A Princess of Landover (15 page)

Even so, she was relieved when they cleared the black pools, gnarled roots, wintry grasses, and mingled couplings of shadows and mist to emerge once more into brightness and open air. The rain had slowed to a drizzle and the skies overhead, visible again through the treetops, had begun to show patches of blue. The fetid smells of the deep forest and the swamp faded as the ground rose and they began to climb out of the lowlands they had been forced to pass through. Ahead were fresh signs of life—figures moving against the backdrop of a forest of huge old oaks and elms that rose hundreds of feet into the air, voices calling out to one another, and banners of bright cloth and garlands of flowers rippling and fluttering on the breeze from where they were interwoven through the tree branches. Water could be heard rushing and gurgling some distance away, and the air was sweet with the scent of pines and hemlocks.

As they reached the end of their climb and passed onto flat ground, they caught their first real glimpse of Elderew. The city of the fairy-born lay sprawled beneath and cradled within the interlocking branches of trees two and three times the size of those they had passed through earlier, giants so massive as to dwarf anything
found elsewhere in Landover. Cottages and shops created multiple levels of habitation both upon and above the forest floor, the entrances to the latter connected by intricate tree lanes formed of branches and ramps. The larger part of the city straddled and ran parallel to a network of canals that crisscrossed the entire city beneath the old growth. Water flowed down these canals in steady streams, fed by underground springs and catchments. Screens of mist wafted at the city’s borders and through the higher elevations, a soft filtering of sunlight that created rainbows and strange patterns.

To one side, a vast amphitheater had been carved into the earth with seats formed of grasses and logs. Wildflowers grew at the borders of the arena, and trees ringed the entirety with their branches canopied overhead to form a living roof.

Poggwydd gasped and stared, wide-eyed and for once unable to speak.

The people of the city had begun to come out to see who was arriving, and some among them recognized Mistaya and whispered her name to those who didn’t. Soon what had begun as scattered murmurings had risen to a buzz that rolled through the city with the force of a storm wind, everyone wanting to know what the King’s daughter was doing there.

So much for any chance of keeping things secret
, Mistaya thought in dismay.

A crowd quickly began to form about them, a mix of fairy-born united by curiosity and excitement. They spoke in a dozen different languages, only a few of which Mistaya even recognized. The children pushed close and reached out to touch her clothing in quick, furtive gestures, laughing and darting away after doing so. She smiled bravely, trying to ignore her growing sense of claustrophobia.

Then the crowd parted and a clutch of robed figures pushed forward, men and women of various ages. Her grandfather stood foremost, his tall, lean figure dominating the assemblage, his chiselled
features impassive as he saw who was causing all the excitement. No smile appeared to soften his stern look, and no greeting came. The gills on either side of his neck fluttered softly and the slits of his eyes tightened marginally, but nothing else gave any indication of his thinking.

“Come with me, Mistaya,” he said, taking her arm. He glanced at Poggwydd and Shoopdiesel. “The Gnomes will remain here.”

He walked her back through the crowd, away from everyone but the handful of guards who were always close at hand. They passed down several walkways lined with flowers and through a park to a fountain set in the center of a pool. Benches surrounded the pool, and he led her to one and seated her firmly.

There was anger in his eyes now. “Tell me what are you doing with those creatures!” he snapped. “Tell me why you brought them here!”

So this is how it’s going to be
, she thought. She tightened her resolve. “They insisted on coming, and I did not see the harm. How are you, Grandfather?”

“Irritated with you,” he replied, the weight of his gaze bearing down on her. “I hear nothing from you for more than a year, and then you violate our code by bringing into the home city of the fairy-born a pair of creatures who are never allowed in places much less selective about whom they admit. What were you thinking, child?”

She held his gaze. “I was thinking you might be more tolerant than this. I was thinking that at the very least you might hear me out.”

“Perhaps you thought wrong—just as I did in believing you would not forget your grandfather and your fairy-born roots.” He paused, and some of his anger faded. “Very well, tell me about this business.”

“First of all,” she said, “it was insulting not to be greeted in a more friendly and personal fashion by my own grandfather. I traveled some distance to see you, and I would have thought you could
show some small measure of happiness at seeing me, no matter the time that has elapsed between visits. I would have thought an appropriate display of affection might be called for!”

She paused, but he said nothing. She shook her head. “I have been away at school in my father’s world, should it have slipped your mind. Visits back here from another world are not so easily arranged. Yes, I should have come before this, but it wasn’t as if I had all that many chances to do so.”

He nodded. “I accept that. But there are other avenues of communication, I am told.”

She returned the nod. “And I accept
that
. But things have a way of getting away from you.”

“So you’ve come to see me now, something you might have had the courtesy to advise me of. But you sent me no notice of your visit.” He gave her a long, hard once-over. “Why would that be?”

“An impulsive act, perhaps? Maybe I suddenly regretted my neglect of you and decided to make up for it?” She made a face at him. “Don’t be so stern. It isn’t as if I haven’t thought about you.”

“Nor I of you, Mistaya.”

“I decided it was time to make amends. I thought my coming would be a nice surprise.”

“A surprise, in any event. Am I to gather that your choice of traveling companions is a part of that surprise?”

“No,” she admitted. “I was … I was sort of forced to let them accompany me. They worried for me and insisted on seeing me safely here. I asked them not to do so, but they would not hear of it, so I agreed to let them come.” She shrugged. “I didn’t see the harm. They can be sent away now, if you wish.”

Her grandfather studied her once more, his eyes searching her own. “I see,” he said finally. He kept looking at her, the long fringes of black hair on the backs of his arms rippling in the cool breeze. She didn’t like how his eyes made her feel, but she forced herself to wait on him.

