Blood and Iron (33 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Matthew was very tired, but his hands hurt even more than his back did, and so he kept on walking. The warning wasn't the pulling, sweet sharpness that heralded a Seeker, however, so he walked instead of running: boots scuffing on gray pavement past the red neon sign of the movie theater on Forty-second, through the clamor of advertisements, to the crossroads of the world.
And isn't it interesting that we keep coming back here,
he thought, remembering Patience.

Times Square barely dimmed in sunlight. Stacked LED screens shone over hustling crowds, traffic a constant chromed shine on Matthew's left. Enough people to vanish among, a fine thaumaturgic hook to hang a pass-unseen on. He stepped around a bootleg tape dealer and followed his pain.

He spotted his quarry half a block away, loitering but not obviously, a sleek black head rising over the crowd. People turned to look as Murchaud passed, even with a glamourie dulling his unholy beauty. Some of them obviously wondered if they should be recognizing a celebrity.

The Duke of Hell made direct for Matthew, limping only slightly, his face impassive.

Matthew had some idea what it must have cost him to hide his pain in the presence of that much iron. “Come on. Let's go to the park. Assuming it was me you wished to speak to.”

“Who else would come to investigate?” Murchaud said mildly, and fell into step beside him. “I hope you don't mind walking.” He gestured rather helplessly at a passing taxi.

Matthew laughed. “I walk a lot. I like my exercise.”

“I can see that.”

Matthew felt the appreciative glance. He deflected it with a turn of his hand. “I'm afraid you're not my type, Murchaud.”

A chuckle. “How do you know?” Met by silence, and Murchaud took it with equanimity. “I wanted to speak with you alone.”

“Do you stand against your brothers because they sent you to Hell, Murchaud?”

“No,” Murchaud answered. “I went to Hell willing, in another's place. I speak for the Morningstar to Jane Andraste because it amuses the Morningstar to have it so, and he doesn't think a few tens of hundreds of Magi should go . . . unliaisoned.”

Matthew dragged his hands out of his pockets. It was too much; the pain was breaking his concentration, and he needed every drop. He pulled his rings off one by one and weighed them in his palm, eyes tearing in relief. “Ah.”

“Would it were so simple for me,” Murchaud said, clubbed hair bobbing over his collar as he turned to watch a groundlit El Camino lowrider purr past. “Aren't you going to ask me what Hell is like, Matthew Magus?” A very tired voice, without the lilt Matthew expected.

“I was going to ask why no one came after you, like Tam Lin.”

The Duke of Hell broke stride at that, but recovered quickly. “Those who had the power did not care for the risk,” he said quietly. “And the one who cared for the risk had long ago surrendered whatever the Morningstar would have liked of him.” A long pause, and the jocular tone returned. “It's just as well you didn't ask about Hell. For I would have answered you thus: ‘This is Hell, nor am I out of it.' ”

Matthew slipped his rings into his pocket and answered, “ ‘Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed in one self place, for where we are is Hell. And where Hell is there must we ever be.' I teach that play.”

“I know.” Murchaud grinned, sideways slyness. “And may I say that it amuses the author greatly.”

“How—” He struck his forehead. “You're pulling my leg, of course.”

“I must be.” Dry as gin, matching Matthew's stride effortlessly. “You'd never expect to find a poet in Hell.”

“You're very charming.”

“I work at it.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to know why you serve Prometheus, lad.” Dead-pan, and deadly smooth in the delivery.

“Because . . .” He paused. It was not a question that would brook an easy answer. “Because Prometheus will care for my brother, if anything happens to me. Because they're the road I have to a little revenge, for what the Faeries did to Kelly. And the only means I have of seeing it never happens again.”

“Hmmph.” And then silence. Murchaud glanced back over his shoulder, threading through the crowd without effort even when he paid no attention at all. “Pity we've left the crossroads.”

“Why is that?”

He stopped, and Matthew stopped a step farther, turning to face him. Murchaud's pale blue eyes caught and reflected the orange-and-crimson glow of billboards and LEDs. For a moment, Matthew could have fooled himself it was flickering flames, but he stretched his hands, working relief through aching fingers, and refused to look back down.

