“Surely the Blessed Father did not send his legate without authority to make some decisions,” she said sweetly. “But if these matters are beyond your remit, we will certainly understand, and wait patiently to hear the lector’s reply. If we cannot journey to Nabban in time for the wedding, we will still be able to come and aid in negotiations between the unhappy factions.”
For the first time, Auxis looked out of his depth, even lost. Miriamele could not help feeling what was doubtless a childish satisfaction at seeing this graceful, powerful man so flummoxed. “I do not know what to say, Majesties. I fully admit that His Sacredness is very, very anxious to have the two of you in Nabban—as I’m sure you are yourself, because of the importance of peace in your largest subject country—but all this, at this very late moment.”
“The two of us?” Miriamele pretended surprise. “What do you mean?” She made a show of considering it. “Ah, I see. A misunderstanding, clearly. The use of the royal ‘we’ is often confusing to listeners. We are not both coming to Nabban, even when these matters of advice are settled. As rulers, we have been too often absent of late from our home here in Erkynland and especially the Hayholt. Only I will come to Nabban. King Seoman will remain here at the Hayholt.”
“That’s true,” said Simon, and if he had argued long and hard against it, he did not show it now. “And I can tell you that if you mean to dispute that decision with Queen Miriamele, you would be better off saving your breath, Escritor.”
Auxis could only stare. His clerks whispered among themselves, sounding like a brisk wind through long grass.
“So, if you would like to convey all this to the His Sacredness the Lector, Your Eminence, please feel free,” Miriamele said. “The sooner the better, I assume. As you pointed out, time is short.”
And then she rose, and Simon rose too, a bit belatedly. The courtiers all bowed their heads. Even Auxis, in his confusion, lowered his chin to his chest, although in his case it seemed more likely he was praying for patience.
For once, Miriamele was glad to be dressed in the full panoply of state. Her dress swished and rustled and her jewelry rattled most satisfyingly as she swept from the great hall.
48
The Little Boats
Morgan followed the torches of the Sithi as best he could, but as night came on the forest itself seemed to spring to life, doing its best to confuse and mock him. The wind rose. Trees thrashed and reached for him with twiggy fingers. Sometimes he almost thought he could see faces outlined in their bark by the flickering torchlight, angry faces that wanted him gone from the forest or dead. The near silence of twilight had been replaced by a chorus of night sounds, hoots and trills and the scratching of a thousand small things. And though Morgan did his best at first to keep some idea of direction in his head, the course the Sithi led them twisted so many times, with no sign of path, track, or landmark, that he quickly gave up.
“Where do you think they’re taking us?” he asked after what seemed most of an hour’s walk. Eolair only shook his head.
“We will learn,” the count said. “The Sithi do not share their secrets freely, especially secrets about where they live. You should ask your grandfather some time about how he had to walk out of winter into summer to reach their settlement.”
Which made no sense to Morgan at all but neither had most of his grandfather’s tales about the Sithi.
So they marched on and on through the woods, guided by half-seen figures who never paused, and who seemed to know their route as clearly as if they walked across a familiar city in bright day. Morgan began to feel he was dreaming, that somewhere between the afternoon and this moment he had fallen into a deep sleep—that this was only the story his sleeping mind had chosen to tell him.
As a child, when Morgan had imagined the Sithi who figured in so many of his grandparents’ solemn old stories, he had always thought of them as nearly insubstantial, like ghosts, beings that might appear and disappear in a shaft of moonlight, or materialize at the foot of one’s bed to grant a wish. He had come later to understand that they were actual living creatures, but his childish notions had continued to lurk at the back of his thoughts. It had never occurred to him that they would be so real, with bodies and clothing and hard faces that seemed to examine and judge him. But every now and then he heard a quiet snatch of song, or saw one of them vault over an obstacle with the graceful power of a stag, and they suddenly became unknowably magical once more. But when he stumbled, and hands reached out of the darkness to keep him from falling, their touch was hard and impersonal, less like a parent guiding a child and more like a warder conducting a prisoner to his place of confinement.
As the journey wore on, Morgan grew more and more anxious, and with the anxiety came anger. Were he and Eolair ambassadors or prisoners?
At one point, when a beam of moonlight found its way through the tree canopy, he looked back and saw Tanahaya being carried on her litter. In the momentary wash of blue light her face seemed still and pale as a marble effigy, and it occurred to him that perhaps for the Sithi this march was something closer to a funeral procession. What would happen to Morgan and the count if the wounded Sitha-woman died? Would the fairy-folk blame them for what had happened to her?
Be brave, he told himself. You are a prince. If you’re not brave, what are you?
? ? ?
Though their way still turned and twisted along paths that were invisible to him, Morgan could sense that they were now heading consistently uphill: his tired legs were working harder, and he could see the sky more often through the trees, with here and there a bright, welcome spatter of stars visible against the blackness.
The climb seemed to lead them on a spiral path up a large hill. Morgan could hear a stream flowing past, sometimes near to where they walked, sometimes more distant, so that he could barely make out its gurgling music. Once he had to jump across it, and again hands came out of the darkness to help him land safely.
As the trees became thinner he could finally see the peak of the hill that loomed above them, its jagged shape blocking the stars. They crossed the stream again, then crossed over it once more, and then suddenly the burning brands the leaders carried were all extinguished at once, leaving them in utter dark. Surprised, Eolair stopped, but Morgan did not realize it until he stumbled into him from behind.
“Walk forward, but with care,” said the red-haired leader, Yeja’aro, as they untangled themselves. “We are passing into the hill through a crevice in the rock.”
Morgan put his hand on the lord steward’s back and blindly followed him. Someone reached out to guide them; he felt hands on each shoulder, and then a moment later a third hand pushing gently down on his head. This startled him so that he tried to shake it loose, but only managed to bang his skull against invisible stone.
“You will hurt yourself—the roof of the passage dips very low here. Let us help you.” This voice spoke more kindly than Yeja’aro had. Morgan let himself be directed, although the complete darkness was daunting: every sightless step felt as though it might lead him over a precipice. It was all he could do simply to keep moving forward and trust to the spidery touch of the Sithi guiding him.
A few moments later Eolair gave a low cry. Morgan was alarmed, but also puzzled because the count’s exclamation sounded strangely like joy. Two more hesitant steps and the prince walked out of the dark into the full glow of the stars, thousands upon thousands burning brightly all across the sky, candles in a church far greater than any human cathedral. Morgan was dazzled. Not only did the sky sparkle fiercely above their heads, but humbler lights burned all across the narrow pocket valley—dozens upon dozens of campfires.
Morgan stared at this spectacle, trying to make sense of it. Somehow they had climbed through a tunnel or crevice into a small valley nestling in the top of the blocky hill he had seen from below. As his eyes grew used to the light and the blaze of stars faded he saw that the valley was full of Sithi-folk. Many wore garments as crude and basic as those of Yeja’aro’s band, while others were wrapped in shimmering cloth that fluttered even in this still place like the sails of ships running before the wind.
A few of the Sithi turned to look at the newcomers, but none of them seemed alarmed or even perturbed: their large eyes settled on Morgan and the count, then turned to other things. The prince stared back, heart beating hard and fast, his fear turned almost entirely to wonder. He could hear odd, faint music coming to him from more than one spot in the valley, pipes and singing voices, and some of the figures farther up the slopes were dancing together, graceful as birds in flight. As the music and movement swirled around him like blossoms blown from the trees, the fairy stories of his childhood came back to him with all their force; in that moment, he could easily imagine a man being lured away by the Sithi-folk to live a hundred years in one night.