Whitehall Palace, London

It was very early morning, and most of the palace was still asleep. In the king’s inner chambers, however, both the king and queen and their private inner circle were awake, if exhausted.

Charles and Louis sat alone in the king’s bedchamber at either side of an unlit hearth; Catharine, Marguerite and Kate were in the outer chamber. Facing each other across the fireplace, the two men reclined in chairs covered with fabulous, woven scarlet and lime-green silken brocades, each dressed only in linen breeches, their chests and arms and feet bare. Each held a beautiful cut-glass goblet of wine.

Charles showed little sign of interest in his wine, his right arm hanging relaxed over the arm of the chair, dangling the glass loosely from his fingertips so that it caught glints of light off the two candles burning from wall sconces. He was watching Louis, who looked, as if fascinated, into the empty grate.

“How do you, Louis,” he said. “How has this past night altered you?”

Louis grunted softly. “Do you need to ask?” He sighed, and set his wine down on the floor. “Gods, Charles, I do not know how to answer that. Impossibly glad and relieved that I am not forgotten and still have a part to play in what comes. But, oh, what a part. What a role. Tell me,” he looked at Charles directly for the first time since they had returned and sat down, “did Noah—Caela as she was then—feel this way when she first discovered that she did not merely carry Mag in her womb, but was all that Mag had been, and more besides?”

“I do not know,” said Charles. “I was unknowing when this happened to her. When I did remember, what little time we spent together was not wasted in talking of such matters.” His mouth twisted a little. “It was Asterion, in the guise of Silvius, who talked with her, and heard her fears and her uncertainties.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“I wish I could have spent longer with her last night,” Louis said.

“You have your own journey to undertake,” said Charles. “It will not involve her for the longest time. And Noah needs to learn the ways of the Mistress of the Labyrinth.”

“Do you think Jane will teach her? I saw Jane only briefly, but what I did see of her bespoke only bitterness.”

Charles thought a moment, introspective. “She’s changed. I think Jane no longer cares so much for power, nor for the Game. I think Noah will be taught the ways of the labyrinth. Have no fears for that.”

Louis shot Charles a cynical look, and Charles grinned. “Truly, Noah will learn,” he said. “Trust me, and do not concern yourself with worry over it. For the moment, think only of yourself, and your journey.”

Louis spread a hand out to his side, indicating his helplessness and confusion. “How, Charles? How? I still cannot believe that I was chosen. How could this land choose me?”

“Indeed, I have spent these past hours wondering the same thing,” said a new voice, and both Charles and Louis straightened in their chairs and looked to the door.

James stood there. He clicked the door closed behind him, and walked slowly to where the other two men sat.

“I have had the strangest night,” he said. “I have dreamed the strangest things. My world has been turned upside down.”

His face was largely expressionless, and neither Charles nor Louis could read him. Charles glanced at Louis, then looked back to James.

“Will you sit, brother,” Charles said softly, “and talk with us?”

James hesitated, then took a chair, as ornately furnished as those Charles and Louis sat in, and dragged it from its position near the bed, finally setting it down between the other two, and at some little distance from them—that distance telling Charles and Louis far more than James’ face did.

James spent some time thinking, then raised his face and looked at Charles. “I thought you were Brutus.”

“The deception was intentional,” said Charles, “although it was meant for Weyland rather than for you. The fact that you were also misled was of concern to me.”

“You did not tell me!” James said. “Not of the Brutus deception, and…God, not that you were the Lord of the Faerie.” Suddenly James seemed to realise who he was snapping at, and he made a move to apologise, but Charles waved him to silence.

“You should have known of both matters,” Charles said, “but you, Loth-reborn, did not know. That told me volumes of you, James. You turned your back on me, on the land, and on the role you had to play. You turned to Christianity, and fought to forget, and you succeeded marvellously.”

“Why the deception?” James said, ignoring what Charles had said, and ignoring for the moment the greater revelation that Charles was the Lord of the Faerie.

“Until last night,” Louis said, “I would have told you that it was because I needed the time and space and anonymity to gather in the golden bands of Troy. But now…”

“The true reason, which Louis has only just realised,” said Charles, “was that Louis would need the time and the space to assume the mantle of the Stag God. The bands could wait until he had attained his full powers. Weyland needs to think that Brutus sits useless and frustrated in this,” Charles waved a hand about, “sumptuous, decaying palace. Thus the deception. Weyland will concentrate on me—I shall gnash my teeth in irritation at my immobility from time to time to keep him happy—while Louis…”

James turned dark eyes now burning with anger and resentment on Louis. “You. Brutus. To become the Stag God. I cannot believe it.”

“And there we find ourselves in some considerable agreement,” Louis muttered.

“I find your distaste difficult to accept,” said Charles to his brother. “You have run as hard as you can, in this life, from the responsibilities of your past lives. Why now sit there and moan, eh? What care you?”

“But Brutus…to run as Stag God over this wondrous land!”

“And again I ask,” Charles said, his tone now dangerously low. “What care you?”

James slid down in his chair, refusing to look at either Charles or Louis and staring straight ahead at the fireplace. He did not answer.

“I want you to care,” Charles said. “I want you to have some say in what happens to this land, to Louis, and to myself. That you do have some role is obvious, for the Sidlesaghes invited you to the Faerie Court.

