Silver's Edge. Anne Kelleher

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СКАЧАТЬ but it was clearly unbalancing the ornate wings she had cultivated so diligently, which now arced at least a foot above her head. In the morning light, the infinitesimal network of blue and red veins was visible through the translucent flesh. He wondered briefly why no one had discouraged Alemandine from allowing the wings to grow so high, for they clearly now contributed to her discomfort, and heard a little sniff of disapproval from Vinaver. He turned, ready to say more, when Hudibras let out a loud sigh of exasperation and threw another apple back to Gorlias. “So what of it, Timias? The mortals are always sparring back and forth amongst each other—half the time I don’t know why we ever bothered to protect them from the goblins, they kill each other with as much glee. Come, let us introduce you to a newcomer to our Court—this is the Lady Delphinea, the daughter of our Horse-mistress, Eponea of the High Mountains. Sit, break your fast with us and tell us of your travels. You must be starving after a week or more of naught but mortal slop.”

      A few chuckles went around the table, and Timias could not help but spare a moment to peer more closely into the dainty, delicate face of the girl who sat poised on the edge of her seat. She was young, he could see that, barely ready to make an appearance at Court, and he wondered briefly why her mother, Eponea, had not accompanied her. But there was something about the chit’s face—something that tugged at his awareness, even as he turned away from the arch faces and concentrated only on the Queen. For all he cared, they might have been alone. He looked directly into Alemandine’s pale green eyes. “Events in the Shadowlands are moving toward a great war—a war which will sweep across borders and which will create repercussions that we are ill-equipped right now to bear. You must hear me out, Alemandine, I beg you.”

      Not once in all her years on the throne had he ever so addressed her and the Queen stared at him, her pale eyes wide in her angular face. For the first time he saw the real fear hiding behind the petulance. Alemandine was afraid. She faced the greatest challenge of her life, and she was afraid. For a long moment he stared back, sympathy wreathing his ancient features. She desperately needed to assert control over the Council, but as long as they resisted acknowledging the breadth of the challenge that lay before them, she was too torn between the unfamiliar demands of her pregnancy and the constrictions of her fear. What would shock the rest of them out of their complacency? Must he invoke the forbidden name of Lyonesse in order to make them understand the enormity of what they faced?

      But Lord Berillian was speaking, the movements of his bejeweled hands sending colored prisms across the Queen’s face as he plucked the grapes off the dark purple bunch lying across his plate. The fat locks of chestnut curls lay coiled on his shoulders, the precise shade of his intricately embroidered doublet. “Indeed,” he spoke between bites of grape. “So what if a new war has broken out in Shadow? What is war within Shadow to us? Have we not our own—” he paused and glanced at Alemandine, and then around the table with a look that seemed charged with some meaning Timias could not read “—our own delicate situation on our hands?”

      Alemandine lifted one eyebrow, clearly expecting him to answer, and Timias turned to face the rest. At least she hadn’t had him escorted from the room. This was his chance. He forced himself to speak slowly, deliberately, hoping to make an impression with the weight of his words. “War in Shadow can only undermine our already precarious stability. The greater the unbalance there, the greater the unbalance here. And the greater the unbalance, the more we shall all feel the strain. The Caul does more than hold the silver at bay. The Caul binds our worlds together. What is felt in Shadow is felt here—what is felt here is felt in Shadow.”

      Hudibras snorted. “You croak like a crow, Timias. Why not just go about in black and have done with it? We’ll all be warned of doom just by looking at you and you can spare us all your speeches.”

      “I beg your pardon, my lord,” put in Delphinea suddenly, her pale cheeks flushing pink. “I think if Lord Timias speaks forcefully it is from his concern for the welfare of your Queen and child, and for the continuation of Faerie as we know it.”

      Startled, Timias met her eyes and saw that they, unlike those of nearly every other sidhe he’d ever known in all his long life, were a clear and startling sapphire blue. She is not yet one of Vinaver’s, he thought suddenly, grateful for the unexpected support. She’s not in their pocket yet. And he wondered once again what had brought her to the Court, though maybe not so prematurely as he’d first supposed. “Thank you, my lady.” He bowed in Delphinea’s direction. “We all know that it is not a matter of if the Goblin King will attack, but when. It is in our best interests to ensure that there is peace in the Shadowlands while we face this inevitable foe.”

      “Well, what do you think we can do about it?” Hudibras asked, his angular face flushing red. “Mortals are best left to decide the outcome of their squabbles for themselves. We of Faerie have never intervened.” At that Philomemnon looked at Hudibras and laughed openly and Vinaver rolled her long eyes to the ceiling. “Not officially, I mean.”

      Timias turned back to the Queen, his expression changing from disgust to resolve. “Your Majesty. I have long studied the affairs of Shadow to understand the impact they make upon our world—”

      “This we know, my lord.” Her voice was querulous, and she hid her impatience poorly. Timias sighed inwardly. He had hoped that Alemandine would be sufficiently rested first thing in the morning to willingly entertain such discussion, but now he saw that the demands of her pregnancy had intensified to the extent that such opportunities were becoming unpredictable, if they yet existed. They had better yet exist, he thought suddenly, once more overwhelmed with concern for this fragile creature who bore such a great weight. She was nothing like her mother, but she had ruled perfectly adequately for nearly one hundred and fifty mortal years. Why now did he compare her so unfavorably to her mother? Because, a small voice muttered deep in the back of his mind, she wields the power unevenly, and thus she is vulnerable in ways her mother never was.

      “Why should we invest even the time to speak of it, when clearly it would divert us from our concerns?”

      He leaned upon the table, his gray robes falling around him, the long locks of his gray hair hanging over his shoulders like a cloak. “Your Majesty. This is no diversion. The welfare, not just of your child, but of all of Faerie hangs in the balance. This is not merely one of their usual disputes, Your Majesty. You must believe me when I tell you that this is a most serious war—with the potential to engulf the whole of Shadow, not merely the country that lies nearest our borders, the one mortals call Brynhyvar.”

      At that, Philomemnon sat forward, arching his own brow. “Then tell us, Timias, how is this war different?”

      “The King of Brynhyvar is mad—there’s some talk it’s because of one of us, but I haven’t found anything to substantiate that, thank the Hag. It surfaced shortly after the young Prince died last winter. At any rate, his Queen is a foreigner, and her relatives see an opportunity to take over Brynhyvar. But the Duke of Gar has raised his standard against the King, and now, war not only overshadows Brynhyvar, but all its neighbors as well, even to the Farthest Reaches, for the web of blood ties, trade agreements, and strategic alliances stretches across the entire world.”

      “And how, exactly, do you propose we intervene?”

      “A decisive battle on Gar’s side would win the war before it had a chance to spread. But Gar’s forces are spread out, and the troops which the Queen has summoned from her native land are a professional army capable of decimating the current rebels, unless, you see, Gar calls in alliances from other countries, and thus the war will escalate.”

      “Surely you are not proposing we send our own soldiers?” Berillian was incredulous.

      “I am proposing we send Lord Artimour as an emissary to the Duke of Gar, along with perhaps one of our own hosts—”

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