This Scepter'd Isle Read online

  "You're quite right about that," Denoriel said, finally finding the strength to get to his feet. "I'm your fairy knight and I was sent by our Queen to watch over you." What a relief! He didn't even have to lie, which the child might have sensed. "I was sent because—" now what was he to say? "—because you needed me, and because of your royal blood." He winked, and FitzRoy smiled wanly back. The boy already knew about the privileges of rank, even in the sinister line; he found nothing unusual that the elven Queen should send one of her knights to guard the offspring of the mortal king. In his world, kings and queens, when they were not at war, exchanged such courtesies as a matter of course.

  He started to reach for FitzRoy's hand and realized he was still clinging to his unsheathed sword. His vision was now back to normal and he saw the dark stains on the blade; he could not sheathe it as it was. He extended his arm and asked FitzRoy to find the kerchief in his sleeve so he could wipe the weapon. Instead the boy removed his own fine linen kerchief from his belt and held it out.

  "Take mine. It's wet already." As he said the words, FitzRoy's eyes widened. "And I guess I do need watching over. That man," he said, his voice now tremulous and unsure, "he was going to drown me."

  "What did he do?" Denoriel asked.

  "He pretended to be interested in my boat—he called it una barca—and when he came close, he pushed me into the water. And he was trying to push my head under when you yelled. He kind of jerked around and I went lower and pulled free. He kept grabbing for me, but mostly he was watching the fight so it was easy to keep out of his way. And when I thought he was going to stand up and join the fight against you . . . I threw two handfuls of muck from the bottom of the pond into his face."

  Denoriel burst out laughing. "Good for you, Harry!" Then he sobered. "I'm your fairy knight, true enough, and I am a good warrior, but I'm not all powerful. If you hadn't helped me . . . I would have been killed."

  FitzRoy nodded wisely. "Because fairies can't stand cold iron, and those men's swords were iron. Nurse told me about that too, but I forget the name of the story. I remembered about the iron though, how iron burns fairies. That's why I dragged the swords away from you."

  "Clever Harry! The swords were making me weak."

  "I knew that. That was why I hit the man in the back of the knee with the mast of my boat. You're magic, I suppose, but you aren't God. Only God is all powerful." The boy sighed. "But God's a lot like my father. He's far away and He must be busy with more important things than me." His eyes brightened and he smiled again. "I guess that's why there's fairies and fairy knights."

  Denoriel bent down and embraced the child quite fiercely. "Yes. That's why there's fairy knights, to make sure children are protected."

  FitzRoy hugged him back. "When he pushed me, I was afraid, but I knew you'd come. I've wondered ever since you came why I was so lucky as to get a fairy to help me. Now I know. Except . . . I don't know. Why should he try to drown me?"

  "You didn't know them?" Denoriel asked. And when FitzRoy shook his head said, "How did they get past the guards?"

  "I'm not sure." The boy frowned. "I saw them come into the garden . . ." He hesitated and then said, "But you're right. I didn't hear them talk to the guards at the gate. I didn't think of that then because I was very annoyed with the men. I knew you wouldn't come if they were here. I know no one is supposed to know about fairy guardians, which is why you only come when I'm alone."

  "That's true, but we're going to have to confess that we are special friends. You see, you are going away—"

  FitzRoy clutched at Denoriel's hand. "I know. I'm to be lord lieutenant in the north. It won't matter, will it?" he asked fearfully. "If you're my fairy knight, and you have magic, you can come to me up north, too, can't you?"

  "Yes, I can," Denoriel assured him, smiling. "But we agreed I'm not all powerful. I'm not all knowing, either. I'll need to see the place where you are living in the north so that we can arrange where to meet or so that I can get to your apartment. I won't have the excuse of coming with my friend Boleyn."

  "Oh, yes." The boy nodded. "I can ask for you—not as if we've been friends all along, but because you saved me from those men. I can say I don't want to go to a new place if you can't come too."

  "We can try that first," Denoriel agreed. "If it doesn't work . . . don't worry yourself, Harry. I will find a good reason to visit Yorkshire . . . wool, probably. And once I am there, it is only reasonable for me to come to call. But until I can find a way to you, be careful. Don't be alone."

