Part 16 (1/2)
”Dame Irrith,” Aspell said, and it was enough.
She stared down, biting her lip, digging one bare toe into the ragged rush mat that might have covered this floor for the last two hundred years. ”I suppose she's tired.”
”Tired,” he repeated.
”With all that's going on-trying to make arrangements with someone in Greece so we can hide ourselves with the clouds, and I know she's still searching for a weapon against the Dragon; and then of course there's all the usual affairs of the court, people scheming against one another and causing mischief above, and it's a good thing we don't always have to sleep, because when would she find the time?”
The Lord Keeper let out a slow sigh. ”Dame Irrith... I do not ask out of malice. I am concerned for the Queen, and for the Onyx Court. If you think it simple weariness, then that is one matter; within a year, one way or another, the threat of the comet will be ended, and her Majesty can rest. But if you think it something more, then for the good of the Onyx Court, I beg you to tell me.”
All the suspicion that had been wafting through her mind since he asked that first question hardened into a leaden ball. ”Why do you want to know?”
Aspell lifted one elegant hand. ”I mean no trap, Dame Irrith. Yes, I have some spies in my keeping, but I haven't come to lure you into indiscreet speech, which I can then clap you in prison for. Her Majesty knows that not all fae who speak of such things would call themselves Sanists, and not all who call themselves Sanists are treasonous. There can be loyalty in opposition. The ultimate concern of most on both sides is the preservation of our shared home, though they differ on how.”
She'd been on the verge of throwing him out. His mention of loyalty, though, loosened the knot around her heart. I don't mean any harm to Lune, or the Onyx Hall. But the situation... it does worry me. I don't mean any harm to Lune, or the Onyx Hall. But the situation... it does worry me. She'd been carefully avoiding such thoughts ever since talking to Magrat in the Crow's Head, for fear they would make her a Sanist. She'd been carefully avoiding such thoughts ever since talking to Magrat in the Crow's Head, for fear they would make her a Sanist.
And maybe she was. But that didn't have to be treason.
”Maybe,” she said, the admission as grudging as any she'd ever made. ”It might be affecting her. The palace. With the wall going away. They're connected, after all, and she's used that in the past-against the Dragon, for example. The damage might be sapping her strength.”
The Lord Keeper's mouth had thinned into a frown when she began speaking; now the frown deepened. ”Or she is giving giving her strength, in an effort to slow the damage. She might even be doing it unconsciously.” her strength, in an effort to slow the damage. She might even be doing it unconsciously.”
That sounded like Lune. The question slipped out of Irrith's mouth. ”What happens when her strength runs out?”
He said nothing, merely lifted his narrow brows.
She scowled at him as if it had had been a trap. ”It won't. She's strong. Fifty years of this has barely made a mark on her; she could go for a hundred more. And Ktistes is working to mend the palace, anyway.” been a trap. ”It won't. She's strong. Fifty years of this has barely made a mark on her; she could go for a hundred more. And Ktistes is working to mend the palace, anyway.”
”I wish him all the good fortune in the world.” Aspell sighed again, looking melancholy. ”I could also wish her Grace had better support to sustain her in these crises.”
”Support?”
He opened his mouth, then hesitated. ”It isn't my place to question the Queen's choices. The selection of the Prince is and always has been her prerogative.”
Galen. In some respects, he was the best support Lune could hope for; the young man wors.h.i.+pped her, and would do without hesitation anything she asked of him.
But that wasn't enough, was it? Lune needed someone who wouldn't just react react, but act act. Someone who thought ahead, or sideways, and came up with ideas she never would have dreamt of. Someone she could trust to address problems on his own, so that she didn't need to handle it all herself.
And Galen was not that man.
He wanted wanted to be. Perhaps someday he would be. He'd shown signs of it already; this notion of Dr. Andrews and the Royal Society was different, at least, and might bear fruit. But he was more a Prince-in-training than an actual Prince. to be. Perhaps someday he would be. He'd shown signs of it already; this notion of Dr. Andrews and the Royal Society was different, at least, and might bear fruit. But he was more a Prince-in-training than an actual Prince.
Irrith remembered the obelisk in the night garden, with its names and dates. ”Lune didn't expect to lose the last Prince so soon, did she?”
Aspell shook his head. Six years. The least of them had gone for decades longer. She would have expected more time, to find and educate a suitable successor.
Was Galen really the best she could do?
”I have said too much,” Aspell murmured, shaking his head again. ”Such matters are the Queen's affair, and none of mine. I thank you, Dame Irrith, for speaking honestly with me. Uncomfortable as it may be to consider such matters, I feel it's vital to face them, and to consider possible solutions.”
Like replacing the Queen. The wounded mistress of a wounded realm. Irrith shuddered inwardly. She didn't want to see Lune deposed, but with the Hall fraying...
