Thaumatology 11 - For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll Read online

  The Great Hall was filling up when they arrived, but people parted without comment to allow the party through to the front. The Wintergreens and Darksuns were standing on the high table, Thoranil slightly to the front with the still bloody dagger which had killed Joshia in front of him. Ceri could see the Silvershields standing in the front rank; Ophelia looked anxious. The family’s putative head appeared to have been waiting for his wayward daughter to arrive. As soon as he saw her on Michael’s shoulder he spoke.

  ‘Let’s have some quiet.’ The noise in the room subsided in a wave from the front to the back. ‘As you all know by now, Joshia Darksun was murdered last night. This is the dagger used to kill him and we have identified its owner.’ He paused. ‘Ophelia Silvershield, surrender yourself.’ A wave of noise rushed across the assembled fae; some of it disbelieving, some of it sounding satisfied, some just outraged.

  ‘I didn’t kill him!’ Ophelia cried out over the clamour. ‘I came to the feast unarmed and the dagger was gone when I returned to our rooms. I did not kill him. Why would I?’

  Ceri scanned the crowd. Most of the Wintergreens and Darksuns were looking grim, but Briarin was wearing an expression more like grim satisfaction. The other members of the Silvershield faction looked shocked. The Summerglens appeared, if anything, amused, and the Arakets were not hiding their smiles. Most of the smiles looked somewhat relieved however.

  ‘Your dagger was found in the body,’ Thoranil said, his voice rising in anger. ‘If you deny the truth, your guilt will be determined by…’

  ‘She’s telling the truth,’ Ceri said. ‘It makes no sense…’

  ‘Ceri!’ Twill hissed. She rose into the air and flew over to hover in front of Ceri’s face. ‘Don’t. You don’t know what you’re doing.’

  ‘Ceridwyn Brent,’ Thoranil intoned, ‘do you stand as Advocate to Ophelia Silvershield?’

  Twill turned in the air, glaring at her father. ‘Wait. She doesn’t understand what that means.’

  ‘You mustn’t, Ceri,’ Ophelia added. She looked shocked and that, more than anything, made Ceri listen to Twill.

  ‘If you declare yourself her Advocate,’ the fairy explained, her voice low, ‘you’ve the right to investigate the murder in order to clear her name.’

  ‘Well, good…’

  ‘But you’ll be clearing your name too. If she’s eventually found guilty, you’ll be judged guilty of the same crime!’

  ‘Oh… But she’s not the murderer, Twill. Aside from anything else it makes no sense. Why would she use her own knife? Blank the history, but use her own blade? She’s not that stupid. She’s being framed.’

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Twill asked, her tone intense. Ceri nodded. Around her, Lily and Michael nodded.

  ‘Me too,’ Ishifa whispered, just as intensely.

  ‘Very well,’ Twill said, turning back to her father. ‘We will act as Advocates to Ophelia Silvershield, Father.’

  ‘No!’ Aderiel shrieked from behind her husband.

  ‘I know what you were planning, Mother,’ Twill said, her voice dripping acid. ‘You and Qualika. I’ve had enough! I’m not going to be your pawn anymore. I’d rather be judged guilty of murder and executed.’

  Interlude

  Kennington, London, July 13th, 2007

  Gloriandel was used to the routine in what she had learned was “High Towers” by now. She was a little surprised to see the auburn-haired girl, who was called Lily, walking into the kitchen in a jersey-dress rather than the microscopic garment which was her working uniform. Apparently the other one, Ceri, was surprised too.

  ‘Not going to work?’ Ceri asked, looking up from her magazine.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Lily replied, ‘but it’s Friday the Thirteenth.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. So?’

  ‘So… Carter puts on special events for that kind of thing. Special costumes. I think he’s dressing us all as pixies or something.’

  Ceri giggled. ‘From what I remember, pixies don’t wear clothes much. You should be right at home.’

  ‘I don’t think even Carter would have us prancing around starkers.’ Lily was smirking, however. She seemed to undress every chance she got. Gloriandel had worked out the girl was not entirely human, but not yet exactly what she was.

