The Autumn Prince - Prologue: Choices

/ AUTUMN PRINCE 11

# # Chapter ONE # #

(PROOF COPY -- Not for distribution.)

Blue moonlight filtered through leafy oaken limbs in a small, forest glade where the Veil thickened, where a cloaked woman walked alone, her thoughts weighed down by the irony of a decision.

She paced purposefully through damp autumn leaves, feeling the dew seep through the soles of her doeskin boots. Pale fingers brushed back long waves of flaxen hair as she turned her face to the sky, confirming the position of the stars through gaps where the trees had shed their fiery coiffure. She had come to the correct place on the proper night. The only task left to her was to wait--a skill she had never mastered.

She did not doubt the choice she had made, but she pondered its cost. Little more than a year ago, she had defied one of the highest laws of the people who had adopted her as their own, one not even their sworn enemies dared to break. Pariah would be too kind a word among those like her. She had once believed in the law--and much of her did still. It had not been the arbitrary decree of a power-mad royalty--though truthfully there were more than enough of those. The order she had willfully violated was necessary, and its alternative was chaos.

Portents of death did not move her. She had shed a sea of blood without remorse and would do so again if it became necessary. Chaos left unchecked was another matter. With her own eyes she had witnessed the cost of power without control and was sympathetic with her Queen on that count, if no other.

It was on that point that her resolve had weakened, but whether due to a tendency toward self-justification or a newly discovered wisdom, she could not say.

Was chaos truly the enemy of order or merely a precursor to it, raw material coaxed into life and beauty by the structure of law, all of which were long-held values of good? What was order if not chaos brought to rein, the power of pure possibility shaped by the will of those daring enough to embrace it? Fire and water were champions of destruction but wrought wonders when harnessed by might and vision. If she were right, chaos was not to be feared as much as a lack of imagination and the courage to act.

It was a dangerous justification, and she knew it, as dangerous as the Veil, where words like possibility meant nothing. At best, her Queen would be furious. The woman's life, and the lives of those she loved, were forfeit if she could not protect them, and that is what brought her here on the last night of harvest.

The tresses of her hair hung loosely around Cion's forest-green cloak, catching fragments of light around her head in a broken halo. Cionaodh, the man she sacrificed everything for, had made decisions of his own and paid a dear price for them. They would both be hunted for as long as they lived and they would live long if this night bore its promised fruit.

All began with a promise, though not to her Queen. Betrayer though she was, oath-breaker could not be listed among her crimes. The Queen had known her servant would always place the greatest value on her own life and welfare, and believed that this simple motivation made her predictable, pliable, and required no oath. That thought brought an involuntary smile. It was Cion, a mere human, who had taught her that life, like love, was not a jewel to be hoarded, but a flowing river that widened and deepened and grew as it united with others. It stung the remains of her pride that something so fleeting and fragile could bind her as utterly as she had once tethered her prey.

The first and hardest thing she had sacrificed was her pride. It had not been burned away so much as starved into an impotent specter, protesting weakly from within, after she had accepted a place among a people she'd always considered beneath her; those who were, only a few months before, little more than cattle. That pride lived on only as a memory of her past, of the person she could become again if she allowed it.

The fall was painful but not without grace, and it changed her less than she would have thought. Her dignity remained and would until the day they tore it from her along with her beating heart, but she was not a goddess, as many had believed--as she had almost come to believe herself. She was a woman, and to her very great surprise, she discovered it was enough.

Clearly, she lacked the wisdom of a goddess, she reflected, considering she had come to this place because of a rumor without the least assurance she would meet the one she hoped to see. The conditions were right, and now she waited, walking only to pass the time.

Bushes crashed behind her as something vast charged through them. She did not startle. Divine or not, she had power; woman or not, she would not hesitate to wield all of its considerable might in her defense.

The thing drew up behind her and stamped its hooves and finally, she turned. Ivory and silver ornaments hung from the moss-covered antlers of an enormous, black elk. On its back, several feet above the woman's head, rode a little girl.

"What is your purpose in my wood, demon?" came the voice of a child--no, not a child, a fully grown woman, though small, with brilliant, red hair, dressed in a short, white gown, and barefoot.

"I have come to see the Fool," she answered.

The girl cocked her head. "An assassin comes to this place, on this night? Are you here as a challenger for the title?"

The woman ignored the insult and took a step toward her, and more crashing followed by heavy, padded footfalls, broke from the woods at her back. This time she faced it. A huge barghest--what some called a dire wolf and others a hellhound--loped into the glade but slid to a stop in the fallen leaves as the girl put up her hand.

"Wait, Galgo," she said serenely. "Let us hear her. There will be time for you to play with your meal after."

The woman turned again and spread her arms, again choosing to ignore the gibe. "I seek asylum."

That brought quick laughter from the girl, a musical, playful sound. "You have convinced even me that you are, yourself, the queen of fools." Then her eyes went wide and with a gasp she leaned forward, palms on the broad back of the elk. "Does that make me the supplicant? Oh, dear, this has become confusing."

"Do not toy with me, forest child. Summon your master."

The girl's taunt ended, but her teasing smile returned. "I have no master."

A rare moment of confusion darkened the tall woman's features. "You?"

