Although really you should take me back on your own dime, with a profuse apology. She managed, just barely, to bite back that acerbic comment.
“I see.” The nobleman looked at the other two men. “How close are we to completing a review of the inventory?”
The one named Harkin consulted his sheets. “We’re almost done, my lord. Actually, we only have the trolls’ tribute left to count.”
The nobleman turned to survey the pile of crates and barrels surrounding them. “Well, here it all is, so I’d say we’re finished.” He looked at Sid. “Come with me, musician.”
“Gladly,” Sid said.
She gave the other two men a look of pure loathing and followed the nobleman out of the stables. Surely, they would feed her something soon. The last thing she had eaten was the requisite bread and cheese at noon the day before. She felt dizzy and light-headed, unable to concentrate, and her empty stomach was gnawing at her insides.
She had questions she wanted to ask, starting with the nobleman’s name and where he was taking her, but he strode through the courtyard to an entrance to the castle, then down a series of passages, at a pace so swift she was hard put to keep up with him. After days filled with stress and an inadequate diet, soon she was too out of breath to speak.
The corridors on their route grew wider and more richly appointed, and they passed servants, uniformed guards, and various other personages who walked and talked together. Several paused to stare at them as they passed, their expressions filled with varying degrees of fascination and distaste, and Sid grew all too aware that she was carrying the filth of several days’ journey on her clothes and smelled like a barnyard.
Food first. Then a bath. Perhaps they would give her clean clothes, or at least wash the ones she had. She might even get a bed for the night then a trip back home. She didn’t even care if it was the same soldiers who took her back. She just wished very hard for all of it to come true.
At last, the nobleman paused at tall double wooden doors that had been ornately carved and bound with what appeared to be gold. Guards were stationed on either side.
Sid slowed to a stop beside the nobleman and caught her breath. Before she could ask any of her questions, he rapped on one door panel, then opened the door and strode inside without waiting for a reply.
Staring cautiously at the guards, she followed on his heels, stepping into a large, elegant room with high ceilings and tall windows that let in large bars of sunlight that fell across polished, golden oak floors.
Sid looked around, eyes wide, at the brilliant tapestries and paintings adorning the walls, the elegant sculptures, the velvet and mahogany furniture. While she had inwardly railed at the barely veiled prejudice the Light Fae had shown her on the road, the view of the castle in the distance, along with this walk through the interior of the castle, had shown her that she had her own preconceived notions that she needed to shed. This was no provincial demesne. There was serious wealth and culture here and a sense of great, sophisticated age.
A Light Fae woman sat at a large, ornately carved desk, her golden head bent over papers. She was richly dressed, in a yellow gown embroidered with green vines and white lilies, and her long curling hair had been dressed so that it flowed in a profuse mane down her slender back.
The woman barely glanced up at their entrance. She said in an impatient voice, “I’m not having a very good morning, Modred. I have a headache, and I don’t appreciate the interruption. What do you want?”
“I’m so sorry to hear that, my love,” the nobleman replied in a light tone. “Perhaps I can do something to make your day a little brighter. Here is part of the trolls’ tribute. A new musician. Apparently, she has no magic.”
At his words, Sid’s tired mind stumbled. Wait. His wording didn’t sound quite right. She wasn’t anybody’s tribute—she’d been kidnapped.
The woman set aside her pen and stood, looking at Sid for the first time. As she came around the corner of the desk and approached, her beautiful face pulled into an expression of distaste, much like the others Sid had seen throughout the castle.
“No magic?” The woman sounded incredulous. “At all?”
“She didn’t respond when I tried to telepathize with her earlier, so I would say none at all,” Modred replied.
“Why, she’s little better than an animal,” the woman remarked. “Also, she’s filthy and hideous. Look at the shape of her eyes, the pasty white skin, and that awful black hair.”
Sid’s mouth dropped open. For a moment, she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. She had read that some of the Elder Races didn’t think much of those who were magicless, but she had never come face-to-face with such blatant bigotry. The fury that had been simmering over the course of several days began to boil over.
“Isabeau,” said Modred, sounding amused. “She’s human. She’s not going to look anything like a Light Fae, and they chained her up in the stables overnight, so of course she’s dirty.”
Isabeau was a name Sid was supposed to remember. Angrily she shoved that aside. She snapped, “I have never been spoken to like that before in my life.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, girl.” One of the Light Fae woman’s eyebrows rose. “And I didn’t give you permission to speak.”
“I am not a girl or an animal,” Sid snapped. “And your permission means nothing to me.”
“It should,” Isabeau said dryly. “It very much should.” She said to Modred, “Bring musical instruments. Let us see if the girl has any talent. Perhaps it might offset her ugly looks and poor manners.”
Even as the other woman spoke, the pieces came together in Sid’s mind. Isabeau. The ornate surroundings, the rich dress, the guards at the door. This was the Queen of the Light Court.
Then Isabeau took a lock of Sid’s hair and fingered it, one nostril curled, and all thought of caution or of trying to negotiate a passage home vanished in a surge of rage.
Breathing heavily, Sid knocked her hand away. She said between her teeth, “I don’t play music for kidnappers and bigots.”
The other woman’s expression iced over. “Then you are of no use to me whatsoever.” She looked at Modred. “If the bitch won’t play her music for me, then she won’t play it for anyone else. Break all her fingers. Perhaps that will teach her some manners.”
“Consider it done,” Modred said, smiling.
Shock jolted through Sid, followed by a surge of terror so powerful it turned her muscles watery.
“Wait,” she said. “Wait, please. This has all been a massive, nightmarish mistake—if you could just give me a moment to explain how I got here—there’ll be a large reward for my return…”
Suddenly the sound of her voice stopped. She put her hands to her throat and tried to shout, but nothing came out.
“The sound of your voice offends me. I’m done with you, ugly brown-haired girl.” Isabeau spared her one venomous glance then turned away. “Get her out of my sight.”
“Of course, my love.”
As Modred grabbed Sid’s arms, she began to fight, all the while screaming silently. Then the guards came into the room and took her away.
Away from the richly decorated corridors. Away from the sunlit windows.
They took her down a flight of worn stone stairs to a hot, windowless room lit with a fire in an iron grate. There were other things made of iron in the room—chairs, tools, manacles, a cage. A wooden table, along with the floor underneath it, was dark with stains.
No matter how she struggled, the guards who held her were too powerful. One male held her hands to the table, while Modred rummaged through the tools until he found a mallet. Strolling over to her, he smiled at her. “It’s nothing personal, pet.”
He broke all her fingers, and her thumbs too. When he was finished, they dragged her down into a cold place filled with stone. Unlocking one barred door, they threw her into a room, and the door clanged shut behind her.
Light faded as the guards walked away, leaving her behind in deep shadows and a silence so deep it seemed to be alive.
Shaking, in shock, she crumbled where she stood like a broken marionette and cradled her ruined hands against her chest. The pain was so intense it lit up her mind like reddened stars.