Ink and Steel

Her hair moved against the back of her neck, a few strands escaping the braid. He stopped his hand before it could brush them aside. A blade of guilt dissected him at the impulse, and he embraced the pain, gnawed at it. He had nothing left to be unfaithful to, save Elizabeth, now that his sweet Tom had discarded him. Kit welcomed the cold, the distance that came with the thought. Nothing like ice for an ache. She’s very like Elizabeth would be, had she leave to be a woman and not a King. “Queen Mab?”

“The Mebd,” Morgan corrected, steadying his arm again. Below, faces turned up like flowers opening to the sun. “Queen of the Daoine Sidhe.” She pronounced the name maeve, the kingdom theeneh shee. “She has a wit about her Ah! Sir Kit. Come and meet my son.”

“Mordred?” Kit asked, putting the smile he couldn’t quite force onto his lips into his voice.

“Dead at Camlann,” Morgan answered. “He was fair. Fair as thou art, ashen of hair and red of beard. A handsome alliance. Come and meet Murchaud the Black, my younger.”

Something in her tone made him expect a lad of thirteen, fifteen years. But the man who met them at the foot of the stairs, a pair of delicate goblets in his hand, was taller than Kit by handspans, his curled black hair oiled into a tail adorned with a crimson ribbon, his beard clipped tighter and neater than the London style against the porcelain skin of his face. Kit’s palms tickled with sweat as he met the man’s almost colorless eyes, saw how the broad span of his neck sloped, thick with muscle, into wide shoulders. It was a different thing from the inexplicable warmth he felt for Morgan. More raw, and less unsettling. He’d like to see those black curls ruffled.

“Mother,” the lovely man said, extending a crimson glass of wine. His voice was smooth, at odds with the power in his frame.

She unwound her hand from Kit’s elbow, but let her fingers trail down his arm before she stepped away. Her son pressed the second goblet into his hand, taking a moment to curl Kit’s fingers about the delicate stem. The touch lingered, and Kit almost forgot his pain.

“Your reputation precedes you, Master Poet.”

“Sir Poet, Morgan corrected. I knighted him while no one was looking.”

“You did? Mother, bravely done!”

She laid a possessive hand on his shoulder. Kit looked after her in confusion, and she gave him only a smile.

“Things are different in Faerie, she told him,” and dusted his cheek, below the bandage, with a kiss. “Now drink your wine and go ye through those doors and court and win a Queen.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“Kit. Show them strength, not a cripple leaning on a woman’s arm.”

He met her loden eyes, then nodded, tossed back the wine, and set aside the glass. Rolling his shoulders under the too-tight doublet, he stepped into the rivulet of courtiers threading toward what must be the Presence Chamber. Frank stares prickled Kit’s skin as he followed the crowd, conscious of the antlers and fox-heads, the huge luminescent eyes and the moss-dripping armor of those who moved around him.

Masques, he told himself, and didn’t permit himself at first to return the curious glances. Hooves clattered on the floor on his blind side: he flinched and turned to look, and a naked satyr caught his eye and bowed from the waist. Kit blushed and stepped back, looking at the floor.

As if I had an idea of precedence here.The rose-and-green tiled floor rolled under his boots like the rising, falling deck of a ship. He hesitated and put a hand on the paneled wall. A woman brushed his arm, elegantly human except that the diaphanous robes which stroked her swaying hips and breasts seemed to grow from her shoulders like drooping iris petals.

Then his attention was drawn by an antlered stag, richly robed in velvet green as glass, resting one cloven hoof on the jeweled hilt of a rapier and walking upright like a man. Kit’s pulse drummed in his temples and throat.

Adrift, he thought, and raised his right hand and touched the silk handkerchief binding his bandage. The fingertips of his other hand curled into detail carved upon the wainscoting. I don’t know what to do. A novelty. I wot a knife in the eye does change one or two things.

“Follow me.” A sharp voice dripping wryness. Kit looked down, putting it to a wizened man who seemed all elbows and legs like a grasshopper. He came to Kit’s belt; his long ears waggled under a fool’s cap. “Before Her Majesty waxes vexed.”

“Waxes vexed, and wanes kind?” Kit pushed against the wall. “Dizziness, Master Fool. You know me?”

“Your plays have a wide circulation.” The little man grimaced: it crinkled his face so oddly that Kit at first did not recognize a smile. “Art Marley, and I’m Goodfellow, but mayst call me Robin if I may call thee Kit. We’re fools both, after all, and of an estate.”