Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton [37]
Cair cried out, “Finbar, what are you saying? You promised you would protect me. You swore.”
“She is deranged,” he repeated.
Sholto looked at me, and I understood. I spoke, and my voice carried, echoing. Tonight I held more than my own magic. “Lord Finbar, give us your oath that you did not promise my cousin your protection, and we will believe you. She is deranged.”
“I do not answer to you, Meredith, not yet.”
“It is not I, Meredith, who asks for your oath. Tonight I ride at the head of a different court. It is with that power that I ask a second time, Finbar. Give your oath that she lies about your protection, and no more need be said.”
“I do not owe the perverse creature at your side my oath.”
He had used Queen Andais’s nickname for Sholto. She had called him her Perverse Creature, sometimes simply Creature. Bring me my Creature. Sholto had hated the nickname, but you did not correct a queen.
Sholto urged his many-legged horse forward, with his own extras echoing the theme. I thought he’d lose his temper, but his voice was as calm and arrogant as Finbar’s had been. “How does a lord of the Seelie know the Dark Queen’s nicknames for her guards?”
“We have spies, as you do.”
Sholto nodded, his hair catching the yellow light, except that there was no light in the room quite the color that was sparkling in his hair. “But tonight I am not her creature. I am the King of the sluagh, and the Huntsman, this night. Would you refuse your oath to the Huntsman?”
“You are not the Huntsman,” Finbar said.
It was the blond-haired noble who rode with us who said, “We attacked the hunt, now we ride with it. They are the huntsmen for this night.”
“You are bespelled, Dacey,” Finbar said.
“If the Great Hunt is a spell, then I am under it.”
One of the other nobles said, “Finbar, simply give your oath that the madwoman lies, and this will be done.”
Finbar said nothing to that. He just looked handsome and arrogant. In the end, it was the last defense of the sidhe, beauty and pride. I’d never had enough of either to learn the trick of it.
“He cannot give oath,” Cair said, “for he would be forsworn with the wild hunt standing in front of him. It would be his doom.” She sounded angry now. She, like me, had never been beautiful enough to earn the arrogance that the true sidhe had. We could have been friends, she and I, if she hadn’t resented me so.
“Tell us what he promised you, Cair,” I said.
“He knew I could get close enough to her to place the spell upon her.”
“She lies.” This came not from Finbar, but from his son, Barris.
Finbar said, “Barris, no!”
Some of the hounds had turned toward Barris where he stood at the end of the far side of the room. He had not joined his father in protecting the king. The huge dogs began to creep toward him, growling that low, threatening sound. “Liars were once the prey of the hunt,” Sholto said, and he was smiling, a very satisfied smile.
I touched his arm again, to remind him not to enjoy the power too much. The hunt was a trap, and the longer we rode in it, the harder it would become to remember that.
He reached back, and took my hand in his. He nodded and said, “Think carefully, Barris. Is Cair a liar, or does she tell the truth?”
Cair spoke. “I am telling the truth. Finbar told me what to do, and promised that if I did it, he would let Barris and me be a couple. And that if I became with child, we would marry.”
“Is that true, Barris?” I asked.
Barris was staring in horror at the huge white hounds as they crept forward. There was something in the way they moved that reminded me of images of lions stalking on a savannah. Barris didn’t look as if he enjoyed playing the part of the gazelle.
“Father,” he said, and looked at Finbar.
Finbar’s face was no longer arrogant. If he’d been human, I’d have said that he looked tired, but there weren’t enough lines and circles under those pretty eyes for that.
The hounds began to herd Barris with snaps of teeth and presses of huge bodies. He made a small frightened noise.
“You always were