A Lick Of Frost

CHAPTER 20

WHILE MAEVE REED WAS OFF IN EUROPE STAYING OUT OF TARANIS'S reach, she'd given us full use of her house. She said it was a small price to pay for us saving her life and helping her become pregnant before her human husband had died of cancer. So for once good deeds had been rewarded. We had a mansion on a huge plot of land in Holmby Hills, with a guesthouse, a pool house, and a smaller cottage near the gate for the caretaker-gardener.

I still slept in the master bedroom of the guesthouse, but there were now enough of us to fill the bedrooms of both houses. The men were having to double up in some of the bedrooms.

Kitto had gotten a room to himself because it was too small a room to share with anyone much above my, and Rhys's size. Which meant no one.

We'd planned on using the main house's dining room for the initial meeting with the goblins. It was a huge room that had begun life as a ballroom. So it was light and airy and full of marble. It looked like something out of a human fairy tale. The Seelie Court would have approved, but then Maeve was exiled from there, so maybe the ballroom-dining room was a piece of home for her.

Most of my bodyguards looked as at home here in the brightness as the glittering chandeliers above us. The guards whom Ash and Holly had brought didn't look at home at all.

The Red Caps towered over everyone else in the room. Seven feet of goblin was a lot of goblin. But that was short for a Red Cap. Most were closer to the twelve-foot mark. The average height was eight to ten feet. Their skins were shades of yellow, gray, and sickly green. I'd known that the goblins were bringing Red Caps as guards. Kurag, the Goblin King, had felt that if he sent Ash and Holly without guards to us and something happened to them, it would be seen as a plot between him and me to rid himself of the brothers. Since the only way for him to step down as king and them to step up was for him to be dead at their hands, their deaths would be very convenient for him.

So why was he offering them to me to make them even more powerful? Because Kurag knew how his kingship would end, as all goblin kings ended. He wanted to ensure that his people were strong even after he died. He did not resent the brothers for their ambition. He just wanted to hold it off a little longer.

If the twins died by our hands, even by accident, without goblins around them, then it could be misconstrued. If the goblins thought that Kurag had had the brothers assassinated, his life was forfeit. All challenges were personal challenges. There were goblins who were assassins as a sideline, but they never took «jobs» where the victim was another goblin. They'd kill sidhe, or lesser folk, but never another goblin.

The only exception was if the goblin was one of the "kept," as Kitto had been. If you had a problem with one of them, their «masters» fought you. Because to be what Kitto was among them was an admission that he was not fighter enough to be part of the larger goblin culture.

I sat in a large chair that had been set up as a sort of temporary throne. The big table had been moved back against the wall, along with most of the chairs. Frost was at my back. Doyle was still closeted in his bedroom with the black dogs, Taranis had nearly killed my Darkness. If we'd been inside faerie proper, he might have been healed already. None of our magics were as strong here. It was one of the reasons that exile was so feared by most, because you were never as powerful outside of faerie.

"We have brought you inside so the human reporters cannot bandy it about in the press," Frost said in a voice as cold as his namesake. "But for the press I would not have allowed you inside our wards with such an army at your back."

I couldn't really argue with him, but I was strangely unworried. In fact, I felt better than I'd felt in hours.

"It is done, Frost," I said.

"Why are you not more worried about this?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said.

"If they were not goblins, I would say they had bespelled you," Rhys said.

Ash and Holly were impressed with all of the show, which set them apart from the other goblins and made them so much more sidhe.

"Greetings, Ash and Holly, goblin warriors. Greetings also to the Red Caps of the goblin court. Who leads here?"

"We do," Ash said, as he and his brother stepped up to stand before my chair. They were wearing the court clothes that they'd worn before, Ash in green to match his eyes, Holly in red to match his. The clothes were satin, and the height of fashion if the year happened to between 1500 and 1600.

Their short yellow hair brushed their ears as they bowed. They'd started to let their hair grow, though it wasn't long enough to get them in trouble with the queen — It had to touch their collars for that.

"You've let your hair grow in the month since I saw you," I said.