  "No, I—" FitzRoy began, only to be interrupted by a high girl-child's shriek, echoed by an older boy's shout.

  Denoriel snatched FitzRoy up in his arms and set out for the sound, cursing himself for forgetting that, foiled of one victim, the men he had driven off FitzRoy might have decided to seize another child.

  CHAPTER 4

  Mary Howard's shrieks redoubled when she saw Denoriel come tearing down the path to the pond, FitzRoy clutched under one arm and his bared sword in his hand. Her brother, Henry, bravely thrust her behind him and drew his small knife. Denoriel skidded to a halt.

  He looked around wildly. No attackers. No one even in sight, although Denoriel's keen ears caught the sound of alarmed voices in the distance. He set FitzRoy down on his feet.

  "Henry, Mary—be calm, at once!" he took an authoritative tone with them, assuming that they would react to it appropriately. And, in fact, they did, Mary stilling her cries, and peering doubtfully around her brother. "Enough. There were men here, who attacked FitzRoy. When you cried out, I thought the two of you were in danger, but you are not. All is well." He sheathed his sword.

  "Someone tried to drown me," FitzRoy said, his voice holding excitement and pride now rather than fear.

  "You mean you fell in the pond and don't want to get scolded for it," Henry said, turning his lips down in a pout, as soon as he got over his momentary fright. "Who'd want to drown you?"

  "No, I was pushed. I—"

  A rustling and thumping in a group of ornamental bushes off to Denoriel's right made him draw his sword again and gesture to the children to go out onto the lawn where the oncoming servants and guards could see them. The sound grew more desperate and the bushes quivered but no one emerged to attack. Denoriel approached cautiously, listening, then rushed around the bush only to stop and sheathe his sword. He had found the missing guards. At least they were not dead, and could verify his part of the tale!

  Almost simultaneously the forefront of the wave of rescuers arrived, led by Norfolk's steward, a grizzled man in a fine suit of black.

  "Here!" Denoriel called. "Gentleman, there has been much mischief and misadventure! Richmond's guards are here, bound and gagged."

  Two more guards pushed through the gate. At the steward's gesture, one threatened Denoriel with his pike. FitzRoy tore free of someone attempting to hold him and rushed over, interposing himself between the pike and Denoriel.

  "It's not Lord Denno's fault," he cried. "There were two men. One pushed me into the pond and Lord Denno came and saved me."

  Denoriel held up his hands, placatingly. "Patience, Your Grace," he said to FitzRoy—because these were formal circumstances and the boy was duke of Richmond. "The . . . ah . . . steward has no way of knowing whether I was in league with the others and just pretended to be your friend." He turned his attention to the steward, drawing himself up. "His Grace has been attacked, and I came at his call to help; near the pond there are two swords and a poniard . . . and a fair amount of blood to show there really was a fight. Someone should look there. Also, I think this is a tale that should be told to His Grace of Norfolk. And these men should be released."

  Eventually, but not without considerable argument—the steward indignant over a foreigner giving orders—the weapons near the pond were collected. Then a tactful message was sent to Norfolk and FitzRoy was taken to his rooms to get dry clothing—which he refused to do unless Denoriel went too. After another considerable delay while Norfolk finished h
is business with the Imperial ambassador and Mendoza was seen off, all three children, FitzRoy's two guards, Denoriel, the steward, and a guard from the main gate were assembled in the room in which Norfolk conducted business.

  Denoriel retained his sword and was not bound because of FitzRoy's stubborn and, in the end, screaming defense. Later, when he knew Norfolk better, he would be surprised at FitzRoy's understanding of his uncle's temper, and grateful that the child was so perceptive as well as brave enough to risk the duke's anger. If Norfolk had seen him arrive bound and disarmed, the duke would have assumed him guilty, and once Norfolk assumed something only the king's command could change his mind. And Norfolk exploded when he heard the true cause of their request for audience, bellowing at the steward and everyone else that his business with Inigo de Mendoza had been trivial compared with an attempt on his ward's life.

