Page 9 of The Faerie Handmaid

“That’s what I’d like to know, lad. That’s what I wish I knew.”

Emma liked to chatter as she went about her chores, and Idhri always listened. Her small talk occupied his mind, distracting him from his constant search for his missing memories. He had heard her tell tales of the fae, of changelings, of abducted children, of fae who seduced humans and tortured and murdered them just for the thrill of it. The fae behaved, Emma said, as if humans were no more than animals to be toyed with and used. In the two years he had been with Master Hugh, Idhri had never heard Emma say anything good about the fae.

Hugh said now, “That priestess and her handmaid say they don’t just want to go to fae country, but they need to go.” He spat again. “The White City is a place I’ve never been, and one I got no wish to see.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“Nay, lad,” the boatman said. “The mage will magick the boat.”

“He will… what?” Idhri’s voice broke again, this time with alarm. If Emma’s tales were true, being magicked was a terrifying thing.

“Well, he’s the mage, isn’t he.”

Idhri knew very little about the Black Mage, so he only nodded.

“So, aye. He will magick the boat to carry the priestess and her handmaid to the White City. Then, if we’re allowed, which I can’t promise, we’ll come back to fetch him home.”

Idhri pondered this, searching for something encouraging to say. “Maybe we won’t have to meet the fae. Maybe we can just drop them and go.”

“Maybe. Maybe.”

“Why do they want to visit the White City, anyway, Master Hugh?”

Hugh scowled and adjusted the flat cap on his bristle of graying hair. “No one told me. Might be best not to know.”

When the tall priestess and Braithe appeared on the beach, Idhri hurried up the dock to take Braithe’s basket, which looked heavy. As he stowed it beneath the bench seat, he saw the priestess move to the prow and lean down from the dock to fasten something to the outside of the hull. He couldn’t see what it was. He helped Braithe into the boat and offered his hand to the priestess. She declined it with a silent shake of her head. He supposed she didn’t want to touch the likes of himself, but he didn’t mind. He hadn’t particularly wanted to touch her, either. Even thinking about all that magic the priestesses had made him nervous. She climbed in on her own and took a seat on the bench next to Braithe.

On the slope above the beach the mage stood, a curiously dark figure against the summer green of the herb garden. His black robe and hat looked rusty in the clear sunshine, but his beard was a clear white, like snow. He lifted a hand in farewell. The priestess lifted hers in response, and Idhri couldn’t help staring. Her fingers were even longer than his own. His overlong fingers had always embarrassed him. The size of his feet and his relentlessly lengthening toes were beginning to do the same.

Braithe sat with her arms folded tightly around her and her chin tucked in. Idhri felt a stab of sympathy, though he didn’t know why he should feel sorry for her. She looked pretty, with the sun glinting on her mass of curly hair and bringing out the freckles scattered across her nose, but she also looked frightened. He wished he could comfort her, but he was suffering the same fear. Master Hugh’s anxiety had communicated itself to him.

Hugh gave the nod for Idhri to untie the rope from the bollard. Idhri coiled it neatly into its place, as he had been trained, then climbed into the boat, doing his best not to make it rock any more than necessary. He took up his post in the bow, pole in hand in case of shallow water or tree roots, and Master Hugh unshipped the oars and began to row. The boat slid smoothly out onto the lake and pointed itself into the circle of mist.

No one had spoken a word.

Braithe had slept badly. She couldn’t shut out the memories of her mother’s repeated warnings about the fae, no matter how she tried to think of other things, like what she needed to pack for herself and Priestess Morgana. It was kind of the Blackbird to call her brave, but she didn’t feel that way. She felt just as she had as a child growing up on her mother’s croft, terrorized by tales of the deception and mischief and cruelty of the faeries.

She had been convinced that only her mother’s offerings kept the family safe from dark magic. Bits of fabric hung on a twig were meant to placate the fae. A tiny pottery dish with salt in it, nestled between the arching roots of a tree, was supposed to be one of their favorites, and certainly the dish always disappeared. A bit of biscuit or a lump of sugar left on a bridge railing was meant to sweeten fae tempers so they would let the humans cross unmolested.

It was not only Braithe’s mam, either. Everyone in her tiny village, all the cottars in the outlying crofts, did the same. If anyone went missing, man or woman or child, the first to be blamed were the faeries. Every parent watched their children for signs they were changelings. Every croft and cottage hung twists of hawthorn over their doors to ward off any fae who might chance by. Children were warned not to be lured away by a beautiful stranger, because they might be magicked by such a creature and never come home again.

Braithe’s mam had sent her daughter to the Temple when Braithe was just eight years old. Her mam said it was tribute, recommended by the village headman, but everyone, including her little daughter, knew it was because she had too many children in her tiny, crowded house. Braithe had been content with this decision. She loved having her own cot to lie on, her warm brown robe that no one before her had worn. She was happy being an acolyte, and later, thrilled to become Priestess Morgana’s handmaid.

It had been a shock to her to learn that the residents of the Isle of Apples believed there were no more fae in Lloegyr. They assured her that the Lady, the same who had disappeared beneath Ilyn, had banished the fae, and they had departed according to her decree. Braithe had tried to share their confidence, until she learned what had happened to Dafne.

Dafne’s tale could have come straight from Braithe’s village. Dafne had been taken by the fae, seized from her father’s farm along the Chindl when she was a young girl, and borne away to the White City. Someone there had stolen her voice and given it to someone else, by what magic or for what purpose no one seemed to know. When Dafne returned to Lloegyr as an adult, her family were all gone. Mute, she arrived at the Isle of Apples, and the priestesses took her in. Dafne was already of middle age when Morgana finally restored her voice. She was still learning to use it again.

And then there was the changeling queen. She was no fantastic tale invented to frighten children into behaving. She had been as real as Braithe’s own hand. There was no doubt she had been created by the fae, substituted for some innocent girl who had disappeared completely, and she had very nearly succeeded in her purpose, which was to destroy Lloegyr.

Now, in Master Hugh’s boat, Braithe’s nerves tormented her. She had wrapped her arms so tightly around herself that her fingers tingled. She made herself release them. She shook out her hands until the circulation returned, then put one palm over her breast to feel the little charm of protection Priestess Morgana had given her. She reminded herself that Morgana’s charms never failed. She told herself Morgana would never let the fae harm her handmaid. Surely, she assured herself, even in the White City, there were no fae as powerful as Morgana.

But that thought brought a new worry. It would be up to her, Braithe, to protect Priestess Morgana, and her only power was loyalty. Well, that and this new, odd awareness of other people’s feelings, which was sometimes more of a hindrance than a help. What if Morgana came to harm, and it was her fault?

Braithe’s heart thudded beneath the charm as the mist surrounded the boat. The shore disappeared behind them, and the summer sunlight cooled, filtered through silvery fog. The boatman’s lad—Idhri, his name was—crouched in the prow, pole at the ready, but as visibility dwindled to almost nothing, he cast an anxious look back at his master.

His dark eyes, the wide, vulnerable eyes of a boy, met Braithe’s, and she felt his apprehension about their journey. It was always an uncomfortable sensation, feeling someone else’s emotions. It was a bit like putting on another person’s clothes, clothes that didn’t fit, that squeezed or pulled in strange places. It was a random thing, coming when she didn’t want it, not appearing when she did. She wished she could turn it off completely.

She could hardly blame the lad for his fears, though, and she had probably made his nervousness worse. It couldn’t have helped for him to see her huddling on her seat like a terrified mouse.