They exchanged a glance, then Ash said, "We do it in anticipation of your magic bringing us into our sidhe-side powers."

"That's very confident of you," I said.

"We have every confidence in your powers, Princess," Ash said.

I looked at Holly. There was no confidence in his eyes, just eagerness. He got to bed me tonight; all else was just pretense. Holly would give me what the brothers truly felt. Ash was nearly as good at playing courtier as sidhe lord. I didn't trust either of them, but Ash could lie with his eyes and face; Holly couldn't. Good to know.

I looked past them to the Red Caps. I recognized some of them from the fight weeks before. They had stood by me, not the brothers, or Kurag their king. The Red Caps had obeyed me beyond what was required of them by treaty. I had not explored that strange obedience, so unlike the usual Red Cap attitude toward sidhe or female, because I wasn't sure how Kurag would take it. I did not want to be seen as trying to seduce, even politically, the most powerful warriors of the goblin race to my service.

Kurag desperately wanted out of the treaty with me. He feared that civil war was coming either within the Unseelie themselves, or between both courts. He wanted no part of the coming battles, yet his treaty with me held him to me. I would not give him an excuse to pull out. We needed him too much. So I had not probed further into the Red Caps motivations for their loyalty to me.

Now they stood before me, more of them than I'd ever seen in one place at one time. They were like a living wall of flesh and muscle. They all wore little round skullcaps. Most were covered in dry blood so that the wool was shades of brown and black. But about a third of them had blood running from their caps to trickle down their faces and stain the shoulders and chest of their clothes.

Once to be war leader among them you had to be able to make the blood on your cap stay fresh. The alternative was to kill a foe often enough to keep your hat red. This little cultural habit had made them some of the most bloodthirsty warriors in all of faerie.

I'd only met one Red Cap who could make his hat stay fresh and bright red: Jonty. He stood among them, in the front near the center. He was about ten feet tall with gray skin and eyes the color of fresh blood. All the Red Caps had red eyes, but there are shades of red, and Jonty's were as bright as his cap.

When I'd met him his skin had reminded me of the gray of dust, but his skin didn't look dry or harsh now. He looked… like he'd had a good deep moisturizer used on all the skin I could see. Since goblins didn't go to spas, I didn't understand the change in his skin tone.

There were other changes as well. His hat bled in thick runlets of blood so that his entire upper body was soaked in it. The blood had trickled down his clothes, and dripped off the ends of his thick fingers as he stood there, making a delicate pattern of blood on the marble floor.

"Jonty, it is good to see you again." I meant it. He had saved us. He had forced the twins to join our fight. The Red Caps had followed him, not Ash and Holly.

"And you, Princess Meredith," he said in that voice that was so low it was like gravel rumbling.

"Should we have greeted the Killing Frost and Rhys?" Ash asked. "I am not completely clear on the rules of sidhe etiquette."

"You may greet them or not. I greet Jonty because he stood beside me in battle. I greet Jonty and his Red Caps because they helped me and mine. I greet the Red Caps as true allies."

"The goblins are your allies," Ash said.

"The goblins are my allies because Kurag cannot get out of our bargain. You would have let my men die that night in the dark."

"Are you going to go back on your bargain to bed us, Princess?" Ash asked.

"No, but seeing Jonty and his men reminds me, that is all." Actually, I was angry. Ash and Holly had been like all goblins, and most sidhe. It wasn't their fight, and they didn't want to die defending sidhe warriors who wouldn't have given a damn for them. I shouldn't blame them, but I did anyway.

Jonty had picked me up in his huge arms and run through the winter night toward the fight. Where he went the other Red Caps had gone. Because the Red Caps went, the other goblins had to go. To avoid the fight would have branded them as weaker and more cowardly than the Red Caps. I'd known it was a point of pride, but Kitto had explained that it was more than that. It would have opened the other goblins to being challenged in single combat by the Red Caps who fought beside me. No goblin would have willingly invited such a challenge.

