A Caress Of Twilight

Chapter 14

"A hundred years ago, the high king of Faerie, Taranis, was ready to put aside his wife, Conan of Cuala. They'd been a couple for a hundred years and had no children." Her voice had fallen automatically into the singsong of the storyteller. "So he was putting her aside."

I loved a good story told in the old ways, but I wanted out of the sun, and I wanted not to be here forever. So I interrupted. "He did put her away," I said.

Maeve smiled, but not like it made her happy. "He asked me to take her place as his bride. I refused him." She was just talking to me now, the singsong lost. It might not have been as pretty, but straight conversation would be quicker.

"That's not a reason to be exiled, Maeve. At least one other has turned down Taranis's offer before, and she's still a part of the glittering throng," I sipped my lemonade and watched her.

"But Edain was in love with another. My reason was different."

She wasn't looking at me, or Kitto, or anyone, I think. She seemed to be staring off into space, maybe looking at the memories in her own head.

"And that reason was?" I asked.

"Conan was the king's second wife. He had been a hundred years with this new wife, yet there was no child."

"And?" I took another long drink of lemonade.

She took a long swallow of rum and looked back at me. "I told Taranis no because I believe he is sterile. It isn't the women but the king who is incapable of making an heir."

I spit lemonade all over myself and Kitto. He seemed frozen with the lemonade running down his arm and sunglasses.

The maid appeared with napkins. I took a handful, then waved her off. We were talking about something that no one should hear. When I could talk without sputtering, and Kitto and I were both relatively dry, I said, "You told Taranis this to his face?"

"Yes," she said.

"You're braver than you seem." Or stupider, I added in my head.

"He demanded I tell him why I would not have him as husband. I said I wished to have a child and I didn't believe that he could give me one."

I just stared at her, trying to think about the implications of what she'd said. "If what you say is true, then the royals could demand the king make the ultimate sacrifice. They could demand he allow himself to be killed as part of one of the great holy days."

"Yes," Maeve said. "He forced me out that same night."

"For fear that you would tell someone," I said.

"Surely I am not the only one to have suspicions," she said. "Adaria went on to have children with two others, but she was barren for centuries with our King."

I understood now why I'd been beaten for asking about Maeve. My uncle's very life hung in the balance. "He could just step down from the throne," I said.

Maeve lowered her glasses enough to give me a withering look. "Do not be naive, Meredith. It does not become you."

I nodded. "Sorry, you're right. Taranis would never believe it. He would have to be forced to accept that he was sterile, and the only way to do so would be to bring him up before the nobles. Which means you'd have to find a way to convince enough of them to vote your way."

She shook her head. "No, Meredith, I cannot be the only one who suspects. His death would restore fertility to our people. All our power descends from our king or queen. I believe that Taranis's inability to father children has doomed the rest of us to be childless."

"There are still children at court," I said.

"But how many of them are pure Seelie blood?"

I thought for a second. "I'm not sure. Most of them were bornlong before i came along."

"I am sure," she said. She leaned forward, her entire body language suddenly very serious, no flirting involved. "None. All the children born to us in the last six hundred years have been mixed blood. Either rapes during the wars of Unseelie warriors, or ones like yourself that are very mixed indeed. Mixed blood, stronger blood, Meredith. Our king has doomed us to die as a people because he is too proud to step down from the throne."

"If he stepped down because he was infertile, the other royals could still demand he be killed to ensure the fertility of the rest."

"And they would," Maeve said, "if they discovered that I told him of his little problem a century ago."

She was right. If Taranis had simply not known, then they might have forgiven him and allowed him to step down. But to have known for a century and have done nothing. . They would see his blood sprinkled over the fields for that.

The murmur of voices made me turn around. A new man was speaking pleasantries to the men around the umbrella table. He turned toward us smiling, flashing very white teeth. The rest of him was so unhealthy that the artificially bright smile seemed to emphasize the sallowness of his skin, the sunken eyes. He was so eaten away by illness that it took me a few seconds to recognize Gordon Reed. He'd been the director who took Maeve from small parts to stardom. I had a sudden image of his body rotted away and those teeth the only thing left untouched in his grave. I knew in that instant that the macabre vision was a true seeing, and he was dying.

The question was, did they know?

Maeve held out her hand to him. He took her smooth golden hand in his withered one, laying a kiss on the back of that perfect skin. How must he feel to watch his own youth fade, to feel his body die, while she remained untouched?

He turned to me, still holding her hand. "Princess Meredith, so good of you to join us today." The words were very civil, very ordinary, as if this were just another afternoon by the pool.

Maeve patted his hand. "Sit down, Gordon." She moved to give him the lounge chair, while she knelt on the pool edge, much like Kitto had earlier. He sat down heavily, and a momentary flinching around his eyes was the only outward sign that he hurt.

Maeve took off her sunglasses and kept looking at him. She studied what was left of the tall, handsome man that she'd married. She studied him as if every line of bone under that sallow skin was precious.

That one look was enough. She loved him. She really loved him, and they both knew that he was dying.

She laid her face on that withered hand and looked at me with wide blue eyes that shimmered just a little too much in the light. It wasn't glamour; it was unshed tears.

Her voice was low, but clear. "Gordon and I want a child, Meredith."

"How — "I stopped; I couldn't ask it, not in front of both of them.

"How long does Gordon have?" Maeve asked for me.

I nodded.

"Six. ." Maeve's voice broke. She tried to regain herself, but finally Gordon answered, "Six weeks, maybe three months at the outside." His voice was calm, accepting. He stroked Maeve's silky hair.

Maeve rolled her face to stare at me. The look in her eyes wasn't accepting, or calm. It was frantic.

I knew now why, after a hundred years, Maeve had been willing to risk Taranis's anger to seek help from another sidhe. Conchenn, goddess of beauty and spring, was running out of time.