Andais spoke as if she’d heard my last thought. “When my brother got his new bride pregnant so quickly, there were those who urged me to step down. I refused.” She turned and looked at me. “Do you want to know why I called you home, Meredith?”
It was so unexpected that I gaped at her for a moment, then managed, “Yes.”
“I’m infertile, Meredith. All those human doctors have done everything they can for me. That is why you must prove yourself fertile. Whoever rules after me must be able to bring life back to the courts. Maelgwn accused me of condemning all of you to be childless because my line is. I can only give you my word that I did not believe it until recently. If I could go back . . .” She sighed and slumped as much as her tight bodice would allow. “I wonder what we would be now, we Unseelie, if I had allowed Essus to take this throne these thirty years and more.” Her eyes held a pain that she’d never let me see before. That one look answered a question that I had wondered about. I knew that my father loved his sister, but until that moment I had not been sure that she loved him back. It was there in her eyes, in the lines of her face, even underneath the makeup. She looked tired.
“Aunt Andais—” I started but she shushed me.
“I have heard whispers in the dark, niece of mine, whispers that I did not believe. But if the ring truly lives for you, if it has begun to choose fertile couples for you, then perhaps the rumors are true. Is Maeve Reed, once Conchenn among the Seelie, with child?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. There had to be some among us who were spies for the Seelie Court. It would endanger Maeve to say yes, but Taranis had already tried to kill her. She was in another country now, as safe as we could make her. It was more dangerous not to answer, because we had told no one that Maeve Reed had been exiled from faerie because she had refused the king’s bed on the grounds that he was sterile. Which meant that, unlike Andais, Taranis had known a hundred years ago that he was infertile. He had kept his throne and condemned his people to diminish and die rather than step down. The Seelie were within their rights to demand his death as a true sacrifice to the land for that oversight.
I’d thought too long, and Andais said, “Meredith, what is wrong?”
Frost squeezed my shoulder, Galen was very still beside me. I looked at Doyle, and he gave a small nod. Truth was the lesser evil. I whispered it. “Yes, she is with child.”Andais was looking from me to Doyle, as if she longed to ask why I had hesitated so long, but she was a better politician than to ask. You did not ask a question in public to which you did not know the answer. “Answer so that everyone can hear you, niece.”
I had to clear my throat to make my voice carry through the hall. “Yes, she is with child.”
A sigh of murmurs ran through the assembled nobles.
Andais smiled, as if she was satisfied with the reaction. “Did you work a spell for her, a fertility spell?”
“Yes,” I said.
The murmur grew, swelling like the sea as it sweeps toward the shore.
“I heard her husband was dying even then, is that true?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Treatments for cancer can leave a man sterile or unable to perform.”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“But you managed a spell that got a dying man to perform one last time for her?”
“Yes.”
“Who played the part of the consort to your goddess? Who was god to your goddess for this spell?”
“Galen.” I pressed his hand against my chest, as I said it.
The ocean of murmurs burst upon us in a confused babble. Cries, almost shouts. Some did not believe it. I heard at least one male voice that I could not quite place say, “That explains it.” I would ask Doyle or Frost if they recognized the voice later.
Andais looked at Kieran still standing bound at the foot of the steps. “I slew Galen’s father before I, or the noble lady who brought complaint of magical seduction, knew she was pregnant. You almost slew a warrior who had helped work magic to create life in the womb of a sidhe woman and a dying human.”
Kieran looked confused, as if he was thinking very hard. “I would say I do not believe it, but you have spoken too much truth today, my queen, for me to doubt this. And you do not like Galen enough to lie to save him.”
“We never lie, Kieran.”
He bowed. “I meant . . .”
“I know what you meant.” She leaned back against her chair, almost cozily, like a cat settling in. “What did Cel’s people tell you that made you agree to do this traitorous thing?”
I expected Kieran to argue, or fight her, but he simply answered. “That the green man would bring life to her.” He nodded at me, since he could not point.
