two, she would remember that she valued my fertile womb, if nothing else.
“They are not yours, Aunt Andais, not anymore.”
“Do not let your fertility go to your head, Meredith. It may keep you and your lovers safe, but the rest are on loan, nothing more. Until you sit on my throne, the Unseelie sidhe are mine.” 
“They are oathed to me now, Aunt Andais.”
“They cannot be oathed twice, niece. That would make them foresworn.”
“The Cranes, my father’s female guards, were never asked to make oath to Prince Cel; you just ordered them to guard him, so they were free to make oath where they will.”
“They were oathed to my son,” she said.
“No, they were not,” I said. I would have liked to see her face, but I trusted the guards to do their job and stared at their broad backs, Galen’s hand still in mine.
“Cel gave them a choice and they swore oath to him.”
“Who told you that?” This was from Cathbodua, who stood at the end of the line that shielded us.
“Cel and the captain of the Cranes, Siobhan.”
“They lied, then,” Cathbodua said.
“Why would they have lied about that?”
“His reasons were his own, always, Queen Andais, but I swear to you that no one standing here today ever took oath to Prince Cel.”
“I neglected much where my son was concerned, and I regret that.”
Cathbodua went to one knee. “I am honored to hear you say that, Queen Andais.”
One guard taking a knee was often a sign for all, but no one else knelt, and after a time Cathbodua got to her feet and joined her fellow guards again.
“I will grant that the female guards are free to be with you, Princess Meredith, but the men are mine.”
“They took oath to me, as well, Aunt Andais,” I said.
“Yes, remind me of our blood ties, Meredith, because you do grow tiresome so quickly.”
“As do these moments between us, for me, auntie.”
“Do not call me auntie.”
“As you wish,” I said. My voice was as neutral as I could make it.
“I will call all my Ravens home to roost, Meredith, and they will come.”
“No, we won’t.” This from Usna, who stood beside Cathbodua. His normal joking voice, as if nothing were really serious, was missing. It was a very grim cat that stepped from the line.
“How dare you tell me ‘no’ and ‘won’t.’ I will carve those words into your flesh.”
“We all made oath to Merry; we are no longer your Ravens. You cannot call us home, and we are no longer yours to torture at your will,” he said, and his voice sounded sad now. I realized that he did not believe that anything would keep him safe from Andais. Usna spoke bravely, but he didn’t believe in that safety.
“Then you are all foresworn.” She almost yelled it.
I spoke then, standing up as if that would help. Galen squeezed my hand tight as if afraid of what I would do. “They are oathed to me, which does make them foresworn.”
“Then they will be punished for breaking their oath,” she said.
“By exile from faerie? Isn’t that the usual punishment for being foresworn?” I said.
“No!” She yelled it.
“Yes,” I said, clearly, calmly.
“You can’t all have chosen exile from faerie,” she said, and her voice held shock.
“We are exiled from the Unseelie Court,” Usna said, “but we are not exiled from faerie, for wherever Princess Meredith goes, faerie follows.”
“That is not possible,” Andais said.
“You have seen it yourself, Queen Andais,” Cathbodua said. “She brought the gardens of the Unseelie Court back to life. Faerie is alive and spreading for the first time in over a thousand years.”
Doyle spoke then. “The night itself must have told you that faerie is alive again.”
“My power has whispered rumors to me,” she said, and her voice was growing calmer. That could be a good thing or a bad thing; one can never tell with psychopaths.“Then you know that faerie has come to the Western Lands and we are no longer exiles, but pioneers on the frontier of new fairylands,” Doyle said.
“I cannot let anyone defy me like this, Darkness; you know that I am only as powerful as my threat.”
“I am sorry for that, my queen.”
“I must call one home and make his punishment terrible enough to prevent any others from joining your quiet rebellion.”
“I do not know what to say to that, my queen; it is almost reasonable, and for you very reasonable.”
“Send Usna to me, and I will leave the rest in place,” she said.
I watched Usna reach out and take Cathbodua’s hand. I was about to say something in their defense, but she spoke first. “I am pregnant with Usna’s child.”
“You are lying to save him,” Andais said, voice certain.
“The little stick says I am with child, and the only man I have lain with is Usna.”
“Little stick, what little stick can tell you you are pregnant?”
I said, “Cathbodua, do you mean a home pregnancy test?”
She looked behind to find me, and nodded.
“When did you find out?” I asked.
“Just before this meeting.”
I’d had enough. I stepped forward with Galen’s hand in mine. The Red Caps and sidhe in front of us glanced at each other, and then the sidhe looked to Doyle, and the Red Caps looked to me. Whatever they saw on both our faces, it made them move aside so we could come forward and face Andais.
“We have another fertile couple among the sidhe; it is something to celebrate, Aunt Andais, not punish.”
She stared at me, and there was a look on her face that I couldn’t understand, but it looked almost pained. On anyone else, I might have said it looked afraid, but Andais feared no one, least of all me.
“It is love that has made them fertile,” Galen said. I glanced up at him, but he looked only at the queen. He looked handsome, commanding standing there, as if something had stripped away the last bits of childhood and brought him into the man he was always meant to be.
“The crow and the cat do not love each other; it is lust that has made a child.” Her voice was thick with disdain.
“I didn’t mean their love for one another, but Meredith’s love for them.”
“Are you saying they, too, are her lovers? Is no one safe from your lusts, Meredith?”
Rhys stepped forward. “Meredith loves them as a ruler is supposed to love her subjects.”
“You cannot rule by love,” she said, and her beautiful face was creased with angry lines, as if the monster inside her were starting to peer out. 
Galen said, “But they oathed themselves to Meredith because she has shown them love and caring, the way Prince Essus did to his guards.”
“Do not wave my brother’s memory at me and think it will make me relent. Meredith has brought it up too often of late.”
Doyle came to stand on the other side of Galen. “Prince Essus stood between you and those you would harm more than once. I don’t think any of us understood what a good and strong influence he was on you until we lost him.”
“I would allow Essus liberties that no one else dared.”
“You loved your brother,” Doyle said.
“Yes, yes, I loved my brother, but he is dead and gone.”
“But his daughter stands before you; his grandchildren are in the other room waiting to see their great-aunt Andais. Meredith is truly NicEssus, the daughter of Essus, for she has shown the same nobility, kindness, intelligence, and love that he did. He would have made a fine and generous king.”