  ‘You have seen what you normally wear, right?’ Ceri countered, and Gloriandel thought she had a point. The dress Lily usually wore had more holes than cloth, and was so short that it barely hid the girl’s dignity. Of course Gloriandel did not wear clothes much herself, but she was used to big people being more… uptight about their bodies. The first time Gloriandel had seen Lily in the dress she had assumed the girl was a stripper.

  ‘The Jade Dragon,’ Lily said primly, ‘is not that kind of establishment.’

  Ceri smiled. ‘I know, Lil. I’m just joking.’

  Lily giggled back. ‘I know you were, and I’ll probably be more naked than usual. It is a special occasion.’

  ~~~

  Ceri was studying. She was a studious sort of girl and Gloriandel had decided she like her. It seemed the young human was studying for a degree in thaumatology. It was a uniquely human subject to be studying; fae, and demons, tended to view magic as an art rather than a science. Humans liked classifying things. They liked studying things, taking them apart to see how they ticked. When magic had returned to their world, and after the shock had worn off, the humans had made a science out of magic.

  As far as Gloriandel could tell, Ceri was exceptionally good at it, despite having no talent for magic. Being a magician was not necessary to study magic as a science, of course, but it gave an insight into the workings which did help. Ceri had none of that, but she still seemed to grasp the subject on an intuitive level. Her parents had been enchanters, adept crafters of magical items. They were both dead, but they had left their daughter protected by one of their enchantments, the tattoos on her arms. Gloriandel had yet to see what the enchantment did, but she had worked out it was powerful. Perhaps Ceri had developed her insight into magic by watching her parents.

  On the other hand, maybe it was something else. Ceri was looking around the room suddenly, as though she realised she was being watched. There was no way she could know Gloriandel was there…

  ‘Is someone there?’ Ceri asked the apparently empty room.

  Frowning, the fairy darted off, out of the study and up the stairs to the attic. Behind her, Ceri shrugged and went back to her studies.

  July 14th

  Lily came in through the front doors, taking off her coat and hanging it up on the stand beside the door. Gloriandel had never, ever, seen a pixie dressed like that. There were green, paper four-leaf clovers glued all over her upper body and a green skirt which would have made a good belt just about covering her lower body. The woman walked across the hall in six-inch heels with inhuman grace. There had to be some fae or something in her blood.

  It was as she was starting up the stairs that she stopped, frowned, and looked around. She looked right at the invisible fairy on the balustrade and Gloriandel held her breath. Seeing nothing, Lily shrugged and carried on up the stairs. A few seconds later the shower was running.

  Gloriandel considered the possibility that she had stayed too long here as she flitted into the kitchen. She kept herself hidden a lot, and moved around behind her invisibility when she was in the open, but still the two girls were starting to notice her. Sort of anyway. They were obviously starting to feel something around the house, though they had never connected their odd feelings.

  Gloriandel looked at the pile of dirty dishes in the sink and frowned. Well, she could stay a little longer, and her sense of order was positively incensed by the dirty dishes. They were going to have to go.

  July 25th

  ‘You know,’ Ceri said, ‘you don’t have to keep doing the dishes. You’re the one working. I can do them too.’

  Lily looked across the kitchen at her from where she was leaning against the counter, naked as usual, with a mug of coffee i
n her hands. ‘I haven’t done any dishes in a week or more. I thought you were doing them before I got up.’

  Ceri frowned. ‘I thought you were doing them after I went to bed. Must be the dishes fairy.’

  Lily giggled. ‘Yeah, sure.’

  ‘When I was a kid,’ Ceri said, all serious, ‘and I didn’t clean my room for ages, I’d come home from school and discover everything had been tidied up and I could never find anything. When I complained my mother would tell me she hadn’t done it, it was the room-tidy fairy. If I wanted to be sure where everything was I should tidy up myself before the fairy came and did it for me.’

  ‘There is no such thing as a “room-tidy fairy,”’ Lily said emphatically. ‘If there was she’d have been at my room every week.’

