Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton [91]
“I take it he tried his version of courting with you.”
“Courting.” She almost spat the word. “No, in the midst of a fitting he tried to take me by force. I had been invited into faerie with promises of safety and honor. He had to drop all the illusions on his person for fittings, so his magic that made all the women see him as beautiful did not work on me. I knew that he was getting a little soft around the middle. I knew all the flaws in his illusions. I had truth on my side, and he could not seduce me with magic.”
“You were probably also holding pins and needles made of cold steel,” Doyle said.
She looked at him, then nodded. “You are correct. The very tools of my trade kept me from falling into his trap. In his rage, he cut off my right arm.” She held up the tentacled limb. It moved gracefully in the air, like some underwater creature found on land. “Then he had me driven out of his sithen, because a one-armed seamstress was useless to him.”
“How long had you been in faerie by then?” Doyle asked.
“Fifty years, I think.”
“To drive you outside the sithen means that all those years would have come upon you all at once,” Mistral said.
She nodded. “Once I had touched ground, yes. But not all in his court agreed with what he had done to me. Some of the court women carried me to the Unseelie Court. They petitioned the queen for me, and she said almost the same thing Taranis had said: ‘What use is a one-armed seamstress to me?’” Tears glistened in her eyes, unshed.
Sholto went to her in the beautiful black and silver tunic, and pants, and shiny boots that she had made, or had had made for him. He raised her from her knees, with one hand on her hand and one on the end of her tentacle.
“I remember that night,” he said.
She looked up at him. “So do I, My King. I remember what you said. ‘She is welcome among the sluagh. We will tend her.’ You never asked what I was good for, or if you had a use for me. The court ladies made you promise that you would not abuse me, for they were sore afraid of the sluagh.”
Sholto smiled. “I want the Seelie afraid of us; it is our shield.”
She nodded. “You took me in with only one good arm, not knowing that Henry could find a way to make me useful again. I have never asked, My King. What would you have done with me if I had had no skill to give you?”
“We would have found you some task that you could do with the one hand you had, Mirabella. We are the sluagh. There are those among us with only one limb, and those with hundreds. We are an adaptable lot.”
She nodded, and turned away so he couldn’t see that the tears had finally decided to fall down her face. “You are the kindest of rulers, King Sholto.”
“Don’t tell anyone outside this court that,” he said with a laugh.
“It will be our secret, My King.”
I said, “Did you say that Dr. Henry gave you your new limb?”
“He did,” she said.
“How?”
“One of the nightflyers was kind enough to let him take a limb from her. You know they can grow back their tentacles?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, Henry had been working on the…concept that he might be able to put a limb from a nightflyer, who could replace it, onto one of the sluagh, who could not. He had not done it successfully, but he offered to try on me, if I was willing.” She gave a small gesture with both her limbs. “I was willing.”
“Humans have to get donors who are genetically compatible for any kind of organ donation. They’re only just beginning to try with hands and things, but most of the time the bodies reject the new limb. How did Henry get past the rejection problem?”
“I do not understand everything you just said, My Queen, but Henry would be better able to answer your questions. If you want to know how I sew his jackets to flatter his body, I can tell you, but how he made the wonder of this new limb, I do not completely understand even now. I have had it for many, many years, and I marvel at it still.”
She began