And Less Than Kind Read online

  Elizabeth came away from the mismatched dancers laughing happily. The urso female had come up with a small stringed instrument on which she could play a dance tune so Elizabeth did not need to sing any longer. She was just standing back, when several other young creatures arrived and asked to be included. Denoriel shook his head.

  "I don't think she should stay here any longer," he said to the kitsune. "If we had dealt with that Sidhe . . . But the way he disappeared makes me uneasy."

  The kitsune nodded. "Take her and go. My young ones will be able to teach the others and the ursos will keep the peace."

  So Denoriel came up to Elizabeth, slid an arm around her waist, and drew her away. She did not resist and he asked what she wanted to do next.

  "Sit down," Elizabeth said, laughing. "And perhaps get something to eat." Then she sobered suddenly and looked around. "What did you do with that nuisance who wanted to buy me?"

  Denoriel glanced around but no one seemed to be close enough to hear him and he said, "Nothing. When the kitsune and I went to help him to a Gate, he was gone."

  "Gone? Do you mean my stasis spell failed?"

  "I don't believe so. I think if the spell had failed that stupid fool would have blasted us or someone else. I know that spell. The bespelled come out of it with no sense of time passed and simply complete any action they had started when they were frozen."

  "Then how . . ." Elizabeth began as Denoriel pushed her gently up on a Gate platform, ". . . could he have left?" She finished as they stepped off near one of the four main entry roads into the Bazaar of the Bizarre.

  Accustomed from years of visits, Elizabeth did not even look around the place where vehicles and riding creatures were left. The creatures were weird and wonderful—twenty-foot long caterpillars, jewel-bright dragons, silvery vehicles with no obvious methods of propulsion, cagelike boxes suspended under what looked like large pillows, horses of every describable and indescribable coat, saddle, number of legs, and occasionally wings.

  "I am sure he did not leave on his own," Denoriel said, steering her past the first warning sign. "Someone must have helped him."

  "Perhaps he came with a friend," Elizabeth said doubtfully as they passed the sign that she read as Caveat Emptor.

  "A friend that did not set up an outcry when he found his companion frozen stiff?"

  Elizabeth giggled. "Well, if he was as arrogant and stubborn with everyone as he was with us, perhaps the friend was used to dragging him away and was just glad he didn't have to apologize to anyone."

  "That would be very nice," Denoriel said, but without any real hope, as they passed under the arched gateway into the Bazaar. He looked up into the air and said, "Food and drink."

  A banner promptly appeared. On it a cow lay in a green meadow, her head resting on crossed front legs. "Lazy Cow/Tender Steak" Elizabeth read.

  Another banner appeared to the right: "The Never-Empty Cauldron—Stews and Soups of Every Kind."

  And a third banner forced itself in front of the Lazy Cow, proclaiming that the Rolling Pin had every variety of breads and cakes.

  Denoriel held up a hand. "Enough," he said. "Well, Elizabeth, what will it be, stew, soup, steak, bread and cake?"

  "What would you like, love?" she asked. "Right now I could eat the whole cow, uncooked, and then go on to the soup and stew. I haven't had a meal that didn't sit in my throat and choke me since August."

  "Steak, then," he said. "Lazy Cow."

  The banner passed the other two, wriggled seductively, for a moment and then set off down the road. Denoriel and Elizabeth followed.

  "So you don't think any friend of the fat Sidhe took him away," Elizabeth said, returning to the important subject of what had happened to the Sidhe who had been so insistent about buying her.

  "No. I think it more likely to have been one of Vidal's Court who saw the interest that Sidhe had in you. The Dark Sidhe come often to Fur Hold; I am not sure why. But any Dark Sidhe who saw you would pay attention."

  "I thought I saw one of the Dark Sidhe when we were just outside the performing place, but he barely glanced at me. It was you he was watching, and then he just walked away."

  Denoriel sighed. "Vidal has become more sensible since he was the mist's prisoner. Possibly he is taking Oberon's threats more seriously and has told his Court to let you be. Possibly the Sidhe you saw wanted to know why the one you froze was so interested. In a way I wish Pasgen had not broken so completely with Vidal. If he still went to the Dark Court, he could have told us whether any of the Dark ones brought that Sidhe to Vidal."

  "Vidal could break the stasis spell," Elizabeth said and stopped walking.

  The banner was circling and then darting to the side. Denoriel looked around, saw the doorway, and drew Elizabeth inside.

  "Yes, certainly," he agreed. "Any competent mage could break that spell. Mechain altered it so you could use it when you were little more than a child. One of the things we should do while we are here is to get her to put it back in its original form."

  A tall, very thin being, not quite human but not quite Other either, had been waiting until Denoriel finished speaking. He bowed to them and led them to a table near an open window through which Elizabeth saw a mannered garden. A slight breeze came through the window, bringing the scent of flowers. Utterly impossible, as they had entered the eating place from the noisy, busy aisle of the market. Idly Elizabeth wondered whether the garden was an illusion or whether the entrance of the restaurant was actually a Gate that carried guests to a pocket domain that only contained the restaurant. Whichever, she was not curious enough to enquire. She was hungry.

