The meat was served and the truth of their reasons for coming came clean. The woman spoke almost exclusively, her chins shaking with each self-important syllable from her mouth.
“I know it is a frightful business, oh ho ho, such serious things. You hate them, it is well-known. But the Regent has sent us to discuss things with you in hopes of an amicable solution.”
She hated serious things, was it? Rianaire tensed. Síocháin was not there to offer distraction or keep her from overstepping. The woman had stepped onto ice.
“Well, you see… there has been much… oh… how to say it. Much discussion of your decision to pluck a child from the coast and name her Binse of War. And now you mean to find a rural elf for the Binse of Lands?” She chuckled haughtily. “It is strange, do you not think?”
“I do not.” Rianaire’s voice was flat, her eyes stared at the woman unblinking. Still the coming words went undeterred.
“Well, certainly, perhaps you do not know of land provisioning as we do in the west. The Regent has become very concerned.”
“Is that right?”
“Oh, but it is. She has expressed such concern as you would not believe. She is compassionate and wise. And so we have been sent to discuss her perspective on the matter with you, so that you might understand where you have taken a misstep.”
Rianaire gritted her teeth and dug her nails deep into the wood of the chair below her. She felt Inney shift at her side.
“Your Regent presumes to send me directions, does she?”
It was as though the tone of her voice could not be heard, only the words. The woman tittered and the man only wiped his mouth before returning to the meat before him.
“Well, she means to help you, is all. She is very kind, as I’ve said. Have I not said so?” She said the words cheerily, looking at the man who nodded, mouth full, in agreement. “And just in time, if the rumors we hear are true. They say you’ve allowed a satyr to walk free inside the city! How dreadful. It would never be allowed in Cnoclean, no. Such a decision and after you failed to see Spárálaí for what he was. It’s near—”
Rianaire bolted up, slapping her hands on the table. “Inney!”
Inney’s cloak ruffled and a hole the size of a pea formed in the woman’s head, forcing an untidy spray out the back as it exited. The servants screamed first, and then the man, higher than the girls who were there. The woman only slumped in the chair, the twitches still left in her shaking the fat of her face.
Rianaire’s face was a snarl of anger and disgust. The doors opened and four guards flooded in. She held up a hand to them and they stopped. She looked at the man, who was busy emptying his stomach onto the plate.
“You. Look at me.” He did, terror in his eyes. “Drag that fat, fetid corpse from my city with your own two hands and return it to your Regent. Tell her if she should be found anywhere near the keep that Aerach once walked, I will peel the skin from her flesh and show her to the salt mines.” He stared at her, shaking uncontrollably, vomit dripping down his chin and onto his velvet suit. “Go!”
The man jumped and began to flee the room. But she called after him.
“Do not think you will be allowed to leave without the trash you’ve left in my dining hall.” She turned to the horrified servants behind the table. “Do not allow him his horse or his coat. And relieve them of any funds they have brought. Give the lot of it to whoever has need of it.” She looked again to the man. “You will find your way home, I’m sure. After all, your Regent is so kind and resourceful.”
She turned and stormed from the hall, Inney at her heels. It all built and built on itself, she thought in frustration. Her fond memories of the past turned to darker ones. The years after her mother had died. They were bloody, filled with much of what she faced now. Complacent elves, sure of their place in the world and uninterested in proving themselves worthy of it. They lacked the hunger Gadaí spoke of in that alehouse. A satyr was more fit to stand in the place these elves proclaimed themselves to. The Sisters must have been weeping to see it.
It was the satyr’s quarters she found herself standing before, still seething from the stupidity of her people in the face of their own undoing. Faces had sure not been so smug and cynical in Theasín. But she had a solution to such problems. A sure way to know that blood would be spilled before the horsefolk ever put the first hoof to Spéirbaile soil.
She knocked and Gadaí opened the door, welcoming her in. Rianaire sat in the chair, tapping at the arms and Gadaí moved to the bed, sitting on it though the thing was too short. Five minutes passed in silence.
“… Rianaire?” The satyr’s voice was broken and horrible in her ears. Rianaire played her next steps over in her mind, seeing to every loose end she could imagine and beginning again.
“Gadaí… I have decided.”
Gadaí cocked her head.
“Until Eala is fit to the work, you will be my Binse of War.”
Gadaí laughed. “The elves will never allow it.”
“The elves get no say. And they will come to accept it.”
“And why will I? They will kill me. Kill us.”
Rianaire leaned forward in the chair, her expression serious and her voice flat. “Does that scare you so?”
Gadaí stopped her smiling. “You are challenging my pride. Clever. I understand it.” She thought on it a moment. “And when Eala is ready?