  When Norfolk calmed, it was Henry Howard who told his part of the tale first, how he and Mary had gone to summon FitzRoy to tea. "You know how he is, Father," the boy said, smiling rather fondly at FitzRoy. "When he starts sailing that boat of his on the pond, he seems to forget everything else."

  Norfolk chuckled. "We'll have to get him appointed Lord High Admiral," he said.

  Henry Howard frowned as if the mild jest did not please him, but did not respond overtly. He said, "Mary was first. She went through the gate, and then I realized there wasn't any guard and I started to call her and say that Harry must have gone back to the house—but she screamed, and when I rushed over to her she pointed and said she'd seen a foot under the bush. Then the bush shook, and I shouted, and the next thing we knew Lord Denno was pelting along the path carrying Harry in one arm and a sword in his other hand."

  "Was Richmond struggling?" Norfolk asked.

  "No, sir, not at all, and anyway, as soon as he saw us, Lord Denno put Harry down and sheathed his sword. Then Harry started to tell us about being pushed into the pond and Lord Denno saving him, and the bushes started to shake again. Lord Denno told us to go out on the lawn to the people who were running from the house and he went to look behind the bush."

  "How long was he there, Henry?"

  Henry Howard considered. "Scarcely a moment?" he said doubtfully. "He shouted almost at once that he had found the gate guards."

  Norfolk looked at the steward and the guard who had followed him. "Could Lord Denno have tied up the guards in the time he was behind the bushes?"

  "No, Your Grace," the steward said, reluctantly. It was clear that in his mind, this Lord Denno was a foreigner and therefore untrustworthy and likely to do unorthodox or even evil things. Nevertheless, he was an honest man, and could hardly deny the testament of his own eyes. "I could see him the whole time," the steward admitted. "He was standing up behind the bush. He never bent down at all, and he had his sword out in one hand. The guards were lying on the ground, bound and gagged. I don't see any way he could have done that."

  Norfolk turned his eyes to FitzRoy's guards, who recoiled slightly at the expression upon the duke's face. Denoriel felt a little sorry for them; Norfolk was no easy master, and he did not accept excuses for failure. "And how, may I ask, did you get into that condition? Did either of you see Lord Denno today?"

  "N-not till he found us, Your Grace," one man answered.

  "I don't know how it happened," the other man said, his voice shaking. "I don't remember anything except standing by the gate. I'd been looking over the hedge, watching the boy . . . I mean His Grace of Richmond . . . getting ready to put that boat of his in the water. Then Dickson said to look, and I turned around and did, and saw a party coming up the long drive and then. . . . then . . . I don't remember anything."

  The man sounded desperately frightened. It was entirely possible he was frightened of the punishment Norfolk would mete out for his dereliction of duty, but Denoriel did not think so. He suspected the man was fighting a deeper and more elemental fear, having looked into his own memory, and finding there—nothing.

  Now, a blow to the head could cause such memory loss, but surely the men would not have been so easily taken unawares. Not with two of them there.

  Denoriel extended his senses, "feeling" around the man, who was swallowing nervously. Perhaps . . . perhaps there was the faintest "stench" of controlling magic. His lips tightened with self-disgust.

  Warrior was he? Today he had been unprepared for everything. Only Dannae's mercy had let him arrive before Harry was killed and they were all plunged into a nightmare of pain and terror from which they might never waken—all because he had forgotten to set the time to which he wanted to Gate. Worse, he had endangered the secret of Underhill by pure carelessness, by forgetting his disguise. Harry, the child he was supposed to protect, had saved him.

  Now he was late again. If he had felt for magic when he first found the men, perhaps he could have sensed the spell clearly enough to identify the maker. Now he could not even be sure the guards had been felled by magic.

  That seemed more and more likely, however, when Dickson's tale confirmed that of the first guard. Dickson had listened to the first man with a slight expression of contempt, and he started confidently enough, relating his watch over the lawns and road from which the garden in which Richmond played could be reached. He continued with the arrival of the visiting party, even mentioned recognizing the banner of Inigo de Mendoza, the Imperial ambassador, and thinking that only a Spaniard would bring half an army to ride thirty miles from London to Windsor . . . and then his voice faltered and he stared at the floor.