  ‘Of course not, but I did start tidying my room more regularly. That’s not the question though?’

  ‘What’s the question?’

  ‘If you’re not the dishes fairy, and I’m not the dishes fairy, who is?’

  Part Two: Never Make Deals with Fae

  Wintergreen Estates, Otherworld, February 1st, 2013

  Ophelia Silvershield was pacing. She was very good at it; upright, but with slightly hunched shoulders. She looked nervous and angry, and she had a right to be. A little of the anger was reserved for the group of people in the room with her, however, which was less understandable, though Ceri could see where she was coming from.

  ‘You’re crazy, the lot of you,’ the Sidhe stated. ‘I sort of understand why you did it, Lady Gloriandel. I wouldn’t want to be forced into a marriage with that son of a gut worm either. The rest of you? Do you even understand what you’re getting yourselves into?’

  ‘Twill explained, yes,’ Ceri replied, her voice calm.

  ‘If you can’t prove it was someone else… No! If you can’t find the someone else who did it, they’ll execute the lot of you along with me. Or worse, they’ll take those bracelets off you and put you in the Banquet Grove.’

  Ceri raised an eyebrow at Twill, sat on Michael’s knees again with Ishifa beside her. ‘You know the old stories about humans finding their way here?’ the fairy asked. ‘They would come upon a fairy feast, spend the night eating, drinking, and bedding fae maidens, and then return to find a century has passed? That’s the Banquet Grove. Even the fae sent there lose track of time. It’s a life sentence and if you spend more than a few hours there… It does things to your mind.’

  ‘And it’s a favourite punishment for humans,’ Ophelia added. ‘You’re risking your lives, and a huge political incident, for me. You don’t even know me! Well, Lily knows me and she thinks I’m a psychotic, conniving, assassin.’

  ‘You are,’ Lily agreed, ‘but you’re professional and you’re not stupid. If you wanted to kill Joshia, you would have got someone else to do it, and you wouldn’t have used your own weapon and then hung around to be arrested. You brokered this alliance. You wouldn’t have screwed it up anyway.’

  ‘You people have been watching me for a while, yes?’ Ceri said. ‘The Black Lady, she’s been keeping an eye on me and I’m pretty sure both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts have been watching me. I’ve got a terribly over-developed sense of justice. I stick my nose in where it’s not wanted and I’ve almost had it blown off before because of it. Did you really expect me to stand by and let you be framed for this?’

  Ophelia sagged a little. ‘Okay, yes. Lily and Michael wouldn’t let you do this alone… But you,’ she pointed at Ishifa, ‘you’re just a maid…’

  ‘Mistress Glor…’ Ishifa stopped, considered what she was saying, and started again. ‘Mistress Twill has been good to me, so have her friends. I can help.’

  ‘You’re mad, all of you,’ Ophelia stated, ‘but… thank you.’

  ‘Right,’ Ceri said, a slight grin on her face, ‘could you stop with the pacing and maybe help us figure this out?’

  ‘Who would want you implicated in the murder?’ Michael asked. Ceri’s grin broadened; her mate was becoming more like a detective as time went on.

  The Sidhe walked over and curled herself onto the loveseat beside Lily. ‘Most of my enemies are back on Earth. I’ve been there since the fifties. I’d have heard about any of them coming here. Silvershield is pretty good at intelligence gathering. It’s our stock-in-trade.’ Her nose wrinkled. ‘There are a couple of people in the House who would like to see me out of the way so they can take my job, but I’m not sure any of them would risk messing up this deal. The House stands to gain a lot of leverage.’

  ‘What about enemies of your House then?’ Michael went on. ‘If you’re convicted, surely that would be bad for the Silvershields too?’

  ‘I’ve taken steps to reduce that kind of injury. I’ve resigned my position until this is sorted out.’ She swallowed hard before going on. ‘But yes, it would more than likely cast suspicion on my House. Uh… the Arakets and Wildhorns hate our guts. There’s a Seelie family, the Sunhounds, who do similar diplomatic work to us. They went out of favour with House Alberich after they were caught collecting information on Oberon. They would love to see us out of the picture. House Alberich is rumoured to be less than pleased about the alliance between the Wintergreens and the Darksuns, but I don’t think they’d harm us to break it.’

  ‘That’s one more family to add to the list of suspects then,’ Lily commented. ‘If you’ve resigned your position, does that mean we can’t expect help from your House?’

