Rhys dropped to one knee in front of me, which crowded Kitto a little; but the fact that he was willing to touch the little goblin was actually a very good sign. He raised my hand to his lips, grinning.
"The lovely Marie offered me her favors."
I raised my eyebrows. "And?"
"And it would have been rude to have ignored such an offer." By fey standards, he was right.
"She's human, not fey," I said.
"Jealous?" he asked.
I shook my head, smiling. "No."
He came to his feet in one smooth movement, planting a quick kiss on my cheek. "I knew you were more fey than human."
Marie was kneeling by Maeve. She kept her face turned away from us but shook her head, and Maeve turned a very frowny face to us. "Marie said you refused her advances, guard."
"I made it clear that I found her lovely," Rhys said.
"But you did not take advantage of her."
"I am Princess Meredith's lover. Why should I look elsewhere? I showed your assistant the amount of attention she deserved, no more, no less." The humor was gone from his face now, and he seemed almost angry.
Maeve petted the woman's hand and sent her into the house. Marie very carefully avoided looking at Rhys. I think she was embarrassed. Maybe she didn't get turned down often, or maybe Maeve told her it was a sure thing.
I stood. "I've had enough games, Maeve."
She reached toward me, but I was out of reach. "Please, Meredith, I meant no offense."
"You sent your servant to seduce my lover. You tried to seduce me, not out of plain desire, but out of a desire to gain control over me."
She stood in one swift motion. "That last is not true."
"But you do not deny sending your servant to seduce my lover."
She took off the big sunglasses so I could see how confused she was. I was betting it was an act. "You are Unseelie Court, and all manner of temptations are open to you."
It was my turn to be confused. "What does my court have to do with anything? You have insulted me and mine."
"You are Unseelie Court," she said again.
I shook my head. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"You would not try on the swimsuits," she said, voice soft, eyes downcast.
"What?" I asked.
"If Marie had seen him nude, then she would have known his body was pure, except for the scars."
I frowned harder. "What in the name of the Lord and Lady are you babbling about?"
"You are all Unseelie Court, Meredith. I have to be sure you are not... unclean."
"You mean deformed," I said, and I didn't even try to keep the anger out of my voice.
She gave a small nod.
"Why should our bodies, whatever they look like, make any difference to you?"
"I told you what I want, Meredith."
I nodded, and I was nice enough not to blurt out her secret in front of everyone, though heaven knows she hadn't earned the courtesy.
"If anyone who aids me in such an endeavor is impure, then..." She sort of nodded at me, trying to get me to finish the sentence in my head.
I leaned into her and hissed, more than whispered, "The child will be deformed."
No amount of glamour could hide the smell of cocoa butter, liquor, and cigarette smoke in her hair and skin. A sudden wave of nausea rushed over me.I backed away from her and would have fallen if Rhys hadn't caught me, steadied me. "What's wrong?" he whispered.
I shook my head. "I'm tired of being here with this woman."
"Then we leave," Doyle said.
I shook my head again. "Not yet." I half clutched Rhys's arm and turned back to Maeve. "You tell me why you were exiled. You tell me the whole truth here and now or we walk away from you forever."
"If he knew I told anyone, he would kill me."
"If he finds out I was here, talking to you, do you really believe he'll wait to find out if you told me?"
She looked frightened now. But I didn't care.
"Tell me, Maeve, tell me or we walk, and you'll never find anyone else outside of faerie who can help you."
"Meredith, please..."
"No," I said. "The great pure Seelie Court, how they look down on us. If a child is born deformed, then it is killed, or was, until you all stopped having children. Then even the monsters were precious. Do you know what happened to the babies after a while, Maeve? Do you know what happened in the last four hundred years or so to deformed Seelie children? Because, make no mistake, inbreeding catches up, even with the immortal."
"I don't... know."
"Yes, you do. All that bright, shining throng know. My own cousin was kept because she was part brownie. You didn't throw her out, because brownies are Seelie -- not court, but creatures of light. But when the sidhe themselves breed monsters, the pure, shining, Seelie sidhe, breed deformities, monstrosities, then what happens, where do they go?"