  "Well?" Norfolk urged impatiently.

  The man stared at him, cheeks blanching. "Then I heard Lady Mary scream, and I tried to get up." He began breathing shallowly, as the same fear crept into his voice and his eyes stared into space with an expression of disbelief. "And I was lying on the ground tied up and gagged. Then Lord Denno came around the bush with his sword in his hand and I kicked and squirmed, but I couldn't get loose, and then he called out that he'd found us."

  It must be, Denoriel thought, that they had been bespelled. But if so, why were they bound and gagged?

  Denoriel barely heard the sharp questions Norfolk addressed to the guards; he was thinking, hard.

  If the two attackers had carried a spell that felled the guards so they could get into the garden and drown Harry, they would have wanted the spell to wear off naturally. They would assume the guards would not report themselves as having fallen asleep on duty. And after the boy had been found drowned, they surely would not admit that they could not remember what happened—instead, perhaps they would have made up some tale of fighting several foes and being overcome, and of course, whatever they fabricated would not have matched the descriptions of the true attackers. Or perhaps the bonds had only been intended as a temporary measure, to ensure that the murderers could do their work without interference, and the men would have been released as soon as the deed was done. Then they would have been left to awaken naturally, and to find FitzRoy—and it all would have been supposed to be a terrible accident.

  But who would bespell them? The minions of Vidal Dhu? Would even Vidal Dhu give orders that a child should be drowned? Denoriel felt almost as chilled as when he touched the steel of the attackers' armor and swords. And with that thought he knew he had the evidence that he had not fought Unseleighe Sidhe. Those were mortal men with the weapons of mortal men. And that provided a kind of answer to why the guards were both bespelled and gagged and bound.

  Because the mortal men did not trust the spell. They could have been given some artifact and told how to release the enchantment. Perhaps they had not been told how long the spell would last, or they did not believe what they were told. And the spell had not lasted very long. His fight with the attackers had seemed interminable, but truly it had taken less than a quarter of an hour. Perhaps an equal interval had been spent by the men themselves, finding the pond and attacking FitzRoy. And the guards were kicking and struggling by the time he had run to the gate in answer to Mary's scream. Less than half an
hour.

  Not a Sidhe spell then . . . or was it a spell cast by a magus who was not familiar with the mortal world? A moment's thought convinced Denoriel that was unlikely. Vidal Dhu, whatever else he was, was not a fool. He would not make that kind of mistake. Denoriel did not know whether he was more relieved or more horrified. He was pleased that not even a member of the Unseleighe Sidhe would empower anyone to kill a child, but to know that a mortal mage was involved . . . that was not at all good. He had not heard of such mages in—well, in fact, he had never heard of such mages, except as tales. He had assumed that mortals had lost their magic as they grew more "learned."

  His attention was recalled by a discreet tug on his hand and he realized Norfolk was addressing him directly.

  He riveted his attention on the duke's craggy face. Norfolk was frowning, but not, it seemed, over anything Denoriel was responsible for. "So, it seems that not only are you innocent of any attempt to harm Richmond, Lord Denno, but we all must be grateful for your defense of him."

  Demoriel bowed, slightly, but Norfolk was not done with him.

  "But what I do not understand, my lord, is how you came to be near the pond when the gate guard here says you did not enter Windsor through the main gate." Norfolk riveted him with a stern gaze that had likely cowed lesser men than Denoriel.

  Confident in the renewal of his mortal disguise while Harry was changing his clothing, Denoriel met Norfolk's gaze squarely and said, "I came through the postern gate in the wall, Your Grace."

  "Postern gate?" Norfolk looked confounded.

  Denoriel pressed his advantage. "Yes. I had come across country, for the road was dusty from the passage of some party that had traversed it before me. As a consequence, I was riding alongside of the garden wall, when I came to the postern gate. It was open and I was sure that could not be right. I knew the garden with the pond was beyond that stretch of wall and that His Grace of Richmond often played with his boat in the pond—all the children joked about his fondness for it. And it seemed to me—"