  ‘Not official help. We may be able to get information from them, unofficially.’ She looked over at Ishifa. ‘You’d make a good go-between.’

  ‘I can do that,’ Ishifa agreed.

  ‘We need all the current information we can get on everyone with a vested interest in seeing this alliance broken,’ Ceri said.

  ‘Talk to Lorian next door,’ Ophelia told Ishifa. ‘He’ll get the request to the House. It’ll take some time though.’

  Michael nodded. ‘How much time do we have?’

  ‘We’ll be leaving here tomorrow morning,’ Twill said. ‘We have to plead our case to the Royal Court. If they agree there’s sufficient evidence that someone else might have done it we’ll be given until the full moon to investigate further.’

  ‘It’s about two days travel to the Summer Palace,’ Ophelia added. ‘We can hope to get some information by then.’

  ‘If we get there,’ Ceri said. ‘If it were me, I’d try to make sure we never got to argue the case.’

  ‘Now there’s a pleasant thought,’ Ophelia commented, though she did not appear to be disagreeing.

  North Lands, southbound from the Wintergreen Estates, February 2nd

  Ophelia was propped on the carriage seat between Michael and Lily. Exactly how she was managing to sleep on the rolling vehicle Ceri had no idea, but it might have had something to do with not getting much sleep during the night.

  Since Michael had far more experience than any of them in sleeping on the ground, he had elected to give the bed to the women. By the early hours of the morning, Ceri was considering joining him because Ophelia was sleeping fitfully at best. They had finally managed to get some sleep when the Sidhe had got out of bed and gone to sit in the chair beside the unlit fire. She had stayed there until everyone else had got up, as far as Ceri knew.

  Their carriage was one of a veritable procession making its way through the verdant countryside of Otherworld. Almost all the guests were heading back to their respective homes, and very few of them lived north of the Wintergreens’ lands. The Silvershields, except for Ophelia, had ridden out of the castle at first light and were not among the train. The Summerglens had peeled off the track at the end of the morning, heading east toward their own lands. Pretty much everyone else was there still, and the train was being escorted by around two dozen Sidhe guardsmen. That did not stop Ceri, Lily, and Michael watching the surrounding landscape as they passed over it.

  They had passed the edge of the Wintergreen estates after about two hours travel, entering light woodland which acted as
the natural southern boundary. The Summerglens had peeled off around forty-five minutes later when the trees had thinned, turning into scrubland, and a track had appeared crossing the wider one they were on. From there it was largely open country they had been passing through, and there had been no sign of anyone about. Twill had explained that the wide, grassy plains were used mostly for hunting. When the summer weather had come fully into effect there would be herds of wild cattle and deer roaming the grasslands.

  They were pulling into a village which Twill said was called Allenville when Ophelia’s eyes flickered open. She stretched and yawned, and looked out of the carriage window. ‘Huh, this place. I hope we aren’t stopping.’

  ‘Not nice?’ Ceri asked.

  ‘The wine and food are substandard, and the prices are too high. They’re too far from anywhere civilised to have a good supply line, and far enough from anywhere civilised to charge what they like.’

  The carriage turned, and then came to a stop. ‘Looks like we’re stopping,’ Lily commented.

  ‘I smelled rabbits just before we arrived,’ Michael commented.

  ‘You catch them, I can cook them,’ Twill said.

  Michael started taking his clothes off.

  ~~~

  Various people in the wagon train looked a little envious when they spotted the little group sitting on the edge of the village eating roasted rabbit. There was only water to go with it, but no one was complaining.

  ‘I’m not really much for camping,’ Ophelia commented, ‘but this is really kind of nice. My compliments to the chef.’

  ‘I thought fae were the ultimate naturalists,’ Ceri said. ‘I’d have thought you’d love being out in the country. Living off the land. Sleeping under the stars.’

  ‘Sure. And that’s why we build huge castles.’ The Sidhe grinned. ‘I live in a city! I like plumbing, and mattresses, and roofs that keep the rain off.’ She tore off meat from a leg she was holding, chewed for a few seconds, and then added, ‘There are fae who do like the outdoors, of course.’