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In the Land of Stories Old
Interacting with Prince Jacques de la Mer, adoptive brother and guardian of the princess his son wanted to marry rather than Jack, Arthur and Merlin’s friend and partner in adventuring, was a different experience, but Uther was nonetheless enjoying it. He could see the seeds not just of kingship but of greatness in Jack, the potential to be the sort of king other kings told their sons to emulate. Now they just needed to find the boy a kingdom to do it in, as Fantastique definitely wasn’t going to be it. He didn’t even need to ask to know that Jack hadn’t told his mother about Princess Serena, but for formality’s sake he did have to mention it. “Just to be clear, this is a contract between you and your future kingdom and Avalon, not Fantastique and Avalon.”
“That goes without saying,” Jack told him. “Maman would be horrified if she even knew the half of what I have been up to these past five years.”
So he hadn’t been home at all, maybe hadn’t even written home. “She must know where you are by now. The Fearless Seven being uncursed and taking up residence in the extremely haunted Black Castle has been the talk of the trade routes this whole past month.”
Jack laughed. “Oh, I am sure they have heard something, Your Majesty, but my mother…she does not think of these things the way one might expect. I am out of her sight, which is what she wanted, and I am certain she thinks about me as little as possible.” He saw that the older man possibly did not understand. “Perhaps I used the wrong word in horrified when appalled may have been a better choice. Maman’s standards are not like those in other kingdoms, I am afraid. I would never expose Serena to her, of course. Arthur and Merlin have met her twice, and I believe that was enough of both her and Fantastique for them as well.”
“I’ve met your mother,” Uther said. “We’re cordial to each other. Your brother Pierre, on the other hand…”
Jack waved that off. “Pierre is…unique unto himself,” he said. “He very deliberately does not get on with most people, so the fact that he did not insult you badly enough to make you call him out is probably due to pure luck on his part.” He raised an eyebrow. “Do not ever bother to hold back there, if he gives you cause. I will not be offended if you teach him not to insult his betters, and as he most certainly does know better Maman would not dare object to him being put in his place if he were to overstep himself that much with Avalon’s king.”
Uther just shrugged. “I think your mother must have warned him against lettin’ it get that far, he always stops just short of mortally offendin’ anyone from what I’ve seen. Can he actually fight?”
“Pierre and Marcel were both well-trained in dueling,” Jack told him. “But they did not continue to pursue it, or go on to learn the way of the edged blade as I did. That is neither here nor there, though, as no formal duel to settle an insult in polite society would ever be fought with such a weapon.” He blew out a breath, tapping the end of his pen on the worktable. Jack’s workshop was clean and neat and actually a really pleasant place to sit and do business if you liked seeing precious metals and jewels and finished or half-finished ornaments made from the same all around you. Those things weren’t just wealth, though, they were Jack’s livelihood and resources he managed very carefully. “We need to discuss Serena’s dowry. She does have one, and it did in a way come from the idiots who gave birth to her.” He pushed a small, heavy bag over to Uther. “I will not lie to you, this is the payment they gave the wolf-hunter to kill her. Arthur took it from his body before burying his filthy corpse in an unmarked grave. They had paid him in gold, in advance.”
Uther whistled. “That was risky. But then, the wolf-hunters do enjoy their…sport, so they usually do what they’re paid to do.” He angled a sharp look at Jack. “Do you know, was he plannin’ to…” Jack’s nod made him grimace. “Animals. I’ll have to reward my son for killin’ the bastard.”
To his surprise, Jack smiled and shook his head. “Oh, Arthur did not kill him; Serena did that. She crushed his skull, and was still complaining about his foul taste the next day.” Uther’s raised eyebrow said he wanted more. “I had found Serena by herself in the woods while I was out seeing what there was to be seen around the Isles—I had found a good many people by that point, so finding one more was nothing special to me.” He sat back in his chair. “She was…a child, alone and without hope. I offered to teach her to care for herself, and after a bit of stubbornness she accepted and led me to a cottage deep in the woods where she had been left by her parents. I came to understand that she had grown up mostly ignored in favor of her much more beautiful elder sisters, and had never been given a reason to see value in herself save as a potential trade item for the Crown once she grew,” he made a face, “pretty enough to buy them an acceptable political match.”
Uther was confused by this. “But she’s beautiful—she looks enough like you to be your sister by blood.”
