In The Coils Of The Snake (10 page)

“Nothing’s
ever fair about the goblin King’s Bride,” commented
Seylin,
“not even when we think it’s going to be. But you did the right thing.
Such a King she’ll give us!” He remembered Kate’s
dreadful homesickness when he was a boy. “She’ll settle in,”
he said
encouragingly.

“Poor little
elf,” growled the goblin King. “Completely abandoned! I can’t
understand how he could simply hand her over like
that. I would never do that to one of my people,” he added,
pleased
to have another reason to despise the elf lord.

“You wouldn’t
have much need to do it,” observed Seylin. “I don’t think the elves
are interested in a goblin bride. You’re sure about talking to Miranda? There’s
nothing to be gained by it, and
there are
some things to lose. She’s bound to be distraught, but she’ll
calm down
after a few days. And you’ll be facing enough hysteria tonight.”

They came to the
cliff face and walked through into the
underground kingdom. Seylin glanced curiously at
the quiet elf.
She had missed her
last look at the stars.

“I
know I will,” sighed Marak Catspaw as they walked down
the polished black corridor. “I’m going to leave
Arianna in the
King’s Bride chamber
with Mother while I talk to Miranda. She won’t be afraid of her, they’re both elves.
The door will be locked,
and Mother can
join the women in the inner room if Arianna panics
and tries spells. She
could certainly do it, with such impressive magic,” he added admiringly.

“I’m
not so sure she could,” Seylin mused as they walked past the
great
iron door. When it clanged shut behind her, Arianna shivered
in Catspaw’s arms, but she still didn’t open her
eyes. “This girl’s not
reacting like any bride I’ve ever read of.
She’s not fighting at all. I don’t know why not,” Seylin concluded with a
puzzled frown.

“I
think she’s being brave,” said the goblin King complacently as
they
passed the lovely grove of slender metal saplings. Sometimes
Seylin still sounded like the tutor he had been. “Adviser,
I want you to go wake up Miranda and bring her to the blue throne-room antecham
ber.
But don’t tell her anything about tonight, and that’s an order.”

“All right,”
said Seylin. “Goblin King, please don’t make any
promises to Miranda. And that’s a request,” he murmured gloomily.

• • •

Miranda paced the
small room nervously, waiting for Catspaw to
arrive.
The King must have come home early from the dwarf mines
and decided to hold the marriage right away. She
felt a little anxious
at the thought
of the bloody ceremony, but a King’s Wife needed to
be strong, so she
gave Catspaw a bright, unworried smile when he finally came into the room.

The goblin King
stopped at the sight of that smile and just
looked
at her for a minute. He realized how deeply attached to her he
had become. She was so lively and interesting, so
proud and sophis
ticated. They would have been very happy.

Miranda’s
smile faded as he stood and stared at her. “What’s the
matter?” she asked, nervous again. “Has
something happened? Is the
ceremony tonight?”

“Yes,”
replied Marak Catspaw. “Yes to both questions. The cer
emony
is tonight, and something has happened.” He paused, but
there was no point in pausing, so he went on
again. “Miranda, I
can’t marry you,” he said. “I have to
marry someone else.”

Miranda
stood there, completely stunned, her face turning white.
Catspaw
tried to think of something to say that would make her
understand. He had done the right thing, of course. Everyone knew
that.
Everyone except her, and she was the one who mattered.

“I have to do
it,” he explained. “The elf lord gave us a bride. I
wouldn’t have given you up for a regular elf, but
she’s an elf from the
highest noble families. She’s very magical, and
that’s important for the Heir.”

Miranda
fought back tears. Marak hadn’t raised her to snivel. He
had
raised her to be a King’s Wife, but she wouldn’t be one now.

“An elf bride,”
she said evenly. “She’s very beautiful, isn’t she? Of course she is,”
she said, tossing her head back. ‘All elves are beautiful.”

“That
has nothing to do with this,” said Catspaw. “That’s not
why
I’m marrying her.”

“But she is,
isn’t she?” persisted Miranda, fixing him with a deadly look.

“Yes,”
said the goblin King. “So are you.” He watched as she turned away and
glared at the wall. “Miranda,” he tried again, “I’d
rather marry you. If I had my choice, I would
marry you. But I have
to do the best thing for my people.”

“And I’m not
it,” she concluded. “After all those promises. I’m not the best
thing, am I? And your people deserve the best.”

He didn’t answer
her. There was no point. After all, it was true.

“And
how convenient that I’m not one of your people,” she
added. Her tone was still even, but her voice was
beginning to shake.
“You’ll do the
best thing for them, won’t you, but it doesn’t matter what happens to me.”

“Of
course it matters,” he said. “You know you matter to me.
I’ll
do anything I can for you, anything.”

“Except
marry me,” she said bitterly. She dropped her head and
began
to cry. She didn’t care anymore that Marak hadn’t raised her
to be a crybaby. He hadn’t raised her to be
anything, as it turned out.

“I
know you’re upset,” Catspaw said. “But you’re so strong.
You’ll overcome this. I’ll marry you to any goblin you
name and give
you anything
you ask for. You know I’ll always care about you,” he
added
coaxingly.

