Faerie Tale by Nicola Rhodes

was startled. It was true, but he had forgotten it until now.  He nodded uncertainly but since he was behind Tamar, she did not see this. 
    She ploughed on.  ‘I mean, there might have been something there if it wasn’t for the others, but it wouldn’t have been real anyway.  So just forget about it.’
    ‘Yes,’ agreed Stiles. Nevertheless, he continued to watch Tamar’s backside as she walked ahead of him – but that is just men for you. 
    * * *
    What do you want with me?’ Denny was painfully aware that he was not in any position to be asking questions.  He was chained up in dungeon.  The chains and manacles appeared to have been wrought from some kind of bronze and the knife the Faerie Queen was wielding was perhaps made of stone – he was later to make the horrible discovery that the knife had actually been carved from a human femur. 
    She gave him a blank smile.
    ‘I know you wanted me here, but I want to know wh…’  Denny began.
    She grasped his head and kissed him slowly. 
    It was all Denny could do to prevent himself from gagging. 
    ‘I think you know why,’ she told him. ‘But later, when you have been properly … indoctrinated
    ‘Brainwashed you mean?’ said Denny. 
    Not at all, you must open your mind, that is all.  Perhaps I should have said, “Attuned”.  You must learn to understand us.  To understand us is to love us.’ 
    Denny seriously doubted this.  He felt he already understood the Sidhe pretty well and love was the furthest thing from his mind. 
    ‘I have no intention of being banished again,’ she said suddenly. 
    ‘Ah, so you were …’
    ‘I plan to stay this time.’  She overrode him as if he had not spoken. ‘The blood of a witch on the stones to bind us to the land and …’ She looked at Denny with a steely gaze. ‘A human husband to bind me to its people.’
    ‘ Husband !’  Denny almost shrieked.  Obvious as it might be to you and me where this was going, he honestly had not seen it coming. 
    ‘I thought you already had a husband,’ he added hopefully.  He was sure he had read about this somewhere.  Well, as sure as he could be about anything, circumstances being what they were.
    ‘Oh … him,’ she said dismissively.  And hope died. 
    ‘Why me?’ he asked, truly perplexed. 
    ‘You have power,’ she said. ‘I sensed it the first time I entered your mind.  ‘And I don’t mean this …’ she took the Athame from his belt, ‘this borrowed power. I mean real power – power of the mind.’ 
    Denny was disconcerted. He had not expected her to take the Athame, or even recognise it for what it was.  He brought his mind back to the matter at hand and tried not to think about the sudden loss of his only advantage, or the fact that he was now a prisoner in actual fact rather than merely pretending to be one.
    ‘I don’t. I mean I don’t know what you mean by that,’ he tried. 
    ‘You are a natural leader of your people,’ she said, and Denny nearly laughed out loud. 
    ‘You disagree?’ she observed. ‘But I know what I saw in your mind.  You have saved the world several times.  I read it there.’
    ‘I didn’t do it on my own,’
    ‘You are the leader of these people,’ she insisted, ignoring this disclaimer. ‘They just are not aware of it. But where would they be without you?  Dead – or worse, and I know about worse believe me.  I can see to it that they understand all you have done for them. I can give you everything you ever wanted.’
    ‘You have no idea what I want,’
    ‘We can rule together,’ she continued in what Denny now realised was a rehearsed monologue. ‘All will worship us.  These people, these pathetic sheep will be our slaves.  It is the least that they owe you.’ 
    ‘And that was the problem right there,’ thought Denny.  “Pathetic sheep”. She had almost had him, he had to admit, until she said that.  After all, a little appreciation would not have gone amiss. He had