Jack smiled again. “Thank you. I did receive the impression, from what she said, that her elder sisters have beauty above her the way my elder brothers have it above me, so I understand how…irrational some royal parents can be about such things. But anyway, after the first time I saw her change, I realized that she was not a were: she was pure of heart and a true innocent, and so the bite had made her a Moon Princess. And I also realized that I had in fact made her problems much worse by helping her in the way that I had, as the hunters might have simply killed a wild hag but a beautiful, well-kept young woman…would not have been so lucky. So I offered to take her with me, to adopt her as a baby sister, and I explained to her why it was not safe for her to stay in the cottage. After a few days on the road we met Arthur, who was on his way back from Avalon and having a bit of a wander to settle his mind before returning to the Black Castle, and much to my relief he joined us. I had a stupid accident and hit my head a few days later, and so I stayed in our camp to sleep the worst of it off while Arthur accompanied Serena to have her howl at the full moon. And then the hunter came, and I was…not thinking clearly, and we ended up playing a very deadly game of cat and mouse as I tried to keep him from going after Serena and Arthur. They heard something wrong, and arrived before he could kill me, and while he was posturing with Arthur Serena circled around behind him and put an end to him herself.” He sighed. “The twisting of the curse which was cast on us caused it to require not just specific conditions of perception but also sacrifice—not Princess Elana’s doing, she was more than horrified—and so when I told Serena how beautiful she was in the moonlight and promised that Arthur would take care of her in my stead, she touched my cheek and my curse was broken. Although I did not realize that it had until I woke the next day as a man instead of a small green dwarf. I had heard the wolf-hunter the previous night, muttering to himself, so Arthur and I both knew that the large amount of gold the man had been carrying had been a payment from someone in the palace, if not the king himself then a trusted advisor. And I also knew that whoever it was had told him exactly where to find her, as he was quite put out that she had left her cottage and he had been forced to track her.”
Uther opened the bag and looked in it, then pulled out a coin and held it up to examine it. “Hmm. If they were actually stupid enough to pay the bastard with coin of the realm, then I know who this is.” He dropped the coin back into the bag and pushed the bag back toward Jack. “I’ll want to confirm the location of the kingdom with you and with Arthur, just to be sure I’m not makin’ a mistake, but if it’s who I think then I don’t want this gold. Instead, as her dowry, I want you to cede the right of vengeance to me.”
Jack’s eyebrows went up. “Are you going to ruin him or kill him?”
“Definitely ruin him, but both if I can manage it. The man is a waste of air, and his idiocy has been a detriment to his kingdom in more ways than just this one.”
“Very well.” Jack moved the bag to one side of the worktable. “But I will provide Serena’s crown, and her wedding jewelry. And you will promise to make a law that any wolf-hunter who sets foot on Avalonian soil will be in forfeit of his life.” He smiled, and it was grim and far older than his years. “According to Merlin’s books, any children born to Arthur and Serena will be shapshifters who have the power to take wolf form whenever they choose. I personally plan to kill any wolf-hunter I happen to encounter, no matter where I find them, from this time forward.”
“Deal,” Uther agreed. “Write that into the contract and let’s sign it. When should we think about having the weddin’? Arthur needs an heir, but Serena is younger than I think we’d both like her to be for that.”
“She does need time to mature, something I have already discussed with Arthur privately,” Jack said, picking up his pen again to make the required changes to the betrothal contract. “The Black Castle is a good place for her to do that, as she has other women here to guide her in ways that I cannot. Although I also intend for her to spend some time in our old home as well, because I do not want the practical skills I taught her to fade.” He scratched away with the pen. “I appreciate the elves, but sometimes they do too much for us. I have discussed this with them as well, and they agreed that when Serena is at the Palace of Seven Princes,” he smirked when Uther chuckled—not like the man hadn’t been to their false-fronted cave home, after all, “she will do her share of the work and they will help her refine her skills and add to them. Give me a year, and Arthur will be marrying a poised, capable woman with exquisite manners who will be a help to him and a jewel to your kingdom rather than just a bored ornament good only for bearing children.”
“A year sounds fair,” Uther agreed. “Although we may have to find Arthur a quest to go on before it’s up.”
Jack shrugged. “I do not think we will have to find one, in all honesty. I…have been feeling as though something was coming, and so has Arthur, and when we told the others they all agreed they had felt it as well. We will tell Merlin once he has recovered his strength again, of course, but we all agreed that he did not need anything else to fret about at this time.”
“No, that he didn’t.” Uther took the offered pen, read over what had been added to the contract, and then signed both copies before he and Jack each affixed their seals with gold-flecked red wax to the paper as well. “How many times did my youngest son almost die during this mess, Jack?”
Jack moved the contracts to a safe place to dry and replaced them with a bottle of wine and two glasses. “Four, by my count, and all of them within the space of a few weeks. He almost drowned, he nearly died in killing the witch, he almost died again from draining his magic too far in an attempt to save the rest of us from the curse, and then he did the same one more time when the castle was attacked.” He poured a generous amount of wine—good aged Vincian wine he had bartered from the triplets for just this purpose—into both glasses and then raised his, and Uther did the same. “To the future joining of our houses and families,” he declared, and Uther knew he wasn’t imagining the soft thrum like an echo of royal power he could feel in those words. “And to keeping Merlin alive so he can give you grandchildren, no matter how difficult he has made it to do that of late.”
