Sam and Rinaldi talked for hours before the grinding rasp of the opening cell door interrupted them. A pale-skinned elf entered as soon as the door had risen high enough to clear the shock of yellow and pink hair that stood straight up from his scalp. His pointed ears were especially prominent against the shaved sides of his head. Though his manner was nonchalant, Sam noticed that the elf kept a hand near the weapon holstered low on his right hip.
The elf stepped to one side of the doorway and a short, squat shape took his place in the arch. Their second visitor was neither an ape nor a man, but something in between. Thick brown fur sheathed its torso and lower legs, while a fine, sparse fuzz covered the rest of its body. The digits of its hands and feet had sharp, thick nails that were almost talons. The narrow, broad-nosed face shifted expression from fearful skitteriness to a threatening snarl and back again. It wore no clothes, but carried a bundle of cloth from which Sam could see the soles of a pair of boots projecting.
The elf grunted at the hominid and pointed at Sam. The furred being crouched at the sound of the elf’s voice and looked at him. It made a few guttural noises. The elf repeated the sound he’d made more loudly and jabbed his hand emphatically in Sam’s direction. The creature shuffled forward, side-stepping toward Sam, and rapidly shifted its gaze from Sam to the elf. When it was a meter from Sam, it tossed its burden at him and scampered out of the cell to stand hesitantly just on the other side of the threshold.
Sam caught one of the boots and what seemed to be a shirt of fine white silk. The other boot and the rest of the clothes landed on the floor around him.
“Drek-eating munchkins,” the elf muttered. He made a barking noise and stamped his foot in the direction of the hominid. The munchkin bared its teeth at him and hissed before spinning in place and scampering down the corridor. When it reached a group of its fellows clustered where the corridor forked, it stopped, hopping back and forth as it screeched at the elf. The elf stamped his foot again, and the whole group of munchkins pelted out of sight around the corner.
“Must be tough getting good help around here,” Sam said as he bent to gather up the fallen garments.
Rinaldi chuckled, but the elf only frowned.
“Dress,” he ordered.
“There are only clothes for one. What about Father Rinaldi?”
“He stays here.”
Sam started to protest, but Rinaldi’s hand on his arm stopped him.
“It’s all right,” the priest said. “But you’d better clean yourself up first. You obviously have an interview with the Lady and there’s no point in making a bad impression.”
“What about you?”
“I expect she’s had her fill of me. Go on. I’ll still be here when you get back.”
Sam had time to think while he showered in the cell’s small sanitary alcove. He continued thinking as he put on the clothes that had been brought for him. He had even more time to think on the trip to the audience chamber. He spent most of the thinking puzzling over the why of his capture. He found no answers.
He realized he knew damn little about Hart. His runner contacts vouched for her competence in the trade and pegged her as a hermetic mage. Both those things he knew were true from his personal experience of her. But the streets had no tale to tell of her origins. She was supposed to be a mercenary, but what if she wasn’t? What if she had been an agent of the Shidhe all along? He knew so little about her past. Although the subject had never come up, he realized he knew no more about Hart than he did about Sally Tsung. His involvement with Sally had sprung into being almost overnight, and become a tempestuous affair, quite unlike his earlier involvement with the staid Hanae. Like Hart, Sally was strong-willed and quite sure of what she wanted. Their becoming lovers had been mostly her idea. Mostly. But what of his involvement with Hart? Whose idea had that been?
The Man of Light had preyed on Sam’s own loyal impulses when he had suggested Sam was betraying Sally by his involvement with Hart. But Sam knew Sally had been through lovers before. He doubted she had gone without comfort since he had left Seattle. It just wasn’t her style. He was both comforted and disturbed by that thought. She had done a lot in helping him adjust to the shadow life, and he wanted nothing but the best for her, but he had been raised to believe in fidelity.
So what had he been doing fooling around with Hart?
He didn’t have an answer. His feelings roiled under the heat of suspicion planted by the Man of Light. Was it real magic, or just the old biochemical magic of hormones and psychological need?
He realized he didn’t know Hart well enough to answer for her. Would she tell him honestly if he talked to her? Could she? That night on the rooftop he had been afraid to tell her everything the Man of Light had said, confining himself to the less personal issues. Still, he remembered how she had shivered when he spoke of the magical compulsion to forget the encounter at Glover’s mansion. What had her reaction meant? He didn’t know. In truth, he didn’t know her at all. He remembered the sadness her eyes had held as she pulled the trigger. Why had she done it? There was so much he didn’t know about her. For all he knew, Hart might actually be the Lady Brane Deigh.
Did that explain everything? Anything? He thought about it for a while, too, and finally dismissed it as paranoid fantasy.
The time for ponderings ended as he was ushered into the audience chamber. At the far end of a gauntlet of courtiers was a tiered dais upon which sat three thrones. The right one was occupied—the Lady Brane Deigh, he presumed. To the enthroned queen’s side stood a tall, dark-skinned elf. Hart stood among the courtiers nearest the dais.
Sam was shoved from behind by the elf accompanying him. After an initial stumble, he strode forward, determined not to show the turmoil he still felt. He ignored the scattered titters from the crowd as he stopped before the triple thrones and stared defiantly up at the queen.
“Why am I here?”
“You are my guest,” she replied sweetly.
“Guests aren’t kept in cells.”
