"What does that mean exactly, Sir Hugh?" I asked.
"It means as much as I dare about my opinion of my king. It means that when you released the wild magic it awakened some…" he seemed to search for a word. "Certain things. Things that do not take well to oathbreakers, or other things." He frowned as if even he wasn't happy with what he'd just said.
"Oathbreakers and liars fear the wild hunt," Frost said.
"I did not say that," Hugh said.
"I haven't heard this much verbal tap-dancing from a Seelie noble in a long time," Rhys said.
Hugh smiled at him. "You haven't been at court in a long time."
"Did you know what Taranis was doing?" I asked.
"We had suspicions that the king was not himself."
"So polite," I said. "So mild."
"But accurate," Hugh said.
"What else has happened for you to be so cautious, firelord?" Rhys asked.
"I think that is a conversation for a more private audience, pale lord."
"I can't argue with that," Rhys said.
I was beginning to get the feeling that Rhys and Hugh knew each other better than I'd realized.
"What do we do about this day, and this moment?" I asked.
"I am but a humble lord of the sidhe," Hugh said. "I do not carry the blood of the royal line in my body."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"It means that the humans aren't the only ones who have laws." Hugh stared at me with his black-and-orange eyes. He seemed to be trying to tell me something without saying it out loud.
"The Seelie would never go for it," Rhys said.
"Go for what?" I asked, looking from one to the other.
"The king lost his temper with one of the serving wenches," Hugh said. "A huge green dog appeared between him and the target of his anger."
"A Cu Sith," I said.
"Yes, a Cu Sith, after all these long years, a green dog of faerie is among us again, and protects those who need protecting. It would not allow the king to strike the serving girl. She seemed more terrified that he would blame her for the dog, but the king lost his anger in the face of the great dog."
I remembered the dog from the night of the wild hunt. The night when wild magic had been everywhere. Huge black dogs had appeared, and when some touched them, they had changed to other dogs. Dogs out of legend, and a Cu Sith had run out into the night toward the Seelie Court.
"I would be interested to see whose hand the Cu Sith would call master, or mistress," I said.
"If we invoke this law," Rhys said, "it will be civil war in your own court, Hugh."
"Perhaps it is time for a little civil disobedience," Hugh said.
"What law?" I asked.
Rhys turned to me. "If the monarch is unfit to rule, the nobles of the court can vote him, or her, incompetent. They can force him or her to step down. Andais abolished the rule in her court, but Taranis never bothered. He was too confident that his court loved him."
"So, you're saying, what?" I, asked. "That Hugh force a vote among the nobles and they choose a new king?" It had possibilities, depending on whom they chose.
"Not exactly, Merry," Rhys said.
"Is she always this humble?" Hugh asked.
"Often," Rhys said.
"What?" I asked.
Frost said, "The Seelie nobles will never accept her."
"You don't know what has been happening here since she unlocked the magic. I think the vote may go in her favor."
"The vote go in my favor." I finally caught on. "Oh, no, you aren't serious."
"Yes, Princess Meredith, if you will agree to accept it, I will endeavor to make you our queen."
I just stared at him. I tried to gather my wits, my training at court, and all I could manage to say was, "How sure are you that this will work?"
"Sure enough to speak of it."
"That means very sure," Rhys said.
"I don't believe the Seelie will accept me as their queen, Hugh. But I know that before such a thing goes forward we must speak to our queen."
"Speak to Andais if you must, but whatever you are to the Unseelie, you have brought back the old magic to the outside of the hill. Inside we are still dead and dying, but our spies tell us that your faerie mound grows, lives. Even the mound of the sluagh is alive once more. King Sholto brags of your magic, Princess."
"King Sholto of the sluagh is a kind man."
Hugh laughed, an abrupt, surprised sound. "Kind. The king of the sluagh? The nightmares of all faerie, and you call him kind."
"I find him so," I said.
Hugh nodded. "Kindness. It is not an emotion we have had in this court in years. I, for one, would like more of it."