  When the server or major domo had pushed in her chair, Elizabeth looked up at him. "We would like steaks, if you please."

  She was answered with another bow and a long list of cuts and methods of preparation, which made her look bewilderedly at Denoriel. He nodded and began an animated discussion with the server, who looked more pleased and interested by the moment. Here was someone who truly appreciated his calling. Elizabeth lost interest and looked around at the other patrons. She was rather relieved when she saw no other Sidhe; mostly the guests were chimeras of every kind of animal. A few had human faces or parts, but it was very odd indeed to see something with the head of a goat and the bony claws of a bird industriously cutting up and chewing a thick slab of meat.

  "Do the other guests trouble you, mortal woman?" the server asked as Elizabeth looked back at him. "I can bring a screen to keep your table private."

  "Oh no," Elizabeth assured him. "I was only rather surprised to see a goat eating a steak. In the mortal world goats, poor things, are more often steaks themselves."

  "Stews, surely," the server said. "The flesh is too tough and . . . ah . . . rancid for steak. As to eating steak. A goat will eat anything."

  He bowed and turned away. Elizabeth giggled. "That took long enough," she said to Denoriel. "I had no idea you knew one cut of meat from another or anything about cooking."

  "In my misspent past," he said, smiling, "when I had no more pressing duty than to ride in Koronos's hunt, I filled my days with this and that pastime. Designing lavish meals was one of them."

  "For all your elven lovers?" Elizabeth asked waspishly, her giggles gone. "Were the meals designed to tempt them into your bed or as payment after service?"

  "Oh, ho." Denoriel's arched brows rose almost to touch a golden curl that had wandered down onto his forehead. "Jealous, are we? Well, I am not going to say I am sorry over what happened long, long before you were born. I did not know then that in the future I would find a lady who would care enough to be angry about whom I took to my bed."

  "And if you had known, would it have changed what you did?" Elizabeth snapped.

  "Not if I knew I would need to live without any pleasure of the body for a hundred and fifty mortal years," Denoriel snapped back.

  "I'm sorry," Elizabeth said softly looking down at the table, reminded of how long her Denno had lived before even her father was born
.

  How stupid to be jealous of women he had loved a hundred years past. But they were not mortal women. They were still alive, still elven beautiful. She bit her lip.

  Denoriel laughed and reached across to take her hand. "An elven lover would not care enough to be angry; cold-hearted they are. But I am a little hurt that you think I would need to prepare a special meal either to tempt a lady or to make up for my deficiencies as a lover. Am I so lacking in myself?"

  The tone was light, but there was a kind of uncertainty about Denoriel that Elizabeth felt. "No, of course not," she said.

  "Are mortal lovers more . . . are they deeper? more intense?"

  "How would I know?" Elizabeth asked, smiling ruefully. "The only mortal lover I had—if you can call Tom Somerset a lover—was only playing a game. He 'loved' for profit or ambition."

  "Perhaps it is I who should be jealous, who should fear you will find someone who will satisfy you more. We . . . perhaps we live too long. Nothing is . . . desperate. There will be so many tomorrows to find anything we have missed . . . but I know now that we . . . we never find it."

  "So you are still looking?" Elizabeth's voice was thin and sharp.

  Denoriel shook his head. "No," he said softly. "I have found what I want, but I do not know how long I can hold it."

  Now it was Elizabeth who leaned forward and took Denoriel's hand. "Mortals can be fickle also," she said, "but I will always love you, my Denno. Always. Even if I seem to waver, you are the first and the most precious, the deepest set into my heart."

  There was a little silence and then he burst out suddenly, "Mary . . . Mary wants you dead. My love, will you not come and live here with me as Harry has done?"

  Elizabeth paled slightly when she realized that Denno had not been talking about losing her to a mortal lover but losing her to execution, to sickness, to death from old age. Almost no matter how long she lived, that would be a short time to him. She looked out at the pretty garden, drew a breath of the perfumed air, remembered how a palace stank if the Court remained in one place too long.

  "I would live longer," she agreed, "but you would lose me anyway. I would not be the same person, Denno. This lovely place, this scented air, this ease of living, would soften me until I was nothing. I have come to love Underhill, but as a needed escape, a rest from struggle, a short, pretty dream. I need the hard reality of the mortal world. I need to outwit Mary and escape her ill will." The eyes Elizabeth fixed on him glittered. "Mary will not live long. I am only one person's heartbeat away from the throne. I need to rule England."

  A wide smile bloomed on Denoriel's face. "So you do, my love. And so you must. Titania would find some very special way to make me sorry if I did not see you onto the throne." He turned his hand under hers so he could grip it. "But you do love me? You do not need an elaborate dinner to bribe you to my bed or pay you for your services?"

  Elizabeth laughed aloud. "Oh, that stung, did it? Enough for you to imply I need to be paid, like a whore. No, indeed. You are bribe enough in yourself, with your long-fingered hands and sweet lips. What a fool I am to be jealous. I should bless those past lovers of yours for making you so skillful. If I were not so very, very hungry, I would drag you to the nearest Gate and prove it."