“James, you may have run all your life from your responsibilities, but this land still needs you. You are still wanted. Louis will need you, James. I need you. The Stag God himself will need you. For the next few months, at the very least, your loyalty to your Christian god shall be severely tested.”

“I will not—” James began.

“What?” said Charles. “Are you about to say that you will not aid us?” He leaned forward, staring intently at James. “Are you truly saying to me that the land means nothing to you? That its health and survival mean nothing to you?”

He paused. “Or is it that you’re jealous, eh? Didn’t you want this for yourself once? To be the Stag God reborn?”

James’ eyes jerked back to his brother. “How did you—”

“Kate told me. She said that in your previous life as Saeweald you’d harboured ambitions to be Eaving’s lover, to be the Stag God reborn. Is that true?”

James dropped his eyes to his hands resting in his lap.

“None of us have any say in what we grow into,” said Charles softly. “Not me, not Louis, not even Noah. All of us have accepted what we have, or will, become. As must you.”

“And what am I to become?” said James bitterly. “Nothing! I am but someone to hand over power, not to attain it. When I was Loth, my father and Genvissa conspired to keep me from power, and all my successive lives have shown me that everyone else conspires in the same manner, no matter how much they protest themselves my friend.”

“Then take the damned initiative and seize power, you cursed fool!” Charles all but shouted.

Charles leaned even further forward in his chair, fixing James with eyes narrowed and passionate. “I need you, the land needs you, and even Louis needs you. Curse you, James. Louis murdered me in a former life. Am I sitting here sulking? Nay. Nay. If ever you want to see the stag run the forests again, James, then you need to help. If not for the land, then for yourself, for that is who you shall be aiding most of all. I am sure that your crucified lord shall harbour no grudges. He seems the forgiving sort. He’ll take you back again, if you want. But help us, James. Help us.” Charles gave a quirky smile. “I am certain you shall enjoy your duties.”

Then he sat back in his chair, all his passion and energy spent. He sighed, shook his head, then seemed to remember he held an almost full glass of wine in his hand (some of the wine albeit spilled on the floor during his impassioned speech), and raised the glass to his mouth, and drained it.

“Why was Anne Hyde at the Faerie Court?” he said. “Don’t misunderstand me. I like and respect her and do not begrudge her presence at all…but why should the Sidlesaghes deliver her an invitation?”

“She was with me when the Sidlesaghe came,” mumbled James, his attention once again riveted on his hands.

“With you?” said Charles. “But it was my understanding the Sidlesaghes extended their invitations very late at night, when all were abed.”

James said nothing.

Charles glanced at Louis, then looked back at James. “She was in your bed?”

“And what of it?” James said, finally raising his eyes to Charles’.

Charles slammed his fist down on the arm of his chair, making both Louis and James jump.

“Damn it!” Charles said. “Anne Hyde is the only daughter of my most respected adviser. She is a noblewoman, and a virtuous one. What in your god’s name did you mean, taking her to your bed? Now she has lost all that is most precious to her, her virginity and her reputation, and ruined her chance for a great and noble marriage.”

“I did not force her!” James said.

“You could have, perhaps, refrained from issuing the invitation in the first instance,” Louis murmured.

“Oh, fine words from you,” James snarled. “Did you ever ask Cornelia what she wished when you forced her to your bed?”

“Enough,” Charles said tiredly. “James, you will marry Anne. I will accept no other course of action.”

“Marry her? But—”

“You took her to your bed, and for all you know she may be carrying your child,” Charles said. “I want no hint of scandal about this court and about my name. Gods, I have only just returned after more than half my life spent in exile—the last thing I need is my younger rake of a brother deflowering half the court while I try to run the country with an even hand.”

James dropped his eyes, but said nothing.

Louis looked at him, then at Charles. “Charles,” he said. “What do I do? Where do I go from here?”

Charles seemed as glad of the change in conversation as much as Louis was glad to do it. “I will take you to the forests,” he said, “and show you the Ringwalk. From there, we step onto the Ringwalk—with James, I hope—and we do as the fates dictate.”

“But,” said Louis, “Weyland will know that you—”

Charles shook his head. “I will walk the Ringwalk with you as the Lord of the Faerie, Louis. Not as Charles. Weyland will not know. He has no sympathy with this land. He has no idea of the Lord of the Faerie’s presence and he will not recognise the Lord of the Faerie’s movements, or know when he walks abroad. Dear gods, half the land’s faerie creatures could crawl under Weyland’s nose and he wouldn’t know they were there. James…”

James dragged his eyes back to his brother.

“James, did you truly have no idea that the Lord of the Faerie walked, or that I was he?”

James hesitated, then shook his head. “I may harbour a bitter soul, but in this I am happy for you, my friend. I can think of no safer harbour for either the Lord of the Faerie, or this land, than in your soul.”

At that Charles smiled. “James,” he said very, very softly, “if the Lord of the Faerie asks for your aid, will you give it?”

James took a long time in replying. “Yes,” he said finally, his voice tired. “I will aid you, if you promise that I may walk away in peace at the end of it.”

Charles gave a short laugh. “I doubt that any of us shall get any peace at the end of this, brother.”