I knew what I owed Jonty and his men, but not why they had done it. Why had they risked everything for me? If I could have figured out a way to ask that wouldn't have insulted them, Ash and Holly, or even their king, I would have asked. But goblin culture was a maze that I did not have a map for yet. It had no room for asking why of a warrior. Why were you brave? Because I was a goblin. Why did you help me? Because no goblin turns from a good fight. Neither was completely true. But it was popularly true, and to say otherwise would bring into question Ash and Holly's lack of enthusiasm.

Frost touched my shoulder, just a light touch. If Doyle had been there, he'd have touched me sooner. Frost didn't like why the goblins were here tonight. He didn't like me being with them, but he knew we needed them as allies.

Rhys spoke softly, "Merry."

I looked up at him, startled. "Did I miss something?"

"Yes." He motioned with his gaze at the twins.

I turned to them. "I am so sorry, but so much has happened today that I find worry overriding my duty."

"So the Darkness is still too injured to be by your side," Ash said.

"He will not be here tonight. I told you that earlier."

"Will Rhys and the Killing Frost be your guards tonight?" Holly asked.

"No."

Rhys couldn't do it. Frost I'd ordered not to. He could not hide his feelings well enough. I feared he would insult Holly with a look or a sound tonight. The middle of sex could be very like the middle of blood lust in battle for a goblin. I didn't want to have Frost start a fight by accident.

"Amatheon and Adair will guard me." At the mention of their names, they stepped forward from the line of guards behind me. Amatheon was copper-haired, and Adair was crowned with a dark gold that had once been closer to just brown, before we'd had sex inside faerie, and he had come back into some of his power. Amatheon had been a deity of agriculture. Adair was the oak grove, but also once a solar deity. I wasn't sure if he'd been solar, then downgraded to oak, or if he'd been both simultaneously. It was considered the height of rudeness to ask a fallen deity what their old powers once were. It was like rubbing their noses in their lost status.

"Is it true that fucking them is what turned Andais's garden of pain into the meadow it is now?" Holly asked.

"Yes," I said.

Rhys said, "I wish Doyle were here, I really do. I hate goblins, everyone knows that, so I don't trust my judgment with you."

"Rhys," I said, "what…"

"Is no one going to ask why they have brought every Red Cap the goblins have at their command?"

"I, too," Frost said, "do not wish Merry to do this. It colors my judgment as well."

"Well, I don't give a damn who she fucks as long as she eventually fucks me, so I'll say it. Why in the name of the consort do you have this many Red Caps with you?" Onilwyn stepped away from the rest of my guards.

Onilwyn was the most graceless sidhe I'd ever seen. There was something blocky about his muscular build. He was tall enough and he moved well, but he just wasn't made as smoothly as the rest. I was never sure why, and again, could not ask. It wasn't his roughness that made me not want to sleep with him. He was as handsome with his long green hair and lovely eyes as most of the sidhe. But if pretty is as pretty does, Onilwyn was ugly to me.

I'd managed not to sleep with him yet because I truly didn't like him. He had been one of Cel's friends who had tormented me when I was a child. I truly didn't wish to be tied to him by a child and marriage, so I'd refused him my bed. I'd given him permission to masturbate, which was more than the queen had allowed. He could entertain himself all he wanted. I just didn't want him entertaining me.

If I didn't get pregnant soon, he'd promised to complain to the queen. I had until the end of this month, because that was when I could bleed away my chances for a baby this cycle. The queen would force me into his bed. First, on the chance that I could get pregnant. Second, because she knew I didn't want to do it.

But sometimes it's the unpleasant person who will say what needs saying. I had not worried about how many Red Caps were in the room until Onilwyn spoke. That was wrong. I should have worried. There were enough of them that if they started a battle we might lose. Why hadn't it worried me?

My left hand pulsed so hard it brought a sound from me. My hand of blood liked the Red Caps. My power liked the Red Caps. Not good, or was it?

Ash and Holly exchanged a glance.

"The truth," I said. "Why did you bring every Red Cap the goblins can boast?"

"They insisted," Ash said.

"The Red Caps do not insist," Onilwyn said. "They obey."

