Perhaps she could dispose of one of them here and now.
Idath kept her waiting, as she had known he would. He strolled into her palace with a lazy air of indifference, his eyes hooded as he took in her entourage of hobs and sprites, each and every one still drenched in the smell of the mortal realm.
“Béfind,” he said, inclining his head. “To what do I owe the honor of this summons?”
She smiled and offered him a golden chalice of mead, which he refused. “Why must we quarrel, my friend?” she purred. “It has been too long since we have lain in each other’s arms. Is it so strange that I would ask you to attend me?”
Idath returned her smile with equal warmth. “What do you want, Béfind?”
“I have found the girl.”
“Oh?” He yawned behind his hand. “What girl is that?”
She bared her teeth. “I know the truth, Idath. You took my property. You told me the babe was dead and delivered it to your mortal paramour to raise as her own.”
“Ah, yes. I begin to remember.”
“How could you have forgotten? You believed you could wound and confound me with your lies.”
“As you believed you could prove your indifference to me by casting me aside and remaining with your mortal lover for a full year.”
Béfind laughed. “Ah. You finally admit your motive—simple jealousy. How petty. How very human.”
Idath’s expression didn’t change. “You have always found it amusing to mock the blood of my halfling mother,” he said, “and yet I learned much from her that you will never understand.”
“Such as love?” she sneered.
“Once, perhaps. There was a time when I cared enough to punish you for making sport of my devotion and cleaving to your mortal for no reason but to show how little you felt for me, even after a hundred years.” He gazed out at the lawn. “It was all a game to you, Béfind. I only decided to play by your rules.”
“By handing my child over to one who would corrupt her as your mother did you.”
“If I had believed any real harm would come to the girl, I would have left her with you. But you did not deserve the acclaim you would receive by bringing a healthy child to Tir-na-Nog.”
Béfind burned with fury. “Perhaps you did not know that the child was found living alone in the worst part of the Iron City, hunting her food in the gutters like a beast.”
Idath leaned against the nearest column and smoothed the scarlet silk of his tunic. “I am grieved to hear it.”
“Unfortunate indeed that your lover is dead.”
He couldn’t quite hide the flash of sorrow in his eyes. “Mortals die. It is their nature.”
“But the girl lives. None other than the son of Hern has discovered her.”
“Hern’s son?” Idath cocked his head. “What does he want with her?”
“His mother’s blood taints him with what mortals call ‘compassion,’” she said. “He pitied her. And now he intends that she shall have a life among humans.”
“She has already lived among humans.”
“And suffered because of your spite,” Béfind said. “That is over. I will bring her back to Tir-na-Nog.”
“I wonder how you will manage that, a mhuirnín?”
She stepped away from her chair and came to stand before him. “You cannot stop me.”
“It is not I who will stop you.” He glanced about at Béfind’s servants. “Did they not tell you of the amulet?”
Béfind bristled. “Idath, if you do not—”
He raised a languid hand. “I gave it to her when she was yet with Estelle,” he said. “As long as she wears it, none who is Fane may touch the girl or carry her through a Gate to Tir-na-Nog.”
“What?”
“I knew you would find her eventually, a chuisle.”
Béfind was momentarily speechless. “You … you would go so far—”
His eyes grew cold. “Perhaps I judged her better off away from you.”
Béfind turned away and composed herself. She faced him again with a smile. “An amusing trick, Idath. But surely the game has gone on long enough.” She stroked his sleeve. “Remove the enchantment, and I shall give you whatever you desire.”
He looked her up and down. “You possess nothing I desire.”
She tore his sleeve with her nails and let him go. “You will not win this battle, Idath. I shall go to the mortal realm myself. I shall tell her who she is, and then—”
“Tell her who she is?” Idath chuckled softly. “Alas, the charm on the amulet does more than forbid any Fane to touch her. None may reveal her true nature. You may speak the words, but she will not hear them.”
“You hate me so much?”
“Hatred is a mortal curse, leannán.”
“So is jealousy, mighty lord.”
“And blind ambition. You want the child only because your pride has been wounded and she is proof of your fecundity, a valuable object to be paraded before the Queen and High Fane like a pretty bauble. Perhaps you will not find the prize worth the effort.”
“It shall be more than worth it to lay your pride in the dust.”
He bowed. “As you wish, Béfind. The battle continues.”
He swept from the room, scattering the lesser Fane from his path. Béfind shrieked in rage and snatched a delicate crystal sculpture from its stand, shattering it against an ivory column.
“So he thinks he shall win?” she hissed as the hobs and sprites cowered at her feet. “He dreams that he can best Béfind?”
She threw herself down into her chair and coiled her hair between her fists. So she could not tell the girl what she was. That was not quite the defeat Idath believed. There would be ways to approach the child and groom her for her rightful future, all without challenging the amulet’s enchantment. Béfind would not leave such an important task to inferiors. She would go through the Gate herself. She would learn how best to handle Donal Fleming, if he should prove to be an obstacle to her ambitions. And she would have what was rightfully hers, once and for all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THERE WAS NO PART of England, Donal reflected, more thoroughly English than the Cotswolds.
The view from the carriage window was one of gently rolling hills dotted with clouds of grazing sheep, low stone walls turned golden in the clear sunlight, homely farmsteads and quaint cottages with thick thatched roofs. Westmorland and Yorkshire still had their shares of wilderness in crags and sills, heaths and moors, becks and forces and lakes—hidden sanctuaries where patches of ancient woodland and unsullied mountains crouched just beyond the fringes of civilization—but Donal doubted he would find such places here.
He leaned back in the seat and pinched the bridge of his nose. The minds of the animals he had heard along the winding road to Edgecott had been largely contented ones that knew neither worry nor anticipation of the future. Even Sir Geoffrey Amesbury’s matched bays were well fed and glossy of coat, never asked to push beyond their endurance or forced to suffer the brutality of the bearing-rein. In the amber sunshine of a bright spring morning, it was almost possible to forget the cruelty and indifference that seemed so much a part of human character.
Donal did not forget. But he allowed himself to be distracted by the look