Page 17 of The Faerie Handmaid

Morgana said, “I know you had not expected us, Councillor, nor did you welcome this intrusion, but it was necessary. Thank you for offering your hospitality despite that.”

Emerlyn nodded acknowledgment. “I must confess I have always wondered about you, Priestess. I cannot regret this opportunity to satisfy my curiosity.”

“We will speak tomorrow, then.”

“Yes. The servants are here now with your meal.” Morgana heard a deep voice outside the door, speaking the cantrip. The door swung obediently open.

Emerlyn departed, stepping past two servants in drab brown tunics carrying covered trays. A tall man in beige stood just outside the door as the two came in to set things on the table.

Braithe said, “Good evening.” Neither servant answered her. They were men, thin and stoop-shouldered, one older and one younger, and obviously not fae. It was not only their appearance that made that clear, but their mien. They kept their heads down and avoided looking into anyone’s face. They hurried their work as if they couldn’t wait to escape. They laid out a platter of vegetables and cheese and bread and set a pottery pitcher of ale on the table with cups and plates. When they were done, they bowed to Morgana and Braithe. Idhri they ignored. They went out through the open door, and the man outside spoke the cantrip again. It was a relief to hear the door close, leaving the three of them alone.

Morgana and Braithe sat down, but Idhri stood back until Braithe said, “Come, Idhri, sit with us.”

The boy reluctantly settled into a chair, but Morgana saw his discomfort. She put it down to shyness until, as Braithe passed the platter to Idhri, she caught the look of pure misery he gave her handmaid. Idhri whispered, “Were those slaves?”

He had spoken to Braithe, but Morgana set down the knife she had just picked up and frowned at him. “Why would you think that?”

Braithe said, “We overheard your conversation. It frightened Idhri.”

“I understood those people to be servants, Idhri,” Morgana said. “Not slaves.”

“Are slaves not servants?” Idhri blurted in his boyish voice. Color rose and fell in his cheeks, and Morgana saw tears glimmer in his dark eyes.

She chided herself for being insensitive. Beyond insisting the boy stay with her and Braithe, she had given him little thought. She had almost no experience of children. He was the boatman’s apprentice and a citizen of Camulod, but she knew nothing more. Vivyan had been rude to him, had dragged him away without explanation, but she had returned him in the end. Morgana hoped that was the end of it.

She observed him more closely now. She saw how very young he was, despite his height and the obvious boatman’s strength of his slight body. She took in his sensitive mouth, his beardless chin, his soft eyes, reddening now with tears. She felt Braithe’s expectant gaze on her, and she knew she should try to answer his question.

She spoke with deliberation. “You have asked a wise question, Idhri. It is an important distinction. I would say that servants are not necessarily slaves. If servants have a choice in what they do, they are not slaves.”

“But do we know they have a choice? Those two men who brought the dinner?”

This was not an area Morgana excelled in, and she cast Braithe a helpless glance.

There was no judgment in Braithe’s expression. Her handmaid nodded acknowledgment, then turned to the boy. “Idhri, we didn’t ask the servants, so we don’t know. They didn’t seem to want to talk, for whatever reason. Perhaps if they come again, we can find out. But now, I know how hungry you must be. We all are. We’ll eat, and rest, and tomorrow we’ll figure it out.”

But Idhri, having begun, asked the hardest of his questions. “Is it true I am what they said? A half-blood?”

This question he directed at Morgana, and Morgana was incapable of prevarication. She said, “I do not know that for certain, Idhri, nor does Braithe. Perhaps we will learn the truth while we are here, or perhaps we will not.”

Braithe said bracingly, “And it won’t make a bit of difference either way! Come now, Idhri. Eat something. You’ll feel better.”

He took a bit of food on his plate and put a morsel in his mouth. Morgana saw how hard it was for him to eat, although Braithe was undoubtedly right. He must be hungry.

Braithe rose from her chair to place more food on Idhri’s plate. She murmured, “After our meal, you and I will have a chat by the fire. All right?”

Morgana watched her with appreciation. Braithe had come from a large family—an overlarge family, as it happened. She had left her mother and her many siblings when she was still very young, and her first years on the Isle had not been easy. The acolytes had teased her about her freckles, about her country accent, about being a cottar’s daughter, yet somehow she had remained a kind, warmhearted girl through all her trials.

Idhri gazed at Braithe with an emotion Morgana suspected was nascent hero worship. As Braithe sat down again, he began to eat and, under her gaze, continued until his plate was clean. Morgana whispered “Well done” to her handmaid.

Braithe smiled her thanks, but it was not her usual generous expression. Morgana understood. Although the food was excellent, her heart wasn’t in it, either.

She felt the pressure of time passing, of King Mordred’s problems mounting, and it made her uneasy. They had come to the White City to solve one problem, and before they had even begun, they had acquired a new one. It was a badly timed complication.

When dinner was finished, the plates and cups stacked back on their trays, Idhri stood awkwardly beside the fireplace. The flames were dying down. He would have liked to build up the fire, to make himself useful, but he didn’t know where to look for more wood. Building a fire was one of those odd things he had already known how to do when Emma and Master Hugh took him into their home. He couldn’t remember learning it, but he was good at piling the kindling and laying the logs. His fires always took hold quickly, their warmth spiraling out into the room.

Or into the darkness. An image flashed through his mind of scarlet sparks rising into a black sky, but he didn’t know where he had seen such a thing.

He wished with all his heart he had gone home with Master Hugh. He wished he had never heard of the White City, or met that terrifying Dama Vivyan. He wished even more he had never encountered Skye, with his dead eyes and sneering lips, that hideous knife at his belt. How could that face, so full of cruelty, be so much like his own?