“I know enough!”
“You know nothing! My people do not rape!”
“No, they just use tricks, like incubus powers—”
“To enhance, not to overcome. We pride ourselves on our wit, our beauty, our goddamn charm! We do not need tricks!”
“Yet you helped Uther.”
For the first time, Rosier looked slightly uncomfortable, but his voice was defiant. “It seemed the only way. The battle was raging that night, and Uther had instructed his men to take out Gorlois, regardless of the cost. He knew the prince’s supporters would break and run as soon as they heard their leader was dead. But that meant he had to get to Igraine that evening, before she heard it, too. Otherwise, she might run off and marry some other, easy-to-manipulate type, and Uther would be right back where he started. He came to me and begged for help.”
“And you gave it to him.”
Rosier looked at me angrily. “If I hadn’t, many more women would have suffered the same fate as Igraine. There’s no black or white, girl, not in this story. Stop looking for it!”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that ever since Gorlois’ marriage, the fey had been demanding more and more tribute for their aid. The old quota had been relatively easy to fill; as I said, there were always those who viewed Faerie as an escape from violence, want, and uncertainty. They might be slaves, but they’d be slaves with full bellies who slept in safety, and to many in those days, that seemed like paradise. But afterward . . .”
“Afterward?”
“It worsened every year. By the time the war broke out, mothers were hiding baby girls, swearing they’d been stillborn. Kidnappings were rampant, with girls forced to move about under armed guard. Battles were constantly breaking out among neighboring clans, just to take prisoners who could be given to the fey instead of the dwindling supply of local girls—”
“God.”
He nodded. “And people were starting to ask why they should fight for Uther when the Saxons might at least let them keep some of their women. Something had to give.”
“But . . . but why did the fey need so many women?”
“They claimed it was for their border war with the Dark, but I suspect that tension with the Svarestri was more worrisome. And then there was the lucrative trade their slavers had established with the Blue Fey, who might claim noninvolvement in our day, but who bought plenty of fertile human slaves in the past.”
“But they had to know they couldn’t keep it up forever,” I protested. “Sooner or later, they’d end up more human than fey!”
Rosier shook his head. “The common practice was to have a wife of pure fey heritage to bear your true children, the ones meant to carry on your name and bloodline. And human concubines to bear your half-breeds, as many as you could manage. The stronger of those, the ones who inherited much of their father’s magic, were kept in Faerie, where they were used as border guards and cannon fodder in the wars. Their lives tended to be brutal and short, although there were exceptions. Igraine, for instance.”
“But she went to earth.”
“Yes, as her mother’s emissary. Running the slave trade was her way of proving her value. I assume there was some sort of agreement: manage the humans effectively, and when Gorlois dies, return to take your place at my side. . . .” He shrugged.
“And did she?”
“No. I doubt Nimue planned to give her half-human daughter a damn thing; set too many precedents. But in the end it didn’t matter. Igraine had inherited her mother’s beauty, but not her life span. She died a year shy of seventy.”
“And the rest?” I asked. “The children who didn’t get the magic?
Rosier lifted a brow. “Where do you think the Changeling myths come from? It wasn’t substituting a fey child for a human one so much as dumping the rejects back on earth, to live out their lives as best they could. The more human of them probably did that well enough, but the rest . . .”
“The local people treated them like monsters,” I said, remembering a story Pritkin had told.
He nodded. “And in so doing, provided another headache for Uther, who was constantly being pressed to stop the influx of these ‘monstrosities,’ some of whom lashed out at their persecutors in deadly ways.”
“Can you blame them?”
“Perhaps not. But they weren’t always selective in who they killed. In short, the whole thing was a giant mess, and as long as Gorlois remained in power, it wasn’t likely to change. Uther therefore challenged him for his throne, trial by single combat. He sprang it on him in open court, knowing he was too proud to back down in public. But not to slip out of the fortress the night before the duel, and when Uther gave chase, to ambush him. And once blood had been shed, there was no way to avoid war.”
“And Uther didn’t try very hard,” I guessed.
“On the contrary. A civil war is the last thing he wanted. That’s why he challenge