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Blodewedd took in a deep sighing breath, then gave a small nod.
“I need to hear it aloud for all the court,” Andais said.
“Kieran has been foolish this day. More foolish than I or my house can support or salvage.”
Kieran looked at her, frightened for the first time. “My lady, you are my liege lord, you ca
“Do not involve me in your stupidity, Kieran. Made
“An interesting point.” Andais gazed down at the unconscious form of I
“My queen,” Doyle said, “I would ask that I
“I know who you would kill, Darkness.” She looked at me. “I even know who you would have me slay, Meredith, but you are not their liege. I want Dormath to choose, so that the rest of his house will understand that he will not protect them.”
“My queen, do not make me choose among my lords and ladies.”
“Would you take their place, Dormath? Would you offer yourself to save I
Dormath’s face got even whiter, something I didn’t think possible. He blinked his large, dark eyes slowly. Were we about to see Dormath, the door of death, faint?
“Come, Dormath, it is a simple question,” Andais said. “You are either willing to pay for the crimes of your house, or you are not. Nerys was willing to give her life for her house.”
Dormath’s voice came thin and reedy, as if he was struggling to keep it even. “Her entire house had joined her in her treachery. My house is i
“Then choose, Dormath. I ca
“A death, yes,” Dormath said, “but not an execution. She is within her rights to challenge them to combat, and take their life if she can.”
“That might be true, Lord Dormath,” I said, “if Siobhan had attacked me one-on-one, but she did not. She attacked with the aid of two others. She ambushed me. This was no one-on-one combat. This was an assassination attempt, pure and simple.”
“I
“Do you think he will show more mercy than the princess?” Andais asked.
“I think Galen has always been a fair man,” Dormath said.
Galen pressed my hand tight in his and sighed. It was not a happy sound. “I tried to be fair, and just, and good, whatever that means. Siobhan told me once that I belong in the Seelie Court, where they try to pretend they are something they’re not. I asked her what they try to pretend to be. Human, she said, and made it sound like a curse.” I watched his face grow solemn, and very unlike my Galen. “Do you really expect me to help you save the lives of the people who tried to kill me?”
The two sidhe looked at each other, and it was Dormath who looked away first. He spoke with his eyes lowered, so that he met no one’s gaze. “One tries to know their opposition and use their strengths and weaknesses against them.”
“Why am I your opposition?” Galen asked.
Dormath spoke to the queen as if he hadn’t heard Galen. “My queen, I would ask that you do not make me choose between my people. One has done, perhaps, the lesser crime, but I have more affection for the other.”
“Answer Galen’s question,” Andais said.
Dormath blinked those deep, shining eyes and looked at her. His thin face showed nothing. “And what question would that be, my queen?”
“I tire of word games quickly, Dormath,” she said. “I suggest you bear that in mind. I will tell you once more. Answer Galen’s question.”
Dormath shivered, and the long black cloak gave the illusion of feathers settling around his body. “I do not think your son would want this question answered in open court.”
I looked at Andais then, my aunt, my queen. I did not know what Dormath was referring to, but she might. She had helped hide her son’s secrets for centuries. Her face was cold beauty, arrogant and perfect, every line of her like some statue carved to be the beauty that drives men not to love but to despair.
“Answer as much or as little of the question as you will, Dormath. Know that if you answer as fully as you might you will forfeit all of Prince Cel’s allies. For they will feel you betrayed them. Know also that there are those among us now who will condemn you as the blackest of traitors for going along with his plan.”
Dormath put out a long pale hand to steady himself against the table. “My queen…”
“Dormath, if you do not answer the question I will consider it a direct challenge to me, personally.”
“You would slay me to keep from revealing what he has done,” Dormath said.
“Is that what I said? I don’t believe that is what I said.” She looked at me then. “Is that what I said, Meredith?”
I wasn’t entirely certain how to answer that question. “I do not believe that you threatened Dormath with death if he revealed what Prince Cel, my cousin, has done. Nor do I believe that you have encouraged him to reveal all that he knows.”
“Go on,” she said, and she seemed pleased with me, though I wasn’t sure why.
“But you have stated clearly that if he does not answer Galen’s question, you will challenge him to single combat, and kill him.”
She nodded and smiled, as if I’d said a smart thing. “Exactly.”
I looked from her to Dormath, and I had a moment of pity for him. She had set him a riddle that might not have an answer, not one that would keep him alive anyway.
He was still propping himself up on the tabletop. His face showed clearly that he did not see a way out of the maze of words she had thrown up around him. “I do not believe that there is a way to answer the green knight’s question without revealing much that I do not believe you want known.”
“I do not believe that you know what I want, Dormath. But if you remain mute, I will kill you, and there will be no argument that it is unfair, for it will be one-on-one against me.”
He swallowed, and his throat looked almost too thin to hold the bobbing of his Adam’s apple. “Why are you doing this, my queen?”
“Doing what?” she asked.
“Do you want the court to know? Is that what you want?”
“I want a child who values his people and their welfare before his own.”
The silence in the room was profound. It was as if all of us took a breath and held it. It was as if the very blood in our veins ceased to move for just that instant. Andais had admitted that Cel valued nothing but himself, something I had known for years. She had raised him to believe that faerie and the sidhe and the lesser fey owed him. He had been the apple of her eye, the song in her heart, the most precious thing in her world for longer than this country had existed, and now she wanted a child that valued others above themselves. What had Cel done to so disillusion his mother?
Dormath spoke into that silence. “My queen, I do not know how to give you what you desire.”
“I can give you what you want.” Maelgwn’s voice had lost its usual amused smoothness. He sounded serious and gentle at the same time, a tone I’d never heard from him.
Andais looked at him, and with only her profile I could tell it wasn’t a friendly look.
“Can you, wolf lord, can you truly?” Her voice held that edge of warning, like the pressure in the air before you even know the storm is coming.
“Yes,” he said softly, but the word carried through the hall.
She settled herself against the back of her throne, her hands very still on the carved arms. “Illuminate me, wolf.”
“There are two children of your line who have come of age, my queen. One child has reawakened the queen’s own ring, and now offers almost anything to be allowed to enjoy the ring’s magic. A child who says bringing children to all the sidhe is more important to her than gaining the throne, or protecting her own life, or filling her own belly with life. These are all things that most of the nobles in this room, perhaps everyone in this room, would give anything to have. Is that not a child who puts her people’s welfare above her own?”