“Even love?” He had not meant to say it.
A heartbreaking smile touched Gertrude’s face. “Especially love. Not often, but it does happen.”
Deven pulled his hands free, nearly upsetting his ale jack. “So you wish me to remember that ’tis your Queen I work against, and not the fae people as a whole.” Not Lune. “Is that it?”
“Aye.” Gertrude folded her hands, as if she had not noticed the vehemence with which he moved.
“As you wish, then. I will remember it.” Deven threw a few coins onto the table and stood.
Gertrude caught up with him at the door. “You should come below for a moment before you leave; I have something for you. Will you do that for me?”
He needed time away from fae things, but he couldn’t begrudge the request. “Very well.”
“Good.” She passed by him, out into the bright sunlight, and called back over her shoulder, “By the by? We also brew their ale.”
THE ANGEL INN, ISLINGTON: April 26, 1590
“Mistress Goodemeade.” Lune nodded her head formally to Rosamund. “At her Majesty’s command, I seek healing for these wounds I have suffered. Few if any in the Onyx Court hold any love for me, given my Queen’s recent displeasure; therefore I come here, to ask for aid.”
“Of course, my lady.” Rosamund offered an equally formal curtsy in response. “Please, come with me, and I will tend to you.”
They descended the staircase, and then descended again, and the rose-marked floorboards closed behind them.
“My lady!” Formality gave way to distress. “Cheepkin told us some of what passed, but not all. Sit, sit, and let me see to you.”
Lune had no energy to disobey, and no desire to. She let Rosamund press her onto the stool Deven had occupied the previous night — it seemed like ages ago. “I am so very sorry. Corr had not left—”
The brownie clicked her tongue unhappily. “We know. Oh, if he had only listened….”
Deft fingers untied those sleeve- and waist-points that had not already broken, then unlaced her bodice at the back. Lune winced as the material of her undergown pulled free where dried blood had glued it to her skin. She would need to obtain new clothing somehow, or else resort to glamours to cover up her tattered state. People would know she wore an illusion, but at least in the Onyx Hall she need not fear it being broken.
Naked to the waist, she closed her eyes while Rosamund dabbed at her cuts with a soft, wet cloth. “I fear I have put you in danger. With Corr there, I had to cast suspicion on him somehow, and I said he had received a message the previous night. If they trace it back to you—”
“Never you mind,” Rosamund said. “We would not be here, Gertrude and I, if we could not deal with little problems like that.”
“He also seems to have sent a message out, to the Hunt. At least, he panicked when I accused him of it. But I do not know what it said.”
The ministering cloth paused. A heartbeat later, it resumed its work. “Something touching on my sister and me, I expect. We shall see.”
Lune opened her eyes as Rosamund began daubing her wounds with a cool, soothing ointment. “Lord Valentin questioned me before I left. Where I had gotten mortal bread — I told him a simple lie — and how I had found out about Corr. They found Francis’s body while I was there. I led Aspell to believe the two were connected.”
“Then we must be sure they do not catch the messenger. Does this feel better?”
“Very much so. Thank you.” The fire seemed to have the knack of warming the room just enough; the cool, damp chill of an underground chamber was perfectly offset, so Lune did not shiver as Rosamund fetched bandages from a small chest. At least not from cold.
The brownie swathed her ribs and collarbone in clean white linen, with soft pads over the cuts themselves. “They should be well in three days,” Rosamund said, “and you may take the bandages off after one.”
Before Lune could say anything more to that, footsteps sounded above. She had not heard anyone speak through the rosebush, as she had when Dame Halgresta came the previous night. Gertrude, no doubt, but her entire body tensed.
The floor bent open, and the brownie’s feet appeared on the top stair, in stout slippers. But a pair of riding boots followed, belonging to someone much larger.
Lune snatched up the bodice of her gown just as Michael Deven came into view.
“Oh!” Gertrude exclaimed, as Deven flushed scarlet and spun about. The floor had already closed behind him; unable to escape, he kept his back resolutely turned. “My lady, I am so very sorry. I did not know you were here.”
Lune did not entirely believe her. Irritation warred with an unfamiliar feeling of embarrassment as Rosamund helped her into the stained remnant of her clothing. Fae were often careless of bodily propriety among themselves, particularly at festival time, but mortals were another matter. Especially that mortal.
“I just wanted to give Master Deven a token,” Gertrude said, opening a chest that sat along one wall. “So our birds can find him if he isn’t at home. They will carry messages for you, Master Deven, should you need to send to us. Lady Lune, I would give you one as well—”
“But it might be found on me,” Lune finished for her. The sleeves of her dress were not yet reattached, but at least she was covered now. “I quite understand.”
“Aye, exactly.” Gertrude carried something over to where Deven yet stood on the staircase; it looked like a dried rosebud, but seemed much less fragile. “Here you are.”
He moved enough to accept the token and examine it. “Roses again, I see.”
Gertrude clicked her tongue. “I would have planted something other than a rosebush, but my sister was so very fond of the notion. Now everything we do is roses, and everyone always thinks of her. I should have had a flower in my name.”
Rosamund answered her with mild asperity, and the two sisters bickered in friendly fashion while they helped Lune finish dressing. It lowered the tension in the room, as no doubt they intended, and after a few moments Deven risked a glance over his shoulder, saw Lune was decent again, and finally turned to face them all.
“I did not mean to burst in thus,” he said to her, with a stiff bow. “Forgive me.”
The rote apology hit Lune with far more force than it should have. His eyes were a lighter blue than the seer’s had been, and his hair brown instead of black — he had none of the fey look brought on by life in the Onyx Hall — but in her memory, a wavering, nearly inaudible voice echoed him, “Forgive me.”
“Rosamund,” she said, cutting into the amiable chatter of the two sisters. “Gertrude. Last night… I did not think to ask; too much else was happening. But before he died, Tiresias — Francis spoke a name. Begged forgiveness of her. A fae woman, I think. Suspiria.”
She expected the brownies would recognize the name. She did not expect it to have such an effect. Both sisters gasped, their faces suddenly stricken, and tears sprang into Gertrude’s eyes.
Startled, Lune said, “Who is she?”
Rosamund put one arm around her sister’s shoulders, comforting her, and said, “A fae woman, aye. Francis loved her dearly, and she him.”
Such romances often ended in tragedy, and more so under Invidiana’s rule. “What happened to her?”
The brownie met her gaze gravely. “She sits on a throne in the Onyx Hall.”
The notion was so incredible, Lune found herself thinking of the Hall of Figures, trying to recall any enthroned statues there. But Rosamund met her gaze, unblinking, and there was only one throne in all the buried palace, only one who sat upon it.