Chapter 13

I stayed leaning in, shoulders almost touching with Maeve, because I didn't want her to see my face. A child? She wanted a child? Why tell me? I'd thought of a lot of things Maeve Reed could want; a baby had not been on the list.

I finally looked at her. "What would you have of me, Maeve?" That was the question.

She sat back in her chair, settling with a small wriggling movement that reminded me of her old teasing. "I have told you what I would have of you, Meredith."

I stared at her, frowning. "I know what you said, Maeve, but I don't see ..." I tried again. "I don't know how I can help you." I put a little emphasis on the I because I had thought of one thing I had that she might need. I had the men.

She looked around at the men, all the men, her bodyguards included. "You can understand now why I would want privacy for this discussion, can't you?" There was a small thread of pleading in her voice.

I sighed. I wanted to be politically savvy. I wanted to be cautious. But I did understand why she desired privacy. Some things supersede politics, your side, my side, and one of those is the plea of woman-to-woman. Maeve had given that plea, silently, but it was still there. Mother help me, but I couldn't pretend ignorance.

"All right," I said.

Maeve put her head to one side. "All right to what?"

"Privacy."

I felt both Doyle and Frost move behind me. They didn't truly move, not a step, but they tensed so hard it was almost a jump.

"Princess," Doyle began.

"It's all right, Doyle. You and the rest of the men can sit under the umbrella while we have our girl talk."

Maeve frowned, her pale pink lipsticked mouth pouting prettily. She was definitely regaining her composure. Or maybe she'd spent so many years as Maeve Reed, sex goddess, that she didn't know how else to behave.

"I was hoping for a little more privacy than a few yards."

I smiled at her, no pouting, no pretense. "You've shown that you're willing to persuade me with magic. It would be stupid of me to trust you completely."

The pout vanished, replaced by thin, almost angry lips. "You've proven you can best me at magic, Meredith. I am not so stupid as to try my luck for a second time."

Again, I was pretty certain that I had not bested Maeve at magic. It was more that she'd thrown her magic in my metaphysical face and my natural abilities had been awakened. It hadn't been deliberate on my part; in fact, I wasn't 100 percent certain that I could have duplicated it if I'd tried. But Maeve believed that I could do it at will, and I wasn't going to dissuade her. Let her believe that I was wonderfully powerful, and paranoid. Because I wasn't going anywhere completely out of sight of the men. Powerful and paranoid -- it was a recipe for royalty.

"My guards can sit in the shade while we talk out here. That is as much privacy as I'm willing to give you, even for girl talk."

"You don't trust me," she said.

"Why should I?"

She smiled. "You shouldn't. You most certainly shouldn't." She shook her head and sipped her rum, then gazed at me over the rim of her glass. "You've refused all refreshment. You fear poison or magic."

I nodded.

She laughed, a delighted burst of sound. I'd heard that selfsame laugh on the movie screen more than once. "I give you my most solemn oath nothing here shall harm you a-purpose."

Adding that last bit was nicely tricky. It meant that if I did come to harm, it wouldn't be her fault, but it also meant that I could come to harm. I had to smile. Such double-talk was so much a part of the court, where your word of honor was something you'd fight to the death to defend.

"I want your word of honor that no thing, no person, no animal, no being of any kind will harm me while I am here."

The pout was back. "Now, Meredith. Such a solemn oath? I will give my word to protect your safety to the best of my ability."

I shook my head. "Your word that no thing, no person, no animal, no being of any kind will harm me."

"While you are here," she added.

I nodded. "While I am here."

"If you had left that last little bit off, I'd have been responsible for you always, everywhere you go." She shivered, and I don't think it was pretense. "You go to the Unseelie Court, and that is not a place I would wish to have to guarantee your safety."

"Everyone seems to feel that way, Maeve. Don't feel bad."

She frowned, and again I think it was real. "I do not feel bad, Meredith. It is not within my purview to guard your safety within those dark, shadowed corridors."

I shrugged. "There is light and laughter within the darkling throng, just as there is darkness and sorrow among the glittering throng."

"I will not believe that the Unseelie Court holds the joyous wonders that await one at the Seelie Court."

I looked over my shoulder at Doyle and Frost. I made it a long look, then turned slowly back to Maeve, allowing their beauty to fill my eyes. "Oh, I don't know, Maeve, there are joys to be had at the dark court."