Aspell reached into one pocket and pulled out a small mother-of-pearl box that he laid atop her cabinet. ”For your aid, Dame Irrith. Good day.”
She ignored the box for hours after he left, before curiosity finally overcame her reluctance and spite. Inside lay two items: a locket containing a miniature of some fellow's beloved and a snippet of her hair, and a piece of mortal bread.
Irrith shut the box, shoved it into her cabinet, and wondered if she'd done the right thing.
Rose House, Islington: June 30, 1758 Islington seemed much closer than it had been. The Aldersgate entrance was still just as far from the Goodemeades' home as ever, but the land in between had changed; the streets now stretched well beyond Smithfield and the Charterhouse, before suddenly giving way to the market gardens and green gra.s.s Irrith expected. After that, Islington was only a brief walk. It didn't seem right-as if someday she would leave the Onyx Hall and walk past houses and shops, churches and manicured little parks, and find herself at the Angel Inn without ever having left the city at all.
Her mood didn't help with such discontented thoughts. Ordinarily a visit to the Goodemeades was a happy occasion, for they were always eager to feed guests. Today, however, she had a purpose in mind, and it was not a happy one.
Only the Queen herself knew why she'd chosen Galen St. Clair as her Prince. But if there were two souls in London who could guess at Lune's reasons, their names were Rosamund and Gertrude.
The brownies had guests when she arrived, two apple maidens and an oak man from the fields around London. They welcomed Irrith, though, settling her down with a plate of food and a mug of their excellent mead, and perhaps it was a good thing; the hospitality loosened her tight muscles and made her questions easier to face. By the time the tree spirits were bid farewell, Irrith felt prepared for whatever the Goodemeades might say to her.
”Now, my dear,” Rosamund said, as Gertrude whisked away the dishes. ”You came in here with a face as long as a week of mourning, and though it's brightened up since then, I'm guessing you didn't come just for cakes and mead. What troubles you?”
Irrith licked crumbs from her fingers. ”Something I have no right to ask, but I will anyway. It's about the Prince.”
”And the way he's in love with Lune?” Gertrude asked, coming back in. Her plump hands tugged her ap.r.o.n straight. ”Poor lad. He'd make a fine ballad, but it must be dreary living.”
”Did Lune know how he felt before she chose him?” The brownies nodded in unison. ”Is that why she chose him?”
Gertrude went still. Rosamund busied herself with brus.h.i.+ng the last few crumbs from the tabletop. Glancing from one to the other, Irrith said, ”I promise, I'm not malicious. I just-I don't understand. He isn't political, and he doesn't have connections in the mortal world, not like some of the men before him. I know the previous one died awfully fast; is it just that Lune expected to have more time to educate Galen?”
Rosamund pursed her lips, then tossed the crumbs into the fire. ”Well, for questions one has no right to ask-but that's hardly ever stopped us, now, has it? Irrith, my dear, a little whisper has reached our ears that you're sharing Lord Galen's bed.”
If she'd stopped to consider it, she never would have believed they could keep it secret, not in the Onyx Hall. But she hadn't, and so the mention surprised her. ”I am. I didn't think the Queen would mind.”
”She doesn't. He's hardly the first Prince to enjoy a little dalliance among her subjects. It's more a matter of how it affects you you. Do you love him?”
Irrith laughed, incredulous. ”Love? Can you really imagine me shackling my heart to some mortal who will be dead in a few years? Not hardly. He interests me, certainly.” That mild description fell far short of the truth. Fascinated Fascinated would be closer. would be closer. Entranced. Entranced.
The brownies exchanged one of their usual inscrutable glances. After untold ages of practice, they were very good at them. Rosamund said, ”But you're on his side.”
With Valentin Aspell's oily concern fresh in her memory, Irrith didn't have to guess what she might mean. ”Well, he seems determined to hurt himself with this adoration of the Queen-but no, I don't want to add to it.”
”Good,” Gertrude said, with unexpected firmness. ”Because the truth of the matter is something Galen must never learn.”
Irrith's eyes widened. Rosamund laid a rea.s.suring hand over hers and said, ”Now, Gertie, it isn't so bad as all that. Just that things have changed, Irrith, and they've made new problems for Lune, that none of us ever foresaw.”
”Isn't that always the case?” Irrith asked sourly, thinking of the comet.
The sisters sighed in rueful agreement. ”The problem in this case,” Rosamund said, ”is that there have usually been three requirements for the Prince, and two of them don't fit together very well anymore.”
Three requirements? ”He has to be someone Lune likes.”
”And he has to be a gentleman,” Gertrude said.
”And,” Rosamund finished, ”he has to be born within the walls of the City.”