“To the future,” Uther agreed. “And don’t worry, we’re goin’ to have a talk with him about that.”
While Uther was negotiating with Jack, Bors had decided that Kai needed another talking-to. Or at least he had decided that, but when he’d gone looking for Kai the elves had told him to go spend time with Arthur because ‘the Princes Vinci will take care of it.’ So he’d gotten Arthur to show him how the mapping had been going instead, and then the two of them had gone up to the upper levels so that Bors could have a look at the rotted traps Arthur had found and give his opinion.
Kai, had he known this, would probably have much rather been with them, even if it had meant taking his lumps from both Bors and Arthur. As it was, he was not entirely sure what was about to happen to him. Unlike everyone else who were all claiming to be exhausted from the wedding party the night before, the three Princes Vinci who had herded him into one of the smaller courtyards didn’t seem to be tired at all. And they also seemed to be somewhat annoyed with him, but in a cheerful sort of way that was actually scaring the living hell out of him. “You,” one of them observed—not like he’d ever been able to tell them apart— “have been making rather a pain of yourself.”
“And we,” another one said, “have decided that you require a lesson in manners.”
“We do not want Jack to have to call you out,” the third one elaborated. “Because it would be well within his rights and somewhat expected that he would kill you, as once he and King Uther are finished with their discussion today his baby sister will be Arthur’s betrothed.” He smirked. “And if you do not see that as the honor being paid to your cousin that it is, you are even stupider than we thought you were.”
Kai really wanted to take offense at that, but his uncle had drummed the relative rank of every single one of Arthur and Merlin’s friends into him and made sure he knew what that meant. In this case, it meant that one of the tall redheads currently confronting him was the Crown Prince of Vinci, and even with Vinci submerged under several feet of seawater that still outranked the hell out of what Kai was—nephew and spare heir to Avalon’s king. “I don’t understand why you, specifically, wanted to talk to me,” he ventured. “If Arthur doesn’t want me payin’ court to his girlfriend, he can fight his own battles.”
One of them rolled their eyes. “This is not a battle,” he said, sounding bored. “This is you acting like a child trying to get a share of another child’s sweets.”
“Except in this case,” the one of them nearest Kai pointed out, “we are not entirely sure what it is you think you are trying to get a share of. Can you not find your own woman?”
Oh. “I wasn’t…a little competition is good for him!”
“And would it be good for her, do you think?” the third one—although Kai wasn’t really sure it was the third one, because they were all dressed the same and they kept moving around!—asked. “Did you even think of the young lady’s feelings at all, or did you simply decide to use her as a pawn in the game you attempt to play with your cousin?”
That gave Kai pause. He honestly hadn’t thought about the girl at all, except for noticing that she was pretty and shy and seemed to be quite taken with Arthur. “I honestly did not,” he admitted. “But is it an insult to a woman to be sought after?”
“It is an insult to any woman to be pursued for such duplicitous, insincere reasons,” one of them said scathingly. “And it is an insult to her brother that you think he would allow it.”
“And it is also a further insult to us that you think we would allow it either,” the one currently nearer the door said. “Princess Serena is an innocent. There is no man in this castle save yourself who would prey upon that. Or did you not notice last night that your clumsy advances frightened her?”
Kai actually hadn’t. “She was…I just thought she was shy, and she knew her brother was watchin’.”
“He truly is an idiot,” one triplet said to the other two.
“We had noticed,” another one said. They were closing in on him now, circling him. “This lesson may not stick.”
“Apparently the ones from his uncle and Sir Bors did not either.” The third one shrugged and drew his sword, and the other two did the same. “We can but try.”
Kai made sure his hands were well away from his knife, or anything else. “Three against one and I don’t have my sword, how is that fair?!”
“This is not a duel,” the triplet in front of him said scathingly, rolling his eyes. “This is punishment for bad behavior, and a reminder not to do it again.”
And that was when something hard smacked even harder against Kai’s backside. He yelped and spun around, and the flat of another sword hit him from behind, and then again! He tried to get away from them, but it didn’t do him any good. “You can’t do this!”
“Someone needed to,” one of them said, and re-sheathed his sword. “This lesson is one you will remember for at least a few days, each and every time you sit.”
“Did you think we would engage you like a man?” another one spat. “You do not deserve that honor, Kaison le Fay. You behave like a child, and we have treated you like one.”
“So unless you want this lesson to be repeated before you return to Avalon, you should remember your manners,” the third one stated coldly. “You are a guest here, and whatever petty rivalry you indulge in at home, here it is not acceptable. Do you understand?” His sword lifted again, threateningly, when Kai just nodded. “I require an answer.”