  "My servants—" Denoriel began, half rising from his seat, intending to say that they could leave at once and his servants would feed them at home.

  At that moment, however, the tall, thin major domo arrived at the head of a procession. Since Elizabeth had not seen anyone more than a single server delivering food to other tables, she wondered whether it was because Denno was clearly High Court, Bright Court Sidhe or whether it was the discussion about cooking and cuts of meat he had had that provided the special service. A moment later, odors from the serving dishes the procession carried reached her nose. She sniffed audibly and swallowed as her mouth watered.

  First came a slab of meat, thick as the first knuckle of a finger. It was browned, but not scorched hard as a piece that thick would be in the mortal world. Then there were a half dozen smaller dishes set around the central platter. Elizabeth was not sure what any of them held, but she was accustomed to eating strange things Underhill. Only once or twice had she been disappointed in a peculiar-looking dish.

  There was no disappointment this time. The meat cut easily, showing a pink and tender interior. Elizabeth put a piece between her lips and sighed with satisfaction. The bits she took from the surrounding plates were equally delicious and somehow the textures made her want to touch them, to touch something that she could smooth between her fingers. Still chewing, she reached out with her free hand and stroked Denno's hair.

  "A masterpiece," Denno said to the major domo, and looked back at Elizabeth with half-closed eyes.

  Elizabeth took another bite of her meat. As she chewed, she added to it small bits of what was in the side dishes. She sighed and swallowed. Lifted her eyes to Denoriel's face.

  "You are a monster," she whispered. "I could not be worse tortured if I were being pulled apart on the rack. I must eat slowly and savor every bite. Equally, I must stuff the food down my gullet so I can rush you into your bedchamber."

  She chewed the mouthful she had faster, but was lingeringly slow about cutting another slice from the meat and choosing which side dishes to mingle with it. The major domo and the servers, who had watched while their customers took their first bites had now disappeared. Denoriel cut a thin strip of a flesh paler than beef which he was eating.

  "This is very good," he said, "but I was not sure it was robust enough for you."

  He put an end of the slice he had cut in his mouth and then leaned forward. Elizabeth did not hesitate. She drew the other end of the slice into her own mouth. Their lips met and moved sensuously together as they chewed. Whatever it was Denoriel had ordered for himself seemed to melt away. Elizabeth pressed farther forward and caught Denoriel's lower lip between hers and sucked.

  "Stop," Denoriel whispered, drawing back. "Do you want me to leave here with a wet codpiece."

  "I want to leave, dry codpiece or wet," Elizabeth muttered, even as she cut another slice from her steak. "But I cannot bear to leave this food behind."

  So they finished their meal, but when they rose to go, Denoriel unhooked his entire purse from his belt and left it on the table. Just how they came to Denoriel's big bed in his chambers in Logres, Elizabeth had no idea. Her whole body ached to be handled and she was grateful to her Denno when a gesture sent the clothes from her body and from his and they fell down on the bed, already fiercely embraced.

  Chapter 21

  Elizabeth slept very late the next day. She would have been in serious trouble if Blanche had not resisted her impulse to drop into her bed and sleep immediately instead of staying conscious long enough to release the sleep spell on Elizabeth Marberry. Never dreaming what kind of night—and several other days and nights—Elizabeth had had, Marberry tried to rouse Elizabeth (against Blanche's advice). To her intense horror, she was not only struck but reviled in language obviously culled from guardsmen in a temper. Never had Lady Mary done such things.

  "You will miss Mass," Marberry said. It was a warning that certainly would have roused Lady Mary and she herself from bed.

  "Bugger Mass and the priest that says it," Elizabeth snarled. "Go away!"

  Marberry gasped and staggered back, away from Elizabeth's bed. Blanche chuckled softly.

  "I doubt Lady Elizabeth is much concerned with her soul this morning," she said, and shepherded the shocked girl from the bedchamber. Then, more seriously, she added, "My lady has come all undone. She wished so much to please Queen Mary that she was all tied into knots inside. Now that she needs to please no one at all she will sleep more than she usually does."

  But when Elizabeth finally crawled, yawning and stretching, from the bed and Blanche had closed the door of the dressing chamber, she said, "Making merry, were you?"

  A slow smile lifted Elizabeth's lips. "Very merry." She sighed. "In those dreams I ha
ve mentioned to you, we made love to repletion, went to balls and to see the queen's private garden. Such flowers as she has, such grassy hollows overhung with sweetness, perfect for lovers. They could be only in a dream."

  Blanche frowned. "You do not regret waking from those dreams, I hope?"

  Elizabeth shook her head. "Oh, no. Not at all. It was only that I found them too entrancing and overstayed my dreaming. That leaves me very tired." She sighed but smiled languorously again. "I do not think Lord Denno will come today."

  He did not come, but it was just as well that no one else came to visit Ashridge that day or the next either. Elizabeth was sluggish, skipping the lessons she ordinarily did most faithfully even when she had no teacher and dozing over her embroidery. Denoriel did come to pay a call on the second day, but he looked pale and the lines in his face were graven deep.