She was crying now, soft, silver tears. "I don't know."
"Yes, you do. The babies go to the Unseelie Court. We take in the monsters, those pure Seelie monsters. We take them in, because we welcome everyone. No one, no one is turned away from the Unseelie Court, especially not tiny, newborn babies whose only crime was to be born to parents who can't study a genealogical chart well enough to avoid marrying their own fucking siblings." I was crying, too, now, but it was anger, not sorrow.
"I give you my oath that I and Frost and Rhys are pure of body. Does that make it easier? Does that help? If you just wanted to sleep with the men, you wouldn't have cared if you saw me in a swimsuit, but you did care. You want a fertility rite, Maeve. You need me, and at least one man."
I was too angry to know if anyone besides Maeve had heard what I said, or understood what I'd said. I just didn't care.
I pushed away from Rhys, my anger carrying me forward to spit the words in her face. "Tell me why you were exiled, Maeve, tell me now, or we leave you as we found you. Alone."
She nodded, still crying. "All right, all right, Lady guard me, but all right. I'll tell you what you want to know, if you swear to me that you'll help me have a child."
"You swear first," I said.
"I swear that I will tell you the truth about why I was exiled from the Seelie Court."
"And I swear that after you have told me why you were exiled from the Seelie Court, I and my men will do our best to see that you have a child."
She rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. It was a child's gesture. She seemed thoroughly shaken, and I wondered, had one of those poor, unfortunate babies belonged to Conchenn, goddess of beauty and spring? And had the thought of giving up the only child she might ever have haunted her? I hoped so.
Chapter 14
"A hundred years ago, the high king of Faerie, Taranis, was ready to put aside his wife, Conan of Cuala. They'd been a couple for a hundred years and had no children." Her voice had fallen automatically into the singsong of the storyteller. "So he was putting her aside."
I loved a good story told in the old ways, but I wanted out of the sun, and I wanted not to be here forever. So I interrupted. "He did put her away," I said.
Maeve smiled, but not like it made her happy. "He asked me to take her place as his bride. I refused him." She was just talking to me now, the singsong lost. It might not have been as pretty, but straight conversation would be quicker.
"That's not a reason to be exiled, Maeve. At least one other has turned down Taranis's offer before, and she's still a part of the glittering throng," I sipped my lemonade and watched her.
"But Edain was in love with another. My reason was different."
She wasn't looking at me, or Kitto, or anyone, I think. She seemed to be staring off into space, maybe looking at the memories in her own head.
"And that reason was?" I asked.
"Conan was the king's second wife. He had been a hundred years with this new wife, yet there was no child."
"And?" I took another long drink of lemonade.
She took a long swallow of rum and looked back at me. "I told Taranis no because I believe he is sterile. It isn't the women but the king who is incapable of making an heir."
I spit lemonade all over myself and Kitto. He seemed frozen with the lemonade running down his arm and sunglasses.
The maid appeared with napkins. I took a handful, then waved her off. We were talking about something that no one should hear. When I could talk without sputtering, and Kitto and I were both relatively dry, I said, "You told Taranis this to his face?"
"Yes," she said.
"You're braver than you seem." Or stupider, I added in my head.
"He demanded I tell him why I would not have him as husband. I said I wished to have a child and I didn't believe that he could give me one."
I just stared at her, trying to think about the implications of what she'd said. "If what you say is true, then the royals could demand the king make the ultimate sacrifice. They could demand he allow himself to be killed as part of one of the great holy days."
"Yes," Maeve said. "He forced me out that same night."
"For fear that you would tell someone," I said.
"Surely I am not the only one to have suspicions," she said. "Adaria went on to have children with two others, but she was barren for centuries with our King."
I understood now why I'd been beaten for asking about Maeve. My uncle's very life hung in the balance. "He could just step down from the throne," I said.
Maeve lowered her glasses enough to give me a withering look. "Do not be naive, Meredith. It does not become you."I nodded. "Sorry, you're right. Taranis would never believe it. He would have to be forced to accept that he was sterile, and the only way to do so would be to bring him up before the nobles. Which means you'd have to find a way to convince enough of them to vote your way."