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She looked at him, and there was something in that look that made him take a step back, only to bump into the guards. “Did you say that, Kieran?”
“Not those words, no.”
“Did you say the gist of it?”
He swallowed hard enough to be heard and nodded. “Nerys’s entire house turned traitor, tried to kill you, my queen, and they live. Why is the life of one half-breed guard worth more than the life of the queen herself?”
“See, Meredith, you show mercy and they will use it against you.”
“Nerys gave her life so that her house could survive,” I said. “She paid the price for your mercy.”
“Perhaps.” Andais looked past them all to another house of nobles. “Dormath.”
The man who stood was tall and almost impossibly thin. His skin was the whitest that our court could boast, the bloodless pale of a corpse. The black hood of his cloak was pushed back to reveal hair that was as white as his skin, so that he looked almost like an albino, except his eyes were large and luxurious and black. He looked very close to the modern idea of “death.” I was told that once he was as handsome and muscular as any of the sidhe, but that centuries of people’s beliefs had changed him. There were those who debated whether being the representative of death to that degree made him a weak-magicked fool who couldn’t protect himself from mortal thought, or proved that he was one of the most powerful among us, and still worshipped by humans, in a way. His voice was deeper than expected.
“Yes, my queen,” he said.
“I
“No, my queen, I swear that I did not know of Siobhan’s plan, nor of I
“You interceded for Siobhan. You begged my mercy. I gave it because my son also valued her, and asked for her life to be spared. I listened to my son and one whom I thought was my ally.”
“I am your ally, Your Majesty. My house is still your house.”
“Two traitors, Dormath, two in one house. How can I trust that there are not more?” She was making idle circles with one finger on the arm of her throne.
“Is not the same thing true of Blodewedd’s house?” he asked.
“Do not drag me into this, Dormath,” Blodewedd said. “You who bear the name of your own dog, for you have shamed your true name.”
“I have shamed nothing.”
“Children,” Andais said, her voice light, almost playful. The sound made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “You see what mercy gets you as a ruler, Meredith. Do you understand now? Mercy is for the weak, and the dying.”
“I know how Kieran has interpreted your actions.”
She looked at me, and I really didn’t want that much of her attention in this mood, but I had it. “And how is that?”
“That if you would not kill someone for trying to kill me, then you would do even less to someone who tried to kill Galen.”
“Do you think he had the right of that? Do you think he has no punishment coming?”
“I think Siobhan should be executed and Kieran be made an example of.”
“An example how, if not executed?” she asked.
I licked my suddenly dry lips. “I had not thought that far, Aunt Andais.”
“Ah, but I have, and that is the difference between being queen and being princess.” She opened those red, red lips to say something awful, but the big double doors crashed open, and Doyle appeared.
CHAPTER 25
USNA AND CATHBODUA CAME BEHIND DOYLE, DRAGGING SOMEONE between them. Someone wearing a white fur cloak that was decorated with bright spots of crimson.
“Darkness,” Andais said, “how good of you to join us. Who are you bringing so unceremoniously before us?” Her voice still purred with a satisfied tone, promising pain to someone. Doyle had just given her another choice of victims.
“Gwe
Gwe
I watched Doyle stalk toward me. He was the tall, dark hunter, the grim figure who had frightened me as a child, but I had to fight an urge to tell him to come to me. I wanted his arms around me. I wanted to be held, to feel safe. Sitting here in open court I didn’t feel safe. What had driven me from faerie three years ago was happening all over again. There was too much death, too many attempts. Eventually, if enough people want you dead, they will succeed. It’s simple mathematics. We had to survive every assassination attempt. They had to succeed just once.
Gwe
“Gwe
“He says he acted alone. That he resented the princess inviting in the human police. That it was beneath our court to take their help. So he set a spell that would have rendered them useless, or even killed them, if we had carried it to them.”
“Carried it?”
“He put it on Biddy, for she is half-human, and everyone of human blood she touched was contaminated.”
Gwe
Cathbodua gave him a back-handed slap. “Speak when you are spoken to, traitor.”
“Yes,” Andais said, “they are all traitors. So many traitors. But none of them tried to take Meredith’s life. They tried to take Galen’s, they tried to stop the humans from entering our sithen, but they have not tried to kill Meredith. Interesting, that.”
I thought about it, and realized she was right. I looked at Doyle, and he met my look with one of his own. It was interesting, and puzzling.
“Why would Cel’s guard be more interested in killing your green knight than in killing you?” Andais said conversationally.
I tried to keep my voice as casual, and almost succeeded. “If any of his people try to kill me, Cel’s life is forfeit, but killing my allies is not an automatic death sentence for their prince.”
“But why Galen, Meredith? If I were going to strip you of your allies it would be Darkness or the Killing Frost.”
“Or Barinthus,” I said.
She nodded. “Yes, that was well done.” She looked at Kieran and his wife, who still had Hawthorne’s knife at her throat. “If I kill Barinthus, then one of my most powerful guards is dead. If he kills me, then you are rid of me, and can be the first to suggest that he needs to die for his actions.” She moved in her chair as if settling her skirts more comfortably. “Oh yes, Kieran, good plan. You made only one mistake.”
He looked up at her. “And what was that?”
“You underestimated the princess, and her men.”
“I will not make the same mistake again,” he said, and gave me an unfriendly look.
“Kieran, that sounded like a threat to the princess.” Andais looked at me. “Did that not sound like a threat to you, Meredith?”
“Yes, Aunt Andais, it did.”
“Frost, did Kieran just threaten the princess?”
“Yes,” Frost said.
“Darkness,” she said.
“Yes, he threatened the princess, or threatened to plan better the next time he plots to kill you, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, that is what I heard, as well.” She looked out at the nobles. “Blodewedd, did you hear him threaten me and mine?”