The Catswold Portal

Mag stood quietly. Then she took the Harpy’s hand and led her toward the cottage, speaking of hot tea and biscuits.

When the Harpy had finished her tale, while supping up four cups of tea and a dozen biscuits, Mag said, “I will go and bring her home. What a foolish thing to do—what a headstrong, exasperating girl.”

“Leave her be,” said the Harpy.

“Why would you say that?”

“What would you do if you went there? He has already bedded her—likely she is already with child.”

Pained, Mag folded and unfolded her apron.

The Harpy said, “Why didn’t you tell her the truth, old woman? Why didn’t you tell her what she is?”

Mag looked at the Harpy intently. “She would have gone off among her own people. I’d have lost her. She needed to settle first. She is too headstrong; she would have done something foolish. I kept meaning to tell her.”

The Harpy said nothing.

“I was working up to it when she went off. And now…” Mag shook her head. “Couldn’t you have stopped her?”

“It was not my business to stop her.” The Harpy smoothed her wing feathers. “Don’t you see? What she has done could mean victory for the rebels—not that I care.”

“I see clearly that it could mean victory. And I see that it could mean her death if Siddonie learns of this.”

“Perhaps she will not learn of it.”

“Siddonie’s hatred goes back a long way.” Mag looked at the Harpy. “If only your mirror could show the future.”

“You would not want to see the future. This is Melissa’s destiny, let her be with it.”

“That is foolish talk—she is only a child.”

“She is seventeen. Possibly she might bear a healthy baby and become, in truth, the next queen of Affandar.”

“That, too, is foolish talk.” Mag rose, angrily poking a stick in the fire.

“You have no right to be indignant,” the Harpy said. “If she is successful, your rebels will have a bloodless victory.”

Mag sighed, and returned to her chair. “She is only a child. She knows nothing.”

The Harpy stroked her mirror, bringing a warming vision of Hell’s fires. She had done all she could. Mortals were stupid and ungrateful. She wanted to be home among her own.

She waited until Mag dozed, then quit the cottage. Hours later when Mag woke, the Harpy was gone. Nothing remained of her but two white feathers clinging to the plank floor.

Chapter 19

Melissa woke hot and uncomfortable. The king slept sprawled across her, his leg pinning her. She slid out from under him so carefully he didn’t stir.

Dawn light drifting across the mosaic ceiling made the jeweled branches seem to move. The ruby and amethyst and lapis birds stared down blindly, just as they had blindly watched the passion of lovemaking last night. She stretched languidly. In one night she had shaken off the last vestiges of Mag’s little Sarah. In one night she had changed. Though the strongest change, that had nothing to do with Efil, was the knowledge of her heritage.

She pulled a satin pillow behind her and lay trying to remember a shape-shifting spell, but she could not. She could recall no such spell from Mag’s book, though she remembered blank pages: pages surely enchanted so she had not seen what was there.

Slowly she brought back knowledge locked away from conscious thought. She dredged up casual remarks made by the rebels. She thought about the Catswold nation of Zzadarray, isolated far to the north, and about Catswold resistance to Siddonie’s rule.

This was why Siddonie wanted her. To help enslave that rebellious nation.

And Efil wanted the same. He wanted her for the armies a Catswold queen could bring to support him. He had known what she was and had concealed that knowledge from her.

And she had yielded to his spells.

Remorse filled her. She had given herself freely to him. She, heir to the Catswold queens, had given herself not for love but to be used. She felt cheapened, shamed.

She told herself she had come to his bed to save the rebels, that she had kept a bargain.

Watching Efil, she understood sharply that she had lost last night more than her virginity. He had taken from her something more. An important part of her life had never occurred; she had been catapulted from child to someone already regretting the nature of that closest of alliances: wonder was missing. Joy was missing, and tenderness, and trust.

There was no honesty or trust between them. All was manipulation, playing the game.

That, she guessed, was the way Efil had lived all his life. His marriage to Siddonie had been political maneuvering as, surely, all their life together had been.

And now she was part of that manipulation. My new queen of Affandar. My pretty Catswold queen.

Yet in spite of her disgust, her pulse quickened as she watched him. In sleep he seemed younger, seemed almost innocent. Watching him, she vacillated between shame and desire.