I glanced up, eyes narrowed in confusion.
“You are no saint, and we have no benevolent God,” he continued. “How then do you heal?”
What a peculiar question! “I am still learning the extent of my powers,” I admitted. “Previously, I used the healing gifts of plants, herbs I plucked in the forest and the garden, brewed into tisanes or pounded into poultices.”
“And you asked their leave?”
Well, of course I hadn’t. They were plants.
“Never did you wonder what was dying because your patients were living?” Amadan shook his head. “But, oh, Your Majesty. You will understand in time. I will be there to help you pick up the pieces when you do.”
And form them into a shape of your own choosing, no doubt.
I had other plans.
Forty
I installed Jamie in the palace,in a room carved by the ocean, with sea creatures swimming through the clear walls. He stared at it, eyes wide with wonder, though he still never uttered a sound. I conjured for him a diaphanous tunic, pale green as the new leaves of spring and softer than any silk. Never had he owned garments so fine.
I knelt to his level and put my hands on his shoulders. “Isn’t this better, poppet?” I asked. “Fishes in the windows, sleeping on sheets of finest silk, flowers springing up with our every step? Not to mention the food!”
He had eaten himself nearly ill with berries plucked from the mortal realm and followed it up with bread and honey fresh from the comb. His cheeks had gone rosy with good health and were plumping up a bit besides.
I rumpled his hair as I straightened. “You may run to the garden to play whenever you’d like. And your friend Fia will always be nearby.”
He threw himself against me and hugged my waist. The aroma of sweet porridge and green grass rose up, and a smile spread over my face. It was good to have someone here to love.
In truth, I did not spend as much time with Jamie as I would have liked. There was always something to keep me preoccupied, whether it was planning for the Beltane feast or attempting to root out dissent among the Aos Sith. Lord Elidor stayed far from my presence, as I commanded, but Lord Mossgrow, the elder fae who had been privy to his treasonous mutterings if not his co-conspirator, requested an audience with me not long before Beltane.
“You should not bother with him, Your Majesty,” the Dark Fool advised. “Turn him into an acorn, and the next time I visit the mortal realms I shall toss him to the pigs to eat.”
It was not bad advice if incredibly cruel. But I did not know that Lord Mossgrow had conspired with Elidor. Perhaps he had simply not known how to silence the younger man. And if I were going to turn Mossgrow into an acorn, it only seemed wise to see what information—if any—I could get out of him first.
This wasnotthe way I, as Bess Grieve, had ever thought.
I chose to meet the man without Amadan, but with Lyel and his company of guards at my side, immovable and implacable in their silvery armor and with their glistening hair. I could not imagine he would try anything with those stalwarts at my beck and call.
Lord Mossgrow was escorted into my chamber by two of my guards, looking as if he might fall to the ground if they released their grip. His prodigious mustachios were wilted and hung like swamp grass over his lips; his frame had grown thin and bony and did not seem to fill out his fine clothing. When he dropped to one knee before me, I feared he would never rise again.
I still did not help him to his feet.
When he rose, it was on shaking limbs, though he stood tall and straight, his bearing still bespeaking nobility and pride.
“Lord Mossgrow,” I said. “I believe I told you and yours you were welcome in my presence no longer. And yet you stand before me now.”
To his credit, Lord Mossgrow did not flinch or avoid my gaze. “I will make no excuses, Your Majesty. If you choose to expel me from Faery altogether and send me to make shoes in the mortal realm, I will think it justified. Yet there is something I would give to you first.” He held out his hands.
Lyel and my other guards tensed and leaned forward, ready to attack should Lord Mossgrow make any false move. But all he did was open his hand. In his palm lay a purple flower, a cluster of bell-like blooms on a lengthy stem. The scent emanating from it was somewhat unpleasant, but the flower itself was beautiful... and deadly.
“Foxglove,” I said. “Also called fairy glove and dead man’s bells. Can be used to combat aconite poisoning, but it is otherwise quite deadly to humans.”
Lord Mossgrow, Lyel, and his fellows all stared at me, as if they had never seen a queen who was once a cunning woman before.
Deadly to humans.And I a fae with human blood. My eyes narrowed and I tilted my head as I considered the plant in Mossgrow’s open palms. Given my half-mortal origins, I dared not take it from him, lest it prove poisonous to me instead. I gestured for Lyel to take it and for a moment the flower flickered, and an image of a true glove—white but glowing with a luminescence the same purple shade of the flower—appeared. What then did that mean?
Relieved of his dangerous burden, Mossgrow dropped his hands to his sides, limp as a broken tree branch. “’Twas Elidor’s,” he said. “I made him swear he would not poison the queen with it, but he could not tell me what the plant was for. Mayhap he knew I would go to you.”
“I am glad you did,” I told him. “You thereby have earned your continued presence in Faery, though certainly not by my side.”