“I…understand,” Kai choked out. “I…I won’t forget myself again while I’m here. I promise!”
“Very well, then we are done here.” And with that the other two sheathed their swords and all three of them just turned their backs on him as though he was no threat and walked away. Kai didn’t follow them, he didn’t dare.
And he resolved to be the epitome of polite behavior for the rest of the time he was in the Black Castle. Especially when it came to his cousin’s girlfriend.
On the other side of the castle, Winter White sat behind his desk, toying with a pen, staring into space. The previous day’s events had left him feeling confused and somewhat bereft. He didn’t really remember feeling any sort of royal power settle on him at his own coronation, but he’d definitely felt it pass from him to settle on his daughter. And what he’d felt leave him wasn’t nearly what he’d seen go into her. It had glowed on her skin, shone from her eyes, flickered over the finely worked crown that sat on her head.
He’d been unworthy, apparently. Of more than just royal magic, if what he’d seen happen at the marriage ceremony was any indication. It had rather driven home what Captain Gerard had growled at him following the incident with Snow—the dead man’s opinion of him both as a man and as a king had been scathing and very plainly stated. It had been shocking, really, to be spoken to that way, and Winter wouldn’t have taken it from anyone else. An angry ghost, though, was well beyond his power to silence.
And then of course King Uther and his…man had shown up. Shown up in the middle of the latest raider attack and joined right in fighting the bastards off, because of course they had. Still, Avalon’s ruggedly handsome warrior of a king had been perfectly polite, they’d even sat down for a drink that night and whiled away a few hours just talking about anything and nothing. Not that Winter remembered exactly what they’d talked about, because he didn’t—Uther was a big man, trying to keep up with him drink-wise had been a mistake Winter had only fully realized the depth of the following morning—but they’d probably just talked about their respective children and the upcoming wedding and such. Possibly trade, that was something they might have spoken about as well, and the increasingly bold raiders. Kingly inanities, most likely.
Which didn’t explain why Captain Gerard had been smirking in a very disrespectful way every time Winter saw him the following day, although the now-dowager king had done his best to convince himself that the ghost was just amused by his hungover state. The insolent dead bastard had been oh-so obsequious to Uther, of course, and to Sir Bors as well. It was like he’d forgotten whose castle he was haunting! Winter had been so happy to see Gerard and the other dead guards disperse after the wedding that he’d been hard pressed not to make a spectacle of himself. And he’d thought that was the end of him being watched and judged and interfered with in his own castle…until it had been brought home to him that very morning that the hideous fey creatures his daughter had been persuaded to make some sort of pact with had gotten at least some of their marching orders from Gerard before he’d gone. Not that they hadn’t been watching him before, they had; apparently upsetting Snow had made them angry, because every time a pair of those bulbous eyes had fixed on him since that incident they’d been filled with suspicion and dislike.
He’d just been trying to impart some fatherly advice to his daughter before her marriage, why couldn’t anyone understand that! Someone had to warn her…
That thought trailed off, and he slumped a little more. No, he wasn’t going to lie to himself. In his daughter’s castle there would be no flirting with the maids, no trysts to buy favors, no mistresses causing drama. The mage who was now his son-in-law had vowed to Snow on his very life and magic at their wedding, and as much as Winter wanted to call the whole display a crass magical trick…he knew it hadn’t been. He’d felt the magic just like everyone else had, and although he’d been shocked he couldn’t deny the promise it had made: Merlin Emrys loved Snow with everything in him, and intended to stay faithful to her until his death if not beyond it.
Winter just couldn’t understand that. Men had needs, he’d learned that from his own father and from his grandfather as well. And when it came right down to it, his daughter just wasn’t the kind of woman who had handsome young men falling at her feet, and he’d always counted on either desperation or luck being involved in getting her a husband. The Black Isle was well-situated but not overly prosperous, the treasury didn’t hold ancestral hoards of gold and gems, the crown on offer was not the crown of a king, and the castle was…well, it was what it was. So for the handsome ward of a wealthy, powerful kingdom like Avalon to pledge himself so completely to Snow was more than a little baffling. Although Winter vaguely remembered something from his time as a wooden rabbit, recalled the mage saying something about Snow and his curse and having some sort of crisis of conscience. Had he been in love with her even then? Winter couldn’t remember the words, but he remembered the sadness and frustration in them even though he hadn’t understood it at the time.
Although he hadn’t been able to understand much, when he was a rabbit. Everything had just been simpler, easier. Being king had been anything but, of course. And Winter really wasn’t sure what being Dowager King was going to be like, as so far as he knew he now had no duties, no responsibilities, and he really wasn’t sure what he was going to do with himself. And after the last disaster, taking a new mistress was certainly out of the question…
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