“Let us say, then, that you may be my guest. As such, you shall be given the freedom of the court, but my guests are well-behaved and display courteous manners. Though lately you have associated with less attractive elements of society, you are a child of corporate culture; thus I know you to have been educated in reasonably civilized behavior. Offend none of my court, and you shall have a long life among us. Prove yourself entertaining or of value, and it shall be a pleasant life.”
Not a guest at all, but a prisoner. Or worse, a pet. “I want no part of your court.”
“It is not your choice. Are you so ungrateful as to throw away what the Lady Hart has won for you?”
“Oh, I’m grateful,” he said icily, staring at his so-called benefactress. Hart would not meet his eyes. “And I’m sure there are many innocent souls in London who would gladly cry her praises as well. If they could.”
“You need not concern yourself over matters in London.”
“Then the Circle is destroyed?”
“Broken, certainly. And much of that work was yours. You are resourceful, for a mortal. I like that.”
Sam didn’t believe the Circle was defeated. They had still been active, and he had heard no evidence to the contrary. So why was the Lady complimenting him? Were elves deceitful by nature? He knew the job wasn’t done—the renegade druids were still at large.
“You haven’t said that they’re destroyed; therefore they will still be at their evil work. They must be stopped.”
“They will be,” the Lady assured him.
“Then you are working to stop the Hidden Circle?”
“They will be exposed, and their evil seen by all the world. Their crimes are repulsive to all sentients. Public revelation of their evil will shatter their warped dreams of power.”
Sam didn’t want to hear vague promises and flowery rhetoric. “When?” he demanded.
“In time.”
Lord Almighty, this woman is playing games with people’s lives. She was far more beautiful in body, but no better in soul than Haesslich.
“No! They must be stopped at once. If you are opposed to them, you must act now. People are dying.”
The lady’s warm manner frosted over. “Do not presume to tell me what to do. With your mortally limited view of time, you cannot know of the large concerns at stake here. Perhaps you should talk some more with Padre Rinaldi. In many ways he is as intense as yourself, but his organization has learned to take the long view. You could learn patience from him; he has learned his place.”
“His place? His place is out in the world, not suffocated here as one of your guests. Why is he being held prisoner?”
“He is so very quick of tongue,” she said, folding her hands in front of her left breast. Abruptly, a hint of her former warmth returned, “Could it be that he has not told you his tale?”
Suspicious, Sam replied, “He has not.”
“Then you see that even he does not consider it any business of yours.”
“I do not believe he has broken any laws. Whatever business it is, you have no right to hold him. Keep me here, if you must,” Sam said. If you can, he added to himself. “But set him free.”
“You may make no demands here. Never forget that you are an illegal alien in this land. You live on my sufferance alone.” The lady returned her hands to the arms of her throne. “Still, Padre Rinaldi’s wit is quick and keen, and his arguments, though insufficiently informed, did amuse me. However, it is not proper for me to arbitrarily rescind his confinement, and I find that I miss him. It is a dilemma.”
The dark-skinned elf spoke into her ear. His words were pitched to carry to the audience as well. “The Lady Hart is a member of your court. Perhaps she would sponsor the priest as she has the shaman.”
The Lady turned her attention to Hart. “Are you interested, Lady Hart? A toy for your toy?”
Hart didn’t look at her mistress immediately. For a moment she stared straight ahead, then her face turned to Sam. Her left eyebrow rose minutely, a silent question. He thought at first to keep his expression passive, to force her to decide without any input from him. Then, he thought about how much harder it would be to plan an escape without Rinaldi; the priest was his only ally here. Sam had no idea of Hart’s motivation in bringing him here, but she had certainly not asked his permission to kidnap him. Would asking her to take the priest’s part work for or against him?
The moment was stretching out uncomfortably. He nodded.
“I shall stand for the priest,” Hart said.
Lady Deigh laughed lightly, then smiled expansively. Sam got the sudden feeling that, in some obscure way, he had served her ends, whatever they were. If this little tableau had cost Hart something, that was only justice. But he had been set up too, and he didn’t like it. In the past, whenever he had been manipulated to serve other people’s ends, bad things had happened. The Lady was playing some sort of game here, and she seemed pleased by Hart’s acceptance of responsibility for Rinaldi. Sam didn’t know enough of what was going on, and that worried him.
The Lady rose from her seat, precipitating a rustle in her crowd of attendants as they moved to anticipate her reaction.
“Let there be music,” she said. “I would dance.”
A soft strain of harp music began, filling the room and seeming to come from everywhere at once. The notes were clear, yet held faint echoes of other songs. The trill of a flute joined in, adding its lively tones to the ethereal sweetness of the melody. A drum slipped in and increased the tempo as the Lady stepped up to Sam and held out her hand.
“Dance with me, Samuel Verner.”
Not knowing what else to do, Sam took her delicate fingers in his own. He felt coarse and awkward as she turned him toward the open floor, but a sudden flood of insight brought him the steps of the dance. He tasted the magic of the subconscious instruction, and knew the Lady’s strong will powered it. She would not be embarrassed by an untutored partner.
They were soon whirling across the floor, feet flashing in the rhythms of the jig. Pairs of elves followed behind them; each courtier strove to outdo his or her partner, and each couple attempted to outshine rival couples with the intricacy of their footwork. None danced with such flair or elegance as the Lady herself.
Hart did not join the dance. Each time Sam’s gaze swept across her position, he found her cold bronze eyes following him and the Lady across the floor. The music seemed to go on for hours, and Sam danced, but he didn’t feel his exhaustion until the music finally ended on a wild, shrill clash. Panting, Sam looked around. He didn’t see Hart among the milling courtiers.