Page 34 of The Faerie Handmaid

Morgana set her bread on a napkin. “We went outside the city. Through the fields and on into the woods.”

Emerlyn blinked in surprise. “Why would you do that, Priestess? The fields are so dirty.”

Braithe looked up in surprise. “Dirty?”

“The fields are beautiful,” Morgana said. “As are the woods, and the creatures who dwell there.”

“Creatures!”

“Indeed.”

“Do you mean—animals?”

“And birds. Sometimes insects.”

“But they can be dangerous!”

“They are hardly more dangerous than your citizens, Councillor,” Morgana said. She suppressed a surge of impatience. “The creatures of the woods and fields connect me with the wisdom of the world. Do you not find that to be so?”

Emerlyn gave a small but visible shudder. “I do not. I find them distasteful.”

Morgana’s impatience gave way to a different feeling, one she had not expected. She felt Braithe’s eyes on her, and she knew her handmaid sensed her emotion. It was sympathy, verging on pity. She had not expected to feel that way.

She leaned forward. “Councillor, I think that is a great shame. I needed answers today, and I found them in the company of a fox and a sparrow and a wood mouse.”

Emerlyn’s lips parted, but she closed them again without speaking, only giving a tiny, mystified shake of her head.

“I hear the Lady’s voice in wild creatures’ thoughts,” Morgana said softly. “As the Blackbird teaches, the Lady’s spirit continues, though she grew weary of her body.”

Emerlyn was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke at last, it was with the gravity of memory and the pain of sorrow. “Your Lady, as you call her, was once the queen of the fae. She has been gone a long time.”

“Yes. The last thing she did in the world, the Blackbird tells us, was to bring her infant daughter to be fostered at Camulod. Me.”

“She banned the fae from Lloegyr.”

“She had good reason.”

Emerlyn said, “I do not disagree. My delegates do.”

“Surely not all of them, Councillor.”

The older woman’s lips curved in a weary smile. “Do call me Emerlyn, Morgana. You and I have much in common. We are both overborne with responsibility. I have no equal here to share my worries, and I doubt you have anyone in your Temple.”

“Only the Blackbird, when he is present. Even then…” Morgana spread her hands. “I take your point, Emerlyn. Being unique can be lonely.” She glanced at Braithe, who was picking berries out of the bowl and pretending not to listen to their conversation. “But I am not so alone as I might have been.”

“Your handmaid.”

“I call her that, but she is much more. Companion, confidant—friend.”

“You are fortunate. I have no one.”

“Not the queen you represent?”

Emerlyn gave Morgana a sour look. “The queen,” she said, in a tone that dripped disdain. “I will trust you with this knowledge, Morgana, as we have come to understand one another. The fact of the matter—of my life, and that of the White City—is that there is no queen.”

Morgana gave a little grunt of surprise. “What? Are you saying it is all pretense?”

“Not precisely. We did have a queen, but no longer. We maintain the fiction of a queen because it helps to keep the delegates of the council in check.”