The girl inclined her head almost imperceptibly. "What brings you so recklessly to this of all places? I am curious to hear what method of insanity could court a demon to its death."

The pale woman scoffed. "I am no more a demon than you are a child. Your reputation suggests something--I would say, greater. If the Queen knew what you were, she would--"

"She would do little she has not already tried. I do not fear her," the girl cut across her sharply. "She is not my queen. The King may have died long ago, but I serve him still. What do you want, Left Hand?"

"I hold that title no longer. Mab seeks my head."

The news brought more laughter from the girl. "Oh, dear spirit, why do you torment me?" Then, with more rancor than humor, "shall I mourn for you, slayer? May she find your skull a suitable ornament for her mantle." The woman bore the mockery in silence. When she failed to give a response, the girl spoke again.

"Why do you come? Tell me truthfully."

"I have a son."

The entire wood fell into a grave silence at her words. The girl became suddenly, coldly serious.

"You lie."

"He is named Drustan ap Cionaodh. His father is a good, kind man, and both their lives are forfeit. If you will not help me, then I ask you, please help them."

"You come to me with a 'please'? What can you possibly need that I can provide?"

"Trickery and deceit. You have hidden many from the courts. I have no talent for subterfuge."

The little red-haired girl barked a humorless laugh but said nothing. They locked eyes, neither turning away though moments dragged on.

"How can I trust you?" the girl asked finally. It was not an unexpected question.

"I have nothing to say on my behalf that you will accept except that I come begging for the life of a changeling boy and a human man. Surely that alone is evidence of my motives, but if you need further proof . . ." The blonde woman held up a bronze collar. "Do you recognize the symbol?"

The torc was cast in a braid with two heads facing each other, one a wolf and the other a bear, bracing a knotwork seal between them. The girl stared at it with something close to shock.

"Dead?"

"It belongs to my husband, Cionaodh, son of Aodh, son of Amorgen. A bard."

"Not a bard only if that is his. I knew Aodh, and the life of his son's son holds nearly as little value to me as your own."

"That is why my beloved sends this gift. His father and grandfather are slain, along with their grove. He would not have come by this if even one of them lived." She shook her head at the girl's unspoken question. "Not at his hand, but by his betrayal."

"A druid does not leave the Brotherhood."

"A good man might."

The diminutive figure slid off the side of her beast, dropping a dozen feet to the ground, and took a step nearer.

"You claim your man has betrayed the Brotherhood and you have betrayed the Court, and this is your evidence? Your bloody, burned, and mutilated corpses would be more convincing. And you say all of this is because of your son?"

"It began before. I was sent by the Queen to claim Cionaodh as answer for his crime in the name of the grove. I . . . failed."

The little girl's eyes softened for a moment, belying her next words. "I should let you hang, Left Hand, for the pain you have caused."

"I would have earned it many times over, but I told you, that title is no longer mine. I can defend my family, but not forever. They need succor, a place to hide until they are forgotten."

"Mab has a long memory."

"I am aware."

The redheaded girl pondered, staring into the trees for a long time before answering. "I require payment."

"You what?"

"I will help, but you deserve no charity. What do you offer?"

The question appeared to stun the woman. "You never--the reports--" She put a hand to her throat. "I lost all when I abandoned the court, what is left for me to give?"

"I will hide your son in the name of compassion, and your husband for his torc. For you . . . we should kill you and be done. Perhaps Mab will reward us," she speculated, her last words rich with sarcasm.

As though they had been waiting for that moment, two hulking Fomorians, which the people called firbolgs, lumbered out of the shadows. Though they moved slowly, the woman knew they were immensely strong and notoriously difficult to harm. From her other side, a far dearig, also known as a redcap, and a gray-skinned woman she thought might be a kelpie or a hag circled behind her.

She spared each of them only a glance. "I did not come here for a fight, but I will not allow you to take my son from me, or me from my son. I am not apologizing for my past, nor asking your forgiveness. If you will help, then help. I will offer you whatever service I can provide in exchange, along with whatever worldly wealth you require. If you will not, then stand aside, or learn why the Queen chose me among all her people to enforce her commands."

The girl considered her words for several tense moments, then nodded with no trace of either humor or fear. "Two years."

"What?"

"You offered whatever service you can provide. Submit to serve under me for two years, during which you will not see your husband or your child. I will take them somewhere safe. If you convince me in that time that you are reformed, I will reveal their location and you may join them."

"I cannot! I must--"

"You want them hidden," the girl interrupted, "and I will see to it that they remain so while you keep your oath. That is my price. Accept it or leave this place at once."

The woman's face darkened, her mouth tight and her eyes hard. The Fool only stared back, without scorn or contempt, simply determined.

"Very well," the cloaked woman finally replied with some effort. "I accept your terms, but understand that if anything happens to my husband or my child . . . "

"You will kill me, naturally," the girl waved it off with her hand, then she turned to the redcap and whispered something to him. He cast one wicked grin at the woman and ran off through the woods.

"You put the safety of my family in the hands of this far dearig and presume to cast aspersions on me?"

"I trust Ragnall with my life. I would not trust you with breakfast." She looked back at the woman with an ironic smile that did not reach her eyes. "You have two years to change my mind."

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# # END # #

PROOF COPY Not for distribution