“Because,” Murchaud said, “I could do the same in exchange for your soul, and it would prove less costly in the long run.” He glanced down, and started walking again.

Matthew stared after, then hurried to catch him. “I thought Hell and Prometheus were allied, Your Grace.”

“
Hell
and Prometheus are,” he said, archly.

Seeker stepped through shadows, leaving Whiskey by the black water's edge. “Weak,” she cursed herself, kicking the grass-stained rags of her robe into the corner. The window still stood open, a cold draft filling the room. Although some sprite or brownie had banked it, the fire had burned down. She rang for water, trying not to think too hard about it, and while she waited she wrapped the counterpane around her shoulders and kindled a new fire.

Once the flames stood tall, she threw the robe upon them. Wet silk scorched and stung her nostrils, smoking hard until she adjusted the flue. Her whiskey still sat on the table by the fireside chair; by the time she remembered it, a bath had been brought, and she locked the door, left the window open, and stood sipping liquor and glaring at the steaming water.

She finished her drink, but she still stood cradling the empty glass after she dropped the comforter on the floor. “Dammit!” Seeker whirled and hurled the glass into the fireplace. She felt no better when it shattered.

She straightened and tossed her hair back. “Whiskey, stay the hell out of my bedroom today. Do you hear me?” There was no answer. She hadn't expected one.

No rose petals this time: just clean hot water in a footed wooden tub. She groaned as she slid down into it; her body felt beaten, as bruised and abraded as Whiskey's had been when she left him. The memory nauseated her, but so did the touch of the steaming water.
At least you didn't let him fuck you.
She dug splinters of grass and earth from under her fingernails.
It doesn't count if he doesn't put it in you? Oh, so we're back in high school, then? I guess we are, at that. Well, it won't happen again.
She drew her knees up and shivered.
No matter how good he can make your body feel.

Yes, he's had a lot of practice. A little hors d'oeuvre before he eats them in a nonmetaphorical sense. Devil!
Her stomach clenched on emptiness.

The water grew cold before Seeker felt she'd scrubbed enough. She toweled herself roughly, examined the bruises along her knuckles and the heels of her hands, and dressed for luncheon.
Best if people don't forget I exist.
But she didn't believe it.

She took herself down to the galleried, glass-ceilinged hall in a sweep of petticoats and steely brocade, listening to the clatter of her bootheels on the stone. She entered through the back door and appropriated Peaseblossom's place at the high table beside Cairbre. The Mebd's antique councilor could sit in
her
old chair if he didn't care to contest her for pride of place.
I should have been playing politics years ago, instead of sulking like a whipped child between assignments.
On the far end of the table, Carel winked at her, and Seeker smiled back. Keith was nowhere to be seen and neither was the Mebd.

“Good afternoon, mother.” Ian leaned over her shoulder and kissed her cheek, a hand laid lightly on her arm. “Her Majesty would like to speak to you at your convenience. After lunch, I believe.” He lowered his voice. “She's closeted with dusty old Peaseblossom and the Unseelie emissary just now.”

“I was hoping we could dine together tonight,” Seeker said, covering his hand with her own.

“I'll cancel my engagements,” he answered with a grin that seemed curiously cool. “Nice choice of chair, mother.”

Something felt strange under her fingertips; his skin was cool and taut, and she couldn't feel the blood moving under it. “Your hands are cold.”

“So is the hall. The wine will heat them soon enough.”

She returned his smile as warmly as she could. “I think the trouble's going to get deeper before we find a way through, but it's a start at a solution. What do you think?”

“I think I'm heir to them both, so it doesn't matter much which one bends a knee to which, but my father has a better chance of reining in Àine than the Mebd has.” His hair glowed almost blue in the lamplight, and the calculation in his eyes chilled her. And then his frown eased, and he shrugged, all boy again. “I'm thinking I'd rather not wind up married to any of my great-great-aunts for the sake of politics, either.”

“There's a girl, then?” Just to see what he would say.