"I have heard tales of the debauchery that exists at Queen Andais's court."

That made me laugh. "You have lived too long among the humans if you say debauchery with such distaste. The joys of the flesh are a blessing to be shared, not a curse to be guarded against."

"As your wayward guard and my sweet Marie should know." She looked past me, smiling. Rhys and Marie were walking toward us. Rhys's white curls fell free to his waist again. His boyishly handsome face was its usual clean-shaven self. The pearl-studded eye patch was back in place. He was smiling, pleased with himself to the point of nearly laughing, as if he knew some new joke.

Marie trailed behind him. Her hair was a little less than perfect, and her white shirt was untucked. But she didn't look happy.

If Maeve's hint was true, then Marie would be smiling. Rhys had his faults, but not putting a smile on a girl's face was not one of them. You couldn't really take him as seriously in, or out of, bed as some of the other guards, but he was a lot of fun in bed.

I found myself frowning again. If he had done something sexual with Marie, how did I feel about that? He was, after all, mine. Exclusively mine, according to the queen.

I tried to be hurt, jealous, or even miffed that he might have been playing slap and tickle with Marie, and I just wasn't. Maybe it was because I was sleeping with the other men. Maybe to be truly jealous you have to have some pretense of monogamy. I didn't know why, but it simply didn't bother me. If he'd had intercourse with her, that would bother me, because I was the one that we needed pregnant, not some assistant to some star. Other than that, I didn't seem to care.

Rhys dropped to one knee in front of me, which crowded Kitto a little; but the fact that he was willing to touch the little goblin was actually a very good sign. He raised my hand to his lips, grinning.

"The lovely Marie offered me her favors."

I raised my eyebrows. "And?"

"And it would have been rude to have ignored such an offer." By fey standards, he was right.

"She's human, not fey," I said.

"Jealous?" he asked.

I shook my head, smiling. "No."

He came to his feet in one smooth movement, planting a quick kiss on my cheek. "I knew you were more fey than human."

Marie was kneeling by Maeve. She kept her face turned away from us but shook her head, and Maeve turned a very frowny face to us. "Marie said you refused her advances, guard."

"I made it clear that I found her lovely," Rhys said.

"But you did not take advantage of her."

"I am Princess Meredith's lover. Why should I look elsewhere? I showed your assistant the amount of attention she deserved, no more, no less." The humor was gone from his face now, and he seemed almost angry.

Maeve petted the woman's hand and sent her into the house. Marie very carefully avoided looking at Rhys. I think she was embarrassed. Maybe she didn't get turned down often, or maybe Maeve told her it was a sure thing.

I stood. "I've had enough games, Maeve."

She reached toward me, but I was out of reach. "Please, Meredith, I meant no offense."

"You sent your servant to seduce my lover. You tried to seduce me, not out of plain desire, but out of a desire to gain control over me."

She stood in one swift motion. "That last is not true."

"But you do not deny sending your servant to seduce my lover."

She took off the big sunglasses so I could see how confused she was. I was betting it was an act. "You are Unseelie Court, and all manner of temptations are open to you."

It was my turn to be confused. "What does my court have to do with anything? You have insulted me and mine."

"You are Unseelie Court," she said again.

I shook my head. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You would not try on the swimsuits," she said, voice soft, eyes downcast.

"What?" I asked.

"If Marie had seen him nude, then she would have known his body was pure, except for the scars."

I frowned harder. "What in the name of the Lord and Lady are you babbling about?"

"You are all Unseelie Court, Meredith. I have to be sure you are not... unclean."

"You mean deformed," I said, and I didn't even try to keep the anger out of my voice.

She gave a small nod.

"Why should our bodies, whatever they look like, make any difference to you?"

"I told you what I want, Meredith."

I nodded, and I was nice enough not to blurt out her secret in front of everyone, though heaven knows she hadn't earned the courtesy.

"If anyone who aids me in such an endeavor is impure, then..." She sort of nodded at me, trying to get me to finish the sentence in my head.

I leaned into her and hissed, more than whispered, "The child will be deformed."

No amount of glamour could hide the smell of cocoa butter, liquor, and cigarette smoke in her hair and skin. A sudden wave of nausea rushed over me.

I backed away from her and would have fallen if Rhys hadn't caught me, steadied me. "What's wrong?" he whispered.