Andais looked at Dormath. “And what did Siobhan tell you?”
“That the green man would return life to the land of faerie.”
Kieran’s face showed his panic. He tried to fall to his knees, I think to bow lower, but hands caught him, kept him on his feet. “That is not what I was told, my queen, I swear it. I would never destroy a chance for our court to be brought back to what we were, never.”
“Dormath,” she said, “explain to Kieran the wording of the prophecy that Prince Cel paid the human psychic for.”
Dormath bowed to her, then said, “The green man will bring life back to the land of faerie. The ruler is the land, and the land is the ruler. Their health, their fertility, their happiness, is the health, the fertility, and the joy of the land itself.”
“Well put, Dormath, and very true. If you killed Meredith’s green knight, and he was destined to be the king who brought back children to the sidhe, then what would you have done to us, Kieran, Madenn?” She didn’t wait for them to answer. “By killing him you would have destroyed all our hopes and dreams.”
“But it is Mistral and Meredith who have begun to awaken the dead gardens, and the magic of the guard. He was with her when the ring chose Nicca and Biddy,” Kieran said. “It is Mistral who sits in the consort’s throne, not the green knight.”
“True enough, and perhaps the ring has chosen the storm lord to be her king. I myself interpreted the term ‘green man’ to mean any of our green gods, but perhaps I have been too literal. Green man can be another name for god, or consort.” She shook her head. “I do not know for certain. I do not know if it is irritating or reassuring that prophets still speak in riddles even in this very modern America.” She turned to me. “Go help Nicca and Biddy make the child you saw. But abide by my rules; if I find you have given him first to Biddy, I will be cross. But take Galen and one other green man to your body this night, as well.”
“What of the traitors, Aunt Andais?” I asked.
“You go try and make babies; I will tend to them. I will give you a united court, Meredith. It will be my first and last gift to you.” She put a hand in front of her face and said, “Leave me, take the guards who are green men with you, but leave me the ones who are not.”
Frost’s hand tensed on my shoulder, and I must have made some small sound of protest, because she looked up at me. She glanced at Frost and Doyle, and anger filled her eyes. “Take your Darkness and the Killing Frost. They are yours, but I will need some of the guards to help me punish the traitors.”
“And Biddy and Nicca,” I said quietly.
She waved her hand impatiently. “Yes, yes, now go.”
Frost’s hand eased up on my shoulder. He gave a small nod. I got up, bowed to the queen, and we moved toward the doors, leaving her to punish the traitors. She probably wouldn’t kill them, but she’d make sure they regretted their actions. Of that, I had no doubt. I shouldn’t have looked back, but I did. I saw Crystall, Hafwyn, Dogmaela, and others try to control their faces. Mistral and Barinthus were among the unreadable.
I stopped. Frost grabbed my shoulder, and Galen still had my hand. They tried to get me moving again, but I balked. I couldn’t save everyone, I knew that, but . . .
Doyle didn’t try to stop me, he simply looked at me with his impassive face. He would give me room to rule. I spoke with Frost and Galen’s hands tight against me. The tension in Frost’s hand was almost painfully tight.
“May I take a healer with me, my queen, just in case there are any more emergencies? We sent for a healer when Galen was injured but the healer never arrived.”
She nodded, but her attention was already fixed on her victims. She stood above Kieran, one hand idly stroking the blond hair that he had so carefully braided back behind his head. “Yes, take any but my own healer.”
“Hafwyn,” I said.
She couldn’t keep the relief off her face as she started across the floor.
The queen called after her. “Meredith, if you wish a healer you must take one who still has their powers.” She actually put her hands on her hips as if she was impatient with me.“Hafwyn healed Galen and Adair.”
She was looking at me now, paying attention. “Healed them how? She lost her ability to heal years ago.” She managed to look both irritated and relieved. “She is one you brought back into her powers tonight.”
“No, my queen, Hafwyn has always been able to heal with the laying on of hands.”
“I was told that she had lost her ability to heal,” the queen said.