“Why, nothing, Majesty,” Lord Tennant replied smoothly. He was a fixture around the throne, one of the most unctuous of the Queen’s courtiers, and today he was garbed in bright purple velvet from head to toe. Long, bell-like sleeves revealed the flicker of a tattoo on one hand. “On the contrary, I come to bring you a gift.”
“What gift?”
Turning to the figure beside him, Lord Tennant reached up, slowly and gently, and pushed back the cloak’s hood. Gasps filled the audience chamber; Elyssa jerked in surprise, and even Niya made a small involuntary movement beside her.
The woman was pure white. Her hair, her skin, her lips . . . all of her was white as milk, even her dress. Her eyes were blue, Elyssa was almost certain, but of a shade so icy that they might as well have been two pools frozen in winter. She was not old, but Elyssa could not say for sure that she was young either. When Lord Tennant pulled the cloak from her shoulders, Elyssa saw that the woman’s hands, too, were white, no sign of blood even in the nails.
“God save us,” one of the guards muttered.
“What is the nature of this gift, Tennant?” the Queen asked, and Elyssa saw that she, too, was unnerved, her jaw tight.
“This is Brenna, Majesty,” Lord Tennant announced. “A tenant on my lands. I have brought her to serve Your Majesty. She is a seer.”
Mutters echoed through the crowd . . . most of them skeptical, Elyssa thought. True seers were as rare as two-headed cats; the only one Elyssa had ever heard of lived at the Red Queen’s court in Mortmesne, and it had long been a sore spot with her mother,that the Red Queen had a genuine seer while she did not. The Keep was always filled with palmists and tarot readers, but though her mother found them amusing, Elyssa was certain that she knew they were charlatans. A real seer would be a gift indeed . . . but despite the woman’s extraordinary appearance, Elyssa found herself skeptical. Lord Tennant was a fop, but not an utter fool. He would never give away something so valuable without good reason. Her mother must have been thinking along the same lines, for after a few moments of studying the woman, the Queen repeated, “We ask again, Tennant: what can we do for you?”
“Nothing at all, Majesty. Consider this a simple sign of the continuing loyalty of House Tennant. If the seer does not please Your Majesty, by all means return her to me. I could always use a jump on next month’s weather.”
The audience laughed, but the Queen only gazed narrowly at Tennant. Elyssa felt a dart of unwilling admiration. Vain, her mother was, and autocratic, and often blind . . . but not stupid. Elyssa herself felt sorry for the albino, for she could well imagine the life the woman led, the treatment she must have endured. But deep in her mind, Lady Glynn’s voice echoed in warning: a lesson from many centuries before, its message not faded with time.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.
“We accept your gracious gift, Lord Tennant,” her mother finally replied. “Should the seer prove genuine, we shall not forget your generosity to us.”
Tennant bowed, his velvet cape swirling around him.
“Gullys!” the Queen called. “Is there anything more?”
“No, Majesty!” the chamberlain called, after a last look around the room.
“Then we’re done.”
“This audience is concluded!” Gullys announced. “The Queen thanks you for your attendance! Please leave in as orderly fashion as you came in!”
The crowd began to break up. Many of them tried to linger, staring at the white woman who waited at the foot of the throne, but the soldiers stationed on the walls moved forward, shepherding them out. Elyssa was relieved to see that her mother’s attention, too, was on the albino; she crooked her finger, signaling Brenna to come forward. As Brenna climbed the stairs, the Queen’s Guard drew together without speaking, forming a block in front of the throne.
“Let her through,” the Queen ordered.
“Majesty,” Givens, the Captain, protested. “We haven’t even searched her. The Mort—”
“The Mort are too devious to send such a conspicuous creature as an assassin.”
“And Tennant is not a man to give gifts from the warmth of his heart, Lady.” Givens was digging in now, a bulldog expression on his face. “He’s ambitious, yes, but even a weasel doesn’t give away a bag of gold. There is danger here.”
The Queen considered him for a moment, then turned to the white woman.
“Are you a danger, seer?”
“Seers are always dangerous, Majesty,” the albino announced in a low, warm voice, startling for its contrast with her icy appearance.
“Always dangerous? How so?”
“The term seer itself is misleading, Majesty. The sight is incidental to what we do. In reality, we are vessels of time, and nothing is more dangerous than time.”
This answer clearly intrigued Elyssa’s mother. Queen Arla was an easy mark for anything dealing with the unseen world.
“Let us at least search her for weapons,” Givens pleaded hopelessly; he too had seen the gleam in the Queen’s eye.
“I am unarmed,” the albino replied. “But you may search if you wish.”
“Not necessary,” the Queen decreed, waving Givens away and beckoning Brenna closer. The Captain gave way, but reluctantly, his hand on his knife as the seer ascended the last few steps and knelt before the throne. She was not as old as Elyssa had first thought; her face was still unlined, and might even have been beautiful . . . if only the rest of the package was not so grotesque.
“What can you offer us, Brenna?” the Queen asked.
“What do you wish, Majesty? Knowledge of infidelities, of pregnancies, of intended marriages?”
“I can get gossip from my servants,” the Queen replied dryly. “What else do you sell?”
“The road to greatness, Majesty.”
The Queen’s eyes sharpened with interest. “Meaning what?”
Brenna reached out, heedless of the guards who drew swords around her, and picked up the blue jewel that lay on the Queen’s chest. Almost automatically, Elyssa grasped her own sapphire. They were identical, the Queen’s Jewel and the Heir’s Jewel, heirlooms that supposedly went all the way back to William Tear. Like all Tear relics, the sapphires were supposed to be magical, but Elyssa had worn the Heir’s Jewel since her eighth birthday, when she was officially declared the heir to the throne, and she had never seen any magic in it. When she ascended the throne, she would remove the Heir’s Jewel and put on the Queen’s, and the second jewel would be put away for her firstborn; it had been so since the time of Matthew Raleigh. As far as Elyssa knew, no one had ever dared to touch her mother’s sapphire, but the seer was now examining it closely. After a single stunned moment, the Queen snatched the jewel back.