“Mother!” He blushed. “Maybe. But I can't marry where I want even if I wanted to, if that makes any sense, so there's no use dwelling on it.”

“Ah.”

Cairbre, pretending not to hear the conversation, passed Seeker a plate. She poked at the meat with her knife, surprised to discover she had an appetite.

Ian flagged the server down to bring her wine. “ ‘Love where you may, and marry where you must,' ” he quoted wryly.

“A family tradition.”

“Apparently.” He kissed her cheek. “I should sit down so people can eat.” She smiled after him, Whiskey's words about blood and hunters an unease at the bottom of her mind.

“A fine lad,” Cairbre said in her ear. “You must be proud.”

“Extremely,” she answered. Ian took his chair and sipped his wine, and the low hum of conversation in the hall dropped as the diners fell upon their food. “Do you have any children?”

“Alas,” he said. “Have you given any thought to the future between these two kingdoms, Seeker?”

“We need each other,” she said. With the rustle of many-colored cloth, the bard Cairbre nodded. She caught the motion from candleshadows, just as she saw Ian catch Hope's eye across the width of the hall and smile. A thousand tiny movements, a thousand significant gestures. As useless in its complexity as the murmur of voices filling the room.

“We do.” The bard's rich baritone. “Despite what the Unseelie are. I've been talking to your Merlin, Seeker. She's a scholar as well as a Mage.”

“I know.” Seeker tasted her dinner. Hunger wet her mouth and she set about dismembering the slice of roast on her plate. “You planned to have me sit here, didn't you?”

“Just a little come-hither,” Cairbre admitted. His long fingers flickered as he spoke. A narrow band of pale scar circled the base of each one. “I hope you don't mind.”

“Not at all.” She reached for the bread, and Cairbre passed her the butter without being asked. “That was quite a performance the other night, master bard.”

“ ‘Greensleeves'? Amazing. A mortal, and so young. That voice, and that audacity: I'd have made a bard of her such as the world had never seen, if I'd had her from nine or ten.” And then Cairbre seemed to realize what he was saying. “If she wasn't on another path already, of course.”

“Ah.” Red wine stung her palate. She forced a smile and spoke between bites. “I'm interested to hear what has the Daoine bard standing back-to-back with the Unseelie court, if you don't mind. And what use he thinks he might get out of such as I.”

Cairbre rubbed a hand across his chin. “Not back-to-back. Shoulder to shoulder, perhaps.” He held up his hands, licking a drip of gravy from his nail. His fingers were strong, tendons visible along the sides. Seeker reached out and touched the ridges of scar because his gesture seemed an invitation.

The scars were raised like beads of solder; they felt shiny-slick and hard under her fingertips. “You're showing me these wounds for a reason, harper.”

“I had an experience with Prometheans,” Cairbre said. “I was bound seven years before I won free. I wore”—his lips thinned, and he dropped his hands upon the tabletop— “iron rings on my fingers.”

Seeker flinched, lowering her gaze to her plate. She imagined for a moment she could feel the ache of that iron in her bones, up her arms to the elbow, deep in her shoulders like the pain of a dislocated joint. She remembered the ponytailed Mage grabbing her hand, remembered the iron winding his own fingers. Proof against Faerie magics.
Bold bastards.
The scars on Cairbre's hands looked like old, deep burns. She shuddered. “Why didn't they kill you?”

“I expect it was an experiment.” He picked up his spoon and tasted the soup cooling before him. “As you can probably understand, I will do what needs to be done to eradicate them. Cliodhna indicates her Queen will too.” An eloquent gesture, not quite a shrug.

“And what does she want with me?”

“Alliances. You move in powerful circles, and you carry the blood of Queens. You have the ear of Morgan and of the Mebd, and the service of one of the most powerful of the wild Fae. A Tuatha de Danaan. Not to mention your own post and position.” Cairbre rested a hand on her arm. The calluses on his fingertips caught on the nap of her sleeve. “And your links to Keith MacNeill and to his son.”

“Links,” she snorted. “What a charming way to put it. So I've made myself a valuable commodity.”