He sighed. “You know, Mistaya,” he said finally, “the fairy-born cannot be easily deceived, even by their own kind. Not very often,
anyway. Not even by someone as talented as you. We have an instinct for when we are not being told the truth. You have that same instinct, do you not? It is a safeguard against those who might hurt us—intentionally or not.” He paused. “Those instincts are telling me something about you, right now.”

“Perhaps they are mistaken,” she tried.

He shook his head, his chiseled features as hard and fixed as stone. “I don’t think so. Something is going on here that you haven’t told me. You might want to consider doing so now. Without revising as you go.”

She saw that he had seen through her deception, and that lying or telling half-truths was only going to get her deeper in trouble. “All right, I’ll tell you the truth. But please listen and don’t get angry. I need you to be fair and impartial about what I’m going to say.”

Her grandfather nodded. “I will hear you out.”

So she told him everything, right from the beginning, right from the part where she had been suspended from Carrington up to her father’s insistence on sending her to Libiris to oversee a renovation of the library. It took her awhile, and she faltered more than once, aware of how bad it all made her look, even if it wasn’t her fault and entirely unfair. She even admitted that she had used Poggwydd to help her make her escape, and that having done so she found herself obliged to bring him along so as not to alert her parents before she had reached Elderew and the fairy-born.

When she had finished, he shook his head in disbelief.

“Please don’t do that!” she snapped at him. “I came to you for help because you are my grandfather and the only one I could think of who would be willing to consider my situation in a balanced way. And you’re not afraid of my father!”

He arched one eyebrow. “You don’t think so?”

She gritted her teeth. “I am asking for sanctuary,” she declared, liking the lofty, important sound of it. “I’m asking for time to find a way to make my parents see the wrongness of what they are proposing. I don’t expect you to do anything but let me stay with you until they’ve had a chance to think things through. I will be no trouble to
you. I will do whatever you require of me to earn my room and board.”

“Your room and board?” he repeated. “And you say you will be no trouble to me?”

“I do say!” she snapped anew. “And stop repeating everything, Grandfather! It makes you sound condescending!”

He shook his head some more. “So your visit to surprise me has more to do with your falling-out with your parents than a desire to see me?”

He said it mildly, but she could feel the edge to his voice. “Yes, I suppose it does. But that doesn’t change the fact that I have missed you very much. I know I should have come sooner to see you, and I might have done so if I hadn’t been sent off to Carrington. I might actually visit more often now, if I am not exiled to Libiris. But you have to help me! You understand what this means better than anyone else! The fairy-born would never submit to such treatment—being locked away in some old building with nothing to do but organize books and papers and talk to walls! Their plan is nothing more than a reaction to my dismissal from school!”

“Your intention, then, is to reside with me until something happens to change your parents’ minds about Libiris and your future, is that right?”

She hesitated, not liking the way he said it. “Yes, that’s right.”

He leaned back slightly and looked over at the fountain as if the solution to the problem might be found there. “I didn’t like your father when he arrived in Landover as its new King. You know that, correct?”

She nodded.

“I thought him a play-King, a tool of others, a fool who didn’t know any better and would only succeed in getting himself killed because he was too weak to find a way to stay alive. He came to me for help, and I put him off with excuses and a bargain I was certain he could not fulfill.”

He looked back at her. “And your mother is one of my least favorite children. She is too much like her own mother, a creature I
loved desperately and could never make mine, a creature too wild and fickle ever to settle. Your mother was a constant reminder of her and hence of what I had lost. I wanted her gone, and when she chose to believe in your father, I let her go with my blessing. She would not be back, I told myself. Neither of them would.”

“I know the story.”

Indeed, she did. Her mother, falling in love with her father in the fairy way, at first sight, had given herself to him. She was his forever, she had told him. He, in turn, had come to love her. Neither had any real idea of what that would mean, and neither had anticipated how hard their road together would turn out to be.

“I did not believe in your father or your mother, and I was wrong about both,” her grandfather finished. “That does not happen often to me. I am the River Master, and I am leader of the fairy-born, and I am not allowed to be wrong. But I was wrong here. Your parents were brave and resourceful, and they have become the leaders this land has long needed. Your father is a King in every sense of the word, a ruler who manages to be fair to all and partial to none. I admire him for it greatly.”

He gave her a searching look. “Yet you appear to think otherwise. You appear to think that perhaps you know better than he does.”

She tightened her lips in determination. “In this one case, yes, I do. My father is not infallible.”

“No,” her grandfather agreed. “Nor are you. I suggest you ponder that in the days ahead.”

“Grandfather …”

He held up one hand to silence her, the fringe of black hair a warning flag that shimmered in the half-light. “Enough said about this. I am pleased you have come to me, though I wish it had been under better circumstances. It is a visit that should not have happened. You wish to use me as a lever against your father and mother, and I will not allow it, Mistaya. You must learn to solve your own problems and not to rely on others to solve them for you. I am not about to interfere with your parents’ wishes in the matter of Libiris,
or to give you sanctuary, as you call it. Hiding out in the lake country will not bring an end to your problems.”

She felt the strength drain from her. “But I’m only asking—”

“Only asking me to fight your battles for you,” he finished, cutting her short. “I will not do that. I will not be your advocate in this matter. I do not care to challenge the authority of a parent over his child—not even when the child is one I love as much as I love you. I have been a parent with children, and I know how it feels to be interfered with by an outsider. I will not be a party to that here.”

He stood up abruptly. “You may spend the night, enjoy a banquet prepared in your honor, and in the morning you will return home. My decision is made. My word is final. You will go to your room now. I will see you at dinner.”

She was still trying to change his mind as he turned and walked away.