Page 45 of The Faerie Handmaid

Braithe was rattled, but she told herself she would be safe in the chamber. No magic there. Luckily for her, her gift still worked inside. She would be listening.

She looked over her shoulder to find Idhri, but he was already at the sinks, his back to her. He hadn’t seen Umer tear off her charm, nor did she have time to tell him. Setting her jaw, Braithe lifted her tray in slightly unsteady hands and joined the line of servants to enter the chamber.

Councillor Emerlyn was on the dais today, scowling down at the delegates, her arms folded and her mouth set. She had apparently already given up trying to direct the morning’s argument. The chamber was clamorous with raised voices, and then, as the servants began distributing refreshments, the clink of bowls and cups. The din grated on Braithe’s nerves. She drew a shuddery breath and concentrated on one of her favorite stanzas to collect herself:

Troubles arise,

And fears abound,

But the song of Mother Earth

Never ends.

As with most stanzas, contemplation was required to derive a meaning, but that didn’t matter in this moment. She silently recited the stanza to focus herself as she approached the back row of delegates and held out her tray.

Her gift struck immediately. She kept her head down, but she looked up from beneath her brows to see a fae woman, not much older than herself, and she felt her grief as if it were her own sorrow. The woman was despondent over something, a loss, perhaps, or a betrayal. She waved Braithe off, and Braithe backed away to move on to the next delegate.

He was a man past middle age, with graying hair and an absent air. He took one of her bits of toast and cheese and sat back in his chair to eat it, paying no attention either to her or to the hubbub around him. She sensed from him a deep, pervasive ennui and the dispiriting feeling that he wished he were elsewhere but had nowhere else to be.

She moved on along the back row, picking up fragments of the delegates’ emotions and moods as she went. It gave her the opportunity to note the difference between sensing emotions and hearing thoughts. She felt the wish of one woman that the kitchens would provide more fruit. She sensed the obsession of another with an ongoing argument about empty houses. The subject seemed trivial to Braithe, but the tumult of the woman’s feelings was intense.

There were three rows, and when she was halfway along the second, with her tray still nearly full, the signal came to file out of the chamber. This time she heard it, a faint chime that barely pierced the noise of the ongoing chatter.

Braithe joined the line to file out through the doors. She had learned little except that her gift worked well when she managed to ignore the chaos and focus on one person at a time. Absorbing the emotions of so many was the most difficult part. It was exhausting. Like Morgana, she would need time in the woods to recover.

She took note of the place in the second row where she had stopped, and hoped no one changed seats before the next refreshments were served.

There were four rounds of refreshments every day. Braithe had learned that the day before. On this day, her second round was very like her first. She had just managed to reach the first row with her tray—berries this time, in tiny pottery cups—when the chime sounded. For the third round, she hurried to the head of the line to make certain she could start in the front row, where the oldest of the fae delegates had the best seats, closest to the dais and, probably not by accident, to the double doors that led out of the chamber.

This time Braithe’s tray held enameled cups of fragrant tea. She carried it carefully, because the cups were full. Every delegate she approached took one. She concentrated, moving as slowly as she dared, cautious of the cups spilling.

The first woman she served emanated an enervating weariness. Braithe sneaked a glance at her. She was very old, far older even than Emerlyn, and all she desired was to go home. Braithe didn’t understand why she couldn’t simply leave, but the explanation didn’t come.

The second delegate she served was furious with someone, her anger barely contained. Braithe felt her ire as a heat in her own body, as if she had stepped too close to a blaze. As the delegate took a teacup, Braithe sensed a resentment that felt ancient, timeworn, as if she had been nursing it for a long, long time.

On an impulse, Braithe looked into the fae woman’s face and caught a little breath. She tried to hide it and move on to the next, but too late. The woman had seen her glance. She hissed, “Mind your business, girl!”

Braithe ducked her head and turned to offer her tray to the next delegate, but not before she had registered the angry woman’s features and heard her think, with painful clarity, Worthless creatures. We should let the lot of them die.

Braithe’s breath whistled in her suddenly constricted throat. Not only had she learned that she could hear others’ thoughts even in the unmagicked chamber, but she had found one of the enemy. She knew it in her bones, a conviction as clear as the words that had sounded in her mind. She took a second glance back. The fae woman was glaring at her, narrow-eyed, as if Braithe might be the next target of her ongoing fury. And her name, which Braithe plucked straight from her mind, was Ursula. It suited her.

When she encountered another of the enemy, she was ready. This one was a fae man, tall and thin. His silvering hair was cut short, unlike the other fae men. It fanned out from his head in spikes, making him look a bit like an aging hedgehog. The atmosphere around him was amusement. He was not partaking of the debates roiling around him but finding them entertaining. He took a cup from Braithe’s tray, but unlike the others, he looked straight at her, eyeing her from head to toe, and she knew.

As she turned to go on, something obscene spilled from his mind, something so brutish and foul that she had to grit her teeth to prevent herself from spilling her entire tray on his head. She moved on toward the next delegate, but not before she caught the man’s name. Faolin. The title for male delegates was sero, Sero Faolin. He was vulgar and crude and mean, and he was also one of those she was searching for.

She mentally recited the names so there would be no chance of forgetting. Dama Ursula. Sero Faolin. Somewhere there was a third, the traditional number needed to work distant magicks, but having two names was a great beginning. Surely Emerlyn could force one of them to give up the third.

When the chime sounded, her tray was empty. She tucked it under her arm and walked toward the line of servants filing out of the chamber. Her spirit felt bruised by the thoughts and feelings of so many, but this was a day worth such effort. She had two names. Their plan had worked, and she couldn’t wait to tell Morgana.

Instinctively, she touched her tunic to feel the charm hanging there, and then she remembered. The stresses of the day had driven it from her mind. Umer had taken her charm, stolen it from her. She had no protection.

It didn’t matter, she told herself. Even if Umer refused to return her charm, Idhri would have his, and she would rejoin him in moments. She was the very last of the exiting servants, only steps from the double doors that led from the main corridor. She glanced to her left just as someone pushed the doors partway open.

Her breath caught again as she recognized Morgana, standing just outside the doors, peering through the narrow opening into the chamber. Something must have brought her here, some news perhaps. Braithe wasn’t sure if she should continue with the servants into the back room, or go out into the corridor to join her mistress. Morgana smiled broadly as if she understood, and crooked a finger.

Braithe handed her tray to one of the servants who was collecting empties and hurried away from the line and out of the council chamber to join the priestess.

From the door to the back room, Idhri looked above the heads of the delegates and saw Braithe going the wrong way, moving through the double doors at the opposite side of the chamber. For a fleeting moment, he thought he saw Morgana waiting for her, just beyond the doors.