“The fey.”
He nodded. “The Green, to be precise, who were more than happy to assist in return for some of those tolerant British women we were talking about. Always had a problem with their population, did the fey, and that went double for the Green living so close to the Dark and being at war with them half the time. People get killed in wars and have to be replaced, and human women made excellent . . . companions.”
“Spoken like a true incubus. You mean they were enslaved in a foreign land.”
“Spoken like a true modern woman, who hasn’t had to deal with living in a perpetual war zone. What you consider enslavement, many of them viewed as escape—from famine, violence, disease, death. . . . In any case, it wasn’t that foreign. People came and went much more freely then, living on both sides of the barrier. Like the beauteous Igraine.”
“Beauteous?”
“Oh yes.” Rosier leaned back against the tree, his eyes going distant with memory. “Hair a river of ebony, skin like alabaster, eyes as blue as a winter’s day—and twice as cold. She inherited her mother’s looks, but little of her magic and therefore decided to live on earth. Yes, war-ridden, diseased, and what have you.” He waved a hand. “Amazing what people will do when they’re smitten.”
“Smitten. You mean . . . with Uther?”
He burst out laughing. “No, not with Uther! With her Cornish prince! Or so she liked everyone to believe.”
“Then why are you telling me all this stuff about Uther?”
“I’m getting there.”
“Oh God.”
“Uther wasn’t a man to let a little thing like a happy marriage stand in his way. Not when the lady in question wasn’t just beautiful, but so well connected. Uther was trying to unite the Britons to fight the invaders, but petty princes like Cornwall were causing him no end of trouble. They saw no reason why he should lead the fight instead of one of them, despite the fact that he could crush the lot of them if he felt like it. But he couldn’t crush them and the Saxons, too, so something had to give.”
“And that something was Gorlois.”
Rosier nodded again. “He was the leader. Kill him, marry his wife to keep the fey alliance, unite the ‘kingdoms,’ and defeat the invaders. That was the plan.”
“And end up as high king in the process.”
“Well, why shouldn’t he have? He might have been an ugly, uncouth boor, but he was a smart, ugly, uncouth boor, and damn good on the battlefield. He knew how to concentrate on what was important, and how to keep his people safe.”
“It sounds like you liked him.”
“I did. Well enough to help him, in any case.”
“Help him . . . how?”
Rosier shrugged. “Gorlois wasn’t the problem, not really. He’d just gotten delusions of grandeur after his marriage, and saw no reason why he should bow to some wild man from Wales. But he couldn’t back it up where it counted; he couldn’t defeat Uther in battle, which would normally have made dealing with him easy enough.”
“Except for his wife.”
“Yes. Igraine was the problem. She may or may not have really loved Gorlois; I was never sure. But she definitely loved how easy he was to manipulate. And therefore how easy it was to lay down terms advantageous to the fey but not so much for the Britons. Gorlois essentially did whatever she wanted, and insisted on equally harsh terms for everybody else or he would take his toys and go home, and they could fight the damn Saxons on their own. Yes, she liked her marriage just fine.”
“But Uther didn’t.”
“No, Uther didn’t. So he made war on Gorlois, and when the man sent his wife to Tintagel on the coast, for safekeeping, Uther asked for a favor—”
“Wait. Wait. I know this.” A half-forgotten memory rattled around in my head, something I’d heard once, or maybe read. Something shocking enough to be remembered . . .
I abruptly sat up. “That was you! You helped him—”
“I said so, didn’t I?”
“You helped him sneak into the castle—”
“It wasn’t a castle then, and we didn’t sneak. There was no reason to sneak.”
“—and pretend to be Gorlois!”
“Emrys gets his ability at illusion from me,” Rosier agreed.
“You helped him . . . you helped him . . . rape Igraine.”
And despite everything, despite Rosier’s demon lord status, I was still shocked. And appalled. And it must have come through in my voice, because he frowned at me.
“Yes, everything is so simple, isn’t it? So cut-and-dried when you aren’t fighting for your life every day, and the lives of your people—”
“Uther wasn’t fighting for his life! He was fighting for a better position—”
“He was fighting for his life!”
Rosier tried to get to his feet, but they were still in process. So he ended up on his proto butt in the mud, glaring at me. It might have been funny another time, but right now I had to struggle not to punch him.
“Do you think the fey gave a damn about the humans they guarded?” he demanded. “They did the absolute minimum they could get away with—enough to hold the borders, but not to drive out the invaders, which would have removed the reason for their aid, wouldn’t it? They were perfectly content to have the country in a state of never-ending warfare, but Uther—he might have been a man of war, but he wanted peace, lusted after it, much more than he ever did that cold fey—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it—”
“—bitch who I doubt ever loved anyone. I didn’t approve of what he was doing—”
“I’m sure! An incubus disapproves!”
“She says with such disdain! Knowing nothing about us—”
“I know enough!”
“You know nothing! My people do not rape!”
“No, they just use tricks, like incubus powers—”
“To enhance, not to overcome. We pride ourselves on our wit, our beauty, our goddamn charm! We do not need tricks!”
“Yet you helped Uther.”
For the first time, Rosier looked slightly uncomfortable, but his voice was defiant. “It seemed the only way. The battle was raging that night, and Uther had instructed his men to take out Gorlois, regardless of the cost. He knew the prince’s supporters would break and run as soon as they heard their leader was dead. But that meant he had to get to Igraine that evening, before she heard it, too. Otherwise, she might run off and marry some other, easy-to-manipulate type, and Uther would be right back where he started. He came to me and begged for help.”
“And you gave it to him.”
Rosier looked at me angrily. “If I hadn’t, many more women would have suffered the same fate as Igraine. There’s no black or white, girl, not in this story. Stop looking for it!”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that ever since Gorlois’ marriage, the fey had been demanding more and more tribute for their aid. The old quota had been relatively easy to fill; as I said, there were always those who viewed Faerie as an escape from violence, want, and uncertainty. They might be slaves, but they’d be slaves with full bellies who slept in safety, and to many in those days, that seemed like paradise. But afterward . . .”