Miranda’s
head came up slightly at this speech, and a dangerous
look came into her eyes. “Will you really do that?”
she asked quietly.
“Will you give
me anything I ask for?”

“Of course I
will,” said the goblin, forgetting Seylin’s request. He was pleased to see
her recovering so quickly.

“Then give me
my freedom!” spat Miranda in a fury. “Let me
out of here! I don’t want to be around you for another minute, I
don’t
want to be around goblins for another minute, and I certainly don’t want to
stay down here and marry one!”

“I can’t do
that,” concluded Marak Catspaw helplessly, caught completely off guard.

“Oh,
you can’t!” cried Miranda in disgust. “You can’t seem to
do
anything I want, can you!”

“You know you
belong in the kingdom,” Catspaw insisted rea
sonably. “You’re the ward of the goblin King and always will be.”

“I
don’t belong anywhere!” she cried. “You lied to me! You said you
would give me anything! But you’ve always lied to me, haven’t
you? You said you’d
marry me, too.”

Catspaw stared at
her for a long moment. Lying was a serious matter to a goblin King. “Very
well,” he said finally. “I’ll give you
what you asked for.” He studied her distraught features with a wor
ried
frown. “Where are you going to go?” he asked.

“That’s no
business of yours,” she hissed. “I’m not one of your people.”

“Where
are you going to go?” he repeated steadily. She wiped her
eyes
and reflected that he hadn’t let her out yet.

“I’ll go back
to my family,” she replied, looking away.

“That’s a lie,”
he observed. She glared at him. How nice to be magical, she thought bitterly.

“I’ll
go watch the sunrise,” she concluded more quietly. “I
haven’t
seen it in months.” And because this wasn’t t a lie, he didn’t find the
danger in it.

“All right,”
he said. She was calming down again. This would
doubtless be for the best. He hadn’t promised to let her out for good,
of course. He could give her the freedom she had
demanded for one
day, under careful guard, and then have her brought
back into the kingdom.

Whispering,
he walked up to her and placed his paw on her forehead, where the golden Door
character glimmered. Then he continued
to stand there for another minute, his hand on her hair,
regretting his
choice of brides.

He
was so close to her, she thought miserably. Close enough
to kiss her. She wished with all her heart that she had a
knife in
her hand.

“I’ll
have Tattoo accompany you,” the goblin King decided.
“He’ll get some
things together for you to take.”

Miranda jerked away.

“I don’t want
anything from you,” she said in a low, deliberate
voice. “I don’t want to take a single disgusting
thing of yours with me. I won’t take your guards, and I won’t take your money,
and I
won’t take your rings,” she
added, voice rising, jerking them off one by one. ‘And I won’t take your
bracelets,” she cried, ripping them off
and flinging them at him.

Without
realizing it, she pulled off the golden bracelet that
Marak
had given her, too, and the catch tore a jagged gash in her
wrist. The blue butterfly, crushed in the act of
flying away, fluttered
awkwardly to
the ground. Overcome with horror, Miranda watched
it flop helplessly
about. Then she dodged around Catspaw with an anguished cry and dashed out the
door.

The goblin King
gazed down at the scattered jewelry. “Guard,
come,” he called. The astonished Tattoo appeared at the door,
trying
to keep his silver face expressionless.

The
King pointed after Miranda. “Follow her outside,” he
ordered.
“Follow her into the daylight, but don’t let her see you. I’ll send your
relief at noon.”

With
a shimmer, the goblin guard changed into a nightjar, a bird
that flew at night.
He swooped after the fleeing girl.

• • •

Miranda
stood in the Hallow Hill graveyard on the edge of the for
est, not far from
the house where her family slept. The tall marble monument gleamed like a ghost
in the pool of light from Kate’s magical bracelet. She held the light close to
read the inscription.
Miranda
Richardson, b. October 9,1836, d. April 6,1834. In life, we are in the
midst
of death.

It
hadn’t even been six months since Marak had worked the
magic
on them to make them think she was dead. With a chill, she remembered standing
inside her house in the deep twilight, sure
rounded
by their limp, silent figures. The entire estate, the whole vil
lage was there by
special invitation, and every last one was asleep. The sleepers were dreaming a
single dream. They were all at her funeral together. She had walked among them,
watching the tears slide down their still faces, listening to their quiet sobs.

Not even half a year
ago she had left them, but there was no wreath or bouquet to show that she was
missed. Only a handful of wildflowers lay at the base of the tombstone, their
petals withered
and dry. She bent to pick
them up, her heart aching with grief. That
would be little Charlotte, no
doubt.

She sat in the nursery’s
deep window seat, a thick curtain between her and
the rest of them. Outside, a cold rain drizzled down the
glass, the hiss of the
drops helping to
drown out the shrieks and shouts that arose from the room. The girl was
practicing the script character for
hot water
,
and she thought it
interesting that this should be one word in goblin when it was two in English.
She
carefully traced over the golden lines
on her magical crystal tablet, at peace with
the whole world.

“LET ME SEE!” howled a voice in
her ear, and the small crystal square was jerked from her hand. Miranda sat up,
tucking the metal stylus into her pocket, and pushed open the curtain.