I shook my head. "I'm tired of being here with this woman."

"Then we leave," Doyle said.

I shook my head again. "Not yet." I half clutched Rhys's arm and turned back to Maeve. "You tell me why you were exiled. You tell me the whole truth here and now or we walk away from you forever."

"If he knew I told anyone, he would kill me."

"If he finds out I was here, talking to you, do you really believe he'll wait to find out if you told me?"

She looked frightened now. But I didn't care.

"Tell me, Maeve, tell me or we walk, and you'll never find anyone else outside of faerie who can help you."

"Meredith, please..."

"No," I said. "The great pure Seelie Court, how they look down on us. If a child is born deformed, then it is killed, or was, until you all stopped having children. Then even the monsters were precious. Do you know what happened to the babies after a while, Maeve? Do you know what happened in the last four hundred years or so to deformed Seelie children? Because, make no mistake, inbreeding catches up, even with the immortal."

"I don't... know."

"Yes, you do. All that bright, shining throng know. My own cousin was kept because she was part brownie. You didn't throw her out, because brownies are Seelie -- not court, but creatures of light. But when the sidhe themselves breed monsters, the pure, shining, Seelie sidhe, breed deformities, monstrosities, then what happens, where do they go?"

She was crying now, soft, silver tears. "I don't know."

"Yes, you do. The babies go to the Unseelie Court. We take in the monsters, those pure Seelie monsters. We take them in, because we welcome everyone. No one, no one is turned away from the Unseelie Court, especially not tiny, newborn babies whose only crime was to be born to parents who can't study a genealogical chart well enough to avoid marrying their own fucking siblings." I was crying, too, now, but it was anger, not sorrow.

"I give you my oath that I and Frost and Rhys are pure of body. Does that make it easier? Does that help? If you just wanted to sleep with the men, you wouldn't have cared if you saw me in a swimsuit, but you did care. You want a fertility rite, Maeve. You need me, and at least one man."

I was too angry to know if anyone besides Maeve had heard what I said, or understood what I'd said. I just didn't care.

I pushed away from Rhys, my anger carrying me forward to spit the words in her face. "Tell me why you were exiled, Maeve, tell me now, or we leave you as we found you. Alone."

She nodded, still crying. "All right, all right, Lady guard me, but all right. I'll tell you what you want to know, if you swear to me that you'll help me have a child."

"You swear first," I said.

"I swear that I will tell you the truth about why I was exiled from the Seelie Court."

"And I swear that after you have told me why you were exiled from the Seelie Court, I and my men will do our best to see that you have a child."

She rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. It was a child's gesture. She seemed thoroughly shaken, and I wondered, had one of those poor, unfortunate babies belonged to Conchenn, goddess of beauty and spring? And had the thought of giving up the only child she might ever have haunted her? I hoped so.

Chapter 14

"A hundred years ago, the high king of Faerie, Taranis, was ready to put aside his wife, Conan of Cuala. They'd been a couple for a hundred years and had no children." Her voice had fallen automatically into the singsong of the storyteller. "So he was putting her aside."

I loved a good story told in the old ways, but I wanted out of the sun, and I wanted not to be here forever. So I interrupted. "He did put her away," I said.

Maeve smiled, but not like it made her happy. "He asked me to take her place as his bride. I refused him." She was just talking to me now, the singsong lost. It might not have been as pretty, but straight conversation would be quicker.

"That's not a reason to be exiled, Maeve. At least one other has turned down Taranis's offer before, and she's still a part of the glittering throng," I sipped my lemonade and watched her.

"But Edain was in love with another. My reason was different."

She wasn't looking at me, or Kitto, or anyone, I think. She seemed to be staring off into space, maybe looking at the memories in her own head.

"And that reason was?" I asked.

"Conan was the king's second wife. He had been a hundred years with this new wife, yet there was no child."

"And?" I took another long drink of lemonade.

She took a long swallow of rum and looked back at me. "I told Taranis no because I believe he is sterile. It isn't the women but the king who is incapable of making an heir."

I spit lemonade all over myself and Kitto. He seemed frozen with the lemonade running down his arm and sunglasses.

The maid appeared with napkins. I took a handful, then waved her off. We were talking about something that no one should hear. When I could talk without sputtering, and Kitto and I were both relatively dry, I said, "You told Taranis this to his face?"