Ash looked at the other man. "I would riot expect a sidhe to know so much of us." He looked at me and gave a nod. "Except for the princess, who seems to make a study of all her people's culture."

I nodded back. "I appreciate that you have noticed my efforts."

"I have noticed. It is one of the reasons I am here."

"I fought in the goblin-sidhe wars," Onilwyn said. "I saw the Red Caps ordered into battles that were sure death, but they never hesitated. I learned that they are oathed to never disobey the Goblin King."

"You are correct, green man," Jonty said.

"They are also forbidden from competing for kingship," Onilwyn said.

"Also correct."

"Why are you all here?" Onilwyn asked.

I looked at Onilwyn. It wasn't like him to worry this much over my safety. Maybe he was worried about his own.

The Red Caps looked at Jonty. He looked at me.

"Why are you here, Jonty? Why did so many of your people come with you?"

"You I will answer," he said in that deep voice. He'd insulted everyone here. Ash and Holly, Onilwyn, everyone but me.

He came forward. Rhys and Frost moved a little in front of me. Some of the other guards moved out of their line behind us.

"No," I said. "He helped me save you all. Don't be ungrateful now."

"We're supposed to protect you, Merry. How can we allow that to approach you?" Rhys said.

I gave him an unfriendly glare. "He is not a 'that, Rhys. He is a Red Cap. He is Jonty. He is a goblin. But he not a 'that. »

My anger seemed to surprise him. He gave a small bow and moved back. "As my lady wishes."

Normally, I would have tried to ease his hurt feelings, but tonight I had other things on my mind than juggling the emotional relationships in my life.

I stood up and the silk robe I was wearing brushed the floor with a sound that was almost alive. The high-heeled sandals with their wraparound laces made a sharp sound on the marble.

High heels had been the only thing the twins had asked me to wear. The only request. I moved the robe so they got a flash of the four-inch heels, the laces that curved around my calf. I got a sound from Holly, low in his throat. Ash controlled himself better, but his face couldn't hold it all. They wanted my white flesh against their gold. They wanted to know sidhe flesh, and it wasn't all about power.

They, like me, knew what it was to be the outsider. To be always different from those around you.

Jonty dropped to his knees in front of me. Kneeling, he looked me in the eyes. He made me aware of how small I was.

"Jonty," I said.

"Princess," he said.

I studied his face. Up close the change was even more startling. His skin was smoother, a softer gray. He smiled at me, and the teeth that I remembered as a mouthful of fangs were straighter, whiter, less frightening, more like a person's mouth than an animal's.

"What has happened to you, Jonty?" I asked.

"You happened to me, Princess."

"I don't understand."

"Your hand of blood happened to us all in that winter's night."

I frowned a little and tried to think of a way to ask my question, but how do you ask a question when you have no idea what to ask?

"I do not understand, Jonty."

"Your hand of blood has brought us back into our power."

"You have not come back into your full power," Holly said.

Jonty turned an evil look on him. "No, as the halfling says, no. But it is more power than we have known in centuries." He turned back to me, the anger fading from his eyes as he beheld me. There was a softness to his look that you didn't see in most goblins' eyes. Red Caps were known for their ferocity, not their kindness.

"Why have you all come, Jonty?"

"They want you to touch them as you touched us. They want you to bring them into their power, too."

"Why did you not ask me sooner?"

"Would you have done it?"

"You saved us, Jonty. I know that. But more than that, my job, my task as princess is to bring power back to faerie. All faerie. That includes you and your men."

Jonty looked at the floor, and spoke as softly as his deep, deep voice would allow. "I knew you would not refuse us if we stood before you. I knew that your hand of blood called to us too strongly, if we were close to you, but I did not think you would simply say yes from a distance."

He looked up and his red eyes shimmered. Red Caps did not cry, ever.

A single tear slid from his eye. A tear the color of fresh blood. I did what I knew was custom among the goblins. Tears are precious, blood more precious yet. I touched my finger to his face and captured that single tear before it could mingle with and be lost in the blood that trailed down his face.

The tear trembled on my finger like a true tear, but it was red as blood. I raised it to my mouth, and drank his tear.