"Yes," she said.

"You're braver than you seem." Or stupider, I added in my head.

"He demanded I tell him why I would not have him as husband. I said I wished to have a child and I didn't believe that he could give me one."

I just stared at her, trying to think about the implications of what she'd said. "If what you say is true, then the royals could demand the king make the ultimate sacrifice. They could demand he allow himself to be killed as part of one of the great holy days."

"Yes," Maeve said. "He forced me out that same night."

"For fear that you would tell someone," I said.

"Surely I am not the only one to have suspicions," she said. "Adaria went on to have children with two others, but she was barren for centuries with our King."

I understood now why I'd been beaten for asking about Maeve. My uncle's very life hung in the balance. "He could just step down from the throne," I said.

Maeve lowered her glasses enough to give me a withering look. "Do not be naive, Meredith. It does not become you."

I nodded. "Sorry, you're right. Taranis would never believe it. He would have to be forced to accept that he was sterile, and the only way to do so would be to bring him up before the nobles. Which means you'd have to find a way to convince enough of them to vote your way."

She shook her head. "No, Meredith, I cannot be the only one who suspects. His death would restore fertility to our people. All our power descends from our king or queen. I believe that Taranis's inability to father children has doomed the rest of us to be childless."

"There are still children at court," I said.

"But how many of them are pure Seelie blood?"

I thought for a second. "I'm not sure. Most of them were born long before I came along."

"I am sure," she said. She leaned forward, her entire body language suddenly very serious, no flirting involved. "None. All the children born to us in the last six hundred years have been mixed blood. Either rapes during the wars of Unseelie warriors, or ones like yourself that are very mixed indeed. Mixed blood, stronger blood, Meredith. Our king has doomed us to die as a people because he is too proud to step down from the throne."

"If he stepped down because he was infertile, the other royals could still demand he be killed to ensure the fertility of the rest."

"And they would," Maeve said, "if they discovered that I told him of his little problem a century ago."

She was right. If Taranis had simply not known, then they might have forgiven him and allowed him to step down. But to have known for a century and have done nothing... They would see his blood sprinkled over the fields for that.

The murmur of voices made me turn around. A new man was speaking pleasantries to the men around the umbrella table. He turned toward us smiling, flashing very white teeth. The rest of him was so unhealthy that the artificially bright smile seemed to emphasize the sallowness of his skin, the sunken eyes. He was so eaten away by illness that it took me a few seconds to recognize Gordon Reed. He'd been the director who took Maeve from small parts to stardom. I had a sudden image of his body rotted away and those teeth the only thing left untouched in his grave. I knew in that instant that the macabre vision was a true seeing, and he was dying.

The question was, did they know?

Maeve held out her hand to him. He took her smooth golden hand in his withered one, laying a kiss on the back of that perfect skin. How must he feel to watch his own youth fade, to feel his body die, while she remained untouched?

He turned to me, still holding her hand. "Princess Meredith, so good of you to join us today." The words were very civil, very ordinary, as if this were just another afternoon by the pool.

Maeve patted his hand. "Sit down, Gordon." She moved to give him the lounge chair, while she knelt on the pool edge, much like Kitto had earlier. He sat down heavily, and a momentary flinching around his eyes was the only outward sign that he hurt.

Maeve took off her sunglasses and kept looking at him. She studied what was left of the tall, handsome man that she'd married. She studied him as if every line of bone under that sallow skin was precious.

That one look was enough. She loved him. She really loved him, and they both knew that he was dying.

She laid her face on that withered hand and looked at me with wide blue eyes that shimmered just a little too much in the light. It wasn't glamour; it was unshed tears.

Her voice was low, but clear. "Gordon and I want a child, Meredith."

"How -- "I stopped; I couldn't ask it, not in front of both of them.

"How long does Gordon have?" Maeve asked for me.

I nodded.

"Six..." Maeve's voice broke. She tried to regain herself, but finally Gordon answered, "Six weeks, maybe three months at the outside." His voice was calm, accepting. He stroked Maeve's silky hair.

Maeve rolled her face to stare at me. The look in her eyes wasn't accepting, or calm. It was frantic.

I knew now why, after a hundred years, Maeve had been willing to risk Taranis's anger to seek help from another sidhe. Conchenn, goddess of beauty and spring, was running out of time.